Laney darted to the starboard side of the casemate just as the whole ship shuddered again. Splinters from one of the lifeboats above lanced down and swept his hat over the side. More splinters, pieces of steel or iron, peppered him as well, and one of the funnel support cables parted and whipped past, nearly cutting him in half. Couldn’t’ve done doodly if it did, he realized. The thing was gone before he knew it was coming. For an instant, he stood there, hurting and stunned, then the 5.5s opened up again, the pressure of the salvo pushing him along. He raced forward and scampered up the ladder to the starboard bridgewing. A single Lemurian lookout stood there, blinking furiously, his tail whipping back and forth. All the action was to port, but he was supposed to be keeping watch to starboard. Hard to ask of a fella, Laney realized with an uncharacteristic burst of sympathy. Then he remembered his engine was getting wet and charged into the pilothouse wearing a more customary scowl. It vanished.
The port side of the pilothouse was battered in, the heavy plates designed to drop down over the windows shot away. The engine-room telegraph was bent over at a right angle, and the big brass wheel looked like a bicycle rim that hit a curb going way too fast. Conduit and bundles of wire dangled and swayed, and the bowling ball–size roundshot rolling slowly across the deck to port gave Laney the impression this all just happened right then, while he was hiding behind the casemate. There was blood too, lots of it, and the dented roundshot left a little red trail until it thumped against one of several bodies lying on the deck. Two of them, ’Cats, were obviously dead. One was particularly, horribly shredded. The other two were men Laney knew well. Before he could move, a pair of Lemurians knelt beside them, while another took the warped wheel in hand. To Laney’s amazement, the blood-covered man the cannonball bumped suddenly opened his eyes and looked at him.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Russ Chapelle demanded, sitting up, reaching to explore his face with his hand.
“Careful, Skipper!” one of the ’Cats warned. “You got busted glass in you face! I think you okay, though. You wearin’ lots o’ blood, but not bleedin’ bad that I see.”
“Swell. Help me up. Where’s the commodore?”
“He not okay!” cried the ’Cat talker, kneeling beside Jim Ellis. His ears were back and his tail was almost rigid. “He not dead, though!”
Russ grimaced at the sight of his commander, friend, and one of the highest-ranking and best-respected officers in the Grand Alliance. He’d just been talking to him! Hadn’t even finished what he was saying! “He doesn’t look good,” was all he could manage, and it was a serious understatement. Most of Jim’s left arm and the associated muscles across his chest looked like they’d been peeled away. Russ lurched to the bank of speaking tubes. “Corps ’Cats to the bridge, on the double! Bring stretchers!” He looked back at the ’Cat at the wheel. “Does she steer?”
“Ay, Cap-i-taan! came the stiff, controlled reply.
Russ looked at the engine-room telegraph. “But the lee helm’s shot away.” He turned back to Laney, just as the first corps ’Cats arrived on the bridge. “Which is okay, if somebody in engineering’ll keep an ear close to the voice tube.” He looked at the talker, who’d returned to his station. “Damage report!”
“More o’ the same so far; we takin’ damage, but still holdin’ up better than we was afraid.” He paused. “The number one gun reports a caash-ulty.”
“Can they fix it?”
“Not now. They can fix it, but it take longer than this fight lasts, one way or other.”
Russ frowned. “Very well. Have its crew secure what they can and join the crews in the casemate.” He suddenly noticed Laney again. “What are you doin’ here, Laney?” he demanded, his temper brittle.
“Why, uh, there’s water comin’ in,” Dean replied, suddenly realizing how lame his complaint sounded under the circumstances.
“We sinkin’?” Chapelle snapped.
“Not when I headed up here, but it was gettin’ worse, and who knows now. . . .”
