“Which means the enemy’ll still have a hard time seeing us,” Matt reminded, “particularly with their attention elsewhere.” He knew Spanky’s greatest frustration was that he wanted in the fight. It wasn’t in him to stand and watch. Matt felt the same, but possibly for the very first time in his experience, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Maybe it was because they’d prepared so carefully and everyone was on the exact same page for once. Or maybe, having faced Kurokawa so many times, they knew him well enough to predict his reactions. Matt hoped so, but did that mean Kurokawa knew him just as well? The thought bothered him.
“Hold on. What’s that?” Spanky asked. Even as the air battle raged above and the Grik cruisers crisscrossed the upper bay, sometimes shooting at planes but mostly trying to avoid them, two of the monstrous ironclad battleships were getting underway—and so was Savoie. Matt wondered if they were moving solely to avoid the planes or had already smelled the bait past the North Channel. It was still a little early, but Kurokawa obviously had scouts in the air. Matt’s speculation shattered when Spanky continued. “I see three—four modern planes swooping down. I think they’re goin’ for our guys! Jeez . . . They’re tearin’ ’em up! One pass knocked three P-Ones out of the sky!” He turned to look at Matt. “Those damn Macchi-Messers, Skipper.”
Matt looked for himself. “Anytime now, Colonel Mallory,” he said tensely. “Have Mr. Palmer pipe the Third Pursuit Squadron chatter up here,” he told Minnie. “I want to hear it.”
• • •
There was bright sunlight at seven thousand feet and the four P-40Es of Colonel Ben Mallory’s 3rd Pursuit Squadron seemed all alone. The lightning storm still lingered to the west but visibility was good—until one looked down at Lizard Ass Bay. Smoke piled high and the haze made it difficult to see what was going on. There was a helluva fight underway, though, in the air and on the land. Flitting, burning, wildly maneuvering shapes soared over the haze about three thousand feet below, and clouds of gray-white smoke rose from the land about ten or twelve miles northwest of Saansa Point, where Chack’s Brigade and the 1st North Borno were driving fast, fighting hard. Down below, Ben suddenly saw four particularly fast planes almost as big as his P-40s, with strange, mottled, camouflage patterns, swoop in from the north and tear a swathe through Salissa’s P-1Cs. It was like a blowtorch boring through a swarm of moths and, caught unaware, they never had a chance. Several enemy planes fell burning before them as well. With their dark green paint and bright red “meatballs,” the Jap-Grik planes were clear to him even at this distance. The indiscriminate slaughter wreaked by the Macchi-Messers hardened his heart against them even more.
“Flashy Lead to Flashies Two, Three, and Four. Tallyho! Tallyho! League fighters, nine o’clock low!” Ben hollered in his microphone over the roar of the big Allison. “All Flashies, follow me!” He tightened his grip on the stick and pushed it forward. Down below he saw the League planes split, two breaking right, two left, whipping around for another pass through the furball. “You’re with me, Flashy Four,” he called to 2nd Lieutenant Niaa-Saa, better known as “Shirley.” She was one of the shortest Lemurians Ben ever saw, and one of the best pilots. “We’ll go for the two turning west. Flashies Two and Three, take the ones breaking east.”
“Wilco,” came Lieutenant Conrad Diebel’s stoic, Dutch-accented voice. He was Two. Lieutenant (jg) Suaak-Pas-Ra, “Soupy,” didn’t respond, but Ben saw him edge away in his mirror, sticking to Diebel’s wing. They were screaming down, all probably trying to find their targets with the N-3 gunsights in front of them. Ben put his illuminated crosshairs in front of one of the enemy planes. “Let’s see how you like it, you bastards!” he said aloud to himself. P-1 pilots, expecting their appearance after the League fighters showed themselves, were careful to stay out of their way. The Japs and Grik had no such notion. A couple shot at them as they blew past, just as the P-1s probably had at the enemy, but they were diving too fast. There were a lot of them, though, and trying not to collide with any was distracting Ben’s attention from his target.
“Soupy’s hit!” Diebel shouted, more emotion in his voice than Ben had ever heard. “He lost part of a wing and is going down!”
