Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(104)
Brassey climbed down the ladder from the envelope above, the only way between the two gondolas. He stepped beside Silva and peered over as well. Silva glanced at him. Brassey was about the same age as Abel Cook and looked a lot like him, except for his dark hair. The two were best friends and young enough that they probably hadn’t even finished growing. Yet they were already captains who’d earned the rank. Still, even though he was technically the senior officer, Brassey understood this was Silva’s mission and would follow his lead.
He nodded at the dark island ahead, its prominent features reflecting the rising sun. “It’s fairly obvious we’re heading the right direction. Kurokawa must get all his supplies from the mainland.”
“An’ he’s gotta have tank batteries for all his oil somewhere close to the harbor. I’d love to find those.”
“We will,” Brassey assured. “I’ll prepare my troops. It won’t be long now.”
“Nope. An’ be sure to arrange them nasty dead Griks around. I know they stink, but we can’t afford for ’em to find the damn things still wrapped up like mummies.”
Brassey frowned but nodded, and climbed back up the ladder. “The rest of us better ease back now,” Dennis said, as much to himself as the others. “Except you, Larry. Time to put your new artistic skills to use.”
Lawrence had discovered that he loved to draw, and had often used sticks on the ground or rocks on rocks. Now, with his rifle-loading claws filed away, he’d learned to hold pencils and brushes. He stepped to the forward rail in the gondola, wind whipping the crest on his head, and prepared to make additions to his already updated copy of Fiedler’s map. He’d call out any changes so Silva, now crouching near the tiller, could mark them on his own map. They’d decided to make for the central airfield closest to Kurokawa’s HQ, suspecting that was where the Grik usually went. But they also knew it had been hammered, both by the P-40-something, and the big night raid. They’d veer off, crossing the anchorage a second time, and head for the strip on the northwest side of Lizard Ass Bay before “losing power,” and apparently falling prey to the prevailing wind. That would be when things would get interesting—unless they were already shot down for flying over something Kurokawa had ordered other Grik to avoid. That was Silva’s main concern: that there was only one acceptable approach. He hoped if there was, under the circumstances, Kurokawa would let his desire for news from Esshk overrule his pique.
“We’re crossing o’er nunder three island now,” Lawrence said. “I don’t see anything there. Nunder one is co’ing ut.” There was a long pause while the airship bucked the morning breeze, now beating on its starboard bow. “There’s cranes and things,” Lawrence finally reported, confirming what they already knew. Then his voice grew more excited. “There’s the carrier that got a’ay! It got hit in the raid! They’re ’orking on the launching deck! And o’er at the great docks, south-southeast, it’s all gone! ’Urned a’ay!”
“So we burned out all the new carrier conversions too,” Silva muttered gleefully, scribbling on his map. “Kurokawa’ll be one unhappy Jap—if the fit it musta gave him didn’t croak him.”
Lawrence’s monologue continued as the sun climbed, beginning to glare inside the gondola as they swept across the docks, over one of the Japanese barracks—exactly where it was supposed to be—and neared the central airfield. As expected, it was gone. The scorched remains of the strips were clear but surrounded by burned-out hangers, charred fragments of aircraft, and a two-mile-wide blackened hole in the jungle. And what looked like some kind of factory complex east of the airfield had burned as well. All that remained were rusting heaps of metal, which might’ve been heavy machine tools of some sort, amid fallen, fire-blackened timbers.
“Turn us around,” Silva told the ’Cat at the tiller, handing him his compass. “Head due west.”
“Ay, ay,” the Shee-Ree said, using the term he’d heard so often now. He was clearly nervous but trusted those he was with, and their methods, to see them through. After what happened on the Mangoro River crossing, he had good reason for his faith, though the scope of that action was miniscule compared to what likely lay ahead. They flew back over the bay, and all of them half expected to come under fire at any moment, but nothing happened. A couple of Jap-Grik fighters, so similar in appearance to the Allied “Fleashooters,” roared past, in formation, but after a cursory glance, banked away to the south.
“There’s Sa’oie,” Lawrence said, his tone relieved, as he moved to the starboard side of the gondola. “Still on the north end o’ the anchorage. She’s got stean.”
“Steam’s up,” Silva repeated to himself, thinking. “Maybe they’re trying to move her. How far’s the other airfield?”
“Two or three ’iles,” Lawrence replied.
Silva knelt beside him and poked his head over the edge of the rail, chancing a look. “I see it. Looks like the bombs came close, but didn’t get it.” He nodded a little to the left. “What’s that?”
“Another shore ’attery, the ’ap says. Is it antiaircra’t guns?”
“Not that. I mean the clearing between the airstrip and the battery. It ain’t on the map.” He started to slide the telescope over the sill.