CHAPTER 17
////// First Fleet South
July 21, 1944
USS Walker loped across a smooth sea at eighteen knots, cruising ahead of the fleet to inspect a target the patrolling Nancys had spotted nearly an hour ago. It hadn’t been reported immediately since the pilots and observers thought it was just a young mountain fish, too small to be very harmful. The sonar of the approaching fleet would doubtless drive it away. But Captain Reddy still couldn’t get Gunny Horn’s periscope out of his mind and decided to investigate when the word trickled down via Morse lamp from Big Sal.
Dennis Silva didn’t know or care why the blower wound up and the stern crouched down, sending a convex slice of water curling back from the sharp, straight bow. Nobody had sounded general quarters, so it made no difference to him why Walker suddenly outpaced the rest of the fleet. It was an unusually pretty day, if just as humid as ever, and he’d already spent most of it drilling the gun’s crews to a limb-numbing proficiency. Now he had other things on his bored mind, things he couldn’t ignore as long as the gnawing itch in the crack of his ass tormented him so. Folding his favorite “whittlin’ knife,” he tucked the little ship model he’d been shaping for two days under his arm. “Howdy, Earl,” he called as he passed the galley beneath the amidships gun platform. “What kinda sea serpent you got for supper this evenin’? I hope it ain’t got any suckers this time. I can’t abide eatin’ critters with suckers all over ’em!” Earl ranted something in reply, but Silva didn’t stop to listen. It wasn’t expected that he should, anyway. Further aft, he strolled, past the port and starboard torpedo mounts, the searchlight tower and the 25-mm gun tubs on either side of the catapult with its Nancy floatplane perched atop it. “Whatcha doin’, Jeek?” he called, spying the Lemurian crew chief’s tail poking out of the plane’s cockpit. Jeek’s head replaced his tail.
“I’s strappin’ the ’stensions back on them rudder pedals,” he grumped. “Commaander Hee-ring was playin’ around in here this mornin’, pertendin’ he knowed how to fly. I had to take the ’Cat ’stensions off, so now I’m puttin’ ’em back. Only real pilots we got on this trip is ’Cats.”
“Can he fly?” Silva asked.
“How I know?” Jeek demanded. “Looked like he pertendin’ to me.”
“Huh.” Silva wiggled his fingers at him. “Well, do carry on. The Skipper might wanna ee-mergency launch the damn thing any second, an’ you’d be stuck flyin’ it yerself. Can you fly, Jeek?”
“Hell no! Ain’t my job. They as good stick you in here as me!”
Silva chuckled. “Oh, I bet I could fly it fine,” he replied. “Gettin’ it back to you in one piece would be the trick.” Jeek blinked stunned curiosity at him as Silva ducked under the wing and proceeded toward the aft deckhouse.
Scuttlebutt had it that this wasn’t the first reference Silva ever made to having once controlled an aircraft of some sort in some fashion, and like most of the rumors that followed Silva throughout the various fleets, nobody knew how much truth there was to any of them. Jeek didn’t know Silva all that well, but he knew plenty of people who did. Unlike most, he knew there was at least some truth to all the rumors. He shook his head and returned to his task.
Through the forward hatch, Dennis found Bernie Sandison instructing some ’Cats on the lathe in the torpedo workshop, but the man hardly noticed him pass. The dryers in the ship’s laundry were rumbling sympathetically with the screws and shafts below as T-shirts and kilts rolled and tumbled inside. Passing through another hatch, Silva entered the aft crew’s head and was reminded of one of the numerous changes wrought aboard by the inclusion of female crewfolk. A partition had been placed in the center of the compartment that separated the portside of the crapper from the starboard to create some meager privacy for those doing their business there. Silva dutifully entered the starboard stall that males were supposed to use, pulled down his breeches, and plopped down on one of the double-plank seats spanning the down-angled trough beneath. Water flowed through the trough from starboard to port, washing waste from beneath each seat, and eventually out the side of the ship. It was a primitive arrangement, but novel to the ’Cats of Baalkpan who considered it the height of convenience.
