pleases.” He shifted his gaze to Sandra. “Would you care to accompany us, Lieutenant?”
Sandra smiled. “Of course, Captain. Just let me change.” She took a step away from him and held her arms out. She was still dressed in the surgical smock she’d put on when the ship went to quarters.
“I don’t think-” he began, but Keje put his clawed hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, she should. And so should you, my friend.” Keje looked at him appraisingly. “Wear your fine sword and your finest hat. You.. .” He grinned. “We have just won a great victory! We must look the part!”
Isak Reuben and Gilbert Yager sat on the huge wooden cleat the Catalina was tied to and smoked. They were indifferent to the bustle as well as the repeated calls by Lieutenant Mallory out on the plane to put out their cigarettes. Occasionally, a reveling Lemurian coughed in surprise as it passed through the blue cloud surrounding them. The Mice paid no heed. Finally, Mallory squatted near the wingtip of the flying boat, almost at eye level and just a few yards away. He decided to try reason.
“Look, fellas,” he said, almost shouting over the throng, “if you don’t give a damn about yourselves, think of the plane. Nobody smokes around airplanes!”
Another boatload of Big Sal’s warriors arrived on the dock to be received with cheering calls and stamping feet. Isak took another puff and looked at him. “Don’t care about your damn plane, Army Man,” he said. “All it did was sit there and… float, while our home was out there by itself!”
“Typical,” snorted Gilbert.
Mallory was in no mood to be harsh with the men-especially now. He did wonder where they’d gotten all the smokes, though. For the last hour, all they’d done was sit there and chain-smoke the damn things. Must’ve been Alden. The big Marine always had cigarettes. Some said when he came aboard in Surabaya, his duffel was stuffed with them. He must have loaded them down. And no wonder. Both the men were covered from head to foot with thick, sticky crude. It was matted in their hair and saturated their clothes. All that showed through the slimy black ooze was the whites of their eyes and, of course, the cherries on the ends of their cigarettes. He tried a different approach.
“But, fellas. This is a Navy plane!”
The next time the launch maneuvered to the pier it unloaded to a renewed crescendo of acclaim, which reached a furious peak when Matt, Sandra, and Keje climbed onto the dock. The triumphant crowd immediately mobbed them. Nobody really knew yet what had happened in the strait, but Walker was back and the enemy was gone. For now, that was enough. Sergeant Alden forced his way through the press and spoke briefly in the captain’s ear. Matt stood at least a head taller than most of those around, and he looked about for a moment, his gaze finally settling on the Mice. Isak sucked down a last lungful of smoke.
“Crap. I bet he makes us put ’em out.” Both men stood, leaving sticky blotches of tar on the cleat where they’d been. The captain was moving toward them. Finally, he stopped a few yards away, as if afraid to come any closer with his high-collar white uniform on. The contrast between them couldn’t have been more profound. A strange, instinctual awareness blossomed in the back of Isak’s mind, and his right hand moved upward in an unfamiliar, half-forgotten fashion, gluing his index finger to his forehead.
“We found oil, Skipper, if you please. Not an hour after you left this morning. Right where that Aussie said it’d be.” He paused suddenly, at a loss. He didn’t think he had ever spoken to an officer before he’d been spoken to. The smile that spread across the captain’s face emboldened him, however. “Good thing you weren’t there, sir. ’Specially dressed like that.”
Gilbert nodded in solemn agreement. “Can we come home now?”
The din of celebration ashore had died down to some degree. Earl Lanier didn’t know whether that meant the party was winding down or just moving farther away. He shrugged and wiped sweat from his eyebrows with his furry forearm. The small galley situated beneath the amidships gun platform was his private domain, but sometimes he wondered about the old saying that it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. Next to the boiler rooms, the galley was the hottest place on the ship. He might rule there, but he also served, and so as far as he was concerned, it was just hell without any perks at all. Groaning a little, because his stomach always made it inconvenient to stoop, he peered at the loaves baking in the big oven that traversed the aft bulkhead. They were ready. The smell of the bread made with what passed among the locals for flour was strange but not unpleasant, and the taste hinted of pumpkin. The crew complained, of course. Anything different was always the subject of complaint-which struck him as particularly ridiculous under the present circumstances. Lanier didn’t care. As long as it made bread, of a sort, that filled the bellies of the men as they filed by, he was content. They’d have complained if it didn’t taste weird. It was their duty to complain, he supposed, and it didn’t bother him anymore. He knew they’d complain more if there wasn’t anything to eat.
