- Mycroft Holmes
- Mar 26, 2010
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by Azathoth
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I'm a big fan of the series and it's all on Audible with good performances, so feel free to get it there and follow along. I'm not going to spoil what it's about until it happens, so without further ado, here's chapter 1.
quote:They were running. There was no other word for it, no comforting euphemism to make the sting less sharp. In fact, it seemed impossible to wring the slightest sense of purpose from the confusion, privation, terror, and bone-numbing weariness they’d endured since the very day the war began on December 7. Now, three months later, they were running away (“limping” might be the better term) and they hadn’t even had a chance to lick their wounds. The tired men and elderly ships of Destroyer Squadron (Des Ron) 29 had hurled themselves repeatedly at the implacable juggernaut that was the Japanese Imperial Navy while their numbers were ruthlessly slashed by disaster and disrepair. It was a tragically lopsided contest, a feeble gesture of defiance against overwhelming odds. In the end, a gesture was all it had been. Now all that remained was to see-and it was probably too late.
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, USNR, the captain of USS Walker, stood on the starboard bridgewing and tried to maintain at least a semblance of dignity in his rumpled and sweat-stained shirt. His left hand clutched his hat to his head against the thirty-knot breeze while his right tried to keep the half-filled mug of lukewarm coffee from slopping onto his uniform.
Red-rimmed eyes squinted from what was normally an almost embarrassingly boyish face, but at the moment a general covering of brown stubble and a fatigue-slacked expression made him look older than his thirty-two years. Not quite thirty-six hours earlier, he and his exhausted crew had participated in the largest surface action of the war to date: the Battle of the Java Sea. For once, the forces were evenly matched-in numbers, if not quality-and they thought they’d had a chance. But from the beginning, nothing went right. The battle finally ended sometime in the night with the ruthless slaughter of virtually the entire force under Admiral Doorman’s command. While the enemy grew ever stronger, the scattered Allies were picked off in ones and twos.
Walker wasn’t there when the poor old Houston and the staunch Perth were surrounded and hammered to the bottom. All the destroyers had been ordered to Surabaya to refuel and had thus been granted a short reprieve. Edwards, Alden, Ford, and Paul Jones departed for Australia as soon as their bunkers were full, and nobody knew if they’d made it through the gauntlet or not. The remaining destroyers were ordered to wait for the British cruiser Exeter, the only capital ship to survive the battle, and escort her to Ceylon after she completed temporary repairs.
Matt spent that day of short intermission sending out parties to scrounge anything they might use, but little turned up in the bombed-out remains of the Dutch naval yard. The searchers discovered some belted.30 cal, eighty rounds of four-inch-fifty for the main guns, two condemned torpedoes, a little food. It wasn’t much. All the while, emergency repairs to Walker were under way. Even if Matt had found the time, he couldn’t have slept through the racket.
Now, standing on the bridgewing, he allowed a huge yawn to escape and hoped it made him look calm instead of just worn-out. The morning sun was bright, and the beauty of the vast, calm, almost violet sea was marred only by the distant hump of Bawean Island and the tiny cluster of American and British destroyers guarding Exeter ’s wounded flanks like battle-weary army ants escorting their injured queen to a new home. As far as Matt knew, he was looking at all that remained of the Allied Forces in the American, British, Dutch, Australian-or ABDA-defensive area.
He knew they’d been the last ones out of the tangled mass of wreckage and half-sunken hulks that Surabaya, Java, had become. ABDAFLOAT’s initial force was composed of two heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, twenty-three destroyers, and about thirty submarines and assorted support vessels. Now all that was left were three battered, Great War-vintage U.S. “four-stacker” destroyers, one British destroyer, Encounter, and the badly damaged heroine of the River Plate, HMS Exeter. The massive Japanese fleet that destroyed or chased off the rest of their comrades now had them alone to concentrate on. USS Pope (DD-225) and HMS Encounter screened Exeter ’s starboard side, while USS Mahan (DD-102) and Matt’s own Walker (DD-163) screened to port.
He glanced up at the lookout standing in the little tub near the top of the mast. Rodriguez, electrician’s mate 3rd class, appeared transfixed, staring through heavy binoculars at a point far astern. From where he stood, Matt couldn’t see anything yet, but he knew the two Japanese heavy cruisers and the destroyer that had pursued them since 0700 were still behind them. Rodriguez could see their smoke and they were getting closer.
