Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen (45 page)

“I’m with you, SB,” Johnny said. “I can’t listen to that fat bastard’s bellyachin’ anymore.” He grinned. “Not that he ain’t got a helluva belly ache!”

“You stay put!” Sandra ordered Parks. “Your skull may be fractured! Do you want your brains to fall out?”

Johnny laid back down. “I guess not. Gimme some cotton for my ears, at least.”

“No. You can’t sleep right now, and with all the seep you’ve had, you might drift off.”

“No chance o’ that, with that elephant’s ass carryin’ on so.”

“Why, you . . .”

“Hush!” Sandra ordered, and Lanier looked at her with bleary, almost-drunken eyes.

“Well . . . you want I should keep the lug awake or not?” Lanier complained.

Gray lurched through the crowded compartment, headed aft. Sandra stopped him. “How is it going?” she asked. “Is Matthew all right?”

Gray patted her arm. “Damned if I know.”

* * * 

Hidoiame
was difficult to see through her smokescreen, but she
was
visible, and Campeti continued punishing her with the numbers one, three, and four guns even as she slowly drew away. She was faster than
Walker,
and Matt wouldn’t strain his engines more than necessary in these seas and with the damage his ship had taken. Not yet. The enemy was still well within range. But so was
Walker
. Matt’s crew cheered again when there was a bright yellow flash and white smoke burst out of the distant black cloud. One of their guns had hit a boiler, no question about it. If that didn’t finish
Hidoiame
, it had to slow her down.

“By God! I think we
do
have her, Skipper!” the scarred, battle-hardened, First Lieutenant Norman Kutas shouted jubilantly. They were the last words he ever spoke.

A massive geyser erupted just to port, the spray reaching as high as the fire-control platform. A mere instant later, a 5-inch, 51-pound “common” projectile impacted
Walker
’s fo’c’sle at the very base of the bridge structure, and 4.1 pounds of Type 0 high explosive detonated. The force of the blast and shrapnel it created surged through the thin steel into officers’ country and slaughtered the wounded that had been placed there, every one. More high-velocity fragments slashed in all directions, perforating the hull and sweeping up through the radio room. Signals Lieutenant Ed Palmer’s chair saved his life, but he was dashed against the aft bulkhead like a rag doll. Everyone else in the compartment was killed instantly. Heavier fragments of the shell itself punched through the pilothouse deck, launching blizzards of strake splinters. A hot shard of ragged steel hit Norm Kutas under the jaw—and didn’t stop until it snatched the steel helmet off the top of his head. Norm fell to the deck without a sound—but there was plenty of screaming on the bridge.

For an instant, Matt thought he was the only person in the pilothouse to escape injury. He was stunned by the concussion, but the only thing he felt had been a terrible jolt in his feet and legs. There was no fire, thank God, but the air was full of brown smoke and drifting fur. Norm was down, he realized, and he took a step toward the vacant wheel. He felt the pain then. Something was wrong with his leg, and there was a hot poker in his lower abdomen. “Uhn,” he said through gritted teeth, and pressed his hand against his side. Suddenly, Minnie was up, and so were a few others. Minnie lunged for the bright brass wheel, straddling Norm’s still form.

“The helm don’t answer, Skipper!” Minnie cried when the wheel spun freely and the ship didn’t turn.

“Inform Mr. McFarlane he has the conn,” Matt managed. “I’m on my way there now.” He tried to turn, but had to grab his suddenly warped chair to keep from falling.

“Skipper?” Minnie cried. For the first time she saw the blood streak down Matt’s trouser leg and saw how much there was. She dashed for her headset dangling from the aft bulkhead. “Mr. McFarlane, you have the conn!” she cried. “Caap’n’s orders. Corps ’Cats to the bridge, on the double!”

* * * 

Sandra’s worst nightmare had come true. Again. Once more, her love,
her husband,
was laid bleeding before her, and she didn’t know if she could save him. Before, he’d been on a bloody canvas cot on the beach at Aryaal. Now he was on the green-linoleum wardroom table in the middle of a battle on a heavy sea. She had better equipment and help this time, but as she cut Matt’s sopping trousers away, she began to suspect this wound was much, much worse.

“How bad is it? Gray demanded. He’d raced to the bridge immediately after the explosion and carried the captain down himself. He wasn’t injured, but he wore just as much blood.

“I don’t know yet!” Sandra shouted in frustration. “Something went in his leg and there’s a lot of bleeding. It may have cut the femoral artery! The way he’s holding his lower abdomen, though, I’m afraid whatever it was didn’t stop in his leg!”

Matt was still conscious, but his face was pale. “Feels like something burning in my belly,” he confirmed; then he grabbed Gray’s sleeve. “Go, Boats,” he said. “Tell Spanky . . . get those murderous bastards! We can’t let them escape!”