Damn, Ben swore, he probably hit one of these stupid planes. What an awful way to go after all we’ve been through! “Stay on your targets,” he said harshly. The targets must’ve seen them or sensed they’d suddenly become the prey, because they started jinking. They were still too low for anything fancy, however, and Ben put his crosshairs in front of a plane now less than a hundred yards away and pressed the trigger. The P-40 shuddered violently as all six lovingly maintained .50-caliber machine guns in its wings poured tracers in a tight, converging stream just in front of the enemy. In the next instant, the plane and hundreds of heavy bullets met. Amid a glittering confetti of shredded aluminum, the Macchi-Messer coughed black smoke, then fire, and nosed down to scatter its burning fragments across the northwest end of Island Number 1, a few hundred feet below. “I got one!” Ben shouted triumphantly, pulling up. After all this time, it was his first victory over an “equal” aircraft.
“I got one,” Diebel reported, his voice strained, “but the other rolled in behind me! They are rather good at this, I think.”
“Head up, Col-nol!” Shirley cried. “I winged mine, but he’s turnin’ aaf-ter you!”
Ben glanced at his mirror as he roared east over the bay. Everything down there, including Savoie, seemed to be shooting at him. “I see him, Shirley! I can’t shake him. Try to brush him off, wilya?”
“Yaah, hold on!”
“Ha!” Diebel shouted. “I got him! He didn’t expect that!” Ben wondered what Diebel did to turn the tables. No doubt something he’d learned flying Brewster Buffaloes against far better Japanese planes. Tracers whipped past, a couple of bullets tearing into Ben’s right wing. No time to ask him now.
“Break leff, Col-nol!” Shirley shouted. He did so without thought. In his mirror, he saw the Macchi-Messer blur by, tracers spraying. Then, right in front of him, was a Jap-Grik plane, coming straight on, two guns twinkling in its wings. Bullets hit his plane—not hard, he thought, compared to the Macchi-Messers—and he fired back. The green plane with red roundels exploded into fragments.
“Whaa-wee!” Shirley cried. “Got ’im thaat time! He’s . . . Ha! He craash into daamn Grik Bee-Bee! Don’t think he done much to it, though,” she added, disappointed.
“Colonel!” Came Diebel’s urgent call. “There is a fifth League plane! It must have been flying cover for the others! It is coming down. . . .” The transmission broke, but Ben saw what happened. Flashy Two had been climbing over the eastern docks when the Leaguer Conrad Diebel warned about swooped down, above and behind. He never had a chance. He was probably killed by the concentrated fire that shredded the canopy, because his plane just stood on its tail and fell from the sky, impacting south of Kurokawa’s compound. “Damn it, Conrad!” Ben whispered. There was a loud clatter as Ben’s M plane flew through a burst of machine-gun fire. He whipped the plane right and pressed his trigger again, blasting another Jap-Grik from the sky. His engine coughed and he quickly scanned his instruments. “Goddamn it!” he shouted. “My engine’s starving. Fuel lines must be shot up. I’m losing Prestone too, overheating. . . .”
“Get out o’ here, Col-nol,” Shirley’s little voice, full of anger and resolve, came to him. “I get thaat baas-tard thaat get Con-raad!”
“I know you will, Shirley,” Ben said, his engine running rougher by the moment. Another green plane came for him, but a P-1 took care of it. “I’ll never make it to Big Sal. I never trusted Tikker’s scheme for trapping us, anyway,” he added, trying to keep his tone light. Suddenly, there was a familiar but unexpected voice in his earphones. “Flashy Lead, Flashy Lead, this is CO, OR-One. Do you read, over?”
OR-1? Holy crap, it’s Chack!
“Roger, CO, OR-One. I read.”
“We are at objective Baker,” Chack said, meaning the south end of the bay, almost across from Walker, “and are securing Objective Chaarlie as we speak. There is fighting there, but if you come in east to west and don’t hit a hole, you should aar-rive among friends.”
“Thanks OR-One, I’ll give it a try. Did you hear that Shir—I mean, Flashy Four?”
“Aye. But I’m a little busy.” Her voice was strained with G-forces and concentration. “I’ll see you there, Lead.”
Ben said nothing more, hopeful Shirley would prevail, one-on-one. She’d always been the best. Now she was the last. Crossing the docks over a pair of burning, sunken Grik BBs, he tried to coax a little more altitude out of his ship before the engine crapped out entirely. “See you in a minute, CO, OR-One,” he said, as his poor, beloved P-40E began to buck. Behind him, except for Shirley’s duel with the Macchi-Messer, little activity remained over the bay. The pursuit ships had fought themselves out. He thought Big Sal’s squadrons got the best of it, but it was hard to tell. Either way, those that remained would be regrouping to escort the Nancys with their bombs. In just a few minutes, it would be over for him—one way or another—but the battle of Lizard Ass Bay was about to kick into high gear.