A similar system had served the entire city of Maa-ni-la for a very long time, running through most homes and beneath an arched covering in the open, until it too emptied into the sea—or Maa-ni-la Bay in that case. That was pretty slick, Silva thought. ’Cats in Baalkpan used ordinary outhouses like those he’d always known before he joined the Navy, but instead of toilet paper, or even a Monkey Wards catalog, they used a bunch of stupid leaves. Silva’s expression darkened. Apparently, the old rivalry between the engineering (snipe) divisions, and the deck (ape) divisions had finally been revived full force aboard USS Walker, and he, as well as a number of other above-deck types, had been tricked repeatedly into using some particularly inappropriate leaves for a very delicate task. A large percentage of Walker’s snipes were female now, but female or not, no snipes had been afflicted with the ailment. Silva knew, since Pam had confided to him how strange it was that only the deck apes had complained of discomfort. That was all the proof Silva needed, and the time had come to exact his revenge.
A striped ’Cat, from the second, aft deck division, was watching him apprehensively, several seats over. Silva took a chaw and smiled benignly. “This used to be my crapper, you know,” he said conversationally. “The whole thing. All mine.” The ’Cat quickly finished his business and scampered out the aft hatch, leaving Silva by himself in the starboard stall. All he had to do now was wait. Sure enough, within minutes, a virtual herd of females crowded into the portside stall. He’d timed his attack for the end of the watch for that very reason since it was then, he’d observed, that Tabby’s female snipes dashed to the water butts and then went straight, en masse, to the aft head. If he was going to do this, he might as well do it right—making sure it was the engineering division that he victimized.
For an instant, while he pulled up his breeches and readied his trusty Zippo, he contemplated the arbitrary nature of fate. There was no guarantee that anybody on the other side of the partition had anything to do with, well, anything. That was a shame. Naturally, he’d have preferred that only the guilty suffer, but in a battle like this, there was bound to be collateral damage. It was regrettable, but that was just the way it was. Word would spread that certain pranks were beyond the pale, and a disproportionate response must be expected. Taking the ship model, a crudely shaped thing, but obviously meant to resemble one of the great Grik ironclads, he quickly lit the four cigar-shaped protuberances arranged like the smokestacks on the enemy ships. These were made of a different kind of wood than the rest of the vessel—gimpra wood, to be precise. And the dried sap inside caused the little stacks to blaze like signal flares. Carefully setting his little dreadnaught in the torrent of water, he let it go, and as nonchalantly as possible, retraced his steps.
* * *
“You wanted to see me, Skipper?” Silva asked when Chief Gray practically shoved him into the pilothouse. He was suddenly on edge. There were several officers on the bridge, including that weasel, Herring.
“No, but she does,” Matt said, nodding at Lieutenant Tab-At, who stood beside the chart table, her tail rigid with fury. By the hint of scorched fur wafting through the bridge, she’d been one of those on the “Dames” side of the partition, and Silva cringed slightly. He hadn’t expected that. He had nothing at all against Tabby and knew she’d suffered some pretty bad steam burns before. That was likely to make her a little extra sensitive to his stunt.
“I want that . . . fiend . . . in the brig!” Tabby demanded, her voice hard as granite.
“We don’t have a brig,” Matt mildly reminded, then turned to his talker. “Anything on what the scout planes saw yet, Minnie? Does Mr. Fairchild have anything on his scope?” He really didn’t have time for this right now. Something screwy might be stalking his little fleet at that very moment. Chances remained it was nothing to worry about, though, and he had to stifle the very real problem brewing on his ship before it escalated, as such things were liable to do. He suspected he needed to make time to deal with this at once.
“Nothing yet, Cap-i-taan. Mr. Faar-child reports ‘no contact.’”
“Tell him to keep at it. The fleet’s catching up.”
