Into the Storm (19 page)

Walker
steamed leisurely in a west-northwesterly direction for the remainder of the day, back across the Flores Sea into the Java Sea once more. The sea picked up toward evening, and a gloomy overcast obscured the growing moon. Matt ordered the running lights lit—unthinkable just days before—and stationed men on the two searchlights. They were to sweep the horizon at ten-minute intervals, both to show the lights and to see what they could. The ship began to roll as the swell increased just enough to remind everyone that regardless of war, dinosaurs, sea monsters, or even strange beings on giant ships, ultimately,
Walker
’s greatest adversary was the very element for which she was made.

By 2200 that night, halfway through the first watch, she began to pitch as the sea ran higher. Matt was dead to the world, on the bunk in his small stateroom.
Walker
’s antics didn’t disturb him in the least; he was used to them, and after everything else, the normal, unpleasant motion of the ship was even soothing in a way. When he finally surrendered completely to sleep, in his cabin for the first time in days, he found a depth of untroubled slumber that even the ghosts couldn’t sound. So when they hit the fish and he was nearly thrown to the deck, it almost didn’t wake him.

The small light over his desk was still vibrating when he looked at it, confused. The speaker above his pillow squawked in Lieutenant Garrett’s urgent voice. “Captain! Captain to the bridge, sir. Please.” He coughed and cleared his throat, then pushed the comm button. “On my way.” He slung his legs over the side of the rack and yanked on his trousers and shoes. Pulling on his shirt and plopping his hat on his head, he hurried down the short corridor to the companionway and scrambled up the ladder. In the shelter by the radio shack, he finished buttoning his shirt and mounted the stairway to the pilothouse. The blowers had abated, and the way the ship rolled even more sickeningly told him the engines had stopped.

“Report!” he demanded. Garrett stood on the starboard bridgewing staring down at the water. The wind had picked up and he’d been drenched by spray. He turned. “Sorry to wake you, sir, but we hit a whale, or fish—or something. It looks like the one that ate the Japs. Down here, sir.” He pointed and Matt peered over the rail. The searchlight above them couldn’t depress far enough to directly illuminate the creature, but the diffused light was sufficient for him to see it clearly.

Walker
broached to in the moderate swell when the engines stopped, and the giant “fish” wallowed and bumped against the hull in her lee. Garrett was right. It looked like the one they’d seen previously, although not as large. Every now and then, the waves caused its great head to rise, and the long, slack jaws were frighteningly clear. A large black eye the size of a trash-can lid stared sightlessly up at them. The cause of death was a huge gash behind its head, and the water was tinged black with blood as it washed from the wound. Sandra Tucker, her hair disheveled, appeared beside him, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s horrible,” she said. Excited voices came from the main deck below as destroyermen gathered to gawk. Bradford joined them and his voice rose above the others.

“Amazing! We simply must keep it! You there! Find something to tie onto it!” Matt heard one of his crew shout, “Bugger off, mate!” in a fair copy of the Australian’s accent.

“Damage?” he asked.

“A lot of broken coffee cups,” Garrett answered nervously. “That’s all I know so far. The exec took Bosun’s Mate Bashear to have a look. Lieutenant McFarlane and the Bosun said they’d meet them there.”

The comm on the bulkhead whistled and Matt picked it up himself. “Bridge,” he said. “Captain speaking.”

“McFarlane here, Skipper. There’s a little water coming in on the starboard side around frame number six. Nothing serious . . . just another seam.” Spanky’s voice was thick. He too had finally been asleep.

“Good. Can the current watch handle it?”

There was a pause before Spanky’s voice returned. “Yes, sir. I think so.”

“Then you and Boats hit the rack. That’s an order.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper,” came the tired reply. Matt stepped to the rail with a soft sigh of relief. Sandra was still there. She’d overheard.

“Thank God,” she murmured. “It may sound strange, but every time this ship gets the slightest scratch, I feel it in my own skin.”

