Ciano grabbed his arm. “We must go,” he shouted urgently over more booming explosions, casting a meaningful glance at the tanker still secured alongside. Its crew was dashing to comply with Campioni’s command and its boilers had never gone cold, but it would take long, precious minutes before it could move. Impero shuddered violently as bombs or torpedoes struck her aft, and Campioni bolted for the hatch, presumably heading for the bridge. Summoning his last reserves to reassert his affectation of imperturbable poise, Gravois shook off Ciano’s hand. “Why? You go. It’s just as well that I end here. My plan has failed.”
“Then make another,” Ciano snarled, grabbing him again and dragging him into a passageway filling with smoke and running men. “You’re the only one who can,” he continued, suddenly hoarse, “and frankly, we’ve been together too long for me to disassociate myself from you, even if I left you here or shot you as a traitor. We’re linked, damn you. If you fail, I fail, and the Triumvirate will just as surely stand me up against a wall.”
Gravois shrugged. “Where will we go?”
“To my ship—if she hasn’t sunk.” Leopardo was on the other side of Impero.
Out in the open, racing against a tide of running men, the horror was even more profound. Smoke and flames were everywhere and the air was filled with roaring engines, tracers, and exploding flashes of antiaircraft shells. A bomber caught fire and staggered in a flaming turn before disintegrating in a sparkling, expanding shower. Ciano and Gravois were knocked to the deck when the tanker beside Impero blew up and washed the great battleship’s superstructure in sheets of burning oil. Ciano dragged Gravois to his feet and they reached the accommodation ladder at last. Leopardo lay untouched, darkened, un-firing, ready to get underway.
“You ordered that Leopardo be kept in this condition,” Gravois accused as they boarded and hurried to the bridge.
“Of course. You’ve been associated with me long enough to know I like to be prepared. I didn’t expect this, but my crew has standing orders never to draw attention to themselves under air attack, day or night,” he confessed.
“A wise precaution, it would seem.”
“Cast off all lines!” Ciano called out. There was no one on Impero in a position to release them, and the current would pull Leopardo away from the battleship. Suddenly, an absolutely titanic blast erupted in the inner harbor a couple of miles away, backlighting the German cruiser Hessen with a flare like a star fallen to earth.
“That’ll be the munitioning ships and our last oilers,” Ciano said darkly, just before the ear-splitting thunderclap and window-shattering blast wave struck. “Damn them!” he shouted as his bridge crew picked themselves up. Flames roared to the heavens, lighting the clouds above. Hessen was still there, but her silhouette didn’t look quite the same. She wasn’t firing anymore either. Then again, Ciano thought in passing, I haven’t seen her fire at all. He shook it away. She’d probably, wisely, been lying low just like Leopardo—not that it did her much good.
“If it’s any consolation,” Gravois observed, hands shaking as he patted his tunic pocket for his cigarette case. Remembering it was empty, he dropped his arms to his sides. His tone had reverted to its normal, sardonic tone, however. “I imagine whatever dropped or launched the fatal stroke couldn’t have survived it.”
“High-speed boats, coming in to port,” called a lookout. “Zero, nine, zero relative, range eight hundred meters!”
“Surface action port, commence firing! All ahead flank!” Ciano shouted. Eight 120mm guns and clusters of 20- and 40mm pom-poms opened up, thrashing the sea and the oncoming MTBs as Leopardo crouched and sprang. Two attackers spat torpedoes before they were blown to matchsticks, but they missed the accelerating Leopardo aft. They didn’t miss Impero. Blasted by three torpedoes—right where Leopardo had been—plumes of flame and smoky water rose to the sky. Her aft engine room pounded open to the sea, Impero started to list.
“Capitano!” cried a signalman on the port bridgewing, “one of our destroyers reports sailing ships—perhaps steamers too—coming into the bay! They were just suddenly there, out of nowhere. The destroyer is taking accurate fire from heavy guns and trying to open the range.”
“That’ll be NUS warships, full of troops, no doubt,” Gravois said. “As you know, they’re fragile targets for our weapons, but their rifled guns are quite large. Very dangerous at this close range.” He sighed. “Signal all remaining ships that can get underway to break out to sea. Do not linger to engage the enemy, just get past them.” His voice hardened. “The Spanish infantry ashore will defend the island to the death!”
