Into the Storm (30 page)

“Of course, Lieutenant.” Tamatsu turned and began to speak. Adar answered and Shinya relayed his message. “He said he didn’t know you wanted help. It’s customary among his people for those with specialized skills to guard their methods. He said their healers—many of whom are watching you work even now—would like to try the methods they have seen, but are afraid you will be offended.”

She shook her head and almost screamed with frustration. “The only thing that offends me is they’d be willing to let their people suffer over something that silly!”

“Then I will tell him you will freely share your expertise. I will not relay your last statement, though,” he said just a little primly. “To them, I am sure it’s not silly at all.”

“Then tell them to bring boiling water! And find out if they have any alcohol or anything I can use for an antiseptic! I’m just about out!”

Shinya nodded curtly and spoke to the Lemurian official again. Sandra wasn’t sure how fluently the two communicated because the Japanese officer punctuated his statements with hand gestures and repeated phrases, but Adar seemed to grasp what was said and soon barked commands. To Sandra’s surprise, within moments a cauldron of boiling water appeared, as well as a dark earthen cask, or jug, that had a pungent aroma.
They must have had the stuff nearby,
she thought.
They’d have been using it already if I hadn’t been here
. Chagrin surged through her. She realized she’d just naturally assumed she knew more about medicine than these “primitives” and dived right in. They may have even been as angry with her as she was with them!
It says something for the regard they must hold us in,
she thought.
Otherwise, they might’ve just killed me!
She shook her head and pointed at the cask. “What’s that?”

“It’s a fermented spirit they make from fruit, Lieutenant Tucker,” Tamatsu replied. “They call it seep.”

Silva leaned forward, suddenly interested. “Hey, Jap, ask him if it can be drank!”

Tamatsu looked at the big destroyerman a moment before he replied. “Gunner’s Mate Silva,” he said in an icy tone, “I have given my parole to your captain, as well as my word of honor. But I’m still an officer in the Japanese Imperial Navy. If you do not address me with the respect due my rank, or at least that due one man of honor from another, I won’t ask him that, or anything else for the remainder of our visit today. I do not think Captain Reddy would be pleased if our communications broke down entirely because one of his men was rude.”

Silva bristled. The words “mighty uppity for a stinking Jap” actually formed in his mouth, but somehow he caught them and clenched his teeth. At his full height, he towered above the other man, but Tamatsu merely looked at him, unconcerned. Silva visibly uncoiled, and after a moment a grin spread across his weathered, stubbly face. “Well, I’ll be damned, but you’ve got guts, Jap . . . I mean
Lieutenant
Jap.” He held up a hand with a wider grin. “No offense, but I don’t know your name.”

Tamatsu bowed slightly. “Lieutenant Tamatsu Shinya,” he said.

Silva nodded back, but his face darkened. “I ain’t gonna call you sir, no way in hell. You
are
a Jap. But I’ll call you Lieutenant Shinya, if that makes you happy.”

“That will suffice, Gunner’s Mate Silva,” he said, and a slight grin formed on his face as well. “And, yes, the Lemurians do drink seep, although there’s no telling what it would do to you.”

Silva arched an eyebrow. “Well! In the interests of science, and prob’ly diplomacy too, I reckon it’s my duty to find out!”

Sandra, who’d managed a grin of her own by now, cleared her throat. “Your duty, Mr. Silva, is to assist me and stay out of trouble. That duty most emphatically does not include testing the local booze. Do I make myself clear?”

Silva glanced at the cask and licked his lips. With a force of will, his expression changed to a beatific smile. “Aye, aye, sir!” He blinked. “Uh . . . ma’am—hell, that’s a mouthful!” His face lost all expression whatsoever as Sandra looked at him sternly. “Perfectly clear!” he managed at last.

Sandra straightened her back. There was a pain high in her hips that had grown more intense from leaning over to tend the wounded. For the first time in a while, she looked around. Already, Lemurian healers had swept into the “hospital area” on the open deck between the center and the shattered forward tower. They treated the injured in their own way. Some examined the stitches she had made, and jabbered in their quick, excited tones. Obviously, body language added a great deal of meaning to their speech, and she was growing convinced that their blinking eyes conveyed much as well. She walked into the almost-shade under the catwalk above. She couldn’t venture farther because that was where a sort of orchard of large pear-shaped fruit began. She’d heard it called polta fruit. The orchard ran entirely around the ship for a width of about fifteen feet. The wide catwalk was pierced at regular intervals by gratings that allowed light to the plants. The fruit itself, despite its familiar shape, had the color and shiny texture of purple grapes and grew in bunches as well, nestled in a mass of waxy, yellow-green leaves.

