“It’s comin’ up!” Minnie squeaked over the thundering blower and the rush of the convulsing sea. “Spanky thinks the taagit’s comin’ up!” she repeated. “He sees ‘oily air gushin’ up,’ an’ gots debris in sight!”
“Where?” Matt demanded.
“Starboard quarter, about one six seero, relative!”
“Right standard rudder,” Matt ordered. “Pass the word for all gun batteries to stand by for surface action, starboard!” He stepped out on the bridgewing and focused his binoculars. The lookout already there was scanning as well. Bernie raced to his precious torpedo director, ready to confirm Campeti’s ranges and bearings.
Several minutes passed while Walker described a gradual arc in the sea. Her 4"-50s, .50 and .30 cals, and twin 25 mms aft, were all trained out toward a growing, roiling oil slick about six hundred yards off the starboard beam. Suddenly, what looked like the knife-edge bow of a fair-size ship roared up from the depths, streaming water, laced with all the colorful hues diesel fuel could give it.
“Get a load o’ that!” Bernie gasped. The thing was obviously a submarine, but it was huge! Twice the size S-19 had been. And it wasn’t shaped like any sub he’d ever seen. Gradually, the bow came down as the boat leveled out and a conn tower—or something—emerged from the sea. The first part that rose into view was a pair of very large guns protruding from a rounded housing of some sort, followed by what appeared to be a relatively normal conn tower, complete with periscopes and light weapons. But the conn tower didn’t seem to end; it just kept coming up, exposing a long, arched structure aft. Finally, it did end, about the time an ordinary deck gun emerged from the sea.
“I’ll be . . . ,” Matt muttered, confusion evident in his tone. “That thing . . . ,” he started, but stopped when men appeared atop the conn tower, looking back at him. Other men, dressed in shorts and cotton shirts, dashed from the side of the tower toward the deck gun aft—just as the boat began turning toward his ship and the two massive guns forward began to twitch. “Commence firing!” he roared up at the fire-control platform above.
“But Skipper,” came Campeti’s stunned voice, “that’s . . .”
“Commence firing now, damn it! They’re about to!”
The strange submarine showed obvious damage: warped railings and washboarded plates. And the arched structure aft had taken a particularly brutal beating. The stern never came completely up, and the bow, with its four torpedo tubes, never lowered all the way back into the sea. The thing was sluggish, but still maneuvering, still clearly trying to fight. Before it could turn all the way to face USS Walker, however, bringing those giant, apparently fixed guns to bear, the salvo buzzer rattled and three 4"-50s barked as one. Only one round struck the boat on the first salvo, the others launching towering columns of water just beyond, but the target was barely moving. The next three rounds exploded against and within the odd conn tower a few moments later, and the 25-mm gun tubs and machine-gun tracers were already reaching for it. Flames vomited out of the rounded casemate housing the two guns forward, and the weapons seemed to actually droop as blue-yellow flame jetted out between them. Matt suspected they’d punched through the light armor and ignited the powder train as ammunition was brought up to the weapon from the handling room below. Somebody probably closed the hatch just in time because the magazine didn’t blow, but already, it didn’t matter. The strange, belligerent submarine had been a sitting duck—its officers had to know it was a sitting duck! Matt suddenly realized with a sick certainty—and Walker’s veteran crew of men and ’Cats made short work of it. Its apparent intention to make a fight only doomed it a few minutes later than its attempt to claw its way to the surface had delayed its fate.
“Cease firing!” Matt yelled. “Cease firing all guns!”
The conn tower and pressure hull shattered like a basket of eggs under the point-blank hammering of Walker’s common shells—none of the new AP rounds were kept in the ready lockers—the enigmatic submarine dove once more, smoking and hissing, back beneath the sea. With her bow again pointing at the sky, she seemed to be rising in reverse, except now the oil and diesel around her were alight, and black smoke piled into the clear afternoon sky. Just like that, the very real submarine that Gunny Horn probably really did see, that had haunted them from Madraas to Diego, and across half the Western Ocean, disappeared forever.