“You have a new plan already?” Ciano asked.
“It’s not complete, but one thing’s obvious. We must join Ammiraglio Gherzi and head for Puerto del Cielo. Our supply convoy is certainly doomed. Four ‘capital’ ships? They had to be those things the Republic calls ‘battlecruisers,’ which were supposed to be eight thousand kilometers away! In any event, the oiler with Ramb V is now our only source of fuel.”
“But the oiler accompanied Ramb V upriver, to deliver Don Hernan to New Granada.”
“We can await its return at leisure while I formulate a new strategy. The enemy has no more carriers, and with Gherzi’s force around us, they can’t challenge us on the open sea.”
USS Donaghey
Commander Greg Garrett had no business bringing his old sailing frigate (technically DD-2) USS Donaghey into the bay of Martinique at the head of the NUS battle line. She was old in experience and increasingly frail after her long, solitary voyage, not to mention some pretty rough scraps. Even when new, her wooden sides and 18pdr smoothbores were no match for anything here, though she’d once faced—and sunk—a League ship in this very harbor.
On the other hand, COFO Tikker’s surviving bombers were leaving, bound for Seepy Field, and Nat Hardee’s marauding MTBs were taking little fire now. League sailors seemed primarily occupied saving themselves and their flooding ships—practically every one of which had been damaged by the combined air and sea attack that again caught the enemy by surprise. Greg was satisfied with that. He probably hated the League more than anyone in the Navy Clan and United Homes, but knew its commanders had no monopoly on hubris or incompetence. He remembered how effortlessly the Japanese devastated the equally unprepared Clark Field and Cavite after everyone already knew about Pearl Harbor.
But this fight wasn’t over, and Admiral Semmes was anxious to do his part. He thinks the NUS is showing thanks and respect to Donaghey by giving her pride of place, leading his fleet with the Stars and Stripes of the American Navy Clan, Greg thought ruefully, looking around in the dark at his loyal, long-suffering, mostly Lemurian crew. They think so too. I’d’ve just as soon declined the “honor” if not for them. He mentally shrugged. At least Donaghey’s still faster than the Nussie sailing steamers behind her, and we won’t get jammed up if someone in front of us gets hit.
She almost threw the line into confusion herself, however, when machine-gun tracers suddenly arced into her from a League DD sweeping out of the smoky gloom two hundred yards away. Donaghey replied with a broadside of canister (the only thing she’d loaded), which swept the enemy’s decks and gun’s crews before Captain Willis’s heavy screw frigate, NUSS Congress, heartily hammered the ship with his big rifles and sent it reeling into the darkness. Deeper in the harbor, another machine gun stuttered from shore. Donaghey blasted more canister at the area and her Maxims chattered. After that, searchlights started snapping on, aiming bright beams straight up at the sky in a token of surrender. The shooting all but stopped and there were only the rumbling explosions of burning, sinking, capsizing ships; the roar of the spreading inferno in the jungle; and the whoosh of flames eating oil spilled across the water.
“It looks like a lake in hell, for sailors,” murmured Donaghey’s balding gunnery officer, Lieutenant (jg) “Smitty” Smith.
“It does,” agreed Lieutenant Mak-Araa
, Greg’s Lemurian XO. He was blinking horror at the sight, tail swishing nervously. “Chik-aash for baad ships and the evil people they serve.”
“Leaguers ain’t all evil,” Smitty objected. “An’ all the fight’s blown out of these. Most o’ the poor bastards’re just tryin’ to save themselves.”
That wasn’t entirely true. A flurry of firing erupted near the rear of the battle line and a large, speeding destroyer was identified by the flare of her snap-shooting guns. They landed some hits too, but she was quickly obscured by the falling damp darkness as she raced out to sea.
“One o’ the rats scurried off,” Smitty conceded. “Still prob’ly just tryin’ to save his ass.”
“Whaat about on laand?” Mak asked. “Ahd-mi-raal Sessions only coughed up two thousand troops, with muzzle-loaders, to send against five thousand Leaguers gaarrisoned here.”