“You should know, you puffed-up, self-centered boar’s tit!” Russ roared, his temper cracking. It wasn’t the response of a “born” officer, but if Russ Chapelle ever cared about such things, he certainly didn’t then. “You came up here to bitch that things ain’t exactly like you wish they were below—that’s exactly why you’re here! Well, listen up!” He waved at the wreckage and blood around them. “We’re in a fight, and bad shit happens! Your job, mister, is to keep my engine running, fix what breaks, and plug the holes the enemy shoots in us. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve abandoned your post in the face of the enemy. Do you know what that means? If I see you above decks again before this fight’s done, it better be after the last roach and rat have fled the rising water! Am I absolutely clear?”
“A-aye, aye, sir,” Laney sputtered.
“I better be.” Russ looked down as Jim Ellis was hoisted off the deck and carried from the bridge. “Just . . . get out of my sight,” he said, his voice subdued.
The 5.5s were still hammering, and a few more shots jolted the ship amid plumes of water that cascaded across the decks. Laney, utterly ashamed of himself, happened to glance out the shattered pilothouse as he turned away. He stopped, eyes bulging. “Captain Chapelle . . . look!”
S-19
“Secure from flank. All ahead two-thirds. Flood tubes one through four!” Irvin Laumer shouted at the ’Cats on the torpedo director, amid the spray raining down on the flying bridge. S-19 had come around to a course of 080, and the three Grik ships were dead ahead, bow to stern, smoke streaming from broadsides still punishing Santa Catalina. S-19 hadn’t done much damage to the ship they’d shot at as she passed, and it was disconcerting that the “new” 4"-50 shells had so little apparent effect at such close range, but after only a few halfhearted return shots, neither collision victim paid them much attention. Both had more pressing problems. The first was going fast, her bow dipping deep, her screws—yes, she did have two—rising above the water. Grik were swarming all over her flooding carcass like ants flushed from their bed, and their shrieks of terror mingled in a shrill, steady drone. There were no lifeboats in the water. The second ship was noticeably low by the stern now, but steaming away in a wide turn to port—toward the cruiser squadron coming up from the northwest. The cruisers were preoccupied as well. Arracca’s Nancys flocked around them like lethal blue-and-white gulls, dropping firebombs, and the new fifty-pound bombs.
“Target course remains unchanged at three four five. Range!” Irvin yelled.
One of the ’Cats called “One t’ousand four hundreds!” and another Lemurian turned a dial on the torpedo data computer, or TDC, sheltered inside the pilothouse. “Set!” the ’Cat called back, blinking rapidly. They’d already input the course, speed, and bearing of the target—the last ship in the line.
“Open outer doors!” Irvin commanded. “Standby tubes one and two!”
“Tubes one and two ready in all respects, Skipper,” Hardee shouted back after what seemed a lifetime. The headset was held to his ear, and he was staring at the ready lights that had been moved to the aft bulkhead of the pilothouse.
“Fire one!” Laumer shouted.
“Fire one!” Hardee repeated, and the racing boat shuddered as a column of air exploded to the surface at the bow. Laumer counted to five. “Fire two!”
A second Mk-3 hot-air torpedo, proudly marked “Baalkpan Naval Arsenal,” plunged forward out of its tube, joining the first war-shot torpedo made on this world to be fired in anger.
“Both fish running hot, straight, and normal, Skipper!” Hardee repeated the report from the sound room excitedly. “Mr. Sandison’s done us proud!”
“We’ll see,” Laumer hedged. “New target is the center ship in the line!” he shouted, the excitement raising his voice.
“Ay, ay!” cried the ’Cat behind the director. “Bearing . . . mark!”
“Bearing seero se
ven eight!” shouted his mate.
“Recommend course seero four two!”
“Make your course zero four two!” Irvin shouted at the helm.
Theoretically, they could program the torpedoes themselves to intersect the target at a given point, but for this first effort, Irvin decided to set all his fish for straight runs at a depth of ten feet. To simplify things for the new torpedoes, he’d aim S-19 where the target should be when his torpedoes reached it. In a way, this seemed almost a betrayal of all the hard work and hard-won technical expertise that went into making the new Mk-3s just as capable and versatile as their old fish had been—except for speed and range, of course. But simpler was always better, and they knew the fish would go off if they hit. That was a confidence they’d never had with the modern torpedoes they’d started their Old War with. Still, for this type of shooting, Walker should have it easier, since she could traverse her torpedo mounts on deck.
