Michael strode to the starboard side. And there through the glistening mist, just barely visible, was the deadly silhouette of Manson Konnig’s Javelin.
It was too distant for any bullet from Sofia to reach. Michael saw flame gout from the forward cannon and heard the blast, and he realized with a sinking heart that in a few moments Sofia might well be reduced to a bucket of blood.
Water shot up just short of the hull. The crewmen with rifles were firing, as if it would do any good. The next shell from Javelin sizzled over the deck and spewed up water on the port side. Getting the range, Michael thought. Where the hell was Beauchene? As if he could do any good, either!
Michael cursed Valentine Vivian. One thing was certain: a wolf could drown as easily as a man.
The third shell hit Sofia amidships, just above the waterline. The shock may have been cushioned by a mattress, but who could say? A vibration rippled across the deck. Another shell cut a gash across the forward mast. And then both of Javelin’s guns began firing in rapid succession, and in a matter of seconds the shrieking projectiles slammed one after the other into Sofia’s hull, her deck and her superstructure.
The freighter heeled to port. Michael lost his footing and was thrown back against a capstan. He went down to his knees, and there felt what must have been another shell rush past him with a high-pitched whine and a smell of burned matches. Behind him, a lifeboat exploded into kindling. Something crashed against metal and screamed off into the air. He heard shells hitting like punches being thrown against human flesh. A figure stumbled past him, holding the bleeding stump of a right arm. Sofia pitched back and forth under the barrage, and when Michael looked toward the wheelhouse he saw holes being torn in the superstructure as if it were made of flimsy cardboard. More portholes exploded. The ship shuddered along her length, and still the shells continued to strike.
A lycanthrope could know horror. He knew it, when he saw the glass windshield of the wheelhouse blow inward from a direct hit.
Over the ear-blasting noise of shellfire and the rending of steel he heard a man screaming and did not know if it was his own voice or the voice of a comrade.
He knew only that the ship’s wheel was most likely unmanned, or in the best case helmed by a Swede whose eyes had been cut to pieces by flying glass.
He got up off his knees and ran across the deck, which shivered like the spine of a kicked dog. He reached the staircase and climbed up, and as he climbed he saw the red flames spouting from Javelin’s guns and Sofia being torn apart below him.
On the bridge, the Russian radioman was fighting for control of the wheel. The Swede lay with a blood mask for a face and his throat sliced open. Medina had collapsed in his own pool of gore next to the engine order telegraph. Overhead, cables dangled down and electric sparks jumped. A fresh insult of rain swept through the opening where the windshield had been. Sofia, gone mad with pain, was turning herself starboard toward Javelin as if to end her agonies.
“I’ve got it!” Michael shouted, and he grasped the spokes of the glass-slashed wheel and wrenched it to port. How long did it take for the rudder to respond? Sofia went on, heedless of human hands. He thought the rudder must have been blasted away. Under his feet, the bloody planks jumped from the percussion of more shell hits. A hot sizzling thing, smoking like a comet, burst up from Sofia’s deck into the air.
Michael felt the rudder bite hold and the freighter begin to turn. He put his back into the wheel. The Russian radioman retreated to give him space. Fire suddenly rippled along the torn electrical cables above Michael’s head. Still the ship was turning, responding by slow inches. Waterspouts shot up on either side of Sofia and then through the rain that flew into his eyes Michael saw ahead of them a white mass that hid the sea.
A fogbank, he realized. He glanced at the engine telegraph. The pointer was set to All Ahead Flank, the fastest possible speed order. Medina must have rung it before the wheelhouse was hit. The bow was headed right into the fog. So be it, Michael thought.
And then: Go, you bitch!
Someone shoved him aside.
Gustave Beauchene, blood streaming from a wound on his forehead and his shirt and yellow rainslicker streaked with it, took charge of the wheel. He, too, had seen the fogbank. Shells crashed into Sofia’s stern. The thunder of cannonfire echoed across the sea. Michael smelled blood and gunpowder and the sweat of fear. “Get to the stern!” Beauchene shouted to the Russian. “Find whoever you can and start throwing the ropes and nets in our wake! Go, now!”
The Russian ran out and down the stairway. Michael realized Beauchene was desperately hoping something might foul Javelin’s props, because the warship was going to be right behind them.
Trembling, Sofia entered the fog.
It closed around the freighter like a huge cloud. In a matter of seconds, tendrils of fog drifted across the deck and visibility was cut to maybe twenty meters. The sound of the diesels pulsed against the white thickness. “Allez, allez!” Beauchene whispered, as blood ran down through the seams of his face to his chin.
In another moment he turned the wheel a few degrees to port. Then again to starboard. White fog swirled into the wheelhouse, the breath of ghosts. Michael went into Beauchene’s cabin and found a nasty oil-stained rag; he brought it out and gave it to the captain, who silently pressed it against the wound on his forehead.
Beauchene turned the wheel to port once more. He said, “Hold her steady,” and Michael took the helm. Beauchene rang up a change on the telegraph: All Stop.
The voices of the big diesels faded to a low rumble.
Then…there was only the hiss of the fog and the sea, the pained creaks of Sofia’s injured flesh and bones, and the noise of men calling to each other in the gloom.
Sofia drifted.
Beauchene fetched a fire extinguisher from the radio room and sprayed out the overhead flames. His bloody face stared impassively at Michael Gallatin.
His voice was a dry croak. “I’m going to go find out the damage. If we’re sinking or not. I’m going to go find out how many men have just died. And your people may be dead, too. That may be for the best, for them. We can’t take another beating like that, do you understand?”
Michael answered, “I understand.”
“She’s been hurt,” said Beauchene, as if that explained everything.
Then the Sofia’s master, suddenly a very small and weary man, turned away and stumbled down the stairs where his bloody handprints stained the rail.
Eleven
The Specialist
Twelve men wounded, four severely. Five men dead, including the doctor when the infirmary was hit by two shells one nearly after the other. The pumps working at full capacity to fight the gushing leak near the stern until a patch could be welded in. Some electrical damage forward. Many new hull, deck and superstructure scars, though nothing critical. Damage to one of the engines due to running at flank speed, but thankfully the engineers vowed to repair it within six hours.
Darkness fell. The fog remained. All of Sofia’s lights were cut except for a few bulbs belowdecks. Shadows began to claim the ship.