Matt grinned. “I know how you feel. When I first assumed command, I honestly didn’t think much of her. But now, after all she’s been through . . .” He shrugged, and gestured at the dead fish. It had floated off a dozen yards or so. “Of course, her thin old skin’s the only thing between us and those things. That tends to focus your appreciation amazingly.” He chuckled, and after a brief hesitation, she joined him. They felt a faint, shuddering vibration under their feet, and another huge fish, probably two-thirds as long as
Walker
, rose beside the ship. It must have scraped her bottom as it passed. Without hesitation, it lunged at its dead cousin and snatched an enormous swath of flesh. Bright bone and white blubber lay exposed and more blood clouded the water. Silvery flashes began to reflect the searchlight’s beam. With a startled cry, Sandra clutched his arm.

“Mr. Garrett! Let’s leave our dinner guest to his meal before he samples the side dish, if you please!”

The blower wound up. A flying packet of spray struck Matt and Sandra and soaked them both. The water had an unusual taste and Matt realized it must be blood. He spat, then looked at Sandra apologetically and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said in a wry tone. “Got a bad taste in my mouth.”

He glanced down at the main deck, where Bradford was watching the huge fish devour the smaller one with rapt fascination. He seemed oblivious to the spray that inundated him and swirled around his feet. Another form stood near him at a respectful distance, and the captain recognized Shinya in the gloom. He was watching as well, but his expression was entirely different. Matt wondered vaguely where Sergeant Alden was, but decided it didn’t matter. Any mischief the Jap could cause was dwarfed by the perils all around them, and judging by his expression, the last thing Shinya wanted was to wind up in the water again.

Matt looked at the woman at his side. Her teeth were beginning to chatter from the wind on her damp clothes. Her long brownish hair hung down in wet tangles, but her eyes were wide and bright. He couldn’t decide if it was fear he saw or fascination akin to Bradford’s. He felt a chill himself and shuddered involuntarily. “Why don’t we go down to the wardroom and dry off?” he suggested.

Gunner’s Mate Dennis Silva sat on one of the “seats of ease” in the aft crew’s head smoking a cigarette. He still didn’t like the damn things, but he had only so much chewing tobacco and a man had to have his nicotine. The seats were little more than boards across a trough through which sea water flowed. The compartment stank of waste and sweat, and with the sea getting up, dark, nasty water sloshed back and forth on deck. Every time the brackish wave threatened him, Dennis raised his feet until it passed.

The aft crew’s head was generally considered snipe country, and that was the main reason he went there to relieve himself. Just to aggravate the snipes. No one made a real issue of it because, for one thing, it didn’t
exactly
belong to the engineering division and, for another, Silva was a big, powerful man who in spite of an easygoing nature had a dangerous reputation. Proprietary claims to the heads were even more ridiculous, at least to the outside observer, because only a single bulkhead separated them and both were located in the aft deckhouse, behind the laundry and torpedo workshop. That didn’t make trespass less serious in the eyes of the crew, however. So naturally, Dennis Silva sat and smoked while men came and went and attended to their business on the other seats nearby. No one spoke to him, but they gave him many dark looks indeed.

Stites, Felts, and a torpedoman named Brian Aubrey found him there. They clustered around the hatchway as if reluctant to cross the threshold and braced themselves against the motion of the ship. “There you are!” exclaimed Stites. “You missed it. We ran smack into one of them big dinosaur fish, like ate the Japs, and killed it deader’n hell!”

“Good,” muttered Silva. “It’s time we killed somethin’.”

“Yeah,” added Tom, “and then a even bigger one took to eating the first one just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “It was something to see, and here you was all the time, in the snipes’ crapper!”

Silva glanced disdainfully at the two snipes sharing the compartment. “This ain’t the snipes’ crapper,” he said very slowly and distinctly. “It’s Dennis Silva’s crapper when Dennis Silva’s takin’ a crap!”

One of the “snipes” was Machinist’s Mate Dean Laney, two seats down from Silva. He was nearly as tall as the big gunner’s mate, and just as powerfully built. “You better watch your mouth,” he growled. “You damn deck-apes don’t belong here.”

