Blood In the Water (48 page)

“The Seven ship?” Ben demanded. Diebel looked down and ran fingers through his sweaty hair, then shook his head. “He didn't make it.” His voice sounded . . . odd. Ben had heard the stoic Dutchman angry before, but never really sad. Maybe that's what this was. “How?” Ben asked, sick at heart, as he rose from the cockpit and stepped out, beginning to unfasten his parachute and watching the next plane land.

“He felt something hit his ship,” Diebel reminded. “The antiair mortars. He must have caught one or more balls in his radiator.” He looked at Ben. “His engine overheated and he attempted a water landing near the SPD
Tarakaan Island
. It went . . . poorly. Perhaps he was knocked unconscious on his gun sight, I don't know, but he didn't get out before the plane sank.” He grimaced. “Which may be for the best, since the closest rescue boat was still some distance away at that time.”

The Three ship came in, even as Two—Soupy's—veered off the strip and headed toward them, gusting a gray cloud away beneath its wings.

“That's just . . . swell,” Ben ground out bitterly as they both hopped to the ground. Then he sighed. “How's your ship?”

“Fixable, I think. I would have no doubt, but we have no idea what we will have for spare parts or mechanics after today. The holes in the skin can be patched. There are patches already,” he added wryly. “But patching the fuel tank is another matter I do not know enough about.”

“We'll figure something out. Our ground crews should've gotten off
Baalkpan Bay
. I hope they did. . . .” His voice trailed off. Shirley's plane was touching down a little fast, it seemed. It wouldn't be a problem on a better strip, but she was coming up on the rough patch awfully quick. Her tail came down as she started to slow, then bounced as the Warhawk started pitching up and down in the wavy area. Suddenly, even as it looked like the plane was finally rolling to a standstill, the tail bounced high off the ground—and just kept going. With a clattering crash, like a broomstick thrust in a ceiling fan, the P-40 stood on its nose and slammed to a stop. Ben and Conrad were already running, angling around the other two ships taxiing toward the trees.

Shirley was climbing out of the plane when they reached it, quickly joined by a dozen Lemurian aviators who'd chased after them. “I so sorry, Col-nol Maal-lory!” she cried desperately, blood coursing down her face from a cut on her forehead. The N-3 gun sight had struck again. “I tried to brake easy, but when the tail come up, I slided forward on the brakes. I couldn't keep
off
'em!” It made sense. The double-chute arrangement required to let the talented pilot fly the big planes had a tendency to settle, loosening her straps. Usually, she would've tightened them periodically during the flight, but after the day they'd had . . .

“You're okay?” Ben challenged.

“Yes,” she assured him, dashing blood from her eyes. Ben stared skeptically at her, then gazed grimly at the damaged plane. The prop was ruined, and the chin and spinner were crushed. Hot, sweet-smelling Prestone was pooling under the ticking engine. The highly specialized coolant alone would be a grievous loss after today. They'd had a decent reserve, in drums, but how many of those had been lost? All of them? How would they make more? He doubted the stuff they were using in the liquid-cooled Nancys would cut it. He sighed and stepped forward, gently helping his friend down. “I soo sorry I broked the plane!” Shirley almost wailed then, tears mixing with the blood to stain the light-colored fur around her eyes.

“Not your fault,” he told her softly, holding her close. “We should've
come up with a better seating arrangement for our hottest pilot a long time ago.” He looked around at the gathering faces. They didn't have a corps-'Cat to turn her over to, and Conrad ripped the sleeve off his flight suit to hold against her head. They didn't have anybody to turn their damaged planes over to either, Ben suddenly remembered.
Hell, we don't even have a can of gas!
That was when it returned to him that he wasn't just in charge of the 3rd (Army) Pursuit Squadron, but the whole damn Air Corps, Army,
and
Navy. It was time for him to start acting like it again.