When they’d slipped out of Surabaya the night before, they intended to run the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean and make a dash for Ceylon. Blocked by the enemy, they reversed course across the Java Sea to run east along the Borneo coast. Their quick about-face gained them breathing room, but the enemy cruisers launched observation planes. Two circled even now, high above and beyond reach of their meager antiaircraft defenses. All they could do was watch while the planes kited lazily overhead and reported their progress to every Japanese ship within range of their radios.
The story begins in March of 1942, in the southwest Pacific. The Allied fleets have sustained massive casualties by the Japanese, and are fleeing. This encounter is historical, but some of the ships are not. USS Pope and HMS Encounter and Exeter are real ships and sink during this battle. Walker and Mahan are real ships, but Walker was, by this time, a damage control hulk and Mahan was scrapped in 1931.
quote:
The convoy was limited to twenty-seven knots by Exeter ’s damage, but Matt knew Walker couldn’t steam much faster herself. The daily litany of mechanical casualties plaguing his ancient ship read more like a shipyard inventory than a morning report. Pope and Mahan were in no better shape. The stress of constant steaming and frequent combat-in addition to ordinary wear and tear-had placed a heavier strain on Walker ’s machinery and equipment than she’d endured in all her twenty-three years of service. Walker had gone beyond her design, and Matt was very much afraid that she, as well as her crew, was being pushed beyond their capability.
He hadn’t commanded her long, only four and a half months. As a reservist, even one from the Academy, he’d been treated pretty rough by the Navy. He’d worked his way into the exec’s slot on a Benson-class destroyer (a major step up in the peacetime Navy), but he’d lost the posting to an older regular officer and found himself on the beach. He knew it wouldn’t last and he was right. War was brewing all over the world, and it was just a matter of time before the United States got involved. When he got the letter, he expected-hoped for-a posting to one of the new Fletcher-class destroyers, possibly as gunnery officer. That would have suited him fine. Much to his surprise, he was given a command. But not of one of the sleek, lethal, modern destroyers he yearned for. No, he was to command one of the decrepit and almost defenseless antiques with which he was familiar, but found far from satisfying. Even more disheartening, his “new” command was attached to the Asiatic Fleet.
USS Walker had toiled with the Asiatic Fleet for more than six years and in that time she’d never been back to the country of her birth. She was 314 feet long and not quite 31 feet wide. Her long, sleek, needleshaped hull and the four slightly raked funnels that provided the unofficial moniker for her class gave an impression of speed. And she was fast-by the standards of 1919-having made thirty-six knots on her trials. Even now she wasn’t what one would have called slow, but the effort required to maintain her maximum speed was… excruciating.
Her ancient boilers were choked with sediment, and her steam lines sprouted leaks with unpredictable capriciousness. Her wiring was so corroded that most of it didn’t do anything anymore. Much had been spliced or bypassed, and unidentifiable bundles of wires ran all over the ship. Her hull plates leaked rust through cracked and peeling paint, despite constant work by her crew to keep it chipped and touched up. The plates themselves were only two-thirds as thick as they once had been. She stank of sweat, smoke, grease, paint, fuel oil, steam, and strangely, hot linoleum.
Her round bottom made her roll horribly in anything but the calmest seas, and she rattled and groaned and vibrated so badly you could feel it in your teeth. Her blowers produced a loud and decidedly asthmatic wheeze, and the general cacophony of abused machinery made hearing difficult in the remotest areas of the ship.
Her main battery consisted of a meager quartet of four-inch guns, only three of which could possibly bear on a single target-and none of which could elevate high enough to engage aircraft. There was one little three-inch antiaircraft gun on the fantail, but its range was so short it was used mostly for firing illumination star shells. The only even marginal antiaircraft defenses she had were two.30-caliber machine guns on the fire-control platform and two.50-caliber guns on the amidships deckhouse. Hanging over the fantail where it tapered sharply to a slightly rounded vee were two old-fashioned depth-charge racks. Her real teeth consisted of twelve 21-inch torpedoes carried in four triple-tube mounts between the number four funnel and the aft deckhouse. The torpedoes, and her once-respectable speed when delivering them, had been the reason for her creation so long ago. But like everything else in this new war so far, the torpedoes had been a grave and costly disappointment.
