“That’s not what I hear. I hear it’s working fine, but we’re not receiving anything but static. Have you tried to transmit?”
Matt looked at him incredulously. “Of course we haven’t tried to transmit! We might as well paint ourselves pink and steam through the channel in broad daylight. It’s obvious the Japs have carriers between here and Australia. The reports before we left implied they did, and we’ve since seen carrier planes. That means they’re ahead of us and behind, and can easily triangulate our position. It’s equally obvious, despite what you’ve heard, that the radio can’t be working-otherwise we’d hear something. They don’t know what’s wrong with it, but there must be a problem. Checking the radio by giving away our position seems sort of counterproductive, don’t you think?” Matt’s voice rose as his annoyance grew. “And frankly, Captain Kaufman, as to your earlier statement, if you find it difficult to suppress your fears in front of the men, I prefer you not go around them.”
Kaufman’s face turned purple. He looked around, surprised to see almost everyone, even the nurses, regarding him with hostility. Only the bandaged ensign from Mahan-Monroe-seemed sympathetic. He barely heard Gray whisper to Lieutenant Garrett: “Ought to be in the chain locker with the Nip.” He was practically sputtering with rage, and he started to reply, when they all became aware of a commotion on deck. It might have been going on for a minute or two, but with the confrontation the wardroom hadn’t noticed. Now they heard running feet and rising voices.
Bernard Sandison burst into the wardroom, wide-eyed and gasping. “Beg pardon, Skipper, but you better come on deck.”
“Are we under attack?”
“No, sir. Not under attack, but… just please come and see.”
As one, spurred by the ensign’s cryptic statements, the assembly crowded for the passageway. “Make way!” the Bosun bellowed. “Make way for the captain!”
All the officers, including Nurse Tucker, scrambled up the ladder to the pilothouse. Everyone else climbed onto the amidships deckhouse to join most of the crew already there, or along the port rail below. In fact, the port side was so crowded that Walker was heeling noticeably. As soon as he gained the bridge, Matt heard Gray bellowing for the men to return to their duties before they capsized the ship. It was no use. For once, even the Bosun’s legendary wrath was wasted. Matt snatched his binoculars from Ensign Tolson and looked toward Bali-the direction everyone was pointing and staring. He adjusted the objective slightly.
The fog to the south had almost entirely dissipated and he clearly saw the northeastern coast of Bali less than a mile away. It was a scenic view, about what he’d expected from descriptions he’d heard and pictures he’d seen. Beyond the dark volcanic beach was a rocky shoreline, choked with a lush hedge of vines or brush. Beyond this boundary, a broad coastal plain rose steadily upward to the flanks of a distant mountain. He’d read the slope was terraced and had been for hundreds of years. Mr. Bradford had commented on it as well. He saw no terracing, but everything else seemed as it should. Except one thing. Upon the plain before him, in the middle distance, was a small herd of what could only be described as dinosaurs, grazing slowly along.
Ridiculously, the first thing that popped into his mind was that they were smaller than he would have thought, about the size of Asian elephants. But the long necks and whiplike tails protruding from the otherwise quite elephantine bodies were exactly what he’d have expected of an artist’s rendering of, say, a brontosaurus. He heard a small sound and glanced aside.
“Somebody grab Mr. Bradford. He’s about to faint.”
Jim Ellis leaned close and whispered nervously in his ear. “We’re damn sure not in Kansas anymore, Skipper.”
Matt grunted distractedly as the amazing creatures ambled unconcernedly along, much like cattle feeding on grass, except these animals took as many leaves from the trees as they did grass from underfoot. “Personally,” Matt whispered back, his voice shaky, “I liked the black and white part of that movie the best. Everything that happened once it went to color gave me the creeps.”
The Mice filed tiredly back to their stifling lair. There was way too much commotion on deck to rest. No good ever came from leaving their boilers. One of the water tenders looked up as they entered.
“What the hell’s going on up there? We run aground or something? Why are we heeling over?”
