To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Which gets back to shoot training,” Faith said. “So, sure, you train them on accuracy. But to be a boarding guy, you need people who can put lots of rounds on target fast and accurate. At mostly short ranges. That’s different than ‘did you hit the center of the black.’ ”

“There’s more to it than that,” Jan said. “We had some training in boarding and clearance. Fair amount. But we’d need more. A lot more. In gear so they get used to the weight.”

“In weighted gear,” Gunny Sands growled. “Over weighted gear. The more you sweat, the less you bleed.”

“Gunny, we have so got to get you laid,” Volpe said. He grinned then winced and looked at Faith.

“Hey, don’t look at me!” Faith said, holding up her hands. “Hello? Thirteen?”

“I think he didn’t want you to be offended,” Fontana said.

“Since I was a kid, I’ve been hanging out with guys,” Faith said, shrugging. “Which was fine. We played ball. I’d threaten to kiss them and they’d run like mad. Then, all of a sudden, all they can talk about is p… girls. It was, like, what? When did that happen? So I’m used to it. No issues. If you say anything I don’t like, I’ll start talking about what happens when you forget to bring along pads. It’s really God awful, you know…?”

“Okay, okay,” Volpe said, holding up his hands. “We surrender.”

“Glad we got that out of the way,” the Gunny said. “And for your information, Lieutenant, I’m married,” he said, holding up his wedding ring. “And I don’t fool around on deployment.”

“Sorry, Gunny,” Volpe said as everyone very carefully did not look around. All the dependents were back at Lejeune. Which was zombie city. “I forgot.”

“No problem,” Gunny Sands said. “Just looking forward to the float being done with. Wanna get home to my cold-beer.”

CHAPTER 17

“The Royal Netherlands Liner P/V Saga of Amsterdam is officially clear,” Captain Wilkes said. “Two hundred and fifty-six survivors, mostly crew and, as usual, mostly associated with food services or housekeeping.”

“Can we use them?” Steve asked, looking at Isham.

“Nine engineering or maintenance personnel,” Isham said. “They’re all onboard with working in those areas. Three passengers with significant boating or yachting experience who are in good enough mental condition to take a small boat. One is a master mariner. I’ve told her we’re going to save her for something that needs her skill. The rest are the usual odds and sods. Some of them are still getting their heads together but I figure most of them will pitch in. Nine that are pretty much round the bend. That’s starting to be a problem. We’ve got forty people in that sort of condition and there’s not much we can do with them except lock ’em in a cabin. Which freaks them the fuck out. The support people are mostly Indonesian. Some of them are already working in cleaning crews finishing up on the Boadicea and the couple of boats we’ve pulled in and hadn’t cleaned up.”

“We’ll take the next one down the line,” Steve said. “Did you intentionally finish clearing just in time for the birthday of the Marine Corps, Captain?”

“Let’s say it put a little relish in the hotdog, sir,” Wilkes said, grinning. “I told the guys I couldn’t promise them a day off if they finished by the ninth but I could try to swing it.”

“Do you want it off the day of or the day after?” Steve asked.

“Short day doing initial reconnaissance on the Tenth, sir,” Wilkes said. “Stop operations at sixteen-thirty. Then the day after off.”

“I can live with that,” Steve said.

“We believe we can increase the pace on the next one, sir,” Wilkes said. “If we can get some logistics support.”

“Define,” Steve said.

“Lieutenant?” Wilkes said, turning to Faith.

“The guys can carry their assault packs on clearance, sir,” Faith said. “But they clock out on rounds, anyway. We’re averaging about nine rounds per infected. We need to get that down, but that’s where we’re at. That means that the assault pack and basic load only allows sixty kills.”

“I hadn’t done that math,” Steve said, nodding.

“Nine rounds is really phenomenal, sir,” Wilkes pointed out. “The average in Iraq was six thousand rounds per stepped on kill.”

“Six thousand?” Isham said. “You have got to be joking!”

“It was sixty thousand in the Korean War,” Steve said. “Lots of use of machine guns. Different situation. So, only sixty infected per Marine per reasonable load. And the answer is?”

“We have spare magazines, sir,” Faith said. “We pretty much brought every mag we could find on the Iwo. If we could get support in having spares loaded and moved forward, the Marines wouldn’t have to go all the way back to the entry area then reload their mags. The trip sometimes takes ten minutes and reloads take up to thirty. That’s nearly an hour all around. They’re not bitching about that, they just sort of think that’s what you do. We discussed this with the Gunny and he thinks we’re coddling them, but it would just make clearance more efficient.”

“Loading and moving are two different things,” Steve said. “I can see finding people to load… Jack?”

“That we can find people for,” Isham said, cautiously. “Carrying it through the ship? That’s going to be tougher.”

“My gunners would do it,” Lieutenant Chen said. “My shooters are really chomping at the bit.”

“I’ve got an alternate, there, I was going to bring up,” Steve said. “We’ve got weapons. Put out the usual recruiting call. See how many people we can scrounge up. Put some sort of bennie on it. If we can do it, we’ll do it. At the very least, we’ll get the mags loaded which is a big part of the time. Okay, next point.

“Littoral Clearance Divisions one and two: Your boats, as you just noted, are being under utilized in this operation. We really don’t need the gunboats to hold the pier since it’s blocked and we’re detached from it, anyway. So I’m going to send you out on light town clearance, again. But sans Marines. You’ll have to decide if you want to send people ashore or not. Overall command will be Lieutenant Chen. Chen: One of your gunners is a former soldier, isn’t he?”

“Gunner’s Mate Mcgarity, sir,” Chen said.

“Is he familiar with medium machine guns?” Steve asked. “I don’t think that if you go ashore you should be under gunned.”

“Landings are sort of a Marine thing, sir,” Captain Wilkes said.

“The majority of landing parties, historically, were Navy, Captain,” Steve said. “The Marine Corps did not really start to study large-scale over-beach landings until the 1930s. Most of the force that took Tripoli were Navy sailors. And if I’ve got a choice of Marines clearing small towns and sailors fighting through the bowels of a ship or vice versa, guess which way I’m going to decide?”

“Point, sir,” Wilkes said. “No offense.”

“I’d thought about it, Captain,” Steve said, waving. “And Mcgarity, at least, is really a soldier.”

“Tanker, sir,” Lieutenant Chen pointed out. “But he trained on foot patrolling for a deployment to Afghanistan. And some of the other gunners are more than willing. They sort of enjoyed going ashore in La Puntilla and La Playa. Some stayed onboard, of course. Could I make joining the teams voluntary?”

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with discipline,” Steve said. “Just cruise down the coast and clear the towns as you come to them and they look good. I hope I don’t have to warn you to watch the rocks and shoals. Bring spare prize crews with you who can pick up any useful looking boats. I want a lot of boats for the Atlantic crossing. The more boats we have, the more footprint we have for finding survivors at sea. Clear the towns if you think it’s worthwhile.”

“Yes, sir,” Chen said.

“You’re going to have to mostly resupply on your own,” Steve said. “If you run low on ammo, we can run some down to you. But other than that, independent command. Run with it.”