“I want a report from Spanky now!” he shouted.
“I’m trying, Skipper!” The young seaman looked close to tears. “I can’t get through! I can’t get anything!”
“I’ll find out, Captain!” Gray shouted back, as he helped the blinded, moaning helmsman down the ladder. Matt looked back at Amagi. A giant towering mushroom of fire and smoke was still rising and expanding into the dark, hazy sky. At the base of that pyre would be Mahan ’s shattered remains.
“My God.”
He was thankful he couldn’t see Mahan, as Walker ranged down Amagi ’s opposite side. The battle cruiser was beginning to list heavily to port, and a wide strip of red bottom paint was rising into the light of the burning city. They’d make sure, Matt grimly determined, although he couldn’t imagine anyone on Mahan having survived. A dreadful, heavy sadness descended upon him when he remembered Mahan ’s farewell the night before. Jim must have been planning this all along, and never said a word. He continued Walker ’s slow turn to port, and when Leo Davi›now
Across the corpse-choked moat and onto the open plain beyond, the defenders-turned-attackers kept up the unrelenting pressure while somehow, miraculously, maintaining a semblance of shield-wall integrity. The discipline and careful training Alden had insisted on was paying off. Even so, the advance began to slow. The troops were exhausted after the long fight, and the exertion of just climbing over bodies so they could keep slaughtering Grik began to tell. The thousands who fled were being killed by both sides, and the unrouted mass behind them began to move forward bit by bit. The charge finally ground to a halt, and then it was like the field of Aryaal again in yet another way: both battle lines stood in the open without support or protection, and in that situation, the overwhelming numbers of the enemy began to swing the tide back.
Alden slashed with his rifle, butt-stroking and stabbing with the bayonet, as he’d demonstrated so many times on the drill field. His pistol was empty and he had no more ammunition. Before him was a scene from a nightmare hell. Gnashing teeth, slashing weapons, and high-pitched shrieks of pain punctuated the rumbling roar of shields grinding together. The damp earth at his feet had been churned into a bloody, viscous slurry, and the only traction afforded to those holding the shield wall were the mushy mounds of unrecognizable gore half-submerged in the ooze. The frothing, working mass of Grik beyond the shields were illuminated by a red, flickering light from the fires-adding to the unreal, otherworldly aspect of the battle. Chack almost stumbled past him, shouting his name, and Pete grabbed him by the arm. “Where’s the rifle company?” he shouted.
“The machine guns are empty, and I ordered the others to stay on the wall. They’re of little use in this type of fight. If all had bayonets it might be different…”
“Never mind. You did right. Have them prepare to cover our withdrawal. I’m going to try to pull back to the wall.”
“It will be risky. The enemy will sense victory and strike even harder.”
“I know, but that’s all there is. We can’t move forward and we can’t stay here. There’re just too damn many.” Chack blinked reluctant agreement. He turned to run back to the wall and prepare his troops. Then he stopped. Alden looked in the direction he faced and was stunned to see hundreds of Lemurians pouring over the wall and racing over the ground he’d been preparing to yield. More than hundreds, perhaps a few thousand in all, and he had no idea where they’d come from. There simply were no more reserves. Then he saw the proud regimental flags whipping in the breeze as their bearers crossed the wall in the wake of the charge. The Second Aryaal, the Second B’mbaado, and the Third Baalkpan were three he recognized. All were “veteran” units that had been deployed in defense of the shipyard and the north wall.
Screaming their rage, they streamed across the abattoir and surged directly into the faltering line. The weight of their unexpected charge carried the entire shield wall forward into the face of the enemy, and once again there was a distinct change in the Grik. Once again those facing the added spears turned on those behind them, slashing and screaming in panic, and slaying their unprepared comrades before they had a chance to even realize what had happened. The rout began to grow, and the air of terror was 3"› the shield wall churned forward again, it became apparent that many Grik still fighting bore the same wild-eyed expressions as those trying to get away. Something was pushing them from behind, just as the reinforced attack was driving them back. Almost as if it shared a single collective awareness, the entire host suddenly shifted in the one direction it perceived safety might still be found: toward the sea.
What began as a steadily growing tendency to move west quickly built into a panicked rush. Soon the horde of Grik was flowing past the shield wall from left to right with the unstoppable chaotic urgency of a massive, flooding river. Spears continued to slay them as they hurried past, but there was no reaction from those around the victims except, perhaps, to quicken their pace. It was shocking and amazing and dreadful all at once, and a vague cheer began to build as Alden’s troops realized that this time there’d be no stopping the rout. Whatever force enabled the Grik to operate with some semblance of cooperation, cunning, and courage had disappeared just as surely as if the strings of a marionette had been cut.
The cheering grew frenzied when the flag of the Second Marines resolved itself in the flickering gloom beyond the raging torrent of Grik.
“It’s Shinya! Shinya!” came a gleeful shout at Alden’s side. He turned and saw Alan Letts actually jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air. His hat was gone and his red hair was plastered to his scalp with blood and sweat. Mueer from the pilothouse. And so it was there, on Walker ’s bridge, that Matt played tag with the devil.
With the loss of the foremast, the radio was out, and Clancy had been ordered to remove it and place it in the whaleboat-the only boat left. The launch was a shattered wreck, and the other launch never returned from searching for survivors of the PBY. Of course, they’d been steaming at high speed ever since it left. Maybe it was still out there somewhere, vainly trying to catch them.
An intermittent pounding, metallic drumming, came from the front of the pilothouse where bullets struck, but the enemy fire had begun to slacken. Matt saw Spanky crawling across the strakes from the ladders. He was bleeding and seemed disoriented. Matt risked a peek out the window to make sure their position relative to Amagi was unchanged. His hat had been snatched off his head during a recent similar check. “Are you all right?” he shouted.
McFarlane shook his head. “I’m shot, God damn it. How’re you?”
The captain almost laughed. “Nothing, would you believe it?” A throbbing pain resurfaced. “Busted nose, a few scratches,” he amended. “How’s she holding up?”
“The bow’s a sieve, and she’s down four feet by the head. I just came from there. A Jap bullet came through the goddamn hull and got me in the goddamn ass! Everybody’s out of the aft fireroom but the Mice, and they’re in water up to their shins. If we don’t head for shore right damn now, the fish’ll get us all!”
Matt nodded, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t give up. Amagi might be finished- Walker certainly was-but as long as the battle cruiser was afloat, she was a threat. He couldn’t break off before the task was done-not as long as they had a single shell for the number one gun. It had to end here, now. If Amagi got away and somehow survived, Baalkpan would never survive her eventual return. Worse than that, the sacrifice of all those who’d died and suffered this long day and night would have been for nothing.
“Soon,” Matt promised. “We’ll break off soon.”
“God damn it! Why won’t that unholy bitch just sink?!” Silva raged into the night. He could barely see through the blood clouding his vision, and he suspected his left eye was ruined. A swarm of paint chips and bullet fragments were the cause. Even so, he could tell Amagi was listing twenty-five or thirty degrees-but that was where it stopped. Low in the water and creeping along at barely five knots, the Jap was still underway and entering the center of the channel. He’d thrown shell after shell into her stern, and there’d been no visible effect other than a growing, gaping hole in her fantail. Now, no matter how hard they searched, the runners who’d been bringing him shells couldn’t find any more.