Deadly Shores (16 page)

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Dennis Silva sat on the director's “bicycle” seat of the number two gun atop the amidships platform. The big 4"-50 was secured fore and aft, and he had an unobstructed view to port, past the safety chains. Across the water,
Big Sal
was outwardly dark, despite the confab underway aboard. Every ship in the vicinity was dark, but that didn't mean they were invisible. The stars shone brightly, and the horizon was ruddy with the gleam of a nearly full moon preparing to rise above the sea. More light flickered from the interior of the jungle isle, from native fires near the lagoon, no doubt, and it served to silhouette the ships even further. Silva could see all of them quite well—as would any lurking spectator.

The white wakes of Winny Rominger's torpedo boats crossed the waves to seaward. Irvin Laumer had been given command of a two-boat section, and was getting the hang of the new craft. Several DDs cruised even farther out to sea, but Silva wasn't sure how much good any of them would be if there really
was
a pigboat creeping around out there. Captain Reddy obviously didn't know what to think of Horn's supposed periscope sighting, but the screwy contact they'd investigated on the run down from Madras had left him cautious. Chances were, they'd left whatever it was far behind.
But hell,
Silva thought, fishing his tobacco pouch out of his pocket.
I'm feelin' cautious too, an' I don't even b'lieve there
was
a periscope!
he fumed.
But I was there when the numbskull spotted it, and dope that he is, Horn's no idiot
.

Silva trusted Horn far more than he'd ever admit, but the guy was a Marine—and not just
any
Marine! Silva had nothing against 'Cat Marines, and he considered Chack one of his very best friends. Besides, he figured he'd helped create the Marines on this world and you had to call them something.
Let Marine 'Cats and Navy 'Cats have a fresh start here, like lions and lambs and such,
he mused, then chuckled.
Or maybe lions and tigers is a better comparison
. But Horn was an old-world
China
Marine! It was the nature of whatever cosmos they were part of, wherever they were, that Silva and Horn should be contentious—at least for appearances' sake. He shook some of the yellowish “tobacco” leaves from his pouch, the sugary flavoring meant to counteract the vile, waxy taste sticky on his fingers, and crammed the wad in his cheek.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Gunny Horn suddenly joined him by the gun, preceded by a fog of “PIG-cig” smoke.

“I was just thinkin' about you,” Silva accused, as if Horn were directly responsible, and the very act might pollute his mind. “Think o' the devil an' up he pops—my ol' granny prob'ly used to say.”

“Probably?” Horn asked with a grin around the smoldering butt between his lips.

“Never knew the dame,” Silva confessed, “but ain't that what all grannies say?” He coughed. “Brung yer own fire an' brimstone along too, I see. Damn, but I wish you'd quit smokin' them ass-wipe paper rolls o' loco weed. Smell like you stuffed rat pellets an' roaches in them papers an' lit 'em.”

“I didn't roll them. They come from Baalkpan ready-made.” Horn took the smoke out and looked at it, before nodding at Isak Reuben, leaning on the rail below them next to the big freezer. Isak was smoking too. “And for all I know, those ‘Mice' fellas, as you call them, might use that exact recipe. They are pretty awful.”

Silva stood and spat over the rail, the stream describing a solid, graceful arch. “You oughta take up a respectable, genteel,
fireproof
vice, like me. No smokin' lamps to worry about, ash holes in your clothes—an' why darken the ship against make-believe pigboats, then hop around like a buncha damn fireflies!” Even as he spoke, a match flared on the aft deckhouse, and he cursed. Matches were great, and it was good to have them again. They'd been a by-product of efforts to create friction primers and fuses. But the 'Cats, ordinarily very sensible when it came to open flames aboard any ship, thought they were practically magical and often played with them whether they smoked or not. That had to be watched and discouraged. He looked around. “Who's got the deck? The Skipper'd throw a fit!” He raised his voice so it could be heard aft. “The next—anybody—who makes a light is on report!” He spat again. “Damn snipes. That's them back there, I know it. Play with fire mor'n anybody aboard. Maybe we'll see just how much they like it. I already got a score to settle with some of 'em,” he growled.

“What kind of score?” Horn asked.

