Into the Storm (9 page)

“I’ll just run down and get some things and as soon as the boat re turns, I’ll go.” He stood awkwardly for a moment, then thrust out his hand. “Take care, sir . . . Matt.”

Matt shook his hand and squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “You too. Report as soon as you have a handle on what shape she’s in. Holler if you need help.”

Jim grinned. “Same here.” He looked around. “Even money who hollers first.” They both chuckled, and then Lieutenant Ellis stepped back a pace and saluted. Matt returned it and after Jim left the bridge he sighed and sat tiredly in his chair. “Pass the word for Mr. Dowden.”

 

The whaleboat returned and the coxswain, Tony Scott, was unhappy to learn he had another trip to make. He was strangely uneasy. The water didn’t seem quite right. He was wrung out, like everybody, and the weird experience of the squall had left him unnerved. But what had him on edge right now was how many things kept bumping into the boat. He was accustomed to the occasional thump of a fish, or a shark, but they were out in the middle of the ocean and things wouldn’t stop bumping his boat. It was constant. Nothing big had struck it, and occasionally he glimpsed a silvery swirl alongside, so he knew they were just fish. But why the hell were they bugging his boat? It was like the bright white bottom paint was attracting them. He shuddered with a premonition that it might draw other, larger things as well. Jim Ellis tossed down his seabag and swung over the side, descending by way of the metal rungs welded to the hull. As soon as Ellis was aboard, Scott advanced the throttle and steered for the other destroyer, hoping to make his second run as fast as he decently could.

 

“Skipper,” reported Sandison, “lookout sees something ‘screwy’ in the water, dead ahead, about two miles. Wait a minute! He thinks it’s a submarine!”

“What’s the status of the whaleboat?”

“Alongside,” supplied Riggs. ”They’re hoisting it aboard now.”

“Very well. Signal Palmer on
Mahan
we’re investigating a possible submarine. Sonar’s still out?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Dowden, puffing up the ladder. “Jim, I mean, Mr. Ellis, had us working on it, but . . . We still might get it working if—”

“Just put it in your report.” More worn-out equipment.

“Sir, Mr. Garrett sees it too, and damned if it don’t look like a sub to him,” said Kutas. “He says there’s debris and people in the water around it. Might be a sub taking on survivors from that Nip can we sank.”

“The whaleboat?”

“Secure, sir,” said Riggs, standing on the port bridgewing, watching the work.

“Sound general quarters! All ahead full. Maybe we’ll catch ’em on the surface.”

 

Spanky was inspecting the damage in the forward fireroom. Eight bodies had been removed, and he shuddered at the memory of the scalded men. Men he knew. Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Dean Laney and Dave Elden, shipfitter, trailed behind him with clipboards. Dwindling daylight seeped through the two holes made by the ten-inch shell, one on either side of the compartment. The boilers had escaped destruction, but steam lines and conduit were shredded.

“It’s a miracle it didn’t hit a boiler,” observed Laney. McFarlane grunted. “Yeah, but a wrecked boiler’d be the least of our concerns. It probably would’ve exploded if it had, and blown the bottom right out of the ship.” The other men nodded solemnly.

“Not much we can do right now, Spanky,” said Elden. “She needs yard time bad.”

“I know. Let’s see if we can get at least one back on line as a spare, though. I don’t like steaming on two boilers. ’Specially if one’s number four. I don’t trust it. Anyway, if either of the boilers in the aft fireroom craps out, we’ll be down to one, and we’ll be a sittin’ duck for the Japs.”

The general alarm shattered the relative quiet of the ravaged compartment.

“Jesus H. Christ!” groaned Laney when the grating beneath his feet tilted and the ship surged ahead. “Not again!”

“Didn’t they tell you?” McFarlane growled, as he hurried for the air lock. “There’s a war on.”

 

“Surface action, bow!” shouted Garrett over the comm. “Estimate range two two double oh. Target is stationary. Match pointers!” Most of the soot had washed away, but the back of his neck still hurt where the steam scalded him when the fireroom was hit. Fire control was still a mess, but it was back on line. He watched a dark shape, barely on the surface, like a flooded-down submarine, ease slowly through a group of men in the water. He didn’t feel good about firing on helpless men, even if they were the enemy, but he was about to give the order when a strange thought occurred. He leaned over the speaking tube without taking the binoculars from his eyes. “Skipper, something’s not right.”

