China Sea (44 page)

“It doesn't take ‘balls'—”

“No, it does, and you just don't have them. That's the only difference! I had the courage to say to hell with what they tell you's right and wrong. Don't push it away, deny it, pretend it isn't there. It's what we really are! You can make me some kind of devil, so you won't have to admit the truth. But there's others starting to think like me. Go ahead, hang me. You aren't taking away anything I'm not going to lose anyway. But I won't be the last. You'll see.”

“I'm out of here,” Dan said to the guard. “Nobody else sees this son of a bitch. Nobody else talks to him.” The gunner's mate nodded grimly. But even when he came up out of the supply passageway, Dan still heard the chilling whisper of Mellows's final testament.

23

THEY hadn't seen the sun for weeks, and it was a blinding and awesome thing. He watched it mount passing clouds as he sat on the bridge like a cat bathing in the floods of heat. Still, he felt empty. Cold.

Miles astern now, two bodies were sinking toward the ocean floor. Mellows and his final victim, Vorenkamp.

The execution had gone at dawn, as scheduled. Chief Warrant Engelhart had taken charge in the helo hangar, on the upper catwalk where the sonobuoys were stored. The line was manila, made up to a hoisting point on the overhead.

The ship's lay leader had stepped up with a Bible in his hand, but Mellows had ignored him, staring stolidly ahead as they put the blindfold on. Engelhart had looked to Dan. Who had nodded, and with a simultaneous push of several arms the condemned man had toppled off the platform, plunged fifteen feet, and jerked to an abrupt stop just above the nonskid. The snap and crack had been as loud as a shot in the closed-in, echoing steel space.

Dan massaged his eyeballs as perspiration needled his forehead. He felt unreal, as if this were all dream or nightmare. But it was real.

It would take a long time to forget that sound. If he ever did.

Now every officer, chief, and first-class aboard
Gaddis
carried a loaded side arm and watched his back in the passageways. But Dan had to put all that aside for now. Entirely apart from the question of justice,
Gaddis
could not go into battle with any question as to who was in command. He had established his authority in the starkest way imaginable. And it was perfectly plain where they were headed, just as soon as he got the targeting information last night's message promised.

As the two ships had separated, he'd told Zabounian, who had taken over the watch from the chief warrant, to come to 270. If Colosimo was right and the freebooters were out of the Leizhon peninsula, going west made sense. As long as he was not so close to the Chinese coast that air surveillance could nail him, and of course he had to keep the weather in mind; despite this morning's glimpse of sun, this was still storm season, and the break would not last long. He picked up the CO's clipboard. Compline had gotten a weather chart from somewhere, and Dan contemplated what looked like a string of low-pressure areas moving west, trailing like bubbles in the wake of Hercule, which was up in southern China now.

A stir roved the bridge, the throat-clearing and furtive checking of flies and hitching up of belts men do when they unexpectedly encounter a woman. He looked up to see Bobbie Wedlake's pale, pinched face emerge from the companionway, Neilsen close behind. He stared, then remembered himself and tried to smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

He asked her if she'd had breakfast yet but got only a wordless stare. The corpsman shrugged. Dan turned back to Wedlake and offered her his seat. She swung up into the leather chair, then sat motionless and silent, blinking in the radiance. She'd lost weight. Now the fine bones engraved her skin from beneath. He could see each tendon and carpal in her hands.

She said, “I heard another engine last night, lying with my head against the frame of my bed.”

“We were refueling and rearming.”

“Out here? From another ship?”

“That's right.” He cleared his throat and told her the other piece of news he figured she might be interested in. “The man who broke in on you, night before last? We found out who it was. I executed him this morning and buried him at sea, along with a young man he murdered two weeks ago.”

“Executed? Right here aboard?”

“I felt I had to.”

To his relief, she didn't probe that wound further, simply said, “Where are we bound now?”

“I'm heading west, looking for the people who attacked you.
Marker Eagle
wasn't the first ship they've looted and taken over.”

“So you're really going after them. And if you find them?”