Isak looked at him with bleary, disinterested eyes. “Dinosaurs on Bali,” he said simply. Then he and his friend lay down next to the hull, where the water outside kept the plates slightly cooler. They wadded up a pair of greasy life jackets for pillows and promptly went to sleep.
All over the ship, men slowly returned to their duties or tried to rest. Some talked nervously among themselves, and others said nothing at all, pondering the implications of this latest mystery. A few might have panicked if not for the steadying influence of the older hands, but mostly the destroyermen took it in stride. It was just one more thing. What was one more thing after all they’d been through? They didn’t know what was happening and they knew it wasn’t right, but most were too tired to care. Men from Mars flying by on giant blue chickens would probably not have elicited a more prolonged response-but they probably would have been shot at if they came too close.
Dennis Silva was thinking just that. He manned the. 50-caliber machine gun on the port side of the amidships deckhouse. He’d been almost finished putting it back together when the commotion began, and he’d been one of the first to see the creatures. Now he stood, still watching, with just a few others. The first group of “bronto- sarries” had moved along, but there was a steady stream of other, equally improbable animals. A smaller group resembling the first ones they’d seen appeared.
“Boy,” exclaimed Silva, “I’d sure like to shoot me one of those!” Tom Felts and Paul Stites looked at him.
“What the hell for?” Stites asked incredulously.
Silva shrugged. “Ever’body and ever’thing’s been pickin’ on us lately. I feel like pickin’ on somethin’ myself for a change.”
Felts shook his head. “I wouldn’t pick on one of those damn things. Hell, Dennis, what if they can swim? You’d have prehistoric monsters down on us too! Ain’t the Japs enough?”
Stites peered over the side at the water speculatively. “You think them things are really dinosaurs? I mean, there ain’t supposed to be dinosaurs on Bali, is there? I thought they all died off.”
“’Course there ain’t supposed to be none here.” Silva guffawed. “There ain’t supposed to be none anywhere! All that’s supposed to be here is a bunch’a nu-bile young native girls runnin’ around without shirts.”
Stites and Felts both looked at the island. “Well, where the hell are they?”
“Better ask the Skipper, fellas.” Silva’s grin went away, and when he spoke again his voice was uncharacteristically subdued. “I bet he don’t know either.”
For the first time since she could remember, Sandra didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have an answer or a solution or even a suggestion. That hit her almost as hard as anything else. Seeing the creatures on Bali did something to her that nothing else had ever accomplished: it shook her sense of pragmatic self-assurance to its core. She was still on the bridge, although she doubted she was supposed to be, but no one asked her to leave. There were no more critical patients to treat, and the seriously injured had been transferred to their berths, where the other nurses and their shipmates fussed over them and tried to make them comfortable. If not for the possibility of air attack, she would have already asked to have them moved on deck for fresh air. Maybe I should move them up, she thought, but the latest shock left her unable to concentrate. She’d always prided herself on her ability to adjust to any situation; that was what good nurses had to do. But this! What was going on?
She looked at the captain. He was deeply involved in a whispered, serious conversation with several officers. After the initial excitement, the ship grew eerily quiet. She looked aft. Now the mist had cleared and the sun beat down once more, and most of the men had resumed their duties, or the perpetual quest for shade. Now and then, however, she saw men glance furtively at the island as if to confirm they’d actually seen what they thought they had. She looked again herself. Sure enough, the bizarre animals were still there. The place was teeming with them. She shuddered. She was not imagining things. If she was, so was everyone else.
She looked back at the group of officers and saw the fatigue in their expressions-the tired, bloodshot eyes and haunted looks as they too glanced nervously toward Bali now and then. Captain Reddy looked little better than the others, but she admired the way he hid the fear and uncertainty he must feel. He just stood there, listening attentively and nodding occasionally. When she heard his murmured words, she was encouraged by how calm he sounded. She found it ironic and unsettling that, shortly before, she had been evaluating his steadiness from a perspective of self-confidence. Now she looked to him for reassurance.
