“Okay, Jenks,” Matt said. “First stop, Scapa Flow. We’ll come in under both our flags, on opposite foremast halyards to show everybody we’re friends. We dock, you throw your weight around and demand to speak to the Governor-Emperor. Simple.”
“Hopefully,” Jenks hedged.
“Just in case,” Chack said, glancing around at the other officers, “I will study this chart, along with Lieuten-aant Blair, of course, and attempt to prepare for a ‘worst-case scenario’ on any of the islands shown.” He bowed his head at Matt. “Captain Reddy has taught me well to always hope for the best, but plan for the worst. I find it difficult to imagine the worst in this situation, but in my ‘Maa-reen’ capacity, I will endeavor to do so.”
Matt managed a smile. “By all means, Captain Sab-At. I rely on it.”
Spanky was following a “feel” he couldn’t identify. He stopped occasionally, listening, feeling, then moved a few paces farther on. It seemed like it must be coming from the forward fireroom, but he just couldn’t be sure. Ever since he’d joined Walker on the China Station (he and the Bosun were the longest-serving hands), he’d made a practice of learning her every sigh, screech, rattle, and groan. After so much work had been done to her, her various refits and the recent rebuilding, he’d found himself relearning her sounds and “feels” all over again. He certainly wouldn’t complain; with number three almost restored, Walker was as healthy as he ever remembered her being. But there was one frustrating-new “feel” he hadn’t “pigeonholed.” He couldn’t decide whether it was just part of the new “normal” or something to worry about. To make things worse, no matter what he did, he couldn’t find what was causing it, and it was driving him nuts.
He paused his inspection under the amidships deckhouse/gun platform and swiped a sandwich off a tray just as soon as Earl Lanier set it down on the stainless steel counter.
“Hey, you m’lingerin’ bastard,” came an indignant growl from within the galley. “Them sammitches is for them Marines playin’ sojer, aft!… Oh,” Lanier said, recognizing Spanky. He stuck his droop-jowled face through the little window. “I guess m’lingerin’ officers can swipe sammitches outta the hardworkin’ bellies o’ anybody they want.”
Spanky took an ostentatious bite. “I could work a hundred sandwiches out of your belly and nobody’d even notice, Lanier,” he mumbled around his mouthful.
Lanier grunted, satisfied with the response. He abused everyone on the ship-except the captain and his “lemon-limey” guests-by rote. He considered it as much a part of his job as cooking. The fellas, even the’Cats, needed an outlet to relieve their stress, and the sometimes bitter banter between them and their cook was one of the least destructive, and backed by ancient tradition. Besides, Lanier could take anything-and nearly anybody. His bloated form required real, substantial muscle to heave it around, and he’d proven many times he had plenty of guts… beneath his expansive gut.
“Pepper,” he roared at someone behind him. “No, goddamn it, Pepper ain’t here! Bastard’s back in Baalkpan, runnin’ the Busted Screw! Prob’ly got it took over by now!” The Busted Screw, or Castaway Cook, was a saloon/cafe Lanier had opened near the shipyard, and Pepper had remained behind to keep it going in his absence. It was considered “necessary to the war effort” by now. “You, swabbie, what’s your name again?”
“Taarba-Kaar,” came an indignant response.
“Yeah, Tabasco! Hell, I don’t care what your name is. Get a mop and run out there an’ clean up Mr. Spanky’s crumbs!”
Spanky left the argument behind, shaking his head. Aft, in the cramped space around the searchlight tower and the secured Nancy floatplane, Chack and Lieutenant Blair were drilling their troops. Together. Interesting, he thought. He stopped and listened. Damn, it’s got To be in The aft fireroom! Number three was almost “back up”; maybe that was it, something goofy going on in The new Tubes. He dropped down the access trunk. Sitting there, between the hatches, he could definitely feel “it” again, and more distinctly. He opened the bottom hatch and slid down to the catwalk above the number three boiler. Closing the hatch behind him, he carefully felt the rail, a pipe, but whatever “it” was, “it” was gone again.
“God damn it!” he roared.
“What the matter, Spanky?” one of the ’Cat firemen asked from below.
“Oh… never mind.” He slid the rest of the way down the ladder to the deck plates. “Where’s Tabby?” he demanded. “She ain’t in her rack like she’s supposed to be this watch.”
“She hide when you yell,” ratted one of the other ’Cats. Tabby’s division had sworn not to cover for her when it came to her health.
“I ain’t hidin’, you fink,” Tabby exclaimed in her new, gravelly voice. She stepped from behind the boiler, wiping her hands on a rag. She still looked awful-fur blotched, gray skin, no longer pink and angry but scarred now on her arms and neck. “I was checkin’ stuff,” she said, a little petulantly. Spanky motioned her forward and together they sought a little privacy, from ears, anyway.
“If you want to stay down here, you have to follow the rules,” Spanky scolded.
“Why? What’ll you do if I don’t? Get rid of me?” She held out her arms, exposing the scars. “Make me freak deck ape? I say ‘hell no,’ I stay down here.” Her drawl had begun to slip again. Never a good sign. “I already lose everything I want. I lose my Mice, I lose my Spanky-I ugly now! I lose my boilers too? You take that from me?”
“Tabby, I…”
“No! You no ‘Tabby’ me! I chief. You say so. I feel swell! You make me lay sick, no work, I lose chief. You make some dumb-ass chief!” She shook her head. “I chief, I work. I no work, I no chief. Boiler chief all I am now, all I ever be. You take that, I die.” Tears started down Tabby’s face again, just like before in this very spot, and Spanky felt like a heel.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” he said slowly, huskily. “I’ll always be ‘your’ Spanky; you haven’t ‘lost’ me and never will. I do love you… but more like a… a daughter, like-than maybe like you think you wish I did.” He shook his head and sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re a swell dish, a knockout. I wouldn’t give a damn about all them little scratches if I loved you a different way… but I just can’T, see? Even if I could, it wouldn’t be right. Over time, I figured that out, but I also figured out I do love you-like my own sweet daughter that makes me proud of what she does. Can you see that?”
“You love me?” Tabby asked, sniffling.
“Sure.”
“But like a daughter, not… not like wo-maan? Would it be different if I not… wasn’t a ’Cat?”
Spanky shrugged. “Honest to God, I don’t know. Maybe. You do make me sneeze… But that doesn’t matter, and we’ll never know. I love you the way I love you. I can’t change that… and if you weren’t a’Cat, you never would’ve been down here in the first place.”
Tabby seemed to consider that for a while and her eyes dried up. “I love you the way I love you too,” she said. “I not change that either. But I be Spanky’s daughter for better than nothing.” She managed a slight grin, then it faded. “Just don’t take chief away!”
“Whatever gave you the notion I would?”
“You tried to send me away!”
“Sure I did, because I care about you! I want you well again, damn it! If you keep fooling around down here in all this steam and crap before you’re healed completely, you’re liable to get pneumonia and die! Then I’ll have to make some other dumb-ass chief.”
Tabby hugged him and he patted her gently on the back. His eyes were starting to water. Damn fur! “There, now,” he said. “Go see Selass and get her to listen to your gills. After that, light along aft and get in your rack! Me and Miami can keep things going ’til you’re fit. Nothin’ but smooth sailin’ from here.”