He paused for a long moment before continuing. “A few of us have gone even farther than the others now, but it’s my belief that, in so doing, they’ve gotten closer to home, not farther away. I believe there’s one God, above all things, who made the world we came from and this one too. Has to be. Only God could’ve figured out anything as complicated as this situation. I think He can probably manage to sort things out and put us where we belong when we die. I believe the men we bury here today in this strange but familiar place are with their loved ones that went before them now just as surely as if they’d died at home in bed.” He stopped again to let that sink in. He really believed it was the truth, too. At least he hoped it was. The idea of their very souls being banished to this strange world as well was more than he could bear.
“But they didn’t die at home,” he said, “or in bed. They did die fighting for the same principles they fought for back home. For Duty, Honor, and Country. For freedom and liberty and against aggression.” He grimaced. “A more horrible aggression than we’ve ever known. Most importantly, though, in some ways, they fought for you. They fought for their ship and their shipmates. Old and new. They died in a fight we didn’t want but we have to win if we or our friends are ever going to be able to live here in peace and freedom from the evil that sweeps this world.” He glanced at Sandra and saw her looking at him with an expression of pained concentration. Then he looked out at the Lemurians, most of whom couldn’t understand him, but were getting a quick translation.
“You know, it just came to me that maybe I do know why we’re here after all. Back in our world, our two ships, Walker and Mahan, were expendable. Hell, they’d already been expended. Their loss or survival didn’t make any difference at all to whether the United States won or lost the war. Here, they do make a difference. We make a difference.” He looked at the graves that lay in the center of the gathering and when he spoke again, his voice was a husky whisper.
“They made a difference.”
Quickly, he reached into the Bible in Sandra’s hands and took out the piece of paper there.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,” he resumed in a wooden voice. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die . . .” He continued on in a dwindling voice until the passage was complete, but quite a few of the others echoed his words from memory.
“A-tten-shun!” bellowed the Chief’s raspy voice.
“Firing party, pre-sent, arms!”
Most of the Lemurians had seen what was coming, but they flinched anyway when Gray commanded the riflemen to fire three volleys. Matt then stumbled through the committal, clumsily substituting “the earth” for “the deep” and ended with a harsher command than he’d intended for everyone to bow their heads. He was surprised and a little embarrassed to see quite a few of the Lemurian troops follow his order. Now that it was over, he thought it had been a hokey speech, right out of a B movie, but he couldn’t help it. It was how he felt. Sandra took the piece of paper from him and squeezed his hand gently for a moment. Then she placed the page back in the Bible and closed it.
There was no one to play taps. Silva crouched down beside the phonograph and removed the platter that bore the national anthem. Beneath it was another record. They all stood still and listened while a very old and melodramatic choir performance of “Rock of Ages” oozed from the louver. There was no telling why Marvaney had it, or why Silva hadn’t sent it with him when they buried him at sea. Toward the end, the spring began to wind down. Matt cleared his throat uncomfortably and Silva applied the brake.
“Mr. Ellis.”
“Sir?”
“The flag will remain uncased. It’ll fly here as long as we remain. Signal the ships to resume normal duties. The burial party will proceed with the interment. Afterward, those who wish to do so may remain to witness the Lemurian ceremony. The firing party will remain as well.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Ellis hesitated.
“Yes, what is it?” Matt replied distractedly, wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his good arm.
“You did all right.”
“Never was much good at public speaking,” he demurred.
“You did all right, Skipper,” Ellis repeated.
“Yes, you did,” Sandra agreed. “And you know? Maybe you’re right. About why we’re here, I mean.”
“Makes as much sense as anything,” said Jim. “And if it’s true, it proves God sure is an imaginative guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way the war was going back home, and in the shape our ships were in, only God could’ve found a use for them. Even if we’d managed to get out of our fix without the Squall—which I doubt—they wouldn’t have been any good to the Navy anymore.”
“God works in mysterious ways, huh?” quoted Matt with a small smile of his own. “What an understatement.”