Matt had always heard that new captains often overlooked the shortcomings of their first command. But the first thing that sprang to mind when he saw her riding at anchor in Manila Bay, besides a general feeling of dismay over her apparent condition, was that the white-painted letters “163” on her bow seemed much too large.
Walker is old, decrepit, and obsolete. The Asiatic fleet was primarily made of such vessels, especially the China station and the Philippines. Most new construction was in the Atlantic or at Peral Harbor. Matt then goes over how his crew are the dregs of the Navy. They're competent and resourceful, but most of them are disciplinary cases and weirdos. This is also true of the Asiatic fleet. If you were a "problem child", but not bad enough to get drummed out, this is where you got sent. Matt then reminisces about the recent battles in the Dutch East Indies, what is today Indonesia. All were Allied defeats.
quote:With a gauging glance at the stately Exeter off the port quarter to ensure that Walker was holding proper formation, he stepped into the pilothouse. The gunnery officer, Lieutenant (j.g.) Greg Garrett, looked anxiously from the port bridgewing and Matt waved him back. The tall, lanky young officer nodded solemnly and resumed scanning the sea toward the dark smudge in the north that was Borneo. A good kid, Greg. He was conscientious and industrious, if just a bit intense. They were still at general quarters, as they’d been since the morning watch, and Garrett’s battle station was normally on the fire-control platform above the pilothouse. Matt had told him to rotate himself and his team out of the wind and sun periodically. The main battery was useless against air attack, and it would be a while before they were in range of the Japanese cruiser’s eight-inch guns. Longer still before they could hope to reply. Even so, when it was Garrett’s turn to take a break, he merely descended to the pilothouse and kept doing what he’d done above-watching and waiting.
Matt understood how the younger man felt. The atmosphere of anxiety and tension was thick. Everyone anticipated the cry warning of enemy ships or planes.
The stocky, broad-shouldered form of Lieutenant James Ellis clomped metallically up the ladder from the main deck below, and Matt arched an eyebrow at him. He liked Jim Ellis, and they were as close to being friends as their rank difference allowed, but Jim was much farther from his battle station at the auxiliary conn on the aft deckhouse than Garrett was from his.
“Yes, sir, I know,” Ellis said, anticipating the reprimand as he maneuvered Matt out of hearing of the others in the pilothouse. “But those nurses and their flyboy chauffeurs want to know if there’s anything they can do. That Army captain”-he tilted his nose up with unconscious disdain-“actually tried to come up here and bug you. Chief Gray said he’d have to wait your convenience.” Ellis grinned. “That wasn’t good enough and Gray offered to sit on him-physically. Then he sent for me.”
Matt smiled in spite of his jitters.
Before they cleared Surabaya, they’d taken aboard a rather motley assortment of passengers. First to arrive was an unkempt and harried looking Australian, a Mr. Bradford, a construction engineer for Royal Dutch Shell. He introduced himself as a “naturalist,” but paid his passage by intervening on their behalf with the harbor officials, who didn’t want to fill their bunkers. They’d argued that the fuel would be better used by Dutch ships, staying to defend Java. Courtney Bradford countered with the fact that there was only one Dutch ship left, a destroyer, and she was getting the hell out just as fast as she could. Perhaps it was their lingering respect for a corporate superior, or maybe just the final realization that everything really was falling apart. Whatever the motivation, Walker left Surabaya with her bunkers over? owing.
Next to come limping aboard was a sergeant from Houston ’s Marine contingent. He’d been wounded by a bomb that had killed dozens and wrecked the old cruiser’s aft turret. Left ashore in a hospital with a lacerated leg, he missed her final sortie. He didn’t intend to become a guest of the Japanese. Upon his arrival, he was roundly scolded for bleeding on the deck and sent below to the surgeon.
Finally, motoring out to catch them in a “borrowed” boat just as they were preparing to get under way were six Navy nurses and two P-40 pilots who’d escaped the sinking of the old Langley the day before. Langley had been ferrying P-40?ghters in for the defense of Java, but she was caught fifty miles short. Bombed into a smoldering wreck, she was abandoned, and one of Walker ’s sisters, Edsall, was forced to finish her with two precious torpedoes. The majority of Langley ’s personnel shipped south on the oiler Pecos, but in the confusion, the nurses and airmen were left behind. They persuaded the driver of a Dutch army truck to take them to Surabaya, and they arrived just in time to come aboard Walker.
