Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(90)
Most of all, they couldn’t help wondering if the P-40 pilot might’ve seen them, dancing and waving, and somehow reported it. The plane passed fairly close at one point. But Kurokawa hadn’t summoned Sandra, as she’d expected, to discuss what it meant, so they might never know. Kurokawa hadn’t spoken to any of them, in fact, since the move, and the only notable visitor had been a dark-haired League major named Rizzo, who stayed very briefly and seemed interested only in their living conditions. That surprised them all, and they wondered if Kurokawa had forgotten them.
More likely, he was busy with Savoie. Without binoculars, all they could see on her was a lot of Grik activity; mostly trainees learning to operate her, apparently. But she hadn’t moved, and even her great gun turrets remained still. If Kurokawa was training a crew, it didn’t look like he’d gotten to gunnery yet. That was both encouraging and a little unnerving. Then again, everything about their situation was unnerving. They had no idea what was happening, how their friends were, how the war progressed, or what twisted purpose Kurokawa was saving them for. Most unsettling of all, perhaps, were the groups of Japanese men who came to stare at the women. Given how distracting the “dame famine” had been to Matt’s destroyermen, the same issue here, prolonged far longer, must be growing difficult for Kurokawa to control. Sandra remembered Muriname’s declaration of loyalty to his lord, but had also seen the naked lust in his eyes. He couldn’t be the only one driven half-mad by the total lack of women for so long. Unless they’d all resigned themselves to becoming warrior monks, that issue alone might eventually overthrow Kurokawa when nothing else could. Not that they’d benefit. His “protection,” for whatever reason, was probably the only thing keeping them alive. It was certainly the only thing keeping the women unmolested. Some of the men who came to watch were boisterous and mocking, shouting insults and throwing sticks and rocks over the moat, laughing among themselves. Others were silent and intense. Gunny Horn seemed most concerned about the latter, and everyone knew he’d die before such a group got their hands on Sandra or Diania.
Lange stood, grunting, his drawing in the dirt fading as the light quickly left them. As usual, so near the equator, night fell abruptly. He kicked the sand with his shoe. “Not that it matters,” he said grimly. “Nothing we observe will do our side any good.”
“It will,” Sandra insisted, “when we get away.” Lange snorted. “We will escape,” she stated defiantly, unequivocally. “In the meantime, it gives us something to do.”
Diania had joined them, and suddenly cocked her head to one side. “Tss!” she said sharply. “What’s that sound?”
All talking abruptly ceased and they strained to hear. At first it was hard to discern over the hiss of the nearby surf, but soon even Horn, with the worst hearing of them all, held up his hand. “It’s planes,” he said definitively. “Lots of them—or fewer, with multiple engines. Still, more than one.” They all stared at the near-black sky. Even Adar had managed to rise and, with Ruffy’s help, stepped outside the hut, looking up. “Radiaal engines,” Adar said, silver eyes flashing in the growing starlight. The Japanese planes all used radials, and the League Ju-52 had boasted three. But these were different, with a distinctive sound. “That new Clipper that brought Hij Geerki down to Liberty City”—Adar still called Grik City that—“was one of the first of a new class; the first of many Cap-i-taan Reddy hoped to get. It had staacked ra-diaals that sounded like that, but there is more than one!”
They all looked at the anchorage, awash in the gleam of hundreds of lamps and even torches burning from one end to the other, as workers prepared to slave through the night on the many projects. “What a target!” Horn almost whispered. The drone grew louder.
“I see them!” Ruffy cried, pointing with his free hand. “Exhaust flares! Blue! Very high. They block the staars as they paass!”
The others stared again. They believed him but couldn’t see what he did. That was probably a good thing. Grik fought in darkness but preferred not to. Their night vision was poor compared to that of Lemurians or even humans. So if Ruffy was the only one to see them, the Grik certainly couldn’t, especially through the glare surrounding the anchorage. A bright flash lit the harbor, near where the ironclad BBs were becoming aircraft carriers. Another quickly followed, then a whole string of eruptions, totaling ten or twelve, boiled up in the air, followed by distant whump, whump, whump sounds. Balls of orange fire rolled into the sky and spread along the docks or the surface of the water. Moments later, more firebombs marched across Kurokawa’s harbor facilities. Then a third cluster fell, much closer, near where the HQ compound stood. A couple even fell on Savoie, lighting up her afterdeck and possibly marking her for further attention. Flames soared in the distant forest, in the vicinity of the airfield the P-40 set alight, and another string of explosions seared the ground very close, just a few hundred yards to the north near that other airfield. They weren’t loud explosions, just deep-throated, whooshing thumps of heavy Allied incendiaries, but the shouting excitement they aroused in the compound was very loud indeed.
“Why are you all so happy?” Becher Lange demanded. “They might hit us!”
“Yeah, they might,” Horn agreed gleefully, “but that just puts us back in the fight, doesn’t it?”