stand your watches when you’re told! And that’s ‘Chief ’ Laney to you slacking malingerers!”
“We ain’t ‘lingerin’; we just got here. We’s eatin’ and movin’ along. Earl didn’t yell at us for lingerin’.”
“Just… get your asses down to the aft fireroom, and get that goose-pull sorted out. Most of them ’Cats can’t tell fuel oil from bilgewater. And check on that damn feed-water pump! It’s still makin’ screwy noises!”
“All right, Laney, quit yer fussin. We’ll be along.” Gilbert sighed and began wolfing his sandwich down. Laney stood a moment, still cloudy, then moved away. Gilbert couldn’t help but compare his tyrannical attitude to poor old Chief Donaghey’s. Donaghey had been a professional who inspired proper behavior and diligence by example, as well as an inherent ability to lead. He didn’t lord it over the snipes in his division, and he was usually as grimy as they were because he worked alongside them. He’d been in the Asiatic Fleet a lot longer than Laney too. Volunteered for it. Even had a Filipino wife… back there. Everyone knew his worth, even the captain, and when he was killed saving the ship from an improvised mine, Captain Reddy was prepared to risk the very alliance to avenge him.
Now they had Laney.
“Like I’ve said, change is always bad,” he muttered.
Matt paced slowly between the starboard bridge wing and his chair, bolted to the right side of the forward pilothouse bulkhead. It was how he spent the majority of his time on the bridge, particularly over the last six days. He believed the smudge of land he’d seen off the starboard bow was the poignantly familiar Dumagasa Point, on the western peninsula of Mindanao; the sextant said it was, so did the scriggly lines on the Plexiglas over the chart, but it didn’t look quite the same as he remembered it. Funny. He’d been to Surabaya-now Aryaal-and Balikpapan-now Baalkpan-and they bore no resemblance whatsoever to the places he’d known, but somehow the only slightly different promontory they’d passed filled him with a new sense of loss. Perhaps because they were entering what had once been considered Walker ’s “home” waters.
Ahead lay the Philippines-which he’d never even liked. The place was too sudden and too big a change from his native Texas, where he’d returned after being discharged during a force reduction frenzy. Then, when the worldwide threat loomed ever larger, he’d been snatched back up by the Navy and immediately sent to the, to him, already alien land. The Philippines, at least the parts frequented by Navy ships, had been a den of iniquity paralleled only by those parts of China the Navy had even then been evacuating. The short, brown people jabbered in Tagalog, or a version of Spanish he could barely comprehend. The military situation was clearly unequal to the growing Japanese threat, and those in charge didn’t seem to care, or tried to pretend the threat didn’t exist. When hostilities commenced, the incompetent, almost slapstick response would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so tragic. The litany of mistakes that rendered the islands indefensible was without endw the formidable airpower gathered there, which alone could have made such a huge difference, had been so criminally squandered.
He had to remind himself that many of the crew felt quite differently. To some, the Philippines had been paradise. The waterfront had been a place they could find anything their hearts desired, where they could slake any thirst or lust if they chose, or set themselves up almost like gentlemen on their comparatively munificent wages. Of course, quite a few knew the islands far better than he, and spent their time away from the waterfront, where the atmosphere of iniquity prevailed. In the suburbs or the country, they could find virtuous women and homes where they could settle down and forget the stress of their duty. He wondered how their approach might affect the men who’d loved it there, had expected to retire there and spend the rest of their lives with women they loved. Women who weren’t there anymore.
During the last six days, counting the time they’d lingered at Tarakan, Walker had left her new “home waters” of the Makassar Strait, and entered the Celebes Sea. Their average speed was reduced, by necessity, from the almost twenty knots they were gratified to learn their ship could still make on two boilers, to less than ten, and finally to the excruciatingly slow pace of six knots. They’d picked their way through the tangled, hazardous islands off the northeast coast of Borno, before tentatively beginning their island-hugging journey through what the Americans still called the Sulu Archipelago. They had finally, that morning, increased speed back to fifteen knots, but would likely have to slow again. The sea was shallower than it should be, and they couldn’t entirely trust their old charts anymore. Six long, torturous days, and according to the landmarks, and Keje’s and Dowden’s calculations, they were only about halfway to their destination. He rubbed his face and wished Juan would hurry with the coffee he’d promised.
