Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(57)
USS Santa Catalina Nearing Mahe
“What the hell?” Matt demanded angrily, staring at another message form Commander Russ Chappelle had passed him. “What got her?” He was standing on Santa Catalina’s bridge with Chappelle, Bradford, Chack, and Lieutenant Michael “Mikey” Monk, Chappelle’s XO and current OOD. The otherwise entirely Lemurian bridge watch was studiously performing its duties while doubtless straining to hear. Mahe Island loomed ahead, darkly silhouetted by the setting sun. One of the steam frigate DDs, USS Tassat—quickly patched after a brutal mauling in the fighting around the Comoros Islands—was coming alongside. She wasn’t fit for independent patrols, still leaking too much to risk alone. Her bilge pumps never stopped, and the water coursing down from her scuppers had left dark stains. Matt knew her aggressive skipper, Jarrik-Fas, must be going nuts, his only consolation being that Tassat was next for Tarakaan Island’s attention. In the meantime, she could steam, and fight if necessary, and had sailed out to lead Santy Cat and the following battlegroup through the tricky harbor entrance, past the reefs. Right now, a motor launch was dropping to the water from her quarter davit.
“Probably sending a pilot over,” Chappelle observed, distracted from Matt’s question.
“Pilot is right,” called the signal ’Cat on the bridgewing, watching Tassat’s flashing Morse lamp. “Col-nol Maal-lory’s comin’ aboard!”
“It seems Mr. Fiedler didn’t tell us everything he could after all,” Courtney Bradford pronounced darkly, still focused on Matt’s question. His tone was grim but somewhat self-satisfied. Matt glanced at him. “We knew that. Just as we knew the League hadn’t abandoned Kurokawa entirely. And it’s possible these modern planes, whatever they are, showed up after Fiedler left.”
“Convenient,” Bradford muttered.
“Actually, his best guess is in the stack,” Chappelle disagreed, waving another half-dozen sheets. “Third or fourth page down,” he added. “Apparently, he left some notes—and a letter directly to you, Captain—stashed in the trimotor. The letter’s been sent up by air. The notes detailed some assets Gravois might’ve arranged to be transferred to Kurokawa. One sounds like what jumped the P-Forty-something.” Courtney harrumphed, but Chappelle leafed through the pages, selected one, and handed it over.
Matt quickly scanned it. “What’s a Macchi-Messerschmitt?” he asked dubiously. Everyone knew what a Messerschmitt 109 was; they’d been the bogeymen of Air Corps and Naval aviation before the old war began. It was commonly believed the British Spitfire was better, and had remained dogma in the Air Corps that Warhawks were better too—despite worrying reports from the Brits, who’d pitted export-model P-40s against 109s. In fact, the inexperienced flyers who first encountered Zeros over the Philippines thought they must be Messerschmitts, probably with Nazi pilots. Those who survived quickly learned the remarkably capable pilots shooting them down so easily were, in fact, Japanese—flying Japanese-made aircraft. Some survived long enough to learn P-40s were still better (in some ways), but they had to change the way they used them if they wanted to beat a Zero—and probably, a Messerschmitt. That Kurokawa might somehow have some of those was bad enough, but what did “Macchi” mean?
“Maybe we’ll find out pretty quick,” Mikey Monk temporized, nodding at the launch motoring toward them. He’d already ordered “dead slow.” The coded-message traffic had been flying back and forth between Mahe and Grik City—the enemy knew they were on Mahe, after all—and Santy Cat had picked off and decoded everything. She couldn’t send questions, though, since she and Arracca’s battlegroup had to remain silent. Comm discipline had been hard to adjust to, and instituting a mind-set of operational security among Lemurians in particular—naturally gregarious and prone to chatter—was no simple feat. ’Cats understood the problem, but preventing unintentional slips was a lot harder.
Courtney now believed that, despite their generally peaceful nature, Lemurians weren’t instinctively pacifistic. They couldn’t have survived long enough to accomplish their ancient exodus from Madagascar if that was the case, nor could they have become such good fighters so quickly. And the fact that isolated Lemurians still on Madagascar, such as the Shee-Ree, were decidedly not pacifistic only reinforced his new thesis.
They were talkers, though. Even among the Shee-Ree, spreading tales to other bands, tribes, even species, was their most lucrative export commodity. It was what it was, and everybody was doing their best, but it was hard to blame a ’Cat for backsliding in the stress of combat. Henry Stokes, trying to make the best of it, had even sent (with a code prefix specifying that the message be decoded only by Ed Palmer, Walker’s comm officer, and read by Matt alone) a suggestion that they try to use the inevitable lapses—which the enemy must be aware of—to their advantage. He hadn’t suggested when or how because Lemurians were also helplessly curious and other comm.-’Cats probably did decode the message. Hopefully, the seriousness of its eyes-only nature would keep them from blabbing.
With the launch away, Tassat sped ahead, taking up position. She’d recover her boat from Santa Catalina after they anchored. Very shortly, Ben Mallory came huffing up the stairs. “Getting out of shape,” he lamented, then grinned and saluted when he saw Matt; it had been a long time. Matt grinned back and shook his hand. “I’m sure Colonel Chack’ll be happy to let you train with his Raiders while they’re on the island.”