“Ay, ay,” Minnie replied.
Matt looked back at Silva.
“Then chaineem up in the bilge,” Tabby insisted. “He ain’t fit to be around people!”
“That may well be,” Matt replied reasonably. “Silva? Just what is it that’s wrong with you? Chasing sea monsters, terrifying the snipes. How can anybody be such a credit to the Navy one minute, and such a disgrace the next? I thought you’d improved.”
Dennis never even considered lying to Captain Reddy; nor did he contemplate one of his convoluted justifications. One of the few things that really mattered to him was Captain Reddy’s trust. He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d endangered it—he’d just been being himself, after all—but apparently there really was a line he shouldn’t cross. He’d expected to have to account for himself at mast, or something, but this public, “drumhead” chastisement—particularly in front of strangers like Herring—was a surprise, and just a bit ominous. “I have improved, Skipper. Honest. And I don’t know what got ahold o’ me.” He glared at Tabby. “Somethin’ needed doin’ about certain things, an’ I guess I’ve got sorta used to doin’ things that need doin’.”
“Setting fire to people in . . . that situation needed doing?” Tabby demanded, almost shrill. “Somebody could ’a got hurt baad!”
“Nuh-uh,” Silva denied, “not the way I set it up. Not past a little scorched fur, anyway. You think I ain’t seen that same stunt a thousand times? It’s one of the oldest standbys in the book.” His jaw clenched. “Though maybe some folks had a little indignification comin’!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tabby growled.
“Ask Pam—I mean, Lieutenant Cross, what’s the commonest aggravations the deck apes’ve been seein’ her about!”
Matt looked at the Bosun, who grimaced but nodded. “He’s right. The ‘butt blisters’ ain’t hit the chiefs or officers’ heads, but there’s been a rash—s’cuse me, Skipper—o’ complaints from those that frequent the aft crew’s head.”
“A rash!” Silva practically choked.
“Shut up, you!” Gray seethed.
Minnie suddenly interrupted the testimony. “Mr. Farr-child has a underwater contact beareen seero eight seero, relaa-tive!” she cried. “Range two t’ousands! It jus pop up there, he say.”
Matt whipped his gaze to starboard, but saw nothing but the mild sea. Whatever was out there had somehow managed to slip past Wallace Fairchild’s sonar gear and was still headed toward the fleet! No mountain fish had ever done that. “Right standard rudder,” Matt barked. “Steady on course zero four zero. All ahead full. Sound general quarters.” Amid the raucous cry of the general alarm, Matt turned back to Minnie. “Signal to Admiral Keje on Big Sal that we’ve got an unidentified target on an intercept course with the fleet. We’re preparing to engage.” Just like that, the “contact” had become the “target.”
“What kinda signal . . . TBS?” Minnie asked.
Matt took a breath. Chances still were it was no big deal, and fleet lookouts would’ve been alerted by Walker’s sudden maneuver. They’d be watching her. “Flags and Morse lamp, but make it snappy.”
Silva and Tabby started to bolt for their stations, but Matt stopped them. “One second. Silva, I don’t know what it is with you, but you can’t keep acting like this. People look up to you, damn it! You think I won’t bust you? Think again. One more stunt like this—or anything else your creepy brain cooks up—I’ll bust you to third class . . . and I’ll throw you off my ship. Is that clear?”
Silva didn’t care about the rank, but leave Walker? He couldn’t believe his ears. But the Skipper was serious this time; there was no doubt about it. He gulped. “No, sir—I mean, aye, aye, sir. And no, sir, it won’t happen again!” Matt glared at Tabby. “And you. You’re an officer now, damn it! Keep control of your division, or I’ll find somebody who can.”
Tabby was equally stunned and blinked furiously, her big eyes beginning to fill.
“Now get out of my sight, both of you,” Matt practically whispered, and man and ’Cat bolted for the ladder aft.