• • •
Maggiore Antonio Rizzo caught up with Kurokawa, Muriname, and their Grik guards beside a shattered, burned-out warehouse. There they stood while the drama played out overhead. Kurokawa and Muriname had been ecstatic when their planes first confronted the enemy’s, but their elation quickly turned. Muriname’s AJ1M1c fighters (the M in their designation standing for “Muriname”) might’ve been better than the Allies’ P-1s, but not the new C model, and their pilots, even the Japanese, weren’t even close. They simply didn’t have the experience, nor had they been taught by trained pursuit pilots. The massacre in the making was delayed by Rizzo’s Macchi-Messerschmitts, which took a terrible toll that seemed to please the Italian, but then the P-40s came. That had been a very close match between aircraft and pilots, but now they’d essentially wiped each other out, and the remaining P-1Cs quickly finished or chased away the last of Muriname’s planes. His torpedo bombers and a final squadron of escorts were up somewhere, but their target—the enemy carrier—hadn’t been found. Now more planes were coming: the little seaplanes with their bombs.
“We must sortie the fleet!” Muriname pleaded. “I cannot protect it in the harbor anymore!”
“Anymore,” Kurokawa scoffed sarcastically.
“Yes! My air force has been destroyed trying to protect your fat, slow targets! They must put to sea at once. The enemy light bombers will be above us momentarily.”
“They must get close to harm our ships, and their new defenses will slaughter them!” Kurokawa stated, his face already red. Had Muriname actually defied him?
“The enemy is already close!” Muriname shouted, unable to contain himself. “Their planes have torn ours from the sky.” He glared at Rizzo. “All of them. And his ground forces are less than five miles away. All that remains unseen is their fleet, and it will come at Captain Reddy’s pleasure, not yours! Don’t you understand? We’re finished here. If not today, tomorrow. All that’s left is to save what we can. Again,” he added bitterly.
For the barest instant, Kurokawa seemed to comprehend, but then his face contorted with rage. “Control yourself, General of the Sky! How dare you speak this way! Nothing is finished . . . except the enemy. His fleet has already come; mere torpedo boats are all he can spare, and we destroyed them. His air attack is a final gasp, his puny invasion easily countered once our forces are assembled. And if Captain Reddy somehow sends more against me . . .”
“General of the Sea!” cried Signal Lieutenant Fukui, racing up to join them.
“How dare you approach me so!” Kurokawa screamed. “How often have I warned you? No more! This time you have pushed too far!”
“But, Lord!” Fukui insisted, pointing past the north entrance to the bay. “The enemy fleet is here! Our scout planes have seen it, just around the peninsula! It’s nearing the extreme range of our shore batteries. They confirmed the sighting by telegraph as well!”
Kurokawa glared. Antiaircraft guns began firing again as thirty-odd Nancys appeared over the bay, clawing through shell bursts, growing inexorably closer. Some peeled off, probably to support the ground attack, but the rest came on. “I see nothing!” Kurokawa snapped, squinting west, ignoring the planes.
“It lies offshore, around the peninsula,” Fukui repeated impatiently. “Ten of their heavy sailing steamers, several of which are those they converted to seaplane tenders, with fewer guns. And . . .” Fukui paused. “Walker is with them, Lord! It is confirmed. She waits for you! Captain Reddy has come for his woman, as you predicted! Now you can destroy him at last!”
Muriname’s brows furrowed. “I don’t like this, Lord. You shouldn’t go out.”
Kurokawa rounded on him. “You were just telling me I should!” he shrieked, spittle flying, his face a purple moon. The sky, briefly blue and clear of all but smoke, was filled once more with bullets, bursting shells, and the ungainly looking but surprisingly nimble blue-and-white enemy attack planes. Bombs fell from the first Nancys, exploding in the water among the speeding, erratically turning cruisers. Tracers arced up to meet them, as did exploding shells and blizzards of high-velocity canister. Kurokawa was right; their close-in defenses were formidable, and the cruisers were better protected from the air. Not only had their armored bulwarks been raised, but they’d also been inclined inward. Combined with their tumblehome, their vulnerable deck was a smaller target and falling bombs and plunging projectiles were more likely to glance off. Some attacking planes immediately staggered and fell or retreated, trailing smoke. But in quick succession, more bombs fell on and around Savoie, blasting deck timbers and tall columns of water in the air, even as a pair of Nancys fell to her guns, crashing beyond her on the dock she’d stood away from. That focused their attention.
