Rising Tides

CHAPTER 21

North of Tjilatjap (Chill-chaap)

S anta Catalina ’s engine room telegraph rang up “Astern Slow,” and Dean Laney stood up from the rough box he was sitting on. (Strangely, though a few chairs had survived the “lighten ship” purge, every single chair, stool, or anything even vaguely comfortable to sit on in engineering had vanished.) Thinking dark thoughts, he winced at the resurgent piles that had begun tormenting him again. As quickly as he could, he moved to shift his own lever in response. “Astern slow!” he shouted at the ’Cat throttlemen.

The ’Cats’ll love The Thing, Laney thought. If it works. He crossed his fingers. The best ’Cat snipes understood turbines now, but they knew those were beyond their capability to build from scratch-at least in the near term. The compound engines they’d been making worked well, and so did the huge, crude, bulky, triple-expansion monsters being built for the “flattop Homes,” but this was the first “American” reciprocating engine they’d ever seen. They were familiar with the principle, but this machine represented the virtual “state of the art” of its type.

With mutual encouraging blinks, two Lemurians turned the grimy wheel on the main valve. High-pressure steam hooshed into the first massive cylinder of the triple-expansion engine dominating the compartment. The three big piston rods twitched. Then, with a mighty, joint-sore shudder, accompanied by hoots of glee, the crankpins slowly moved the webs that in turn spun the shaft. They were all one huge casting, but at that moment they seemed separate entities, working together like long-lost friends. With the first piston approaching the bottom of its stroke, the valve chest vented the now lower-pressure steam into the next, even larger cylinder, pushing that piston down. Just before the first one finished its stroke, the third and largest piston tasted low-pressure steam once again and helped heave the first one back up-to start the process again.

The hoots became a cheer, and even Laney’s face creased into a grin. Over the noise, they heard cheering all over the ship. Steam hissed here and there, but not from any major leaks Laney could see. Certainly not in the lines, which had been his biggest concern. The shaft was turning, and ’Cats scampered to spew oil on anything anywhere that they hadn’t been able to get at before. The bottom shaft webs and rod caps had been in the water, and they got liberally doused when they came up. There was a diminishing rumble aft as the stuffing box and shaft bearing returned to their duty and oil was sloshed on them as well. It’ll be an oily, slimy mess down here, Laney thought happily, until we can secure and wipe some of This shit up.

A steady, thrashing, whumping sound came from aft, and he knew the screw was beating at the water. The bow was still stuck lightly in the silt and the hull began to groan as the engine strained to pull it free. The telegraph rang up “Astern Full.”

Laney blinked. “Damn. I thought the Skipper was going to try to ease us off, not horse her.” He didn’t reflect on the fact that Lieutenant Commander Chapelle had suddenly become the “Skipper” as soon as the engine came to life. He answered the ring, then turned to the throttlemen. “Open her up, boys!”

Dark smoke piled into the still, humid air. Russ Chapelle couldn’t hear much over the cheering, but he could feel the life returning to the old ship beneath his feet. Her bow was still stuck, however, and the deck shuddered with restrained energy. Sammy was his talker, stationed near the speaking tubes, ready to shout if anyone reported a casualty. So far, the old girl was holding together. Russ remained anxious, but wasn’t surprised. Most of the Navy ’Cats on this expedition had been involved in refloating Walker, and the little guys had really learned their stuff.

“Full astern,” he ordered. Ben Mallory looked at him nervously. “Don’t worry,” Russ said. “I know what’s behind us. I won’t crack us up.” Santa Catalina was about four hundred feet long. With her stern swung out from the beach, there was a shallow sandbar studded with ancient drowned tree trunks little more than a thousand feet aft. The vibration began to build and the cheers started to ebb as murky water churned around the laboring screw. Then, suddenly, something gave. Maybe it was suction, or the ship was still too heavy forward, but without warning, the old freighter just seemed to ooze away from the beach. There was a slight dipping sensation as the bow abruptly discovered that nothing supported it but water, and Chapelle instantly rang “Stop Engine” on the big, dingy brass telegraph.

“Lookouts!” he shouted at the bridgewings. “Range estimates every fifty… uh, tails!” A “standard tail” was close enough to a yard that he wouldn’t need to convert it. He moved the wheel experimentally. They had tested the steering engine…

“One hundred yards!” called the port lookout, estimating the range to shore and using the accepted Navy measurement.

“Around nine hundred!” came the range from starboard, looking aft. He couldn’t see for himself, but he was relaying the estimate of another lookout on the aft deckhouse, above the fantail.

