Slowly, Rasik-Alcas grinned. “You always were clever, Koratin. Father said so as well. Too clever for your own good at times, but this time I think you are right. Who indeed will oppose me if I am already on the throne when our people come trickling back? It is not as if they will be great in numbers!”
“True, Lord King,” Koratin said grimly. “Very true.” He stood. “Is there anything I can bring you?”
“No,” Rasik said, bright eyes searching the gloom as if looking for faults in the plan. “None must suspect our scheme. Do any know of our past… association?”
“None, Lord King. I am merely a soldier of low rank. No one knows who I really am, or what is in my heart.”
“A brilliant subterfuge! Try to discover their plans if you can, but be discreet! Discreet! No one must suspect!”
“Count on it, Lord King.”
As Marine Corporal Koratin turned to walk back the way he’d come, he nodded at the other prisoner again. This time, unseen by Rasik, the prisoner nodded back.
CHAPTER 14
T alaud Island appeared much as Irvin Laumer remembered it when they’d approached it so long ago in S-19, her diesels gasping on fumes. They hadn’t encountered another island fish in the crossing from Mindanao, and Irvin wondered if Silva had actually “sunk” the one that lingered there, as he’d claimed. Surely if he had, another had taken its place? Walker had picked one up on sonar, after all. Maybe they had been discouraged. Whatever the reason, he was relieved.
Island fish or no, nothing could protect them and Simms from the constant deluge of bird and flying reptile droppings.
“That is the place?” Lelaa asked, approaching him as she wiped at a greenish white smear across her dark fur with a towel. Irvin subdued a chuckle at the captain’s expense.
“That’s it,” he said.
“Where to from here?”
“Around the eastern point. There’s a broad lagoon, almost a tiny bay. S-19 was on the beach. There was a little protection but not much… I hope she’s still there.” He voiced his greatest fear. They knew there’d been storms since they left. A high enough surge could have carried her farther inland, making complete salvage impossible, or it might have even carried her off to sea.
“The mountain on the island smokes,” Lelaa observed. “Did it smoke this much when you were here?”
Laumer lifted his binoculars. It was a dreary, hazy, oppressive day. Still, he could see the dull, monochromatic outline of the distant volcano on the island. The smoke was blowing away to the south. “Yeah, maybe. Sometimes there’d be earthquakes-the ground would move. I don’t know. It looks like the thing’s a little taller than I remember it.”
Midshipman Hardee and Motor Machinist’s Mate Sandy Whitcomb were standing with him. Sandy said, “Nah,” but Hardee remained silent.
Irvin looked at him. “What do you think?”
“Well, sir, I’m not sure. The top was usually misty when we were here before, and down in the jungle where we spent most of our time, one couldn’t see it at all. That being said, I would have to concur with you. It does seem taller.”
“Hmm. Well, shouldn’t make a difference unless it decides to pull a Krakatoa on us.” As soon as he said the words, Irvin wished he could take them back. He’d always prided himself on his rationality, but some of the men’s superstition had rubbed off on him, he guessed. He noticed the accusing look Whitcomb gave him and smiled uncertainly. “Just kidding, Sandy.”
“If it’s all the same to ‘His Highness,’ the new commodore, I wish to hell you wouldn’t say shit like that.” Sandy gestured vaguely over his shoulder. “Me and the fellas who volunteered to come along did it because it’s a job that needs doin’ and we like you. We know you’ve got as much guts as Chief Flynn, but you had the sense to let him take the lead while you learned the ropes. You got more brains than he does, so you’re better than him for this caper. As long as you use them brains to accomplish the mission and don’t go jinxin’ us, we’ll get along fine.”
Touched and chagrined by the convoluted and somewhat backhanded compliment, Irvin nodded. “Don’t worry. Like I said, I was just kidding, but I won’t kid about stuff like that anymore. If you want me to throw salt over my shoulder, scratch a backstay, or jump up and down, spitting on myself, I’ll do it if it makes you feel better.”
Sandy and Hardee laughed. “Nah,” said Sandy, “It’ud be funny to see, but none o’ that would work anyway.”
“What is a Krakatoa?” Lelaa asked.
Sandy rolled his eyes. “A busted toe. A real bad one.”
Late that afternoon, they rounded the point. The wind had shifted out of the south and they took in everything but the staysails. The wind cooled them but their progress slowed to a crawl. Irvin wasn’t worried. The mouth of the cove he remembered so well was near, and he’d rather creep up on it than tack away and try to find it again from seaward. Better to approach it the same way S-19 had. A call came down from aloft and he knew they’d reached their destination.
“Any suggestions?” Lelaa asked.
“Ah, you’ll want to aim for the middle going in. There’s just sand, but it shifts around. The lagoon’s shaped kind of like a cursive capital E…” He looked at her blank expression and drew one on the bulwark with his finger. “We want the top of the E, the northern end. There’s rollers, usually, but it gets calmer when we’re in the point’s lee. Water there was deeper too.”
“Was?”
Irvin shrugged. “Was. Places like this can change every time a storm hits.”
“Leadsmen to the bow,” Lelaa commanded loudly, then looked back at Irvin. “You were saying?” she asked politely.
Irvin knew she’d just given him another tactful lesson in seamanship. “Ah, that’s it. We sail in and anchor as close to shore as the tide will let us. We should see the boat.”
Simms crept into the cove, her consort staying well back to avoid any hazards the flagship might encounter. Irvin and all the submariners were on the fo’c’sle staring ahead, passing the binoculars around and listening to the leadsman’s shouted depths.
“Goddamn, we should see her by now!” Tex erupted suddenly. He had the glasses.
“Maybe,” Whitcomb replied. The beach they’d left her on was still a mile or so ahead and it was hard to focus the binoculars while the ship passed through the rollers.
Hardee reached for the binoculars. “Here, let me have those a moment, please,” he said, somewhat imperiously. Tex handed them over, but then made comic gestures behind the boy’s back when he turned. He understood the concept of midshipmen just fine, but he wasn’t used to taking orders from sixteen-year-old kids. Hardee put the strap around his neck and quickly scampered up into the foretop-no simple feat with the ship pitching so-and scanned the shoreline from a higher perspective. The Lemurian lookouts probably had better vision than he did, even with binoculars, but none of them had ever seen the submarine before. They didn’t really know what to look for.
“There she is!” he suddenly cried down triumphantly.
“Where?” Irvin shouted back.
“About where she was, but… all I can really see is the conn tower! It looks like it’s leaning toward the sea!”
Irvin looked at the other submariners. When they left, the boat was almost entirely exposed and leaning hard to port-away from the sea.
“Well,” he said, “at least she’s still here. I guess we’ll know the score when we go ashore.”
Simms and her consort anchored a quarter mile from the beach, where there’d be plenty of water under their keels even when the tide was out. Irvin was anxious to get a look at the task before them, but decided not to waste a trip ashore just for sightseeing. All the ship’s barges went over the side filled with equipment; the disassembled steam engine was their “compact” model, but the parts were still heavy and bulky. The generator was one assembly, and although it wasn’t very big, it was heavy. Other tools and equipment went as well, but no camping gear or foodstuffs. They wouldn’t have time to establish their outpost that evening, and Irvin wanted to reimpress on everyone the hostile nature of some of the inhabitants of Talaud. Tomorrow they’d build a base camp, assemble the equipment they’d brought, and try to discourage the various predators he felt sure had returned to the area in their absence.