Matt hadn’t seen them. He’d been aboard Exeter conferring with Captain Gordon’s executive officer. When he returned, he was informed of the ship’s newest passengers by a leering Jim Ellis and a scandalized Lieutenant Brad “Spanky” McFarlane, the engineering officer, whose strict observance of Navy custom-if not always regulations-filled him with a terrible conviction that women on board would certainly doom the ship.
That Army aviators accompanied them would probably send them to hell as well. Matt was inwardly amused by the diverse reactions, and it never occurred to him to set them ashore under the circumstances. He only wondered brie? y where they’d be kept. Since then, he hadn’t seen them and they’d been forgotten.
“What’s his name?”
“The Army captain? Kaufman, sir.”
“Very well, send him up, but by himself. And, Exec,” he added ominously, “we don’t need the distraction of women on my bridge. Clear?”
Lieutenant Ellis grinned hugely and went to fetch their visitor. Matt stepped onto the bridgewing as the Air Corps captain clumsily appeared.
He prepared to return the salute he expected, since they were technically out-of-doors. It didn’t come. His eyes narrowed slightly and the other members of the bridge crew exchanged shocked, knowing expressions.
“Lieutenant Commander Reddy? I’m David Kaufman, Captain, U.S.
Army Air Corps.”
The man stuck out his hand and Matt took it brie? y. His initial impression was that the lack of a salute and the use of his specific rank instead of the appropriate, if honorific, title of “Captain” were due to ignorance. A Navy lieutenant commander was equivalent to a major in the Army. But the emphasis Kaufman applied to his own rank warned Matt that his guest didn’t see it that way and might try to intimidate him if he could.
“What can I do for you, Captain Kaufman?” he asked, placing emphasis on the “Captain” as well, but in a way he’d address a subordinate.
Kaufman glanced at the hostile expressions of the seamen on the bridge and modified his tone. His next words were less condescending.
“I just thought if there was anything I or Lieutenant Mallory might help you with, why, just let us know.” He smiled smugly, and the patronizing inflection returned as he spoke. He acted like he’d granted a favor.
“What can you do?” Matt asked simply. “Besides fly airplanes. I assume you can fly airplanes.”
Kaufman’s face reddened, and he realized he might have overstepped.
“Yeah, I can fly airplanes,” he said with a quick, brittle smile. He held his hands out to his sides. “But I’m fresh out. You don’t have one I can borrow?” His attempted joke fell flat and he just shrugged. “I can fire a machine gun.”
Matt turned to Garrett, observing the exchange with wide eyes. “Mr. Garrett, perhaps the captain and his lieutenant might assist your crews on the thirty-cals on the fire-control platform? If we come under air attack they’ll need to be supplied with ammunition.” He grimaced. “Since we lost most of our mess attendants when we left the Philippines, it’s hard to spare men for that chore.” He looked the aviator square in the eye. “Thanks for the offer. You’re dismissed.” With that, he turned and peered out the pilothouse windows at the number one gun down on the foredeck. He sensed Kaufman’s furious presence behind him for a few moments more, but with an audible sigh and a few muted chuckles, the rest of the watch relaxed and he knew Kaufman must have left. I shouldn’t have let him rile me, he scolded himself, but he made a quiet snort of amusement anyway.
Then he spun-“Exec!”
Ellis’s head popped back into view. “Skipper?”
“Those women are nurses, you say?”
Ellis leered again. “Absolutely.”
Matt shook his head. “If they want to help, send them to Doc Stevens in the wardroom. And spread the word! They’ll be treated with respect.
Any man who inflicts himself on them will go overboard for the Japs.
Understood?”
Ellis nodded, his leer now slightly wistful. “Sir.”
“Very well. And, Exec?”
“Sir?”
“Keep them off my bridge.”
Women on board?  Yes, this is period sexism, people. We also get some names of crewmen, some of whom go on to be important. Try and keep track. We also meet Captain Kaufmann. He's an rear end. We'll see him more later. Ellis then tries to smooth things over with Kaufmann, only to meet Chief Grey. Grey is cool. We also meet the other pilot, Mallory.
quote:Nurse Lieutenant Sandra Tucker pushed aside the pea green curtain and led her entourage into the wardroom. She was petite, measuring only five foot three, and her long, sandy-brown hair was coiled tightly about her head. When it came down, it framed a face that may not have been classically beautiful, but was striking in a pretty, “girl next door” sort of way.