“Who are the engineers here? Who's in charge?” he snapped, though it was easy to tell. The combat engineers wore the same helmets and tie-dyed combat frocks as the rest of the Austraal Marines garrisoning the island. Some of them raised their hands, blinking, and one with a single white bar painted on his helmet stepped forward. “You've got to have some water and chow around here, Lieutenant,” Ben said. “Let's get these pilots fed and fixed up.” He glanced at the sky. Dark clouds were beginning to gather for the afternoon squalls. “And under some kind of shelter. We'll improve that as we can. But starting tomorrow, we're
all
going to get to work on this damn airfield and make it fully operational as fast as possible. Grik City doesn't need us, and it's under constant air attack anyway. We're staying here.” He stopped, considering. “All of what's left of Task Force Alden will likely be dribbling in over the next few days, as a matter of fact. You've got a wireless set? Current codes? Good. We'll stay off the voice radio from now on, or at least until we
are
operational, but I need you to contact
Tarakaan Island
and tell her we need everything they can give us: fuel, chow, bullets, more planes and pilots if Captain Reddy will okay it—the works. And we need whatever spares for these things”—he waved at the upended P-40—“that might be squirreled away aboard. The same for the other planes already here, at least.” He frowned. “And find out the status of our ground crews. If they made it off
Baalkpan Bay
, whoever picked 'em up needs to get 'em here.”

The Lemurian lieutenant blinked at him in surprise, his tail swishing back and forth. He glanced at the P-1C pilots. “We heard
Baalkpan Bay
was damaged, but—”

“She sank,” Ben said brutally. “We saw her go down.” He turned to the others. Virtually all the engineers and pilots had gathered by then. “And she wasn't the only one. Frankly, we got our asses kicked. And in addition to everything else, we now have Jap-Grik airplanes, aircraft
carriers, and God knows what else out there. And no idea where they came from except—probably—northwest.” He took a huge breath and let it out. “That's just a guess, but their base has to be somewhere between due west of here and west of India. Beyond that, I haven't got a clue. I do know this island, and the airstrip we're going to finish is a helluva lot more important now because it stands right between wherever they came from and Grik City. Right now we have”—he glanced at the line of P-1s—“eleven Fleashooters and five—
four
—modern planes left to fight with, but only if we get supplied. As things stand, out of fuel and ammunition, we couldn't chase off a duck!” He looked back at the lieutenant. “But we
will
get supplied, and we'll get more planes and people too. We'll finish this airstrip, and other ones on the islands west of here, and build facilities to handle Nancys.” He pointed at the trees. “I want revetments with overhead protection and camouflage for fifty planes, to start, and concealed shelter for three hundred people.”

The lieutenant stared around, eyes wide. “Y-yes, sur, but . . . how you know Maa-he an' those other islands gonna be so impor-taant? Get all that stuff?”

Ben smiled grimly. “Think about it. Right now we've got Grik City,
Salissa
, and
Arracca
to operate aircraft from. Zeppelins can't catch the carriers, but Jap-Grik airplanes can. We lose air superiority again, like we did today, and we'll lose the war,” he said simply. “Mahe'll be our biggest effort, eventually the hub to supply the other islands closer to Grik City, the Africa coast, and probably wherever the Jap-Griks—and Kurokawa—are.” His expression turned savage. “These islands are going to replace
Baalkpan Bay
with a
fleet
of airfields they can't sink.”

“Do you think Captain Reddy will approve?” Conrad Diebel asked, his brows furrowed.

“That's exactly what he wanted to do, eventually.
Tarakaan Island
was going to be
stationed
here, remember? And after today?” Ben paused. “I expect Captain Reddy'll do his best to get us every single thing we ask for, as fast as he can.”

