“Got one!” Everybody at George’s mount yelled the same thing at the same time. George couldn’t be sure a shell from one of his guns hit the Hound Dog, but he thought so. The fighter pilot tried to crash his airplane into the destroyer, but fell short-he went into the drink about a quarter of a mile off the port bow.
George never saw the Asskicker that hit the Townsend till too late.
One second, he was passing shells as fast as he could. The next, altogether without knowing what had happened, he was flying through the air with the greatest of ease, like the daring young man on the flying trapeze. Unlike the daring young man, he didn’t have a trapeze. He didn’t have a net, either. The Gulf of California reached up and smacked him in the face and in the gut. If his wasn’t the worst bellyflop of all time, he surely got no lower than the bronze medal.
At least the water was warm. He didn’t swallow too much of it. His life vest kept him from sinking. He looked up just in time to watch a C.S. Mule zoom off not far above the waves. Dalby was right-with those uptilted wings, the damn thing was as ugly as a turkey vulture.
It made a much better killing machine, though.
He didn’t realize what had happened to the Townsend till he looked back at his ship. Before that, he thought whatever happened to him was some sort of private accident-though how a private accident could have hurled him close to a hundred yards was anything but obvious. He slowly decided he wasn’t thinking very well at all.
But he didn’t need to be a genius to see the destroyer was history. Her back was broken. Smoke billowed from her. The Gulf of California all around her was full of sailors, some with their heads out of the water and paddling, others facedown and still and dead.
“Holy Jesus!” George blurted. “We got nailed.” That was, if anything, an understatement. Even as he watched, the Townsend settled lower in the water. She wouldn’t stay afloat much longer.
But George only thought he was afraid till he saw gray dorsal fins knifing through the water. He’d watched sharks from the destroyer’s deck. That was fine. Watching them from the sea with a free-lunch course spread out all around…George crossed himself. The Ave Maria he blurted out might not help, but it sure couldn’t hurt.
He looked around not just for sharks but also for his buddies. He didn’t see Fremont Dalby anywhere. A big blond body floated not far away. Was that Fritz? George didn’t paddle over to see. He didn’t want to know that bad.
Fuel oil spread from the stricken destroyer. George swam away from it. That stuff would kill you if you swallowed it. He’d seen as much in the Sandwich Islands. His voice rose with others, calling for nearby ships to pick them up.
The minesweeper that had led the flotilla swung back toward the Townsend, whose deck was almost awash now. When the destroyer went down, her undertow dragged luckless sailors too close by under with her. George had got too far away for that to happen to him. But someone not nearly far enough from him screamed. Dorsal fins converged as red spread through the deep blue. George rattled off more Hail Marys, and an Our Father for good measure.
A life ring attached to a line splashed into the sea maybe fifty yards off. He swam over and put it on. Sailors aboard the minesweeper hauled him in like a big tuna. The ship had nets down. They helped him scramble up the side.
“Well, well-look what the cat drug in,” Fremont Dalby said. He was soaked, of course, but he already had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Drop Dalby in horseshit and he’d come out with a pony. But his sardonic grin slipped as he asked, “Spot any of the other guys?”
“Maybe Gustafson.” George pointed his thumb down at the deck.
“Fuck.” The gun chief looked at the oil slick and the bobbing men and debris that were the sole remains of the Townsend. “That Asskicker sure kicked our ass, didn’t he? Hit us right where it did him the most good, the son of a bitch.”
Airplanes were still mixing it up overhead. George Enos hardly noticed. He was luxuriating-rejoicing-in being alive. “We just got ourselves some leave,” he said. ”And you know what? I wish to God we didn’t.” Dalby nodded.
XV
Jorge Rodriguez and Gabriel Medwick made unlikely friends. Jorge was skinny and swarthy and spoke with a Spanish accent. Medwick was big and blond and handsome in a jut-jawed way. If not for the war, they never would have met. But they’d shared in the grinding Confederate retreat through Tennessee. Now, just outside of Chattanooga, the powers that be were saying C.S. troops wouldn’t fall back another yard. Jorge didn’t know if they were right, but they were saying it.
A lot of men who’d come over from Virginia with Jorge and Gabriel were dead or wounded now. Jorge didn’t think much of their replacements. Old-timers in the company doubtless hadn’t thought much of him when he first joined it, either. Two company commanders had gone down since Captain Hirsch. They were both supposed to recover, but that didn’t help much now. A first lieutenant named Jubal Frisch had the company at the moment, and didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
Sergeant Hugo Blackledge hadn’t got a scratch. He was another reason Jorge and Gabriel were friends-they both hated him. He had a platoon now, not just a squad. That let him spread his bad temper around more, but did nothing to make it good.
“Why don’t they bring in a lieutenant to take over for him?” Medwick mourned.
“Even if they did, he’d still be running the platoon,” Jorge said. “That’s what sergeants do. The officer would just be-how do you say?-the guy in front.”
“The front man,” Medwick said.
“That’s it. Thanks. The front man, yeah,” Jorge said. “Blackledge, he can handle a platoon-no doubt about that.”
“Oh, I know. I know.” Gabriel Medwick looked around carefully and lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “He can run it, sure. That ain’t the problem. The problem is, he’s a fuckin’ asshole.”
“You got that right,” Jorge whispered. They both nodded, satisfied they’d figured out at least one small part of how the universe worked.
Blackledge couldn’t have heard them. He would have come down on them harder than a six-inch shell. Somehow or other, though, they both ended up on sentry-go that night. The front wasn’t quiet. Snipers and raiding parties slipped back and forth. That was the small change of war, and nobody worried much about it one way or the other except the people who got wounded or killed. But sentries were a trip wire, too. If a big push came, they were supposed to get word back to the main force.
Jorge peered out into the darkness, all eyeballs and nerves and apprehension. Every time an owl hooted, he thought it was a damnyankee signal. Every time a firefly blinked, he feared it was a muzzle flash. He clutched his automatic rifle and hoped nothing would happen till his relief took over.
Out of the darkness came a low-voiced calclass="underline" “Hey! You there! Yeah, you, Confederate!”
Jorge crouched in good cover. Even if a machine gun opened up, he was safe enough. So he cautiously called back: “Yeah? What you want?”
“Got some smokes?” The other man had a funny accent-a Yankee accent. “Wanna swap ’em for rations? I can use coffee, too, if you got it.”
“I got cigarettes,” Jorge answered. “Not much coffee. You got deviled ham?”
“Buddy, I got a dozen cans,” the U.S. soldier said proudly. “I came prepared-bet your butt I did.”
“I got three-four packs I can trade you,” Jorge said. “You see a stump by a rock up in front of you?”
A pause, presumably while the would-be merchant scanned the area. “Yeah, I see it.”