Russ began turning the wheel. “I’m giving her ‘right standard rudder,’ ” he explained to Ben. “I hope that even with the engine stopped we gained enough steerageway to bring her stern around.” He grinned. “Slow and easy, that’s me! Hell, I’ve been conning a ship with no engines at all lately! That makes you start thinking ahead!” That was also why Tolson hadn’t come any farther upriver. Without engines, if she got into trouble in the confined space, she was stuck.

“You’re doing fine,” Ben assured him. “Just remember, this rusty old tub of yours isn’t what’s important.”

“She’s more important than you think,” Russ retorted. “But don’t worry, I won’t break any of your toys.”

“Two hundred yards!” called the lookout. “Stern started to turn, but the current stopped it.”

Russ rang up “Astern Slow” and the vibration beneath their feet resumed. “I don’t think I can turn her into the current,” he said aloud, maybe to Ben, maybe to himself. “But maybe I can hold her by the tail while the bow swings out.” He looked at the starboard lookout. “Range?”

“About seven hundred. The… ah… closing rate? It is less.”

“Good,” Russ replied. He rang “Stop Engine” again, and spun the wheel before ringing “Ahead Slow.” The vibration ceased momentarily, then resumed with an entirely different resonance. He glanced at Ben with a self-deprecating grin. “Should’ve brought a couple of bridge officers along! Frankly, though, I don’t think anybody ever thought we’d really be steaming this bucket out of here.” He shrugged. “I didn’t.”

Ever so slowly, Santa Catalina coasted to a stop, her screw partially exposed, ponderously slapping the murky water. Just as slowly, she began to move forward-leaving only the slightest wake to wash over fascinated, watching eyes.

“Lookouts and leadsmen to the fo’c’sle!” Chapelle ordered. Sammy loudly repeated the command through a rusty speaking trumpet on the starboard bridgewing. Sammy was shaping up to be a pretty good bosun’s mate, Chapelle thought. Too bad he couldn’t blow a pipe.

“You want me to take the wheel, boss?” “Mikey” Monk asked. He’d suddenly become Chapelle’s exec.

“Not just yet,” Russ replied. “If anybody’s gonna crack this egg, it better be me.” He cast a look at Ben. “I don’t think the good major will shoot me if I do it. He might if I let somebody else, and I’d probably have it coming.” He called out to Sammy. “What’s our depth?”

“Five fathoms, Skipper,” came the reply. “Get deeper now,” Sammy added hopefully. He was watching a ’Cat stationed just aft of the forward crates, holding up the number of fathoms with his fingers as they were relayed to him. Ahead of the ship, several hundred yards, the steam barge putted along, testing the waters with its own lead, prepared to wave a red flag if the bottom came up.

Russ grunted, estimating just about zero margin for error. With her present load, Santa Catalina drew nearly twenty-four feet. Five fathoms was thirty. The ship wasn’t particularly heavily loaded, and she’d made it into the lake half full of water, so it seemed reasonable she could get out again, especially riding higher. But Russ didn’t know what the channel had done in the year and a half she’d been on the beach, or what the tide had been like when she came in. New snags or sandbars might have formed; even the channel might have shifted. That didn’t matter, since he didn’t know the channel anyway, and they’d just have to grope along, but a sandbar could be bad.

Slowly, slowly, they steamed to the south end of the lake, creeping along just fast enough to keep steerageway. The jungle closed in as they neared the river channel, clutching at them as they passed, it seemed. Clouds built up and they proceeded even more cautiously through an afternoon downpour. At one point, through the nearly opaque rain, Moe used his keen eyes to spot the red flag on the barge waving frantically, and Chapelle called down to reduce speed even more. They couldn’t stop because the current would move them unpredictably, so they began preparations to moor. Then word came that the depth at the river mouth was four fathoms- Santa Catalina ’s exact depth.

“Okay,” Russ said, licking his lips. He’d spent a lot of time poring over a yellowed Solunar chart on the wheelhouse bulkhead. The next time the tide would run higher than it now did would be at 0126 on the morning of November 12. He didn’t want to wait that long. “Dump the guns,” he ordered regretfully. The old freighter had been armed with a dual-purpose five-inch gun forward, and a three-incher aft. Both were badly corroded, their bores pitted beyond serious use, but he’d hoped to save them. Still, they’d been dismounted and rigged to go over the side in a hurry, prepared for this very eventuality. The ship needed only a few inches, and hopefully the guns would provide them. Massive splashes preceded a slight lurch aboard the ship, and tentatively, Santa Catalina eased forward.

