Into the Storm (58 page)

Chack returned from the gloom, limping and leaning on Dennis Silva. Both were drenched in blood and Chack was clearly hurting, but Silva looked like some mythical god of war. Marines filtered back into the dim light, dazed.

“Sergeant Alden, get our wounded out of here, then form a detail to release these poor bastards.” He gestured helplessly at the captives.

Most of the captives had begun a shrill, keening sound. In their tortured reality they probably thought their time had come to face the knives and saws. They seemed utterly mad. Matt remained for a while, watching while they were gently released a few at a time and taken on deck to the open air, as far from their prison as possible, by expressionless, furiously blinking Marines. Once there, they were wrapped in sailcloth against the wind and spray that came over the rail. They were fed and watered and carefully tended, but their chains weren’t removed. In their current state they might harm themselves or others if freed.

Silva was helping Chack through the stones (he’d flatly refused to be carried) when the Lemurian suddenly halted before a captive still chained to the hull. The wretched creature recoiled from his stare and made small gurgling sounds. Its skeletal chest heaved with terrified gasps. Matt stepped closer and regarded the creature with pity. He had great respect for the Lemurian people. He’d come to know them as stout warriors and generally cheerful, free-spirited individualists—not unlike his own destroyermen—but the things the captives had seen and endured would have broken anyone.

“Leave him alone, Chackie,” said Silva, uncharacteristically subdued. “Can’t you see he’s fixin’ to vapor-lock?”

Chack shook his head and leaned closer still. “I greet you. Do not fear,” he said in his own language.

“You
know
him?” Matt demanded.

Chack nodded, a strange smile on his face. “I know him.”

“Does he know you?”

Chack spoke rapidly, repeating a few words many times. A slight sheen slowly returned to the captive’s flat, dull eyes and, hesitantly, he spoke. After a moment, Chack turned. “He said these were mostly survivors of Chill-chaap, but there were some from other places. He himself was transferred from another ship—as was a Tail-less One like yourself.”

Matt remembered the skull. “What happened to the Tail-less One?” he demanded. Chack gestured as if it was obvious, and Matt nodded sharply. “You said you know him. Who is he?”

Chack almost seemed to sigh. “His name is Saak-Fas. Daughter-Mate of Keje-Fris-Ar.”

 

Tony Scott and Tamatsu Shinya found Gray resting in the gloom near the ship’s wildly spinning wheel. He was breathing hard and futilely wiping at the salt that stung his eyes. The coxswain had a cut on his shoulder that left a bloody scrap of sleeve flapping in the wind, and his lower lip was split and swollen. He still had no helmet, but he’d tied a rag around his head to keep the hair out of his eyes. The Thompson was lovingly slung over his undamaged shoulder.

“Cambin’s commimenpfs, Cheeb,” Scott said, trying to talk around his busted lip. “How are eberations goin’ ’or da tow?”

Gray groaned as he rose to his feet. “We’re
under
tow, you nitwit. Have been for the last fifteen minutes. I was about to report to the captain myself when you interrupted me!”

Scott nodded. “’Innat cay, cambin wans you ter sounderwell.”

Gray looked at him in the near-darkness. The ship rode much easier now that
Walker
was towing her and she no longer rolled beam-on to the swells.

“What the hell’s a sounderwell?” he demanded.

“Sound-the-well!” Scott painfully repeated. “Vinally got da las o’ dat verbin cleared out o’ da hold an’ da cambin wants to know if she’ll f-f-vloat. I’ll go vif you.”

Gray nodded. “Right. I’ll report to the captain first, though. What’s he doin’, anyway? I figgered he’d of been up here by now.”

“Lookin’ at fings. Charts an’ stuvv . . . an’ udder fings. There’s . . . awful fings down dere.”

Gray turned for the stairs.

“Chief Boatswain’s Mate Gray,” said Shinya. “May I have a brief word?”

Gray’s face darkened, but he jerked a nod.

“I know you don’t like me, but you saved my life today, when the corvus parted. I would like to thank you.”

Gray shrugged. “There was guys behind you. I had to get your Nip ass out of the way.” He turned to follow Scott, but stopped again. “You got any kids?” he asked. Tamatsu was taken aback.

“No.”

“I did. A boy. Close to thirty, now. Took after his old man—’cept he was a snipe. Machinist’s mate. I hadn’t seen him in four years, but I was proud of him. He was my son, you know?”

