Blood Tide

by Robert F. Jones

  “I take him to Captain Miranda,” Kasim yelled up to him. “She out there somewhere. I see before sunset already. Then come back, we fight them together.”

  Culdee nodded vaguely. Miranda? She’s safe, though. Do what you want, old man, he thought. I’ve got my hands full. He looked up to take aim. Something sticky hit his face. Then another sticky thing. His eyes were sticking together, and he blinked, then blinked them clear. He looked up into the dancing firelight. The sky was full of gossamer scarves, drifting down on the light land breeze from the islands—baba del diablo—spiderwebs on the wind. They were sticking on everything. The two guns—Sôbô’s and the Moro Armado’s—fell silent. The gunlayers couldn’t see to shoot. Culdee ducked down the charred companionway. Up in the forward cabin he groped in the dark until he found the punt gun. Powder—yes, right here—and shot pouch. He dragged the gun back on deck and began loading it.

  There might be more boarders . . .

  Seamark stood on and off the Dangerous Ground as the battle neared its climax. Miranda’s hair was stiff with spiderwebs. She wanted more than anything to wash it, at least to pour a bucket of seawater over her head. But if she left the helm in these random winds, she might capsize. Flashes of gunfire lighted the dark to the west, yellow behind the filaments of the baba. She kept the helm, on and off, off and on, a broad reach outbound, making short tacks back in toward the battle.

  An engine rumbled toward her out of the booming background of surf and gunfire. She allowed a gust of wind to lay the boat over on its port side as black water hissed at the lip of the coaming. The engine came closer—she could not hide the sailboat’s profile. She took the AK and held it ready. The dog, warm against her feet, suddenly rose and stared toward the sound of the engine.

  It was a Thunder. She saw its bow, shattered by gunfire, move toward her. The dog growled. Miranda held the wheel with a tight-pressed hip and raised the rifle. She lowered the barrel until its forward leaf sight disappeared into the denser blackness of the approaching boat. She didn’t want to shoot, but she would . . .

  “Not shooting now, please.”

  It was Kasim.

  She shivered and put down the rifle.

  Kasim brought the Thunder alongside and slung something heavy and limp into the cockpit. It was Curt. In the flare of a gun blast she saw he was cut across the top and side of his head. Brillo licked at the blood, looked up at her, licked again.

  “Maybe dead already,” Kasim said. “Or not. I go back. You go away. Zamboanga, Hawaii, America.”

  “Don’t go back into that hellhole,” Miranda said. “Stay here. We’ll get out of this, go together.”

  The dog growled. He leapt into Kasim’s boat.

  “Is a fighter, the dog?”

  “Yes,” she said. Kasim laughed—the most amazing thing he’d ever heard.

  Kasim waved, smiled, and rumbled away into the darkness, toward the flash of the gunfire.

  Padre Cotinho stood at the door of the cathedral. Below him the town was burning. He could hear the pop of gunfire, louder than burning timbers. Looters whooped their owl song amidst the ruined shops. He stared to the north.

  “Do you see it?” he asked Rosalinda.

  “What?”

  “The gunfire.”

  She followed his gaze and saw it, pale blooms of light behind the devil’s drool.

  “Let them kill each other,” she said. “What about these people?” The cathedral was full of women and children, praying in the dark, under the smile of Saint Lazarus.

  “They will survive,” he said. “Only the town is dying.”

  Balabatchi came up from the town. He had the yakuza with him. The six Japanese looked pleased with themselves, strutting and laughing, hung heavily with weapons and loot.

  “Que va?”

  “Bueno,” Balabatchi said.

  “Then now is the time,” Padre Cotinho said.

  Balabatchi nodded. He beckoned to the yakuza and walked briskly toward Gólgota. They followed, laughing. They died in the shadows, under the flash of many bolos.

  “You are no man of God,” Rosalinda said.

  “No,” Padre Cotinho agreed. “Just a man.”

  He stared to the north, watching the slow flares of gunfire.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “I think that does it,” the commodore said. He had his binoculars to his eyes, the flare of the other ship’s fires dancing on the lenses. Billy Torres fed another shell into the gun, slammed the block closed, and fired again, for good measure. The round smashed into the schooner’s bow, sending splinters high into the night. “No movement,” the commo said. “Just dead men, Billy. She’s burning from stem to stern.”

