Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites, and Stumpy. The “dragon birds” were getting closer.
“Cap-i-taan!” Minnie cried. “Mr. Spaanky requests permission for the number four gun to engage the flying lizards!” Matt was surprised. He hadn’t known they had time-fused shells for the dual-purpose gun. He’d never considered asking since the idea of shooting at airborne tarll arms hadn’t occurred to him before. If they had the shells, it was time to use them. “Absolutely,” he said. Almost immediately, the aft gun boomed and an instant later, a black puff appeared in front of the advancing flock. The creatures nearest the detonation veered past it and kept coming. The rounds pumped out, in rapid fire, throwing a blanket of steel in their path. One puff shredded a monster’s wing and killed another outright with slashing fragments. The dead one folded and dropped, and the wounded one spiraled downward, shrieking. There were short-lived cheers, but the creatures were close enough for the machine guns now.
All the while, numbers one and two continued firing at the enemy ships, but seeing the oncoming creatures, Matt couldn’t leave the gun’s crews out in the open.
“Cease firing and secure main battery, all but number four!” he ordered. “Helm, come to course zero, two, zero, all ahead full! Secondary battery and small arms will commence firing at targets of opportunity!” He gestured at Tabasco to hand him his belt.
“No, no, you idiot!” yelled Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites around a wad of yellowish Lemurian tobacco. “You gotta lead ’em! Shoot where they’re gonna be, not where they are! You’re just wastin’ bullets!”
“How I know where they gonna be?” yelled the ’Cat striker behind the ’fifty, beside the “pom-pom pit.” “I not see future!”
The “dragon birds” were splitting up, trying to encircle the ship, it seemed. But Walker ’s speed must have come as a big surprise, and they appeared to be having trouble adjusting their approach as the old destroyer sped up. All the machine guns were stuttering now; the wind-muffled, crackling prattle of the. 30s on the fire control platform, the throatier, deafening bursts of the. 50s amidships. Reynolds directed his “Special Air Detail” on the pom-poms protecting his plane, and the numbing bam-bam-bam ming of the things was starting to really hurt. Stites was directing the fifties just aft of the pom-poms, under the overhang of the aft deckhouse where the 4.7- inch dual-purpose was banging away, and the position was… detrimental to normal conversation.
Most of the “secondary battery” was giving a good account of itself. Tracers rose and converged on their targets, staggering the beasts in midair. The things were fast, but they weren’t Japanese planes. Some plummeted into the sea with roaring, surprised, wails of terror, where they floundered until something like flashies began tearing at them. Maybe they were flashies. The wails became… worse… then; like horses burning alive. Others flew on, little fazed by holes in their furry, membranous wings.
“Get away from that thing!” Stites roared at the ’Cat gunner when a higher-flying creature suddenly darted over the ship and released a large rock amid a flurry of Springfield and musket fire. The rock struck between the “Nancy” and the searchlight tower, barely missing the aft engine room skylights. It shattered on impact, leaving a dent in the deck and spraying sharp shards of stone. Stites realized that many of the creatures carried rocks, and others carried… something else… in each eagle-clawed foot. He finished shoving the ’Cat from the gun that had once been in one of the waist blisters of the old PBY and grabbed the handles himself. “Everything in naval gunnery’s about shooting where something’s going to be, Genius,” he ranted. “If you haven’t figured that out yet, you might as well strike for snipe-or go to work for Lanier!” he added as the ultimate insult. He wrenched the. 50 around and crouched bend the sights just as he felt the deck shiver with multiple impacts. The damn things are bombing us! With rocks!
The 4.7-inch went silent, and a fusillade of small arms erupted from that position. Stites swung the gun aft and up and saw a trio of dragon birds coming in astern. These he could shoot directly at because they were making a beeline for him. He depressed the trigger. A stream of tracers from his gun and the one to port swept across the things, spattering gobbets of flesh and bone. Two dropped in the wake, but one bore in, crippled. It slammed into the aft deckhouse where the old three-incher would have been, and he felt another tremor. Immediately, ’Cats fired down on it from above, and his spine tingled as he prayed they had enough sense to watch for the depth charges in the racks. A quiver started at his neck and ended at his tailbone, but he shook his head when the stern wasn’t blown off.
“Look out!” someone cried when a dragon bird actually lit on the searchlight tower and attacked the rail with its teeth.
