decided he was on the level.”
“Our very own snoop brain, huh?”
“Looks like.”
“A fella like that might come in handy,” Silva probed.
“He might,” Bernie answered, noncommittally. “I’ve only talked to him a few times. Kind of an odd, Ivy League sort. The first time I saw him, he was poking around the powder-blending tower, asking a bunch of screwy questions, and he hadn’t even joined up yet!”
“What about the Grumpys? They goin’ to Alden?”
“The Marines?” Bernie asked, rightly suspecting another one of Silva’s odd, often unexplainable nicknames. “I snatched one of them, a corporal, for Ordnance. He’s kind of a snot-like a Marine version of Laney-but he earns his keep. I think Letts is sending the other one, a gunny named Horn, with you.” Bernie looked around. “He might be around here somewhere, or maybe he’s at the drill field.”
“Gunny Horn,” Silva said, brows knitting. “ Arnie Horn? Big guy, black hair?”
“I don’t remember his first name, but that sounds like him. I swear, Silva! Did you know everybody on the China Station?”
“Most everybody that’d been there a while,” Dennis replied, reflecting.
“Well… if he’s who you think he is, is he a problem?”
“No. Shouldn’t be. Arnie’s a right guy. I just figgered he croaked-and I owe him one.”
“One what?”
“Oh, nothin’, sir.”
Adar began to speak and his voice carried in that strange, Lemurian way. “We are gathered here, at the first Torpedo Day celebration, to behold the latest wonders wrought by our fine technicians to smite the evil foes of peace and freedom! Even as those foes grow in numbers, so does our capacity to slay them!” A thunderous cheer ensued that was quieted only when Adar raised his arms again. “Today we will view the performance of new weapons that the forces of the evil Dominion or even the Ancient Grik Enemy cannot possibly be prepared to face, and some of them are already in the hands of our precious troops, or en route to them. Their force will be felt!”
Another great cheer built and slowly died away.
“Yet we will also see the future! Experimental weapons that are not yet ready for battle, but soon will be! Bear in mind that as the day progresses, you may see some few contrivances that do not perform as hoped. Do not be disheartened by such setbacks or scorn those who suffer them, but honor the effort and remember: the greatest triumphs are built on the adversities encountered and defeated beforehand!”
There was some laughter mixed with the cheering this time, and Bernie’s face turned red. “All right, Silva. You’re almost up. Get ready. I’ve got to oversee the final preparation on my ‘fishies.’”
“You bet, Mr. Sandison.”
At that moment, two loudspeakers Dennis hadn’t noticed before suddenly squealed raucously, like maddened rhino pigs, until the piano prelude to “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar” defeated the feedback and delighted the assembly, many of whom tried to sing along with the harmonizing Andrews Sisters. The recording was rough; it was a big favorite at the Screw and had nearly been played to death. New phonographs had been built, copies of Marvaney’s original, but the ability to broadcast was new. He looked at Ronson.
“Yeah,” the former electrician’s mate said. “And we’ve got real radios now too, even if they’re big as a steamer trunk. And our tubes are the size of cantaloupes! We’re shrinking everything as fast as we can, and pretty soon we’ll have VHF radio-telephone-TBS sets-for every ship in the Navy! A dozen sets should be arriving at First Fleet any day. Mr. Riggs based them on our old HT-Four on Walker. The good thing is, we can actually use them since they’re short-range, line of sight only. Not likely to be picked up by anything the enemy might have.” He looked around conspiratorially. “We’re working on Huff-Duff too, so our planes’ll be able to find their carriers or airstrips if they get lost, and also detect enemy transmissions!”
Silva blinked. “That’s swell, Ronson. Sounds like you sparky guys have been busy as a buncha little bees!” He grinned and shuffle-danced away, in time with the music, toward the carts. There he met Risa, already sorting through the weapons.
