Gilbert nodded in solemn agreement. "Can we come home now?"
The din of celebration ashore had died down to some degree. Earl Lanier didn't know whether that meant the party was winding down or just moving farther away. He shrugged and wiped sweat from his eyebrows with his furry forearm. The small galley situated beneath the amidships gun platform was his private domain, but sometimes he wondered about the old saying that it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. Next to the boiler rooms, the galley was the hottest place on the ship. He might rule there, but he also served, and so as far as he was concerned, it was just hell without any perks at all. Groaning a little, because his stomach always made it inconvenient to stoop, he peered at the loaves baking in the big oven that traversed the aft bulkhead. They were ready. The smell of the bread made with what passed among the locals for flour was strange but not unpleasant, and the taste hinted of pumpkin. The crew complained, of course. Anything different was always the subject of complaint—which struck him as particularly ridiculous under the present circumstances.
Lanier didn't care. As long as it made bread, of a sort, that filled the bellies of the men as they filed by, he was content. They'd have complained if it didn't taste weird. It was their duty to complain, he supposed, and it didn't bother him anymore. He knew they'd complain more if there wasn't anything to eat.
He opened the oven and removed the loaves and set them aside to cool. Then he went to his big copper cauldron and lifted the lid. A rush of wet steam flooded the galley and he grimaced. Inside the cauldron roiled a stew made from one of the local land creatures. He didn't know what it was, but it looked like a turkey with a tail. A short, stubby tail, to be sure, but a tail by any definition. It also didn't smell anything like a turkey. He plunged a ladle into the stew and stirred. Dark, unrecognizable chunks of meat pursued one another in the vortex. He raised the ladle to his lips, blew, and sampled the broth. His eyes went wide. "They won't complain about that," he muttered. "They won't even say a word. They'll just hang me."
He wiped his greasy hands on his apron and opened the spice cupboard. Not much left, he lamented. Plenty of salt, some curry, but almost no black pepper. Better save that, he judged. He pulled out a large tray heaped with little dried peppers he'd acquired in Java before the Squall and looked at them speculatively. He'd never tried one, but Juan said they were hot as hell. He picked one out and sniffed. Nothing. He touched it with the tip of his tongue. There was a little tingling sensation, but that was all. He grunted.
"What the hell?"
He grabbed a double handful of the peppers and pitched them in the stew. "Sure can't make it worse," he said to himself. He also shoveled in another cup of salt. "Fellas need salt," he muttered piously. "They sweat it out fast enough."
He stirred the cauldron's contents and replaced the lid with a metallic clunk. Then he wiped his hands on his apron again and checked the heat.
Satisfied, he stepped to the other side of the galley and retrieved his fishing pole. It was a relatively short, stout rod made of a shoot from the curious Baalkpan bamboo. The line was rolled around it with about two feet of woven wire for a leader at the end. The hook was stuck in the handle. He took a stringy piece of the "turkey" innards and impaled it on the hook. The mess attendant, Ray Mertz, slept in a chair near the hatch.
He was leaning against the bulkhead with the front legs off the deck. Lanier was tempted to knock the others out from under him, but settled for kicking his foot. The younger man nearly fell anyway when his eyes fluttered open.
"Watch the fires," said Earl. "Time to get my breakfast." Ignoring tradition, he whistled "The Krawdad Song" happily but quietly off-key as he strode from under the gun platform. "Bad enough I have to cook the shit," he told himself. "They can't expect me to eat it." Eat it he rarely did. He, almost alone among the crew, liked the silvery flasher-fish. Fried, mostly.
The men were just squeamish, he decided. Sure, they'd eat anything that went over the side, from people to turds, but a catfish would too. Fried fish was his favorite food in the world and had been since he was a kid, near Pinedale, Wyoming. There the trout could be had with little effort, and they fulfilled their purpose in life only when they simmered in his skillet.
He stepped to the rail on the starboard side, next to the number one torpedo mount. Not far away, the lights of the city cast their ceaselessly shifting reflection on the small waves around the darkened ship. It was almost eerily quiet. The boilers were cold, and for the first time he could remember, the blowers were silent as well. The only sounds besides water lapping against Walker's plates were the snores. Most of the crew was ashore on liberty, celebrating the victory, and there was still an hour or more before the first wave of drunken revelers returned to the ship. Many who hadn't been so fortunate, or who simply decided to forgo the festivities—including some Lemurian "cadets"—were scattered about, sleeping on deck, away from the stifling confines of the berthing spaces.
But they were exhausted, and Lanier's quiet whistling disturbed no one.
He rotated the pole in his hand and the "turkey" innards began their slow descent to the water.
"Fishin'?" inquired a quiet voice from behind.
"No," Lanier sneered, "I'm rootin' up taters."
Tom Felts eased up beside him in the gloom. The scrawny gunner's mate must have the watch, Lanier thought.
"Did you hear them Mice found oil after all?" Felts asked.
The cook nodded. He felt genuine relief over that. "I wonder how long it'll be before we have any to burn?"
"Not too long, they say. Something about it being `sweet,' or something. 'Cats already have storage tanks built. All they have to do is ship 'em over there and set 'em up. Few days, maybe." Felts sighed. "Sure hope so. I only thought I felt helpless before the fires went out."
Lanier nodded in the darkness. He cooked over charcoal, but with the lights out, it was hard to see in the galley. All he had were a couple of little lamps fired by the stinky oil of those big fish the 'cats hunted.
"Yup," he said, wishing Felts would go away. Suddenly, his pole jerked downward. There was no need to set the hook. Whatever had it, had it. He held on tight as the line whipped back and forth and the end of the pole jerked erratically. He didn't have a reel, so all he could do was keep tension while the fish tired and when it was spent, he'd drag it aboard. With the leader in the fish's jaws, the braided line would hold as long as the fish wasn't much over forty or fifty pounds. He grunted under the strain as it tried to go deep, under the hull.
"Whatcha got?" Felts whispered excitedly.
Lanier risked a quick, incredulous glance. "A fish, you idiot."
"No, I mean what kind?"
"Christ, Felts," the cook rasped, still trying to control his voice, "I don't know what kind any I've already caught are! It might be another one of them or it might not. Lay off!"
The fight went on a while longer, Lanier puffing with exertion and the gunner's mate peering expectantly over the side.
"I think he's runnin' out of steam," offered Felts encouragingly.
Lanier jerked a nod and blew sweat off his upper lip. He glanced behind to make sure the coast was clear. He didn't want to trample anybody.
"Here we go," he wheezed. He turned and grasped the pole more firmly with his hands and under his arm and lumbered to port.
"Hey!" Felts exclaimed as something thrashed at the surface of the water and thumped and thudded up the side of the ship. Right next to him, less than a yard from his feet, some . . . thing right out of Felts's most fevered nightmare squirmed out of the darkness and onto the deck. It was six feet long, with the body of a flat snake except for a feathery "fin" that ran its length, top and bottom. Very much like an eel—except for the head. Its head looked sort of like a normal fish, but its eyes were huge and dark and full of malice and its mouth was stuffed with what seemed like hundreds of ridiculously long, needle-sharp teeth, flashing in jaws that opened impossibly wide. The lights from shore showed a rainbow color that shimmered as it flailed in spastic rage, snapping at the line, the deck . . . and Felts as it slithered past.