Blood Tide

by Robert F. Jones

  “To hell with both of you,” Miranda said at last. She turned on her heel and stalked stiff-backed toward the bunker. Kasim followed, grinning with amazement. The two men watched her go. Then Culdee turned back to the Q-boat. He was reading the registry on her stern.

  “Bloedig-Feeks,” Culdee read off the stern, “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s Dutch,” Sôbô said. “Means ‘Red Witch.’ Did you ever read the book? The movie was terrible but the novel, by your excellent Mr. Garland Roark, was a crackerjack sea story. Almost Conradian, I’d say.”

  “Bloody Fix,” Culdee said, shaking his head as he watched Miranda go through the bunker hatch. “We’re sure as hell in one with my daughter.”

  Curt and the two Thunders arrived back at San Lázaro shortly after sunrise. The pilot of the second boat had finally found an unpolluted gas drum, and while they ran east on that one, the crews strained enough from the bad barrels to allow them an uninterrupted passage, but much slower than it should have been. As it was, both boats’ tanks were beginning to suck air as they eased into the Lázaro basin. Where was everybody? While Abdul refueled, Curt went up to the commo’s house to find out.

  “He’s on Balbal,” Billy Torres said. “There’s been a world of shit happened since you left. We might have a revolution on our hands here. The commode’s holed up in his fort at Balbal with most of the boats. We’re only leaving a few here to cover our ass. I’m heading over that way right now. You’d better come along.”

  “I’ve got to collect my dog from the yawl,” Curt said. “I don’t want these Tausuqs making aso out of him.”

  “Too bad,” Torres said. Aso was a Filipino delicacy—dog-meat stew. “I’d take seconds and thirds if they did.”

  “You don’t like my dog,” Curt said.

  “Damned right I don’t. And you can take him in your own boat when you’ve got him. He’s sure as shit not coming in mine.”

  Curt bummed a jeep ride back down to the basin. Abdul had finished fueling his Thunder, and the two of them ran out to the Sea Witch. Brillo looked gaunt, standing there on the cabin roof. Had Rosalinda forgotten to come out and feed him last night? His bowl was empty, so Curt fed him a big double portion, loaded his loose gear, and led the dog, leashed, down to the Thunder. They saw Billy in another Thunder racing out of the channel toward Balbal and accelerated into his creaming wake. Revolution? What the fuck’s all that about, Curt wondered.

  He found the commodore inshore on Balbal, in a huge fake-thatched boat shed behind the headquarters. The shed connected to the channel leading in from the sea. Curt had seen the shed but never gone into it before. His eyes adjusted slowly to the green gloom, and then he saw Millikan on the forward deck of a long old-timey-looking ship moored to bollards at the dock. The ship bristled with machine guns and cannon.

  “What the hell is she?” he asked when he’d come aboard.

  “River gunboat,” the commo said. “About sixty years old. Slow and rickety but loaded for bear. She’s called the Moro Armado. The first Commodore Millikan arrived here on her early in the war. She’d pulled him out of the water after his PT boat was sunk. Apparently a survivor from Corregidor, she was. There were three gunboats still afloat there just before the island fell, in early ’42, and all were reported to have been scuttled, but this one must have sneaked away. No one knows for sure. By the time the Tausuqs found her, the Japs had nailed her from the air. Only man left alive was Millikan, and he couldn’t even recall being rescued. Her real name and numbers had been blown or burned off by the Jap dive-bombers, and apparently the crew had deep-sixed all her papers and records. Once Mill One came around, he renamed her after one of these islands down here, Moro Armado. She’s kind of a talisman to the Tausuqs, magical because she brought them their great guerrilla leader, the commodore.” He laughed wryly. “Moro Armado means the ‘Armed Moor.’ But Billy and the more cynical members of our little navy call her Albino Armadillo because of her white hull and her god-awful waddle. She only comes out, usually, for Commodore’s Day—that’s Easter Monday. The day Millikan finally emerged from his coma and the guerrilla war really got under way. A showboat, but we may damn well have to fight her.”

  “Can she fight?”