“Kinda hard on ’em, weren’t you, Skipper?” Gray asked quietly as Matt raised his binoculars, looking for what? A fin? A periscope, God forbid? “At least on Tabby,” Gray pressed.
“No, Boats, I wasn’t,” Matt replied. “Morale’s one thing, and rivalries aren’t all bad, but stuff like that can get out of hand. If this mission isn’t for all the marbles—and maybe it is—it’s for a hell of a lot of them any way you slice it. I will not tolerate anything that pits one half of the crew against the other right now, no matter how silly or innocent we’ve treated such things before. This job’s just too big for silliness. Period. You’ll make sure of that, won’t you?”
“Of course, Skipper.”
“Sound’s losin’ the taagit,” Minnie warned. “We go too fast.”
“What’s the last Wally had on the target?”
“Range twelve hundreds an’ closin’. Down doppler. Taagit course estimated one two seero, speed five knots!”
Matt had hoped to get around in front of whatever it was, but it must’ve surged ahead for a while before slowing back down. Walker had come up behind it. “Estimated range between the target and the closest DD screening the fleet?”
“Ah, eleven t’ousands,” Minnie replied after repeating the question to Sonny Campeti on the fire-control platform above the bridge.
“Make your course one two zero,” Matt instructed Chief Quartermaster and acting First Lieutenant “Paddy” Rosen, who’d quietly taken the helm.
“Making my course one two zero, aye,” Rosen replied. “My course is one two zero,” he said a few moments later.
“Very well. Slow to two-thirds. See if Wally can find the target again. Y-gun crews will stand by to throw a couple of eggs out in front of it. That should chase it away,” he added to Gray.
“You think it’s a baby mountain fish after all?” Gray asked a little worriedly, and Matt looked at him. Apparently, the rogue-sub scuttlebutt was gaining currency.
“I sure hope so, Boats. We don’t know much about the little ones. Maybe they’re extra curious, or aren’t as susceptible to our sonar. I guess we’ll find out.”
“Lookout says there’s screwy fishes, er somethin’, jumpin’ outa the water!” Minnie suddenly cried. Matt raised his precious Bausch & Lomb binoculars. Sure enough, just a few hundred yards ahead, strange creatures were leaping out of the water. From this distance, they looked like giant bullets—battleship shells—with wings. He snorted. “They’re squids! Some kind of flying squids! Look at ’em all!” Spanky had joined them on the bridge. His normal battle station was atop the aft deckhouse, at the auxiliary conn, but there was no reason to expect a surface action and he’d always joined his captain on the bridge unless otherwise directed. “I think you’re right, Skipper!” he confirmed, staring through his own binoculars. “Flyin’ squids! I’ll be damned. Look! They’re glidin’ across the water a pretty good distance before they flop back in it.” He sobered. “Act like somethin’s spookin’ ’em from below!”
“Minnie?” Matt demanded.
“Mr. Faar-child got a contaact—a big one—but he don’t know what it is.”
“Must be a whole swarm o’ them critters underwater,” Spanky speculated, then brightened. “And you know? I bet we’re the ones spookin’ ’em!”
“You think that’s what we’ve been chasin’ all along?” Gray asked. “A big school of creepy squids, cruisin’ along, all bunched up?”
Matt felt the tension ebb. Of course that was what it was. It was far more probable that his recent concerns had been initiated by yet more weird marvels native to this very weird world, than that they were being haunted by an enemy submarine from the old one!
“Secure the Y guns,” he said. “Slow to one-third. No sense in steaming right through that mess. There’s hundreds of them, and they’re big enough to hurt somebody if they hit us.”
“Might even dent our plates,” Spanky agreed.
Walker began to slow, and sure enough, the frantic leaping and soaring of the flying squids diminished—until they suddenly erupted again, even more violently than before.
“What?” Matt muttered, raising his binoculars again.