CHAPTER
31

West-Central Mada-gaas-gar
Dawn, October 12, 1944

“Huh,” Silva grunted speculatively, gazing around the interior of the zeppelin gondola. In a somewhat bizarre contrast to the Grik sailing ships Silva had been on, the airship seemed very crudely made. More like the giant Japanese-designed ironclads, he reflected. Of course, the airship had been designed by Japanese as well. It was empty too, as they'd suspected. If anyone had been on watch they probably fled when the first zep burned. At a glance there wasn't very much by way of controls; a tall tiller protruded from a pivot on one of the frames supporting the double-thick wicker deck beneath his feet. Cables were attached down low, protected by light wooden boxes leading to blocks at the ends of the frames. From there, exposed cables ascended vertically or diagonally to pulleys in the top of the gondola and disappeared through the overhead. With little
cries of alarm from the Lemurians, the gondola suddenly lurched, rising at an angle, until it lurched again and the stern of the airship began to rise. They were loose. “We are flying in the belly of the fish!” one 'Cat exulted, and the rest scrambled to look down. There was no glass in the windows, and Silva looked out over the rail as well, momentarily distracted by the view below.

Everything seemed washed in red: the sunlit smoke, the burning camps, even the river and the coal smoke rushing skyward from the tugs. Grik were down below, still in their hundreds, some beginning to look up now. “Back!” Silva ordered belatedly. “Quit gawkin'! We're still in musket range. If they don't see us, they'll just think we're lizards goin' to chase the tugs—I hope.”

“But . . . we go up, but how do we convince it to move?” the youngling asked.

“That's what we gotta figure out right off, Squirt. Say, what's your name anyway?” Silva countered, going to the back of the gondola. The engine mounted there seemed straightforward enough. There was a fuel valve, a hand crank, and a large knife switch on the wicker bulkhead. Small levers were probably the choke and throttle controls. Simple.

“Niri-Aani,” the youngling replied.

“Well . . . Neery Annie, these controls . . .” He saw now there were four more sets arranged around the gondola, approximating the positions of the other engines mounted to the rigid envelope above. Near each station and alongside the tall tiller were speaking tubes that went . . . somewhere. “The controls tell it what to do,” he continued. “You throw this switch, turn this valve, push these levers forward—and crank this handle.” He spun the crank, and the little opposed cylinder engine behind the gondola
blap
ped to life with a noisy but satisfying ease. He adjusted the choke. “Now, you stand right here an' push this lever up if I tell you to go faster, down if I say to . . . slow down.” He blinked. “Now that makes a scary buncha sense.”

“What about these?” a 'Cat asked, indicating the four other control stations.

“Hell, I don't know. Don't see a way to crank the motors.” He gestured at a light wooden ladder near the center of the gondola. “Maybe they got somethin' rigged up in the envelope, closer to the engine mounts. Why don't you . . .” He stopped. “
I'll
run up in a bit an' have a
look. For now, let's just hope one engine'll get us clear an' we can worry about the rest later.” The zeppelin had begun creeping forward as it rose, passing about two hundred feet, but it was headed toward the dense column of smoke. “Better keep us out o' that,” Silva said and returned to the tiller, shifting it experimentally. “We wanna turn to port. Let's see if this thing's as idiotproof as it seems.” He leaned the tiller to the left.

The airship had tailfins, like the US Navy's
Macon
that Silva once saw before he joined up, but there was also a smaller rudder right behind the engine mounted on the back of the forward gondola. That made a lot of sense to him. It directed the thrust of the engine and turned the nose of the ship faster than tailfins alone. Ahead, and about 250 feet below them now, were the two tugs straining to pull their overloaded barges, one after the other. The river helped them gain speed, no doubt, while the wind was against the zep. Their friends were drawing away. For the first time he noticed that Petey had crawled up out of his T-shirt to stand high on his shoulder, peering out at the ground in apparent amazement. “Go ahead,” Silva challenged. “Be the damnedest glide you ever had. But good luck survivin' down there, 'cause we ain't stoppin' to pick you up! No? Oh well. Don't say I didn't offer.” He raised his voice so the others could hear. “Gotta have more speed.” He snatched a 'Cat. “Hold this,” he told him, placing him at the tiller. “Don't pull back or push forward, just ease it side to side to keep us pointed at our people. Savvy?”