Matt snatched the headset from his talker and spoke into it. “What do you mean?”

“Sir, something
is
screwy. The sub’s moving a little, but there’s no conning tower. And the men in the water seem to be trying to get away from it. I see splashing. There’re not many men, sir, just a few, but they look . . . upset.” For several moments, as they drew closer to the object, no one said anything. “Skipper . . . ? Do you think it’s one of our boats? Maybe that’s why the Japs don’t want to get aboard. I’ve heard they won’t surrender.”

“I don’t think so, Greg. I’m looking at it too. It doesn’t look like any sub I ever saw. We have quite a few boats out here, but none look like that.”

Reynolds was in the crow’s nest and his voice suddenly crackled on the line. “Holy
shit
. . . Sir! That’s not a sub. It’s a great big stinkin’
fish
!”

Garret blinked. He’d seen a submarine because he expected to see a submarine. As soon as Reynolds spoke, he realized the young seaman was right. “Jesus Christ! Skipper, it
is
a fish, or whale or something and it’s . . . I think it’s
eating
those Japs!”

“Commence firing!”

“Aye, aye, sir! Gun number one, range is now, ah, one four five oh! Match pointers! Commence firing!” He was so distracted by . . . whatever was swimming lazily about, snatching the struggling sailors, he didn’t press the salvo buzzer. The gun on the foredeck boomed, and a split second later, a geyser erupted a little beyond the target.

“Gun one, correction! Down sixty, three rounds, resume firing!” Three shells slammed out as fast as the breech was opened and another round loaded. A tight group of waterspouts erupted on and around the creature; a tinge of red intermingled with the spray. The thing heaved itself from the water and in the gathering gloom Garrett got an impression of a long, pointed flipper, like a right whale. But he also saw an elongated, tooth-studded snout like a crocodile’s, snapping viciously at the spume as the beast slapped back into the sea. Two more large flippers churned the surface and propelled the monster beneath the waves.

“God a’mighty.”

As they drew near the few remaining men, clinging desperately to floating debris, the surface of the sea churned again with hundreds of silvery shapes schooling around the survivors. Garrett watched in horror as the fish struck. They looked like tuna, but acted like piranha. They were close enough now he could hear the screams.

“All back two-thirds! Right ten degrees rudder!” Matt yelled. He leaned through the shattered window and shouted at the foredeck below. “Boats! Get those men out of the water!” He looked at Tolson and spoke in a more normal tone. “Rudder amidships. All stop. Keep them in our lee.” He looked down from the port bridgewing. The sea churned with a horrifying frenzy that brought to mind an old reel he’d once seen of a cow carcass thrown into the Amazon. He’d been fascinated as he watched the voracious fish reduce the carcass to a mere skeleton within moments. Now he fought to control his stomach as hundreds of much larger fish attacked the struggling Japanese in much the same fashion. What were they? He was no expert on marine life by any means, but he’d never seen such a thing. By the expressions on the faces of his men, neither had anyone else. Only Chief Gray seemed immune to the shock. He went about his assigned task with a single-mindedness that Matt could only envy, as though huge sea monsters and man-eating fish lurked in the water every day. Which they did, he supposed, but not like this.

In spite of Gray’s efficiency, before he could assemble a party to throw lines to the survivors, there was no one left to save. A froth of flashing fins and teeth marked the spot where the final swimmer had disappeared. The rest of the swarm began to disperse or snatch tiny morsels drifting here and there. Alone upon the gently rolling sea, an overturned lifeboat bobbed with two forms precariously balanced. One seemed unconscious, and the other hovered over the first with a split and badly gnawed oar in his hands. He now regarded the destroyermen with inscrutable Asian eyes. His stoic face hadn’t changed expression since he had battled the carnivorous fish and the submarine-sized cross between a whale and a crocodile.
We’re just different enemies,
Matt thought. He turned and saw another face peering anxiously from the ladder, aft. This one belonged to the Australian engineer whom he’d only briefly met.

“May I, ah . . . come up there, sir, for a word?” Matt nodded, and the tall, portly man puffed to the top of the ladder. His sparse, graying hair was plastered to his skull with sweat, and he ran his left hand over it as if feeling for the hat he held in his right. Noticing that everyone on the bridge wore a hat or helmet, he plunked his back on his head. He glanced at the foredeck, where men were throwing lines to the enemy seaman on the boat and trying to convince him to take one.