  “Those are old three-inch guns, fore and aft,” the commo said. “Reliable but slow. I’ve replaced her original machine guns with M85s; those are .50 calibers, fast and hard hitting. Ought to be able to handle any pump boats or kumpits that get uppity with us.”

  He looked Curt over, head to toe, with a doubtful twist to his mouth.

  “Say, you’re not the leader of these half-assed rebels who’re making to attack us, are you?”

  Curt laughed—a sudden, spontaneous guffaw.

  “Fuck no,” he said. “Sir. I don’t know what you’re even talking about. Rebels?”

  “I didn’t think you were,” the commo said. “Yeah, rebels or something like that. Funny stuff going on around here. I don’t have it all scoped out yet, but I’m taking no chances. Too damned many coincidences, all aimed in our direction. We’ll fight from here if it comes to that.”

  “Well, this run went fine,” Curt said, “except someone managed to water our gas reserve. That’s why I’m so late getting back. No more Phantoms, though, thank Christ.”

  “Amen to that. Say, did you get any kind of weather report this morning? I don’t like that sky that’s shaping up out there.”

  Curt had noticed it, too, alto- and nimbostratus moving in from the northwest with what looked like big anvil clouds looming on the horizon. Weather on the way.

  “The weather band out of Puerto Princesa forecast something they called vientos azores for this part of the Sulu, starting sometime this evening. That’s ‘hawk winds,’ isn’t it?”

  “Shit,” the commo said, nodding a gloomy yes. “They’re supposed to be a bastard, according to Torres. Just what we don’t need if it comes to repelling a sneak attack.”

  Torres came into the shed and up the accommodation ladder.

  “Forecast of hawk winds on the radio, sir,” he said, saluting the commo and grinning. “Probably baba del diablo, too, the men say. It’s that time of year.”

  “What’s baba whatchamacallit?”

  “Means ‘devil’s drool,’” Billy said. He laughed. “They say you gotta be there to appreciate the full effect.”

  All through the day boats kept arriving at Perniciosa—outriggers, kumpits, the long, brightly sailed canoes called vintas—and debarking heavily armed Moros. Kasim’s men met them in their own boats and guided them in through the Dangerous Ground. Culdee watched them for a while, then walked up the shore away from the landing. He felt awful about Miranda. He knew she was right, in her way, and he knew for sure that if she hadn’t arrived at the house in California, he’d be a dead man by now. Dead of booze and despair, maybe with his head blown off by his own shotgun. Yet he had to stay, had to kill Turner—at least see him die. The whole business of Brigadune, of that entire war, of his naval career so stupidly terminated—by Turner, he was sure now—none of it would count for anything if he didn’t see Turner die. There were ghosts out there, crying to be avenged. And ghosts inside himself as well, demanding that he be the one to do it.

  Christ, he needed a drink. He’d come far up the shore by now, kicking broken seashells. Gulls were circling above, screaming in the strong sea breeze of midday. He knew he could get a drink back at the base. There were racks upon racks of bottles in the mess where they ate. Scotch, bourbon, gin, rum, brandy, sake—Sôbô’s navy followed the British tradition when it came to drink. He could just ease back there, slide into the mess, pour himself one stiff one. Just one.

  Sure you could, he told himself. He walked on. Ahead he saw something in the haze of the surf: animals milling in the wash of the waves, gathered around something there on the shore, fighting over it, driving one another away, then quickly turning to feed again.

  As he came closer, he made them out. Island dogs. Mongrels. Skinny and scabb
ed with old wounds and touches of mange. Ratty tails, long snipy snouts, flashing teeth. He had heard them last night, howling in the dark. Now here they were. How long had they been living on this island? Forever? They were eating something dead that had washed up from the sea, something gray and rotten—he caught the stink of death from a hundred yards off.

  Then suddenly in his heart he was back at the shiplike house in California, drunk on the veranda, watching wild dogs tearing at dead things on the surf-pounded beach. He felt again the despair, the total, utter weakness of himself at that time. No. He would not take a drink when he got back. He would not take a drink. He would certainly not take a drink until the fight was finished. Until Turner was dead. Then he would take a drink. If he really felt like one.

  He turned and walked back.

