“So what is this question of yours, after all?” Keje asked.
“Only this: have we befriended a flasher-fish, only to find a gri-kakka on its tail?”
Reveille blared in the forward berthing space at 0400 to signal the morning watch. Sleepy men groused and cursed, rolling from their three-tiered racks. Chack, however, practically vaulted from his-one of the uppermost-and quickly donned the white T-shirt that Alan Letts had given him to make him look more Navy-like than the red kilt alone-his only other garment. “Good morning, good morning!” he chanted cheerfully, weaving through the dressing men and scampering up the companionway.
“Ain’t natural,” grumped Rodriguez, who’d finally been restored to full duty. “Even monkey-cats can’t be that happy to wake up every day. He’s settin’ a bad example. It’ll ruin morale, I tell you.”
Elden grinned. “Sleep on deck and you won’t have to watch him in the morning.”
“Hell, I would! But every time, I get woke up drenched by a squall.”
“You’d rather get woke up drenched by sweat?”
Rodriguez shrugged. “This close to the equator, don’t much matter where you sleep, you’re gonna do that. Sometimes I actually pity those damn snipes. I bet it hits a hundred and forty in the fireroom today.”
“Hey, man, God didn’t make ’em snipes. If we were in the North Atlantic they’d be toasty warm and wouldn’t feel sorry for us, out on the icy deck.”
“Icy deck!” moaned Leo Davis dreamily from his rack. Ever since Lieutenant Tucker had applied the Lemurian salve to his leg, he’d rapidly improved. So much, in fact, that some began to suspect him of malingering. He stretched and smiled. “Is it morning already? Which one of you fellas’ll bring me breakfast in bed?”
Elden pitched a rancid sock on his chest, and Davis yelped and squirmed, trying to get out from under it without touching it. “Damn you! I’m an invalid!”
Chief Gray poked his head down the companionway. “Move it, you apes! Skipper’s lookin’ at his watch! If you ain’t at your GQ stations in one minute he’s gonna throw a fit!”
“I wonder why we’re still doin’ that?” Elden pondered aloud after Gray disappeared. Every morning watch, Walker’s crew manned their general quarters posts until two hours after dawn so they’d be prepared while the ship was most vulnerable-when an enemy might see her silhouette before her lookouts saw the enemy. After that, she steamed under condition III alert, with half her weapons manned all day. “Ain’t no Jap subs out there,” Elden continued. “Ain’t no Jap ships or planes. Ain’t no Jap Navy. Hell, there ain’t no Japs, ’cept ours!”
“I don’t know why, but the Skipper does, and he’s the only one that has to,” Rodriguez said, tying his shoe and hurrying for the ladder. “C’mon, or the snipes’ll clean out the galley!”
Chack happily munched the strange yellowish-white substance rolled in a slice of bread. He’d heard them call it “eggs,” but Mertz made it from powder, so they must have been joking. He liked the way Amer-i-caans joked, and they did it all the time. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if they were joking or not, however. After it was cooked, the stuff did taste a little like eggs, and he particularly liked it with salt and “caatch-up.”
Finished eating, he climbed to the fire-control platform, then up the little ladder to his new battle station on the searchlight platform above it. It was still dark, but just a trace of red tinged the eastern sky. A stiff breeze cooled him, and he felt a sense of exhilaration and speed, even at only six knots. That was still about as fast as he’d ever gone before, and Walker’s relatively small size magnified the sensation wonderfully. He knew it was only a fraction of what she was capable of, and he yearned to be aboard when she “stretched her legs,” as his Amer-i-caan friends described it.
Lieutenant Garrett appeared on the platform below and smiled up at Chack.
“Good morning, Loo-ten-aant Gaar-ret! Morning-day good!”
“Indeed it is. Good morning to you as well. Why don’t you light along to the crow’s nest and take the first watch? Sing out if those keen eyes of yours spot anything. Understand?” Chack blinked with pleasure and looked at the tiny bucket far above. He’d spent most of his life much higher, but it was the highest point on the ship and he was thrilled by the novelty and-in his mind-the prestige of the post.
“Crow’s nest? Me?”
“That’s right, Chack. Crow’s nest. You. Up you go.”
“You want I go higher? I go top of pole?”
Garrett chuckled. “No, the crow’s nest is high enough.” He pantomimed putting on the headset. “You have to be able to talk and hear. But don’t talk unless you see something!”
“Ay, ay!” Chack said, and shot up the ladder. Garrett shook his head, still smiling, as he watched the Lemurian climb. The long, swishing tail did make him look like a cat, or for that matter, a monkey. Whatever he looked like, he was becoming a pretty good hand, and nobody came close to matching his enthusiasm or agility. He was wondering with amusement if they could recruit more like him, when all weapons reported “manned and ready” and he reported for his division.
The sky went from red to yellow-gray and visibility began to improve. The other lookouts scanned for any menace with their binoculars, and a quarter mile off their port quarter, Big Sal began to take shape. The gray became suffused with gold that flared against the bottoms of fleecy clouds and cast a new coastline into stark relief off the port bow. Ahead lay the Makassar Strait and, beyond that, Celebes. But right now all eyes were glued to the landfall. Matt paced onto the port bridgewing and joined the lookout there.
“Borneo, Skipper,” said the man in a tone of mixed excitement and apprehension. They had almost exactly the same view as when they’d last seen it, astern, after the Battle of Makassar Strait-just a few months before. Then they were running as fast as they could, with the enemy nipping at their heels. They’d been scared to death but flushed with elation after the only real “victory” the Asiatic Fleet had achieved: against the Japanese invasion force at Balikpapan. They sank several transports and a destroyer-just Walker and four other four-stackers-but it hadn’t been nearly enough, and they were lucky to escape with their skins. They should have had a larger haul, but a lot of their torpedoes either never hit their targets or failed to explode when they did hit. That was when they first suspected something was wrong with them. Now they were returning, but not like they’d imagined they would.
“It looks the same,” said the lookout, then added with a grin, “only there’s no smoke from burning Nips.”
“There was plenty of smoke,” Matt agreed, “but we wouldn’t have seen it from here. Balikpapan’s still a hundred and fifty miles away.”
They heard a whoop over the crow’s nest comm. “Surfuss taagit! Surfuss taagit!”
After a shocked delay, the frustrated talker responded. “Where? Where?! What bearing? Who the hell’s up there foolin’ around? Maintain proper procedures!” There was no response. Matt looked up at the crow’s nest, and there was Chack, not in it but on top of it, standing as high as he could and waving both arms over his head. He uttered a low-pitched, but astonishingly loud ululating cry. He was signaling something or someone ahead, and Matt turned and stared as hard as he could, scanning back and forth. It was that tough time of morning when submarines were so dangerous. The sky was growing brighter, but the sea was almost black. Unless something was silhouetted, it was practically invisible.