“A
sore
score.” Silva glared at Horn in the dark. “
Black
teeth too, fer God's sake,” he continued, as if his rant had never been interrupted. “Like you chew betel nuts all day. You'll be sharpenin' them scum columns into
points
, next.” He sniffed. “An' o' course you smell like smolderin' rat pellets all the time.” Warming to his tirade, Silva put his hands on his hips, aping Spanky's habitual pose. “You think wimmen crave snugglin' with a giant rat turd? Not here, or in any world
I
ever been to.” He lowered his voice. “Which I figger the Asia Station counts for at least one. Alabama's another, so I'm calculatin' that wimmen would reject cavortin' with rat turds on at least
four
different worlds.”

Horn laughed. “I won't argue with that. Not a lot of dames aboard to impress, though.”

“A lot more than there ever used to be,” Silva argued, slightly aggrieved. “Which you'd know if you hadn't missed the worst o' the ‘Dame Famine,'” he accused. “'Cat gals've been with us since we met 'em, but now there's a corny-copia o' human broads scamperin' all over the ship, compared to back then.
Five
of 'em, not countin' Pam,” he stressed. Horn was one of the few who “officially” knew Pam and Silva remained sweet on each other. “An' with only eighteen old-time destroyermen aboard,” Silva continued, “meanin' them without tails an' fur, why, that's a downright momentous increase in proportionism if you ask me.”

“I didn't know there were that many,” Horn mused.

“The other five, all of 'em, are fireroom snipes,” Dennis explained. “They're ex-pat Impie gals, an' hardly ever creep out on deck.” He furrowed the brow over his good eye. “You know? I bet Tabby
recruits
'em down there, so there'll always be somebody waggin' sweaty boobs at Spanky when he goes below—just like she used to do. Drives him nuts! And now that she's engineerin' officer, there's not much he can do about it.”

“She
still
s'eet on he,” Lawrence announced, padding up to join them, the claws on his feet scritching on the deckplates.

“Tabby's sweet on the
exec
?” Horn demanded, staring at Lawrence.

“Yeah,” Silva confirmed. “Always has been. Ain't natural,” he added piously.

Horn snorted. “Then what was that you were doin' with that 'Cat gal—a
Marine officer
—when we touched at the pier this morning?”

“That's Risa,” Silva said, as if that explained everything. “We was just funnin', is all. We're old pals.”

“Your fun got you restricted to the ship.”

Silva shrugged. “So?” He pointed at the dark shape of
Big Sal
. The moon was rising, and soon she'd be even more obvious against the dark jungle of the island.
Too bad she's too big for the lagoon the little munchkin cat-monkeys got here
. “If I wasn't here, I'd be over there listenin' to the brass argue an' bump their gums about all the stuff we already know about.” He cocked his head. “Some of it, anyway. An' what's the use? Nobody's gonna attack the Skipper over there, an' I thought Pam was gonna stay aboard here. . . .”

“So that's it! You were hoping to spend some time with her!”

Silva thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

“But
she
got called over to meet with the Skipper's wife. Some kind of fleet medical powwow.”

“Yeah,” Silva grumped, then looked at Lawrence. “Hey, where've you been, anyway?”

“I's looking at the 'ish Lanier caught.”

Earl didn't just go for monster plesiosaurs; he dropped a line over the side whenever
Walker
anchored anywhere. Some of his catches were unusual to say the least, and a few had very nearly caught
him
. The thing he'd pulled aboard just before sunset actually seemed fairly straightforward for a change, even edible—at least at first glance. Perhaps the best way to describe it was as a kind of rainbow-colored flounder, since it had two eyes on the side of its head. What made it weird was that it wasn't particularly flat, and it had two eyes on the other side of its head as well.

Silva rolled his own eye. “Yeah, that thing ain't right. Booger has
four
eyes, an' I only got one. I bet that'd come in handy, though, havin' good depth perception in all directions.” He peered at Lawrence. “You could see other boogers comin' at you better.”

“Still,” Horn prodded, “if you hadn't gotten uninvited to the meeting on
Big Sal
, you'd know all the details about what we're headed into.”

