The War That Came Early: Coup d'Etat (21 page)

“We’re ruined for fair, then,” the major finished for him, which wasn’t how
Walsh would have gone on. Again, though, that didn’t make him wrong.

A boy on a street corner was waving the
Times of London
and bawling out the latest war headlines. The British Expeditionary Force and the rest of the Nazis’ allies were advancing deeper into Russia. In Malaya and Burma, the Japanese kept pushing imperial troops back. Even Singapore, said to be the strongest fortress in the world,
might come under attack soon.

“Strange business,” the major said, walking past without buying a paper.

“How’s that, sir?”

“Well, the bleeding Japs are supposed to be Hitler’s chums. But we’re supposed to be Hitler’s chums, too, and we’re at war with Japan. And the Russians are Hitler’s deadly enemies, but they’ve already had their war with Japan, so they’re neutral now. And the USA and Japan
are fighting, but Russian ships can cross the Pacific free as so many fish, load up on guns in American ports, and haul all that stuff back to Russia to fire it off against the Nazis—and us.”

When you thought of it like that, it was enough to make your head swim. Walsh found one problem: “How many ships in the Pacific have the Russians got left now that Vladivostok’s fallen?”

“They have some
yet. And there’s a road connection—not a good one, but it’s there—between Magadan and what the Russians still hold of the Trans-Siberian Railway. No, the real question is, how much can they bring in whilst the harbor at Magadan’s not iced up?”

Walsh had never heard of Magadan. He had no idea where in Siberia
it lay, or, for that matter, whether the major was simply inventing it to bolster his
argument. The officer ducked into a pub. Walsh followed. A pint of bitter made him stop caring whether Magadan was real.

Beer, steak-and-kidney pie, more beer … A French
estaminet
couldn’t hold a candle to a proper pub. Two wars’ worth of experience on the other side of the Channel and years of diligent experimenting in his own country left Walsh as sure of that as made no difference. The major
wasn’t the best drinking companion he’d ever had, but also wasn’t the worst.

It was dark by the time Walsh went back to his little furnished room. London’s lights were on again. With Germany friendly, the need for a blackout disappeared. Sometimes conveniences came at too high a price. Walsh thought so, anyhow. The Prime Minister would have disagreed. Walsh reckoned disagreeing with Sir Horace
Wilson sure to put him in the right.

Because of the beer he’d taken on board, the knock at the door took longer to rouse him than it might have. He lurched off the bed—which doubled as a sofa in daylight hours—ready to give whoever was out there a piece of his mind. But the two somber men in trenchcoats hadn’t the slightest interest in listening to him.

“You’re Alistair Walsh—is that right?”
one of them said.

“What if I am?” Walsh answered indignantly. “Who wants to know?”

Both men produced Scotland Yard identity cards. “You’re under arrest,” said the one who did the talking. “Come along with us—quietly, if you please.”

Ice and fire chased each other along Walsh’s spine. “The devil I will,” he blustered. “Show me your warrant.”

With startling speed, the copper or detective or
whatever he was produced a pistol: a .455 Webley and Scott Mark VI, a great man-killing brute of a revolver, the same weapon British officers carried into battle. “Here’s all the warrant we need, mate. Let out a peep and I’ll blow a hole in you they could throw a cat through.”

The other Scotland Yard man spoke up for the first time: “Don’t tempt us, either. Shooting’s better than a damned traitor
deserves.”

“I’m no traitor!” Walsh said, wondering how many MPs and Army officers were being scooped up in the same net.

Both men in the hallway laughed—two of the nastiest laughs he’d ever heard. “Now tell us another one,” said the fellow with the Webley and Scott. “No—tell your stories at headquarters. Get moving, right now. This is your first, last, and only chance.” He gestured toward the
stairway with the pistol.

Numbly, Walsh got moving. The Fritzes had almost captured him a couple of times. He’d counted himself lucky to escape that fate. Now his own countrymen had him by the ballocks. Better if the Nazis had got him. At least they were enemies, and honest enough about that at the time. These bastards imagined they were patriots. It only went to show how crazy and useless a
thing an imagination could be.

PETE MCGILL HADN’T
thought of Australia as a tropical country. When he was on shipboard duty, before he got posted to China, he’d put in at Sydney and Melbourne and Perth. They weren’t half bad—they kind of reminded him of Southern California. He’d never been to Darwin before.

