Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(33)
Perhaps even more reverential toward her for that reason, even more than Spanky, was the seasoned Lemurian standing to Keje’s left. Somewhat past middle age, his pelt gone almost entirely gray, was the commander of I Corps, General Muln-Rolak. One of the few true, prewar, warrior ’Cat commanders in the Alliance, he bore many scars on his body and soul. He’d been lord protector of Aryaal before the Grik came and still held that title in Aryaal as well as its traditional rival, the island of B’mbaado. The monarch over both city-states, once antagonists and now politically united, was his adored queen, Safir Maraan. As military commanders, however, they were equal, and Safir usually deferred to him due to his age, wisdom, and, frankly, more thoughtful nature.
“It’s certainly a pretty color,” Rolak observed in his usual urbane tone, pitching his voice above the thunder of pumps and rushing water. “What does it mean?”
“It means she’s leakin’ like a sieve,” Spanky ground out. “That’s fuel oil from the bunkers lining her hull. I expected that,” he confessed, “based on how much saltwater’s been gettin’ in the fuel, but it still pisses me off to see so damn much of it. Shit, half the ship looks like a goddamn rusty trout.”
“You think it’s the rivets again?” Alden asked. They’d had trouble with them before.
“Who knows?” Spanky spat, disgusted, squinting. “Maybe not. She’s taken a lot of hits an’ near misses since her last overhaul. Not to mention a goddamn grounding. We’ll just have to see. It looks like most of the seepage is in the vicinity of roundshot dents,” he added hopefully.
“She’s got a lot of those,” Ben pointed out.
“Yeah. An’ if just three or four had been naval rifle shells of the same diameter instead of shitty Grik cannonballs—even if they didn’t explode—she’d already be rustin’ on the bottom somewhere.”
“You patched many more holes than that, some even larger, if I recall,” Keje reminded in his gruff voice.
“Sure,” Spanky agreed. “But her bones were stronger then. It’s gettin’ harder to find sound studs to nail to, if you know what I mean.”
Alden waved around at the huge ship and the swarm of Lemurians, already starting with their cranes now that Walker was firmly resting on her blocks. A number of things had been prepared for removal as soon as she entered Tarakaan Island’s bay, and the mangled number-two torpedo mount was already swaying up in the air as they watched. “They’ll fix her,” he consoled. “Look at James Ellis out there past the reef,” he added, then pointed behind them at the low, sleek, distant shape, made fuzzy by the humid, hazy air. “They built her from scratch!”
“Yeah, they did. An’ she’s a dandy—aside from all the nigglin’ little issues she has. Hell, we oughta put her in dry dock.”
Rolak regarded him, blinking disdain. “You are determined to be unhappy today, aren’t you, Co-maander Mc-Faar-lane?”
“Damn straight.”
“Why?” Ben asked, honestly surprised. “You oughta be glad! The old girl’s finally getting some real work done.”
“Yeah,” Spanky agreed. “A lot of it, too. New torpedo tubes, boiler an’ condenser overhauls, better searchlights than those first ones we made. Finally some decent-quality gear oil. They even brought out thick, bullet-slowin’ mattress pads that can be brought up an’ hooked on the stanchions so the guys’ll have better protection than just those stupid wooden rafts, we ever have to repel boarders again. There’s better glass for the pilothouse windows that doesn’t look like you’re starin’ through the bottom of a Coke bottle, lightbulbs, electric fans, all the latest luxuries, and even new liners for her main battery. The Skipper declined the new DP mounts for numbers one through three.” He shrugged. “I get that. They’re still a little twitchy an’ tend to shoot loose, an’ he wants Walker to keep bein’ our sniper in surface actions. Figures, in addition to extra machine guns to keep planes away, she can still squirm out from under Jap-Grik bombs and torpedoes.” He glowered. “But that didn’t work so good for Geran-Eras.”
“Did not Geran-Eras have Dee-Pee mounts?” Keje asked.
Spanky glanced at the sky. “Sure. An’ they didn’t save her either. Goddamn planes!”
Keje looked at the others. “I do not believe Mr. McFaar-lane is unhappy about the overhaul, only the location. And that his ship is, as you say, a sitting duck just now.”
Ben looked at him. “It’s gonna to be okay, Spanky. Look, I’ve got a CAP over the island and there’s picket ships in all directions with TBS sets. Kurokawa’s not sneakin’ up on us!”
“Maybe not in daylight,” Spanky sneered at Ben. “An’ that’s what your damn MacArthur said, right before the Japs clobbered all our air in the Philippines and bombed the shit outa Cavite!” Spanky snapped his fingers. “That’s for your damn air cover. We never had any before, and I’ll never trust it.”
Ben rolled his eyes and leaned on the rail, looking down. The sea had receded to the point that he could see the heavy timbers at the bottom of the repair bay beneath the shallow water. There were other things, too: quick, wiggling shapes, darting over and around the great blocks supporting the old destroyer. To his surprise, he noticed a group of naked ’Cats armed with fishing spears advancing in a skirmish line from aft, against the flow of calf-deep water. They stabbed down and heaved up as they went, pitching skewered fish—and other things—into a long, wide tub a pair of Lemurians pushed before them, chittering happily (or in occasional alarm) at what landed snapping and flopping so close by. And there, marching grimly behind, his legs protected by heavy leather waders he’d probably stitched himself, was the obese form of Walker’s irascible cook, Earl Lanier. He was brandishing his own spear and urging the party into the fray like some great, fat, sodden general of the deep.