The crowd dispersed, many to attend to their military duties but most to continue preparations for the Lemurian service later that evening. Labor parties resumed tearing down the wooden warehouses that lined the wharf to use them for fuel for the pyres. Others swarmed over one of the Grik hulks that had been driven ashore during the battle and were quickly reducing it to its skeletal framework. The ghetto housing, such as it was, was left untouched. The allied commanders were unhappy about the necessity of destroying the warehouses—or any property at all—but since there was no suitable timber nearby, they had no choice. They needed all the wood they could find to send this unprecedented number of souls to the sky. At least the warehouses were mostly empty, their contents having been moved into the city when the Grik arrived.
“An . . . unusual ceremony,” remarked Keje to Adar and Rolak, referring to the Amer-i-caan funeral they’d just seen. Keje had arrived late and had been supported by his disapproving daughter. He was still dizzy from the blow on his head.
“Unusual,” Adar agreed thoughtfully. “Short, too. And very somber. Their grief was quite clear.”
“They see death more as an ending than we do, perhaps. As if they do not expect to meet their lost ones again,” Keje speculated.
“I think not,” countered Adar. “Cap-i-taan Reddy told me to hear his words and I might better understand their faith.” He shook his head. “I listened, but my understanding is no less uncertain. I think he was right, however, that we may only sail a different wind to the same destination. They certainly hope to meet again those who go before them, as do we, but perhaps they are less certain their God will find them here, so far from their home.”
“Even more reason not to hide their dead underground.”
Adar looked at his lifelong friend but shook his head at Keje’s obtuseness. “You know as well as any novice priest that the souls of those lost at sea will rise to the heavens as surely as those sent by the pyre. The smoke of the pyre is symbolic. The ashes of the dead that rise within it settle back to the land or sea, in time. No,” he continued, “their customs may seem bizarre, even distasteful. But the meanings behind them are not so different as they may at first appear. I will have to speak more with them about this, but I think we must consider: they are willing to fight and die with us despite a fear that if they do die, they will be utterly lost. I believe our service for the dead would be considerably more somber if that concern lingered in our minds.” He hesitated. “Although I must confess I feel less positive about this ascension than I have in times past.” He held up a hand to forestall the shocked blinking of his companions. “No, I’ve no doubt the souls we free tonight will find their way, but I do grieve that there are so many. Their concerns are over, beyond those they may retain for us. I do not begrudge their contentment in the heavens . . . but we will regret their loss in the battles to come. Do not think I’ve forgotten my oath,” he said.
The three Lemurians lingered in silence a short while longer, watching as the mixed human and Lemurian burial party proceeded with their chore. Shovelfu
ls of soil disappeared into the rectangular holes with soft thumping sounds.
“It was surely a ceremony for warriors,” Rolak stated. “Except for the part when they are buried.”
The Lemurian “service” was just as alien to the human destroyermen who witnessed it as theirs had been to the Lemurians. Matt watched the initial ceremony accompanied by Jim, Sandra, and Courtney. Except for the firing party, whom Matt had ordered to remain as a show of honor and respect, most of the other members of the funeral party had returned to the ship. He’d ordered Gray to go, ostensibly to help coordinate repairs but mainly to get him off his feet. To his surprise, all the Lemurian destroyermen returned to the ship as well. All except Chack, who had remained behind along with the equally surprising Dennis Silva. Silva sent the phonograph back with Stites but stayed ashore talking quietly with Chack, waiting for the Lemurian funeral to get under way. Matt doubted they had ended their feud, but they appeared to be observing a truce for the evening, at least. Matt joined them briefly, out of curiosity.
“Chack?” he said.
“Sir?”
“Why did the other people . . . your people, go back to the ship? I thought I made it clear they were welcome to stay.”
