Crusade (19 page)

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Authors: TAYLOR ANDERSON

BOOK: Crusade
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On a couple of occasions, Mallory had allowed him to take the controls for a little “straight and level,” but it would be a while before he did it again. The second time the little devil had his hands on the oval-shaped wheel, he’d nearly put the big plane through a barrel roll. It was all very exciting and the flying lessons abruptly ceased. For now, the “copilot’s” duties had reverted to observation and keeping Ben awake on the long flights with his irrepressible humor.
The rest of the flight crew consisted of Ed Palmer, and two more farsighted Lemurians in the observation blisters. Ed sat in the compartment directly behind the flight deck, still trying to raise
Walker
when he wasn’t keeping track of their navigation. The young signalman had been studying under Bob Flowers to raise his grade before the lieutenant was killed. In his short time aboard
Mahan
he had, for all intents and purposes, been the navigation officer. He wasn’t a pro yet, but he was a quick study. As long as there were landmarks he could identify, he hadn’t led them astray—and they were forbidden to fly at night. Besides, they’d made the trip often enough now that the Makassar Strait was pretty familiar. Ben liked having someone to bounce his reckoning off of, though.
They broke out of the dreary overcast at last and the sky ahead was bright and clear. The trailing edge of the storm was still visible far to the east beyond Celebes, and a few petulant squalls marched about at random. Below them, evidence of the storm was still apparent from the lingering whitecaps. Three hours of flying had them in the general vicinity where they’d captured
Revenge,
and nearing the way point where they would either turn southeast and prepare to set down and refuel or head due south on the next dogleg that would complete the bottom of their horseshoe search.
Ben glanced at the fuel gauges. More than enough. The flying boat had a theoretical range of over twenty-eight hundred miles, and the search pattern Letts had suggested would consume less than half of that. Mallory intended to cover more area than the plan called for, but there’d still be ample fuel. He decided to forgo a visit to their remote gas station on Celebes. Every time the plane touched > wident, particularly on the still-rough sea. Besides, there were no pumps at the station and they would spend half the day hoisting and pouring the two-gallon jugs. He much preferred idling up alongside
Big Sal
and letting the fuel run
down
into the plane.
He called Palmer forward. “We’re going to zigzag south across the Flores Sea on hundred-mile legs, west-east, west-east. But I want to check out those islands north of Sumbawa. Keep track of our turns so we don’t miss the damn things. I’d rather catch them headed east so we can cross them twice. There must be a hundred of them.”
“Most of those islands aren’t much account,” Palmer replied.
“No, but if somebody got driven east by the storm there’s a good chance they might’ve wound up on one of them,” Ben reasoned grimly.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to go that far. Shortly after they made their first eastward turn, Tikker spotted a lonely wake below them. Ben immediately began a spiraling descent.
“
Mahan,
sure enough!” Tikker said excitedly. “Only three smoke-stacks, see?”
Mallory grunted when he banked the plane far enough to see for himself. “Unless the storm knocked one off
Walker
,” he agreed doubtfully. “But mainly, she’s headed north, toward Baalkpan.
Walker
would be headed west. Yeah, that’s
Mahan,
all right. There’s her number. Looks even worse than the last time I saw her, but she’s under way.”
“We’re not going to set down, are we?” Ed asked nervously from between the two seats.
“No way. Look at those swells! Let’s signal them with the navigation lights.”
 