Silva sucked his cigarette and looked at him. “What are you gonna do, go whinin’ to Spanky or Chief Donaghey and tell ’em I’m using your crapper?” He raised his voice to a high-pitched falsetto. “Lieutenant Spanky! Dennis Silva’s in our crapper! And—he’s takin’ a crap! Do somethin’! Make him stop!”

Laney lunged to his feet with a curse and Dennis rose to meet him, both with their trousers around their ankles. Just then, the ship heaved unexpectedly and the combatants lost their balance and fell to the deck in a tangled, punching heap. They slid against the bulkhead in the disgusting ooze and just as quickly as the fight had begun, it ended as the men considered their battlefield. Dennis began to laugh. Laney didn’t. He put his right hand on the seat nearest him and started to rise, but realized the seat was the red one—reserved for men with venereal disease. He snatched his hand away and splashed to the deck with a cry just as the ship pitched upward and the tide of muck flowed around him. Dennis laughed even harder and rose to his feet, pulling up his ruined trousers. He reached down to give Laney a hand, but suddenly stepped back.

“The hell with you, Laney! You want me catch it too?” He wiped his hands on his soiled trousers and, on second thought, rinsed them in the long sink across the compartment. He posed for a moment in front of the mirror, powerful muscles bulging across his chest and biceps. Then he relaxed and looked at his clothes. “Damn. Snipe shit all over me. I’ll have to burn these duds and who knows when I’ll get more?” He looked back at Laney, who was at least as filthy as he. The other snipe was still seated and had ignored the whole thing. “C’mon, Laney. Why don’t you have a cup of coffee with some real live destroyermen? Someday you’ll tell your grandkids.”

“Go to hell,” Laney said, but he rinsed himself as best he could and followed through the laundry where they replaced their T-shirts. They exited on the deck behind the number three torpedo mount. The sea was heavier now, and the deck twisted beneath their feet like a live thing as they lurched forward, leaning into the spray. Above their heads, on the searchlight tower, the beam swept slowly back and forth, a beacon for their absent sister. Finally, they reached the protection of the gun platform that served as a roof for the galley. There were several men standing in line with cups and the galley hatch was up. They were waiting while the cook and his mess attendant filled the big coffee urn with a new batch. They grabbed cups and took their place in line.

“Hey, Earl,” Dennis said to the cook, shouting over the churning sea, “you got anything besides peanut butter sammiches and scum weenies?”

Earl Lanier shook his head mournfully. “Sorry, fellas. Can’t cook with the sea kickin’ up. Hard enough just to make coffee. Got some cold beans, though.”

“Scum weenies in ’em?”

“Yep.”

Silva grimaced. “No thanks. Say, you got any of them apples left?” Again Earl shook his head.

“Juan says the rest of them apples are for the officers,” said Ray Mertz, the mess attendant.

“Well, who’s in charge here, Earl? You or Juan?” demanded Dennis as it came his turn and he filled his cup.

“I am, damn you. But Juan got them apples hisself for the officers’ mess. You’re just lucky he shared some out.”

“Officers,” grunted Stites, as if the word was a self-explanatory curse. Silva nodded, as he was expected to, but without much conviction. He normally didn’t have much use for officers either, but he figured they could’ve done worse under the circumstances. Their officers sure had their work cut out for them. All their lives were in the officers’ hands and he didn’t envy them the responsibility.

“Still got some pickles left,” offered Mertz. Dennis started to refuse, but then reconsidered. If things were as bad as he suspected, there was no telling when he’d taste a pickle again. Much less an apple. There might come a day when he’d dream about that last pickle he’d turned down.

“Sure, Ray. Gimme one.”

Felts jabbed Laney with his elbow and motioned around the corner of the galley at a figure by the starboard rail, staring at the heaving sea. “Hey, snipe, lookie there,” he said in a grim tone. “That’s that Nip officer! What the hell’s he doin’ on the loose?” Laney’s eyes widened.