Iron Gray Sea

CHAPTER 25

March 25, 1944

USS Walker

South China Sea

1142

The world was a cold, metallic, liquid gray, much as it had been for days, and the rough, disorganized swells still bared their jagged, windswept teeth. Most of the Lemurians on USS Walker moved slowly, with considerable determination, and even some of the old hands weren’t feeling too hot. They’d followed the slow-moving, raging storm as it thundered northwest across the Fil-pin Lands (old Luzon), until it veered north across Formosa on its way up the China coast and into the Yellow Sea. It had been a wild, bitter thing, not quite a Strakka, but certainly a respectable typhoon. Matt was no meteorologist, but the weather of this world still confused him. This should have been the tail end of the rainy season on swell-hidden Formosa, he thought, but it was too early in the year for typhoons. The experienced ’Cats on Walker weren’t surprised by the weather-even if the skinny, vigorously bucking ship gave them a hard time. Maybe Walker needed a Sky Priest “sailing master” of her own, at least as a weather weenie.

The worst had passed, leaving the old, groaning, complaining ship bounding reluctantly through the Luzon Strait. They’d deliberately made that passage in early daylight, with keen lookouts on the alert. The spray of little islands, north and south, had given Matt and Spanky the creeps. They still couldn’t get a proper fix on their position, but when the lookout high in the crow’s nest confirmed Formosa to the northeast, they knew they were in the clear. Matt never saw the island from the bridge, but it was just as well. If he had, in these seas, it would mean they were way too close.

Spanky clanked up the stairs aft and came on the bridge just a few moments before the bell at the base of the foremast was struck, indicating the afternoon watch change. Other men and ’Cats had already begun appearing, relieving those who’d been standing the morning watch. Spanky looked at the quartermaster’s log, then lurched toward the captain’s chair as the ship’s bow took a sudden plunge.

“I’m ready to relieve you, sir,” Spanky said a little anxiously. Matt had been standing far too many watches, in his view, or just hanging around the bridge too much, even when off duty. The news from everywhere had them all uptight, but Matt was letting his own impatience and frustration show a bit more than usual. The Skipper’s mood put everyone on edge, and Spanky knew Sandra was worried about her new husband. It was obvious he wanted to be where the action was, and Spanky sympathized. Particularly when their own mission was looking more and more like a wild goose chase. Hidoiame might be just a few miles away-or a thousand by now. Nothing had been able to fly for a week, and they had no recent reports of sightings. Of course, there was no way they could launch Walker ’s own new Nancy either. The storm was leaving them at last, but they might as well have been groping in the dark with their hands tied behind them.

Matt yawned hugely. “Am I ever ready to be relieved!” he said, making Spanky smile. “How are things in engineering?” he asked, knowing Spanky would have checked personally before he reported for duty.

Spanky’s smile faded. “They’re keepin’ her together, but a week of heavy seas, as beat up as she was to start with, has kind of roughed her up. Tabby really wants to secure number four boiler, and it’s like a sauna down there. Loose steam all over the place.” He shook his head. “I never seen anything like it. Letts’s gasket is swell stuff, and there haven’t been any failures, but, well, if they were water lines, I’d say they were weeping. As it is, the couplings just seem to smoke, see? No jets, no gushers. Nothing has blown, but…” He shook his head. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies. The guys tighten ’em up and they quit for a while-but directly they start smokin’ again. It’s like the gaskets are too tough to blow, but as the creosote stuff in ’em starts breakin’ down, they get kind of permeable.”

“There hasn’t been anything like this reported on our other ships, has there?”

“No, sir, but we keep higher pressure, and we been doin’ it a long time. Maybe some of the industrial power plants have been running longer, but they’re in the open air and lose a lot of pressure at the piston packing. Hell, you know? I’ve never asked if they’ve ever had a failure. Maybe it happens all the time and they take it in stride-just cool her down and change the damn gasket!”

Matt tried a grin on for size. “If that’s so, it’s still better gasket material than we’ve ever had. At least it warns you when it’s time to replace it! Not many gaskets would have held up to as much steaming as we’ve done over the past few months.”