  I can see that from here, you asshole, Billy thought. Without binoculars.

  “Get on over there in a boat and blow her up,” the commo ordered. “Take a couple of satchel charges.”

  Billy slammed another three-inch shell into the receiver, slammed the block, fired again. Chunks of burning wood spun off crazily at the hit.

  “Do it now, Billy,” the commo said. “You’re just wasting ammunition, and you know they don’t make that kind of three-inch any more.”

  “You go,” Billy said.

  “What?” The commo turned, his face redder than the light of the fires. Both ships were burning, and to Torres it was only a question of which would sink first.

  “I said, ‘You go.’” Billy fed the gun again.

  “You fire that thing one more time, and it’s a general court,” the commo said.

  “Then you go over there, sir. I’ll cover you.”

  “This sounds a lot like mutiny to me, Billy.”

  “Fuck mutiny,” Billy said. “Fuck you, sir.” All of it came surging up now. “Yeah, fuckin’ aye, mutiny! Why don’t you go over there, you round-eye pussy? Why’s it always me?”

  “Mutiny!” the commodore screamed. He slammed his binoculars onto the deck, kicked them into a fire.

  “Mutiny,” Billy agreed. His lata told him the commo was scared. It was there in his eyes. Billy had a .45 Colt automatic pistol on his hip, and he pulled it now. There was a round already chambered. There was always a round chambered. “Get off this goddamn tub, or I’ll blow you off.”

  The commo stepped back. He didn’t know what to say now. Billy reached into the wheelhouse and pulled out a heavy canvas packet. A satchel charge. He tossed it to the commodore.

  “Move it,” he said. “I wanna see this. And don’t try to run. I’ll take you out with the three-inch.”

  “What do I—”

  “Blow her up. Then you can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

  The commo went.

  Culdee had slipped below, in the shadows, to check the bilges. There was a fire in the engine compartment, and he could see Takahashi’s body sizzling over the flames. He flashed a light down through the scuttle. A lot of water down there. No power. No pumps. Timbers overhead cracked and crackled. Something rustled behind him. The engineer’s assistant, a wiry little man with gray hair but no face, twitched in the far corner of the engine compartment. Culdee looked down into the bilges again and swung the beam forward as far as it would reach. Firelight flickered on the oily water, and he saw bodies floating face down, toward the bow. Sparks and burning embers fell through a hole in the main deck and hit the water with angry hisses. Some fell on a dead man. They burned on. The Arizona . . .

  Topside again he saw Sôbô crouched by the gun. He motioned Culdee to lie flat on the deck. It was hot. Sôbô pointed toward the Moro Armado. Culdee heard the revving engine of a fast boat. Someone was coming over. Where was the AK? He couldn’t remember where he’d left it. Fire. Flying splinters. Another hit from the Moro Armado. Kasim’s Moros slumped dead over the wrecked Lewis guns. The smell of burning flesh . . .

  Culdee saw the Thunder now, silhouetted against Moro Armado’s fires. There was one man at the tiller.

  The Moro Armado’s forward three-inch banged again, and the hit came on the fantail th
is time. Bodies spun off into the water. No one was left alive there, or dead either. Except Culdee. The Moro Armado was still moving, slowly, on the night wind—but moving, right to left. Venganza was dead in the water.

  Culdee felt a body shudder against his elbow. It was a dead Moro, still kicking. No rifle, though. Culdee took the man’s bolo. The fast boat loomed close aboard. There was a man at the helm, scared—a white man at the helm. He wore no hat. His khaki shirt was torn. His hair was blond, blond going gray. The man looked up as he cut the motor. He threw a line over the taffrail, looked up again. He heaved himself aboard the schooner. He had a pistol on his hip, a satchel charge in his free hand.

  Culdee stood and faced him. They weren’t a yard apart.

  “Turner.”

  The man stepped back, went for his pistol.

  “Culdee?”

  He slapped at the holster flap, his pale blue eyes red with the smoke, that weak chin, wattles along his jawline. Turner, sure, but old now.

  “Goddamn right,” Culdee said. “Culdee, J. F., Chief Boatswain’s Mate, USN.”