“My course seero four two!” cried the ’Cat at the wheel.
“Ten seconds!” came the shout from the torpedo director.
Irvin Laumer looked at his watch. “Fire three!” he yelled. “Fire four!”
Two more gouts of air burped at the bow, and the old sub bounced.
“Three and four are running hot, straight, and normal, sir!” Hardee exulted.
“Very well. Close the outer doors and reload all tubes!”
S-19 had started with twelve torpedoes. Enough of her complicated pumps, pipes, and internal tanks remained to trim the ship as the weight of each weapon left her, but manually cranking the doors closed, reloading, and retrimming took time. It was necessary, though, since S-19 was essentially the gun that aimed the torpedo “bullet,” and she had to be as steady as possible when she fired. Irvin Laumer judged the angle of the final dreadnaught forward, and gauged the distance to the harried, dwindling cruisers to the north.
“We’ll never reach that first one from here,” he said simply. “Helm, come to three five five. All ahead full. We’ll try to throw all four fish at that last sucker before we get too close to the cruisers.”
“We may not have to worry about them,” Danny said, glancing up from his watch and pointing aft at the frothy wake they were making. “And, besides, I hope—I bet—those Jap-Griks are about to start looking in our direction pretty quick. Our first torps ought to be there . . . well, now.”
For a terrible moment, nothing happened. Apparently they had been seen, though, because a few of the Grik battleship’s dozen-odd broadside guns fired on them, the heavy roundshot rumbling mostly overhead to splash some distance to port. One came dangerously close, deluging the fantail and the crew of the three-inch gun aft.
“Yes!” Nat Hardee practically squeaked, raising both hands in the air and nearly dropping his headset. Maybe ten seconds later than expected, a tight, high plume of water jetted skyward, aft of amidships on their first target. The geyser rose and rose, higher than the ship’s funnels, before collapsing back on the ship and into the sea. A monstrous jet of coal dust and black smoke belched from the third funnel as well, joined an instant later by a dirty gout of steam. There was no second hit—they’d likely missed with their first torpedo—but one was more than enough. Even at this range they could see they’d opened a massive hole in the side of the enemy leviathan that extended even a short distance up the armored casemate. From what they’d heard from previous actions and observed that day, the Grik ships had no real watertight compartmentalization belowdecks. It had probably never been considered necessary during their design. Their heavy armor and armaments must’ve been thought sufficient to protect them from a distance, and Kurokawa—or whoever dreamed them up—likely never worried about how vulnerable they’d be to an honest-to-God torpedo!
The gaping hole quickly vanished as the great ship rolled toward them, spewing more steam from her gunports as water rushed against hot boilers. It was stunning how fast the ship turned turtle once she got started, and soon she lay belly-up in the bright sun. Even before she quit wallowing back and forth, her wooden keel pointing at the sky, she was already slipping. Irvin was staring through his glass at the few Grik that had managed to squirm through gunports into the sea, but that wouldn’t save them. The flashies—or flashylike fish—teeming in these seas were already gathering to the flailing, shrieking buffet laid before them. Irvin had just lowered his glass, grimacing, when both torpedoes they’d fired at the second ship impacted—aft again, but close together—and virtually demolished the entire stern of the massive, iron-plated monster.
* * *
“Glory be!” Dean Laney shouted. “Glory BE! Wouldja look at that!”
The second Grik battleship had wallowed to a halt, trailing smoke and debris that was still falling in the water. “Damn things are tough as hell—till you take a real switch to ’em!” he chortled. “Who’d’ve ever thought we’d have to come to a whole new world to get torpedoes that actually work?”
“It is amazing,” Russ conceded, his tone still sharp, “but you’ll be even more amazed what I do to you if you don’t get your worthless, fat ass off my bridge and back to work where you belong!”
