As if picking the thought from his mind, Brearley said, "We have managed to keep the damnyankees and the Huns from joining hands."
"We'd better go right on keeping 'em from doing that, too, sonny, or you can kiss this war good-bye," Kimball answered dryly. "We've got to keep the trade route from Argentina to French West Africa open, too, or England starts starving even worse than she is already. And we've got to keep the route from England to Canada at least partway open, or else the USA sits on Canada like an elephant squashing a mouse. If we manage to do all of that, the soldiers can go on doing what they're supposed to do."
"Have we got enough ships?" Brearley asked. "Have all of us together-us and the British and the French and the Russians and whatever the Canadians have left-have we got enough ships to do everything we have to do?"
Kimball clapped him on the back. "We've done it so far-just barely. Reckon we can keep on doing it-just barely. And don't forget the Japanese. They're giving England and Canada quite a hand in the Pacific, by everything I hear."
"Don't know as how I really care for them fooling around in a white man's war," Brearley said, "but I suppose we have to grab the help now and be thankful for it, and then worry later about sorting out what it means."
"That's how it works," Kimball agreed. As soon as he'd spoken, though, he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. Brearley was all for cutting a deal with the Negroes, too, and then sorting out what that all meant later.
Had his exec set him up, so he would notice he was arguing one way on one of the questions and the other way on the other? He let his eyes slide toward Tom Brearley. Sure as hell, the young pup looked ever so slightly smug. But Brearley had too much sense to say anything, so Kimball couldn't gig him for it. This round went to the junior lieutenant.
So Kimball wouldn't have to admit as much, he raised the field glasses once more to scan the horizon. He did not do it expecting to spot anything: more to give him an excuse not to answer, and to change the subject when he did speak again. But there, off to the northeast, rose an unmistakable plume of smoke.
He stiffened and thrust out an index finger, as if he were a bird dog coming to the point. Tom Brearley didn't have field glasses of his own. Before the war, most of them had been made in Germany, and they remained in short supply throughout the Entente powers. But, after a minute or so, Brearley nodded. "Yes, sir. I see it, too."
Kimball called down to the petty officer at the wheeclass="underline" "Change course to 045."
"Oh-four-five, aye aye, sir," Ben Coulter answered. His voice caught with excitement as he sent a question up the hatchway: "You spotted something, sir?"
"Something, yes," Kimball answered: submersible officers and crew paid less attention to the minutiae of military formality than any other part of the C.S. Navy. "Don't know what yet."
He peered through the field glasses again. A swell lifted the Bonefish, extending the horizon for him. He got a glimpse of the hull producing the smoke. "That's a Yankee destroyer, sure as hell it is. Now the fun begins." His lips curled back from his teeth in what was more nearly snarl than smile.
He started calculating at a furious clip. A destroyer could run away from his submersible even when he was surfaced, or could attack him with bigger guns than he carried. Submerged, the Bonefish made only nine knots going flat out-a pace that would quickly exhaust her batteries and force her to the surface again. He couldn't pursue the U.S. ship, then. He had to see if he could place the submarine in her path and lie in wait for her. If not, he'd have to let her escape. If so…
"Let's go below, Tom," Kimball said. His exec nodded and dove down the hatch. Kimball followed, dogging it shut after him. He bawled an order to the crew: "Prepare to dive-periscope depth!"
Klaxons hooted. Tanks made bubbling, popping noises as water flooded into them. The Bonefish slid under the water in-"Thirty-eight seconds, I make it," Brearley said, an eye to his pocket watch. Kimball grunted. That was acceptable but something less than wonderful.
He raised the periscope. "Hope the damn thing isn't too misted up to see through," he muttered. The odds were about even. He grunted again, this time appreciatively. The view was, if not perfectly clear, clear enough.
He turned the periscope in the direction of the destroyer he'd spotted. The fellow hadn't altered course, which Kimball devoutly hoped meant he hadn't a clue the Bonefish was anywhere about. He was, unless Kimball had botched his solution, making about twenty knots, and about two miles away.
"Give me course 090," Kimball told the helmsman, and then spoke to the rest of the crew: "Ready the torpedoes in the two forward tubes."
The Bonefish crept east. The U.S. destroyer was doing most of the work, coming right across his bow, leaving itself wide open for a shot-if it didn't pick up speed and steam past the submersible before the latter was in position to launch its deadly fish.
"I want to get inside twelve hundred yards before I turn 'em loose," Kimball remarked, more as if thinking out loud than talking to Tom Brearley. "I'll shoot from a mile if I have to, though, and trust to luck that I'm not carrying any moldies."
"Yes, sir," Brearley agreed; duds were the bane-and often the end-of a submariner's existence. The executive officer went on, "Are you sure you want to shoot from such long range, sir? A miss will bring the U.S. fleet after us full bore."
"Just because they're after us doesn't mean they'll catch us," Kimball said smugly. "So yes, I'll take the chance, thanks." He grinned. "After all, if I sink that destroyer, that'll bring the U.S. fleet after us, too."
"Yes, sir." Brearley sounded as if he was smiling, too; Kimball didn't look away from the periscope to see. A good kid, he thought absently. A little on the soft side, but a good kid.
And here came the destroyer, fat and sassy. He'd have lookouts peering in all directions for periscopes, but some of those fools would have seen enough periscopes that weren't there to make officers leery of taking their reports too seriously. They wouldn't be expecting Confederate company quite so far out to sea, either; the Bonefish was well past her normal cruising radius. But she'd picked up fuel from a freighter not long before, and so…"We'll give you damnyankees a surprise," Kimball muttered.
He wasn't going to get a shot off at twelve hundred yards. The electric engines were too puny to get him close enough fast enough. But he would be inside a mile. Any time you could split the difference between what you really wanted and what you'd settle for, you weren't doing too bad.
"Depth?" he asked quietly.
"Thirty-five feet, sir," Brearley answered after checking the gauge.
"Give me a couple more degrees south, Coulter," Kimball said. "A little more…steady…Fire number one!" Fearsome clangs and hissings marked the launch of the first torpedo. A moment later, Kimball shouted, "Fire number two!"
He studied both tracks with grave intensity. They looked straight, they looked good. The destroyer had less than a minute to react, and momentum that kept her from reacting fast. She started to turn toward the Bonefish, presenting the smallest area for the fish to reach.
Kimball couldn't tell whether the first torpedo passed under her bow or hit and failed to explode. He hadn't snarled more than a couple of curses, though, when the second one caught her just aft of amidships. "Hit!" he screamed. "Hell of a hit! She'll go down from that, damn me to hell if she don't." The destroyer lay dead in the water, and bent at an unnatural angle. She was already starting to list. Some of the Yankees aboard would make her boats, Kimball thought, but some wouldn't, too.