Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(138)
For such a large structure, the interior was incredibly cramped. A heavily armored bulkhead separated the two guns, and only an equally heavy hatch allowed access from one side to the other. The space Horn entered was crammed with the enormous breech of a 13.5″ naval rifle and all the lifts, rams, levers, and trays required to load it. To Horn’s surprise, the first being that turned, unconcerned, was a Frenchman. The expression on his face quickly changed to surprise, then terror. Horn was already pushing him back, banging his head against the optical range finder and slamming him against the hard steel side of the turret officer’s booth. He’d been stabbing the triangular bayonet into his chest from the instant they touched. Blood sprayed back and coated the first Khonashi leaping up behind him to pounce on a Grik near the rammer operator’s station. That one had just enough time to voice a startled hiss before the North Borno trooper slashed its throat and stabbed it in the top of the head. More blood all over the bright brass shell tray—and a third Khonashi that dove past a Grik near the breech of the huge gun and down into the gun pit. Horn couldn’t see, but he heard muffled shrieks and thumping sounds from there, and from the other side of the armored bulkhead. The hatch was open, and ignoring the Grik by the breech for the moment—it seemed immobilized by shock—he peered around and through the hatch. Becher Lange met him, bayonet raised, eyes wide and wild.
“Goddamn!” Horn cried. “It’s me!”
Lange’s madness faded slightly and the bayonet, dripping blood, began to shake. “One bit me,” he murmured, and gestured at his other arm, badly torn, pattering blood on the deck.
The sound of fighting had already stopped, punctuated by the heavy clang of the gun-pit hatch, but a fairly loud voice was yammering in Grik. Horn thought it was Pokey. Even though he’d known the little Grik as long as Silva, he’d only heard him say a few words. To his astonishment, the Grik near the gun breech seemed to relax and stand back, as unthreateningly as possible, his crest lying flat. “What the hell?” Horn hissed, pulling the belt off the man he’d killed with a flapping sound. He started to wrap it around Lange’s arm. Brassey’s head joined the German’s in the hatchway. “All secure?” he asked.
“We’ve got one left,” Horn said.
Brassey pushed his head past Lange to see. “Ah, well. He probably heard Pokey’s harangue and chose to change sides. Kurokawa’s Grik are apparently old enough to reason with.”
“What?”
“Never mind, Gunnery Sergeant. Something our friend Lawrence discovered not long ago, when an entire fireroom full of the buggers surrendered to him.” Horn was amazed by that, by how short the fight had been, and by how self-assured young Brassey suddenly sounded. The boy frowned. “We lost one on this side, but two have surrendered. Are you hurt?”
“No, but Lange is.”
“Medic,” Brassey called over his shoulder, and a Khonashi appeared, its Grik-like face giving Horn a start, and began tending Becher’s wounded arm.
Boy, have I got the jitters! Horn thought. Too long out of the fight, not enough to eat, out of shape, and probably thinking too much about what’s next. The clang of the other hatch under the gunhouse reminded him to shut the one by his feet. He pulled the lever that raised it up and shakily dogged it. Nobody’s getting in now unless they crawl up the shell or powder hoists, and I never saw a Grik that could do that. A ’Cat probably could, but . . . He shook his head. We’ve done what we set out to, but now we’re trapped, if anybody comes to check or take his battle station. Just one thing left, and we can go. Damn it, Diania! I wish we could’ve . . . A raucous alarm began to sound, making him jump again; then a loud voice came from a speaker on the bulkhead. He caught only a few words; they sounded French. But then the message was repeated in Japanese, which he couldn’t speak, but had learned to understand fairly well as a POW in the Philippines. Becher Lange, sitting on a stool in the booth and talking through clenched teeth as the Khonashi medic worked on him, interpreted vaguely what Horn thought he heard. “Contre-Amiral Laborde is calling the ship to battle stations and it is getting underway immediately. An air attack is imminent, and the ship must be prepared for evasive maneuvers.”
“Well, that’s just dandy,” Horn snapped. “No chance at all of getting off this bucket now.” His plan had been to pull the pins on half a dozen grenades and drop them down the powder hoist, into the upper handling room. With ready ammunition stored there, the resultant explosion would at least temporarily disable the turret. With real luck, grenades or flames might make it down to the lower handling room, and that would wreck the turret. Maybe worse. Of course, if somebody had carelessly left the armored hatch to the forward magazine open—not a ridiculous stretch of the imagination with a crew largely composed of untrained Grik—they might even destroy the ship. In any case, they had to get out of the gunhouse, the last man out dropping the grenades, and run like hell. Realistically, even if the scheme worked, they probably wouldn’t have made it. But at least there’d been a chance. Now there was none.
“Then we’ll just have to make the most of our opportunity,” Brassey said reasonably. “You sounded somewhat familiar with the operation of the equipment here. Can you tell us what to do?”
Horn looked dumbly around and blinked. “Yeah, I think so.”