“Skipper!” Minnie shouted. “Crow’s nest say them, them ‘skids,’ is jumpin’ in a straight, fast line, right toward the fleet!” She held the earpiece to her head under her helmet. “There’s two lines now! Three!”
For just an instant, Matt stood watching for himself. The explosion of squids was following several unnaturally straight and rapid lines of advance, and he could fathom only one explanation. “All ahead two-thirds,” he suddenly barked. “Y guns and aft racks stand by!” He looked at Spanky. “Go aft,” he said bitterly. “Looks like you were right the first time, but now we’ve got torpedoes scaring the squids! Signal Keje that he’s got torpedoes inbound. Multiple torpedoes, from directly in front of our position—use the TBS, damn it.”
“Should I maneuver, Skipper?” Paddy asked desperately.
“No. If whoever’s out there fired at us, we’re better off threading the fish. Tell Mr. Fairchild he better pick something out of that mess below for me to kill right away!” he shouted back at Minnie.
“He say some-teeng comin’ outa the return cloud. Range, seven hundreds. Course one, two, seero. Ten knots, down doppler. He’s startin’ a plot!” Bernie Sandison already had his own plot going on the chart table in the pilothouse, frantically pushing a grease pencil alongside a straight edge while Commander Herring stared at his watch. Minnie’s voice rose. “Lookout gots tor-peedoes comin’ at us! Two tor-peedoes! Ah, they’s four headin’ for the fleet now!”
Matt stared through the windows ahead, watching the panicked squids betray the approach of the mysterious undersea weapons screaming straight at him. “Come right two degrees,” he told Rosen tersely. “Now, steady! Steady as you go.” Suddenly, he stepped briskly toward the starboard bridgewing, just as a gliding flock of big-eyed squids jetted past dodging crewfolk on the fo’c’sle, or ricocheted off the hull. He looked down in time to see a long, sun-dappled cylinder streak by the starboard beam less than a dozen yards away, leading a white, steamy wake.
“That was the close one,” he explained, charging back to stand beside Rosen. “Make your course one one zero, all ahead full. Set depth charges for one fifty!”
“That deep, Captain?” Herring asked, and Matt jerked a nod. “The target will have been at periscope depth to launch,” Herring persisted.
“Yeah, but Wally’s a good sound man. If he says the target’s making ten knots underwater, I believe him. What’s more, whoever shot at us had to see us, so they have to know what we are and that we’ll come after them. My guess is they’ll go deep, try to get under those squid things. If they do, they’ll get there quick at ten knots!” He pointed at a spot beyond the dark line on the chart. “One fifty, right here.”
“Range four hundreds,” Minnie reported shortly. “Three hundreds . . . We losin’ ’im! We too fast again!”
“Jesus,” Paddy suddenly exclaimed. That’s all he had to say, because everyone on the bridge immediately saw what caused his outburst. Most of the ships of First Fleet South had held their course. Wild maneuvers in such a congested formation were just as dangerous as torpedoes, and there hadn’t been time at any rate. Big Sal had adjusted her course just enough to thread the wakes herself, and though she’d probably been the target, nothing hit her. One of the DDs wasn’t so lucky. A massive plume of dirty spray erupted into the sky, and the ship beneath the rising column simply ceased to exist. A dull boom reached them several moments later, racing across the water with a physical jolt that shook the windows in the pilothouse. Tragic as the loss of the as-yet-unknown ship was, Matt was just beginning to feel a sense of relief that it hadn’t been worse, when two towering columns of water rocketed into the air at the side of Respite Island.
“Keep your eyes on your course, Mr. Rosen!” Matt ordered sharply.
“But . . .”
“Captain Reddy,” Herring interrupted, his voice strained, “there will be people in the water over there! And Respite Island may need assistance!”
“And there’s a whole fleet over there to give it,” Matt snarled. “We have other business first.”