“It was all he had,” Greg defended, scratching the black stubble on his chin. “Besides, the Leaguers don’t have much choice but to quit. Who’s going to feed them? We’ve been here before, remember? Not much to eat on shore. Snakes, I guess.” He raised his voice. “Helm, come left ten degrees. Make for that big ship backlit by the fires. I need to have a talk with her skipper.” He looked at Mak. “And signal Fred and Kari that it’s safe to set down.” Donaghey had launched her Nancy to get it off the deck when she came in. “I don’t think anybody else is going to shoot at us. Tell ’em to be careful, though. There’s lots of junk in the water.”
At the mercy of hot, swirling winds fed by the flames, Greg Garrett’s ship wallowed a little and had to tack before carefully drawing alongside the big German cruiser. The MTBs and SBD-2s had been ordered to leave Hessen alone, as long as her guns stayed silent, so Greg was surprised by how beat-up she looked. He was even more surprised to see U-112 snugged up beside her. And nothing astonished him more than the furious hostility with which Kapitan William Dietrich and several bedraggled-looking officers met him, when he, Mak, and Smitty went aboard.
“You nearly destroyed my ship!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t fire a shot, yet you nearly sank me when you blew up those ammunition ships anchored inshore!” He pointed accusingly at the flaming wreckage in the shallows. Nothing even remotely resembled a ship anymore. “My hull is buckled and leaking and there’s serious damage all over. I also lost six men killed and almost a hundred wounded!”
Greg was taken aback, totally unprepared for this reception. Kurt Hoffman, the sub skipper whom Greg only met when he arrived on station, then a few days before when he came alongside for diesel, seemed a little abashed. The Dominion Navy might’ve been essentially destroyed, but it still operated a few dedicated sailing ships. Donaghey and her prize, Matarife, posed as such to carry fuel and supplies to the sub.
“I’m sorry, Willie,” Hoffman said. “You know no one fired on you. Frankly, I’m surprised, under the circumstances. Accidents are very common in night actions. But you also knew what was in those ships. Perhaps you should’ve . . . moved farther away?”
“And how could I have explained that to my superiors?” Dietrich flared. “I know! The ghost of my old friend in U-112 appeared to me and told me to!”
“It would’ve been true.”
Dietrich’s face reddened further and Greg held up a hand. “Cease firing, gentlemen.” He quickly introduced himself and his officers, prompting Dietrich to do the same. It seemed to calm him a little. “Look,” Greg said, “I’m just here for a couple of reasons.” He stuck his hand out to the German skipper. Grudgingly, Dietrich took it. “First I want to thank you for your cooperation, and extend an invitation, in the name of Captain Reddy and the American Navy Clan, for you to join us. Second, if you do join up, are you seaworthy? Can you fight your ship?”
Dietrich grunted. “For good or ill, I’ve already joined you just by surviving this fiasco. The Triumvirate will certainly see it so. That I did nothing to prevent it might make it worse for me, if they knew, but the result would be the same.” He pointed at Hoffman. “This man said you’ll do all you can to save my family—and the families of my men?”
“That’s correct.”
“How?”
Greg hesitated. “I won’t lie, it’s a long shot,” he confessed, “but we hope to wind up with a little . . . let’s call it leverage.”
Dietrich seemed to consider this, then sighed. “We’re with you, then. We have no choice. I fear my ship will need longer to decide, however. She’s in no shape to fight. . . . I may not even be able to keep her afloat.”
“We have a self-propelled dry dock just a few days from here. If Hessen’s damage is that bad, we can put her in it.” Greg turned to Smitty. “Go get Lieutenant Sori-Maai and all our pharmacist’s mates and SBAs. Sori’s our surgeon,” he explained to Dietrich.
The German frowned. “What manner of . . . person is this officer?”
Greg’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a ’Cat. So what? I bet he’s a better human doc than anybody you have.”
“Perhaps so, and I mean no offense,” Dietrich assured, “but strong prejudices exist among some of my crew, and they’re difficult to cast aside.”
“Mine are gone, Willie,” Hoffman told him gently, “and I don’t miss them. Your wounded will find it even easier to overcome racialism if their suffering’s relieved.”
