Silva inserted the third magazine, the bolt already back, and aimed at another barrel. This string of twenty shots left the smoking-hot barrel at the same apparent velocity and even better accuracy. There was a little more smoke, but it was dark and probably came from the burning lube on the lead bullets. The bullets themselves may not have penetrated both sides of the barrel, but they shattered it even more thoroughly when they deformed on impact. Silva lowered the scalding weapon with a grin amid happy cheers.
“Yes, friends!” the talker said. “We have now matched the amazing, less-smoking ammunition the first Americans brought us here! But as wonderful as that is, there are few of the Thompson guns. How will that help the Alliance as a whole?” Risa stepped forward with an odd cylindrical device with a pistol grip, a thin wooden butt stock, and a skinny barrel with a tall front sight. She inserted a standard Thompson magazine into a rectangular well forward of the triggerguard, and pulled back a large knob located on the side of the tubular receiver.
“Cap-i-taan Risa-Sab-At will now demonstrate the Baalkpan Arsenal Blitzer Bug!”
The “Blitzer Bug” was the simplest thing in the world; basically, a pipe with a barrel on one end that fired from a spring-loaded open bolt. Originally called the Bug Sprayer during development, because it kind of looked like one, Commander Brister had suggested that it would be most useful in a Kraut-like blitz assault, and the name just naturally evolved. It was fully automatic only, so far, and fired very fast as long as the trigger was depressed. To make it shoot only once or twice required serious practice. That was of little concern today, when the idea was to impress.
Risa clutched the weapon tight against her shoulder, holding the pistol grip and the magazine, and leaned forward as she aimed down the sights and squeezed the trigger. There was a long, raucous buuuurp! And the third barrel was blown apart. Risa grinned hugely and held the weapon up while the crowd erupted once more.
“How was it?” Silva asked, muttering in her ear.
“You were right. It’s a handful,” she replied, still grinning. “It took all my strength to keep it on target. I think it will be very wasteful of ammunition.”
“Yeah, but maybe in the right hands, like these commandos Chackie’s workin’ up in Manila, they might shine.”
“Could be.”
The demonstrations continued, with Silva and Risa, then Abel, Stuart, and even Lawrence putting various pistols through their paces. Most of these were junk in Silva’s view, or required too much potential machine time and handwork to make. A nice revolver based on the Single-Action Army Colt Russ Chapelle had discovered aboard Santa Catalina, and intended to give to the Skipper, was very accurate, but got out of time after two cylinders were fired. Silva thought it had potential, but the guts needed work. A copy of a Mauser “Broomhandle” in. 45 ACP fired once, then locked up. Probably the best was a copy of Silva’s beloved 1911 Colt. It was a pretty thing, he had to admit. The slide was color case hardened, and the frame was a kind of purplish blue. A few machining shortcuts had been taken, but it felt right in his hand. Firing quickly but carefully, he managed to empty three magazines on target before it started getting tight and failed to function. Abel and Lawrence both fired others like it until they too started having problems. Dennis figured the pistols might be too well made, in a sense, and needed more “slop.”
During these exhibitions, Bernie, Ronson, and their strikers continued fooling around with the torpedoes. The small-arms demonstration at an end, Ben Mallory and a couple of his pilots wowed the crowd with modest stunts in the ever popular P-40s overhead, while Silva took charge of the four-inch-fifties. As acting gunnery officer, he merely designated the targets and gave the command, “Commence firing in local control!” After that, he appraised the quality of the gun’s crews drill as much as the performance of the weapons. On the whole, he was pleased. The crews were young recruits who’d never seen combat, but they were well trained and confident.
