Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen

by Taylor Anderson

  “Who’s the skinny guy there by Mr. Letts?” Silva asked. “In the officer suit.”

  “New guy,” Bernie replied. “Name’s Herring. Commander Herring, he made a point of rubbing in at first. He came in from Manila with a couple China Marines, an Aussie, and some Dutchman Colonel Mallory grabbed up. They were off Mizuki Maru, poor devils. That one was ONI, and Letts tapped him for the same job around here, once he decided he was on the level.”

  “Our very own snoop brain, huh?”

  “Looks like.”

  “A fella like that might come in handy,” Silva probed.

  “He might,” Bernie answered, noncommittally. “I’ve only talked to him a few times. Kind of an odd, Ivy League sort. The first time I saw him, he was poking around the powder-blending tower, asking a bunch of screwy questions, and he hadn’t even joined up yet!”

  “What about the Grumpys? They goin’ to Alden?”

  “The Marines?” Bernie asked, rightly suspecting another one of Silva’s odd, often unexplainable nicknames. “I snatched one of them, a corporal, for Ordnance. He’s kind of a snot—like a Marine version of Laney—but he earns his keep. I think Letts is sending the other one, a gunny named Horn, with you.” Bernie looked around. “He might be around here somewhere, or maybe he’s at the drill field.”

  “Gunny Horn,” Silva said, brows knitting. “Arnie Horn? Big guy, black hair?”

  “I don’t remember his first name, but that sounds like him. I swear, Silva! Did you know everybody on the China Station?”

  “Most everybody that’d been there a while,” Dennis replied, reflecting.

  “Well . . . if he’s who you think he is, is he a problem?”

  “No. Shouldn’t be. Arnie’s a right guy. I just figgered he croaked—and I owe him one.”

  “One what?”

  “Oh, nothin’, sir.”

  Adar began to speak and his voice carried in that strange, Lemurian way. “We are gathered here, at the first Torpedo Day celebration, to behold the latest wonders wrought by our fine technicians to smite the evil foes of peace and freedom! Even as those foes grow in numbers, so does our capacity to slay them!” A thunderous cheer ensued that was quieted only when Adar raised his arms again. “Today we will view the performance of new weapons that the forces of the evil Dominion or even the Ancient Grik Enemy cannot possibly be prepared to face, and some of them are already in the hands of our precious troops, or en route to them. Their force will be felt!”

  Another great cheer built and slowly died away.

  “Yet we will also see the future! Experimental weapons that are not yet ready for battle, but soon will be! Bear in mind that as the day progresses, you may see some few contrivances that do not perform as hoped. Do not be disheartened by such setbacks or scorn those who suffer them, but honor the effort and remember: the greatest triumphs are built on the adversities encountered and defeated beforehand!”

  There was some laughter mixed with the cheering this time, and Bernie’s face turned red. “All right, Silva. You’re almost up. Get ready. I’ve got to oversee the final preparation on my ‘fishies.’”

  “You bet, Mr. Sandison.”

  At that moment, two loudspeakers Dennis hadn’t noticed before suddenly squealed raucously, like maddened rhino pigs, until the piano prelude to “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar” defeated the feedback and delighted the assembly, many of whom tried to sing along with the harmonizing Andrews Sisters. The recording was rough; it was a big favorite at the Screw and had nearly been played to death. New phonographs had been built, copies of Marvaney’s original, but the ability to broadcast was new. He looked at Ronson.

  “Yeah,” the former electrician’s mate said. “And we’ve got real radios now too, even if they’re big as a steamer trunk. And our tubes are the size of cantaloupes! We’re shrinking everything as fast as we can, and pretty soon we’ll have VHF radio-telephone—TBS sets—for every ship in the Navy! A dozen sets should be arriving at First Fleet any day. Mr. Riggs based them on our old HT-Four on Walker. The good thing is, we can actually use them since they’re short-range, line of sight only. Not likely to be picked up by anything the enemy might have.” He looked around conspiratorially. “We’re working on Huff-Duff too, so our planes’ll be able to find their carriers or airstrips if they get lost, and also detect enemy transmissions!”

