At the Midway (66 page)

This sparked an idea.  Cautiously, he opened the hatch and peered out.  The passageway was clear.

He darted to the nearest ladder.

2034 Hours

"Lieutenant?"

Grissom stepped back from the bridge, his face drawn.  He was so exhausted he could barely move his arms.

Speaking through the bridge screen, Captain Oates asked, "Coral?"

"I don't see how.  Both anchors were secured, fore and aft."

Oates went to the voice tubes and blew into one of them.  "Mr. Morgan!  Check the fo'ard cable again.  It seems to be swinging loose."

He'd barely replaced the flap when the ship again gave a lurch.  Grissom burst with unintelligible curses, his upper lip flapping where his teeth had been.  Oates caught the gist:

Something was knocking them out of their anchorage.

"
Captain
!"

One of the lookouts was tracing the beam of a searchlight with a trembling hand.  As he rushed forward, Oates knew he would be seeing one of the creatures.  What he did not expect was the sight of the largest one gnawing at the chain near the hawser.  The metal shone like new-coined nickels wherever its teeth left scars.

Grissom craned his head and glared up at the signal bridge, where two machine guns--the only weapons that could be brought to bear--were mounted.

"What are you waiting for?  Open fire!"

But by the time the exec swiveled back the creature had let go of the thick hawser and slipped underwater.

"What
don't
they eat, Grissom?"  Oates went to the telephone.  "Did they make it?" he yelled into the brass mouthpiece.

"The landing force is on the beach," was the report from the foremast lookout.

The captain's relief was short-lived.  Feeling an odd movement, he glanced at the unmanned wheel.  It was jerking back and forth against the locked helm.  "So much for Singleton and his sleepy lizards.  It's pushing against the keel.  After all we threw at it--"

"You all right, sir?"

Oates dismissed his exec's concern with a brisk nod.  "This is a pickle, Grissom.  That thing's sniffing around our bilge keel and we can't bring a single gun to bear.  At least the anchors--"

A loud rattling at the bow caught their attention.  The anchor chain twirled in the hawsehole like a straw in a glass.  There was a great brown flash as the creature twisted to the side.

"Sir... we haven't been able to seal the starboard gunports.  If it jumps on the lower deck again and we're not underway, we'll be swamped."

Oates began telling Grissom he wanted engineers manning all the bilge pumps, then remembered no one could understand his exec's slurred speech through the voice tubes.  He was circling the binnacle to deliver the order himself when the shout came.

2016 Hours

The creature leapt from the ocean, stretched above the lower decks, and attacked the searchlights on the superstructure.  The parabolic metallic mirrors inside the projectors exploded in thousands of silver fragments.

Men and electrolyzed metal rained down on the larboard boat deck.  Wood screeched as lifeboats were thrown off their blocks and crashed against the lower ports.

Oates had told all men in the six-inch casemates to abandon their guns if the beast came up on them like this again.  Most of the gunners were able to make it through the interior hatches before the crushing weight came down on the port beam.  The creature used the boat deck as a platform to reach the upperworks.  Stays snapped like lace.  The wire, unstrung and scything, decapitated two men on the signal bridge.  Water showered off the long neck as the beast's head collided with one of the fighting masts.  The overhead lookouts fell to their deaths.

Swinging in wide arcs, the creature attacked more lights, smashing everything around them in the process.  Metal bent and buckled.  Screams were masked under the flashes, the deep aching of steel as the aft funnel quivered.  Sweeping to its right, it brushed against a machine gun platform and the cage around it collapsed.  The gun stock swung on its conical mount and jammed against the bars as the gunner was knocked sideways.  His hand vanished in a gory burst as it slammed through the handle block.  Flesh was spliced from bone when his forearm slipped through the trip spring and cover hatch, fusing the man to the gun as it spit a long string of .30 caliber slugs down the quarterdeck.  Smelling blood, the creature nipped at the injured gunner.  One of its great teeth hooked on the ammo belt as it took the man by the legs.  The elevating pin broke and the Maxim gun swung up with the man, hammering the decks below, sparks flung up in glowing geysers.

The morsel was obstinate.  The creature flicked its head and the man broke off at the shoulder joint.

Lieutenant Grissom witnessed the ghastly flash-lit scene from the port wing of the bridge.  He saw the tracers leap towards him--and barely ducked in time.

Bullets chewed through the wood wall and hit iron supports.  A midshipman and lookout on the starboard wing were cut down by the ricochets.  Several shots
dong-donged
off the rail and into the pilothouse, shattering the bridge clock and killing the helmsman.

The belt finished its loop.  The gunfire stopped.

But not the creature, which began thudding its head amidships.  The fore and aft anchors acted as confederates, pinioning the ship while the beast administered the beating.  Not a seaman on board could keep his feet.  Belowdecks, the chief engineer counted his luck.  The boilers were damped low.  Had they been at full steam, pipes would have burst and boiler hatches blown open, scalding them all to death.  The catwalks screeched as metal struts worked loose and threatened to crash down on them.

In the forward twelve-inch turret Midshipman Beck and the gun crew held on for dear life.  They, too, were lucky.  There were no powder bags in the chamber to break open and terrify them this time.  The gun was already loaded.  No more powder or shells would be elevated until needed.  Communications with Central Station had been restored, but the only messages they received were frantic and garbled.

2038 Hours

Suddenly, they found themselves upright.

Trembling, Captain Oates tried to push up onto his legs.  He was not in pain, yet his body felt hollow.  Muscles refused to coordinate.  He saw a hand in front of him, was reaching for assistance before realizing the helmsman was dead.  Then another hand appeared.

