“My cap-i-taan send me. Make sure you see!”
“See what?”
The corporal blinked agitation. “Pease come, sur! You see better on right.”
Almost reluctantly, Flynn followed the corporal around and over the tangled heaps of dead. The hill was a little higher on the west side, the slope a little steeper, and that was probably another reason the Grik had concentrated where they had. That didn’t mean the Rangers and the company of Marines emplaced there had gotten off without a scratch, but the enemy dead did extend considerably farther away from the breastworks, slain by the more accurate. 50-80s. As Flynn drew near, he saw that his troops were moving forward to reoccupy their forward defenses. Then he saw something else.
“Oh, good God,” he muttered. A few miles to the west-southwest, an army marched in long, dense, serpentine columns with the precision of a machine. The corporal’s captain joined them and handed Flynn his telescope without a word. Flynn raised it with shaky hands and managed to adjust the focus. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered without even realizing he’d spoken. Leedom had told him, but he just hadn’t grasped it, hadn’t understood. Marching under the midday sun with a grandeur and geometric inflexibility Napoleon would have envied, an honest-to-God army of Grik churned rapidly, relentlessly, through the tall, green grass, as yet unspoiled by the battle that had raged around the hill.
“Are… are they coming for us?” The captain asked hesitantly but almost formally.
Flynn slammed the telescope shut.
“No,” he said. “They’re angling for the Rocky Gap. And look”-he pointed-“the Grik reserves that didn’t come at us are already moving that way.” He shook his head and snorted an ugly laugh. “Now I know why we’re still alive. That General Halik’s got bigger fish to fry, that’s all. There’s not enough of us left up here to worry about, and he knows it. Shit!”
William Flynn was as Irish as any American could possibly be, and despite his pain, even fueled by it, his temper soared. “We gotta report the absolute hell out of this. Pray God we’ve still got comm. Whether we do or not, we’re going to get word out somehow-and make General Halik wish he’d wiped us out when he had the chance!”
CHAPTER 16
Baalkpan
March 15, 1944
Dennis Silva walked with Bernie Sandison and Ronson Rodriguez at the head of a virtual army of young torpedo techs and strikers, ordnance ’Cats, EMs, and other “sparky” types. Lawrence trotted exuberantly alongside Silva, his crested head swiveling rapidly back and forth, taking in all the changes to the city. Within the column were carts piled with weapons, tools, and crated ammunition, and it snaked its way through the crowded, festive pathways toward the area between the vastly enlarged new fitting-out piers and the massive shipyard.
Dennis was still stunned to see how packed, bow to stern, the piers were, with completing ships of all descriptions. There was Santa Catalina, smoke coiling above her funnel, looking almost predatory with all the armor and weapons they’d lavished on her. Silva hadn’t seen the ship before-and had fluttery feelings when “her” P-40s thundered over-head-but he’d been told she looked like the old Asiatic Fleet destroyer tender Blackhawk.
Maybe once, he decided with a critical eye. The lines are still similar. Most of the cargo booms are gone, though, and she looks kinda… tough now.
His gaze wandered as he walked. He was particularly amazed by the monstrous, almost Home-size floating dry docks fitting out at a completely new facility in the far distance across the bay. These weren’t the same as the ones he’d seen under construction when he left. Those were finished now, and already in use either here or elsewhere. The new class was a powered, self-propelled variety that could steam wherever they were needed, and even fight!
The original permanent dry dock had even more smoking engines around it, and the place was wreathed in a perpetual cloud of steam. A brand-new carrier was taking shape inside the now concrete- reinforced, ’Cat-made canyon, and mighty wooden cranes were poised over mountains of bright timbers like impossible insects. He’d known concrete was in the works. Many of the ingredients were abundant in the highly volcanic region, and they’d been cooking limestone for acetylene. He’d heard that was related somehow. But to see it already in use… His eyes strayed to a pair of the old floating dry docks, side by side, and sure enough there were S-19 and the salvaged remains of Walker ’s sister, Mahan! The wrecked destroyer and practically wrecked sub were both in the process of becoming something maybe a little different from what they’d been, though major alterations on S-19 had only just begun with Irvin Laumer’s arrival a few days before. Not much to see there yet but a nearly stripped pressure hull. But Mahan! He couldn’t believe it. He wondered how they’d managed to fish her up. Almost half the damn thing had been blown off, but she was beginning to look kind of like her old self again! Maybe shorter…
“Silva!” Bernie snapped-maybe the third time.
“Whut?”
“That nasty, creepy thing you use for a brain must be off on the moon! Listen up, and quit woolgathering! You and Risa will be the first ones at bat with all the new small arms, after Adar says his piece. I’d order you not to screw it up-with half the city watching-but then you’d probably start the show by seeing if you can whiz farther than you can shoot!”
Silva shrugged. “Maybe I can…”
“ Please don’t screw it up!” Bernie groaned. “I’m asking you, damn it! I’m nervous enough as it is without worrying about you! And whatever you do, don’t carry on with Risa out in front of everybody! Besides… everything else, she’s a Marine and an officer now!”
Silva grinned and patted the sling that supported his new “Doom Stomper.”
“No sweat, Mr. Sandison! I’m your man! I’m still feelin’ mighty friendly and a-bleeged! Besides, shootin’ stuff is what I do! Me and Cap’n Risa’ll shoot off the good stuff, an’ show ’em why the junk won’t work.” Clearly, Silva had already formed strong opinions about some of the experimental weapons. “Relax,” he continued. “Torpedoes and… other things… are what you do. It ain’t like you got to sell the stuff!”
Bernie stopped, wordless for a moment, and the whole column ground to a halt behind him. “That’s exactly what we’re here to do today!” he finally insisted. “We have to decide what weapons and systems to devote our resources to, then sell them to the guys and gals who’ll make them-as well as those who’ll have to bet their lives on them! We all bitched about the useless crap the Navy gave us to fight the Japs: the crummy torpedoes, the dud shells. Stuff that cost lives! Now we’re the ones responsible! All this time, we’ve been making do, but the time’s come to put some real weapons in the hands of our people, and I’ll be damned if one sailor, soldier, flyer, or Marine gets killed because something doesn’t go off when they’re counting on it!”
Silva arched an eyebrow. “Zat what yer workin’ on, off in the jungle east o’ town? Real weapons?”
Bernie stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bull flops. I seen some o’ the brightest ordnance ’Cats we got headin’ down a trail at first light yesterday, an’ they didn’t never come back. They all get ate, an’ you forget to mention it? What’re you doin’ off in there you can’t tell me about?”
Bernie looked at him. “I wouldn’t tell you I had a hangnail!” he said, then paused. “Look,” he almost whispered, “you try to fool everybody, but you’re not stupid. Of course we’ve got secret stuff going on-you sniffed it out easy enough. Must be the way your mind works. Anyway, some things-big things-have to stay secret now. The war’s changing. We’ve got Impies and all these women running around. Who’s to say not one of ’em is a Dom spy? It would still be tough for the Grik to spy on us, but we have to stay tight-lipped about things here that somebody who gets deployed might blab to a Jap interrogator-or a Grik who understands English!”
Silva nodded. “No sweat, Mr. Sandison,” he murmured back. “I won’t blow. You workin’ on anything that might interest me?”
Bernie hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”
“Then I don’t care what it is.” Something caught his eye and he grinned.
Ensign Abel Cook and Midshipman Stuart Brassey appeared and hurried to join them as several paalka-drawn carts, heavily laden with fresh meat, took the opportunity to cross ahead of the stalled column.