The 'Cat jerked a nervous, wide-eyed nod, and Dennis raced up the ladder. Inside the envelope, he finally got a good look at the airship's construction. He'd poked around the debris of crashed specimens before, but had never had a chance to look at one like this. Very little light filtered through the painted fabric of the skin, but he could see a little. The framework was a kind of bamboo, related to the type so abundant on Borno that the allies framed their aircraft with. The construction techniques weren't as sophisticated, and he didn't see any of the laminations that made Allied aircraft so stout, but there were quite a few stringers, and the diagonal bracing impressed him. The hydrogen bladders themselves were a patchwork of finely split skins that might've been stomachs, or even real bladders from some big land lizard for all he knew, but he'd studied their charred remains before. The skins—whatever they were—had been impregnated with some kind of rubberlike substance that sealed them amazingly well, even at the seams. One
thing about Grik zeppelins: they didn't leak much gas unless you shot a bunch of holes in them. Again, he was struck by the combination of the slapdash and ingenious that characterized most Grik construction.

Carefully, he squirmed down the narrow catwalk toward where he hoped to gain access to one of the port-side motors. Sure enough, a transverse catwalk appeared ahead between the bladder he crouched beneath and the next. He turned left. Beyond an opening, supported by more light but sturdy struts outside the ship, was a motor. It was significantly brighter outside now, but the opening was so small he couldn't see much but the little engine. At least the daylight leaking inside provided better visibility, and he immediately noticed several things. First to catch his eye was a large, soldered-copper fuel tank big enough to hold maybe five hundred gallons. Some of the seams weeped a little, and the smell of a mixed fuel, mostly ethanol, he suspected, was strong. “Yikes,” he muttered. “No wonder the damn things're so easy to burn down. It ain't just the hydrogen.” Interestingly, a wooden lanyard handle dangled from a pulley overhead next to a speaking tube, and he followed the rope with his eyes. “I'll be damned. Motor's got a rope starter like a boat outboard, with a return spring like a Johnson Seahorse.” He shouted into the speaking tube, “Hey! You guys hear me?”

After a moment's hesitation, a voice nervously replied. “Is that you . . . fish?”

Silva rolled his eye. “It's
me
, dammit. Just talkin' through a pipe. Look, flip all the switches an' turn all the valves, like I showed ya, an' hang on to that tiller. We're about to get up an' go.”

After another moment, a tinny voice reported, “It is done.”

“Okay. One o' you guys get up here pronto, an' see how I do this.”

“Ah . . . where are you?”

“Straight up the ladder, forward—I mean, to the front.” More quickly than he expected, based on the uneasy voice he'd heard, a tensely blinking 'Cat joined him, and Silva described what he was doing while he started the forward port-side motor, then the one to starboard. Each took a number of pulls on the lanyard before roaring to life. “Runnin' like crap,” he muttered. “I gotta go below and adjust the chokes an' throttles. There's two more aft. Start 'em just like I did these.” He grinned. “You're chief engineer now, o' the very first zep in the 'Cat air corps! Stick close to the voice tubes an' holler if you need a hand.”

“Chief Si-vaa!” came a cry through one of the tubes he'd just indicated.

“Silva here. What's up?”

“You come please? Quick?”

Silva slid down the ladder and dropped heavily on the wicker deck, then thumped Petey on the head and grumbled, “Shut up, you. An' now I'm a goddamn flyin' 'Cat wrangler too.” At a glance, he saw they were considerably higher now, and moving faster. The wrecked Grik depot was safely behind them and the tugs steamed in column not far ahead, about six hundred feet below. He began to worry Chack might shoot at them, thinking they were Grik. He still had a Vickers. “Whatcha got?” he demanded while quickly adjusting the choke levers for the engines. They started running smoother but still rattled more than he thought was right.
Probably normal for them,
he thought. They
were
Grik motors, after all: crudely made almost by definition.
But they do run, and they must've made thousands of the damn things by now
,
considerin' how many we've shot down!

