Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(120)

“How much longer now?” Brassey suddenly asked, the slightest tension in his voice for the first time.

“Not long,” Silva replied thoughtfully. “The Jap-Griks may not have mine sweepers, but it won’t take ’em more’n a few days to clear the South Channel if they get on it. They may not try, figurin’ they’re safe from that direction, an’ preferrin’ ta’ wad up an’ defend the North Channel against another mine layin’.”

“So . . . just a few more days?”

“I expect.”

“Then why not free our people now?” Brassey pleaded. “They’ve suffered enough, and I want them under our protection. Who knows what might happen to them if we wait too long? We could bring them here and hide them. Their escape might even cause confusion, and a useful diversion among the enemy.”

Silva frowned in the dark. “I’m sure you’re right about the diversion, an’ I know how you feel, believe me. But the ruckus we’d kick up ain’t the kind we need. For one, what if it ain’t just days? What if it’s a week? Two weeks? I know our friends look scrawny as hell, but they are bein’ fed. We can’t feed ’em that long. We’ll be outa rations before then ourselves. An’ I don’t think we could hide ’em anywhere after we poked that ant bed. The only reason we ain’t been found is ’cause nobody’s lookin’ for us. We swipe our people back an’ Kurokawa’ll have ever’body combin’ the whole joint for ’em. Yeah, that’d cause a helluva distraction, but crazy as he is, Kurokawwy ain’t a idiot. He’d know somebody helped ’em, which means somebody’s runnin’ around spyin’ on him too.”

“Which means he might change his entire disposition, all his plans, right when we need him most complacent,” Brassey completed Silva’s point with resignation in his voice.

“Aye,” Lawrence agreed, reaching out to touch the boy with his fully clawed left hand. He knew how he felt as well. Sentimentality had once been a great mystery to him, particularly directed at things. He’d pretended to be excited when Walker was raised after the Battle of Baalkpan, because everyone else seemed to be and he’d been desperate to fit in. But he’d already been devoted to certain people: Rebecca Anne McDonald first, then (oddly) Silva, who shot him on sight. Ultimately, many others—hundreds—had joined the list of people he esteemed. And even as the concept of friendship, family, matured in his heart, he eventually caught himself experiencing attachments to things, such as Walker and weapons, which had served them well. Finally, ideas—such as honor, duty, even country, so influential to his friends—became important to him as he began to understand how large a part they played in making his friends, and, by association, himself, who they were.

Dennis Silva hadn’t always been a patient teacher, or even a clear-cut example for him to follow. But Captain Reddy—and Lady Sandra—had. To him, to his heart, as his friends referred to the sentimental part of his being, rescuing Lady Sandra and the rest was the most vital part of their mission. But they couldn’t succeed without victory, and a premature rescue might shatter any chance for that. He patted Brassey’s arm. “As Dennis says, Ca’tain ’Rassey, quit ’orrying. In days, or a little longer, us are going to get they out.”





CHAPTER 19


////// USS Walker

USS Walker, DD-163, bounded through the wind-whipped, white-capped sea north of Mahe with an exuberance she hadn’t shown for a long time. Gray smoke from her aft three funnels quickly vanished and pure white foam sluiced across her fo’c’sle, parting beneath her bridge, when she knifed through the waves at fifteen knots. Each time, she rose to expose the round curve of her bow beneath the boot topping like a soggy greyhound shaking itself off. The fresh wooden deck strakes in the pilothouse creaked snugly against their new fasteners, and the machinery rumble they transmitted to Matt Reddy’s feet was . . . tighter, less labored, than he thought he’d ever felt. He was sitting on his captain’s chair, drinking real coffee from a small supply that Juan had triumphantly secured on his own—and even he hadn’t managed to destroy—as he contemplated the frenzied, relatively brief overhaul.

It hadn’t been the most comprehensive refit she’d undergone by any means, but it might’ve been the best. Her first rebuild after the Battle of Baalkpan saved her, but had also been a scratch learning experience for yard workers who’d never had anything like her in their hands. The same was true, to a lesser degree, of her refit in Maa-ni-la. Steel hulls and complicated machinery had been as alien to Lemurians as their diagonally laminated wooden hulls had been to Matt’s human destroyermen. But Lemurians were quick learners, and with the plans they’d drawn during her rebuild, they’d almost immediately begun copying Walker.

Whole new industries and occupations sprouted to support that. All were necessary for other endeavors, but repairing and maintaining Walker—and making others like her—had been the test bed and driving force behind so much else. Her first two “daughters” took a long time to make, while furry workers and engineers honed their experience with near-constant practice, all the while making boilers and engines for wooden warships. They were different engines, in different hulls, but the new skills still applied. Often, they reinvented methods even their teachers couldn’t show them, or came up with entirely new ideas. Aside from the first boilers built to power Baalkpan’s infant industries, all newer ones were near copies of Walker’s. Some were larger, a few smaller, but—particularly now that the “tube crisis” seemed under control—all seemed uniformly better as well, incorporating improvements Spanky long yearned for, or the ’Cats came up with by themselves. Just as important, interchangeability of parts and assemblies had been stressed throughout Lemurian industrialization. Standard units of measure were quickly adopted, and things like calipers, yardsticks, and tape measures had been among the first items mass-produced—even during the frantic effort to arm the ’Cats against the first Grik swarm. Ancient, wildly variable Lemurian measurements almost instantly vanished from use. Some still used the term “tail” instead of “yard,” but they were so similar, there’d been little difficulty defining both as 36 inches.