“Shoot it, but for God’s sake, don’t hit the light!” Stites yelled. Lanier himself waddled from under the amidships deckhouse and hosed the thing with a Thompson. It squealed and tried to lunge at him, but it fell to the deck instead, flailing with wings, teeth, tail, and claws. “Son of a bitch!” It was the closest look Stites had had at the things and he suspected it must be light for its size, but it probably still weighed three or four hundred pounds. Its body and wings were a bright, fuzzy, bluish gray on top, and white-gray underneath. The head was almost orange, with streaks of purple-blue and yellow radiating from liquid yellow eyes. Oddly, the head colors were reflected in the tail plumage to a remarkable degree.
“Goddamn, creepy-ass…” He looked up. The dragon birds were having more trouble keeping up now, maybe tiring, and some began to fall astern as the ship accelerated past twenty-five knots, smoke gushing from her funnels. Faster ones still dropped things, however, but these objects made metallic sounds when they hit. There were screams from forward, and he saw a couple of ’Cats tumble off the amidships deckhouse. With a sick feeling, he realized one went into the water alongside. Another dragon bird swooped low and snatched one of the fallen ’Cats, a female, who shrieked horribly when the thing leaped back into the air, clutching her in its claws. She must have been too heavy for it, because it immediately lost altitude, though no one would shoot at it-until it dropped its screaming victim in the sea and frantically beat its wings. Probably everyone on the starboard side of the ship shot at it then, and it crashed into the water.
Stites snatched a ’Cat by the scruff of the neck. “Can you hit anything besides the goddamn ocean with this thing?” he demanded. The ’Cat nodded, and Stites flung him at the gun, snatching up his “personal” BAR. “Keep at ’em,” he yelled, “but watch where you’re shooting! They’re starting to get on the ship!”
Maybe they were tired, or maybe that was just what they did, but more and more of the surviving attackers lit on Walker and attacked her crew on her own deck. Many converged on the bridge as if sensing that was the “head” of their victim. Stites glanced back at Reynolds. The aviator looked terrified, but he was holding his own, a 1911 Colt smoking in his hand.
“You got this, sir?” Stites asked. Reynolds jerked a nod. “Watch out for Spanky!” Stites yelled, pointing up at the auxiliary conn, forward of the dual-purpose gun. A pair of monsters had landed there, and Spanky was shooting his own pistol now. Stites aimed and fired a burst at the head of one of the things. It fell on the starboard propeller guard and vanished in the roiling wake. Spanky, or someone, apparently killed the other, but more were trying to land. “Watch him!” Stites yelled again, “and watch yourself! I’m going forward!”
“This just about beats all!” Kutas cried when a “dragon bird” threw something that ricocheted off the number one gun’s splinter shield, then flared out for a landing on the fo’c’sle. The Bosun had run down there with his Thompson to protect two ’Cats who hadn’t made it to cover and were trying to conceal themselves around the gun. The. 30s up above were still chattering loudly, but either they had problems of their own or were afraid to shoot so near their shipmates. Gray ran at the thing, roaring like a demon to distract it from the helpless ’Cats. It whirled on him and snarled, and he fired a burst that sent it tumbling into the sea.
Matt ran to the aft rail and looked up and aft. They’d made a dent-a big one-in the terrifying creatures, and many had finally peeled off and headed back toward the island. But now the stubborn ones, maybe twenty or more, seemed intent on attacking the bridge. He leaned over the signal flag locker to see down on the weather deck below. One creature lay dead beside the base of the number one funnel. Carl “Boats” Bashear was carrying a ’Cat toward the companionway to the wardroom, and he almost slammed into Bradford who was apparently coming up to see what was going on. The Australian froze, despite Bashear’s harsh bellow, and just stood there, staring around, enchanted.
“Get below!” Matt yelled. Instead, Bradford seemed to notice the dead creature for the first time and started in its direction. A dull shadow fell across him. “Damn it, Courtney,” Matt roared, “get below!”
Bradford looked up, and that was all he needed to break his trance. Instantly, he whirled and chased Bashear down the companionway. The signal halyard ropes slapped Matt across the face and chest and sent him reeling back into the pilothouse, stumbling, and finally falling on his back. A dragon bird, still trailing the parted lines,