  Silva blinked. “That’s swell, Ronson. Sounds like you sparky guys have been busy as a buncha little bees!” He grinned and shuffle-danced away, in time with the music, toward the carts. There he met Risa, already sorting through the weapons.

  “Hi, doll,” he said. “Wanna dance?” Risa spared him a grin as she selected one of the new Baalkpan Arsenal Allin-Silva “conversion” muskets and a cartridge box. This specimen, like all the new rifles they were issuing, had been built as a breechloader. Conversion kits consisting of new barrels with breechblocks already attached and altered hammers were being sent out as quickly as possible for installation in the field. The old barrels were to be returned for conversion by lining the barrels and installing the breechblock.

  Silva chose one of the muzzle-loading rifled muskets and a cartridge box, just like those still in the hands of all the home troops, and many of those deployed elsewhere. With the vast scope of the war, it would take time to equip everyone with the new rifles, and most of the troops with Second Fleet in the east still had smoothbores. At a glance, all the weapons looked identical, but Risa’s had a trapdoor at the breech into which fixed, metallic cartridges could be inserted.

  “Wanna race?” she challenged.

  “What do I get if I win?”

  Risa’s grin faded, and she blinked regret. “You can’t win, Dennis. Everything is different now.”

  “Yeah.”

  The music ended, and a Lemurian with a speaking trumpet that magnified his already powerful voice explained to the spectators that they would now compare the accuracy and rate of fire of the old rifles against the new. Floating targets had been placed in the bay at one hundred, two hundred, and three hundred tails, and other targets dotted the seascape at intervals that reached beyond easy view. Silva and Risa were both well-known warriors of extraordinary skill, he continued, but skill alone, and certainly size (Silva made two of Risa) would make little difference when all Allied troops were armed with the wondrous new weapons.

  Everyone knew the Allin-Silvas weren’t Springfields or even Krags, but they also knew they were a big step in the right direction. Enough of the troops in the crowd remembered when the Grik were defeated with virtually no firearms other than crude cannon. And the new rifles might not be repeaters, but the big fifty-caliber bullet on eighty grains of powder had been proven even deadlier against large beasts than the.30-06 Springfields and.30-40 Krags. The lower-velocity and much heavier bullets of the .50-80 afforded them better penetration against the dangerous animals in the vicinity—and they inflicted gruesome, charge-stopping wounds on Grik. That was more important than flat trajectories to people accustomed to fighting berserk enemies at close range.

  At the sound of a whistle, the competitors commenced firing. Silva was good with the muzzle loader, no question about it. Each shot he fired rang off the iron gong and caused the float to bob. But it was very quickly apparent that he was outclassed. Risa also hit every target, the butt slamming against her muscular shoulder with each booming crack, but she’d already moved to the second target by the time Silva loaded his second shot! She finished with all her targets before he fired his last shot at the first. Without a word, she handed him her rifle. He flipped the rear sight up and shot at a target bobbing in the bay about five hundred tails away. He operated the weapon almost mechanically, recocking the hammer, flipping the breechblock open and ejecting the empty, smoking cartridge. Inserting a new one, he closed the breech, raised the rifle, and fired again. Even offhand, he hit the distant, swaying gong four out of five times.

  The crowd cheered and stomped enthusiastically at the demonstration. The superiority of
the new weapon was clear, and by exchanging rifles, Silva and Risa showed just how little adjustment the troops would have to make. Ostentatiously, and to instill the conscientious need to do so, the pair then gathered their empty brass off the ground and the speaker explained that it could be washed and loaded again.

  They next selected two more weapons off the cart. The first was Silva’s heavy Thompson. He inserted a twenty-round magazine, racked the bolt back, and fired at the first of several barrels floating about forty tails offshore. A cloud of white smoke erupted around him, since these were some of the shells loaded with black powder. He stitched the barrel, but many of his later shots went wild as the smoke obscured his aim.

  “Suckers kick a little,” he muttered ruefully as he squirted gri-kakka oil in the action around the bolt and inserted a magazine loaded with their dwindling Rock Island ball. “Raises the muzzle more than I’m used to.” He stitched the barrel again with the old world military ammo. This time, he kept all the rounds on target and left the barrel sinking amid a swarm of splinters. After the appreciative applause, the talker announced that he would now use ammunition made entirely—brass, bullet, powder and all—at the Baalkpan Arsenal!