“My God,” Herring muttered at Matt’s side. “I see no survivors.”
“We’ll have a closer look, nevertheless,” Matt said. “I’d sure as hell like to know what that was all about. Then we’ll head back there”—he gestured toward the fleet where another tall column of smoke stood in the sky—“and find out how bad it hurt us. Boats?” he called toward Gray. “Have our damage-control parties rig out all our firefighting gear and stand by for rescue operations. Mr. Rosen? Take us over there for a quick look around. Then we’ll shape a course back to the fleet, if you please.”
Sonny Campeti joined them, still puffing from his slide down the ladder. “I can’t believe it,” he gasped. “Didn’t you see?”
“Of course I saw,” Matt replied. “But they shot fish at us and our friends, and they were about to keep shooting at us!”
“I know! And that’s what doesn’t make sense!”
Herring was looking at them questioningly.
“That sub,” Matt explained, “was the Surcouf—or something from the same class. One of the biggest boats ever built—fast, long legged, and powerfully armed. Those guns she was trying to point at us were eight-inchers—cruiser guns!”
“I’ve heard of Surcouf!” Herring defended. He started to remind them he’d been—was—an intelligence officer, after all, but something about Matt’s and Campeti’s expressions stopped him—that, and the fact that he was a different man than he’d been just a few short months ago. Then it came to him. “But Surcouf is French!”
“Right!” Campeti declared.
“Must’ve gone Vichy,” Bernie speculated. “Collaborating with the Krauts. Why else would they attack? They had to see our flag—and nearly every ship in the fleet flies the Stars and Stripes!”
“I don’t doubt they saw our flag,” Matt said, “and these four-stackers’ve been around long enough that everybody in the world—our old world—is familiar with our lines. They may’ve been confused by the rest of our fleet flying the Stars and Stripes; couldn’t know it’s the Navy clan flag, but they had to know who we are. But I thought even the Vichy French kept the tricolor. You didn’t see her flag?” he asked.
“She wasn’t flying one.”
“It was painted on her conn tower, and I’ve got no idea what it meant.”
“I saw it,” Bernie agreed. “Looked more like an emblem of some kind.”
“What was it?” Campeti demanded.
“A red octagon with a white field, and what looked like a blue cross with rockers on each side,” Matt told them.
“Looked like a big, fat, blue swastika to me,” Bernie added darkly.
* * *
With the TBS barn door having been opened, it was pretty jammed up with traffic by the time Walker rejoined the rest of First Fleet South. It was daytime, with a clear sky, so maybe the signals wouldn’t travel far, but it was still a mess. They learned from snippets of excited reports that the DD that had been destroyed was USS Naga, one of their newest, that had transferred from Des-Ron 9 to Des-Ron 6 for this mission. As expected, there’d been no survivors. They also quickly learned that USS Respite Island was sinking, but they could see that for themselves. She had a serious list to starboard and was low by the stern. A mass of ships was gathered around her, taking off her crew and the troops she carried, while they joined with those left aboard in fighting a raging fire amidships. Matt wasn’t sure even Big Sal could’ve survived two torpedo hits as long, but Respite Island, due to her nature, had more watertight compartments and better pumps than any Allied ship. She had to ha
ve them to maintain her trim and perform her duties as a floating dry dock. Regardless, she was clearly doomed. All they could do was prolong the inevitable while they evacuated her people—and as much of her cargo as possible.
Several of the torpedo boats had apparently launched themselves as the cavernous dry dock flooded, and they were busy towing others clear, ferrying survivors to ships that kept their distance—like Big Sal—and trying to save as many of the stacked, dory-shaped landing craft aboard the ship as they could. Matt hated to contemplate all the other supplies and equipment they simply couldn’t save; tons and tons of food and ammunition and as much as half of II Corps’s light artillery would be lost. Carefully, he directed Walker’s approach into the chaotic jumble so he could bring her own firefighting equipment to bear. Soon, streams of rainbow-infused water were arcing across the gap between the ships to play upon the flaming SPD. Steam rose within the gray cloud of woodsmoke.
