Courtney Bradford was happily lecturing the spectators like a group of medical students with a cadaver. "And look!" he said excitedly. "The eyes are quite far forward and unobstructed! There's no question about stereoscopic vision! A formidable predator, believe you me! And those jaws! Terrifying!"
They were. The head tapered to a sharp point and the lower jaw seemed almost delicate, but powerful muscles bulged where it attached to the head. Matt had never seen anything with so many densely packed, razor-sharp teeth. It was almost cartoonish, like a piranha, but there was nothing humorous about it. Those teeth were clearly designed to tear flesh and crunch large bones. They reminded him vaguely of a cross between a shark's teeth and a cat's canines, only there was virtually no gap between them.
He was surprised to see how the crowd had swelled. Half the crew was present. He also noted that the gloom and dread that had been so pervasive had begun to lift somewhat. Many of the men most affected by Marvaney's death now listened with careful attention. Of course! he thought, and wondered if the Australian did it on purpose. Show them the enemy, especially a dead one, and it might still be scary as hell, but it also became clear that it could be killed. He looked at Courtney Bradford with new respect as the man jabbered happily on about how fearsome the obviously vanquished creature was.
He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Lieutenant Tucker's concerned face, her eyes locked searchingly on his. He forced a smile. "How long have you been here?" he asked.
"Ever since you came aboard. Are you all right?"
He stepped slightly back. "Swell. We had some excitement, but we're all okay except—" He stopped and shook his head. "Why?"
She just patted his arm with a fragile smile. She couldn't tell him that the expression he'd worn when he came aboard had frightened her with the intensity of its rage, and devastated her with the depth of its hopelessness. She doubted anyone else had really noticed—men could be so stupid about such things—and he now seemed himself again. But that quick peek beneath his so carefully controlled veneer of confident selfassurance wrenched her heart, not only with fear for her own survival but also with compassion for this man who carried such a heavy burden for them all.
"Nothing," she said, and smiled a little brighter. She heard Bradford's voice rise above his dissertation.
"Ah! Lieutenant Tucker! There you are, my dear! You're quite the surgeon, I understand. Would you be so good as to assist me"—he grinned—"while I slice this bugger up and show these lads where to aim next time?" There were growls of approval and a predatory jockeying for the best view. Bradford wiped his brow and smiled wryly. "I'm afraid if we wait too long, it will be a nasty task indeed."
Matt sat on his bunk, his face in his hands. His sweat-soaked hair and clothes felt clammy under the fan. He sighed and spoke into the comm. "Bridge, this is the captain."
"Bridge, aye."
"Inform Mr. Dowden I'm in my quarters. I'll be up shortly."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Matt paused awkwardly for a moment. "Thanks," he said at last, and dropped back on the rack to stare at the overhead.
Another one, he thought grimly. All those men lost in the running fight, then Mahan and now Marvaney. What next? There had to be something he could have done to stop all this. Marvaney was a good kid. Unlike Silva, or pretty much the entire ordnance division, he'd never been a discipline problem aboard or ashore. He just did his job. He raised a little hell, like the rest, but he never pushed it too far. Maybe the pretty Filipino girl had something to do with that. Matt only saw her twice, both times when they docked in Cavite after some maneuver. She was always waiting on the quay, to snatch Marvaney up before he could escape with his hooligan friends. He always went willingly, too, without the false bravado and showing off of others under similar circumstances. It was clear he loved her very much. He was distraught when they left Cavite after the Japanese bombed it to splinters. After the Squall, he just sort of . . . went away. Matt shouldn't have let him go ashore. He hadn't even thought about it. Now Mack was dead, and it was his fault.
Finally he grunted and sat up. Sulking wouldn't do anyone any good, least of all Marvaney. He'd just have to do better, somehow. It was his duty, and he'd never shrunk from responsibility, but this was . . . different, and so very, very hard. He wasn't just a junior destroyer captain anymore, who only had to follow orders. His job had changed profoundly. For a moment he envied men like Silva, men who did their jobs but were free to leave the care and responsibility to others at the end of the watch. Matt's watch never ended. He was the job. He only hoped no one else would have to die before he figured out what, exactly, it had become.
He replaced his shirt with a dry one, ran a comb through his greasy hair, and put his hat back on. He searched the mirror above his little desk for signs of the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm him, and with a wary snort, he shouldered through the curtain to become captain of DD-163 again.
Dennis Silva leaned against the vegetable locker between the number three and number four funnels while Stites, Campeti, and Jamie Miller worked. They were sewing Marvaney into his mattress cover, and blood glistened black against the white cloth where it soaked through from his gruesome wound and dried in the afternoon sun. Silva felt . . . depressed, he guessed, and that was an emotion he'd never experienced before. He always said he had only four "feelings"—horny, hungry, happy, and mad—and he was less than half joking. Now he knew a fifth. Mad was part of it, sure. But it was deeper and less focused and had already lasted longer than the others ever did. He'd felt it since Marvaney was killed, and that had been what? Almost three hours ago? Must be depression, he told himself with a sigh. No tellin' what I'll be pinin' over next.
He would miss Marvaney. They'd been shipmates for four years and raised hell from Cavite to Singapore—until the dummy got married and reformed. But they had a lot of laughs and busted a lot of heads, and he'd always been a good man at your back. Now he was dead and Silva realized he'd lost one of the few people that his loose definition of "true friend" applied to. He wished he had a drink.
"Don't forget `the object,'" he grumped, referring to the item that he'd chosen to carry his friend to the depths.
Campeti glared at him. "Can't you think of nothin' else? Christ, it ain't hardly fittin'! And besides, what are we gonna listen to?"
"The object" was a bundle of about fifty records, part of a large collection Marvaney had aboard and often played on a portable wind-up turntable. The 78s were plenty heavy, more than sufficient to carry him down.
"Relax, Sonny. I only picked the old stuff nobody else likes. He liked 'em, though, and he ought'a keep 'em."
Campeti shook his head. "All right, Dennis, but when they're gone, they're gone. We might never hear them songs again."
"Suits me. I like dancin' to livelier tunes. Them waltzes and shit is for grandmas."
"Dancin'!" snorted Campeti, a general, growing concern on his mind. "Who with?"