  Silva inserted the third magazine, the bolt already back, and aimed at another barrel. This string of twenty shots left the smoking-hot barrel at the same apparent velocity and even better accuracy. There was a little more smoke, but it was dark and probably came from the burning lube on the lead bullets. The bullets themselves may not have penetrated both sides of the barrel, but they shattered it even more thoroughly when they deformed on impact. Silva lowered the scalding weapon with a grin amid happy cheers.

  “Yes, friends!” the talker said. “We have now matched the amazing, less-smoking ammunition the first Americans brought us here! But as wonderful as that is, there are few of the Thompson guns. How will that help the Alliance as a whole?” Risa stepped forward with an odd cylindrical device with a pistol grip, a thin wooden butt stock, and a skinny barrel with a tall front sight. She inserted a standard Thompson magazine into a rectangular well forward of the triggerguard, and pulled back a large knob located on the side of the tubular receiver.

  “Cap-i-taan Risa-Sab-At will now demonstrate the Baalkpan Arsenal Blitzer Bug!”

  The “Blitzer Bug” was the simplest thing in the world; basically, a pipe with a barrel on one end that fired from a spring-loaded open bolt. Originally called the Bug Sprayer during development, because it kind of looked like one, Commander Brister had suggested that it would be most useful in a Kraut-like blitz assault, and the name just naturally evolved. It was fully automatic only, so far, and fired very fast as long as the trigger was depressed. To make it shoot only once or twice required serious practice. That was of little concern today, when the idea was to impress.

  Risa clutched the weapon tight against her shoulder, holding the pistol grip and the magazine, and leaned forward as she aimed down the sights and squeezed the trigger. There was a long, raucous buuuurp! And the third barrel was blown apart. Risa grinned hugely and held the weapon up while the crowd erupted once more.

  “How was it?” Silva asked, muttering in her ear.

  “You were right. It’s a handful,” she replied, still grinning. “It took all my strength to keep it on target. I think it will be very wasteful of ammunition.”

  “Yeah, but maybe in the right hands, like these commandos Chackie’s workin’ up in Manila, they might shine.”

  “Could be.”

  The demonstrations continued, with Silva and Risa, then Abel, Stuart, and even Lawrence putting various pistols through their paces. Most of these were junk in Silva’s view, or required too much potential machine time and handwork to make. A nice revolver based on the Single-Action Army Colt Russ Chapelle had discovered aboard Santa Catalina, and intended to give to the Skipper, was very accurate, but got out of time after two cylinders were fired. Silva thought it had potential, but the guts needed work. A copy of a Mauser “Broomhandle” in.45 ACP fired once, then locked up. Probably the best was a copy of Silva’s beloved 1911 Colt. It was a pretty thing, he had to admit. The slide was color case hardened, and the frame was a kind of purplish blue. A few machining shortcuts had been taken, but it felt right in his hand. Firing quickly but carefully, he managed to empty three magazines on target before it started getting tight and failed to function. Abel and Lawrence both fired others like it until they too started having problems. Dennis figured the pistols might be too well made, in a sense, and needed more “slop.”

  During these exhibitions, Bernie, Ronson, and their strikers continued fooling around with the torpedoes. The small-arms demonstration at an end, Ben Mallory and a couple of his pilots wowed the crowd with modest stunts in the ever popular P-40s overhead, while Silva took charge of the four-inch-fifties. As acting gunnery officer, he merely designated the targets and gave the command, “Commence firing in local control!” After that, he appraised the quality of the gun’s crews drill as much as the performance of the weapons. On the whole, he was pleased. The crews were young recruits who’d never seen combat, but they were well trained and confident.