Spanky brightened. “I guess you’re right.”

Matt looked at him. There was something else; he could tell. “What’s eating you besides that?”

Spanky grunted, angry at himself. “Just those stupid rivets I signed off on. We’re starting to get water in the fuel bunkers, more than usual. That means loose rivets-or loose seams caused by loose rivets. Either way, it’s the damn rivets.”

“The ship’s been working hard,” Matt suggested.

“Sure, but it’s already about as bad as it was when we hightailed it out of Surabaya. It’s like the old gal’s face-lift fell in record time.”

Matt nodded grimly. “We’ve done a lot of fighting, Spanky, and taken a lot of hits. We did a lot of fighting after Surabaya, if you’ll recall. We’ll have her in the yard soon, one way or another. She’ll hold up.”

Spanky managed another grin. “Damn straight! Now why don’t you go get some sleep, Skipper?”

Matt yawned again. “I think I will, just on my little cot in the chart house.” He stood. “I stand relieved,” he said formally. “Commander McFarlane has the deck.”

Half an hour later, Sandra made her way up the stairs. She usually made an appearance after the midday casualties reported to the wardroom. There were always a few, especially when the sea was up. Cuts and scrapes mostly, but sometimes broken fingers and worse that the crew hadn’t reported to her mates. She had sick-berth attendants now to check on those confined to their racks.

Spanky happened to be looking aft to check if they were making smoke when he saw her. Her long hair was damp and escaping its ponytail, and her smile when she saw Spanky was radiant. What a dame, he thought. The contrast between the pretty woman and the rusty iron and roiling sea that filled the rest of his view was striking. After everything they’d been through, Sandra had been as much a rock for all the destroyermen as she’d been for the Skipper. Spanky had seen her as scared, stubborn, mad, or otherworldly calm as anybody in a fight-but he’d never seen her whine or really carry on much at all about the hand they’d been dealt. She’d made the most of things and saved countless lives. She may have saved all of us, in a way, Spanky thought, by keepin’ the Skipper steady. Now that she’d finally gotten her guy, he was happy for both of them.

Spanky nodded at the chart-house hatch, and Sandra hesitated. If Matt was asleep, she didn’t want to wake him. Her mission to the bridge was to order him to get some rest, after all. Spanky waved her in with a grin, and she nodded. Opening the hatch on the side of the chart house, she stepped inside. The hatch squeaked and the sound ’Cat stationed inside started to stand, but she motioned him back down. Matt was lying on a rumpled cot, his feet hanging off the end. His head rolled from side to side with the pitching of the ship, and he was fast asleep. Again, she was amazed by what he could sleep through-what all the old destroyermen could tune out. The hatch had been noisy, its hinges rusty, and her steps were loud, to her, as she moved to the chair beside the cot. The active pinging of the sonar sounded like a china-bell heartbeat in the earphones of the sound ’Cat, and the blower and cumulative machinery of the ship vibrated in the bulkheads, deck, and even the cot. Over all was the wild motion of the old destroyer, the booming sea against her plates, and the whistle of the wind around the rotten hatch seal. None of it bothered the tired man on the cot, but if the sounds changed, or there was an instant of silence, of all things, he could come instantly awake. She smiled and adjusted the damp pillow to still her husband’s head. He started to snore.

For a brief time, there in the pitching chart house, sitting by Matt’s sleeping side, Sandra felt a sense of happy normalcy. In the dim light of the porthole and sonar equipment, with a musty-smelling ’Cat sitting beside her in a compartment that stank of old sweat and mildew, she forgot their difficult task and greater responsibility. For a little while, Sandra was just a wife with a wifely concern for her exhausted husband, and Matt Reddy was just a man, taking a nap.

She jumped in her seat when the general quarters alarm gargled its insistent cry, and when she looked back at Matt, she saw his smiling green eyes.

“Good day, m’dear,” he said. “Help me with my shoes, wilya?”

