Frankie had somehow dragged himself up against the forward bulkhead. He wore a curious expression on his pale face, staring down at the stumps of both his legs, gone above the knees. To Spanky’s amazement, he spoke.
“Hey, Spanky,” he said, almost whispering. “Skipper gives me the keys, and what’s the first thing I do? I wrap her around a tree.”
“Oh, Frankie,” Spanky said hoarsely, kneeling beside him. “Even the Skipper’s banged her up a time or two. You know that.”
“Yeah. But not like this. Not stupid.” Slowly, he looked into Spanky’s eyes. “An’ we just got her fixed up from the last time!” He paused. “Mr. Ellis! Where’s Mr. Ellis?”
“Jim’s fine,” Spanky said softly. “Just busy is all.” Jim Ellis was on the other side of the world.
Frankie smiled. “Good man. He’ll be a swell skipper for Mahan, once he settles in.” His chin slumped slowly to his chest and he was gone.
“Goddamn,” Spanky said, and stood. He looked at Minnie. “Are you fit for duty?” he demanded. Shakily, she nodded. “Then get back to your station! Mr. Palmer, I presume by your presence that you have no more pressing duties, so you have the conn. I have the deck. Talker? Replacements to the bridge, and inform Mr. Bashear to relinquish the conn. I expect he’s got other things to do. What’s the status on the boilers?” He patted his chest. “And somebody get me some binoculars!”
For the last several moments, there’d been no incoming fire. Taking the offered binoculars, Spanky strode onto the bridgewing and scanned around to determine why. He saw with satisfaction that their primary tormentor was low in the water and beginning to abandon. A few good hits with the Jap 4.7 at the waterline had probably settled her hash. The transports still lay ahead, obscured by a growing fogbank of smoke, but they’d gained some distance, bright sparks in black smoke soaring high from their stacks. They hadn’t turned away, however-not yet. They seemed intent on finding protection behind another pair of liners approaching Walker from the west. The number one gun barked and bucked, and a round shrieked away to explode in the fo’c’sle of one of them, but Spanky couldn’t tell if it did much good. A ’Cat pounced on the smoking brass shell as it fell to the deck from the opened breech. He tossed it in a nearby basket almost full of other dingy, blackened cartridges.
Spanky picked his way across the shattered strakes to the port bridgewing. More liners were approaching from the port quarter. Damn. He needed steam! For a moment, he wondered where the enemy frigates were. They had to be faster, and should have been all over him by now. He shrugged. Gift horses were rare critters. “Steam?” he demanded again.
“Finny report now, daamitt!” the talker replied, frustrated. Spanky couldn’t stop a small smile. “He say boilers okay, but main steam line and feed-water pipe is shot. Smoke uptakes too. An’ there’s oil an’ water in the bilge from leak somewhere…”
“Tell Finny I don’t give a damn what’s wrong, only how long it’ll take to fix-and what he needs to do it! Does he need people?”
“Almost all firemen in forward fireroom okay, they cram in air locks on both sides. He got them. Actually, Tabby got them…” The talker paused. “Tabby on the horn.”
“Spanky Skipper now?” came the tinny question. No drawl was present.
“Aye,” the talker replied.
“Then tell Spanky to fight ship! I fight mess down here! Finny bypassed three an’ four. Spanky lucky to have number two back, soon as pressure builds again! I fix the others as fast as I can, they fixed when they fixed! Spanky don’t get no more holes in my poor ship! He hear?”
Spanky rolled his eyes and nodded.
“He hear,” confirmed the talker.
“What’s the pressure on number two?” Spanky asked.
“Ah, eighty and rising,” Palmer replied, “but… there’s still nothing getting to the engine room!”
“Crap. Finny must’ve shut everything off. Get Tabby on it ASAP. We gotta move.” He stepped outside and glassed around again. “Okay, tell Campeti to have the number one gun concentrate on the transports with fire control assistance. All others will stay on the advancing warships in local control. Aim for their bows, tear ’em up!”
“Comm-aander,” said the talker, “lookout reports Taas-itus and Euripides have fought through enemy frigates, trying to join us here!”
“Is that so? Well, that explains the frigates. Tell Campeti to keep firing, but watch his targets! We might have friendlies out there shortly.”
The battle off Scapa Flow became a race for position. By all rights and reasonable expectations, it should have been over; the Dominion plan had been thwarted in the sense that there was now no way they could still land troops with surprise, and surprise had been the key to success. Unreadable signals flying from a large, distant liner confirmed that the enemy understood this as well, because even as the Dominion warships jockeyed to reconsolidate and reform, the surviving transports-minus one more that Walker had disabled-finally drew away to the west. Walker ’s lookout confirmed that Imperial ships of the line, “battle waagons,” were finally out of the harbor and forming up as well. Fully two-thirds of the Dominion ships were heading for them, trying to cut them off.
At first Spanky didn’t understand. Why continue the fight? Intellectually, he expected an interesting match. Several Dominion liners were disabled or destroyed, so the numbers would be nearly equal. The contest between the two fleets would pit ships with many guns, propelled by sail alone, against ships with fewer, bigger guns, powered by sail and steam. There were advantages and disadvantages inherent to the philosophies behind each fleet, and Spanky knew Matt would be fascinated. But then Spanky did understand. The remaining third of the Dominion fleet, a little hard-used and frigate-heavy now, was gathering to approach Walker. Apparently the old destroyer had made an impression on the enemy commander, because the major battle shaping northeast of her position seemed designed solely to ensure that nothing beyond the now battered Tacitus and Euripides could come to Walker ’s aid.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “Tell Tabby the boilers might be ‘fixed when they’re fixed,’ but we need at least one of ’em fixed right damn now.”
“She trying!” cried the talker. “She not know why there no steam to engines!”
Spanky looked around, frustrated. He needed to be helping out with engineering, but right now he had to be on the bridge. He thought furiously for a moment, battling the various necessities in his mind. The simple fact was, even if the Skipper and the others hadn’t been ashore, Walker ’s bench just wasn’t deep enough for this anymore. There were plenty of good, professional ’Cats aboard, but dealing with situations like this could be learned only by experience. He could put Bashear back in charge, but the Bosun was knee-deep as it was. Campeti was busy too. He thought Norm could handle it, but he’d already been taken to the wardroom. He finally came to the conclusion that, however unprepared for overall command he considered himself, he was the only remotely qualified person available. He had to stay where he was. With Miami dead, that left only Tabby to do his job. She knew Walker ’s boilers inside and out, literally. He just hoped she’d picked up enough of the rest of the ship’s engineering plant, and how it all worked together. He sighed.
“Tell Tabby she better find out, and quick. This ship and everybody aboard needs her to be a chief engineer right now. If we’re not underway in ten minutes, we’re all dead.”
The talker gulped, tail swishing, and relayed his words. Tabby didn’t reply.
“ Euripides is coming out of the smoke of that burning liner-off the starboard beam now!” Palmer cried. “She looks pretty chewed.”
The Imperial frigate had lost her mainmast and its remains had been cut away. Black smoke poured from a dozen holes in her tall, skinny stack, and bright splintered wood glared from her dark-painted hull. Both her paddle wheels still churned vigorously alongside, though, and she was approaching at a respectable clip. A few moments later, Tacitus appeared as well, and if anything, she looked worse than her sister. Only her mizzen and bowsprit still stood, and she was kind of crab-walking around a battered starboard paddle box, but somehow she was managing to keep pace with Euripides. Shredded Imperial flags still proudly streamed from both ships.