The sun was setting beyond Java’s distant volcanic peaks when
Walker
steamed through the Pulau Sapudi and returned to Aryaal/B’mbaado Bay. The naked tripods of the battle line Homes were silhouetted against the evening sky and the lights of the city. Safe and sound, right where they’d left them. Captain Reddy was dozing in his chair and Keje had gone to the wardroom for a sandwich.
“Just like a bunch of battle wagons moored at Pearl,” Garrett quipped, referring to the Homes. “Those guys never know what they’re missing when the wind kicks up.”
“Maybe so,” Dowden agreed, “but small and fast beats slow and fat when bombs and torpedoes are falling out of the sky.”
Garrett grinned sheepishly back at him. “Yeah, but we don’t have to worry about bombs and torpedoes anymore. The next time we get caught in the middle of a Strakka, tell me again that small and fast beats fat and slow.” He gestured at the huge ships in the bay as they drew closer. “Especially since they don’t even look like they noticed it.”
Appearances were deceiving. The full fury of the storm had passed right over the bay.
Humfra-Dar
had dragged one of its feet and nearly gone aground. Superficial damage had also been sustained by the pagoda structures on all the ships, but the Homes of the People were designed to withstand far worse. Onshore it was a different story. The waterfront ghetto had been knocked flat. Since the buildings there had provided most of the shelter for the AEF, there had been numerous injuries and even a couple of deaths. The rest of the troops had spent an extremely miserable couple of days, exposed to the full violence of the storm. Nevertheless, there were cries of happy greeting as the ship passed through the anchored fleet and neared the pier.
There had evidently brder me to fly, but it’s not his fault we got in late. We altered the flight plan a little to increase our search coverage, true, but I’d respectfully point out that we wouldn’t have seen
Mahan
otherwise.” He shrugged. “We ran into a headwind on the last westward leg.”
Matt nodded. “I’m glad you found
Mahan
. Knowing she’s safe takes a load off my mind. I just wish you wouldn’t cut it so close. You’re the only pilot we have.”
“Yes, sir. Flying the only airplane. But when we couldn’t raise you on the radio we got worried. The last we knew, everybody was at sea in the path of that god-awful storm. I guess we needed to know we weren’t suddenly all alone.”
Matt studied him in the torchlight. “What would you have done if you found one of us,
Walker
or
Mahan
, in a sinking condition?”
“I . . . don’t understand, sir.”
“Yes, you do. Say it was
Walker
. No power and low in the water. Just wallowing in the swell.” Matt grimaced. “And nothing but the whaleboat, which is, incidentally, all we have left. This afternoon you might’ve been able to set down, but not this morning. What would you have done?”
The young aviator looked stricken. “I . . . I don’t know. Maybe . . .”
Matt interrupted him. “No ‘maybe,’ Lieutenant. There’s absolutely nothing you could’ve done.” He put his hand on Mallory’s shoulder. “Nothing. Not if you’re a responsible officer. This isn’t the world we knew, where you could whistle up some ship to come get us. We’re on our own. That’s why you and Letts should’ve waited another day before coming to look for us.” He smiled and squeezed the shoulder. “By which time—tomorrow—the radio ought to be fixed. I’m glad you’re here, don’t get me wrong, and I’m glad you saw
Mahan,
but we can’t spare you or that airplane.” His smile became a grin. “It’s going to have to last the whole damn war.” He dropped his hand to his side and nodded toward the chart laid out on a table nearby. Together, they looked down at it. “Now, since you’re in a rescuing mood, I want you to take off in the morning—weather permitting—and find
Revenge
. We’re going to start on the propeller first thing, but we ought to have the radio repaired by morning. With Riggs gone to Baalkpan, Clancy is chief radio operator and he says with Palmer’s help he can get it done. Clancy’s already fixed the resonance chamber—used a coffee cup for an insulator!—and he says now that the ship’s not pitching her guts out he can re-string the aerial.” Matt looked up at Mallory. “By the way, if the radio’s not working, you don’t fly.” He returned his gaze to the chart. “If you find
Revenge
and she needs assistance, with any luck, we’ll be able to come and get them.” Matt pointed at the chart. “Concentrate here first,” he said grimly, indicating a large island surrounded by dozens of smaller ones about halfway between Sumatra and Borneo. “I have a feeling that’s where she’ll be.”
Captain Reddy glanced at the group gathered around them. Many were engaged in animated discussions, while some were relaxing on cushions that had been placed under the awning for their convenience. “It looks like I’m going to be here for a while,” he said. “Go get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
 