“Of course, Matthew.”

“What have we got?” Matt demanded before Minnie could announce him.

“Smoke, Skipper,” Spanky replied. “Sorry to bug you, but the lookout in the crow’s nest is pretty sure he seen smoke due north in the Formosa Strait.” Spanky scratched an ear. “Kid must have freaky-good eyes to spot gray smoke against all that gray out there, but I believe him.” He looked thoughtful. “I guess it could be one of our guys, but I don’t think so.”

“Me either,” Matt agreed. “All our steamers are supposed to have cleared the area.” He looked at Spanky with a predatory grin. “I think we’ve caught our Japs, Mr. McFarlane.”

Spanky nodded. “Looks like. Or they’ve caught us.”

Matt didn’t reply. He looked at the diminutive talker. “Ask the lookout if he could determine anything about range, course, and speed.”

“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan,” Minnie said in her small voice. She spoke into her microphone. “Nothing yet, Skipper. Jus’ smoke bearing tree fi oh. A blue-gray smear at angle to horizon.”

Matt rubbed his forehead above his eyes. “Very well. Let’s go have a look, Mr. McFarlane.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Helm, make your course three two zero. If they’re steaming southeast, we’ll have to meet ’em. Lee helm,” he said to the ’Cat on the engine-room telegraph. “All ahead two-thirds.”

“Making my course three two zero,” replied Chief Quartermaster Paddy Rosen.

“All ahead two-thirds,” announced the ’Cat as the engine room pointer advanced from STANDARD to match his TWO — THIRDS, and the old destroyer reluctantly surged against the sharply corrugated swells. Once, standard would have signified twenty knots, but it meant closer to fifteen now. Less, in these seas. Two-thirds would take Walker churning through the rough waves at a touch over twenty. Matt looked at his watch. “You still have the deck, Spanky. I’ll be back in half an hour. Call me when we get a positive ID, or if anything breaks.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper. Uh, you gonna get some more rest?”

Matt shook his head. “No, I think the surgeon and I will take a walk around the ship.” He looked at Sandra. “If you like?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” said Spanky, “but use the damn hand ropes!” he warned. “The old gal’s still hoppin’ around like a ca-” He caught himself and looked around. “Like a rabbit on hot asphalt!”

The whole crew was still at general quarters, and Matt wanted to see them there. He couldn’t roam the ship as often as he liked, but he always tried to see his people at times like this. Everyone knew they’d seen something, and there wasn’t much doubt among the crew that it was the murderous Japanese. They’d all seen a lot of action now, but only about half the ship’s complement had faced a “modern” enemy, either aboard Walker or Mahan. Amagi had been infinitely larger and more powerful than their present quarry, but they had essentially mousetrapped the great battle cruiser. A lot went wrong and a lot went amazingly right, but they’d still sunk her almost by accident. Few retained any illusions that their upcoming fight would be a cakewalk. Even the newest hands no longer believed Walker was invincible. She’d taken too much damage from relatively primitive enemies to think that way anymore. And if anyone forgot how fragile she really was, she reminded them herself with her groans and rattles, her deep, painful shudders, and the running rust sores the long voyage had given her.

Matt knew enough about Hidoiame to fear her; he’d seen earlier versions of her Kagero class. He was pretty sure they’d fought some on their run out of Surabaya. They’d been faster and more heavily armed than Walker even then. He knew from what the crazy cook had told Okada that this specimen had only two twin five-inch mounts instead of three; one forward and one aft, but an augmented battery of 25 mm guns like the two mounts Walker had taken from Amagi had been added. Apparently, surface actions had grown less common in that other war, and clusters of twenty-fives were better against aircraft. Enough of those things could shred his ship by themselves, despite what Spanky or the Bosun thought of the weapons individually. Campeti had grown to like them-and if he liked them, they were bad news.

We’ll have to keep our distance, Matt thought as he and Sandra descended the companionway and went forward to the wardroom.