At the edge of the orchard was a Lemurian she knew was tall by the standards of his people, and his upper body was more muscular than most. He wore nothing but a bright red kilt stained dark by the blood matting his brindled fur and still seeping from a couple of cuts. He leaned on one knee over the still form of a female of similar color, raising her head so she could drink from a cup. One of the swords, like a cross between a machete and a scimitar, lay beside a blood-encrusted axe.

The female had clearly been in the fighting. Sandra had treated others as well. The first time she removed a bloody leather tunic from one of their “professional” warriors and discovered furry breasts beneath, she was shocked. Adar and his entourage were standing right there, though, and made no sign that the discovery of a female in the ranks was unusual. As she’d said earlier, the semi-nudity didn’t surprise her—although she’d finally rounded savagely on Silva and his buddies when she overheard their comments about the “cat-monkey booby farm”—but she hadn’t been prepared to find females not only fighting for their lives in a desperate situation but doing so as actual warriors.

After a time she grew inured—if not accustomed—to the apparent fact that among Lemurians there was total equality of the sexes. At least as far as warfare was concerned. But in this instance there seemed a contrast between that and the tender, very human concern she saw of a male for an injured female. She moved toward them unobserved. Adar was busy discussing something with Shinya and another Lemurian who’d approached. Silva, “distracted” again, suddenly noticed she’d wandered off and hurried after her, lugging his BAR. The big Lemurian straightened and regarded them as they neared. The female tried to rise, but Sandra made a lay-back motion with her hands and crouched beside her. The male and Silva remained standing, facing each other.

A quick survey showed Sandra no obvious life-threatening wounds, but there was a nasty cut above the left eye, slick with the healing lotion that Lemurians seemed to use as liberally as Mercurochrome. A possible concussion, then, but the eyes were alert. She smiled and crossed her hands over her chest. “Sandra,” she said. The female’s eyes fluttered rapidly and she glanced at the male who was now staring intently at Sandra as well.

With a wince, the female raised her left arm and patted herself. “Risa.” Then she pointed at the male and said, “Chack.”

Shinya and Adar joined them. “Lieutenant Tucker, Adar tells me their leader, Keje-Fris-Ar, desires we attend him once more.”

Sandra nodded, but reached out and gently patted Risa’s hand before she stood. “Very well, but please ask him to tell this one I hope she feels better soon.” She turned to Silva. “Stay here, and when Ensign Theimer and Pharmacist’s Mate Miller arrive, tell them whatever they do, don’t act like they’re taking over—just assist any way they can. Understand?”

“Yes, Miss . . . Lieutenant Tucker. I’ll tell Reavis and Newman that very thing, but me and Felts’ll tag along with you.”

“Really, Mr. Silva, that’s not necessary.”

He grinned. “Maybe not, ma’am, but I think we will anyway. Skipper’d have us thrown to the fishes if we let you out of our sight.”

Sandra sighed. “Very well. If you feel you must loom menacingly in the background wherever I go, I’ll not upset you by protesting further, but promise you’ll do so as peacefully as possible?”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” Silva said with an expression of purest innocence. “Everybody’ll tell you I’m as peaceable a critter as there is.”

 

Near dusk, the launch bumped into
Walker
’s side for the final time that day, and the passengers carefully climbed the metal rungs to the deck above. The nurses went first. The one named Theimer seemed almost catatonic, and Lieutenant Tucker had to help her up. Tony Scott had noticed she wasn’t quite with it when he took her across, but she looked even worse coming back, and she hadn’t said a word either time—not that he paid much attention, or even really cared. He just wanted out of the boat. He’d been in the launch most of the day, with the terrible silvery fish—and occasionally larger things—bumping against it. He’d controlled the urge to fire the Thompson over the side in mounting terror, but he hadn’t set it down all day. Now all he could think about was getting something more substantial than the wooden hull of a twenty-six-foot boat between him and whatever lurked below the surface of the water he’d always loved. He scrambled up last, urging Silva ahead of him.