Everyone but Rosen was still looking at the distant cataracts of water collapsing down on the massive SPD. “Here,” Matt snapped, stabbing his finger down on the Plexiglas-covered chart. “Now!” Most heads turned to him. “He’ll wait till we’re nearly on top of him, then turn,” he explained grimly, mostly for Herring’s benefit. “But he won’t be expecting this.” He raised his voice. “Y guns will commence firing! Stern racks, roll four, at three-second intervals.”
The Y guns thundered, and the “Roll one! Roll two! Roll three! Roll four!” was repeated on the bridge. Shortly after, the sea astern spalled and shook, and an opaque white mound of water and smoke convulsed beneath the clear afternoon sky.
USS Walker’s Y guns weren’t exactly like the weapons that inspired their creation but served essentially the same purpose. Improved over the first models, these could each throw two depth charges off either beam, at forty-five and ninety degrees relative to the centerline of the ship. The hefty black powder charge that propelled the (vastly improved over the early model) three-hundred-pound depth bombs could throw them only about a hundred yards, but that was sufficient to prevent underwater damage to Walker at any depth, really, although it did leave a large gap directly under the ship. The aft racks took care of that, rolling more charges off the stern directly in the wake. The sinking pattern of explosives, designed to detonate when the water pressure at the preselected depth actuated the fuse, was ridiculously simple, but the addition of the Y gun made it far more effective than the stern racks alone—which was all Walker had been equipped with before. Against the Japanese, she’d had to virtually run right over her target to have a chance of inflicting any damage. The likelihood of that wasn’t great, considering her primitive, glitchy sonar. Now, with the addition of the Y guns, all she had to do was get close. Chief Gray, no supporter of depth charges, said it doubled their chances. But since two times zero was still zero, he wasn’t optimistic. Wallace Fairchild, Bernie Sandison, and even Spanky believed their old chances of damaging a target were more like five or ten percent, depending on the sea’s state, the size and speed of their target, and the skill of the sub’s skipper, of course. If the Y guns doubled their chances, they’d certainly take ten to twenty percent. Captain Reddy wasn’t considered a variable. By now, everyone just assumed that if it could be done, he could do it. Matt would’ve laughed at that confidence, considering his inexperience at ASW.
Whatever the chances, whether it was skill, better weapons, or just insanely good luck, the results of their third pattern, laid just eleven minutes after the first, had a distinct impact on the target. A ghostly return had somehow flashed feebly through all the underwater tumult and columns of water displacing bubbles of smoky gas, across the green-lit cathode ray tube Wallace Fairchild worshipped so intently, and USS Walker mercilessly hammered it.
“It’s comin’ up!” Minnie squeaked over the thundering blower and the rush of the convulsing sea. “Spanky thinks the taagit’s comin’ up!” she repeated. “He sees ‘oily air gushin’ up,’ an’ gots debris in sight!”
“Where?” Matt demanded.
“Starboard quarter, about one six seero, relative!”
“Right standard rudder,” Matt ordered. “Pass the word for all gun batteries to stand by for surface action, starboard!” He stepped out on the bridgewing and focused his binoculars. The lookout already there was scanning as well. Bernie raced to his precious torpedo director, ready to confirm Campeti’s ranges and bearings.
Several minutes passed while Walker described a gradual arc in the sea. Her 4"-50s, .50 and .30 cals, and twin 25 mms aft, were all trained out toward a growing, roiling oil slick about six hundred yards off the starboard beam. Suddenly, what looked like the knife-edge bow of a fair-size ship roared up from the depths, streaming water, laced with all the colorful hues diesel fuel could give it.
“Get a load o’ that!” Bernie gasped. The thing was obviously a submarine, but it was huge! Twice the size S-19 had been. And it wasn’t shaped like any sub he’d ever seen. Gradually, the bow came down as the boat leveled out and a conn tower—or something—emerged from the sea. The first part that rose into view was a pair of very large guns protruding from a rounded housing of some sort, followed by what appeared to be a relatively normal conn tower, complete with periscopes and light weapons. But the conn tower didn’t seem to end; it just kept coming up, exposing a long, arched structure aft. Finally, it did end, about the time an ordinary deck gun emerged from the sea.
