Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(113)
A furious determination seized him. “Come on,” he said, and he and Chief Laan slid down the backstays together and Greg started barking orders as soon as he hit the deck. “Let our anchor cable out another ten fathoms,” he said, looking at the prize, “and stand by to pass a line from our stern to Matarife’s hawse. We’ll take it in until her bowsprit stands right over our taffrail. In the meantime, I want a boat to carry an anchor out from the prize’s stern with a spring in the cable to bring her around parallel with the beach, nose to tail with us. See?” He looked at Smitty. “Back in your boat. I want cables secured to shore. The tide’ll soon start to ebb, and I want us to maintain position when it does.”
Smitty glanced nervously at the beach and nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“What will you do?” Tribune Pol-Heena asked.
Greg turned to him. “I’m pretty sure that’s a League DD out there, coming this way. If my memory of her class serves, she’s a little smaller than Walker but with similar armament.” Pol’s eyes went wide and there was an explosion of excited chatter.
“Silence fore an’ aaft!” Laan roared.
“Maybe she hasn’t seen us yet, with the island behind, but she will soon enough. And I think she’s coming in the bay, anyway.” Greg snorted ironically. “We may have to fight before we sail west.”
Pol’s eyes went even wider, if that was possible. “How can we?” he demanded. “It is said your Walker has destroyed hundreds of Grik ships—vessels not so different from ours. And you just told us the intruder is not unlike her in its capabilities. Surely we must try to talk to them, even perhaps . . . contemplate surrender?”
Greg glared at Pol-Heena, amazed. “You’re kidding, right?” he snapped, voice rising. “I hope to God I didn’t trade Bekiaa for a pack of cowards. If that’s really who’s coming in, I will not be a ‘guest’ of the goddamn League again. Do I make myself clear? And who’s to say, after what they did to Lady Sandra and Chairman Adar, they won’t just give us to the Doms? No, sir. You’ll find your courage, Tribune, and obey my orders as you swore to do, or I’ll throw you over the side myself. Is that understood?”
“Ah . . . yes, of course. I didn’t mean . . .”
Greg spun to face Lieutenant Haana-Lin-Naar. “Get all your Marines over to Matarife as quick as you can and acquaint Lieutenant Mak with the situation. He’ll need you, and we don’t have much time at all. I’ll try to send more of our topmen.”
“Aye, sur. But what is the situation? What’re we gonna do?”
Greg smiled grimly and quickly laid out the plan that had suddenly bloomed, fully formed, in his mind. It was a long shot, and depended on a number of things falling their way, but it was probably the only chance they had. “We’ll wait until we’re absolutely certain she’s a Leaguer—and nobody does anything until I give the command,” he stressed. “But, fortunately, one Spanish word I’m pretty sure of is ayuda. It means ‘help.’”
? ? ?
Antúnez was indeed an Alsedo class destroyer, as Greg Garrett guessed, renamed in honor of a nationalist officer who’d supported the coup ushering Spain into the fascist alliance with Italy and France. She was 283 feet long, displaced 1,300 tons fully loaded, and was quite similar to USS Walker in performance, armament, even general form. The most pronounced differences were her raised fo’c’sle, lack of a large aft deckhouse, and that her aft three funnels actually seemed to decrease in height. Those, and a lack of the generally battered appearance Walker seemed doomed to wear despite her frequent repairs, set her quite apart. And, of course, in addition to the naval jack of nationalist Spain, she also streamed the fascist banner of the Confédértion états Souverains, which had carried over to this world as the flag of the League of Tripoli.
Capitan de Cobeta Francisco Abuello Falto stared out the bridge windows of his ship, hands clasped behind his back, his pink, fresh-shaved face festooned with tiny pieces of bloody tissue. Occasionally, the breeze took one and a seaman quickly tracked it down. Capitan Abuello Falto didn’t like to see the little specks again after his steward applied them. Ahead lay Galion Bay, smaller on this world than his charts depicted, but better protected. It would make a fine anchorage for a League station in the western hemisphere one day. Beyond the bay lay the rugged, heavily forested island of Martinique, and Abuello Falto was entranced by its beauty, despite the smoldering mountains. He was deathly afraid of volcanos for some reason, though he’d never seen one erupt. Perhaps he was haunted by childhood tales? The focus of his attention at present, however, was the two square-rigged ships moored in the bay.
“The one is certainly the Dominion fragata that rendezvoused with that Italian idiota, Contrammiraglio Oriani, at Ascension, Capitan,” said Teniente Casales Padilla, the destroyer’s executive officer, gazing through binoculars.
“And the other?” Abuello Falto asked mildly.
“She must be the Allied/American fragata we were sent to intercept, as she crossed the Atlantic. She’s exactly as described, and flies the Old World flag of the Estados Unidos, with its many stars and stripes”—he coughed with amusement—“and the Dominion rag with its heretical cross flies above it!”
“An end to our primary mission, then,” Abuello Falto said with evident relief. “Now we can get on with the rest.” He hadn’t relished returning empty-handed, which he’d begun to fear would happen. Donaghey was a very small ship on a vast ocean, after all, and they’d only had the vaguest notion of her course. He was slightly disappointed, however. Catching the elusive American ship himself, after it so humiliated that French royalist, Laborde, would’ve been delicious. And of course there was a pang of queasiness over how Donaghey’s crew had probably already met their end. He’d heard tales of Dominion Blood Priests. . . . He would’ve treated the Americanos and their hombres simios properly, with as much courtesy as he could. It was the least he could do—before turning them over to Oriani and his OVRA reptiles. OVRA had been the Italian Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Antifascism and had become the chief party enforcement arm of the League on this world. Each national faction retained its own military intelligence branch, which often competed with or even targeted the others. The OVRA had been granted exceptional powers by every member, understanding there had to be a supreme, coordinating authority when it came to quashing dissident elements and compiling intelligence. And, sadly, given the way this cruel world turned, the OVRA used methods not terribly distinct from those attributed to the Dominion when it came to extracting information. He supposed they had little choice.