Chack looked at him and then glanced out at the deepening gloom of the bay, beyond the pier, where the two ships lay. Nearby, and lower down, the dark silhouette of the PBY floated now as well. The Lemurian ceremony was about to take place on the west side of the point, nearest to Madura, where Mahan had been anchored almost since she arrived. A power cable had been rigged between the destroyers, and portable lights and lanterns glowed harshly on the decks, contrasting brightly against the dull glow in the western sky where the sun had slipped away.
“They grieve, Cap-i-taan,” he said. “But they are Navy men, yes? They are destroyermen.”
Matt nodded. “Yes. They are.”
“Walker is their Home. You are High Chief for Walker. You are High Chief of all the Amer-i-caan Navy here, so Mahan is their Home too. Both Homes need us now, more than the dead, and so they want to work.” He paused. “I am here because I do not know what you want me to do.”
Matt was taken aback. “What do you mean, Chack?”
“When I came to Walker, Keje-Fris-Ar was my High Chief. Big Sal was my Home. When I joined the Amer-i-caan Navy, I thought Walker was my Home. I was Bosun’s Mate,” he added proudly. Then he sighed. “Lieutenant Shinya tells me now that I am to be Chief of the Second Marines. What does that mean? I have become a good warrior,” he said matter-of-factly, “which is something I never expected, and I . . . am good at it. But is Walker no longer my Home? Do I not have a home?”
Matt was perplexed for a moment; then realization dawned. “No! I mean, yes, Walker is certainly your Home, Chack, and you’re still a bosun’s mate! Good grief, I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise!” Matt scratched his chin in thought. “The way things are, a lot of us—you included—have to do more than one job, though. Do you think Lieutenant Letts and Tony Scott—and all the others we left in Baalkpan doing other jobs—have lost their Home?” Grudgingly, Chack shook his head. “Then don’t worry about it. I’m glad you’re here, though. It’s appropriate that you should be. The Second Marines fought well. Hell, the battle would have been lost without them, and a lot of the credit for that goes to you. You helped train them and you fought with them and they trust you to lead them well. We all do. And your being here now is one of the duties of command.”
Later when the funeral finally got under way, Matt imagined as he watched that Chack probably was beginning to contemplate some of the consequences of command.
The great pyres, three of them, were erected in a triangular pattern between the city walls and the sea. In each case, a huge bed of timbers had been laid on the ground with the dead gently arranged upon them. Above them all, a carefully erected A-frame latticework of timbers was created that gave the pyres the appearance of three stranded Homes. The air was thick with the ripening reek of the dead and the fishy stench of rendered gri-kakka oil that the dreary structures had been painted with. No living Lemurian had ever seen such a large pyre before, let alone more than one. None had ever seen anything like the battle that forced the need for them. Chances were, Matt grimly reflected, this wouldn’t be the last time the People would send so many souls to the sky.
At the base of the triangle, Adar stood alone in the twilight. Torches were arrayed nearby and the golden stars of his robe twinkled and shimmered, reflecting the light. In a new touch, he was flanked by the proud, hopeful flags of those who’d fought and died. In the center, behind him, flew the lone-tree flag that Keje had fashioned to represent them all. The only flag missing was the Aryaalan flag, even though Rolak had begged one from the city. There had been no reply. The American flag still flew over the American dead, but not very far away.
Rolak had also tried to acquire an Aryaalan priest, but again there was no response. Queen Maraan had been satisfied by Adar’s assurance that his service wouldn’t stress the differences between their religions. From what little Matt knew, the differences weren’t extreme, but like any religion, he supposed, the devil was in the details. In a nutshell, Bradford softly explained while they waited, land folk and sea folk both believed that something like a soul was carried into a heavenly afterlife. The main friction stemmed from what the two peoples believed the souls did after they got there. The sea folk, Adar told him, carried on in a peaceful, idyllic existence as, or among, the stars (this was still unclear) where they helped guide the lives and seagoing paths of those on earth. Kind of like angels, Bradford explained. The sun, of course, was the benign, gentle creator and nurturer of all things. In other words, sun-god worship with a twist.