“Boats!” he exclaimed when he saw Chief Gray sitting on a chair beside a clearly miserable Diania. He’d wondered where the Super Bosun was. Gray looked up, probably horrified he’d been caught like this. One hand was holding a bucket, the other tentatively patting the sick girl’s back. Diania’s face was in the bucket, her trembling hands holding wet, dark hair out of the way.

“Oh, you poor dear!” Sandra exclaimed, rushing forward. She looked at her pharmacist’s mates. “I thought she was doing better!”

“She was,” one said, but then gestured around. Diania wasn’t the only human female puking in the wardroom. “I guess it come and go,” the ’Cat said with a slightly superior air. Sandra was annoyed. All the ’Cats had been just as sick the first time they rode Walker in a storm. She knelt in front of Diania.

“Are you all right?” What a stupid question.

“Aye’m,” came a muffled croak from within the bucket. “I’ll be back tae me duties soon enu…” The bucket thundered.

“Boats,” Matt said softly, “you’re damage-control officer. You need to be… You’ve got other duties.”

“Aye, sir,” Gray grumbled. “An’ I was doin’ ’em too, when I came through here an’ seen this. I ain’t never seen so many broads… blowin’ tubes, as it were, all at once. It was… terrible! I had to do somethin’ to stop the leaks.”

Sandra snapped her fingers at a PM. “You! Relieve Mr. Gray this instant! He does have other duties, and right now, this is yours!”

Gratefully, Gray surrendered the bucket, but paused, electrocuted, when Diania grabbed his hand.

“Thankee,” she mumbled, her red-rimmed eyes peering up at him. “Ye’re not sich a beast as ye make out. I’ll nae fergit!”

Gray retrieved his scalded hand.

“I’ll, uh, get on down to, ah… make sure…”

Matt shooed him off. When Sandra was sure Diania and the others were receiving proper care, they got the coffee they’d come for and headed aft.

“Chief Gray seems almost scared of Diania,” Sandra said as they neared the airlock to the forward fireroom. She’d rarely been in there before.

“Can you blame him?” Matt asked. “He was married once, you know, and it didn’t go well. They had a kid, but he was probably lost on Oklahoma, last we heard. At Pearl.” Matt frowned. “All Gray’s ever had out of… obligated relationships is pain. He never even shacked up with a Filipino gal. I’m sure he’s visited his share of… professional ladies over the years, some just as young as Diania, but that’s not what she is, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He won’t take advantage, but with her stalking him like the hunting dame her name sounds like-” He snorted. “I’d be scared too. He’s old enough to be her grandpa!”

“You really think she’s stalking him?” Sandra asked, amused.

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe. I know she admires him. I also know age shouldn’t matter, not here-certainly not with them. Consider their respective backgrounds; both somewhat monastic, and Diania never expected the opportunity for an ‘obligated’ relationship of any sort, other than practical slavery.” Sandra smiled. “Diania’s an adult, over twenty, I’m sure, even if she doesn’t know exactly. Mr. Gray obviously cares for her. I think they’d be good for each other.”

They cycled through into the forward fireroom and passed between the large bunkers that filled the space where the number one boiler used to be.

“’Ten-shun!!” cried a Lemurian snipe.

Matt quickly called, “As you were!” before he could disrupt anything. “Lieutenant,” he greeted Tabby when she appeared before him.

“Skipper,” she said. “We fixin’ to get them damn Japs?”

“I hope so. Any serious problems?” Matt knew better than to ask if there were any problems at all. There were plenty of nuisance issues he already knew about, and Tabby would dutifully recite each one if she thought that’s what he wanted.

“Nothing new not already in report,” Tabby said. “I’ll keep screws turnin’ as long as you keep holes outta my spaces!”

Matt chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

“Uh,” Tabby paused. “Spanky have the deck?”

“He does.”

“He on aft deckhouse when we fight? On auxiliary conn?”

“That’s right.”

“You… you tell him I ask he be careful?”

“I sure will, Lieutenant,” Matt said. “Carry on.”

“Yes, indeed,” Sandra said cheerfully as they moved aft. “And Mr. Gray is worried about his stalker!”

