"Then you and Boats hit the rack. That's an order."
"Aye, aye, Skipper," came the tired reply. Matt stepped to the rail with a soft sigh of relief. Sandra was still there. She'd overheard.
"Thank God," she murmured. "It may sound strange, but every time this ship gets the slightest scratch, I feel it in my own skin."
Matt grinned. "I know how you feel. When I first assumed command, I honestly didn't think much of her. But now, after all she's been through . . ." He shrugged, and gestured at the dead fish. It had floated off a dozen yards or so. "Of course, her thin old skin's the only thing between us and those things. That tends to focus your appreciation amazingly." He chuckled, and after a brief hesitation, she joined him. They felt a faint, shuddering vibration under their feet, and another huge fish, probably two-thirds as long as Walker, rose beside the ship. It must have scraped her bottom as it passed. Without hesitation, it lunged at its dead cousin and snatched an enormous swath of flesh. Bright bone and white blubber lay exposed and more blood clouded the water. Silvery flashes began to reflect the searchlight's beam. With a startled cry, Sandra clutched his arm.
"Mr. Garrett! Let's leave our dinner guest to his meal before he samples the side dish, if you please!"
The blower wound up. A flying packet of spray struck Matt and Sandra and soaked them both. The water had an unusual taste and Matt realized it must be blood. He spat, then looked at Sandra apologetically and cleared his throat.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said in a wry tone. "Got a bad taste in my mouth."
He glanced down at the main deck, where Bradford was watching the huge fish devour the smaller one with rapt fascination. He seemed oblivious to the spray that inundated him and swirled around his feet. Another form stood near him at a respectful distance, and the captain recognized Shinya in the gloom. He was watching as well, but his expression was entirely different. Matt wondered vaguely where Sergeant Alden was, but decided it didn't matter. Any mischief the Jap could cause was dwarfed by the perils all around them, and judging by his expression, the last thing Shinya wanted was to wind up in the water again.
Matt looked at the woman at his side. Her teeth were beginning to chatter from the wind on her damp clothes. Her long brownish hair hung down in wet tangles, but her eyes were wide and bright. He couldn't decide if it was fear he saw or fascination akin to Bradford's. He felt a chill himself and shuddered involuntarily. "Why don't we go down to the wardroom and dry off?" he suggested.
Gunner's Mate Dennis Silva sat on one of the "seats of ease" in the aft crew's head smoking a cigarette. He still didn't like the damn things, but he had only so much chewing tobacco and a man had to have his nicotine.
The seats were little more than boards across a trough through which sea water flowed. The compartment stank of waste and sweat, and with the sea getting up, dark, nasty water sloshed back and forth on deck. Every time the brackish wave threatened him, Dennis raised his feet until it passed.
The aft crew's head was generally considered snipe country, and that was the main reason he went there to relieve himself. Just to aggravate the snipes. No one made a real issue of it because, for one thing, it didn't exactly belong to the engineering division and, for another, Silva was a big, powerful man who in spite of an easygoing nature had a dangerous reputation. Proprietary claims to the heads were even more ridiculous, at least to the outside observer, because only a single bulkhead separated them and both were located in the aft deckhouse, behind the laundry and torpedo workshop. That didn't make trespass less serious in the eyes of the crew, however. So naturally, Dennis Silva sat and smoked while men came and went and attended to their business on the other seats nearby. No one spoke to him, but they gave him many dark looks indeed.
Stites, Felts, and a torpedoman named Brian Aubrey found him there. They clustered around the hatchway as if reluctant to cross the threshold and braced themselves against the motion of the ship. "There you are!" exclaimed Stites. "You missed it. We ran smack into one of them big dinosaur fish, like ate the Japs, and killed it deader'n hell!"
"Good," muttered Silva. "It's time we killed somethin'."
"Yeah," added Tom, "and then a even bigger one took to eating the first one just like that!" He snapped his fingers. "It was something to see, and here you was all the time, in the snipes' crapper!"
Silva glanced disdainfully at the two snipes sharing the compartment. "This ain't the snipes' crapper," he said very slowly and distinctly. "It's Dennis Silva's crapper when Dennis Silva's takin' a crap!"
One of the "snipes" was Machinist's Mate Dean Laney, two seats down from Silva. He was nearly as tall as the big gunner's mate, and just as powerfully built. "You better watch your mouth," he growled. "You damn deck-apes don't belong here."
Silva sucked his cigarette and looked at him. "What are you gonna do, go whinin' to Spanky or Chief Donaghey and tell 'em I'm using your crapper?" He raised his voice to a high-pitched falsetto. "Lieutenant Spanky! Dennis Silva's in our crapper! And—he's takin' a crap! Do somethin'! Make him stop!"
Laney lunged to his feet with a curse and Dennis rose to meet him, both with their trousers around their ankles. Just then, the ship heaved unexpectedly and the combatants lost their balance and fell to the deck in a tangled, punching heap. They slid against the bulkhead in the disgusting ooze and just as quickly as the fight had begun, it ended as the men considered their battlefield. Dennis began to laugh. Laney didn't. He put his right hand on the seat nearest him and started to rise, but realized the seat was the red one—reserved for men with venereal disease. He snatched his hand away and splashed to the deck with a cry just as the ship pitched upward and the tide of muck flowed around him. Dennis laughed even harder and rose to his feet, pulling up his ruined trousers. He reached down to give Laney a hand, but suddenly stepped back.
"The hell with you, Laney! You want me catch it too?" He wiped his hands on his soiled trousers and, on second thought, rinsed them in the long sink across the compartment. He posed for a moment in front of the mirror, powerful muscles bulging across his chest and biceps. Then he relaxed and looked at his clothes. "Damn. Snipe shit all over me. I'll have to burn these duds and who knows when I'll get more?" He looked back at Laney, who was at least as filthy as he. The other snipe was still seated and had ignored the whole thing. "C'mon, Laney. Why don't you have a cup of coffee with some real live destroyermen? Someday you'll tell your grandkids."
"Go to hell," Laney said, but he rinsed himself as best he could and followed through the laundry where they replaced their T-shirts. They exited on the deck behind the number three torpedo mount. The sea was heavier now, and the deck twisted beneath their feet like a live thing as they lurched forward, leaning into the spray. Above their heads, on the searchlight tower, the beam swept slowly back and forth, a beacon for their absent sister. Finally, they reached the protection of the gun platform that served as a roof for the galley. There were several men standing in line with cups and the galley hatch was up. They were waiting while the cook and his mess attendant filled the big coffee urn with a new batch. They grabbed cups and took their place in line.
"Hey, Earl," Dennis said to the cook, shouting over the churning sea, "you got anything besides peanut butter sammiches and scum weenies?"
Earl Lanier shook his head mournfully. "Sorry, fellas. Can't cook with the sea kickin' up. Hard enough just to make coffee. Got some cold beans, though."
"Scum weenies in 'em?"
"Yep."
Silva grimaced. "No thanks. Say, you got any of them apples left?" Again Earl shook his head.