Crusade (18 page)
Authors: TAYLOR ANDERSON
“Sometime this afternoon, I think,” Rick replied to his sailing master’s question. “We’re farther north than they probably expect us, but not close enough to Singapore for Mallory to worry about being seen.”
“Will the plane try to find us if there is a storm?” Kas asked, nodding toward the horizon. Rick had been watching the growing clouds since dawn.
“You’ve got me there. If it gets bad, no.” Rick snorted. “If it was me, I wouldn’t let them fly the only bloody airplane in the world if the wind was over five miles an hour.” He glanced at his second in command and then pointed at the sky. “Do you think it’ll get bad?”
Kas cocked his head to one side and blinked. “It is difficult to say. Possibly. This
is
the stormy time of year.”
is
the stormy time of year.”
“So everyone keeps saying,” grumbled Rick.
A silence stretched between them, but it was broken by a high-pitched cry from the maintop. “Deck there! Sail!”
Rick snatched a speaking trumpet. “Where away?”
There was a short pause while the lookaboring. “Two points the left . . . the
port
bow!”
port
bow!”
Rick scrambled into the port main shrouds and secured himself as best he could. Then he raised his binoculars. Yes! There she was, running toward them under all plain sail. Probably trying to escape the storm building behind them, Rick mused. “Shake that reef out of the fore-tops’l!” he shouted. “We’ll wait till they get closer. Act like we’re turning to run, too. We’ll rake him as we turn!”
He beamed down at Kas-Ra-Ar. “One way or another, it’s going to be an interesting day!”
“Captain, the launch is alongside.”
Matt nodded. “Single up all lines and prepare to cast off.”
The rain was falling in sheets now, and he could barely see past the fo’c’sle. He was accustomed to the dense squalls of the region, but this was different. He could feel the power behind the thing. He wondered fleetingly if this would be the event that snatched them back where they belonged? For some reason, in spite of everything, he caught himself hoping it wasn’t. Jim was right. Back home,
Walker
was just another over-age ’can. If they didn’t break her up and scatter her crew through the fleet, she’d probably spend the war towing targets for newer, more capable ships to practice against. Here, she and her people could make a difference. They had already begun.
Walker
was just another over-age ’can. If they didn’t break her up and scatter her crew through the fleet, she’d probably spend the war towing targets for newer, more capable ships to practice against. Here, she and her people could make a difference. They had already begun.
“The work detail is back aboard and the launch is hooking on,” Dowden reported as he entered the pilothouse. Water coursed down his saturated clothes and drained away through the strakes at his feet. The work detail had been winching the screw onto shore, raft and all, so that working against the dock wouldn’t damage it.
The talker spoke again. “Radio says Lieutenant Mallory’s about to turn north, but it’s getting pretty boogery up there—his words—and he wants to know if you still want him to rendezvous with
Revenge
.”
Revenge
.”
“No sense. He can’t set down even if he spots her. Tell him to make for Baalkpan. Fly around the storm if he can—he should have plenty of fuel.”
The attention of the bridge watch was diverted by another figure entering the pilothouse. It was Keje. He must have come over on the launch that delivered Courtney Bradford, Sandra Tucker, and a few others to
Big Sal
. Matt sent them with the explanation that it wasn’t wise to keep all their eggs in one basket. Also, since they weren’t critical to the operation of the ship, it made no sense for them to endure a major storm aboard
Walker
—given her less than sedate performance in heavy seas. It would result only in unnecessary suffering. Bradford went with an appreciative smile, but Sandra had been reluctant. Matt finally traded heavily on her professional concern for the wounded that remained on
Big Sal
. Most had been shipped home on
Fristar,
but not all. As to her suspicious concern regarding his own injuries, he blithely reassured her that he’d take it easy.
Big Sal
. Matt sent them with the explanation that it wasn’t wise to keep all their eggs in one basket. Also, since they weren’t critical to the operation of the ship, it made no sense for them to endure a major storm aboard
Walker
—given her less than sedate performance in heavy seas. It would result only in unnecessary suffering. Bradford went with an appreciative smile, but Sandra had been reluctant. Matt finally traded heavily on her professional concern for the wounded that remained on
Big Sal
. Most had been shipped home on
Fristar,
but not all. As to her suspicious concern regarding his own injuries, he blithely reassured her that he’d take it easy.
“Good afternoon, Cap-i-taan Reddy.”
“Hello, Keje. I’m glad to see you, but we’re about to cast off. It looks like we’re going to have some of that ‘stormy’ weather you talked about.”
Keje nodded agreement as he wrung water from his fur. “Indeed. Quite stormy.”
“Well.” Matt paused, unsure how to continue. “Shouldn’t you be with your ship?”