“What happened to him?”

“They never found his body, so officially he was missing. But he was in
Oklahoma
’s fireroom when she rolled over. At Pearl Harbor. So don’t you dare thank me for saving your worthless ass! It makes me sick! I was just pitching you out of the way.” With that, he stormed down the ladder.

“Yes,” Shinya said to himself, “but it would have been easier to ‘pitch’ me into the sea instead of on the deck.”

 

“Well, we did what we set out to do,” Matt said grimly. “We’ve learned about the enemy.” He, Sandra, Garrett, Shinya, and Alden sat around the Grik captain’s desk poring over the tablets and charts they’d found.
Walker
towed the derelict charnel house in a wide, lazy circle across the Makassar Strait, into the Java Sea. That would keep them off the islands and shoals through the long night and bring them to
Big Sal
and their friends by morning. The sea was moderating, and Gray reported they’d float as long as the rhythmic
clunk-thump
of the chain pumps was maintained.

His report was uncustomarily subdued after he returned from inspecting the hull. It sustained little battle damage, but seams had opened while she wallowed in the heavy seas and water was coming in. That wasn’t what bothered him about his tour of the well, though. All of them would be haunted by the things they’d seen and survived that day, and by what they’d come to know about the nature of their enemy.

“They’re worse than Japs, sir!” said Alden with conviction mixed with quiet horror. The exhausted Marine belatedly glanced at Shinya, who bristled at the slightest comparison. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Hell, they’re worse than
anything
!”

Captain Reddy had in fact been idly searching his memory for any culture in human history to compare with the Grik. So far, his tired mind wouldn’t oblige. He rubbed his eyes and watched Shinya visibly relax. “Anything,” he repeated dully. “I think you’re right.”

It had been a long, bloody day. Eighteen Lemurian Marines were killed and almost that many wounded. Most of his destroyermen were lightly injured as well, although only Norman Kutas suffered a serious wound. That was when Scurrey dropped his cutlass down a companionway and nailed his foot to the deck. Miraculously, it missed the bones, but Kutas was off his feet for a while. Aside from the quartermaster’s mate’s pain, it might even have been funny under other circumstances—but nothing was funny now.

They had one of the Grik charts spread before them on the desk. Matt thought how horrified Adar would be to learn that the Grik had “Scrolls.” They were looking at an overview of the western Indian Ocean, Madagascar, and East Africa up to the equator and south to latitude 30. The eastern boundary of the map was the 80th parallel. The quality of the representations was poor—about on a par with sixteenth-century maps he’d seen in history books, but they, along with the printed information, were more than adequate for rudimentary navigation. The most startling and terrible thing about the charts, however, was that he could read them.

Most of the writing, and anything added by hand, was incomprehensible and resembled a slashing form of Arabic. But many of the place-names and nautical references used recognizable letters forming English words. All the numbers were familiar too. Obviously, the Grik got much more out of their British teachers than the Lemurians did. From what they’d seen that day, Matt imagined the Grik had certainly been more persuasive.

“Madagascar,” Matt said at last. “I bet old Bradford’s right about that being the original home of the ’Cats.” Sandra peered at the island.

“Probably. It’s been well within the Grik empire for a long, long time. In fact, every landmass shown seems to be part of their territory.” Garrett glanced at Matt with a worried frown.

“They’ve got a lot of weight behind them, that’s for sure. Way more than us.”

Matt looked at Alden. “Anything from the tablets yet?”

Pete shook his head. He’d been skimming the roughly twelve-by-twelve-inch booklets while the others studied the charts. They were filled, mostly, with pen-and-ink illustrations. “Captain Grik was a pretty good drawer, or his clerk was. Mostly animals, bugs, places, and such. Must’ve been a naturalist like Bradford, in a perverted, lizard sort of way.” Matt nodded absently and motioned Shinya to bring another chart. He unrolled it carefully and placed his cutlass on one end and a couple of .45s on the other.

At a glance, this one seemed most pertinent, at least in the short term. Even cruder than the others, it was less like a navigational chart than a map of enemy territory. It extended from the mouth of the Ganges River southward to include the Cocos Islands. From there, west to Timor, then back to Formosa. All French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies showed varying detail. The farther east, the vaguer the shapes of landmasses became. The Philippines weren’t shown at all.