“Hi, doll,” he said. “Wanna dance?” Risa spared him a grin as she selected one of the new Baalkpan Arsenal Allin-Silva “conversion” muskets and a cartridge box. This specimen, like all the new rifles they were issuing, had been built as a breechloader. Conversion kits consisting of new barrels with breechblocks already attached and altered hammers were being sent out as quickly as possible for installation in the field. The old barrels were to be returned for conversion by lining the barrels and installing the breechblock.
Silva chose one of the muzzle-loading rifled muskets and a cartridge box, just like those still in the hands of all the home troops, and many of those deployed elsewhere. With the vast scope of the war, it would take time to equip everyone with the new rifles, and most of the troops with Second Fleet in the east still had smoothbores. At a glance, all the weapons looked identical, but Risa’s had a trapdoor at the breech into which fixed, metallic cartridges could be inserted.
“Wanna race?” she challenged.
“What do I get if I win?”
Risa’s grin faded, and she blinked regret. “You can’t win, Dennis. Everything is different now.”
“Yeah.”
The music ended, and a Lemurian with a speaking trumpet that magnified his already powerful voice explained to the spectators that they would now compare the accuracy and rate of fire of the old rifles against the new. Floating targets had been placed in the bay at one hundred, two hundred, and three hundred tails, and other targets dotted the seascape at intervals that reached beyond easy view. Silva and Risa were both well-known warriors of extraordinary skill, he continued, but skill alone, and certainly size (Silva made two of Risa) would make little difference when all Allied troops were armed with the wondrous new weapons.
Everyone knew the Allin-Silvas weren’t Springfields or even Krags, but they also knew they were a big step in the right direction. Enough of the troops in the crowd remembered when the Grik were defeated with virtually no firearms other than crude cannon. And the new rifles might not be repeaters, but the big fifty-caliber bullet on eighty grains of powder had been proven even deadlier against large beasts than the. 30–06 Springfields and. 30–40 Krags. The lower-velocity and much heavier bullets of the. 50–80 afforded them better penetration against the dangerous animals in the vicinity-and they inflicted gruesome, charge-stopping wounds on Grik. That was more important than flat trajectories to people accustomed to fighting berserk enemies at close range.
At the sound of a whistle, the competitors commenced firing. Silva was good with the muzzle loader, no question about it. Each shot he fired rang off the iron gong and caused the float to bob. But it was very quickly apparent that he was outclassed. Risa also hit every target, the butt slamming against her muscular shoulder with each booming crack, but she’d already moved to the second target by the time Silva loaded his second shot! She finished with all her targets before he fired his last shot at the first. Without a word, she handed him her rifle. He flipped the rear sight up and shot at a target bobbing in the bay about five hundred tails away. He operated the weapon almost mechanically, recocking the hammer, flipping the breechblock open and ejecting the empty, smoking cartridge. Inserting a new one, he closed the breech, raised the rifle, and fired again. Even offhand, he hit the distant, swaying gong four out of five times.
The crowd cheered and stomped enthusiastically at the demonstration. The superiority of the new weapon was clear, and by exchanging rifles, Silva and Risa showed just how little adjustment the troops would have to make. Ostentatiously, and to instill the conscientious need to do so, the pair then gathered their empty brass off the ground and the speaker explained that it could be washed and loaded again.
They next selected two more weapons off the cart. The first was Silva’s heavy Thompson. He inserted a twenty-round magazine, racked the bolt back, and fired at the first of several barrels floating about forty tails offshore. A cloud of white smoke erupted around him, since these were some of the shells loaded with black powder. He stitched the barrel, but many of his later shots went wild as the smoke obscured his aim.
“Suckers kick a little,” he muttered ruefully as he squirted gri-kakka oil in the action around the bolt and inserted a magazine loaded with their dwindling Rock Island ball. “Raises the muzzle more than I’m used to.” He stitched the barrel again with the old world military ammo. This time, he kept all the rounds on target and left the barrel sinking amid a swarm of splinters. After the appreciative applause, the talker announced that he would now use ammunition made entirely-brass, bullet, powder and all-at the Baalkpan Arsenal!
