His battle station was loader on the forwardmost starboard five-inch gun. He flung himself into the cramped sponson and waited to see what would happen next.
There ahead of him-he would have been astonished were it otherwise-was the commander of that five-inch gun, a chief petty officer and gunner’s mate named Hiram Kidde and more often than not called “Cap’n.” He’d ditched his habitual cigar somewhere on the way to the sponson. He couldn’t have been too far from it; he wasn’t breathing hard, and he was a roly-poly fellow who’d been in the Navy for years before Sam got his first pair of long pants.
“Is this practice, or for real?” Sam asked.
“Damned if I know,” Kidde answered. “Think they tell me anything?”
In scrambled the rest of the crew: gun layers and shell jerkers. They were all at their stations when Commander Grady, who was in charge of the starboard secondary armament, stuck his head into the sponson. Grady nodded approval; he was a pretty decent sort. “Well done, men,” he said.
Hiram Kidde asked the same question Carsten had: “What’s the dope, sir? Is this just another drill, or have we got trouble up ahead?”
“We’ve got trouble up ahead sure as the sun comes up tomorrow,” Grady answered. “Sooner or later, if they don’t stop us, we
“I understand that, sir,” Kidde answered patiently. “What I meant was, have we got trouble up ahead right now?” Grady would know. Whether he would tell was liable to be a different question.
He started to answer, but then somebody in the corridor spoke to him. “What?” he said, sounding surprised. He hurried off.
“Damn,” said Luke Hoskins, one of the shell haulers. He was the right man for his job, being both taller and thicker through the shoulders than Carsten, who wasn’t small himself. Nobody the size of, say, Vic Crosetti could have handled five-inch, sixty-pound shells as if he were about to load them into his shotgun. Also, shell-jerker wasn’t the sort of job that called for much in the way of brains.
“I think it’s-” Kidde began, just as the klaxons signaled the all-clear.
“You were going to say you thought it was the real thing, weren’t you?” Carsten said as they started filing out of the cramped sponson.
He expected Kidde to deny everything, but the gunner’s mate nodded. “Hell yes, I did. We should have done this months ago, instead of wasting time in Valparaiso and Concepcion like we did. Shit, we were ready, but the Chilean Navy ain’t what you’d call a fireball.”
“How do you say
“Too damn many, however many it was,” Kidde said positively. “Wasted time, wasted time.” He shook his head, a slow, mournful gesture. “Seas wouldn’t have been near so heavy if we’d got moving in the middle of summer hereabouts instead of waiting till we were heading down toward fall. I still don’t trust our steering, either. Wish I did, but I don’t.”
Carsten’s laugh was a noise he made to hold fear at bay. “What’s the matter, ‘Cap’n’? You don’t want to do a circle toward the limeys and Argentines, the way we did toward the limeys and Japs in the Battle of the Three Navies?”
Kidde swore loudly and sulfurously for a couple of minutes before calming down enough to say, “We were lucky once, which is how come we ain’t on the bottom of the Pacific. You can’t count on being lucky once. You sure as hell can’t count on being lucky twice.”
“I expect you’re right.” Carsten went up onto the main deck, made his way back to where he’d been working, and reattached his safety line. He might as well have been starting over from scratch; plenty of seawater had splashed up since he’d dashed to his battle station.
Vic Crosetti resumed his place a minute or so later. They were jawing back and forth when a starched young lieutenant, junior grade, came up and said, “Seaman Carsten?” When Sam admitted he was himself, the officer said, “The force commander will see you in his cabin immediately.”
“Sir?” If Sam’s heart didn’t skip a beat, he couldn’t guess why. He hadn’t thought Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske knew he existed. Like any other sensible sailor, he’d hoped that pleasant condition would continue indefinitely. In a choking voice, he asked, “What does he think I’ve done, sir?”
“Come with me, Carsten,” the j.g. answered, and Sam, a lump of ice about the size of the nearby Antarctic continent in his belly, had to obey.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another officer bringing Vic Crosetti along.
He seldom had occasion to go up into officers’ country. He’d never had occasion to visit the force commander’s quarters, nor imagined that he would. Sure as hell, Vic Crosetti was heading there, too. Carsten cursed under his breath.
The lieutenant, j.g., went in ahead of him, then came back out and said, “The admiral will see you-both of you-now.” As they went in, Crosetti gave Sam a venomous glare.
There stood Rear Admiral Fiske, a sturdy man of about sixty, in the middle of a cabin that could have held half a dozen three-level bunks. So much space inside the
Carsten and Crosetti stared at each other, then at Rear Admiral Fiske. Sam felt as if he’d been up and down too fast on the Coney Island roller coaster. He had to say something. He knew he had to say something. “Sir?” His voice was a hoarse croak.
Fiske looked impatient. He knew what was going on, which struck Carsten as an unfair advantage. “Some time ago, you two men reported your suspicions that a certain native of the Sandwich Islands, one John Liholiho, used his position and good nature to spy for England after the USA took the said islands from her at the outbreak of the war. Investigation has confirmed those suspicions, I am informed by wireless telegraph. Liholiho has been arrested and sentenced to death.”
“Sir?” Sam and Crosetti said it together now, in astonishment. Sam had almost forgotten about the affable, surf-riding Sandwich Islander. He’d long since assumed Liholiho wasn’t in fact a spy, because no one had said anything to the contrary.
Fiske was saying that now. He was also saying something else: “You men are both promoted from Seaman First Class to Petty Officer Third Class, effective the date of your report. Back pay in your new rank will also accrue from the said date.” He raised his glass in salute. “Well done, both of you!” He drank.
Numbly, Carsten raised his own glass. Numbly, he drank, and discovered the rear admiral got a much better grade of medicine than did the men he commanded. After the stuff went off like a bomb in his stomach, he wasn’t numb any more. He tried on a smile for size. It fit his face like a glove.
As Scipio walked down the road toward the swamp, he knew he was a dead man. Oh, his lungs still moved air in and out, his heart still beat, his legs still took step after step. He was a dead man even so. The only questions left were who would kill him, how soon, and how long he’d hurt before he finally died.
He looked back over his shoulder. Somewhere back there, Anne Colleton was liable to have a scope-mounted Tredegar aimed at his spine. She’d had one slung on her back when she sent him out on his way to the swamps by the Congaree. By the way she handled it, she knew just what to do with it, too.
She’d started following him. He didn’t know if she still was. He’d caught glimpses of her once or twice, but only once or twice. He got the idea she’d wanted him to get those glimpses, to remind him she was on his trail. When she wanted him not to see her, he didn’t. He’d never dreamt she could stalk like that.
Was she good enough to stalk Cassius? Scipio found that hard to believe. Cassius had been Marshlands’ chief hunter for years. What he didn’t know about the swamps of the Congaree, no one did. He’d been able to keep the raiders who were the hard core of the Congaree Socialist Republic a going concern in the swamp for most of a year