Laney finally bolted, and Russ took a deep breath, still wiping blood from his face with his sleeve.
“Lookout says the last Grik wagon turnin’ away,” the talker cried, “but S-Nineteen’s streakin’ straight in her teeth!”
Russ started to tell the talker to order Laumer to break off—he was charging directly at a full, fresh broadside in what amounted to a Dixie cup, by comparison—but what was the point? He raised his binoculars. S-19 must be at flank, racing right in with her 4"-50 booming away. The new torpedoes worked swell, there was no doubt now, and Laumer had a perfect target. He’d sink that ship if he lived long enough. He was already well in range of the enemy guns, and calling him off would only make him a bigger target when he turned. Right now he had a few things going for him: S-19 was small and pretty fast, both of which would make her hard to hit. The Grik would know what had happened behind them by now and had to be scared to death. Maybe they’d rush their fire? Finally no longer taking a pounding of her own, Santa Catalina and her 5.5s were getting good hits on the enemy. Maybe that would distract them too?
“Come left to two eight zero!” Russ commanded. “Drop a grenade down the voice tube to the engine room if you have to, to get their attention. If Laney ain’t there yet, he’s relieved—and whoever answers and gets me full ahead will have his job! Let’s get close enough to that damn thing that our five-fives’ll shoot right through her, if S-Nineteen doesn’t make it!”
“Ay, ay, Skipper!” the Lemurian at the helm replied.
CHAPTER
34
////// The Corral
I Corps
“We’re fighting on borrowed time,” General Pete Alden stated sourly to General Lord Muln-Rolak, when he and his cavalry escort finally found the old warrior a little before 1600 in the afternoon. Pete didn’t dismount from the grumpy me-naak he rode. First, to prevent the irritable creature from slapping him to the ground with its muzzled head full of teeth, and second, he didn’t mean to be there long. He needed to get back to Safir. Rolak stepped from within a cluster of his staff, where they’d been consulting a map held by an aide. Hij-Geerki followed, kind of hop-limping along. Rolak nodded at Pete’s words, blinking thoughtfully. He didn’t appear wounded, Pete noted with relief, but there was plenty of blood on his armor and matting his fur. There was blood on Hij-Geerki too, Pete realized with surprise, and then he saw the old Grik was actually wearing one of the Baalkpan Armory copies of a 1917 Navy cutlass!
“You speak truly,” Rolak agreed. Despite his appearance, his tone remained urbane as always. “We fought little to reach this place, so we brought plenty of ammunition to the battle.” He blinked wryly. “We have used much of it since.”
“What happened to your comm?” Pete asked.
Rolak blinked
irritation. “The cart was destroyed by Grik roundshot. I get occasional reports dropped from aircraft, but I know little of how the greater battle progresses.”
“I’ve picked up some stuff here and there; kept runners going between us and Safir while we looked for you. The big picture’s not so bad. Most of the army’s objectives were achieved by, or a little after, twelve hundred. Even the Madras road’s been cut about five miles northeast of us and there should be enough troops there with enough ammunition to hold. Especially with most of the Grik still pounding on us. What’s more, General Linnaa’s Sixth Corps has landed, and as of fourteen thirty, some elements were already advancing down the road to reinforce that strongpoint. Seventh Corps is ashore too, moving to block any Grik approach from Madras itself. There hasn’t been a ground assault on the city yet, but nothing’s getting in or out except in the north or by sea. It sounds like the sea route’s been locked up, though, and nothing that gets out to the north can get here today, that’s for sure.” He paused, grimacing, because nothing he’d said really mattered much to them right then. Like a surging, living storm, the real battle for Grik India had turned into a knockdown slugfest in the vicinity of the abandoned corral.
“General Maraan’s attack shook the Grik up pretty bad,” Pete continued. “And the new weapons—the Blitzer Bugs in particular—mowed ’em down and scared the shit outa the rest.”
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