To the land folk, however, the heavens were like a utopian Valhalla. Full of willing servants and lovely females, food, drink, and great, glorious battles in which nobody ever died. The dead paid no heed to those who remained behind because they were having too much fun to notice. The sun was God, under whose judgmental gaze one had to perform the great deeds that earned a place above. Other than that, as an arbiter of who got to play forever and who didn’t, the sun was just a big lightbulb—at most, a spectator. Most distressing of all to the sea folk, however, to the Aryaalans and B’mbaadans the stars were just “up there.” Matt understood why the stars would have much greater importance to a people who used them for navigation, but he found it difficult to imagine anyone being incurious enough not to think of them at all. That was a tough difference to bridge and he knew major religious wars had been fought throughout human history over less profound differences. Matt had to admit that the sea folk’s religion was probably closer to what he’d been brought up with—profoundly different, of course, but still closer than Rolak’s or Queen Maraan’s. Although, he admitted wryly to himself, he could understand the attraction of the land folk religion to its adherents. At least to the males.
He looked at Sandra and saw the torchlight reflecting off her gold-tinged, sandy hair and fresh-scrubbed face. Her nurse’s uniform was immaculate and exotically feminine compared to the dungarees she wore day to day. He couldn’t help it, but a deep sadness, unrelated to the day’s events, swept over him and he looked away so fast that his throbbing shoulder made him wince.
She looked at him with concern. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. It had been a long day for him, emotionally and physically, and she’d not be surprised if he passed out at any moment. Triumphant maybe, considering the dark predictions she’d made all day about the consequences to be expected if he overtaxed himself, but not surprised. “Just a little sore,” he whispered, forcing a smile. Most of the crowd had grown silent as Adar prepared to speak.
“Now what?” asked Jim Ellis irritably as they stared at Aryaal’s petulantly silent north gate. Arrayed before it was the newly expanded Allied Expeditionary Force. Expanded by membership anyway, if not by actual numbers. An acrid haze from the funeral pyres that had burned throughout the night served as a con
stant reminder of why there had been no net increase in force levels. Another reminder of the long, strange “funeral” was the pounding headache that Matt’s former exec was enduring at the moment. A mass celebratory drunk to rival Dennis Silva’s wildest dreams had followed Adar’s sermon and subsequent igniting of the pyres. Adar’s requiem for the fallen had progressed from praise for their deeds to, ultimately, an almost envious bon voyage to the departing souls as they swept to the heavens atop the roaring flames. What followed then was an insane “wake.”
The seep flowed from casks brought ashore from the ships of the battle line in such abundance that Matt was frankly stunned they even had an army in the morning. At one point he questioned Adar about the wisdom of prostrating half their force on the doorstep of a possibly hostile city and the by then already sozzled Sky Priest had assured him that even the most depraved Aryaalan would never attack them while they were in “mourning.” Matt was fairly certain the Lemurian meaning of the word conveyed a few subtle differences. Adar then sternly pressed a cup of seep into his hand and solemnly asked him to celebrate the “rising” along with his friends—if he didn’t think his own God would be too terribly put out.
Matt took a few sips of the bittersweet brew under the watchful stare of Sandra Tucker. He finally even allowed the rest of those present, with the exception of the firing party, to imbibe as well. The unfortunate firing party was retained as an impromptu shore patrol to make sure everyone got back to the ship. Besides, in spite of Adar’s assurance, Matt felt compelled to maintain at least a small armed and sober force ashore. Letting them drink, with weapons at hand, didn’t even bear thinking about. Silva became a vocal convert to the Lemurian faith, although the denomination he embraced was unclear. Courtney Bradford was carried to the ship.
Now Matt had to admit his worst fears had been for naught and at least the majority of the AEF had stood to when called. With the dawn also came a return of the army’s positive nature, as if the smoke and flames of the night before had lifted much of their gloom. The smoke had eliminated the stench of the diminishing Grik carrion beyond the barricade and the seep had washed away their dread. He shook his head. A different wind, certainly, he thought. And maybe even a better one as far as warriors were concerned.
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