as soon as they could. The little thorn that had pierced Abel’s finger was already forgotten.
As Silva had predicted, the stretch of jungle was not very wide, and though they traversed it with care they soon saw the sea through dwindling brush. Without a word, Silva resumed the lead and stepped out from the cover of the jungle alone. Intently, he scanned the beach in both directions for some time, looking for telltale tracks or marks in the sand. They saw them sometimes, even near camp. When they did, they knew they had to be extravigilant that day. Who knew what improbable, screwy, terrifying damn thing might have squirmed up out of the sea during the night? God knew the island was dangerous enough without the shiksaks it was beginning to draw.
A mighty bolt of lightning seared the guts of a distant, spreading thunderhead and lashed the sea behind a black curtain of rain. Except for that one squall, however, the sky remained mostly clear and the fierce sun baked the sand around him. Silva saw no evidence that shiksaks or anything else had come ashore nearby, and he motioned his companions to join him.
“Well, here we are, Mr. Silva,” Rajendra growled irritably. “I do hope you haven’t had us thrashing about for most of a day merely so you might view yet another beach-that looks quite identical to the one we left this morning, I might add.”
“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what we’re doing here.” Silva waved out to sea. “You’re a sailor. You’ve seen the beach we came ashore on. There’s breakers, coral heads or something like them, for a mile or more offshore. No way we’re gonna get the boat back through that even after we’re done fixin’ it. It was some sort of biblical miracle we came across in one piece the first time. I guess the tide was running and them big waves helped a bunch, sort of tossed us over the reef, or something. Anyway, like I said, we’re going to have to break out somewhere.” He nodded beyond the beach. “This might not be it either. If you look over there, the breakers seem to run even farther out to sea.” He pointed southwest along the beach. “That might not be too bad over there, though, see? The tide’s not out, but it’s on the ebb. I don’t see anything but happy beach waves there. We take the boat out at high tide, we might just make it.”
Rajendra spluttered. “Are you suggesting we attempt to move the boat through… I don’t know, miles of terrifying jungle, full of even more terrifying creatures? I consider you an evil man, Mr. Silva, but not an idiot. It simply can’t be done.”
“It ain’t ‘miles,’ an’ not that much is even jungle. Did we just come the same way? Besides, there you go about ‘evil’ again,” Dennis said, shaking his head in frustration. “It’s been maybe a month since I blew up your ship! Give a guy a break! You blew up Cap’n Lelaa’s ship first, and helped start this whole mess, but she doesn’t whine and moan about it on and on like you do. She’ll probably kill you someday when this is over, but for now she’s put all that aside to get the princess and Miss Tucker off this damn bump. Why don’t you do the same?” He paused, reflecting. “I never said I ain’t an idiot, though. If you can think of a better idea, maybe we’ll give it a shot. Ain’t you been thinking about anything? Larry says this joint’s gonna be jumpin’ with shit-sacks soon, and we can’t be here when that happens.”
Rajendra surveyed the apparent passage in the breakers. “Perhaps we could launch the boat where it is and sail it around to this point,” he speculated.
“Might work,” Silva admitted. “I’ve walked the beach this far a couple of times, and the patch this side of the breakers is real calm in places. The rough stuff’s just too damn close in others. We’d have to land the boat and cart it around a few times. Amounts to about halfway. I’m not sure if that would be easier or harder. I’ve walked a lot farther in the other direction, north, and it’s the same deal, except I bet the breakers run two miles out to sea, and I never saw a hole in ’em. This is the only place I’ve found so far. We can keep looking, but anything we find is just going to be farther and we’re runnin’ out of time. Unless you can come up with a better stunt, moving the boat, one way or another, to launch it here is what we have to work on.