Her large green eyes projected an impression of naïve vulnerability, but anyone making that assumption would have been mistaken. At twenty seven, she’d been a Navy nurse since ’35, and in that time she’d encountered every excuse, pickup line, real and imagined ailment, injury, and malingerer’s complaint possible in a bored but active peacetime Navy. She was smart, confident, and even tended toward an arrogant streak when in her realm of expertise. Her mild conceit was understandable, since she was an outstanding nurse and often made a better doctor than the doctors did. She’d assisted in a variety of surgical procedures and performed everything from appendectomies to amputations by herself, since many of her postings had been in remote areas where emergencies were handled on-site. When war loomed, she and her companions volunteered for the Philippines. She had friends there, and that was where she figured nurses would be needed. She knew she was good at her job and genuinely wanted to be where she could make the greatest contribution. That was why she’d become a nurse in the first place. Right now, although she was the highest-ranking officer in the wardroom, it became quickly obvious that she wasn’t in charge.
The ship’s surgeon, “Doc” Stevens, was a tall, cadaverous man in his mid-forties. He and Pharmacist’s Mate 3rd Class Jamie Miller were sitting at the green-topped wardroom table with the Marine sergeant, Pete Alden, playing dominoes when Sandra entered with the five other nurses.
The wardroom was the officers’ dining room, but it also served as a surgery when the ship went into battle. The long dining surface became an operating table, and a large light hung above it by a fixture that could be lowered near the patient. Except for the dominoes, all superfluous articles had been stowed, and various gleaming surgical instruments lay neatly arranged and ready at hand.
The pharmacist’s mate looked to be just a boy, like most of the crewmen Sandra had seen, but the Marine was a large, well-muscled, and deeply tanned thirtysomething. He regarded the nurses with a frankly appraising eye. The imposing surgeon grimly played a domino and glanced at them as the nurses crowded through the opening.
“I sort of expected to see you… ladies here.” His Massachusetts accent was strong and nasal. “I bet you nurses want to be nurses, right?” He shifted in his chair and rubbed his chin. “I never had a nurse before. Not counting Jamie here, of course. Tell me, Sergeant,” he said, addressing the Marine, “have you ever had a nurse?” Alden looked at him, astonished.
The nurses were, after all, officers. Stevens shook his head. “Never mind, Sergeant. Of course you have. You’re a wounded hero, after all. I’m sure you had nurses all over you.” Sandra’s face clouded and she began to snap a reprimand. Doc Stevens’s look momentarily silenced her protest. “I know you’re officers and I’m just a lowly Warrant. I don’t give a drat. I know about you nurses; wouldn’t even give me the time of day if I came squirming into your nice, clean, modern hospital. Well, this is my hospital! If you want to stay here and help, that’s fine. There’ll probably be plenty to do. But if you want to give orders or get in the way, you can turn around, climb that ladder and go play dollies under the depth charges because I don’t need you.” He stopped long enough to smile at their expressions. “I’ve got Jamie. He makes a pretty good nurse, even if he looks dreadful in a dress.”
Sandra’s eyes narrowed, and for an instant she hesitated. She’d faced this kind of attitude all her life and it was particularly pervasive in the military. Her father had perhaps been the worst, refusing to accept that she might do something with her life other than wait for “the right guy” to come along. His restrictions and expectations might have been couched more gently than Stevens’s, but they were no less corrosive and condescending. And wrong. She’d proven that. She straightened her back and forced a smile.
“Surgeon’s Mate Stevens, is it not?” she asked, and her voice held an icy calm. Stevens arched an eyebrow, but jerked an aggressive nod.
“Your captain asked that we report to you and that’s what we’ve done.
I know this is your ‘hospital’ and I’m prepared to defer to you.” Her voice took on a dangerous edge. “But since you insist on wallowing in your ‘lowly Warrant’ status I’ll remind you I’m a LIEUTENANT in the United States Navy. My ensigns might not pull rank on you, but I SURE AS HELL WILL! You’re clearly not a gentleman, so I won’t appeal to you as one, but as a superior officer I insist you get up off your skinny rear end and show the respect due my rank or by God, I’ll have you up on charges for insubordination!”