“Unnecessary. Both her feet are out,” he said, referring to the gi
Matt looked at his friend for a moment, expressionless. “That’s fine, Keje,” he said at last. “Glad to have you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word, though. What’s a Strakka?”
Keje waved his hand. “I don’t know if there is a proper word to describe Strakka in Amer-i-caan. The closest I can think of might be . . . typhoon? Is that it?”
“You know what a typhoon is?” Matt asked with surprise. “Those are storms we only used to get in deeper waters than the Java Sea.”
“Yes. Mr. Bradford described the typhoon very well. It did sound like a Strakka, but on a different scale.”
Matt smiled. “Yeah, a typhoon’s as bad as they come. But you’re in for a heck of a ride aboard
Walker
in any kind of storm!” There was knowing laughter in the pilothouse.
Walker
in any kind of storm!” There was knowing laughter in the pilothouse.
Keje looked at him and blinked. “No. You misunderstand. A typhoon is bad, but a Strakka . . .” He smiled tolerantly. “A Strakka can be much,
much
worse!”
much
worse!”
The Mice had wedged themselves between the forward air lock of the aft fireroom and the access-hatch ladder. Nearby, clutching the grating as if the ship itself was trying to shake her loose, Tabby continued the dry retching that had wracked her small body since the storm began. Isak’s and Gilbert’s stoic expressions belied the real concern they felt for their furry companion. The monumental cacophony of sound was stunning even to them. The blowers howled as they sucked the sodden air, and the tired hull thundered and creaked as the relentless sea pounded against it. Condensed moisture rained from every surface to join the nauseating sewer that crashed and surged in the bilge as the ship heaved and pitched. The firemen on watch weren’t doing much either, just holding on as best they could and trying to supervise the gauges and fires.
“Reckon she’s gonna die?” Gilbert Yager asked, peering through the muck that streaked his face. As close as they were, he still had to shout for Isak Rueben to hear him. Even Tabby’s soggy tail lay still—he’d never seen that before. Her ordinarily fluffy light-gray fur was almost black, and plastered to her body like it had been slicked down with grease.
“Nah,” Isak Rueben reassured him after a judicious glance. “Poor critter’s just a little seasick, is all. Must be sorta’ embarrassin’ for her to be seasick after spendin’ her whole life at sea.” He was thoughtful. “ ’Course, on them big ships o’ theirs, I don’t reckon it ever gets quite this frisky. Don’t carry on so. You’ll make her feel worse.”
Gilbert looked at the exhausted, wretched, oblivious form.
“Okay. She wouldn’t want us coddlin’ her.” He paused. “Damned if I ain’t feelin’ a little delicate myself,” he admitted, glancing around the dark, dank, rectangular compartment. He could certainly
feel
the violent motion of the ship, but the only visual evidence was the sloshing bilge and the way the condensation sometimes fell sideways. “Now I know how those idiots who go over Niagara Falls in a barrel feel.”
feel
the violent motion of the ship, but the only visual evidence was the sloshing bilge and the way the condensation sometimes fell sideways. “Now I know how those idiots who go over Niagara Falls in a barrel feel.”
The air lock beside them opened, but the “whoosh” was lost in the overall din. Spanky McFarlane spilled out onto the grating, nearly landing atopcloe="3">“Seasick, we figger,” Isak told him.
“What’s she doin’ here? If she’s that sick, she ought’a be in her rack.” Spanky remembered then that he hadn’t seen Tabby for a couple of days.
“She was,” Gilbert confirmed. “She crawled down here today.
The roll’s just as bad, but there ain’t so much pitch. Maybe she’ll feel better.”
Spanky hesitated. “Well, try to get her to drink something. She’ll get dehydrated.”
The Mice nodded in unison. “Say, how’re things topside?” Isak asked, uncharacteristically interested in something besides the fireroom. Spanky blew his nose into his fingers and slung the ejecta into the bilge.
“It’s a booger,” he said. “It’s startin’ to taper off a little now, though. I just came from the bridge and, I’m telling you, that was a ride! It’s a miracle we haven’t lost anybody overboard. Even the lifelines have carried away!” Spanky was thoroughly soaked, but that alone wasn’t proof he’d been on deck. The Mice were soaked too. “Skipper’s been up there ever since the storm hit and he looks like hell. Lieutenant Tucker would give him a shot to put him out if she was here—and if she had one. The man needs rest, with his wounds and all. Other than that, the damage ain’t as bad as you’d think. Antenna aerial’s gone. Took the top of the resonance chamber with it so the radio’s out.” He saw their blank expressions. “You know that big pointy cylinder on the back bridge rail, right next to the main blower vent? Looks like a great big bullet?”
“You mean that’s what makes the radio work?” Gilbert asked, amazed.