“I'll bring them to battle and, I hope, win.”

“You didn't do so well last time.”

“You're absolutely right, but they took me by surprise. I expected patrol craft. I didn't expect what seems to be a cruiser.”

“I saw it close up. It's larger than your ship here. Though yours looks newer. And you think you can beat them?”

“Well, we have to try. The tough part may be getting in close enough.”

“Any woman can tell you how to do that,” she said, and a faint sarcasm edged her voice.

“She can? I mean, you can?”

“Sure. Just make yourself look like something he wants. Now. Tell me: What can I do to help? Eric broke me in on the bridge. The radar and how to do the chart work. I'm a pretty competent second mate.”

“I'm sure you are, but Navy procedures are different. I've got my watch teams pretty well shaken down.”

“I want something to do. I
need
something to do.”

He thought of the crowd at the flight-deck picnic, the remarks Sansone had overheard. “Well, I could put you on as an assistant JOOD. But I'll level with you, Bobbie. It would be best if you stayed out of sight as much as possible. Usmani will bring you your meals. Don't roam around the ship. I think you know why. The man we hung is not the only possible danger aboard.”

“Then you don't want me in sick bay. People are always knocking at the door, wanting the corpsman.”

Dan considered. “I'd give you my cabin, but I have to be close to the bridge.… You still have your revolver, right?”

“I still have it.”

“Well, what the hell, I spend most of my time up here anyway. Bo's'n! Show Mrs. Wedlake to my cabin, and tell Usmani to put my shaving kit in the officers' washroom.”

She thanked him with the quiet dignity of a medieval lady. Watched the sea for a few minutes longer, a distant look in gray eyes, then climbed down from the chair and went below.

*   *   *

“THIS is a drill. Now General Quarters, General Quarters.” The 1MC's bark caromed off bulkheads.
Gaddis
, rolling hard as she plodded westward, echoed with running feet. Dan let Doolan run the exercises, which he did slowly, stopping for instruction and explanation, getting the phone talkers and designation personnel, the gun crews and ammunition handlers, back into practice.

Dan went aft and stood a few feet from the quad forty, observing as the loaders, arms nearly covered by heavy protective gloves, pushed four-round clips of the foot-long shells down into the loader guides atop each gun. The pointer and trainer were hunched over their handwheels, helmets shading their faces as they peered through the ring sights. The mount captain jerked back the hand operating lever, closing the breech with a metallic clank. The loaders stood ready with the next clips. All signs of hesitation or apathy had disappeared. The men were intent on learning as quickly as possible and moving as fast as they could.

Yeah, the prospect of a fight pulled together the most unpromising crew. But
Gaddis
's skimpy compliment and the heavy manpower requirements of the old twenties and forties meant that when he went to GQ he'd have just enough hands to steam her, conn her, and fight her. If they took hits, he'd have to choose between continuing to fight and letting her sink under them. Not an appealing prospect in this corner of the world. He had little expectation any friendlies would turn up to rescue them if they ended up treading water.

The answer, of course, was that if he engaged, he'd damn well better make sure he won in round one. He couldn't let it turn into a slugging match.

When the shoot was over he convened another war council, this time in the wardroom, since Wedlake was in his cabin.

Chick and the leading gunner's mate reported that they were seeing about 30 percent duds with the five-inch proximity-fuzed ammunition, most likely due to simple age. That didn't mean they wouldn't explode; a VT shell carried a point detonating fuze too. But it would make it more difficult to neutralize the gunboats. The weapons officer recommended that they dedicate the five-inch to the cruiser and let the forties and twenties deal with the light craft. Dan had to disagree. They might have to engage the Shanghais first, and in that case, he didn't want to hold back his longest-ranged weapon. “How many rounds does that leave us with, by the way?” he asked Doolan. “And how much did we use this morning?”

Chick said they'd received 300 rounds of 5''/54 powder and projectiles, half a normal loadout, and 3,000 rounds of 40mm. They'd fired 29 rounds of five-inch and 307 rounds of 40mm that morning.

