Chief Gray shook his head, avoiding another branch Silva let spring back toward his face. “It damn sure don’t look like Tarakan Island!” he gruffed. “We steamed right by it when we retreated from the Philippines. Iexcitnted was only about two miles inland. We should be there… well, now.”
Silva looked around. “Why can’t we just burn the bastard off?” He was the tallest in the group and was suffering the most. At one point he’d grumblingly suggested they name the place “Spanky Land” after Walker ’s engineering officer. He didn’t say why. They’d been searching for three hours, but the twists and turns the game trail took made it impossible to go straight to the spot Bradford wanted.
“That big ape Silva might actually have a point,” grumbled Gray. He kicked the mushy jungle floor. “If we could even get this shit to burn, I’m for trying it. Wait for a day when the wind is right…”
“Outrageous!” Bradford declared. “You’re contemplating ecological
… murder! It would be a crime against nature and humanity to raze this island. I’ve already glimpsed many creatures I’ve never seen on the mainland! They might exist nowhere else!”
Gray sighed. “If you’d let me finish… I wasn’t talking about burning off the whole damn place, just part of it. Besides, you can’t tell me there’s never been a lightning fire here. If we do it-if we can do it-we’ll be careful.”
Somewhat mollified, Courtney considered. “Well, yes, that might work. But you’d have to be very careful indeed.”
Silva glanced back at the Bosun and rolled his eyes. “There wadn’t nothin’ here on the ‘old’ Tarakan,” he said.
“Well… of course not, but that’s entirely different.”
“How’s that?”
“Because,” Gray remarked cynically, “there was nothin’ left for him to ogle before. Now there is.” His tone changed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bradford, but we’ll do whatever we have to, to get oil outta this rock. If that means burning the whole thing down, we will. We’ll try to be careful, but the ‘needs of the service,’ et cetera, not to mention the needs of our allies and ourselves, must be met. Now, how much farther?”
Bradford sighed. “I suppose this is as good a place as any. The captain was adamant that we be back aboard before nightfall.” He glanced absently at his watch, but couldn’t see the numbers through his sweat-streaked glasses. He took them off and wiped them vainly on his sweat-soaked shirt.
Suddenly there was a violent commotion to the side of the trail, and something upright, about the size of a large crocodile, lunged from its hiding place and snatched one of the leading ’Cats by the arm. With a shriek of pain and terror, the Lemurian was dragged into the impenetrable gloom.
“Shit!” Silva bolted forward, even as the others backed away in fright. Several were bowled over by his rush. Another scream marked the place the ’Cat disappeared, and he knelt and fired at a dim shape in the darkness. He fired again and again, on semiautomatic, and his efforts were rewarded by a different type of shriek, and muffled, panicky jabbering. On his hands and knees in the damp mulch, he scurried into the tunnel of brush.
“Well, don’t just stand there, you useless sons of bitches!” roared the Bosun. He dashed forward, ded by
“We been ashore, Laney,” Gilbert grated. “You know, with the shore party.”
Laney’s face clouded. “That don’t cut no ice with me. I don’t care if you been ’rasslin’ sea monsters, you’ll stand your watches when you’re told! And that’s ‘Chief ’ Laney to you slacking malingerers!”
“We ain’t ‘lingerin’; we just got here. We’s eatin’ and movin’ along. Earl didn’t yell at us for lingerin’.”
“Just… get your asses down to the aft fireroom, and get that goose-pull sorted out. Most of them ’Cats can’t tell fuel oil from bilgewater. And check on that damn feed-water pump! It’s still makin’ screwy noises!”
“All right, Laney, quit yer fussin. We’ll be along.” Gilbert sighed and began wolfing his sandwich down. Laney stood a moment, still cloudy, then moved away. Gilbert couldn’t help but compare his tyrannical attitude to poor old Chief Donaghey’s. Donaghey had been a professional who inspired proper behavior and diligence by example, as well as an inherent ability to lead. He didn’t lord it over the snipes in his division, and he was usually as grimy as they were because he worked alongside them. He’d been in the Asiatic Fleet a lot longer than Laney too. Volunteered for it. Even had a Filipino wife… back there. Everyone knew his worth, even the captain, and when he was killed saving the ship from an improvised mine, Captain Reddy was prepared to risk the very alliance to avenge him.
Now they had Laney.
“Like I’ve said, change is always bad,” he muttered.
Matt paced slowly between the starboard bridge wing and his chair, bolted to the right side of the forward pilothouse bulkhead. It was how he spent the majority of his time on the bridge, particularly over the last six days. He believed the smudge of land he’d seen off the starboard bow was the poignantly familiar Dumagasa Point, on the western peninsula of Mindanao; the sextant said it was, so did the scriggly lines on the Plexiglas over the chart, but it didn’t look quite the same as he remembered it. Funny. He’d been to Surabaya-now Aryaal-and Balikpapan-now Baalkpan-and they bore no resemblance whatsoever to the places he’d known, but somehow the only slightly different promontory they’d passed filled him with a new sense of loss. Perhaps because they were entering what had once been considered Walker ’s “home” waters.
Ahead lay the Philippines-which he’d never even liked. The place was too sudden and too big a change from his native Texas, where he’d returned after being discharged during a force reduction frenzy. Then, when the worldwide threat loomed ever larger, he’d been snatched back up by the Navy and immediately sent to the, to him, already alien land. The Philippines, at least the parts frequented by Navy ships, had been a den of iniquity paralleled only by those parts of China the Navy had even then been evacuating. The short, brown people jabbered in Tagalog, or a version of Spanish he could barely comprehend. The military situation was clearly unequal to the growing Japanese threat, and those in charge didn’t seem to care, or tried to pretend the threat didn’t exist. When hostilities commenced, the incompetent, almost slapstick response would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so tragic. The litany of mistakes that rendered the islands indefensible was without endw the formidable airpower gathered there, which alone could have made such a huge difference, had been so criminally squandered.
He had to remind himself that many of the crew felt quite differently. To some, the Philippines had been paradise. The waterfront had been a place they could find anything their hearts desired, where they could slake any thirst or lust if they chose, or set themselves up almost like gentlemen on their comparatively munificent wages. Of course, quite a few knew the islands far better than he, and spent their time away from the waterfront, where the atmosphere of iniquity prevailed. In the suburbs or the country, they could find virtuous women and homes where they could settle down and forget the stress of their duty. He wondered how their approach might affect the men who’d loved it there, had expected to retire there and spend the rest of their lives with women they loved. Women who weren’t there anymore.
During the last six days, counting the time they’d lingered at Tarakan, Walker had left her new “home waters” of the Makassar Strait, and entered the Celebes Sea. Their average speed was reduced, by necessity, from the almost twenty knots they were gratified to learn their ship could still make on two boilers, to less than ten, and finally to the excruciatingly slow pace of six knots. They’d picked their way through the tangled, hazardous islands off the northeast coast of Borno, before tentatively beginning their island-hugging journey through what the Americans still called the Sulu Archipelago. They had finally, that morning, increased speed back to fifteen knots, but would likely have to slow again. The sea was shallower than it should be, and they couldn’t entirely trust their old charts anymore. Six long, torturous days, and according to the landmarks, and Keje’s and Dowden’s calculations, they were only about halfway to their destination. He rubbed his face and wished Juan would hurry with the coffee he’d promised.