"Goddamn you, Silva! If you don't hurry, I guess you'll find out in a minute when I throw you in the water!"
Silva laughed as he clambered onto the deck and turned to offer the coxswain his hand. "Hell, they's just fish, Tony, just like sharks. Sharks ain't never spooked you before."
As soon as he gained the deck, Scott moved quickly to the center, as far from the water as possible. Silva and Felts followed. Miller, Reavis, Newman, and the two nurses went below while others hoisted the launch aboard. Scott took a cigarette from Felts and lit it with trembling hands. He took several deep drags, eyes flitting nervously from point to point but carefully avoiding faces. "I been on the water all my life," he said at last. "I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and had a sailboat, a fourteen-footer I'd take on the open ocean in the Gulf before my daddy figured I was old enough to drive." He drew in another lungful of smoke. "Had some scrapes, too. Bad weather. Sharks . . ." He glanced at Silva, searching the big man's face for ridicule. He shrugged. "From then to now, I ain't ever been afraid of the water." He shuddered. "Until today. It started creepin' up on me when I went across to Mahan right after the Squall, but I guess it finally got the better of me. Even those critters that got Marvaney didn't spook me like that constant bumpin' all day long. Knowin' . . ." He shook his head and looked back at Silva. "They ain't just fish, Dennis, and this ain't the Java Sea. Not anymore. I've known it from the start, but with everything going on, it just never sank in till today. I finally realized the water ain't even just the water anymore. The water's death, fellas, and if I had my druthers, I'd never go near it again."
He'd been speaking in quiet tones, but evidently louder than he thought. They heard a gruff laugh and turned to see Dean Laney by the rail, leaning on the safety chain by the number one torpedo mount. The big machinist's mate wore a sadistic grin.
"Don't that beat all? The coxswain's afraid of the water! Har! I bet you'll be strikin' for snipe now, so you don't have to look at it no more!
'Course, when I tell ever-body what a chickenshit deck-ape you are, Spanky won't even take you as a bilge coolie!"
Scott bristled, but Silva held him back. Then he grinned and sauntered over to the stanchion next to Laney. He peered over the side.
"Woo, Laney, you're so brave! I ain't never seen a snipe this close to the water before! I hope you're holdin' that safety chain tight. I wouldn't want you to fall!"
"Hell with you, Silva! Least I ain't scared of the wa . . . Aaah!"
He shrieked when Dennis pulled the pin on the stanchion that held the chain in place. He went over the side and the chain went taut with a clanking thud heard over Laney's high-pitched scream. Silva looked down and saw the machinist's mate bouncing against the hull, mere feet above the deadly sea, hands clenched tight on the chain, his upturned face contorted by a grimace of terror.
"SHIT! Help! Help! Goddamn you to hell, Silva! HELP ME!"
"But you ain't scared of the water, Dean," Silva called down mildly.
"I . . . I am scared, damn you! HELP ME!"
Silva heard running feet, and Felts and Scott grabbed the chain and started pulling.
"Shit!" exploded Scott. "You could'a killed him!" Other men arrived and between them they soon had Laney on deck, gasping and shaking, tears in his eyes.
"You could'a killed him!" Felts accused under his breath. Silva shrugged, then squatted and looked Laney in the eye.
"Damned ol' rusty pin must'a gave," he said. "No tellin' what might happen if a fella ain't careful what he does—or says." He stood and laughed. "Whoo-ee! Lucky you was holdin' that chain, Laney! Gives me the willies. The very idea of fallin' in the water scares the shit out'a me!"
Sandra scrubbed her hands in the tiny basin in the compartment that once belonged to Lieutenants Ellis and Rogers but that she now shared with Ensign Theimer. Karen sat expressionlessly on a small chair, knees together, staring at her hands on her lap. They were caked with dried blood, and black rings encircled her fingernails. There was more on her clothes and face, and it even streaked her hair where she'd been squirted by a pulsing artery.
"You did well today, Karen," Sandra complimented her. Which was true—to a point. She'd followed orders and done her job, stitching wounds in her professional, economical way. She'd done exactly what she was told to do—but no more. All the while her face was slack, her eyes dead, as if her body ran on autopilot but she wasn't really there. Sandra saw that the expression was still the same. She sighed.
"Get cleaned up and go to the forward berthing space with Jamie Miller to check on Seaman Davis. I have an idea I'd like to try." Ensign Theimer didn't respond. She didn't move. "Karen?" Worried, Sandra dried her hands and looked in the other nurse's eyes. For a moment she saw no recognition, no spark of human consciousness. "Karen!" she shouted and shook her roughly by the shoulders. "Karen, speak to me!"
Huge, shiny tears welled up in the empty eyes and when she blinked, they gushed down her face—and somehow she'd returned from wherever she'd been hiding. Her large, glistening, haunted eyes desperately searched Sandra's, but didn't see what they'd hoped. She closed them again, and a piteous moan escaped her lips.
"I want to go home!"
Sandra went to her knees, embracing the younger woman as tight as she could.
"Oh, God, me too, me too!"
The tears came then, like rivers, from both of them. For a long moment, Sandra held her while Karen sobbed and sobbed. Finally, when it seemed she'd exhausted herself, Sandra drew back and put her palm on Karen's face. "Me too," she whispered again, "but I don't think we can. For some reason, here we are and we've got to deal with that. I need you, girl. God, I can't do this alone! The ship needs you, and so do these men. We both have to be strong—to hold up."
"But it's so hard!"
"I know. Believe me, I know! I nearly lost it myself today. But don't you see? We can't! We don't have that . . . luxury. Too many people are counting on us, and we're all they've got. We can't let them down—we can't let ourselves down." She wiped the bloody hair from Karen's eyes with a gentle, tearful smile. "You okay?" Miserably, Karen nodded, and Sandra squeezed her filthy hands. "I'm glad you're back—don't leave me again. I'm the first woman chief surgeon on a United States warship. I'll mark you AWOL!"
Karen snorted a wet, almost hysterical laugh, but nodded.
"Good. Now get cleaned up and check on Seaman Davis. We don't want these goons to think we're weak sisters." She watched while Karen, still sniffling, washed her hands and then left the compartment. As soon as she was gone, Sandra felt the tension flow out of her and she put her face in her hands. "I want to go home too," she repeated, whispering, almost surrendering to sobs herself.
She still had to talk to Matt. It would probably be a long talk, and all she really wanted was to curl up in her bunk and fall into a dreamless sleep. She shook her head, wet one of the dingy washrags, and wiped the grime and tears from her face. Standing in front of the noisy little fan with her eyes closed, she let the tepid breeze dry her and tried to pretend it was refreshing. After a moment, she ruefully realized that she was fooling herself. She ran a brush through her sweat-tangled hair and stepped through the curtain.
Seated in the wardroom talking in quiet tones were the captain, Bradford, Gray, Dowden, Shinya, and Sergeant Alden, who seemed relieved that his charge had returned to his custody. The Marine was getting around better every day, but the idea of his climbing up and down ships, given the consequences of a fall, was ridiculous. He took his "escort" duty seriously, though, and he'd been disappointed when his request to accompany them to the Lemurian ship was denied.