“Skipper . . .”

“Go! That’s an order.”

With an anguished glance at Sandra, Gray bolted aft.

* * * 

“No, goddammit!” Spanky stated firmly. His face was black and his beard was singed, and he looked as determined as Gray had ever seen him. A fire around the aft deckhouse was just coming under control as hoses played on the flames. “Japs hit a gas can for the ‘Nancys’ with a wild twenty-five, I guess,” he explained, seeing Gray’s stares. “You musta’ passed Boats Bashear coming aft. He damn near burned to death rollin’ all the depth charges before they blew the ass completely off the ship! I think he got hit by something too.” He shook his head. “We’re done here, Boats,”—he gestured at the column of smoke on the horizon, aft now—“and so are they. We
got
’em, don’t you see? The
Skipper
already got ’em. Even if they don’t sink, and my guess is they will, they got no fuel and damn little ammo left. They
are no longer
a threat!” He stopped and hawked out the hard-used tobacco he’d been chewing.

“I’m exec. I’m in charge. It’s my decision,” he said. “I won’t waste another man or ’Cat like Bashear”— he jerked his head at Pack Rat—“him, or even you, to stomp a roach just ’cuz it’s still got one leg twitchin’. More important, I won’t risk this ship, what’s left of her, and I damn sure won’t risk the Skipper.” He crossed his arms. “We still got a lot bigger war to win, and he’s the one.” He turned to Paddy Rosen. “Reduce speed to one-third—or however she rides easiest. We’ll see. Our surgeon has some delicate work ahead of her, and so do our damage-control parties. Make your course one seven zero. We’re bound for Manila.”

“One seven zero to Manila, aye,” Rosen replied, his expression carefully neutral.

Gray let out a breath he must have been holding. “I had to pass the order, Spanky,” he said softly. “I . . . I’m glad you see it this way. The Skipper’s . . .”

“I know,” Spanky interrupted. “He’s special.” He scratched his bearded chin. “Hell, we’re all pretty scarce fellas. Now get back forward and find out what kind of blood the Skipper needs. That Jap can is finished. Let’s make sure
Walker
and Captain Reddy aren’t.”

Gray nodded. “What about the crew of that tanker? There might be survivors in boats.”

Spanky took another chew. “The hell with them.
Our
survivors got priority, and if gettin’ ’em to Manila soonest would save just one of ours, I’d leave a hundred o’ theirs behind any day.”

CHAPTER
28

Battl
e
of Madras 1322

USNRS
Salissa
(CV-1)

A
dmiral Keje-Fris-Ar studied the oncoming monsters, their dark smoke standing high to leeward. Beyond the approaching columns of smoke was a more distant, grayer pall that marked what remained of Des-Div 4. He couldn’t grieve for them now, not yet. He had to concentrate. He realized furiously that ultimately, he’d made the same mistake as General Aalden: he’d split his force in the face of an underestimated foe. But his had been the greater failure because he’d had even less cause for confidence. His flyers had been telling him about the Grik ships all along, but he really had believed he still held the qualitative edge. Well, maybe he did in many ways, but not in a slugfest like Des-Div 4 had just endured. He would send no more frigates—DDs—against the enemy, but he must take
Salissa
into battle after all. She alone might still retain one qualitative—ironic—edge over Kurokawa’s malignant creations . . . the very weapons Kurokawa had once commanded. Keje knew the risk; his ship was not only indispensible to him, but also to the entire Alliance. Still, he had to try. If the enemy could not be stopped, all the troops on Saa-lon and Indiaa would be on their own, for a time, at least, and there was no telling how long they could hold without support.

“Range?” Keje called. The enemy had reassumed a column approach, and Keje’s telescope showed him that the line had rearranged itself. The lead ship had almost no damage forward.

“Fifty-two hundreds!”

“Very well,” Keje said. “The secondary baat-tery may commence firing!”

Salissa
’s fifty muzzle-loading smoothbores were still considered her main battery. The big gun forward was simply “gun number one.” The secondaries were the 5.5-inchers, and they alone were tied into a salvaged Japanese gun director. Like
Walker
,
Salissa
also had a salvaged alarm bell for a salvo buzzer. It rang.