He opened the oven and removed the loaves and set them aside to cool. Then he went to his big copper cauldron and lifted the lid. A rush of wet steam flooded the galley and he grimaced. Inside the cauldron roiled a stew made from one of the local land creatures. He didn’t know what it was, but it looked like a turkey with a tail. A short, stubby tail, to be sure, but a tail by any definition. It also didn’t smell anything like a turkey. He plunged a ladle into the stew and stirred. Dark, unrecognizable chunks of meat pursued one another in the vortex. He raised the ladle to his lips, blew, and sampled the broth. His eyes went wide. “They won’t complain about that,” he muttered. “They won’t even say a word. They’ll just hang me.”
He wiped his greasy hands on his apron and opened the spice cupboard. Not much left, he lamented. Plenty of salt, some curry, but almost no black pepper. Better save that, he judged. He pulled out a large tray heaped with little dried peppers he’d acquired in Java before the Squall and looked at them speculatively. He’d never tried one, but Juan said they were hot as hell. He picked one out and sniffed. Nothing. He touched it with the tip of his tongue. There was a little tingling sensation, but that was all. He grunted.
“What the hell?”
He grabbed a double handful of the peppers and pitched them in the stew. “Sure can’t make it worse,” he said to himself. He also shoveled in another cup of salt. “Fellas need salt,” he muttered piously. “They sweat it out fast enough.”
He stirred the cauldron’s contents and replaced the lid with a metallic clunk. Then he wiped his hands on his apron again and checked the heat. Satisfied, he stepped to the other side of the galley and retrieved his fishing pole. It was a relatively short, stout rod made of a shoot from the curious Baalkpan bamboo. The line was rolled around it with about two feet of woven wire for a leader at the end. The hook was stuck in the handle. He took a stringy piece of the “turkey” innards and impaled it on the hook. The mess attendant, Ray Mertz, slept in a chair near the hatch. He was leaning against the bulkhead with the front legs off the deck. Lanier was tempted to knock the others out from under him, but settled for kicking his foot. The younger man nearly fell anyway when his eyes fluttered open.
“Watch the fires,” said Earl. “Time to get my breakfast.” Ignoring tradition, he whistled “The Krawdad Song” happily but quietly off-key as he strode from under the gun platform. “Bad enough I have to cook the shit,” he told himself. “They can’t expect me to eat it.” Eat it he rarely did. He, almost alone among the crew, liked the silvery flasher-fish. Fried, mostly. The men were just squeamish, he decided. Sure, they’d eat anything that went over the side, from people to turds, but a catfish would too. Fried fish was his favorite food in the world and had been since he was a kid, near Pinedale, Wyoming. There the trout could be had with little effort, and they fulfilled their purpose in life only when they simmered in his skillet.
He stepped to the rail on the starboard side, next to the number one torpedo mount. Not far away, the lights of the city cast their ceaselessly shifting reflection on the small waves around the darkened ship. It was almost eerily quiet. The boilers were cold, and for the first time he could remember, the blowers were silent as well. The only sounds besides water lapping against Walker’s plates were the snores. Most of the crew was ashore on liberty, celebrating the victory, and there was still an hour or more before the first wave of drunken revelers returned to the ship. Many who hadn’t been so fortunate, or who simply decided to forgo the festivities-including some Lemurian “cadets”-were scattered about, sleeping on deck, away from the stifling confines of the berthing spaces. But they were exhausted, and Lanier’s quiet whistling disturbed no one. He rotated the pole in his hand and the “turkey” innards began their slow descent to the water.
“Fishin’?” inquired a quiet voice from behind.
“No,” Lanier sneered, “I’m rootin’ up taters.”
Tom Felts eased up beside him in the gloom. The scrawny gunner’s mate must have the watch, Lanier thought.
“Did you hear them Mice found oil after all?” Felts asked.