Niri-Aani was practically hopping, pointing impatiently to the west. “Look! Look!” she said.

“Well, dammit,” Silva said matter-of-factly. They'd beaten the day's run of reinforcements, but only barely. The rising sun had revealed another tug, barge, and zeppelin combo clawing their way upriver about three miles away. The zeppelin hovered just a couple hundred feet above the barge and was probably attached. They'd seen that before. But even as they watched, the zeppelin pitched upward and started to climb. Silva peered behind them and saw the tall column of smoke from the Grik depot slanting downwind. “The jig's up. They can't know we're not lizards, but they know somethin's up an' they'll come on careful.” He had a sudden thought. Moving back to the speaking tubes, he called into each until he got an answer from the 'Cat he'd left above. “See if you can get down in the aft gondola and tell me what you find.” A few moments later, the 'Cat's breathless voice came through yet another speaking tube. “There are six stacks of . . . smaller fishes, about a tail long. What are they?”

“Bombs,” Dennis said. “Damn,” he added in frustration. “If this one's loaded, I bet that one is too—and that's bad news for our friends below.” He gauged the distance to the approaching enemy. “Steady as
you go,” he told the 'Cat at the tiller. “I mean . . . keep doin' what yer doin'. Maybe ease the stick forward just a bit, not too much. I need to get back there and see what's what. Two more o' you dopes, time to quit goofin' off an' gawkin' around. I know, yer flyin', an' it's a helluva thing, but we still got work to do! Come with me.”

Dennis scrambled back up the ladder closely followed by two Shee-Ree. He still didn't know their names either but intended to get to know all his companions better if they made it through this. They hadn't had a clue what was going on from the start, throughout the fighting and now this, but despite his griping, they'd done well. He figured they were naturals for Chack's Raider Brigade. Reentering the envelope, he bounded aft under the bladder until he saw the expected ladder leading down to the aft gondola. Sliding down the rungs again, he found this one dimensionally identical to the first but much more cramped—with lethal devices. That only made sense, he supposed. The aft gondola was closer to the airship's center of gravity, the natural place to load the heaviest objects. Arrayed along either side was a pair of light swivels, breech-loading “jug” guns of a type they'd begun to see and with a roughly two-inch bore. He wasn't much interested in them. He needed to be forward, and there just wasn't time to teach these 'Cats how to use them, particularly when he still smarted from the accident that had killed a 'Cat on a much bigger but simpler weapon. There was also the fact that, with hydrogen overhead and a load of bombs in the center of the space, any accident would likely be fatal to them all. He regarded the bombs, betting they weighed about a hundred pounds apiece. They stood in six racks, three deep, pointed down. Directly below them, the deck was clearly intended to open like a trapdoor.
The bombs
do
look like fish,
he thought. Obviously cast iron, they weren't perfectly cylindrical. More like the zep itself, they were elliptical, with tapered ends. He didn't know what purpose that might serve other than to make them vane and fall erratically. But maybe that was the point? To make them spread out and impact a larger area? He didn't know, and it didn't matter just then. Each had fins on one end and a contact fuse on the other, “safed” by a pin that could be pulled out from the side with a little wire. He looked around and thankfully saw that everything else was fairly self-explanatory—to someone who knew what to look for. One lever obviously opened the trapdoor, and another on each rack would drop all three bombs in the
stack. He quickly explained this to the two 'Cats that followed him, telling them to stand ready to “pull the pins, open the door, and shift the levers” in that order (he made them memorize the sequence and keep chanting it after he left), and listen for his command on the voice tube. With that, he took the “engineer” back forward but left him near the tube beside the first outboard engine they started. Then, breathing hard, he dropped back down into the control gondola.