“Look at that!” someone called as one of the PTs gingerly towed the fire-scorched P-40E-turned-floatplane clear of the settling stern. The fabric control surfaces on the tail had burned away, leaving the skeletonized framework in view, but the plane was in one piece and should be salvageable. Matt applauded the initiative of whoever commanded the little boat. With all the Nancys in the fleet, a “sport model” floatplane might seem superfluous, but there was no sense in letting it go down with the ship.
“Minnie, have Mr. Palmer signal all ships to quit jamming up the phone. We have to get organized here. Ask Admiral Keje to double our aerial scouts. Keep some close in case there’s something else sneaking around out there, but push some farther out too. We need plenty of warning if we have to untangle this mess and get ready for a fight.”
“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan!”
“Skipper!” cried a ’Cat on the port bridgewing. “Morse lamp signal from Salissa; Ahd-mi-raal Keje’s compliments, an’ he asks that we move us away from Respite Island, in case she blows up. He also asks that you come aboard Salissa as soon as possible.”
Matt frowned. “Send my respects to the admiral, and tell him I’ll be happy to attend him as soon as I’m sure we can render no further assistance here.”
CHAPTER 18
////// TFG-2
July 21, 1944
Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At sat perched on the topgallant yard, nearly as high on the foremast as she could get. She’d been a wing-runner on Salissa, like her cousins Chack and Risa, before her old Home gave up the wind and became a carrier of aircraft. Heights held no terror for her, particularly after her exciting flight in Donaghey’s Nancy. Her perch was more precarious than it had ever been on Salissa, and the motion of the much smaller ship kept her swooping all over the sky, but she felt . . . cleaner here, less disturbed by all the real terrors she’d known.
Donaghey had finally reached the point where she was supposed to rendezvous with First Fleet South a few days before, and had spent the time slowly cruising up and down a longitude just one hundred fifty miles east of Mauritius, across the fleet’s expected line of advance. There was no guarantee they’d meet; the Western Ocean was vast. But with the weather remaining mild and the visibility so good, there was an excellent chance they’d spot something the size of Salissa and her battle group spread across several miles of ocean, or Salissa’s planes would find Donaghey.
“Smoke!” came a cry behind her, from the main masthead. “Smoke on horizon! West-nor’west!”
Bekiaa squinted, noting the distant haze, and chastised herself for letting someone else spy what she should have seen first. Shouts came from below, but she paid them little mind at present. She supposed it was possible they’d spotted an enemy force of some kind, but they’d know that long before she needed to concern herself with preparations below. She caught a glimpse of a sunlit shape above that quickly resolved into a copy of the Nancy floatplane they’d finally struck back down into the hold. She blinked with a small sense of triumph as she hollered down: “Allied aar-craft approaching, twenty degrees off port bow!” She’d seen that one first!
Time passed, and soon dark shapes could be seen rising above the distant horizon to join the boiler smoke. It wasn’t dark smoke, but she expected Captain Garrett would tactfully rib Captain Reddy about it when they met, regardless. She reached back to grab a tarry backstay and slid down it, all the way to the bright deck below. “What’s wrong?” she asked Smitty, when she saw his troubled expression. “We’ve found First Fleet South.”
“Sure. But so did somebody else. The TBS is goin’ crazy.”
Aboard USNRS Salissa (CV-1)
July 22, 1944
“You know, of course, my aviators came very close to blowing your fine ship to splinters, Cap-i-taan Gaar-ett?” Salissa’s COFO, Captain Jis-Tikkar (Tikker), told Greg ruefully. As usual, he was absently polishing the 7.7-mm cartridge case thrust through a hole in his ear with his sable-furred fingers. He had to speak up too, because this wasn’t a formal conference in Keje’s vast quarters, but a hurried gathering of anxious friends on Big Sal’s hangar deck. Others were still arriving, but that was as far as anyone got before the questions started to fly. The hangar deck was a loud place under normal circumstances, but the need for greater security after the torpedo attack, as well as the fleet’s growing proximity to its objective, called for an increased pace of air operations. The space had been crammed with “Fleashooters” since they left Madraas, since the little pursuit ships were rarely allowed to fly so distant from land. Only a few were kept ready for emergency defense. But now nearly half the 1st Naval Air Wing’s Nancys were below at any given time, undergoing the constant maintenance they required. Added to the noise and general bustle were large numbers of troops rescued from Respite Island, who had no choice but to sway their hammocks on the hangar deck. The lost ship’s crew had been distributed throughout the fleet and easily fit in wherever they went. The troops were mostly from land Homes, however, and it was all they could do to stay out of the way.