“. . . Yeah. Anyway, the launch is wrecked too. Hell, it crashed on the deck right over your heads.” The Mice looked at him and then up at the deck above. They hadn’t heard a thing. “The life rafts are gone—not that I’d ever get on one of those things on
this
ocean—and we’ve lost just about everything else that wasn’t bolted down.” He patted the railing under his hand. “But the old girl’s doin’ okay—on one engine too. I think Skipper’s more worried about
Mahan
than anything. As usual. If she got hit as hard as we did . . .” He grunted. “Anyway, that Keje’s up there too.” Spanky grinned. “He’s havin’ the time of his life.”
this
ocean—and we’ve lost just about everything else that wasn’t bolted down.” He patted the railing under his hand. “But the old girl’s doin’ okay—on one engine too. I think Skipper’s more worried about
Mahan
than anything. As usual. If she got hit as hard as we did . . .” He grunted. “Anyway, that Keje’s up there too.” Spanky grinned. “He’s havin’ the time of his life.”
“Where are we?” Gilbert asked and Spanky shrugged.
“If we run into something big and rocky, we’ll know it was one of the thousands of pissant islands scattered around out there, but that’s as close a guess as I’d care to make.”
“You’ve been out in a ’can like this in the North Atlantic, ain’t you?” Isak asked and Spanky nodded, accustomed to the Mice’s abrupt subject changes. “Is this as bad as that?”
Spanky just looked at him. “Son,” he said, shouting above the turmoil, “I was on the old
Marblehead
in a typhoon in the Philippine Sea back in ’36. That storm tore up a ’can like this and a fleet oiler too, like they were paper cups. It wasn’t a patch to this one. We’re doin’ fine.” With that, he shook his head and crept away, lurching hand over hand along the rail to resume his inspection of the engineering spaces.
Marblehead
in a typhoon in the Philippine Sea back in ’36. That storm tore up a ’can like this and a fleet oiler too, like they were paper cups. It wasn’t a patch to this one. We’re doin’ fine.” With that, he shook his head and crept away, lurching hand over hand along the rail to resume his inspection of the engineering spaces.
“Well,” Isak said, “dudn’t feel that bad to me. Maybe we ought to get out more, Gilbert.”
“Well,” said Captain Reddy as the bow buried itself under a roller, “now I know what a Strakka is.” The entire ship shuddered with effort as it came out the other side. Gray-green water sluiced down the deck, submerging the number one gun and erupting upward against the pilothouse. After
Walker
spent two days runnad torm they’d ever seen.
Walker
spent two days runnad torm they’d ever seen.
“Yeah,” said Letts, whose thinking mirrored Mallory’s. “How’s the plane doing? Engines okay?” he asked.
The pilot hesitated. “Sure,” he answered in a defensive tone. “The oil we’re getting isn’t quite up to spec, but we change it every time she flies. Other than that, she’s better now than when we got her.” He grinned and gestured at the rain. “Cleaner too.” He pointedly didn’t remind them that “when they got her,” the PBY was full of holes and half sunk on a beach.
“Good,” Letts murmured, looking carefully at the aviator. He turned to Brister.
Mahan’s
former engineering officer had become the general engineer for all of Baalkpan. Captain Reddy and Pete Alden had designed the city’s fortifications with an eye toward successful historical port defenses. Alden added a few things based on local conditions. Also, with an infantryman’s eye, he’d stressed additions based on the possibility that the enemy might make a landward approach. In addition to his other duties—which now included direct supervision of the massive (by local standards) foundry—Lieutenant Brister was responsible for making the dream come true. The result might very well be the most formidable defensive works this world had ever known.
Mahan’s
former engineering officer had become the general engineer for all of Baalkpan. Captain Reddy and Pete Alden had designed the city’s fortifications with an eye toward successful historical port defenses. Alden added a few things based on local conditions. Also, with an infantryman’s eye, he’d stressed additions based on the possibility that the enemy might make a landward approach. In addition to his other duties—which now included direct supervision of the massive (by local standards) foundry—Lieutenant Brister was responsible for making the dream come true. The result might very well be the most formidable defensive works this world had ever known.
Instead of the stone walls that Aryaal enjoyed, a huge defensive berm had been thrown up around the city, the approaches festooned with entanglements and sharpened stakes. Moving the vast amount of dirt had also created a wide, deep trench that had subsequently filled with water and become an impressive moat system. The jungle was pushed back at least five hundred yards on all sides, except where the ground sank into swamp. Some of the wood was stockpiled for later use—much of it was fine hardwood after all—and some was used to shore up the breastworks and put a roof over the heads of the defenders to protect them from plunging arrow fire.