“I’ll be . . . ,” Matt muttered, confusion evident in his tone. “That thing . . . ,” he started, but stopped when men appeared atop the conn tower, looking back at him. Other men, dressed in shorts and cotton shirts, dashed from the side of the tower toward the deck gun aft—just as the boat began turning toward his ship and the two massive guns forward began to twitch. “Commence firing!” he roared up at the fire-control platform above.
“But Skipper,” came Campeti’s stunned voice, “that’s . . .”
“Commence firing now, damn it! They’re about to!”
The strange submarine showed obvious damage: warped railings and washboarded plates. And the arched structure aft had taken a particularly brutal beating. The stern never came completely up, and the bow, with its four torpedo tubes, never lowered all the way back into the sea. The thing was sluggish, but still maneuvering, still clearly trying to fight. Before it could turn all the way to face USS Walker, however, bringing those giant, apparently fixed guns to bear, the salvo buzzer rattled and three 4"-50s barked as one. Only one round struck the boat on the first salvo, the others launching towering columns of water just beyond, but the target was barely moving. The next three rounds exploded against and within the odd conn tower a few moments later, and the 25-mm gun tubs and machine-gun tracers were already reaching for it. Flames vomited out of the rounded casemate housing the two guns forward, and the weapons seemed to actually droop as blue-yellow flame jetted out between them. Matt suspected they’d punched through the light armor and ignited the powder train as ammunition was brought up to the weapon from the handling room below. Somebody probably closed the hatch just in time because the magazine didn’t blow, but already, it didn’t matter. The strange, belligerent submarine had been a sitting duck—its officers had to know it was a sitting duck! Matt suddenly realized with a sick certainty—and Walker’s veteran crew of men and ’Cats made short work of it. Its apparent intention to make a fight only doomed it a few minutes later than its attempt to claw its way to the surface had delayed its fate.
“Cease firing!” Matt yelled. “Cease firing all guns!”
The conn tower and pressure hull shattered like a basket of eggs under the point-blank hammering of Walker’s common shells—none of the new AP rounds were kept in the ready lockers—the enigmatic submarine dove once more, smoking and hissing, back beneath the sea. With her bow again pointing at the sky, she seemed to be rising in reverse, except now the oil and diesel around her were alight, and black smoke piled into the clear afternoon sky. Just like that, the very real submarine that Gunny Horn probably really did see, that had haunted them from Madraas to Diego, and across half the Western Ocean, disappeared forever.
“My God,” Herring muttered at Matt’s side. “I see no survivors.”
“We’ll have a closer look, nevertheless,” Matt said. “I’d sure as hell like to know what that was all about. Then we’ll head back there”—he gestured toward the fleet where another tall column of smoke stood in the sky—“and find out how bad it hurt us. Boats?” he called toward Gray. “Have our damage-control parties rig out all our firefighting gear and stand by for rescue operations. Mr. Rosen? Take us over there for a quick look around. Then we’ll shape a course back to the fleet, if you please.”
Sonny Campeti joined them, still puffing from his slide down the ladder. “I can’t believe it,” he gasped. “Didn’t you see?”
“Of course I saw,” Matt replied. “But they shot fish at us and our friends, and they were about to keep shooting at us!”
“I know! And that’s what doesn’t make sense!”
Herring was looking at them questioningly.
“That sub,” Matt explained, “was the Surcouf—or something from the same class. One of the biggest boats ever built—fast, long legged, and powerfully armed. Those guns she was trying to point at us were eight-inchers—cruiser guns!”
“I’ve heard of Surcouf!” Herring defended. He started to remind them he’d been—was—an intelligence officer, after all, but something about Matt’s and Campeti’s expressions stopped him—that, and the fact that he was a different man than he’d been just a few short months ago. Then it came to him. “But Surcouf is French!”