“I considered that possibility, Tikker,” Greg replied, glancing at Bekiaa and Inquisitor Choon. They’d accompanied him aboard. “That was why I was flying my battle flags—and every signal flag I could combine into any variation of ‘Don’t shoot me’ I could find!”
“You painted your hull red, like a Grik ship,” Admiral Keje-Fris-Ar observed. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
“We’ll be painting it black and white again, just as soon as we part company with you, Admiral. Trust me. But yeah, we actually cruised within sight of Madagascar.”
There was a hush, at least within the immediate gathering. No one except the Japanese sailor Miyata had viewed the ancestral homeland of—most likely—all the Lemurian People in untold ages. Miyata had described the Grik capital there, but almost nothing was known of what he called the “wild regions.”
“Was . . . Was it beautiful?” Adar almost whispered.
Greg looked curiously at the Chairman of the Grand Alliance. “You could say that, I guess. It was . . . different.” He didn’t elaborate on that. “We didn’t get real close, just sailed north along the eastern coast until we got within fifty or sixty miles of the port city Miyata told us about.” He nodded at the Japanese sailor who’d arrived at the meeting with Irvin Laumer, Safir Maraan and Sandra. Irvin had suddenly found himself elevated to command the entire little “mosquito fleet” of torpedo boats, though the number had been reduced by nearly half. Just seven PTs survived the sinking of Respite Island, and they were currently stowed in the water-level docking bay. Their creator and former commander, Winny Rominger, had been killed trying to save an eighth, and his loss was a terrible blow. It was also a sad irony since the man hadn’t really wanted back in the Navy in the first place after all he’d been through as a prisoner of the Japanese. He’d been willing to design and build PT boats, however, and ultimately—reluctantly—agreed to command the first squadron completed. Laumer was new to PTs and had expected a lot more time to learn ab
out them. Now he was in charge. He’d been faced with adversity before, though, and nobody thought he’d have any trouble adapting—except maybe Irvin Laumer.
“You didn’t send your scout plane to observe more closely?” Adar asked wistfully.
“No, sir,” Greg replied. “My orders specifically stated that I was to avoid detection at all costs. Even painted red, I wasn’t going to get too close with Donaghey either. Her rig’s definitely not Grik, and if anybody got a good look, they’d probably figure that out.”
“Did you see any ships?” Sandra asked.
“No, ma’am, but after we determined how inhospitable all the seaward islands were, I’m not too surprised. Most traffic’s likely to move off the western coast, between the island and the continent, or maybe some of the northern islands.”
Adar noticed that their discussion was drawing more and more attention from the troops as well as from the air and ground crews nearby. He nudged Keje. “Perhaps we should take this conversation to the appropriate place, where there are scrolls—charts—to view, and a bit more privacy. Mr. Braad-furd is already there, and I would value his views. Kap-i-taan Leut-naant Laange is en route to join us with Chack and Risa, and Cap-i-taan Reddy should be alongside directly. Come.”
“I’ll wait here for Captain Reddy, if you don’t mind,” Sandra said.
“Of course.”
“As will I,” Safir announced. Everyone knew she wanted to greet Chack. He, Risa, Lange, and Doocy Meek were met by a side party soon afterward, and along with Safir, escorted away. Sandra smiled to see Safir and Chack almost—but not quite—holding hands, and their tails touching, caressing each other as they walked.
Deadly Shores Page 25