Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(32)
Between Andamaan and the busy docks, still under hasty construction, lay the SPD (self-propelled dry dock) USS Tarakaan Island. Not as large as Big Sal, she was bigger than Andamaan; even longer and displacing as much as a fleet carrier. And she represented still greater technical ingenuity. At a glance, from abeam, she most resembled a Great Lakes ore carrier, which some of Walker’s human crew might’ve remembered, but any similarity ended there. She was, essentially, an 820-foot-by-150-foot wooden hull built around a massive 100-foot-by-650-foot repair bay large enough to accommodate anything in the Allied inventory—except a fleet carrier, or seagoing Home. And Big Sal herself, of course. Tarakaan Island and her sisters had been meant to handle fleet carriers, but they wound up just a tad too big. The next class of Allied flattop, and everything else under construction in Baalkpan, Maa-ni-la, and the Empire of the New Britain Isles, should fit just fine.
Lemurian shipbuilding techniques, particularly considering they’d always relied almost entirely on wood, had been a source of astonishment and respect. Their system of diagonal, cross-laminated planks laid on heavy, latticelike frames most closely resembling those of a monstrous Wellington bomber made their hulls incredibly strong and allowed them to build on an otherwise impossible scale. As the Alliance eased into the construction of iron-hulled ships, Lemurian structural designs had been evolving as well, combining lessons learned from the strengths and weaknesses of both materials into plans for hulls that were, though admittedly complex, probably stronger than anything of similar displacement ever to cross over from another world. Tarakaan Island was one of only three of her kind likely to be built, however, and after the loss of Respite Island, one of two in existence. There’d be more SPDs, made of iron and built along the same basic lines and dimensions, but they’d be lighter, faster, and probably go together quicker.
Two tall funnels vented exhaust from four boilers in her hull on each side of the bay, and were surrounded by a forest of heavy, steam-powered cranes. The boilers themselves—a total of eight—were enclosed in narrow spaces on either beam and fed two powerful (but extremely cramped) triple expansion engines patterned after the one in USS Santa Catalina. That made her fast enough to keep up with a carrier, and her two screws and rudders gave her the agility, despite her size, to turn with the battlegroups. She wasn’t helpless either, having been armed with five of the new DP 4″-50 guns—one forward, and two on each side around her funnels. With the introduction of copies of the venerable M-1917 light machine gun, she was heavily festooned with those as well—particularly in light of the new aerial threat. And Tarakaan Island—and the other ships in the anchorage—currently had even more protection than usual, with nine steam frigates (DDs) clustered around, numerous armed auxiliaries, the new USS James Ellis steaming back and forth beyond the mouth of the bay, and a constant air patrol probing outward from the island.
Unlike Big Sal and Andamaan, however, which appeared to be resting from their labors, gathering strength, there was tremendous, almost feverish activity aboard Tarakaan Island. For within her repair bay, slowly settling on the blocks that would support her tired, battered hull when all the water was pumped from the ballast tanks, was Matt Reddy’s flagship of the entire naval effort to destroy the Grik—and Hisashi Kurokawa: USS Walker, DD-163.
Walker’s one DP 4″-50 aft added to their mutual protection, as did her own machine guns, and they remained fully manned. Despite there being little threat from Grik airships this far from Madagascar, they were in waters Kurokawa could reach with his more formidable air power if he chose to risk his final carrier. They had little choice but to gather their strength and make repairs there, however. Chances were Kurokawa wouldn’t risk it, and with Grik City menaced by mobs of zeppelins, Mahe was the best place to assemble all the troops, equipment, aircraft, and ships that had staggered through the gauntlet. It already had an airstrip of sorts, with more under construction on surrounding islands at the direction of Colonel Ben Mallory, and though they didn’t have as many planes as they’d hoped to have, quite a few had gathered there—almost certainly enough to stop one carrier. And Kurokawa’s torpedo planes couldn’t sink Mahe. Savoie was another matter. Stopping her with what they had might prove problematic once her new crew learned how to operate her. But that should take some time. Enough to put Walker back to rights again? They’d have to see.
Commander Brad “Spanky” McFarlane spat a long stream of yellowish Aryaalan tobacco juice into the swirling water of the repair bay and watched it splatter and surge aft in a string of pirouetting bubbles. He was short and wiry, with reddish blond hair and beard, but his personality was larger than his physique. He knew that, and carefully cultivated the impression, so he was particularly glad to have eliminated the one sign of weakness undermining his physical authority: the crutch he’d leaned on since the Battle of Grik City Bay had been tossed in Walker’s feeble wake as she steamed here almost a week before.
“Agh,” he grunted grimly, pointing at rainbow hues beginning to appear, streaking Walker’s sides as more of her hull was exposed. “That ain’t good.”
Leaning on the rail around him, feeling the vibration of mighty pumps shake the ship, were most of the heavyweights of First Fleet and the Allied Expeditionary Force. Keje was to his left, blinking sympathetically to Spanky’s observation, fully aware of what he was referring to. To Spanky’s right was the leathery-tan, dark-haired General of the Army and Marines, Pete Alden. He’d risen to his exalted rank from a wounded Marine sergeant aboard USS Houston, who’d been in hospital in Surabaya and missed his ship’s final sortie against the Japanese. Limping and bleeding, he’d hitched a ride on Walker to escape . . . here. Beyond him was Colonel Ben Mallory, who, as a second lieutenant, United States Army Air Corps, had also escaped Surabaya after USS Langley, loaded with the P-40 fighters he was trained to fly, was hammered down by that old enemy as well. He commanded all the army and naval air forces of the Alliance—which, ironically, included a rapidly diminishing number of P-40Es they’d discovered aboard Santa Catalina when they found her half-sunk in a swamp near Tjilatjap (Chill-Chaap). Both men were nearly as concerned about Walker’s condition as Spanky, and had their own reasons for considering her their savior.