Walker ’s old number four gun performed well with the new shells, just as Bernie said it would. It had been tested quite a bit already, and the people of Baalkpan were used to its rushing crack and the associated pressure. Dennis frowned when he saw a couple of the shell casings had indeed cracked, but was satisfied, particularly by the much-improved explosive force of the new “common” shells and the glorious shocks of distant spume they threw up in the bay. The new gun did fine as well-at first-with the black-powder shells provided. Accuracy was good, and several of the farthest targets were destroyed before the left recoil cylinder split on a seam and the right fill plug blew out, both spewing oil all over the gun and its crew. The spectators laughed and cheered, but even then, Silva-who’d avoided a dowsing-wasn’t disappointed. The gun worked and so did the mount. None of the elevating and training gear had failed. The new telescope sights made with Imperial lenses seemed as good as the old ones. A recoil cylinder was just a pipe. They could make better pipes. He gave the command to cease firing and secure, and over the rumble of the people nearby, he heard a new, different sound.
“What the hell’s that?” he demanded as a tiny aircraft blew past overhead. It sounded like a giant mosquito, but even as little as he knew about airplanes, he noticed several things at once. The craft was an open-cockpit, single-seat monoplane with a smallish radial engine, and it had fixed landing gear-with wheels!
“People of Baalkpan and the Grand Alliance, the Air Corps presents the P-1 Mosquito Hawk!”
Dennis guffawed; he couldn’t help it. “Skeeter Hawk my ass! That’s a homemade, pint-sized ‘Fleashooter!’”
“You’re right,” confirmed a female voice behind him in a flat, distant, tone. “That’s Colonel Mallory’s latest; a pursuit ship for the carriers. He says it’s a scaled-down cross between a P-36 Hawk and a P-26 Peashooter.”
“Pam!” Dennis said, turning to face the short, dark-haired woman.
“What? No ‘sugar pie’? No ‘honey dew’?” she asked sarcastically in her strong Brooklyn accent.
“No,” Silva answered simply.
“I oughta hate your guts.”
“Yep. Why don’t you?”
Pam took a deep breath and let it out. Around them, all eyes were on the little plane as it swooped low over the shore and snap-rolled to the right, over the water. “’Cause I can’t, that’s all. You’re a jerk, a turd, the worst asshole in the world, for not comin’ back to me when you were supposed to-not even comin’ to see me when you finally got here, but… did you know Sister Audry thinks you’re some kinda Holy Warrior called to ‘smite’ our enemies?”
Dennis blinked. “Hell, no! Huh. Maybe that explains why she was so nice to me the other day. All my hee- roin’ musta impressed her after all, back when we was marooned. She really thinks that?”
“Yeah… an’ I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“ You don’t believe that stuff!”
Pam shook her head. “I told you I don’t know what to believe,” she snapped. “But maybe you did help out more where you were than you would have back here. At first I figured you just like the damn war too much to leave it, but she talked a little sense, and I guess it’s not my place to judge whether you were ‘called’ by God or some goofy sense of duty.”
“Hey, don’t knock the war, doll,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “It’s the only one we got.”
“Damn you! Can’t you ever be serious? About anything?”
Dennis looked around and saw that Risa, Abel, Stuart, and Lawrence had moved a short distance away, clearly leaving them to hash this out in relative peace while the crowd enjoyed the antics of the new plane.
“Bein’ serious can get a fella in a lotta trouble,” he admitted softly.
The small plane performed a barrel roll that caused the spectators to cry out, and Dennis pointed at it. “Colonel Mallory in that thing?”
“Probably. He’s like you in that way. Always jumpin’ in the fire when he doesn’t have to.”
“Somebody has to.”
“But why does it always have to be guys I care about?” Pam flared, loud enough for Risa to hear, and she came to embrace her friend.
“Because you, like I, are drawn to the sort who care enough about you-and the cause we fight for-to do their duty as they see it, no matter what,” Risa murmured.
Tears came then. “Are you tryin’ to tell me this big dope stayed away because he cares for me?”
Risa looked at Dennis and blinked discomfort. “Of course he did, my sister. He cannot protect you here… and ultimately, neither can Col-nol Maal-ory.”
“But I don’t want protection!” Pam whispered into Risa’s fur, then paused. “You know, that’s what Sister Audry said too.”
The new plane dove toward the bay, and with a grumbling stutter, bullet geysers erupted around yet another