Her voice had risen as she spoke, until her final exclamation was uttered as a roar that her small form seemed incapable of producing. Jamie Miller’s chair hit the deck as he rocketed to attention. Even the wounded Marine struggled to his feet, his face a study of embarrassment mingled with respect. Doc Stevens remained seated a few moments more, but? - finally he stood also, an expression of mocking insolence on his face. He threw an exaggerated salute.
“Your orders, ma’am?” The question dripped sarcasm, but Sandra smiled in anticipation of his reaction. She looked at Jamie. “You!”
“Pharmacist’s Mate Miller, ma’am.”
“Mr. Miller, stow those dominoes and disinfect that table this instant.
We could have casualties at any moment.” She looked at the blood-soaked bandage the Marine wore. “Are you even fit for duty?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hmm. I doubt it, but we’ll see. We’ll have a look at that leg presently, circumstances permitting.”
Stevens cleared his throat. “And what about me?” he demanded, surly.
Sandra was sorely tempted to upbraid him again, but instead she smiled sweetly and indicated the rest of the nurses.
“You, MISTER Stevens… will tell us what you want us to do next.
This is your ‘hospital,’ after all.”
Sexism and bureaucratic dickwaving! Also, we meet Sandra Tucker, our main human female POV. She's important. There's a whole huge battle scene next, but I encourage you to read for yourself. I'll only post one of the important excerpts. Exeter, Pope, and Encounter are sunk, and Mahan and Walker turn towards a squall, hoping to get away. They are followed.
quote:Before them, racing to prevent their escape into the looming rainstorm, were yet another destroyer and a massive capital ship. There was a collective gasp.
After a moment spent studying the apparition through his binoculars, Matt spoke. “That, gentlemen, is Amagi.” His voice was harsh but matter of-fact. “She’s a battle cruiser. Not quite a battleship, but way heavier than a cruiser. I know it’s her”-he smiled ironically, but his expression was hard-“because she’s the only one they have left. Built in the twenties, so she’s almost as old as we are”-he snorted- “but they’ve spent money on her since. Major rebuild a few years ago. Anyway, I remember her because I was always impressed by how fast the Japs could make so much metal move.” He sighed. “I guess it’s fitting, after everything else, she should show up here. They really don’t want us to get away.”
He turned and spoke to Riggs in a voice that was white-hot steel. “Signal Mahan to prepare for a torpedo attack with port tubes. Mr. Sandison, speak to your division.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his hands clenched into fists. “We can’t go around her and we can’t turn back. That leaves only one choice.”
Gray nodded with grim acceptance.
“Yes, sir, we’ll have to go right through the son of a bitch.”
Blowers roaring, haggard destroyermen performing their duties in an exhausted fugue, the two battered, venerable old ladies slightly altered course and together began their final charge. Matt noticed that even Captain Kaufman was on the foredeck now, hauling shells. Lieutenant Mallory and two ratings scurried up the ladder behind, each festooned with belts of.30-cal. It was clear to everyone that getting past the two ships ahead and disappearing into the strange, ominous squall was their only hope. It was equally clear that it was impossible.
Ahead waited Amagi: 46,000 tons of cemented armor plate. As they watched, she began a leisurely turn to present her full broadside of ten 10-inch guns. Her secondary battery of 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch guns was entirely superfluous. The sleek new destroyer at her side was all but forgotten despite her guns and deadly “Long Lance” torpedoes. The additional threat she represented was almost laughably insignificant under the circumstances. She could have taken them by herself.
The shriek and splash of incoming shells proved the cruisers behind hadn’t forgotten them either, and the growing drone of propellers indicated the bombers had seen them too.
“Looks like every Jap in the Java Sea’s in a race to sink us,” mumbled Gray.
Five miles away, Amagi opened fire. She pulsed with flame from one end to the other as she salvoed her big guns. Seconds later, the rattling roar of ten-inch shells thundered toward them. They sounded deeper than the eights, Matt reflected absently. Then he stepped into hell.
The first salvo fell short, but it threw up a wall of spray that drenched Greg Garrett and his team and probably soaked Lieutenant Rogers way up in the crow’s nest. Rogers had fallen silent, and Garrett tried to adjust the fire of the number one and three guns, but he couldn’t bloody see.