  He swung the bolo. Turner ducked. The blade clipped his left arm, and the satchel charge dropped. He had cleared the holster flap now, he had the pistol coming out, coming up. Culdee moved in and chopped again. Again Turner dodged. The gunbarrel was up now. There was the close slam of the .45. Culdee dodged sideways, swinging the bolo. Fire flashed from the pistol, whined, smacked. Culdee reeled to his left—shit—the bullet. . . .

  My right hand, he flashed. That’s the one that’s busted up the worst. He shook it. Two fingers were gone. Where was the bolo? Turner fired again . . .

  Another shell from the Moro Armado smashed home, amidships this time. Turner was lost amidst the flash and the flames, smoke heavy and choking all around him.

  Culdee saw the bolo, crawled toward it. He heard the near, loud crash of the 4.7, saw its shell smack the Moro Armado at the waterline. A perfect smoke ring blew from Sôbô’s gun muzzle. Then smoke blinded him again. Must have been like this then, on the Fat Lady . . .

  Sôbô opened the gun’s breech block, and the brass clanked out in a bright yellow whirl, thumping on the deck behind him. Ghosts of white smoke rose up, acrid from the plug. He groped for another shell, grabbed it by the ogive curve, swung it up, and slapped it into the receiver tray. And rammed it home. He closed the block. Easy now, easy now. He looked hard through the smoke and saw the Moro Armado close aboard, broadside to him. He sighted down the barrel of his gun. He cranked in some deflection, cranked the muzzle down until it was smack on the gunboat’s pilothouse. He fired. Another hit. The pilothouse exploded in spinning fury. But the three-inch barked back at him. The shell whined overhead. Sôbô opened the breech block. He reached for a shell . . .

  Culdee hunted Turner through the smoke. On his hands and knees. Slipping in blood, his own blood. Splinters bit when his shoulders moved. He was spiky as a porcupine—wooden ships . . .

  Turner was hiding beside the stump of the mizzenmast. Flames licked behind him. He flattened himself on the deck. Too much, too much—they can’t ever pay me enough for this shit duty. . . . He saw Culdee briefly through the smoke, angling toward him, left to right. He leveled the .45 and slapped the trigger. Bang—gone wild. . . . No, dork, it’s not a shotgun. . . . The receiver locked open. It was empty. He reached into his hip pocket for another magazine. No hip pocket. He felt his shirt pocket. No more ammo. Billy’d blown it all away . . .

  Sôbô hit the Moro Armado again, at the waterline. Billy fired back at his muzzle flash. The shell flew high once more, loud and almost visible in the dark. Sôbô swung the breech block open, grabbed another round. He saw the flash of the Moro Armado’s muzzle. Splinters skewered his face. His right eye went dead. He pulled himself up, his hand sizzling on the gun barrel. He cranked the muzzle down again, point blank. Yes, he’d chambered the round just as the three-inch hit. He fired. In the afterimage of the flash he saw the gunboat shudder, spew gouts of smoke, list heavily to port. The gunner would have to correct now, maybe he couldn’t correct enough, couldn’t depress his muzzle quite enough to hit the schooner. Diagrams flashed through Sôbô’s mind—he smelled the Inland Sea, the chalk on the instructor’s blackboard, Eta Jima, Gunnery 101. . . . He reached back for another shell as he opened the plug . . .

  Culdee’s legs were broken. His shirt was on fire, flapping against his back with its own self-inspired wind. Fuck it. He rolled over onto his back, squelching the flames. Blood welled from his belly. He looked down, wished he’d hadn’t. There was a big frag from that last one, in his belly. The blood was slow and dark, and there were pieces of crud in it. He could smell shit along with the blood. “Shit!” he yelled. Then he laughed. You heard about it on the midwatches, your shipmates had seen it, and here it is. No pain yet, though. Thank Christ for that.

  Where was Turner?

  He heard the dead cranking of an engine. That nagging, sullen whine—Viv carping about payday, about shore duty. Turner was over the side, in the fast boat. Culdee could hear him muttering down there in the dark. Abandon ship. The Fat Lady. They all died, didn’t they? Or most of them, anyway.

  Sôbô fired again. Culdee saw the hit, again at the waterline. Then he saw a flash from the gunboat’s forward deck. Not a gun flash, a grenade launcher. Like in the delta . . .

  The grenade hit Sôbô in the chest, blew through him, exploded against the gun. The round Sôbô had just chambered went off, but the barrel was bent now. The gun exploded. It shredded Sôbô like raw meat in a whizbang.

