The long sharkish-looking torpedo dropped from the airplane at an altitude of a hundred feet, hit the water, skipped, sank. Now all that could be seen of it was its wake, boiling white.
"Hard aport!" Sam said.
Detweiller yanked back on the port stick. The monster wheels on the left side slowed, stopped, began churning water in the opposite direction. Slowly, the boat swung around.
Taishi, feeling the plane suddenly relieved of the weight of the torpedo, pulled back on the stick. Up rose the nose as the twin motors, on full power, lifted her to pass over the boat. Taishi leaned over the side of the cockpit, the wind hitting him full in the face. He could not see the torpedo, even though the water was clear, because he had passed it.
Ahead, the sun shone briefly on rockets, trailing smoke. Another launching! Heat-seekers, too.
If things had ‘gone otherwise, Taishi would have skimmed, the edge of the boat's flight deck, passed beyond it, swung around, and come back to strafe. O'Herlihy was standing up now, bracing himself with one hand against the edge of his cockpit, waiting until the plane assumed a level to swing his guns around. But O'Herlihy would never get a chance to use his twin .50-calibers.
The plane, Taishi, and O'Herlihy disappeared in a great cloud, pieces flying out of it almost immediately, metal, flesh, bone, and blood.
One of the motors fell in an arc, smashing into the flight deck near a cannon. It rolled across and dropped over the edge and fell onto the hurricane deck, crushing two men.
A crewman called for a fire-fighting squad.
Sam Clemens, looking out the port window, saw the explosion, saw a dark object out of the corner of his eye, felt the vibrations of the impact.
"What in hell was that?"
But he kept his eyes on-the torpedo's wake, sinister as a shark's approach and even more swift.
If only the boat could spin around faster, spin around on a dime and give five cents' change.
This was a strange geometry, a deadly one. The torpedo was describing a straight line, the shortest distance between two points—in this case, anyway. The boat was describing a circle in order to avoid being at the end of the line drawn.
Sam gripped the ledge, bit through his cigar so savagely that its outer part fell off, but, not totally severed, swung down. Its glowing end burned his chin, causing him to yell with pain. But that was a few seconds later. While the torpedo scraped against the hull, he felt nothing except extreme anxiety.
Then it had gone on, headed toward the shore, and he clapped his hand to his neck, burned his hand, and dashed the cigar away.
"Straighten her out," he told Detweiller. "Resume former course, full speed ahead."
Byron, looking out of the starboard window, said, "The torpedo's half-submerged against the bank, Captain. Its motor is still pushing it, but it's stuck in the mud, tilting up."
"Let them worry about it," Sarn/said, referring to the people on the bank. "Oh! Oh!"
He stopped. For several minutes, he'd forgotten about the explosion near the SW room.
"Byron! Has Marbot reported yet?"
"No, sir."
The bulkhead intercom tootled. Byron answered it with Clemens close behind him.
"De Marbot here. Is the captain occupied?"
"I'm listening, Marc!" Sam said. "What's happened?"
"The laser has been blown up! It's totally destroyed! The entire guard, including Fermor, was killed, and so were four crewmen who came upon the scene. The guards were blown up; the crewmen were gunned down! Captain, there's a saboteur or saboteurs aboard!"
Sam groaned. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint. He steadied himself with a hand against the bulkhead.
Byron said, "Are you all right, sir?"
Byron looked as pale as Sam felt. But he showed no evidence of hysteria. Sam straightened up, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm okay. Son of a blazing bitch! I should have had twenty men guarding that! I should have brought it up sooner! Now our ace in the hole is gone! And John didn't have a chance with it! Never overlook the human factor, Byron!"
Byron said, "No, sir. I suggest..."
"That we send search parties looking for the bastard? Or bastards? They'll be back at their posts by now. Maybe. Maybe they're planning on wrecking the generators. Send some men down to the engine room to stand guard.
"And start checking the stations. See if anybody left his post for any reason whatever. There may be some innocents there, but we can't take any chances. Anybody who left his post, throw him into the brig! I don't care if it's an officer and he seems to have a good excuse. We can't fight John and worry about being stabbed in the back at the same time!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" Byron said, and he began calling the stations by number.
"Enemy vessel is five miles away, Captain," the chief radar operator called. "Traveling at fifty-five miles per hour."
The Rex had a top speed of forty-five miles per hour in still water and no headwinds. Aided by the current and the wind, it was going at a speed equal to the Not For Hire's.
"Any indication of the Goose!" Sam said.
"Nothing sir."
Sam looked at the chronometer. The big plane should still be flying alongside the mountains, hugging the top of the trees, down below the forest whenever possible. But it would not be attacking the Rex by itself. Its orders were to wait until the Rex was engaged with the motherboat. Then, while John's crew was occupied with firing upon the enemy; the Goose would come roaring out across the trees, swoop down to The River, and make a run for the broadside of the Rex. If John had had any sense, he would have held back his own torpedo plane until the full-scale battle started.
But then John had hoped that the people on the Not For Hire would be so busy watching the aerial fight that they would be taken by surprise.
"Enemy vessel four miles away, Captain. Dead ahead."
Sam lit another cigar and asked the medic to put some salve on his chin-burn. Smollett did so, and then Clemens stood by the starboard port, watching the smoke clouds rising from the fires on the left bank about a quarter of a mile ahead. Flames were eating the bamboo, pine, and yew structures. Pieces lifted off the blaze, carried by the wind, and landed on the bridges and houses. People were scurrying around, carrying belongings out of burning houses or climbing down ladders before the fire got to them. Others had formed lines, dipping their grails and fired-clay buckets into The River, passing the containers along to the other end, where the water was thrown onto the fires at the bases. That was a hopeless procedure; there was nothing to do but let the fire go. Apparently half of the sightseers had decided to do that. They thronged to the plains, where there were a few buildings and continued to wait for the meeting of the boats.
"Before we're done, we'll have leveled Virolando," Sam said to no one in particular. "We won't be very popular here."
"Enemy is three miles away, sir."
Sam walked to the intercom, where Byron was still talking to the stations. Joe/s huge bulk came up behind him, and Sam could smell the bourbon emanating from the enormous nose. The titanthrop always liked to take several belts before a fight. It wasn't that he needed Dutch courage, he explained. It was just for his stomach's sake. It quieted the "butterflies."
"Bethideth, Tham, I need lotth of enerchy. You thaid alcohol giveth enerchy. My body burnth it up like a motor burnth fuel. And I got a big body." ‘
"Yeah, but a whole fifth?"
Byron looked at him. "So far, nobody's been away from his post."