Walker pierced the spume raised by Amagi ’s main guns, but the splashes from the secondaries and the cruisers behind were uninterrupted. He thought of all the times he’d shot turtles in the stock tank behind his grandmother’s house-now he knew how they must have felt. There was a loud bang behind him and he twisted to see chaos on the amidships deckhouse.
A roar overhead made him turn to see a dive bomber pull up and blow by, its wingtip a dozen yards from the mast. An enormous explosion convulsed the sea to port and bomb fragments whined off the rail and the rangefinder. Tracers rose to meet the plane and something fell off it. Another mighty salvo rumbled in, the splashes seeming to concentrate on Mahan. He half expected to see a twisted wreck as the spray fell away, but somehow she staggered out of the trough and shook herself off. Water sluiced from her. Her aft deckhouse was wrecked, and her number four funnel lay on a crushed lifeboat davit. The searchlight tower had fallen as well.
Something went crump forward, and a 5.5-inch plowed a furrow in the starboard bow and ricocheted into the sea. The big anchor chain that normally disappeared into the well trailed over the side from the bollard.
Another salvo bloomed ahead, less than three miles off. drat we’re close! he thought as the shells almost sucked the air from his lungs as they passed-just barely-overhead to thrash the sea astern. He peered through his binoculars during a momentary respite.
“There they are! Right there!” he shouted into the speaking tube. “I mean, surface target! Bow! Estimate range five five double oh!” The salvo buzzer sounded more shrill than usual before the pathetic report of their own guns. Greg held on tight as Walker turned sharply to starboard.
Amagi seemed almost motionless, the destroyer tucked under her skirt like a timid child. Beyond them, much closer now, the squall beckoned.
Dark and alive with a torrential green rain.
Another salvo slashed out from Amagi just as six torpedoes chuffed from their tubes and lanced in her direction. Black smoke poured from the stacks again and Garrett felt a sense of anxious elation now their torpedoes were on the way. With any luck… A thunderous crash and a fiery cloud of hot, black soot and steam swept him to the deck.
Walker heaved when a ten-inch shell on a virtually flat trajectory punched through the forward fireroom. It didn’t explode, but the sudden decompression of the compartment caused the burners to fireball. The flames didn’t kill the men, but the steam from ruptured lines did. The destroyer’s speed dropped and Matt turned to Chief Gray, but he’d already left. His gaze returned to the shattered pilothouse windows, sweeping past the speaking tube that led to the crow’s nest. Blood dripped from it to join a widening pool. Electrician’s Mate Janssen’s blood was there too, as well as Rodriguez’s. Rodriguez had been carried to the wardroom. Janssen was dead.
“Sir, forward fireroom’s out of action! Mr. McFarlane bypassed with the main deck valve. He says our speed should be restored-almost momentarily.”
“Very well.”
Mahan emerged from the smoke and spray astern cutting a wide, looping turn to port. Back toward Amagi. Matt stifled his instinctive command to signal her when he saw the reason why. The gun on her foredeck stood vacant and exposed, the splinter shield shot away. Behind it, the entire bridge superstructure was askew, torn and shattered and gushing smoke. After a single horrified glance, he doubted a soul had survived inside it. Her port torpedo tubes were rigged out, so at least maybe she got off her salvo, but otherwise she was a wreck.
More men lost. His men now. Since Captain Blinn was lost to them with Pope, he was senior. He’d ordered the torpedo attack-it made no difference that there wasn’t any choice. Those men now steaming blind and helpless at flank speed directly toward the enemy were under his orders. But what of these men? Chances were, with Mahan headed straight for her, Amagi would concentrate on the helpless destroyer. The fire aimed at Walker had already slacked. She could almost certainly slip into the squall. He rubbed his forehead vigorously and looked into the wide-eyed, expectant faces of the men around him. They wanted him to do it: to give the order to turn back. They were willing it. Didn’t they understand it was death? They had a chance to live-all they had to do was abandon Mahan to Amagi ’s fury.
No, they couldn’t live like that and neither could he. They’d run far enough. It didn’t matter anymore where they were. The? fight was here and they would face it. Shades of gray no longer existed. Everything was a stark black and white once more. Was that what it all boiled down to? Had the entire Asiatic Fleet been sacrificed just because it was there? The salvo buzzer rang and numbers one, three, and four let loose, but he didn’t even hear. Finally his gaze fell upon Reynolds. The boy was the youngest and most junior crewman on the bridge. The look he returned was… pleading.