Here he was in Darwin now. It wasn’t the Dutch East Indies—it wasn’t right on the Equator.
No, it lay all of twelve degrees south. That made a difference. As far as Pete was concerned, it didn’t make nearly enough.

He was just glad he’d got here in one piece, and that the
Boise
had got here under her own power. Most of the ships and sailors who’d fought the Japs with the American light cruiser farther north weren’t so lucky. The Dutch East Indies were falling, if they hadn’t already
fallen. All that oil, all that rubber, all that tin … They lay in Japanese hands now.

How long the
Boise
would be able to keep running under her own power—and how long she’d stay in one piece herself—he had no idea. Japanese bombers called on Darwin night after night. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, knocking the crap out of the place. Darwin was just a little town at the edge of
nowhere. The Japs seemed intent on knocking it over the edge.

And so Pete wasn’t astonished when the
Boise
steamed out of the harbor one evening just when the sun was going down. If one of those
bombers with the meatballs on the wings got lucky, the light cruiser wouldn’t go anywhere again, except to the bottom. So she was getting out while the getting was good.

It seemed that way to him, anyhow.
Joe Orsatti was much less happy about it. “I’m sick of running from those shitass little yellow monkeys,” he groused as the Marines manned the five-inch guns in case an enemy plane or a sub or even an arrogantly aggressive destroyer spotted the
Boise
.

“Who isn’t?” Pete agreed. They hurried east. Scuttlebutt said they were bound for New Zealand, and ultimately for Hawaii. Pete hoped the scuttlebutt
was true. He wouldn’t be sure till they made it through the Torres Strait. If they kept heading east after that, New Zealand it would be. If they swung more to the south, paralleling Australia’s coast, they were liable to be bound for Melbourne or Sydney. He understood that the Aussies needed to keep up the fight. But so did America, and he wanted to help. He figured he owed the Japs more than
Orsatti did.

The other leatherneck warmed to his theme: “I’m a white man, God damn it to hell. Those lousy slant-eyed cocksuckers got no business pushing me around.”

Plenty of Marines in Peking and Shanghai had felt the same way. Pete wondered how his buddies were doing these days. He wondered how many of them were still alive. Not for the first time, guilt stabbed at him because he wasn’t up
there sharing their fate, whatever it turned out to be. He couldn’t do anything about that, of course, but his impotence made him feel worse, not better.

He’d had some of that white man’s arrogance himself, but only some. “I saw a lot of the Japs in China,” he said slowly. “They’re just as sure they’re hot shit in a gold goblet as we are.”

“Yeah, but they’re really nothin’ but cold diarrhea
in a Dixie cup,” Orsatti replied, which got a laugh from everybody in the gun crew, including Pete. He went on, “You wait and see. We’ll make ’em wish they never took us on. We get the whole fleet together at Pearl, then we sail west and bash ’em.” His voice went all dreamy. “The Big Fuckin’ Pacific Battle. It’ll make Jutland look like a couple of kids playin’ with toy boats in the bathtub.”

“There you go,” Pete said. There weren’t many sailors or Marines
who didn’t daydream about the Big Fuckin’ Pacific Battle. Anybody with a brain in his head had seen that the USA would tangle with Japan one of these days. Why else had both sides built all those battlewagons and carriers and cruisers and destroyers and subs, if not to get ready for the day? So we’d put all of ours together, they’d
put all of theirs together, and then both sides would bash heads. And the winner would go forward, while the loser … What about the loser?

He’d get what losers always got. T.S., Eliot.

Without warning, the
Boise
heeled to port, as hard as she could. A split second later, klaxons hooted. “Torpedo attack!” The shout burst from the loudspeakers’ iron throats. “We are under torpedo attack!”

They’d
gone to battle stations as soon as the ship left port. Pete stood by the open ammunition locker, ready to pass shells to the loader. He couldn’t do anything else except wait and worry and hope like hell he wouldn’t get his ankles broken when the Jap fish slammed into the cruiser.

“There’s the wake!” Orsatti said hoarsely.

Sure as hell, a phosphorescent line arrowed through the tropical sea,
seeming to run straight for the
Boise
’s vitals. Now—how many fish had the Japanese sub launched? Holy crap! Here came another one, much too soon after the first. It sped along on a track almost identical to the other.