“Captain Reddy is here now,” Kurokawa murmured to himself, then turned to Fukui. “Signal the fleet to sea! Everything will pursue the enemy beyond the channel mouth. The cruisers will precede the battleships.” He looked hotly at Muriname. “You were right and wrong, General of the Sky,” he seethed. “Right that we can’t simply cower under this onslaught, but wrong to counsel we do so now, particularly with victory in our grasp!”
“I already took the liberty of hoisting the sortie signal, Lord,” Fukui announced.
Kurokawa glared at him again, but let it pass. “As you knew I would order,” he conceded. “Quite right.”
“Do not go, Lord. I fear a trap!” Muriname pleaded.
Kurokawa paused, his expression softening slightly. “It was concern for me, then. I am touched.” His bulging eyes hardened. “But my enemy is there,” he said, pointing west. “The fleet is in danger and must sortie.” He paused, the word “trap” clearly moving behind his eyes. As usual, the innate caution that had kept him alive so long, despite his madness, attempted to assert itself. Muriname could actually see the struggle on his face, harder than ever to heed. His enemy was there, practically helpless, daring him to come—and that was just too much. But the word “trap” might’ve made him wonder if the bait was a little too tempting as well. “Except for Nachi,” Kurokawa finally added, flinching when a tank battery exploded nearby. “She lies closest to my offices. When Sandra Reddy arrives, I will take her aboard Nachi and join the battle.” He looked at Fukui. “Where is the woman?” he demanded. “She should’ve been here by now!”
“I will find out,” Fukui promised, “and send a squad to hurry her escorts.”
One of the cruisers, already steering for the passage, was straddled by bombs before it took a direct hit forward of its stack. The bomb must’ve penetrated the lightly armored deck and exploded near the magazine. In an instant, all that remained was a spreading cloud of smoke, steam, and splashing debris. Kurokawa took a deep, calm
ing, breath. He had only ten cruisers left underway, but they were more than a match for the enemy frigates. Walker will not engage them, he decided. She must save all her guns and torpedoes for my two battleships—and Savoie. “Very well,” he said. “I will wait for Captain Reddy’s wife in my office, but we haven’t a moment to lose. Ensure that Contre-Amiral Laborde knows that I do not want Walker sunk until I can see it—and Captain Reddy can see who I have!” With that, he spun and marched through the mounting destruction around him, quickly attended by his guards.
“Were you really concerned for him?” Rizzo asked Muriname, almost casually, just as a bomb exploded near the dock, spraying them with muddy water. The thin, balding Japanese removed his spectacles and wiped them on his sleeve. “No,” he replied. “But I do think it’s a trap. After today, most of my people still alive will be those aboard Savoie, and they might fare better under Laborde than my Lord Kurokawa. As you must have seen, he is . . . not being realistic.” He took his own calming breath. “I fear none of us are, if we expect to survive.”
“But with Signora Reddy,” Rizzo said, “perhaps we will bargain for our lives?”
Muriname faced him with contempt. “You might,” he snapped. “I have other plans to save myself, and as many of my people as I can.” Straightening his tunic, he marched away to the north, past one of the smoke-wreathed antiaircraft batteries, and disappeared.
“As do I,” Maggiore Antonio Rizzo said quietly to no one. For the moment, he was alone, watching the chaos of a fleet in a panic it was struggling to control, gravitating into a ragged column headed for the North Channel. The two great ironclads and Savoie brought up the rear amid continued splashes, beneath a swarm of angry hornets.
• • •
Sandra and her companions had watched the entire exchange from just a few yards away in the warehouse wreckage. The temptation to spray them all with their Blitzerbugs was almost overwhelming. They might even get away with it, with all the explosions and chaos. Only when one of the Shee-Ree got through to her that Walker wasn’t waiting out there, offering herself for destruction, did Sandra’s growing, murderous tension ebb. Matt knows what he’s doing, she decided. Silva said so. Anything I do might screw everything up. Nancys were attacking furiously, but, with a few exceptions, seemed to be accomplishing little, all at great cost to themselves. Their bombs couldn’t penetrate the armor upgrades Kurokawa had obviously made, and had no more chance of badly damaging Savoie than Walker’s 4″-50 guns would have. There was an increasing likelihood the bombs would hit them, however, if they lingered this close to the dock, and, still watching Rizzo, it dawned on her that there might be something she could do after all. Another tank battery exploded, and she suspected it was Silva’s doing more than the bombs. She looked at Diania, wondering if she should risk her friend further—but they were in danger here. The Shee-Ree were still wearing Grik armor, their fur dyed. They might pass at a distance in the bedlam outside. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered urgently. “You’ll be our Grik guards. If anybody looks our way, treat us rough, see?”
Devil's Due Page 46