“I want to drill again this afternoon. Aimed slow fire at long ranges, director-controlled. Next issue. How's Chief Tosito holding out?”

“Tostito's in pain. Keeps eating pills. But he's parked down there in the sonar room, keeping the scan going. The ping jockey on watch got a signature off the Katori. If it's around, he'll find it.” Doolan hesitated. “But there's a lot of sea out here. How are we gonna localize this guy?”

Dan had considered this, how he was going to get them to the position the sealed orders had given without telling the crew about the orders themselves. “Well, we think we know where they're out of. Question is, Do we go in and get them or wait for them to come out?”

“Zhanjaing's the headquarters of the Southern Fleet,” Armey said. “If you decide you're going in there, leave me behind in a life raft, OK?”

“Just kidding, Jim. We've got to catch them out of their hole. So I asked Commander Colosimo to check out their target set and see if that narrows things down for us any, gives us some idea where to look. Dom?”

The reservist unfolded a chart. “Basically I just plotted reported attacks from IMO and industry records over the last four years. We didn't wake up to the problem till then.”

Examining the results, Dan saw immediately that the second largest group of small circles lay north of the Paracels, grouped around the position he'd memorized. When you looked at the shipping routes, the reason was evident to the most casual observer: that was where the Singapore–Shanghai, Hong Kong–Jakarta, and Japan–Singapore routes crossed. Predators followed prey. He placed his finger there. “Looks perfectly obvious to me where we're headed.”

“And if this next depression stays on course, it'll come right over us.”

“Well, we've come through a typhoon; we can take another storm.” Armey shifted in his seat, and Dan prompted him, “Go on, Jim. Don't leave us in suspense.”

“Our last refrigeration unit is out. We have two operating firepumps left. We got the strake patched, but I don't think we're in shape to take on another storm—or a battle, for that matter.”

“Sorry, Jim, we haven't come this far to turn back for anything short of a major materiel casualty.” When Armey had no comeback, Dan tapped the chart again. “So that's it. And not that far away. We can be there in two days.”

They didn't look convinced, but not even Armey had an audible objection. Dan refolded the chart and handed it to Colosimo. They were gathering their legs under them, getting ready to leave, when he added, “One last thing. Watch your backs. I had a very disturbing encounter with one of our less career-oriented petty officers just before the storm. And I've been getting threats on the sound-powered circuits.”

Engelhart grunted, “You mean when you and Machias faced off in the hangar? I heard about it. Ever since then I've had people nagging me about their whiskey ration.”

“I told Juskoviac to administer the booze.”

Doolan said, “You think it's smart, putting Greg in charge of that?”

“I don't think he wants my job anymore,” Dan told him. “If he ever really did. What I don't want to do is make him some kind of martyr. You got a better idea, you can implement it when you're CO, OK?”

“Sure, Skipper.” Doolan pushed air away with both hands. “Take it easy. Just asking. And about Machias, I'd have locked him up, if I were you. After he pulled the knife on you.”

“I can't lock everybody up, Chick. Nor can I spare the people to guard them. We'll need every hand we've got if we run into the Katori again.”

“But will they fight?” said Engelhart dourly. “And can we keep the lid on 'em till then?”

“I think they'll fight,” said Dan. “Anyway, stay alert. And wear those side arms.”

“You never picked yours up,” Chick pointed out. “We had it back on the fantail, waiting for you.”

“I don't think that would send the right message, to have me wearing one. All right, gentlemen. I believe that will be all.”

*   *   *

THAT afternoon he was sitting on the wing, half-asleep, when Doolan came up and laid the dense weight of a holstered pistol in his lap.

When the weps officer left, he sat rubbing his eyes, listening to the firing commands going out for the afternoon drills. Wondering if he
could
get Juskoviac to take over as CO. He no longer wanted this mission or assignment or whatever it was. He didn't have any objection to taking on the Chinese. But he didn't like the idea of having a crew he couldn't depend on, a failing ship, anonymous logistics, and, instead of orders, operating contingent on the guessed-at intent of concealed, unnameable higher-ups.