“So,” Matt said at last, when the briefings were complete and the “meeting” had been officially under way for some time, “correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems the situation remains unchanged. The battle line is fit for sea, in spite of some slight damage. The B’mbaadan infantry and Rolak’s volunteers have been thoroughly integrated into the AEF and are ready to embark. I have every minated something lying in it.
“Goddamn! It’s a gun! I bet those sneaky bastards filled it full of powder and plugged it up, hoping the fire would cook it off!” He started to run for a fire hose, then stopped dead in his tracks. No time. If he was right, that thing could go off any second. It would take several minutes for the water pressure to build. Without a word, he hopped the rail and began climbing down the rungs.
“Where the hell are you going?” Lanier yelled. “I got an arrow in my gut!”
“I doubt it hit anything vital, you fat tub of lard!” Harvey snarled back. “Don’t just stand there. Get the hose!”
Lanier waddled in the direction of the closest hose reel and Donaghey resumed his descent. The initial flash of the conflagration had diminished considerably to a steady blaze in the forward third of the boat. He could hear crackling as the wood began to burn. The heat pushed almost physically against him the lower he went and he wasn’t sure he was just imagining his skin beginning to blister.
“Hurry up!” he shouted, unsure if the cook even heard him as he gasped for breath in the acrid smoke. Below him, one rung down, he could see through his slitted, watery eyes that a rope had been tied to the ship. With one hand, he reached into his shirt and retrieved a long-bladed folding knife that always hung around his neck on a braided cord. Called a sausage knife, it had a long, skinny blade that was useful for a variety of things. He opened it with his teeth and leaned down to cut the rope that had already started to burn. He was certain he was blistering now and he cried out in pain. He smelled the hair on his arm begin to singe, mingling with the stench of the smoke. He sawed at the rope like a madman. Suddenly, unexpectedly, it parted under his blade and he would have dropped it in the water but for the cord.
The ship’s bell began ringing frantically in the dark, followed moments later by the general alarm. Harvey scrambled back up the side of the ship a few rungs to escape the worst of the heat and looked down at the boat. Slowly, lazily, it drifted with the current. Amid the flames he clearly saw the ruddy shape of the bronze cannon barrel as the fire grew around it. From above he heard shouts and curses and a gurgling stream of seawater trickled on the boat. Other hands had joined or taken over for Lanier and they were finally getting water on the fire. It would still take a while for the pressure to build, one trailing alongside. Crouching on his knees, and with his hat pulled down low to protect his eyes, he laboriously managed to turn the boat. With a growing sense of urgency that bordered on panic, he rowed as fast as he could. He heard the yells of the men on deck—quite a few now, by the racket they were making—screaming at him to stop, come back, don’t be a fool—but there was no choice. He had no choice.
All he knew, as the flesh on his face and hands began to sear and his vision became a red, shimmering fog, was that he had to row. Nothing else in the entire world mattered anymore except for getting that crazy, stupid bomb the hell away from his ship.
He made it almost forty yards.
 
Captain Reddy paced the deck beside the number two torpedo mount, back and forth, his hands clenched behind his back. Occasionally he ventured near the smoke-blackened rail and stared at the water below. The angry red horizon that preceded the dawn was a singularly appropriate backdrop to the white-hot rage that burned within him. A quiet circle of destroyermen, human and Lemurian, watched him pace, and Sandra and Bradford were nearby as well, conversing in subdued tones.
On deck, trussed up like hogs, were two Aryaalans. Dennis Silva towered over them with a pistol in his hand and Earl Lanier, shirt off and with a wide bandage encircling his midsection, menaced the prisoners with his fishing pole.
Harvey Donaghey had hit one of them with a lucky shot from his pistol, causing the ’Cat to lose his oar and slowing their escape. By the time the cannon exploded, the saboteurs were far enough away that they weren’t directly injured, but they were so startled by the blast that they dropped the other oar over the side. Thus they were quickly discovered by the vengeful whaleboat, wallowing helplessly back toward their intended victim with the tide. By then, the one Donaghey had shot was dead. Garrett commanded the whaleboat and it was all he could do to bring the others back alive. Even so, their capture hadn’t been gentle and the Aryaalans watched Matt pace through puffy, swollen eyes, nervously licking their split, bloody lips.

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