This tedious, circuitous route was intended to allow them to avoid the abyssal depths of the Celebes and Sulu seas-and the monstrous creatures that dwelt there. Among those they were trying to avoid was one so huge it actually posed a significant threat to ships as large as Lemurian Homes. “Mountain fish” they were called by some, or “island fish” by others. Whichever it was, it made no difference. The name was not idle exaggeration. Matt had never seen one, nor had anyone who’d been aboard Walker since the Squall. Jim Ellis and the crew of Mahan swore they’d been chased by one when that ship attempted to cross to Ceylon while under the deluded command of the now lost Air Corps captain named Kaufman. Mahan was badly damaged at the time, and could barely make fifteen knots. Ellis still insisted the fish nearly got them, and was convinced only the shoaling water discouraged it. Impossibly big and fast. The Lemurians were just as insistent that if the thing had indeed caught Mahan, if it was mature, it could certainly have seriously damaged or even destroyed the three-hundred-foot destroyer-iron hull or not.
They had a few “surprises” if they met a mountain fish on this trip, but Captain Reddy hoped they wouldn’t be needed. Discovering whether they worked was important, particularly in the long term, but making it to Manila and securing an alliance was of first importance, and they couldn’t risk damage to the ship before that was achieved. Bradford was disappointed, and Matt was anxious to complete their mission, but so fander e='3'›“It’s an important mission,” Keje said. He and Adar had approached unnoticed. They were both given the privileges of officers aboard his ship, and hadn’t asked permission to come on the bridge.
“I know. And it’s a good idea. We’re going to need all the help we can get to beat the lizards once and for all. I hope we can stir some up.” He smiled with little sincerity and lowered his voice so only his Lemurian friends could hear. He knew they were at least as passionate about their task as he. “I guess I’m just a little antsy.”
“Antsy,” tried Keje. “It means nervous, but not afraid, correct?”
“Sort of.”
“Hmm. A new word to add to a new phrase I learned from Mr. Braad-furd today. He just said he came up here to speak to you about his new liz-aard.” He wrinkled his nose. “What a stench! Must he dismember his toys so close to the galley? Mr. Laan-ier has threatened his life! In any event, he told us you did not even notice his presence, that you were in a ‘brown study,’ whatever that might be.”
“Is it much like ‘antsy’?” Adar asked.
Matt’s smile turned genuine. “Maybe a little. I think ‘brown study’ is more like ‘thinking disturbing thoughts.’ Add ‘antsy’ to it, and I guess that’s a pretty good description.” He sipped his coffee and grimaced. It had grown cold.
“I am ‘antsy’ as well,” Adar confessed. “Reports from home are reassuring, yet… perhaps too reassuring?”
Matt nodded. “The farther we get from home, the more I think how unlike the Grik it is for them to just sit pat and goof around. Their warriors might be mindless killing machines, but there’s a brain behind them, something that aims them and turns them loose. Those Hij. Just think of the logistics required to support a force their size, to equip it and build the ships to move it.” He shook his head. “I just can’t shake the feeling that they’re up to something.”
They finally knew a little about their enemy now, thanks to the charts, logbooks, and other papers they’d captured aboard their various prizes. They’d even taken a few of the enemy alive for a change, although no information had been forthcoming from them. They’d seemed insane, but with no comparisons they couldn’t confirm that. Regardless, the prisoners all died within days of being placed in captivity, either from the wounds that let them be captured, or other unknown causes. But some information had been gleaned. They’d discovered before, to their horror, that a lot of Grik formal correspondence was printed in English. Whatever bizarre language they spoke, English seemed their official or liturgical written language, much as Latin served the ’Cats. For the Grik, however, English was a captured language they’d probably adopted of necessity to make sense of the information they’d captured with the East Indiaman so long ago. Matt felt a twinge when he thought about how those ancient British mariners must have been persuaded to reveal their secrets. Latin was given to the Lemurians willingly, from two other East Indiamen that decided to sail east instead of west, after all three came to this world the same way Walker had. They’d apparently used Latin so only approved information could be funneled to the ’Cats, and not just