“Come about! Bring us as close alongside Mahan as she’ll bear.” He gestured at the bombers above. Three of them flew lazy circles, watching, as if afraid to descend into the line of fire. “Maybe we can at least keep them off her.”
“Skipper, the Jap cruisers behind us are out of the squall. They can see us now.”
“Good. Let ’em watch,” Matt snarled. Some of the men giggled nervously. “How much longer for the torpedoes, Mr. Sandison?”
“Ten seconds.”
Walker finished her turn and sprinted after Mahan. The sea frothed around her with the strikes of enemy shells. She staggered from another impact forward.
“Time?”
“Three… two… one…” Sandison looked up from his watch with a wretched expression. drat! More duds-or whatever it was that had been wrong with the torpedoes since the war began. They were nearly even with Mahan now. Her speed was dropping off.
“See if-” Matt was interrupted by a bright snap of light, and he looked up in time to hear the detonation of the single massive explosion that disemboweled the Japanese destroyer. The ship hung, jackknifed, her bow in the air and her stern already slipping. The flames were bright against the dark squall beyond. Wild cheering erupted and Matt cheered too-but they’d missed Amagi. She was turning toward them in case there were more torpedoes in the water, and therefore, for a moment, she couldn’t fire. Shells fell in earnest from the cruisers behind, but Amagi suddenly blurred. The squall was moving over her. Toward them. They were a mile away.
“Skipper! Get a load of this!” shouted Flowers. He was looking to his left, at Mahan. A column of spray collapsed on her deck and a man struggled through the cascade. He pointed at them with his right hand and held that arm up. Then he patted his chest with the left and brought it from below, across the bottom of his elbow and up alongside the other.
Then he vanished in more spray.
“What the hell?” muttered Sandison.
Mahan dropped back and they saw men on her wreckage-strewn deck heaving on the exposed steering cables. She sheared to the right and narrowly avoided colliding with Walker ’s stern. With a burst of speed, she lanced forward along the starboard side. The same man as before stood between the two torpedo mounts, still rigged out. He pointed at them exaggeratedly.
“My God, they’re still loaded!” shouted Sandison. Matt ran onto the bridgewing and held up his own right arm. Then he took both arms and brought them up, diverging on either side of where his arm had? rst been.
The man on Mahan ’s deck held up an “OK” sign and scurried away.
“Left twenty degrees!” Matt shouted. “We’re going to run up both sides of her! We may not have any torpedoes, but the Japs don’t know that!”
Amagi had crept out of the squall, but just barely. It was almost as if the storm followed her. Now she was pointed directly at them and water peeled from her bow as she surged ahead. They were so close and the angle was such that only a couple of her secondaries would bear. They’re still plenty big, thought Matt, and as soon as we come alongside, the entire secondary broadside will come into play. It would happen in less than two minutes.
Mahan moved farther and farther to starboard. With the loss of her forward fireroom, Walker could barely make twenty-five knots. Mahan looked like a wreck, but she was keeping up. The roaring bombers swooped to attack in spite of the incoming shells. Machine guns clattered above and behind. The salvo buzzer rang. Antiaircraft rounds raked Walker ’s bridge as the two four-stackers streamed past Amagi ’s bow. Lieutenant Flowers spun away from the wheel and collapsed to the deck, and Matt jumped into his place. The maelstrom of fire and the kaleidoscope of images were beyond anything they’d experienced yet. Amagi ’s side was alive with flashing muzzles, and Walker drummed with impacts as numerous as the raindrops of the previous squall.
Simultaneously, Walker heaved with the close impact of a pair of bombs, and the plane that had dropped them slanted unnaturally toward Amagi, trailing smoke. It impacted with a monstrous? fireball directly atop her amidships turret. Two more explosions rocked Amagi from the opposite side and she heeled sharply toward Walker with the force of the blows. The salvo buzzer rang. WHAM!
Another bomb detonated and shells from the other cruisers still fell.
Some even struck Amagi. Amid this tempest of fire, smoke, overpressure, and death, they were finally consumed by the squall.
Amagi is a real ship, but she was never launched. She was damaged by the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 and scrapped. The destroyer is unnamed, so I can't comment. This is a good naval fight scene. Amagi takes damage and loses them in the squall. But it's not a normal squall...
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Nov 15, 2021 20:58