The pièce de résistance was the twenty-four heavy guns that pierced the berm at regular intervals through stout embrasures, mostly facing the harbor. These were carefully concealed. The thinking was that, since the harbor was their most heavily defended point, they didn’t want to scare the enemy away from it—now they’d had a taste of cannon. If the Grik ever did attack Baalkpan, the defenders wanted them to do it in the “same old way” because the waterfront was where they would smash the invaders’ teeth. Still more guns were situated in a heavily constructed and reinforced stockade named Fort Atkinson, overlooking the mouth of the bay.
Again thanks to Alden, the landward approaches hadn’t been neglected. One hundred crude mortars were interspersed among the defensive positions. Little more than heavy bronze tubes, they could hurl a ten-pound copper bomb as far as the extended tree line. A little farther if you were brave enough to put a dollop more powder beneath it. The poor fragmentation characteristics of copper had been improved by casting the things with deep lines that ran all around and up and down the spheres—just like a pineapple grenade. When all was said and done, there wasn’t so much as a copper cup or brass earring in Nakja-Mur’s entire city, or anywhere they could quickly trade with. But what they had, hopefully, was a slaughterhouse for the Grik.
“How have the defenses held up in the rain?” Letts asked.
Brister snorted. “A little rain won’t hurt anything. Pack it all down a bit, is all. I may not be a combat engineer by trade, but when I put something together, it stays put together.”
know
. Tony Scott, coxswain, was helplessly afraid of the water. The pity would be worse than jeers. He’d blow his brains out. Thank God he could still handle the bay.
Behind him he heard the clattering roar of engines as the PBY thundered across the bay and took to the sky. He looked over his shoulder as a fleeting ray of sunshine flickered on the rising plane.
All that water,
he thought. It was bad enough in the bay, where few of the monsters were present, but . . . out there, where the plane was headed and most of Tony’s pals might even now be slipping down into the dreadful embrace of the sea, so far from land. The safe, dry land.
All that water,
he thought. It was bad enough in the bay, where few of the monsters were present, but . . . out there, where the plane was headed and most of Tony’s pals might even now be slipping down into the dreadful embrace of the sea, so far from land. The safe, dry land.
He fought the current upriver and dodged the dead trees and other debris that had washed down from the distant mountains. Crocodiles floated by, disoriented or dead, and he knew the river must’ve been something at the peak of the deluge. It was still out of its banks. The damp world had begun to reawaken, however, evidenced by the flocks of lizard birds that rose amid raucous cries and riotous colors to greet them as they churned upstream. Finally, after another hour of enduring the buckshot of bird shit that peppered them constantly from above, the fueling pier came into view around the bend.
The willing hands of the caretakers caught the rope, and Tony gratefully leaped up to the dock and onto the shore. His relief at feeling the motionless earth beneath his feet was palpable, and his mood brightened immediately despite another round of drizzle. “Everything all right?” he asked the first Lemurian caretaker/guardsman that joined him.
“No pro-bleemo,” mimicked the ’Cat, proud of his English.
“Anything come apart?” Tony asked the other one, who he knew could speak much better.
“Don’t think so. Everything fine here. Won’t know for sure until the pump is back on.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “I’ll go check it out. In the meantime, why don’t you fellas try to get the fires lit? God knows it’ll be a week before any local boats can make it up that river and bring the rest of the crew. I’ll have to ferry ’em up in the launch.” The idea of spending the better part of the next two days on the water didn’t appeal to him, but at least for now he could bask in the safety of the shore. He stuck his hands in his pockets and, whistling, followed the pipeline cut into the jungle.
He didn’t whistle for long. The ground was mucky and the grade was steep. Soon l to him,im.
Ben Mallory had coaxed the reluctant aircraft up to three thousand feet, all the while listening intently to the engines. So far, so good. The steady, throbbing drone of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasps seemed healthy enough. Contrary to Lieutenant Letts’s suspicions, Mallory really thought the engines were fine. Of course, it was hard to tell over the excessive rattling and violent vibrations the rest of the aircraft made. Everything except the engines on the hard-used plane was falling apart. He tried his best to take it easy on the old gal, but metal fatigue was beginning to take its toll. Sooner or later, good engines or not, the battered flying boat would fold up like a paper kite and fall out of the sky and the only airplane in the entire world would be no more. He shrugged mentally. When it happened, it happened. Until it did, he would fly.
He spared a quick glance at his “copilot.” The young sable-furred ’Cat on his right was peering through a pair of precious binoculars through the open side window at the ocean below. His name was Jis-Tikkar, but he seemed to like “Tikker” just fine. He’d been a good companion on the long flights between Baalkpan and Surabaya and he was still fully enraptured by the wonder of flying high above the world at a measly 110 miles an hour—oh, how Ben missed the glorious P-40E! Whatever Ben called him, Tikker wasn’t quite ready to assume all the duties of his position. For one thing, he could barely see over the instrument panel.
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