  Walker’s old number four gun performed well with the new shells, just as Bernie said it would. It had been tested quite a bit already, and the people of Baalkpan were used to its rushing crack and the associated pressure. Dennis frowned when he saw a couple of the shell casings had indeed cracked, but was satisfied, particularly by the much-improved explosive force of the new “common” shells and the glorious shocks of distant spume they threw up in the bay. The new gun did fine as well—at first—with the black-powder shells provided. Accuracy was good, and several of the farthest targets were destroyed before the left recoil cylinder split on a seam and the right fill plug blew out, both spewing oil all over the gun and its crew. The spectators laughed and cheered, but even then, Silva—who’d avoided a dowsing—wasn’t disappointed. The gun worked and so did the mount. None of the elevating and training gear had failed. The new telescope sights made with Imperial lenses seemed as good as the old ones. A recoil cylinder was just a pipe. They could make better pipes. He gave the command to cease firing and secure, and over the rumble of the people nearby, he heard a new, different sound.

  “What the hell’s that?” he demanded as a tiny aircraft blew past overhead. It sounded like a giant mosquito, but even as little as he knew about airplanes, he noticed several things at once. The craft was an open-cockpit, single-seat monoplane with a smallish radial engine, and it had fixed landing gear—with wheels!

  “People of Baalkpan and the Grand Alliance, the Air Corps presents the P-1 Mosquito Hawk!”

  Dennis guffawed; he couldn’t help it. “Skeeter Hawk my ass! That’s a homemade, pint-sized ‘Fleashooter!’”

  “You’re right,” confirmed a female voice behind him in a flat, distant, tone. “That’s Colonel Mallory’s latest; a pursuit ship for the carriers. He says it’s a scaled-down cross between a P-36 Hawk and a P-26 Peashooter.”

  “Pam!” Dennis said, turning to face the short, dark-haired woman.

  “What? No ‘sugar pie’? No ‘honey dew’?” she asked sarcastically in her strong Brooklyn accent.

  “No,” Silva answered simply.

  “I oughta hate your guts.”

  “Yep. Why don’t you?”

  Pam took a deep breath and let it out. Around them, all eyes were on the little plane as it swooped low over the shore and snap-rolled to the right, over the water. “’Cause I can’t, that’s all. You’re a jerk, a turd, the worst asshole in the world, for not comin’ back to me when you were supposed to—not even comin’ to see me when you finally got here, but . . . did you know Sister Audry thinks you’re some kinda Holy Warrior called to ‘smite’ our enemies?”

  Dennis blinked. “Hell, no! Huh. Maybe that explains why she was so nice to me the other day. All my hee-roin’ musta impressed her after all, back when we was marooned. She really thinks that?”

  “Yeah . . . an’ I don’t
know what to think anymore.”

  “You don’t believe that stuff!”

  Pam shook her head. “I told you I don’t know what to believe,” she snapped. “But maybe you did help out more where you were than you would have back here. At first I figured you just like the damn war too much to leave it, but she talked a little sense, and I guess it’s not my place to judge whether you were ‘called’ by God or some goofy sense of duty.”

  “Hey, don’t knock the war, doll,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “It’s the only one we got.”

  “Damn you! Can’t you ever be serious? About anything?”

  Dennis looked around and saw that Risa, Abel, Stuart, and Lawrence had moved a short distance away, clearly leaving them to hash this out in relative peace while the crowd enjoyed the antics of the new plane.

  “Bein’ serious can get a fella in a lotta trouble,” he admitted softly.

  The small plane performed a barrel roll that caused the spectators to cry out, and Dennis pointed at it. “Colonel Mallory in that thing?”

  “Probably. He’s like you in that way. Always jumpin’ in the fire when he doesn’t have to.”

  “Somebody has to.”

  “But why does it always have to be guys I care about?” Pam flared, loud enough for Risa to hear, and she came to embrace her friend.

  “Because you, like I, are drawn to the sort who care enough about you—and the cause we fight for—to do their duty as they see it, no matter what,” Risa murmured.

  Tears came then. “Are you tryin’ to tell me this big dope stayed away because he cares for me?”

  Risa looked at Dennis and blinked discomfort. “Of course he did, my sister. He cannot protect you here . . . and ultimately, neither can Col-nol Maal-ory.”

  “But I don’t want protection!” Pam whispered into Risa’s fur, then paused. “You know, that’s what Sister Audry said too.”