“Now, one other possibility might be to break it up and wag it over here in pieces, since we’ve got it apart to fix it anyway. Bring it across a piece at a time and rebuild it here. It’s either that or try to move it in one piece. Float it and drag it, or drag it all the way. Personally, I’m for bringin’ it overland. Less complicated. All we have to do is clear a bigger trail and use rollers or somethin’. I know it’s too heavy to carry, push, or drag without rollers.” He shrugged. “Those are the schemes I’ve come up with. You conjure up something better, we’ll do it.”
Rajendra was silent for a long moment, staring at the shoreline, the breakers, and the waves. Absently, he twisted the ends of his mustache probably out of what was an old habit. He sighed. “The shattered planks on the bottom of the launch have been removed. Sadly, there were quite a few. Like you, I confess to believing only a miracle delivered us across the breakers. The carpenter has been shaping planks from what he hopes will be suitable trees-it is so difficult to tell with these unknown woods-but even with the existing repairs, he fears an inadequacy of fasteners. Nails. I don’t see how we can disassemble the boat further without damaging or destroying even more fasteners. That’s one thing we didn’t think to carry away much stock of.”
“Carpenter forgettin’ nails is like a gunner’s mate runnin’ off without bullets,” Silva accused. “Dumb- ass.”
“He does have tools,” Rajendra said in defense of the carpenter. “A drill and some bracing bits. Perhaps he can use dowels instead of nails, but I don’t think we dare break the boat down into pieces small enough to carry.” He looked at Silva. “I also agree, if you’re right about the obstacles, that the combination of floating and portaging the boat would be more complicated and potentially more dangerous.” He sighed. “So for now it looks as though your tedious and laborious plan is our best chance after all.”
CHAPTER 4
Talaud Island
Lieutenant Irvin Laumer felt the tremor through the hull of the old submarine, S-19, even over the vibrating rumble of the big starboard NELSECO diesel. The battered submarine was entirely afloat now, in the sandy pit they’d carved around it, which meant the tremor must be bad indeed if he felt it through the water. He looked at Machinist’s Mate Sandy Whitcomb, who was tinkering with the diesel, adjusting it. Sandy glanced back at him, catching his eye. He felt it too. Together, they just stood there in the engine room, sweating in the dull glare of the electric lights that glowed with the power the generator was packing into the batteries. The tremor continued. Radioman Tex Sheider stuck his head into the compartment through the forward hatch. His bearded face was flanked by a pair of’Cats, and it would have been a comical scene if not for Tex’s expression.
“You better get a load a’ this, Skipper,” he said.
“On my way,” Laumer replied. “Where’s Midshipman Hardee?”
“Topside.”
Laumer exchanged another tense glance with Whitcomb and hurried after Tex. The almost bare aft berthing space had been converted into a workshop where many of the boat’s systems were undergoing repair, and they had to weave their way among the various ongoing projects before reaching the even more cramped control room. Climbing the forward ladder, they exited onto the deck, just in front of the conn tower and aft of the boat’s four- inch-fifty gun.
For just a moment Laumer looked around. The excavation around the boat had filled with water during a small storm the week before, which meant any remaining repairs below the waterline were out of the question. It was just as well. The boat was as tight as they had any reason to expect after wallowing on the Talaud Island beach for the better part of a year and a half. The rudder, shafts, and screws seemed relatively straight. The only thing they hadn’t been able to fix was a warped starboard diving plane. They’d managed to straighten it a little, so it shouldn’t cause a problem on the surface, but it had little range of motion. Of course, the last thing any of them ever wanted to do was take S-19 underwater again.
He quickly noted that their tender, perhaps whimsically named USS Toolbox still floated where she should a couple of hundred yards offshore. As an auxiliary, she carried only a few guns to save weight for things Irvin’s project might require, but like so many Allied ships, she was a highly modified Grik prize captured after the battle of Baalkpan. Even as he stared at her, Laumer began to feel a little dizzy and her masts almost seemed to blur.
“At the mountain, sir! Look at the mountain!” Hardee blurted. Laumer turned to see and automatically looked up. And up.
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Shipfitter Danny Porter, joining them from below. Far in the distance, a
