“No, sir, he’s not,” said Sandra. “I know a good bit about human anatomy, and anatomy in general, I suppose, but I’m obviously no expert on these creatures. Nobody is. Mr. Bradford has more experience studying… similar things than I do, and I can see his point. They’re built like birds- or emus and ostriches, to be more precise-except for the upper arms, and their bones are hollow, but incredibly strong like a bird’s. Our opinions diverge because of those upper arms, their tails, and well, their heads too, I guess. Their tails have feathers, but they’re muscular like an alligator’s. And their upper arms show no sign of being vestigial wings, but seem to have evolved as arms to be arms. And of course their heads.” She shuddered slightly. “Or more specifically, their jaws. There’s nothing birdlike about them at all.”
“But my dear lieutenant,” countered Bradford, evidently continuing an argument. “You’re basing your opinions more upon what they look like and less on what they are like-”
Matt held up his hand, smiling still, to stop him. “Enough. While this is all very fascinating, my most pressing question involves their intelligence. Are they as smart as they seemed? I mean, there were ten of us and ten of them, and they displayed what to my mind could only be described as the tactic of hitting us and the men at the boat simultaneously-in a way that would keep us apart. As well armed as they are with teeth and claws, one on one, they had every reason to expect the advantage.”
Sandra was silent, and Bradford shifted uncomfortably. “We don’t really know, I’m afraid,” he said at last. “Theoretically, yes. They certainly have the brain capacity, and in proportion to their body size, their brains are similar to our own. Then again…”
Matt nodded. The very idea of something that ferocious being smart was daunting indeed. There was no question that they would have to go ashore again. Maybe not on Bali, but the first time they had set a foot on land, something had tried to bite it off. They had to presume that other places wouldn’t be any different. Somehow, they had to figure out how to go ashore-and work there-without being eaten.
The crow’s nest comm whistled. “Bridge, lookout,” came the tinny voice of Elden.
“Bridge, Riggs here,” replied the petty officer.
“PO, I’ve got smoke on the horizon, bearing zero one five. A hell of a lot of smoke. There’s so much I thought it was a cloud at first. It’s pretty much the same color-not black like an oil fire. Whatever’s burning is pretty big, though, and it’s in the water. Not-repeat, not-on land.”
“Excuse me, please,” said Matt to his visitors, raising his binoculars.
“Can you see what it is yet?” Riggs asked the lookout. “Is it a ship, or what?”
“Negative, PO. All I see is smoke. Whatever it is, it’s still.. . Wait! Damn! I’d about swear it was that big monkey-cat ship!” Matt lowered his binoculars with a strange mix of disappointment, relief, and curious concern. Disappointment that it wasn’t Mahan, but relief that it wasn’t Mahan on fire. The curious concern was for the monkey-cats, as Elden called them, if that’s who it was. Well, he thought, if it is, maybe it’s time we met. Besides, they appeared to be in trouble.
“All ahead full,” he ordered. “Come right, fifteen degrees.”
Walker’s head came around and she quickly gathered speed. Water peeled back from her bow as she charged, the feather nearly reaching the fo’c’sle. The men on the foredeck stopped what they were doing and stood with fluttering clothes, their faces turned toward the rushing breeze and the towering column of smoke in the distance. Five minutes passed, then ten.
“Bridge?” came Elden’s voice. The normally unflappable shipfitter sounded unusually strained.
“Bridge, aye.”
“It’s the monkey-cats all right, and there are several large three-masted ships around ’em. Most are lashed to her, and it looks like they’re fighting! The monkey-cats are definitely burning-and maybe one of the other ships as well.” There was a moment’s pause. “I think there’s a hell of a fight going on.”
Matt turned to Reynolds. “Get the range from Mr. Barry,” he ordered. “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Reynolds, wide-eyed. It was his first stint as talker, and it was just his luck something serious would happen. He spoke briefly into the microphone and listened for the response. His voice squeaked slightly when he reported. “Sir, Ensign Barry estimates the range at about fifteen thousand yards.”
“Very well. Sound general quarters, if you please.”
The deep gonging sound that was part horn, part buzzer resonated through the ship, and surprised men snatched helmets and life vests as they raced to their stations. Some rolled from their racks, disoriented for a moment, and hesitated like they would never have done before the Squall. Feet clanked metallically on the ladder as Lieutenant Garrett and the rest of the fire-control team gained the bridge and scampered to the platform above. Bernard Sandison appeared, tucking in his shirt, along with torpedomen Hale, Carter, and Aubrey, who took their places at the torpedo directors.
Reynolds recited a litany of readiness reports, and after much longer than Matt approved, he made the announcement: “All stations manned and ready, Captain. Mr. Dowden has the auxiliary conn and reports… um… the chaos he viewed from his perspective looked like a shore-patrol raid on an Olongapo… whorehouse.” His face turned pink.
Matt grunted and glanced at his watch. “Pathetic,” he announced. “A Jap car salesman with a rowboat and a stick of dynamite could have sent us to the bottom by now. Sparks, inform the Bosun that the deck division was the last to report.” Everyone cringed to think how the Chief would exact his vengeance for that humiliation, and he was heard even now, bellowing at the crew of the number one gun.
Much of the confusion was caused by the need to stow the “peace-time” awnings that now covered the deck spaces, but Matt knew most of the blame was his. He’d grown lax about daily drills since they no longer faced imminent annihilation by the Japanese. That didn’t mean all threat of annihilation had passed, and despite their trauma-or maybe because of it-drill was now more important, not less. He resolved to make sure his destroyermen were never caught flat-footed again.
He sat back in his chair, Sandra and Bradford not entirely forgotten but relegated to that portion of his mind not preparing to fight his ship if need be. “Mr. Sandison. What’s the current status of our torpedoes?”
“One, three and five are loaded, prepped, and ready in all respects.”
“No news on the condemned torps?”
“No, sir. I still have them apart in the shop. One didn’t even have a repair tag, so we’re checking it out, piece by piece. The other’s propulsion machinery works fine; it just needs recharging. But it’s clearly a dud. The warhead housing is all crumpled in. The tag said one of our subs fired it into a Dutch freighter by mistake and it didn’t go off, but it punched a hole in her side and got stuck. Yard-apes fished it out of the freighter when she got into port.” Sandison smirked ironically. “Everyone was lucky on that deal.”
There’d been far too many “duds” of every sort. In this one case it was fortunate, but Matt hated to think how many American ships and submarines might have been lost, and enemies spared, simply because of faulty ordnance. A lot of the antiaircraft shells on Houston had been duds, and they’d never even suspected it because they hadn’t been allowed enough live-fire practice. The same was true for the torpedoes. The suspected causes ranged anywhere from faulty detonators to a tendency to run too deep. He knew they hadn’t performed well at all during the night action at Balikpapan, and most of the success there was due to gunnery. Whatever the case, he prayed they weren’t carrying around, carefully husbanding, and relying on useless weapons. “Keep working on it, Mr. Sandison,” was all he said.
Facing forward, he peered through his binoculars again and focused at the base of the column of smoke. He now saw for himself that there was indeed a battle under way. But compared to anything he’d ever expected, the word “battle” was wholly insufficient to describe it.