pressed his suit now. How could he expect them to show restraint if he didn’t set the example? At the very least, it would undermine his moral authority-and that was really the only authority he had left. The men sure weren’t getting paid. The situation was far too tense to risk jealousy and resentment by chasing one of the only two eligible females.
He glanced at Alan Letts. Maybe the only eligible female. Letts and Karen Theimer were seeing a lot of each other. Maybe that was why he’d been so industrious of late. Letts had better watch out, though. Matt knew Bernie and Greg were both sweet on the young nurse too. That was probably why his young officers were so formal to each other lately. There’d be trouble down the line, and the more he thought about it, the more disquieted he became. The “dame famine,” as the crew referred to the situation, was likely to be more explosive in the long term than any shortage of fuel or ammunition.
He wished, for the thousandth time, that he hadn’t sent the other nurses off in Mahan. Not just because of the dame famine, of course, but their presence might have taken a little pressure off. What it boiled down to was that somehow they had to find more people, and the sooner the better. He owed it to his men. He took a deep breath. But that would have to wait, and in regard to Sandra, he would have to wait as well. And so would Mahan, wherever she’d gone-at least until they had fuel to search for her-or other humans. Right now they had a war to prepare for and to fight. That was a kind of stress his men were accustomed to and one he knew they could handle.
“Some kind of regatta or somethin’ goin’ on today?” shouted Tony Scott over the engine and the spray they were making. Captain Reddy grunted and looked where the coxswain indicated. Across the bay, fishing boats pelted toward town as fast as they could. The growing mass of boats seemed to gather in all they came across, and sheets flew as more fishermen came about or set a new tack toward the wharves. On instinct, Matt glanced at his ship. He saw her now; the off-white experimental gray that the Chief had mixed was clear against the riotous color of the city and jungle beyond. Perplexed, he looked back toward the mouth of the bay and the Makassar Strait.
Standing in toward them under a fair press of sail was one of the red-hulled Indiamen of the Grik. All over the bay, the large conch-like shells the People used to sound the alarm began to blow, and the men in the boat heard the dull bass hum even over the exhaust of the engine.
“Step on it, Scott! To the ship, as fast as you can!”
Sandra peered over the top of her book as her next patient entered the wardroom. She was reading a battered copy of Henry Thomas’s Wonder Book of History, Science, Nature, Literature, Art, Religion, Philosophy, which was making the rounds. It reminded her a little of Courtney Bradford: engagingly pompous and full of a little information on quite a lot. The old book came from the large, eccentric library of the dead surgeon, Stevens. She closed it and regarded her visitor with raised eyebrows.
“Dennis Silva, as I live and breathe.”
Silva merely stood, staring stoically straight ahead and she looked at him more closely. The refit had exacted a toll on the destroyermen and their Lemurian helpers, mostly minor injuries and torch burns, but there were occasional serious hurts-crushed fingers and lacerations requiring stitches, for example. The complaints constituted a steady enough stream that she and Karen stood alternating watches in the wardroom, tending the wounded as they presented themselves. They usually shooed them back to their duties. The big gunner’s mate had no obvious injury, however.
“Well?” she demanded impatiently. “What’s the matter with you?”
Silva’s face reddened even beneath his short, dense beard and savage tan. “’M sick, ma’am.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Sick! You?” Silva’s constitution was legendary. His record showed his only previous appearances before the ship’s surgeon had been of the type to be expected of a rambunctiously male Asiatic Fleet destroyerman. She doubted that was his problem today, although with Silva… There had been rumors some of the men were experimenting with local females. Both species were certainly adventurous enough to try. She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head to clear the thought.
“Sick how?” she asked. Then she felt a chill. So far they’d been lucky, but she lived in perpetual dread of some unidentifiable plague sweeping the ship, something they had no immunity to.
Silva actually looked at his feet. “Got the screamers,” he muttered.
“The screamers?”