“Oh, dear. Unimaginable. After what that Jappo’s been through, he still won’t surrender. I don’t suppose you have anyone who can speak to him? No, of course not.” Matt looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. He’d noticed before the man’s strange habit of answering his own questions.

“Actually, Mr. Bradford, we may surprise you. Quite a few old China hands aboard this ship. Some may have learned a few words.”

“Indeed?”

In the end, their translator was not a “China hand” but Lieutenant Mallory, the Army pilot with Captain Kaufman. He spoke a few terse phrases in what could have been Martian for all Matt knew, but the stubborn Japanese sailor finally let his oar slip into the sea and caught the rope. Matt looked up at Garrett. “Get some weapons to those men before they hoist those Japs aboard.” He raised his voice to be heard by the men on the deck below. “Where’d you learn Japanese, Mr. Mallory?”

The young officer shouted a reply. “I grew up in Southern California, sir. My folks ran an orange plantation. Lots of Japs in the citrus groves.”

“Why wouldn’t he take the rope?”

“He said his family, his ancestors, would be ashamed if he surrendered.”

“That’s nuts! Didn’t he see what happened to the others?” Matt shook his head. “How’d you talk him into it?”

Mallory hesitated. “I didn’t, sir. But he agreed to let us ‘rescue’ his officer since he’s unconscious and can’t decide for himself. I told him we’d let him kill himself later if he wants.”

“Jesus,” someone muttered. Chief Gunner’s Mate Sonny Campeti arrived on deck with several Springfields. He quickly passed out all but one, which he kept for himself. The others stood back, their rifles ready, while three men pulled on the rope. The burly Japanese sailor held the other end, bracing himself upon the keel as best he could. Occasionally a jostling wave caused him to glance anxiously at the unmoving man beside him. The supine form’s uniform was dark blue. The boat bumped against the hull, and another rope was lowered. Quickly and professionally, the man tied it around his officer’s chest under his arms and then stood back, balanced precariously, as the destroyermen hauled the unconscious man to the deck. Without another glance at the men above, he sat down on the boat and put his hands on his head, lacing his thick, powerful fingers together in his hair.

Chief Gray looked up at Matt with an expression that said, “Now what?” and the captain raised his speaking trumpet. “Is he alive?” Gray felt the man’s neck for a pulse and nodded. Except for a small gash on his head, there were no obvious injuries. “Take him to the wardroom, under guard.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“What about the other one?” Mallory asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can lasso him, or something. We can’t just leave him here—Jap or not.”

“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Courtney Bradford. He stood next to Matt, looking into the sea. The captain looked at him, then followed his gaze. The dark blue water became much darker directly beneath the boat. Suddenly the creature they’d driven under, or one just like it, rose to the surface, and its gaping, crocodilelike jaws snapped shut on the capsized boat. The thing was enormous! Matt knew the boat must be twenty-five or thirty feet long, and the jaws were very nearly that long themselves. As the boat splintered, Matt heard a shriek and saw the terrible jaws close on the Japanese sailor’s legs. Even then, it sounded more like a scream of pain, not terror. He shuddered. The roar of the machine gun just above his head deafened him and an instant later, the bigger .50-cal, amidships, joined in—as did a couple of men with rifles. He hoped a few thought to finish the stubborn Jap, but amid the geysering splashes he couldn’t tell. The creature writhed and slammed into the ship hard enough to make him grab the rail. With a huge splash and a swirl of flippers, it disappeared from view.

“Goodness gracious,” said Bradford again, his voice subdued by awe.

Matt stood transfixed, but for only a moment. Then he bellowed to the men below. “Boats, get somebody down there to check the hull for damage. Whatever the hell that was, it bumped us pretty good.” For a moment nobody moved, but finally the Bosun stirred.

“Get the lead out, you miserable girly saps! The Skipper gave an order! Ain’t you never seen a sea monster eat a Nip before? Shit!”

With that, Matt turned, walked woodenly back to his chair, and sat. Out there, off the port bow, the sun finally vanished entirely beneath the blackening sea, and he removed his hat and plopped it on his lap. He felt like the reserve of adrenaline that was supposed to last his lifetime had been completely tapped out that day. He was so tired. Finally he sighed and rubbed his face.