Matt leaned over the desk, trying to see better by the light of the swaying lanterns. He was painfully reminded he’d discovered unknown muscles that day.

“Skipper, look at this!” exclaimed Alden. He held a tablet close to his face to see in the dim light. Reversing it, he displayed the page. Sandra cried out and sprang to her feet. Matt managed only a short bark of incredulous laughter. There, on the yellowish paper, was a highly stylized but clearly recognizable drawing of USS
Walker
, down to the “163” on her bow.

“Son of a
bitch
!” Alden breathed. “This must be the one that got away!”

“Maybe,” murmured Matt, “but does that make it the same one in company with the other two we destroyed? Why was it with two more so fast—if it’s the same? I wonder how many others it came in contact with.”

“Quite a few,” said Sandra, leaning back over the chart. Her voice was brittle. “Look. Many of these coastlines have been updated or redrawn periodically, like survey corrections. Also, see this dark splotch here?” She pointed at a spot on the map. “I’m no navigator, but that’s almost the exact place we came to
Salissa
’s assistance.”

Garrett squinted. “Looks like . . . blood, Captain. And look! Next to it there’s a little drawing of us! Just a thick line with four small lines sticking up, but I bet that’s supposed to be
Walker
.”

Shinya nodded. “It does look like blood. Possibly representing a place of battle? If that’s the case, you may note there are many such spots on this map.”

“There’s one at Tjilatjap,” Sandra confirmed. “Mr. Shinya may be right. There’s dozens of ‘spots.’ If they denote battles, and the picture of
Walker
seems to confirm that, this ship couldn’t have engaged in them all, or surveyed all these coastlines alone.”

“That means they communicate among themselves, even from one task force to the next.” Garrett’s brow was creased with concern. “That means . . .”

“Right.” Matt finished for him. “This may not be the one that got away. They might
all
know about
Walker
.”

There was a contemplative, nervous silence as they considered the implications.

“Okay,” said Matt, pointing back at the chart. “Battle here, battle here, battle here—each battle mark is accompanied by this thing that looks like a tree. Maybe that’s their symbol for the ’cats.” His finger traced the coast of Borneo. “Nothing at Baalkpan, so maybe they don’t know about Nakja-Mur’s People yet.”

“There
is
such a symbol at Surabaya,” Shinya pointed out, “although no battle mark.”

“I bet it won’t be long,” Alden growled. “I wonder what these little triangle symbols mean.”

Matt felt a chill, despite the dank, oppressive warmth of the cabin. “I bet those are Grik ships. And the circles around them represent their areas of operation. See? There’re three in the Makassar Strait.”

“Not anymore,” Alden quipped.

“They’re everywhere, then,” Sandra murmured, her voice quiet with despair. “There must be a dozen triangles in the Java Sea alone. And all those other charts we’ve looked at—there’re
scores
of triangles on them!”

“My God,” muttered Garrett.

Alden was idly tracing the procession of battle marks up the coast of Java and Sumatra. Suddenly he stiffened. “Look,” he said, his finger beside a brownish stain near the Banjak Islands. There was another thick line, but with only three smaller lines sticking out. With a rush of realization, Matt remembered a funnel that fell across a davit.

“
Mahan
,” he breathed.

 

The storm dwindled to nothing as the night wore on, and its only remnant in the boulder-strewn approaches to the refloated
Big Sal
was a disorganized chop. Otherwise, the sun rose bright above Celebes and the sky was blue and cloudless. All was back to normal aboard the huge ship, fake debris was cleared away and the stores that littered the beach returned. Water still coursed over the side, and it would for some time, since so much had been required to “sink” the great vessel. That was the part of the plan Matt had been most concerned about, but Keje himself suggested it as bait for the trap. He’d assured his friend that sinking and refloating
Big Sal
wasn’t difficult, or even unusual. They did it all the time.

Once a year it was deliberately done to cleanse the lower decks and “sweeten” the air. A suitable, sandy bottom in sheltered shallows was all they needed, and water was let in until
Big Sal
gently settled to the bottom of the sea. After a few days passed, she was pumped out and all hatches were laid open, allowing the interior to dry. This routine cleared the ship of vermin and insects, and washed away the foul smell of gri-kakka oil that seeped from barrels and grew rancid in the bilge.