He nodded. “Been in the head since yesterday afternoon, and I.. . kinda need to go now.” Her eyes flicked down the passageway behind her, and he looked at her as if she were nuts. That was the officers’ head! “I, ah, can hold it.”
“What seems to be the cause of your discomfort? Something you ate?”
“Well, you see, tobacco’s worth its weight in gold, and that damn Chack-”
Sandra slapped her forehead and felt a smile of relief cross her face. Silva’s expression became more wooden at her sudden lack of compassion. “Has had you running around chewing on every dead leaf he can convince you to stick in your mouth!” she finished for him and laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s rich! I heard about that! You should watch out for that boy! He’s not the ‘simpleminded wog’ some of you guys think he is!” She giggled, then looked thoughtful. “It seems our Mr. Chack has a wicked sense of humor!” She made a mental note to tell Chack that some things that didn’t bother Lemurians at all might be poisonous to humans-and that he’d better grow eyes in the back of his head and expect retaliation.
“I’m sure you’ll be all right eventually, Mr. Silva. I know your. .. experiments have been solely in the interests of science and the benefit of your fellow man, but why not take this opportunity to liberate yourself from your disgusting habit?”
Silva’s expression could have been described as plaintive in a lesser mortal. “But what are we supposed to do? No tobacco, almost no coffee, no… um.” He paused, but quickly recovered himself. “It was bad enough fightin’ the Nips, and now this? It’s more than a fella can stand without a chew!”
Sandra nodded slowly. He had a point. Almost everyone aboard used tobacco. She knew that wasn’t the only… frustration, but she’d noticed tempers flaring more easily, and there’d even been some fights. Despite her feelings on the subject, there was morale to consider. She sighed. “Very well, Mr. Silva. I’ll look into it. But I warn you, there may not be anything to replace tobacco.”
He nodded gratefully. “Just as long as somebody’s lookin’. Hell, these ’Cats don’t even have betel nuts!”
Secretly, Sandra expected they probably did use some kind of stimulant besides the fermented polta fruit. Seep was already well known and much used when the men went ashore on the limited liberties Matt allowed, but it had some undesirable aftereffects. She still wasn’t satisfied that it was even safe for humans, given the severity and duration of the hangovers, but Captain Reddy was right. Never give an order you know will be disobeyed. The only way to keep them from drinking the stuff was to confine everyone to the ship, which was unfair and would be worse for morale than the lack of tobacco.
As a replacement for the noxious weed… She again determined to speak to Chack. She was willing to bet that he, and many other young Lemurians, were enjoying their joke too much to share the knowledge if there was one. She would ask, she promised herself. And warn. If the rumors were true, Silva’s pranks were not funny.
“Now, as to your complaint-” She held out her hands in resignation. “I don’t even have anything left to relieve the symptoms. You’ll just have to let it run its course. Be sure to stay properly hydrated, though.”
“Hydrated? What’s that?” he inquired darkly.
“Water. Drink plenty of water!” She paused. “But only ship’s water. I don’t even want to think about what the local water will do to you yet. Talk about the screamers!” She made another mental note to see McFarlane again. As long as they were burning the number four boiler, the condensers would manufacture fresh water in small quantities. Barely enough to drink, but nothing else. Everyone was constantly reminded not to drink anything that even might have local water in it. If they ever ran entirely out of fuel, they’d have to figure out something else. Boil local water, she supposed. At least there was local water and they could use it for cooking-and bathing-thank God!
Silva’s expression became pinched. “I might, ah, better visit the officers’ head after all, ma’am. Don’t think I’ll make it aft.”
Sandra nodded and smiled. “By all means.”
The general alarm began to sound.
The launch’s occupants scurried onto the pier and raced for the gangway. They were nearly trampled by Lemurians scampering everywhere on the docks. The huge draft beasts bawled as their drivers whipped their flanks in panic. One of the elephantine brontosauruses bugled in fear at the commotion and reared up on its hind legs,