Dietrich gazed at Mak-Aara a moment. The Lemurian hadn’t spoken, but though the German knew the ’Cat’s blinking meant something, he didn’t know what it was. “Very well, then. Please. Any help will be appreciated.” Smitty nodded and hurried to the rail.
Greg smiled gratefully at Hoffman, but asked, “What about you? Why’re you even here? You were supposed to wait outside the mouth of the harbor and pick off the leakers. At least report which way they go.”
“I meant to be there,” Hoffman temporized, “and I would’ve been . . .” He glanced at Dietrich.
“You!” the man said, enraged once more. “You torpedoed the ships that nearly destroyed me!”
“They were, arguably, the most important targets here. I couldn’t help myself,” Hoffman confessed. “And my Lemurian crew—which has worked so hard to learn how—was keen to strike a blow.” He waved a hand helplessly. “They’re very excitable, you know, and I’ve grown quite fond of them. You have my deepest regrets, Willie. I never expected . . .” He took a long breath. “I saw no harm in it, and a great deal of good. I thought I’d wave you a cheerful farewell as I resumed my position. But the shock wave pounded us against the bottom and forced us to the surface.” He sighed and looked at Greg. “I may need to visit the dry dock as well.”
“Oh, boy.”
“But I do know where the ‘leakers,’ as you called them, were bound,” Hoffman added.
Dietrich nodded. “I as well. Gravois sent a message as he cleared the harbor.”
“That was him?” Greg cursed.
“Indeed. A shame you didn’t get him. But I can tell you where he went.”
Twenty minutes later, just as Fred Reynolds and Kari-Faask were motoring their tired Nancy alongside, Greg reboarded Donaghey. “Get your plane gassed up and serviced,” he told the two friends when they climbed aboard. “I’ve got some hot dope for Captain Reddy. I’ll send it by wireless, but I want you to carry it too.” He smiled sadly. “Back to Walker, finally, where you belong.” The smile faded. “Fly due north about two hundred miles. From what you’ve probably heard on the radio, you can’t miss her. Maaka-Kakja’s burning up, and Walker’s standing by.”
CHAPTER 46
////// USNRS Salissa
East of Antigua (N-NE of Martinique)
That’s the last of ’em, Skipper,” said Chief Gunner’s Mate Dennis Silva as he, Lawrence, Tex Sheider, and Pam Cross reported on Salissa’s packed hangar deck. They’d just ascended under a ragged, cloudy dawn with twenty others (mostly officers) from the final boat to cross the choppy sea from the raging inferno that had been USS
Maaka-Kakja. Silva and Lawrence, “with nothing else to do just then,” originally took one of Salissa’s boats to transfer survivors. Pam hopped in at the last moment, as usual, to help wounded sailors. They wound up staying and doing everything from fighting the flames to flooding magazines and pumping oil on the water to calm the frisky waves for the boats. Ultimately, along with Tex, they remained until the bitter end. All were red-eyed, scorched and blackened, and looked done in. Even Petey was singed and exhausted, eyes half open. Tex probably looked the worst; he was losing his ship. Still Admiral Lelaa’s ship, as far as he was concerned, which she’d confidently entrusted to him. It would never matter to him that there’d been no way to save her, he was still responsible. The weight of that wore heavy on his face.
Only the dozens of large, lightweight wooden rafts every ship now carried for rapid abandonment were left behind. Lacing those into a kind of undulating dock had been Tex’s idea, and probably contributed to the near miraculous fact that no one was lost to the ravening sea during the rescue. Part of the shoal of bounding barges and motor launches—about half from Makky-Kat—would be abandoned as well, but most were being hoisted to the hangar deck by Salissa’s seaplane-handling cranes.
“You did well,” Matt told them, standing with Keje, Sandra, and Sir Sean, shouting to be heard over the nearly eighteen hundred sailors from the dying carrier. “All of you,” he added fiercely, gazing directly at Tex. “If anyone’s to blame for this mess, it’s me.”
Keje blinked impatience. “Whaat mess? Haaven’t you read the reports from Maartinique? We forced them out! It is victory! There were losses,” he conceded, “but all great things come with a cost.”
“We could’ve sent our planes to Seepy Field, launched the whole raid from there. . . .”
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