* * * 

Captain Jis-Tikkar orbited high above the battle in his hard-used Nancy, leading the airworthy remnant of
Arracca
’s pursuit squadrons. He had only ten planes left. None had taken any fire on their bomb runs against the Grik, but two had been damaged by their own mortar-bomb fragments and he sent them to Madras. Two more had developed serious engine trouble, their overworked motors finally giving up, and he’d directed them to set down as close to what remained of Des-Div 4 as they could. He shuddered. The terrible sea was always full of monsters, but battles seemed to attract them somehow, like cannon fire drew rain from a heavy sky. The destroyermen had to be very busy, he knew. He understood that only one ship in Commodore Ellis’s battle line had escaped damage—but the three DDs that had remained to windward were racing in to help. . . . He told his OC to ask
someone
to pick up the
Arracca
flyers.

Below him now, the battle had reached a terrible climax. Five Grik battleships and a lone remaining armored frigate were plodding toward
Salissa
—as she steamed directly at them. The sight of the massive ships, the columns of smoke, the long, white wakes against the purple sea, was stirring but horrible.
Salissa
was a little larger than her foes, but as mighty as he knew her wooden sides to be, they
were
only wood—and she was all alone.

Two tall geysers erupted just in front of the lead Grik ship, and Tikker knew
Salissa
’s 5.5-inchers had opened up. That was one consolation, he thought; the Grik would have to get
much
closer to
Salissa
than they had to the DDs to seriously damage her—and she had those 5.5-inchers and that massive gun forward. If she could find a range where she could dish it out without taking too much . . .

“Cap-i-taan!” came an excited cry through his voice tube. “I just receive from
Arracca
COFO. He lead our other planes to Maa-draas—”

“Yeah? So?”

“He say Grik zeps, twenty plus, head this way! He . . . he can’t do nothin’! The pursuit ships already down, and his bomb planes . . .”

“I know,” Tikker said. “They’ve got nothing to shoot with, and they’ll be low on fuel!” He paused, considering, looking down.
Salissa
’s guns had scored a telling blow on the lead Grik ship. Smoke gushed out of the foremost part of the casemate, and the ship was heeling out of line. A stutter of broadside guns flared, but their shot fell short of
Salissa
. He took his left foot off the rudder pedal and caressed the.50-caliber Browning machine gun mounted in the Nancy’s nose with his toes. The 1st Pursuit had more machine guns, but besides being out of gas, they’d used most of their ammunition on strafing runs against the Grik behemoths. They didn’t have armor-piercing (AP) rounds, and their bullets had achieved nothing he could see. Only one other plane in this squadron had such a weapon. The rest had muskets loaded with incendiary tracers, but the Grik zeps had teeth now too. He sighed. “Confirm that Ahd-mi-raal Keje got the word, then send to all planes: We will intercept enemy airships!”

USNRS
Salissa

Salissa
’s fifth salvo slashed into the crippled Grik battleship, and black smoke and steam jetted high in the sky above its two center funnels. Fire spurted from the tortured forward casemate where the wheelhouse likely was, and smoke started pouring out the gun ports spaced down the side of the ship. Abruptly, it lost speed and wallowed to a stop.
We
have
punched through their armor!
Keje realized with a thrill—but the next fresh Grik battleship was now steaming past the derelict and growing relentlessly closer. Three guns situated in the forward casemate fired one after the other, and Keje was sure he
saw
the monstrous roundshot rise out of the smoke on surprisingly high trajectories! Moments later, two of them struck
Salissa
.

The massive ship barely flinched. One ball glanced off the starboard bow below the leading edge of the flight deck, just beneath the number one gun, and the splash drenched its crew. That strike did no more than leave a long, deep dent in one of the thickest parts of
Salissa
’s hull. The other shot landed on the flight deck, however, plunging down through the relatively thin timbers and crashing through the hangar deck as well. Even as Captain Atlaan-Fas called for reports from the damage-control parties, the salvo bell rang and the 5.5s barked again.

“Have number one commence firing!” Keje ordered.

“The range is still long,” Atlaan warned, “and we have not many shells for the great gun!”

“We have enough for this fight, and it is more accurate than theirs,” Keje said, “which they are already hitting
us
with! Besides, if they hit it, we will not be able to use it at all! It is fairly exposed.”

Atlaan nodded. “Of course.” He spoke into the fire-control tube. “The number one gun will commence firing!”

Shortly after,
Salissa
flinched again as the powerful gun sent its two-hundred-pound shell shrieking toward the enemy. It landed short, but it threw up a geyser that dwarfed any other so far that day. Keje stepped back out on the bridgewing for an unobstructed view of the enemy. A haze of smoke and mist still hung where the shell had fallen, and the target had turned slightly to port. One of its stacks was gone, perhaps a victim of the 5.5-inchers. The ships behind it—except for the derelict, now burning fiercely—were also beginning to turn, moving into a line abreast once more, just as they had against Des-Div 4.

“I think this fight will soon grow more lively,” Atlaan observed with a nervous flick of his tail. “They turn a thousand tails farther out, but they are clearly
in
range to hit, at least occasionally, and once the turn is complete, they will have many more guns to try it with.”