“Calm down, Tony. What’s your rush?” jibed Silva as he neared the top, over Scott’s labored breathing below.

“Goddamn you, Silva! If you don’t hurry, I guess you’ll find out in a minute when I throw you in the water!”

Silva laughed as he clambered onto the deck and turned to offer the coxswain his hand. “Hell, they’s just fish, Tony, just like sharks. Sharks ain’t never spooked you before.”

As soon as he gained the deck, Scott moved quickly to the center, as far from the water as possible. Silva and Felts followed. Miller, Reavis, Newman, and the two nurses went below while others hoisted the launch aboard. Scott took a cigarette from Felts and lit it with trembling hands. He took several deep drags, eyes flitting nervously from point to point but carefully avoiding faces. “I been on the water all my life,” he said at last. “I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and had a sailboat, a fourteen-footer I’d take on the open ocean in the Gulf before my daddy figured I was old enough to drive.” He drew in another lungful of smoke. “Had some scrapes, too. Bad weather. Sharks . . .” He glanced at Silva, searching the big man’s face for ridicule. He shrugged. “From then to now, I ain’t
ever
been afraid of the water.” He shuddered. “Until today. It started creepin’ up on me when I went across to
Mahan
right after the Squall, but I guess it finally got the better of me. Even those critters that got Marvaney didn’t spook me like that constant bumpin’ all day long. Knowin’ . . .” He shook his head and looked back at Silva. “They ain’t just fish, Dennis, and this ain’t the Java Sea. Not anymore. I’ve known it from the start, but with everything going on, it just never sank in till today. I finally realized the water ain’t even just the water anymore. The water’s death, fellas, and if I had my druthers, I’d never go near it again.”

He’d been speaking in quiet tones, but evidently louder than he thought. They heard a gruff laugh and turned to see Dean Laney by the rail, leaning on the safety chain by the number one torpedo mount. The big machinist’s mate wore a sadistic grin.

“Don’t that beat all? The
coxswain’s
afraid of the water! Har! I bet you’ll be strikin’ for snipe now, so you don’t have to look at it no more!’Course, when I tell ever-body what a chickenshit deck-ape you are, Spanky won’t even take you as a bilge coolie!”

Scott bristled, but Silva held him back. Then he grinned and sauntered over to the stanchion next to Laney. He peered over the side.

“Woo, Laney, you’re so brave! I ain’t never seen a snipe this close to the water before! I hope you’re holdin’ that safety chain tight. I wouldn’t want you to fall!”

“Hell with you, Silva! Least I ain’t scared of the wa . . . Aaah!”

He shrieked when Dennis pulled the pin on the stanchion that held the chain in place. He went over the side and the chain went taut with a clanking thud heard over Laney’s high-pitched scream. Silva looked down and saw the machinist’s mate bouncing against the hull, mere feet above the deadly sea, hands clenched tight on the chain, his upturned face contorted by a grimace of terror.

“SHIT! Help!
Help!
Goddamn you to
hell
, Silva! HELP ME!”

“But you ain’t scared of the water, Dean,” Silva called down mildly.

“I . . . I
am
scared, damn you! HELP ME!”

Silva heard running feet, and Felts and Scott grabbed the chain and started pulling.

“Shit!”
exploded Scott. “You could’a killed him!” Other men arrived and between them they soon had Laney on deck, gasping and shaking, tears in his eyes.

“You could’a killed him!” Felts accused under his breath. Silva shrugged, then squatted and looked Laney in the eye.

“Damned ol’ rusty pin must’a gave,” he said. “No tellin’ what might happen if a fella ain’t careful what he does—or says.” He stood and laughed. “Whoo-ee! Lucky you was holdin’ that chain, Laney! Gives me the willies. The very idea of fallin’ in the water scares the shit out’a me!”

 

Sandra scrubbed her hands in the tiny basin in the compartment that once belonged to Lieutenants Ellis and Rogers but that she now shared with Ensign Theimer. Karen sat expressionlessly on a small chair, knees together, staring at her hands on her lap. They were caked with dried blood, and black rings encircled her fingernails. There was more on her clothes and face, and it even streaked her hair where she’d been squirted by a pulsing artery.