“Damn it,” Matt muttered. “Nothing I can do about it, but this is exactly the sort of thing that proves that women-females of any sort-just don’t belong on warships!”

“Of course we don’t,” Sandra soothed with a grin. Matt rolled his eyes.

The sea remained just as vigorous when they came on deck through the forward hatch of the aft deckhouse. Everywhere they’d been, they’d stopped a moment and asked a question or passed an encouraging word. The 25 mm mounts were manned by wet ’Cats and men. The ship always took a lot of water across the deck here. Matt waved at the crews when they stood from behind the shelter of the steel tubs. Jeek and Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites met them at the galley beneath the amidships deckhouse.

“I was looking for you, Chief Jeek,” Matt said, blowing misted seawater off his lips.

“Cap-i-taan?”

“If that is Hidoiame up ahead, we’ll likely have to have the ‘Nancy’ over the side.”

Jeek nodded sadly. “We just got her too.”

“I know, and I hate it. But the last thing we need is a burning plane on deck.”

“Ay, ay, sur.”

Matt turned to Stites. “What have you got?”

“Uh, yes, sir. Two things. First, Mr. Campeti has arrested Lanier.”

“ Arrested? My God, what’s he done now?”

“Well, most of the mess attendants and such are shell handlers and on gun’s crews when we go to battle stations…”

“So?”

“Lanier wouldn’t turn half a dozen of ’em loose until they stowed his damn Coke machine. He’s done it before, and the fellas are always late to their stations, but Campeti’s sick of Gunnery always bein’ the last to report-and him and Lanier got into it. Lanier said his machine was more important than any damn gun, and when Campeti said it was a useless piece of…” Stites glanced at Sandra. “Anyway, Lanier took a swing.”

“A swing?”

“Yes, sir. I saw it myself. Course, it was kinda slow and Mr. Campeti dodged it fine-but there was a lot of weight behind that punch and Lanier sorta capsized.”

“Was he hurt?”

“No, sir, but he landed on Juan, uh, Mr. Marcos, and snapped off that wood leg of his. That’s why there’s a problem.”

“Okay.”

“Well, the fellas’ll need fed before we go into action”-Matt always insisted on that, and Stites continued-“and since Juan’s in dry dock, he can’t run the galley-”

“So Campeti can’t clap Lanier in irons like he deserves,” Matt finished.

“Yes, sir-I mean, no, sir.”

“I see.”

In an odd way, Matt was actually enjoying this. Once again, he might soon be responsible for all their lives, but this… complaint harked back to a simpler time, before the war here, before the Squall, before the war back home. Even before the tardy, frantic, prewar readiness exercises when many of his duties involved just riding herd on a shipload of rambunctious… boys. He had to stifle a nostalgic smile. He stepped closer to the galley window where he was sure Earl Lanier had been listening.

“Is this true, Lanier?” he shouted over the sea and the roaring galley furnace inside. Lanier appeared.

“Not completely, sir, though some folks might’a seen it that way.”

“Very well. I’ll deal with you at mast. Consider yourself confined to your duty station-the galley-until further notice.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Lanier sulked.

Matt looked back at Stites. “What else?”

“Sir?”

“You said there were two things?”

“Oh! Mr. Campeti asks if we want any of the black-powder shells in the ready lockers or the lineup, you know, in case the new ones give us fits.”

“Does he expect any fits?”

“No, sir, he hopes not.”

“Then no. The older shells’ll put us in range of those things.” Matt gestured back at the 25 mm guns. “That’s no good.”

“No, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir.”

Matt looked at his watch again. He’d been gone a little over twenty minutes. If Spanky had decided the target was an illusion, someone would have found him and told him. If it was doing anything threatening, he’d have been called back to the bridge. All the same, whatever it was, it ought to be in sight by now.

“Carry on, Stites, Jeek. I’ll be on the bridge if any more… domestic hostilities erupt. And since we’re liable to be in action before long, the punishment for such acts will increase exponentially. Is that clear?”