Keje paced behind him, his mind racing. He had learned a great deal about his new role in this war and thought he had done reasonably well commanding the carriers of First Fleet. That was only part of his greater responsibility as CINCWEST, however, and in that position he knew he had performed . . . poorly. The looming disaster on land and the mauling of Des-Div 4 was sufficient evidence of that. As much as General Aalden blamed himself for the mess ashore, Keje knew he bore the greater responsibility and deserved the greater blame. He just didn’t have the strategic wits and flexibility to control such a large, diverse campaign—and he’d been taken as much by surprise as any other by the sudden improvements and flexibility of the enemy. Somehow he should have foreseen . . . There
had
been signs, as early as Saa-lon. He hadn’t ignored them, but he hadn’t taken sufficient precautions either. This was all
his
fault!
Maker above, but I wish Captain Reddy was here!

Now the enemy was turning west, forming its new line of battle while also shaping a course toward Madras. His few options had just been further limited.

“Ahd-mi-raal, what are your orders?” Atlaan asked almost desperately. The number one gun roared again, and Keje shook himself. Now was not the time for self-pity. He must be decisive, and he had to get it right. Huge waterspouts straddled his ship, but none hit that time.

“I do not think they can pierce our sides at this range,” Keje said at last, then gestured out at the flight deck. “But their plunging fire can do great harm. We
could
turn and present our own broadside, but then the great gun may no longer bear.” Even shortened, the massive number one was so long and heavy that its traverse was limited to barely seventy degrees in the space it occupied. “Besides,” he concluded grimly, “as the distance narrows,
Salissa
cannot survive trading broadsides with four of those armored monsters for long, and this ship
must
be preserved, whatever happens here today. We will keep our distance; let our long-range guns do their work!” He paused, considering how best to accomplish that.

“Slow to two-thirds,” he ordered. “We will let the enemy get ahead of us, then pursue. If he continues on toward Maa-draas, so much the better; we can work our way up from behind, destroying his ships as we advance!”

Atlaan blinked hopefully and gave the order.

Keje’s gaze was drawn to the west by a peripheral flare of light. Perhaps ten miles away, toward the hazy dark coast of Indiaa, Captain Tikker and his pursuit ships had intercepted the enemy zeppelins. One had crumpled and was falling toward the sea, trailing a smear of flame and black smoke. With a start, Keje realized that two smaller smoke trails were already tumbling to the sea. The salvo bell rang and the 5.5-inchers roared.

“What is happening to our planes?” he demanded of Lieutenant Newman, who hurried into the pilothouse.

* * * 

“Yess!” Tikker shouted as his smoky tracers ignited the hydrogen they’d released from the Grik airship before him and it began to fall within a quickly growing ball of fire. He banked right and pulled back on the stick, lining up another target. Suddenly, he saw one of his planes almost stagger in midair, then pitch downward trailing a thin stream of smoke.

“Tell them not to get too close!” he shouted to his OC. “They have weapons, some sort of small cannons, remember?”
Another
Nancy was tumbling down!

“I tell them,” the OC cried back, tinny, scared. “But I already getting reports these zeps got more little cannons than usual!”

“What? They
can’t
carry more cannons if they have their usual bomb load!” His crude sights aligned on his target and he pulled the lever that would depress the trigger on his gun. The plane shook violently while tracers arced into another zeppelin. Something hit his starboard wing as he blew by, beneath an airship he hadn’t had an angle on. He looked out at the wing and saw a frightening number of holes. Another gun from the same source fired at him, but must have missed aft. “Daamn! They
do
have more guns, and they’re pretty good with them!” He looked back at his target and saw it drooping, but then at least
four
small guns, all in the forward gondola, fired at him at once!

“Sheet!” He chirped. A number of half-inch holes appeared in his ship, and something stung his neck. With the detonation of its guns, however, his target literally exploded in flames, falling in burning chunks toward the sea.
They must have lit their own gas,
he thought, feeling his neck with his fingers. They came away bloody. He took a moment to make sure his engine sounded okay and all the controls still worked.

“You still back there?” he asked.

“Yes.” The OC’s voice sounded shaken.

“They gotta have at least
eight
little—like, swivel guns—on those things. Maybe more!” he shouted. “Send it!” If each of those guns was loaded with a double handful of half-inch balls, they could throw a lot of metal at his planes that had to get close—and fly steady for a moment—just to fire a single shot. He was through the Grik formation, and he banked left to make another run. “Maker!” he breathed. The sky was filled with fire and long trails of smoke. Zeppelins were falling, engulfed in flames, but at least one more of
his
planes was spiraling down toward the sea.