“Right!” Campeti declared.
“Must’ve gone Vichy,” Bernie speculated. “Collaborating with the Krauts. Why else would they attack? They had to see our flag—and nearly every ship in the fleet flies the Stars and Stripes!”
“I don’t doubt they saw our flag,” Matt said, “and these four-stackers’ve been around long enough that everybody in the world—our old world—is familiar with our lines. They may’ve been confused by the rest of our fleet flying the Stars and Stripes; couldn’t know it’s the Navy clan flag, but they had to know who we are. But I thought even the Vichy French kept the tricolor. You didn’t see her flag?” he asked.
“She wasn’t flying one.”
“It was painted on her conn tower, and I’ve got no idea what it meant.”
“I saw it,” Bernie agreed. “Looked more like an emblem of some kind.”
“What was it?” Campeti demanded.
“A red octagon with a white field, and what looked like a blue cross with rockers on each side,” Matt told them.
“Looked like a big, fat, blue swastika to me,” Bernie added darkly.
* * *
With the TBS barn door having been opened, it was pretty jammed up with traffic by the time Walker rejoined the rest of First Fleet South. It was daytime, with a clear sky, so maybe the signals wouldn’t travel far, but it was still a mess. They learned from snippets of excited reports that the DD that had been destroyed was USS Naga, one of their newest, that had transferred from Des-Ron 9 to Des-Ron 6 for this mission. As expected, there’d been no survivors. They also quickly learned that USS Respite Island was sinking, but they could see that for themselves. She had a serious list to starboard and was low by the stern. A mass of ships was gathered around her, taking off her crew and the troops she carried, while they joined with those left aboard in fighting a raging fire amidships. Matt wasn’t sure even Big Sal could’ve survived two torpedo hits as long, but Respite Island, due to her nature, had more watertight compartments and better pumps than any Allied ship. She had to have them to maintain her trim and perform her duties as a floating dry dock. Regardless, she was clearly doomed. All they could do was prolong the inevitable while they evacuated her people—and as much of her cargo as possible.
Several of the torpedo boats had apparently launched themselves as the cavernous dry dock flooded, and they were busy towing others clear, ferrying survivors to ships that kept their distance—like Big Sal—and trying to save as many of the stacked, dory-shaped landing craft aboard the ship as they could. Matt hated to contemplate all the other supplies and equipment they simply couldn’t save; tons and tons of food and ammunition and as much as half of II Corps’s light artillery would be lost. Carefully, he directed Walker’s approach into the chaotic jumble so he could bring her own firefighting equipment to bear. Soon, streams of rainbow-infused water were arcing across the gap between the ships to play upon the flaming SPD. Steam rose within the gray cloud of woodsmoke.
“Look at that!” someone called as one of the PTs gingerly towed the fire-scorched P-40E-turned-floatplane clear of the settling stern. The fabric control surfaces on the tail had burned away, leaving the skeletonized framework in view, but the plane was in one piece and should be salvageable. Matt applauded the initiative of whoever commanded the little boat. With all the Nancys in the fleet, a “sport model” floatplane might seem superfluous, but there was no sense in letting it go down with the ship.
“Minnie, have Mr. Palmer signal all ships to quit jamming up the phone. We have to get organized here. Ask Admiral Keje to double our aerial scouts. Keep some close in case there’s something else sneaking around out there, but push some farther out too. We need plenty of warning if we have to untangle this mess and get ready for a fight.”
“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan!”
“Skipper!” cried a ’Cat on the port bridgewing. “Morse lamp signal from Salissa; Ahd-mi-raal Keje’s compliments, an’ he asks that we move us away from Respite Island, in case she blows up. He also asks that you come aboard Salissa as soon as possible.”
Matt frowned. “Send my respects to the admiral, and tell him I’ll be happy to attend him as soon as I’m sure we can render no further assistance here.”