Silva looked at the tall Marine and grinned. “An' then I could tell
you
.” He chuckled. “I'll get another chance. The locals are throwin' us a big ‘so long' bash, though I can't imagine where they'll put everybody. We prob'ly got more sailors an' Marines aboard these ships than there is folks livin' on that whole island.” He paused, contemplative. “But the word is, that's when Mr. Bradford's gonna unwrap his big notion. His ‘theory of ever'thing' he's been workin' on. That's what I'm waitin' to hear. As for the ‘details' of ‘what we're headed into'”—he spat again—“I already know mosta them.”

“So? Spill 'em.”

Silva's grin widened. “Why, we're gonna jump down the hole right in the Grik's front parlor, kickin' hell outa whatever yellow jacket nest we land on with both feet—an' we'll all be lucky to live through it. What other details do we need, you and me?” He ruffled Lawrence's crest. “Or you, you fuzzy little salamander.”

Lawrence backed out of reach with a hiss, but seemed pleased by Silva's confidence. Dennis raised his gaze slightly to watch a moonlit shape move away from the gathering where Lanier was filleting the strange fish beside the port 25-mm gun tub, just aft of the number two torpedo mount. He saw a cherry brighten as that man also leaned against a stanchion to stare out to sea, and realized he was smoking one of Isak's vile cigarettes as well. “Or maybe, if you really want to know, you might just ask your ol' buddy down there,” Silva grouched.

Horn followed his gaze. “Lance Corporal Miles?” he asked skeptically. “Why him? What would he know?” Ian Miles had been attached to Bernie Sandison in Experimental Ordnance after his arrival in Baalkpan with Horn, Herring, Conrad Diebel, and Leading Seaman Henry Stokes. Like many of the survivors of
Mizuki Maru
's old-world mission as a slave-labor transport, he'd been given a job he seemed suited for. Stokes was running Allied Intel while Herring was away, and Diebel was flying P-40s for Ben Mallory in Indiaa. After his adventures with Silva in Borno, Gunnery Sergeant Horn was basically assigned to him in Sonny Campeti's gunnery division (which seemed appropriate). He was still a Marine, of course, but not considered part of
Walker
's small Marine contingent. Likewise, Lance Corporal Miles remained under Sandison's authority, though some suspected he still truly answered only to Commander Simon Herring.

“Why don't you ask him?” Dennis repeated. “He's your pal, an' he's prob'ly oozin' all sorts o' dope Herring's fed him.”

Horn stared at the other Marine thoughtfully for a moment. He knew Miles and Herring had remained close after their ordeal together, closer than one might expect considering their wildly divergent attitudes toward rank. “Miles is a good Marine,” he defended, “and a good guy to have at your back . . . in the situation we were in after the Philippines fell.” He shrugged. “Sure, he had a chip on his shoulder in China. Played the sea lawyer too, sometimes. But he straightened up. Hell, you know the type. You were much the same yourself.”

“I never was the type to toady up to a tin Tojo type like Herring,” Silva stated flatly, and Horn frowned. He had to admit Silva had a point. Gunny Horn had admired Commander Herring while they were in the hands of the Japanese, but he'd been disappointed by the way Herring tried to throw his weight around after they joined the Grand Alliance here. Sure, he was chief of strategic intelligence now, along to see the Grik “elephant” for himself. But after the hellacious fight with Kurokawa's battlewagons, he did seem to be trying to become a “real, live” naval officer at last. He'd also clearly changed his opinion of Captain Reddy, and completely embraced the scheme to hit the Grik where they lived.

“Commander Herring's not like that now,” Horn defended.

“No? Then how come him an' a lowly shoestring corporal like Miles is always promenadin' our decks an jawin' about stuff—an' clammin' up whenever I . . . whenever
anybody
wanders by?”

“Maybe they don't like it when fellas spy on them,” Horn retorted, “or make such a fuss about them being pals. Neither one is easy to be friends with; trust me, I was with them long enough.” He took a long drag on his PIG-cig and coughed.

Silva's eye widened. “Say, you don't s'pose they're
special
pals, do ya?”

Horn glared at him. “Hell no! What's the matter with you?”

Silva rolled his eye. “Just a thought. An' dis-gustin' as that notion is, it'd worry me less than the one I'm really stuck on.”