Except for the drumming rain, the lethargic throb of the engine, and muted reports from Sammy, standing soaked on the bridgewing, there was complete silence on the bridge. They felt the slightest, prolonged, quivering shudder through their shoes as the keel kissed the bottom and slid through the silt. He hoped the rusty hull and ancient rivets would stand the strain-and they wouldn’t discover a random rock or boulder.

“Ahead one-third,” Russ ordered, hoping increased inertia would carry them across. They were committed now. They’d make it or get stuck, probably for a couple of weeks. There was little more they could do to lighten the ship, not without dipping into their precious cargo itself. He risked a glance at Ben and saw that the flier’s knuckles were white as he gripped his hat in his hand, poised as if preparing to wipe sweat from his brow with an imaginary sleeve.

He’d never seen Ben like this before-this… intense. He sensed what the man was straining against: the horror that after all they’d been through, fate might still steal their prize. Even now, on the brink of success, after all they’d struggled for and lost, a simple capricious sandbar might rob them of the unexpected-unimagined-treasure stored in those moldy wooden crates. Maybe for the first time, Russ truly understood what the planes meant to Ben; what they might mean for all of them.

To Ben, they were the ultimate expression of technology on this planet. They were also an almost holy connection to everything he’d personally lost. They were his Walker. Becoming a pursuit pilot and learning to tame P-40s-the hottest things America had in the air-had defined who Ben Mallory was. Since the “old” war had started and they’d wound up here, Ben had accomplished amazing things. He’d saved them all, most likely, by flying the battered old PBY until it literally disintegrated around him. Since then, he’d been instrumental in providing primitive but apparently reliable airpower to the Allies. He hadn’t been in the Philippines, but he’d made no secret of his disgust regarding MacArthur’s failure to bomb Formosa with his flock of B-17s during the brief but Godsent space between Pearl Harbor and the air attacks that ultimately slaughtered the big bombers on the ground.

The Air Corps in general and the vaunted P-40s in particular had garnered a poor reputation among the destroyermen as they’d watched them swatted from the sky by the nimble Jap “Zeros.” Ben still argued that those same, possibly preventable air attacks, had ultimately pared away the P-40s in the Philippines before their pilots ever really had a chance to learn to use the better, heavier E models. He often pointed to the successes of the AVG B models in China to prove there’d been nothing wrong with the planes that a little practice couldn’t cure. He clearly loved the things, and to have them back was the greatest reward he could possibly receive for all his service to date. To lose them now might actually destroy him.

To everyone else, and certainly to Ben as well, the planes represented an insurmountable leap ahead that their enemies couldn’t hope to match. Of the twenty-eight planes on board, Ben estimated they could assemble at least eighteen, maybe twenty. Through salvage and spares, they’d have the parts to keep them going for some time, but they would inevitably lose some to training accidents, maintenance foul-ups, and-to Russ-the simple quirky, unexplainable disasters that eventually befell all extraordinarily complicated equipment. Hell, what about those stupid MK-15 torpedoes? They would have to husband the planes that survived, cherish them, and treat them like the temperamental thoroughbred stallions they were-lavish them with attention and keep them in tip-top shape. Ride Them easy, he thought with growing confidence-and a growing anxiety similar to Ben’s-because when the gate pops open, they’re liable to win the war.

“S’okay, Mr. Mallory,” Russ said gently as the rumble under the hull died away. “Maybe I’m just a jumped-up torpedoman, but I’ve done this sort of thing before. We’ll get your toys out for you, me an’ this old rust bucket. Then me and Tolson ’ll be back in the Navy war. You kick their heads off from the air, will ya?”

“You… you think we’ve made it?” Ben asked cautiously, hushed.

Russ released his own white-knuckle hold on the wheel, stretched his fingers, and clasped it again more loosely. “Yep, I think we have.” He actually giggled. “God help me, I think we have.” He sighed and turned to Monk. “Send to Tolson and the salvage squadron: ‘Expect company for dinner, and it better be good.’ Then get back here as quick as you can. We’ll be in the clear in a few minutes, and I think it’s time your ‘Air Snipe’ ass learned to handle your ‘new’ ship.” He grinned at Monk’s expression. “Hey, Mikey, don’t look at me like that! I already have a ship, and she’s a lot prettier too! You want me to give her to Laney?”

“Hell, no!” Monk exclaimed. “I just wasn’t expecting it! Imagine, me with my own ship!” He still looked stunned, and Russ and Ben both laughed. “Hard to imagine a lot of things these days,” Russ agreed. “Now run along and send that message!” He paused. “Oh, and send to Tolson to have an extra set of colors, Stars and Stripes, sent across as soon as we arrive. There’s nothing left of the flags aboard here, and Santa Catalina ’s been without one for far too long.”