Taylor Anderson - Destroyermen

Before them, racing to prevent their escape into the looming rainstorm, were yet another destroyer and a massive capital ship. There was a collective gasp.

After a moment spent studying the apparition through his binoculars, Matt spoke. "That, gentlemen, is Amagi ." His voice was harsh but matter-of-fact. "She's a battle cruiser. Not quite a battleship, but way heavier than a cruiser. I know it's her"—he smiled ironically, but his expression was hard—"because she's the only one they have left. Built in the twenties, so she's almost as old as we are"—he snorted— "but they've spent money on her since. Major rebuild a few years ago. Anyway, I remember her because I was always impressed by how fast the Japs could make so much metal move." He sighed. "I guess it's fitting, after everything else, she should show up here. They really don't want us to get away."

He turned and spoke to Riggs in a voice that was white-hot steel. "Signal Mahan to prepare for a torpedo attack with port tubes. Mr. Sandison, speak to your division." He crossed his arms over his chest and his hands clenched into fists. "We can't go around her and we can't turn back. That leaves only one choice."

Gray nodded with grim acceptance.

"Yes, sir, we'll have to go right through the son of a bitch."

Blowers roaring, haggard destroyermen performing their duties in an exhausted fugue, the two battered, venerable old ladies slightly altered course and together began their final charge. Matt noticed that even Captain Kaufman was on the foredeck now, hauling shells. Lieutenant Mallory and two ratings scurried up the ladder behind, each festooned with belts of .30-cal. It was clear to everyone that getting past the two ships ahead and disappearing into the strange, ominous squall was their only hope. It was equally clear that it was impossible.

Ahead waited Amagi : 46,000 tons of cemented armor plate. As they watched, she began a leisurely turn to present her full broadside of ten 10-inch guns. Her secondary battery of 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch guns was entirely superfluous. The sleek new destroyer at her side was all but forgotten despite her guns and deadly "Long Lance" torpedoes. The additional threat she represented was almost laughably insignificant under the circumstances. She could have taken them by herself.

The shriek and splash of incoming shells proved the cruisers behind hadn't forgotten them either, and the growing drone of propellers indicated the bombers had seen them too.

"Looks like every Jap in the Java Sea's in a race to sink us," mumbled Gray.

Five miles away, Amagi opened fire. She pulsed with flame from one end to the other as she salvoed her big guns. Seconds later, the rattling roar of ten-inch shells thundered toward them. They sounded deeper than the eights, Matt reflected absently. Then he stepped into hell.

The first salvo fell short, but it threw up a wall of spray that drenched Greg Garrett and his team and probably soaked Lieutenant Rogers way up in the crow's nest. Rogers had fallen silent, and Garrett tried to adjust the fire of the number one and three guns, but he couldn't bloody see . Walker pierced the spume raised by Amagi 's main guns, but the splashes from the secondaries and the cruisers behind were uninterrupted. He thought of all the times he'd shot turtles in the stock tank behind his grandmother's house—now he knew how they must have felt. There was a loud bang behind him and he twisted to see chaos on the amidships deckhouse.

A roar overhead made him turn to see a dive bomber pull up and blow by, its wingtip a dozen yards from the mast. An enormous explosion convulsed the sea to port and bomb fragments whined off the rail and the range finder. Tracers rose to meet the plane and something fell off it. Another mighty salvo rumbled in, the splashes seeming to concentrate on Mahan . He half expected to see a twisted wreck as the spray fell away, but somehow she staggered out of the trough and shook herself off. Water sluiced from her. Her aft deckhouse was wrecked, and her number four funnel lay on a crushed lifeboat davit. The searchlight tower had fallen as well.

Something went crump forward, and a 5.5-inch plowed a furrow in the starboard bow and ricocheted into the sea. The big anchor chain that normally disappeared into the well trailed over the side from the bollard. Another salvo bloomed ahead, less than three miles off. Damn we're close! he thought as the shells almost sucked the air from his lungs as they passed—just barely—overhead to thrash the sea astern. He peered through his binoculars during a momentary respite.

"There they are! Right there!" he shouted into the speaking tube. "I mean, surface target! Bow! Estimate range five five double oh!" The salvo buzzer sounded more shrill than usual before the pathetic report of their own guns. Greg held on tight as Walker turned sharply to starboard. Amagi seemed almost motionless, the destroyer tucked under her skirt like a timid child. Beyond them, much closer now, the squall beckoned. Dark and alive with a torrential green rain.

Another salvo slashed out from Amagi just as six torpedoes chuffed from their tubes and lanced in her direction. Black smoke poured from the stacks again and Garrett felt a sense of anxious elation now their torpedoes were on the way. With any luck . . . A thunderous crash and a fiery cloud of hot, black soot and steam swept him to the deck.

Walker heaved when a ten-inch shell on a virtually flat trajectory punched through the forward fireroom. It didn't explode, but the sudden decompression of the compartment caused the burners to fireball. The flames didn't kill the men, but the steam from ruptured lines did. The destroyer's speed dropped and Matt turned to Chief Gray, but he'd already left. His gaze returned to the shattered pilothouse windows, sweeping past the speaking tube that led to the crow's nest. Blood dripped from it to join a widening pool. Electrician's Mate Janssen's blood was there too, as well as Rodriguez's. Rodriguez had been carried to the wardroom. Janssen was dead.

"Sir, forward fireroom's out of action! Mr. McFarlane bypassed with the main deck valve. He says our speed should be restored—almost— momentarily."

"Very well."

Mahan emerged from the smoke and spray astern cutting a wide, looping turn to port. Back toward Amagi . Matt stifled his instinctive command to signal her when he saw the reason why. The gun on her foredeck stood vacant and exposed, the splinter shield shot away. Behind it, the entire bridge superstructure was askew, torn and shattered and gushing smoke. After a single horrified glance, he doubted a soul had survived inside it. Her port torpedo tubes were rigged out, so at least maybe she got off her salvo, but otherwise she was a wreck.

More men lost. His men now. Since Captain Blinn was lost to them with Pope , he was senior. He'd ordered the torpedo attack—it made no difference that there wasn't any choice. Those men now steaming blind and helpless at flank speed directly toward the enemy were under his orders. But what of these men? Chances were, with Mahan headed straight for her, Amagi would concentrate on the helpless destroyer. The fire aimed at Walker had already slacked. She could almost certainly slip into the squall. He rubbed his forehead vigorously and looked into the wide-eyed, expectant faces of the men around him. They wanted him to do it: to give the order to turn back. They were willing it. Didn't they understand it was death? They had a chance to live—all they had to do was abandon Mahan to Amagi 's fury.

No, they couldn't live like that and neither could he. They'd run far enough. It didn't matter anymore where they were. The fight was here and they would face it. Shades of gray no longer existed. Everything was a stark black and white once more. Was that what it all boiled down to? Had the entire Asiatic Fleet been sacrificed just because it was there? The salvo buzzer rang and numbers one, three, and four let loose, but he didn't even hear. Finally his gaze fell upon Reynolds. The boy was the youngest and most junior crewman on the bridge. The look he returned was . . . pleading.