  Sôbô called a meeting in the hour before noon. Culdee sat in the mess hall beside Miranda, who would look at him only with cold disdain. Sôbô was accompanied by a short, wiry man in fisherman’s clothes, a cold-eyed man with a white spade beard, short, almost military-cut white hair, and hands that were not those of a fisherman. With him was a dark, handsome woman in torn but respectable clothing, Filipino, not Tausuq. The soldierly man looked Caucasian, maybe Spanish. The woman looked exhausted—angry, frightened but exhausted.

  “This is Father Cotinho,” Sôbô told the group. “He and Mrs. Rosalinda Aguinaldo have just arrived from San Lázaro. He brought news which I must with reluctance—with repugnance—pass on to you.” He looked at Miranda. “Your friend and shipmate Mr. Pascal is dead.”

  Culdee felt Miranda stiffen; her eyes went wide.

  “He was murdered by Millikan and his henchman, Billy Torres. But he revealed nothing detrimental to us in our upcoming fight while he was held by them. He died bravely, a shipmate to the end.”

  “How did he die?” Culdee asked. Miranda looked at him appalled, as if to say, How could you ask such a cruel question?

  He’d had to ask it. Freddie was his shipmate, too.

  Padre Cotinho made a cross in the air. Mrs. Aguinaldo looked down and away.

  “They crucified him” Sôbô replied. “Yesterday was your Good Friday. They crucified him on the Gólgota above Lázaro City. They lanced him to death on the cross.”

  Miranda’s hands covered her face, and her head fell forward. Culdee could feel her shaking. He saw tears seeping through her fingers, down her forearms, pooling on her legs, sliding off. He put his arm around her.

  Padre Cotinho nodded solemnly, confirming Sôbô’s statements.

  “We see this, Señora Rosa and me,” he said in a deep, heavily accented voice. A sad voice. “These bad mens. Muy malo. The Satan’s own child, they are.” He paused, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I bless your compadre beforetime he die. I remove him his sins. He was my good amigo, my frien’. He is in heaven with Our Lord.”

  Miranda kept shaking. Culdee hugged her hard, and she leaned against his chest. Culdee’s own eyes were wet now. He fought the sobs deep in his chest.

  “Millikan has removed nearly all his fast boats to his base at Balbal,” Sôbô continued. He would not look at Culdee. “That is to our advantage. For that is where our heaviest blows will fall. We can run with him now, and we outgun him. Our mines have been seeded in all channels Millikan’s vessels might use to attack us. A special force of indigenous freedom fighters will assault the Balbal base from the rear. Flanking attacks along the shore from north and south will pin him in his fortress. Our Q-boat and its escorts will block any escape seaward. If he comes out to fight, we will destroy him.”

  Sôbô looked around the room. Culdee followed his eyes. Younger Japanese were translating for the older ones, gathered in a clique at one side of the mess hall. Kasim was translating for his own men. For a change Kasim was not smiling. The Moros half-drew their bolos and proved their edges against hard thumbs. The Japanese nodded gravely.

  “We will destroy him,” Sôbô repeated slowly. He pulled something from a sheath on the table before him. A katana—a samurai sword. It flashed in the stark light of the mess hall. “Banzai!”

  The Japanese echoed the cry. Culdee stood and joined them. “Banzai!” His fist was clenched, broken and dark, weathered by-battles and sun and saltwater. He thrust it upward again and again.

  “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! May we live ten thousand years! Banzai!”

  Now the Moros joined the chant, their bolos flashing bright as Sôbô’s sword.

  “Banzai!” Kasim screamed. “Katana!” He laughed and wept at once.

  Then Miranda was rising, standing beside Culdee. Her square fist punched upward, slowly at first, then faster—a piston pounding toward heaven with the others. Her face was still streaked with the wet snail tracks of tears, her eyes green and flecked with motus . . .

  Sea fire.

  “Banzai!” she screamed. “Ten thousand years! Kill them! Kill them all! Burn in hell ten thousand years!”

  Rosalinda was weeping. Outside even the dogs howled, the dogs of the barren shore.

