At the Midway (51 page)

"Sound, sir?" the young wireless electrician asked.

"Can't you tell something about an operator by the way he keys?"

"He sounds okay to me, sir.  He's identified himself as HH with Commercial Pacific.  Old hands never spell out their names.  This guy sounds like he's been pounding the keys for years.  Hard to tell, though.  The signal keeps breaking up."

"Sweet Jesus...."  Grissom turned to Captain Oates.  "It has to be the Nips, sir.  If they had someone who knows Morse and English, they could lead us into an ambush."

"With
serpents
, Grissom?  It would be a better trap if they did nothing at all.  Just lay low and wait."

"Maybe they're trying to frighten us away."

"Too risky for them.  We might see the ploy and think they're afraid of a fight."  A yeoman handed Oates a note from the wireless electrician.  After perusing it, he handed the pad to Grissom.  "You might be right, though.  They say their tug is beached.  Boiler tubes.  Perfectly feasible.  It always seems to come down to weather and tubes, doesn't it?"

"It could be a clever ruse--trying to get us to turn about before we even see the island."

"Or...?" Oates asked, seeing doubt on his face.

"As unlikely as it is... the boy, sir.  He claims to have seen three serpents.  It's a pretty big coincidence."

"Notify the Chief Engineer we need him to cobble together a group of his men to go in with the landing force."

"Aye aye, sir."

1132 Hours

Outside of its isolation, its coral reef and the omnipresent birds, the most noticeable aspect of Midway was its brightness.  Even more common than an ankle twisted by stepping into a mutton bird hole were persistent, blinding headaches caused by the reflection of sun off sand and water.

Heinrich Lieber had once heard a Lutheran pastor go on and on about the Eternal Light of Heaven.  But eternal light could be as much a hell as the eternal abyss, the daggers of brightness lodged permanently in one's eyes and brain.  Midway cast a blazing analytical eye on everyone who landed on the atoll.  Certainly, more than one marine felt like a specimen on a slide.

Lieber had to cover his face with his hands and squint through his fingers in order to keep track of the gondola.  After a couple hours of this, he turned to Hart.  "I haven't seen him for a long time.  Could he be sick?"

"We know he's hungry," said Ziolkowski.  "Fritz is right.  Let's haul him in."

They took hold of the winch cables and brought the balloon down.  There was no sign of Ace until the car had landed.  He was lying in the bottom of the basket.

"Ace!"

"Uh...."

Although Ace was soaked in vomit, Lieber did not hesitate pulling him out.

"Same thing's happened to me a couple times," said Hart.  "There's nothing more I can do to stabilize it."

"Where did you see them last?" Ziolkowski shouted at Ace, trying to reach through his stupor.

"They gone... sail away...."

"Like hell.  You can't even look at your fucking nose without tossing."

"I'll go up."

Ziolkowski gave Lieber a skeptical glance.  "You're too heavy."  He turned to Hart.  "He's too heavy, right?"

"He doesn't look much heavier than me," said Hart, studying his new volunteer.  "If he needs, he can get rid of some of the ballast."

"Won't one of them do better?"  Ziolkowski indicated the Japanese knotted around Ace.  He was loath to send up one of his men in a contraption he was sure would, sooner or later, plummet out of control.

"It's all right, Top.  I used to work at Coney Island.  They had balloons there and no one got hurt.  Looked fun."

"
Fun
!  I've got four dead men and one dead lieutenant!"  He counted only Occidentals.  "Then go up with the gooneys!  You'll land the same way."  He illustrated the gooneys' clumsy and sometimes fatal landing style with a brusque clap of his hands.

The envelope was refreshed with a burst of coal gas.  Lieber watched and listened closely as Hart demonstrated the valves and equipment.  Lieber climbed in and the anchor line was released.

The most unsettling thing about the balloon was just that:  There was no place to settle.  Although Hart had put a firm floor in the gondola, as soon as the balloon was off the ground Lieber felt as if the basket was dropping out from under him.  His slightest movement was instantly exaggerated.  He made the mistake of watching the ground during the ascent.  His last meal began to churn as the island whirled beneath him.  The nausea abated somewhat when he raised his eyes.

The grand spread of the planet was breathtaking.  The zenith sun laid a faint muggy mist on the horizon.  Scanning the jewel-blue ocean, he soon spotted the creatures.  All three of them, still to the south.  The sergeant was right.  Ace had lost his wits along with his breakfast.

The monsters seemed to be in a purposeless daze, floating idly under the noon sun.  Even with binoculars, the only indication they were alive was an occasional swan-like lifting of a head.  Lieber wondered if all the donkey meat they'd eaten had made them sick.

Or maybe they were finding humans hard to digest.

1248 Hours

"Gentlemen, what Mr. Pegg has described is this...."  A tripod and board stood before the officers in the wardroom.  Uncovering it, Singleton revealed one of the drawings he had labored on all afternoon, with William guiding each stroke.  His brief training in draftsmanship stood him in good stead.

Dr. Singleton had acquired a new habit.  He'd begun to clasp his hands in front of him, nervously kneading his fingers.  When he caught himself at it, he stared down in wonder and made himself stop.  Five minutes later, he found himself doing it again.

"As you can see, one of the creatures is as long as the whaler, or nearly so.  I've drawn an outline of the
Lydia
Bailey
for comparison.  The only creature we know of this size is alive this very day: the blue whale.  Not only that, the blue whale is the largest animal
ever
known to have existed.  Now, if we take into account the refraction of sunlight in water, as well as the human element--men under duress almost invariably exaggerate their adversary--we might safely say we are dealing with a creature a little more like this...."  He uncovered a second drawing.  "The plesiosaur."