"She's still afloat, sir, and a miracle it is."

"Very well, Grissom...."  Oates glanced at the dead men in the flickering light.  "The dynamos," he hissed.  "We're losing power."

Holding his hand over a gash in his arm, a lookout pulled himself up by the bridge screen.  "Sir... you gotta see this."

Oates limped over, followed by the remaining members of the bridge crew.  They were privy to a spectacular sight.  Two port searchlights had survived the attack.  In crossbeams they revealed the creature about thirty yards off.  Neck craned far above the water.

"Stationary target!"

The ordnance officer was already speaking into his phone, but it was useless.  They'd lost too much power.  The twelve-inch turrets would not budge.  The forward six-inch battery, though undamaged, could not bear on the target.

Scattered rifle shots.  That was all.

"We might as well be pissing in the wind."

"The searchlights'll go soon."

Slowly, the creature began to sway.  Not dodging... but dancing.  A gentle metronomic rocking.

"Like a snake mesmerizing its prey," Grissom said in a hypnotized tone.

"All right,
doctor
," Oates said irritably.  He went to the voice tubes and hailed the chief engineer.  "Can you give me Ahead Slow if I need it?"

"We're in bad shape down here."

"That's not what I asked."

Grissom glanced over at him.  "Raise anchor, Captain?"

"Do you think we can withstand another attack?"

The lights flickered again, then dimmed to a candleglow.  Grissom looked at his watch.  "Not yet 2100 hours," he said.

XXIX

2056 Hours

Hamilton Hart caught a round of static over his wireless.  After several futile attempts at reestablishing contact with the
Florida
, he determined her radio mast must have gone down in the latest attack.  He rested his headset on the ground and disconnected the battery.

With one last glance at the besieged ship, he packed up his equipment and descended Mt. Pisgah.  Near the compound perimeter he came upon a man retching violently in the shadows.

"You okay?"

A flabby white face lifted out of the dark.  Sweat--or tears--streamed down the man's face.  Hart noted his gray hair, like an old rag dropped over his head.  The man reached into the shadows and retrieved a peculiar straw hat.

"You better get inside the compound.  We've lost contact with the
Florida
.  We'll probably be next.  I'm Hamilton Hart, by the way."

"HH?  The wireless operator?  I'm Dr. Singleton."

"Yes?  I was told by the
Florida's
operator you said the serpents couldn't move by night.  We could have saved you that misconception."

"Obviously..."  They could just make out the creature rocking gently between the reef and the battleship.  "...very active."

Hart was as entranced by the spectacle as were the men on the bridge across the water.  "Why don't they torpedo the bastard?  Just sitting there like that...."

Dr. Singleton was a stranger.  Yet the look he gave the former signalman revealed a man Hart knew all too well: a man burdened by debts against the soul.

"You were speaking of torpedoes?"

"Only a pipe dream.  A torpedo would be too slow."

"Not if it was guided properly."

"Guided by what?"

Singleton pointed at Hart's wireless equipment.  "The French have done it.  Why can't we?"

Hart saw the light.  Both men exploded with excitement as they mapped the possibilities.  Their ebullience startled the marines nearest them.

"We can do it!  But... I'm out
here
!" Singleton moaned.  "We have to get back to the ship!"

2106 Hours

Heinrich Leiber opened his eyes and saw hundreds of stars.  Turning to Ace, he whispered, "I dreamed I was trying to reach home.  Then I realized I didn't know where home was."  He patted the corpse gently on the head, then pushed to his feet.  He had no idea what time it was.  Within minutes of Ace's death exhaustion had overwhelmed him.  He had dropped to the ground and fallen asleep.

Before dying, Ace had insisted Lieber promise to have his remains shipped to Kushiro for burial.

Now the German turned his pockets out and showed them to the dead man.  "I can't send you home.  I have no money."

With every muscle protesting, every bruise blaring with pain, he climbed out of the ruins of the bunker.  He looked back only once at his dead friend.  "I'm sorry I lied."

Light from several campfires lay like a warm blanket over the compound, more like an amicable scene in the park than a desperate defense.  He spotted Ziolkowski and walked over to the sleeping man.  The Top Cut's breathing was ragged, his face pale and splotched like the skin of a sand shark.  Someone Lieber had never seen before walked over to the sergeant and looked down at him a long moment.  Then he walked away.  Watching him go, Lieber realized there were many men around who he'd never seen before.  Discerning them from the first landing party was easy.  Most of the newcomers were black.

Having no desire to attend another dying man, he began to limp away.  He was looking for a gun to arm himself with when a deep sob arrested his search.  He whirled.  Ziolkowski was thrashing on his improvised pallet.

"Top!" Lieber exclaimed, running stiffly to his side.  "Hold down, Top.  You're tearing off the bandages."  Peering closer, it dawned on him Ziolkowski didn't hear.  He was in a death match with a nightmare.  Lieber knew better than to wake him.  As a boy, he and his mother had shaken his father awake one night as the old man screamed and moaned, amorphous enemies at his throat.  He had leaped out of bed, pummeling them both before reaching full consciousness
-
-
at least, young Heinrich had assumed his father was still sleeping when the old man turned his and Frau Lieber's faces into bloody patchworks.

But as he watched Ziolkowski the private knew he could not hold back much longer.  When the injured man began rolling off the pallet, Lieber dropped to his knees and pinned his arms.

Ziolkowski's eyes popped open. The German was nearly thrown off by the powerful arms.

"Top!"

The struggling stopped.  Lieber thought he saw streaks of oil running across the sergeant's face.  He was about to brush them away when a closer glance told him they were tears mixed with dirt.  He drew back, stunned.