  Padre Cotinho, looking on quietly, held back a smile. Effredio had not died in vain.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Torres had left four Thunders at San Lázaro, all fully fueled and armed, their mooring lines singled up and their engines warm. The senior mundo, a middle-aged man named Siddi Ibrahim, kept his crew close to the boats. His father had served the original commodore, and Ibrahim took pride in that. He did not like the kumpit traffic that kept pouring past the mouth of the channel leading into the fast-boat basin. Too many boats for this time of day. He kept glassing them with the worn binoculars Torres had left for him, but they all seemed normal enough—a few crewmen lounging in the shade of the after awnings, the helmsmen, bored, smoking cigarettes or drinking from mugs. Double-dragon coffee, Ibrahim thought. A cup would taste good right now. It was nearly noon, and his men were making bets on which would sing first today, the minaret or the cathedral. They laughed and flashed rolls of pesos, staring eagerly back up toward the town. The imam of the Lázaro City mosque was in unspoken competition with Padre Fagundes to see which could proclaim high noon the quicker, the muezzin’s hoarse yell from the minaret, or the great bronze bell of the cathedral.

  Today the muezzin won. His deep, musical bellow had just begun “Allah . . .” when the vibrant peal of the bell tolled high above the town. The men were beginning to crow or protest the decision when a new sound joined the chorus. Ibrahim ducked flat on the dock. Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap . . . it came. A machine gun. He heard the rounds snap past, caught the flash of a tracer, brighter than the noon sun, and heard the smack of bullets hitting wood. Habib Amin, the happiest of the gamblers a moment ago, stood still, a wad of pesos flapping in his hand. A bullet knocked him flat. His head exploded . . .

  Ibrahim saw tracers pouring from two kumpits lying dead in the water at the mouth of the channel. Bullet splashes stitched the water, walked up to the dock, tore into one Thunder, paused a moment, walked on. Ibraham smelled leaking gasoline.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Into the boats! Attack!”

  The crewmen scrambled toward their boats, crouching low and weaving as they ran. Another man fell, knocked sideways clean over a Thunder and into the water. Ibrahim dived into his cockpit and reached up to start the engine. Hassan, his crewman, tumbled in and lay flat in the scuppers. “The gun!” Ibrahim screamed. “Shoot back! Make them drop their heads!” The engine roared and Ibrahim flipped the mooring lines loose, bullets whipping close overhead. Another Thunder was roaring, and another. Two leapt out ahead of him into the channel, and Ibrahim followed directly behind them—their bulk would mask him from the gunfire. Then his engine faltered. The reek of gasoline—sharp—danger. . . . He heard another boat roar up behind him and slipped his Thunder sideways to let it through. The first two Thunders were nearly at the mouth of the channel, veering out away from each other to exit at diverging angles. Good! Divide their fire! The third boat raced up behind them.

  Then the Thunder to the right d
isappeared in a red and black burst. Burning gasoline spewed out over the water. The second boat dodged sideways, but then it, too, suddenly vanished in a great boiling weal of torn water. Debris and water splashed down. . . . Ibrahim cranked his engine, it coughed, then ignited, then stuttered again. He choked it, hard, slammed the throttle forward, and it roared clean again.

  The third boat—fifty yards ahead now and opening fast—shot into the gap left by the two destroyed Thunders. Other kumpits had closed in behind those at the mouth of the channel. Ibrahim saw muzzle flash wink from their bows. The third Thunder—who was that? Hakim? Yes—began shredding fiberglass. It blew back in chunks, green and whizzing, and Ibrahim saw bullets rip the boat fore and aft, Hakim suddenly gone from behind the wheel, the windscreen starred and breaking up. Then there was a flick and a flash and a ballooning gout of blazing gasoline as the Thunder exploded.

  Ibrahim steered for the flames, cut the wheel hard to the left, feeling the heat singe his eyebrows, stiffen his face, and he was through it—in the pall of the smoke, and racing seaward. Hassan had swung the M60 aft and was firing back at the kumpits. A good man, Ibrahim thought. He looked ahead and saw another Thunder racing up at an angle to join him. Who was it? Had one of his own boats actually gotten clear of the trap? Or maybe a boat sent by Torres or the Commodore . . .