It was then that the officers' skepticism became open.  Low laughter riffled through the assembly.  The animal Singleton indicated, even in threes, could not possibly sink a whaler.

"While not as grandiose as what Mr. Pegg has envisioned, we are speaking of a discovery of the utmost magnitude.  A plesiosaur can pose no danger to a modern battleship.  Our real challenge is to capture one of these creatures alive."

The laughter became louder.  Singleton smiled and nodded.

"All right, gentlemen, maybe you'll appreciate this:  If there
are
plesiosaurs at Midway and we
do
capture at least one of them alive, the fame and wealth you achieve will not end until the day you die."

A hush fell across the wardroom.

Up to now, William, still seated on the cushioned chair from where he'd presented his story, accepted Singleton's rebuttal with equanimity.  But the talk of capture startled him.  He stared at the doctor with stark amazement.

"Beggin' your pardon, Doctor.   There's no way you can catch any of the serpents…."

Singleton lowered his head, like a matador challenged by a calf.  In deference to William's sufferings, he would say no more.  But there was no doubt the men in the room were more impressed by the boy than by the scientist.  Oates had told them about Hart's transmissions. The marines on Midway could not have been pushed into such desperate straits by the fishy beanbags Singleton described.  The doctor, besides being a knocker, was a know
-
it
-
all who refused to be proven wrong.  If he could not cast aside his books and face the thing before him, he would have to be put aside himself.  They did not believe the boy's story--they just preferred to.

As the meeting broke up, several men went over and patted William on the shoulder.

Not one word was spoken to Singleton.

XXII

June, 1908

29°31'N, 173°10'

From a marine's diary:

Sea serpents!!!!?????

0420 Hours

"For example, there's Star Number 1830 in the Groombridge Catalogue.  It moves with an angular velocity of seven seconds per arc annually.  A small fact on a big scale.  But if you draw the analogy of a boy with his bullroarer, you might see what I'm getting at.  The pull of the string is the centrifugal tendency and is equal to the square of the velocity of the bullroarer divided by the length of the string from the hand to the toy.  So... let's say the centrifugal tendency is equal to an acceleration of the one-five-billionth part of a mile per second."

"And?"

"And instead of the bullroarer, we use Groombridge 1830.  From there, we can calculate the weight of the universe."

"So tell me, how much does it weigh?"

"Unfortunately, we would have to know how far away Groombridge 1830 is.  We can see it, all right.  But we don't have the distance.  Once we do, though...."

Captain Oates found himself smiling.  In spite of his pompous armature of facts, Dr. Singleton could sometimes prove a fascinating companion.  He was sober now--the last vestige of alcohol blown to stern when he joined Oates on the bridge.

Lieutenant Grissom came out.  "Two hours, captain."  He gave Singleton a long glance.

"I wanted to see the sunrise, Lieutenant Grissom."

"
Which
sun?"

"Grissom," said Oates, "how well are you versed in ship silhouettes?"

"I know British colliers have black funnels, sir."

"Come now, Mr. Grissom.  Don't let the doctor's presence intimidate you.  Concentrate on battleships."

"An Italian
Sardegna
class battleship has tandem funnels, but they also carry one fo'ard; single mast, with her hull painted black and her superstructure white.  Incidentally, the
Italia
includes sixteen-and-a-quarter-inch guns in her armament, a single one of which... well, the only wops we'll meet out here are the ones we have on board.

"The French used to subscribe to the
Jeune
Ecole
, which was to attack an enemy's commerce rather than his fighting ships.  But with the introduction of anti-torpedo nets and rapid-fire guns, they've had to revise their ideas.  Doctor, the most dangerous-
looking
silhouette you'll ever see is French.  They now practice what is called 'fierce-face' in the belief that if you can scare someone off without firing a shot, it's as much a victory as a sinking.  They have very large funnels and built-up masts to lend the impression of fighting bulk.  To compensate for their extreme freeboard, they have an exaggerated 'tumblehome;' that means the upper deck is narrower than the hull at the waterline.  Peculiar looking... as though they were floating docks instead of warships.

"A British battleship would show two masts with double yardarms; the
Royal
Sovereign
class carries their funnels in tandem, so if we were abeam it would look like one instead of two.  As for the
Dreadnought
--"

"Oh, I think we can skip
that
," said Oates irritably.

"Yes, sir.  Moving to the Pacific:  All Chinese capital ships were built by the Germans and most of those were sunk at the Battle of Lissa in 1896.  As you well know, the Japanese also destroyed the Russian fleet eight years later.  So I presume our main concern--outside of sea beasts--is the Japanese.  Their ships are painted metallic blue-to-gray, with red bands near their funnel tops.  The
Fugi
and her sister ship the
Yashima
would each show two heads of smoke coming over the horizon.  Of course, they would also see the smoke from our funnels.  And at Tsushima, the Nips opened up on the Russians at a range of seven thousand yards--nearly twice what anyone else can do."

"Most impressive."

Grinning, Oates said, "Very good.  Now, see the men not on watch get as much rest as possible."

"Aye, sir.  But it's hard for anyone to sleep."

"Every rumor is like twenty cups of coffee," said the captain in a speculative tone.

A faint glow touched the horizon to starboard.

"We'll have the sun behind us when we come up on Midway," said the doctor.

A good sign.  The enemy--in whatever form--would be blinded by the morning light when they steamed in.

0450 Hours