  Surigao autumn . . .

  Culdee’s head clanked against something hard and metallic. He could hear Turner cursing as he turned the starter again and again. Culdee reached behind him, felt the metal. It was the punt gun, where he’d laid it before the fight started. The weapon was already loaded with half a pound of black powder, a heavy charge of cannister. He began pulling himself toward the taffrail, hauling the punt gun beside him every few drags of his elbows. Caps? He slapped what was left of his shirt. Yes, right there in his pocket, where he used to keep his smokes. He could see the Moro Armado listing dangerously to port now, her nearside scuppers dipping close to the sea every time a wave reached her. He saw the grenade launcher flash again, heard the grenade blow, back near the gun Sôbô was serving. He looked over toward the gunmount. In the flare of the fires he saw Sôbô dead against the smashed gun. Culdee’s elbows skidded in the blood and oil on the deck. His face hit the planking, and two teeth splintered. Burning coals fell on his back and shoulders. He crawled on.

  Turner was still trying—the engine had taken frags through its feed line. When he saw gasoline leaking, smelled it on his feet, in the boat’s bilges, Turner pulled the gas line free. There was a spare tank. He pulled the sloshing steel tank aft and plugged it onto the tit. He pumped the rubber bulb, priming it. Then he cranked the starter once again. A choking splutter. The smell of gas fumes . . . flooded. He’d have to wait another minute.

  But Torres was still lobbing grenades. The gunboat was quite close now, and Turner could see Billy on the fo’c’sle, the M79 stubby against his shoulder like a blunderbuss, thumb clear of the breaking lever, pop—flash—bam. This time too close.

  “Cease fire!” Turner yelled. “Cease fire! They’re done, you idiot! They’re all dead, don’t waste any more grenades!”

  “Fuck you, sir,” Billy yelled back. He popped a round at the commo, saw it burst on the schooner’s cabin roof. Then he broke the launcher and slipped in another round. Turner crouched down in the Thunder’s cockpit. Court-martial for that man, no doubt about it now . . .

  Culdee reached the rail. He dragged the punt gun up and slid the barrel out over the side. Turner was just forward of him, cowering in the fast boat. But Culdee couldn’t depress the muzzle of the punt gun enough to hit him. The barrel was too long, longer than a tall man is tall. He’d have to stand to do it, and he couldn’t stand on his wasted legs. Turner was up again, on his knees. He was grabbing for the starter
key. He was turning it. Culdee heard the engine fire. Then it died. Turner cursed. Culdee fumbled in his pocket for the box of caps. He got it open, took one between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, the stubs of the last two fingers still leaking blood onto the deck, onto the gun itself. He felt a bone in his right thigh poke through his skin and the bite of the air on its marrow. He tried to cap the nipple of the punt gun. The cap slipped off, tinkled on the deck, bright and brassy in the firelight. He took another.

  Culdee heard the engine light off. Turner was babying it with the throttle, letting it purge itself of fumes and smoke. Culdee knew he couldn’t kill him with the punt gun, not this close. He looked around, saw a coil of Manila near his left hand. He grabbed it, his maimed hands working automatically now, and threw a hangman’s noose in the line, fed the loop up, and shaped it. He peeled off some slack. Turner was ready to run. Another grenade lobbed over from the Moro Armado. Turner ducked. The grenade popped against the bow, wire frags whirring like cicadas. . . . Then he engaged the engine and pushed the throttle ahead. Culdee threw his loop . . .

  Out of there! Turner exulted. Free at last. . . . Then the noose settled over his shoulders, slid down his arms, and locked where his throttle arm bent. He felt it tighten and looked back. He could see Culdee belly-down on the deck, the line paying out from his hands. Turner fumbled with the tightening noose. The Thunder went squirrelly, skewing sideways, until he kicked the wheel. He almost tumbled out of the boat. Turner screamed, fighting the noose . . .

  A bitt! Where was the bitt? Culdee felt the Manila burning his palms, saw a bitt off to his right, rolled toward it. He could feel a bone scraping on the deck planks—his shinbone. The bone in his opposite thigh cut circles across his muscles. The blood pumped stiff into the frayed flesh. He threw two quick half hitches onto the bitt, then rolled back to the punt gun.