Could the
Boise
dodge them? She was sure as hell trying. Smoke spurted from her stacks as the engines roared up to emergency full. Machine gunners opened fire on the torpedoes,
trying to detonate them before they could hit … if they were going to hit.

“Hail, Mary, full of grace …” Orsatti rattled off the prayer. The hand in his pocket was probably working a rosary. Pete wished he could pray that way. He’d seen how it made people feel better. But he’d never got the habit when he was a kid, and talking to God now only made him feel like a phony.

He tried the next best
thing, saying, “I think the bastards are gonna slide on by us.” The
Boise
had turned into the torpedoes’ paths, and was running along them in the opposite direction—straight toward the sub that had turned them loose. If that sub was still surfaced, it would be mighty sorry mighty fast. Pete peered forward. He saw nothing that looked like a periscope or a conning tower, but how much did that say?

Bow on, the
Boise
also offered torpedoes the smallest possible target. They did slide past, both to port. One seemed close enough for Pete to spit on. He refrained. No grinding, rending crash told of a cruiser-submarine collision. The
Boise
threw a few depth charges into the warm, dark water. The deck shook under Pete’s feet as they burst one by one. The ocean boiled above the bursts.

“I wish
I thought we were really after those assholes,” Joe Orsatti said. “Way it feels, though, is we’re just makin’ ’em keep their heads down.”

“Fine by me.” Pete profanely embellished that. “All we’re doing now is getting out of town any which way. So we’ll go, and they can give somebody else a hard time next week.”

The other Marine grunted. “Yeah, you got somethin’ there. I didn’t look at it from
that angle. Maybe you’re smarter’n you act most of the time.”

“Ahh, up yours,” Pete said without heat. “Besides, if I’m so goddamn smart, what am I doing here?”

That drew another laugh from everybody at the gun. “Well, if I remember straight, your other choice was staying in Manila,” Orsatti answered. “Like I said a minute ago, maybe you ain’t so dumb after all.”

Pete wondered what he would
have done if he hadn’t come aboard the
Boise
. He didn’t need to wonder long. He would have picked up a Springfield, found a tin hat that came close to fitting, and joined the Americans and Filipinos trying to hold off the Japanese invaders. From the reports trickling out of the Philippines, the defenders were losing ground day by day.

Well, the
Boise
and the handful of other American ships in
the western Pacific hadn’t done much to slow down the Japanese attacks on Malaya or the Dutch East Indies, either. Here on the cruiser, though, he wasn’t shivering with malaria. He had plenty of chow. It might not be great, but it wasn’t terrible, either. He wouldn’t come down with amoebic dysentery if he ate it or drank water that wasn’t heavily chlorinated. If you wanted to fight a war in comfort,
a ship was the place to do it—unless you got hit, of course. Getting hit was bad news no matter where or how it happened.

It wouldn’t happen right this minute. That sub lurked somewhere
deep in the sea, with luck damaged by the ash cans the
Boise
threw at it. Any which way, the cruiser would be long gone before the sub surfaced again. And then …? New Zealand and Hawaii? Sydney or Melbourne? In
a way, which choice hardly mattered. They both meant that, sooner or later, the Japs would get another chance at the
Boise
and everybody she carried.

TO SAY THAT
the Spanish Republic wasn’t rich only proved what a poor, inadequate thing language could be sometimes. Vaclav Jezek had heard that the Republic had sent all its gold to Russia for safekeeping (and, incidentally, to buy weapons). Giving
Stalin your gold reserves struck him as the exact equivalent of handing a fox the keys to your chicken coop. He might be here fighting for the Republic, but he had scant use for Stalin.

Because the Republic was chronically broke, soldiers’ pay chronically ran late. He didn’t much care about that; he had little to spend money on but cigarettes and booze, and he usually found enough in his pockets
for those. Before long, the Spaniards doled out rank insignia so their people would know who was who and what was what among the Czechs. Vaclav got two gold cloth stripes with red borders.

“Is the mark of a
brigada
,” the fellow who gave it to him said in German with a Spanish accent strong enough to make it almost incomprehensible to Jezek. “A sergeant, they say in this language.”