Robert Jones - Blood Tide

“Then who’s that?” Sôbô handed the glasses to Miranda. She looked. It was the man in the photos Kasim had showed them, so long ago now. She turned and kicked Curt again.

“You lying bastard! I should have shot you like I wanted to.”

“He’s alive?” Curt said. His eyes looked wide, hopeless. “He can’t be. The tamaracks . . .”

“No time for this now,” Culdee broke in. “Miranda, please just get back in the boat and clear out of here. It’s going to get damned hot in a minute or two.”

“What about him?” She booted Curt again.

“We kill him?” Kasim had his bolo out, grinning eagerly at Miranda.

“Wait a minute,” Curt pleaded. “Let me fight for you. I can help you. I can run a Thunder better than any of Millikan’s guys. I can fire that Redeye that’s on the boat. You need all the men you can get, don’t you?”

“Not that badly,” Miranda said.

Another kumpit lurched to a three-inch hit. Her crew dived overboard as heavy machine-gun fire from the gunboat lashed her decks.

“Put me in the boat with this guy,” he nodded at Kasim. “I’ll drive, he can shoot. If I try anything, he can kill me. I promise. I’ll fight for you.”

“Can the Redeye help us at all?” Culdee asked Sôbô.

“Possibly,” Sôbô said. “If Millikan has any aircraft available. We don’t know if he has, but I don’t know how to fire that system. None of us does.”

Moro pump boats lay awash, dead in the water, sinking under the superior firepower of the Thunders.

“I leave it up to you, Captain,” Sôbô said to Miranda. “But we must start fighting this ship soon, right now in fact, or we won’t have anything left to fight with.”

“Okay,” Miranda said. Over Sôbô’s shoulder she could see the Moro Armado turning her bow toward Venganza . Smoke and fire erupted from the forward gunmount. A shell screamed overhead and ricocheted off the water a hundred yards beyond them. “We’ll let the battle decide it. Throw him in the Thunder, Kasim. Let him drive. You shoot. If he does not fight—” She swung an imaginary bolo.

“Aye aye, Capitán,” Kasim said. His mouth drooped in disappointment, but he slung Curt down into the Thunder. Miranda paused at the rail.

“Get clear of this place,” Culdee said. He stepped over to her. “You’re right, we never should have come. But we’re here now. You’ve got what you came for, so please, please get clear of here.”

“Come with me, Dad.”

He took her in his arms and hugged her. She was strong. His own flesh, but stronger than he had ever been. He smelled gun smoke in her hair.

“I can’t,” Culdee said. “Turner’s over there. Alive. I haven’t gotten what I came for yet. And this ship needs me.” He kissed his daughter and turned her toward the sailboat. She dropped over the side, and he cast off her line.

She gave me back my life, he thought. Now I can throw it away.

THIRTY

Following the initial raids, ground assaults, and small-boat actions that provoked it, the Battle off Balbal (as it came to be known) evolved in four distinct phases: Sortie, Pursuit, the Duel of the Heavies, and Mop-Up. Commodore Millikan’s main force—gunboat Moro Armado and six Blue Thunder fast boats, on reaching the open sea, proceeded to destroy the enemy’s small craft and transports. Moro Armado’s main battery of three-inch guns, accurately directed by her exec, Warrant Gunner’s Mate William Torres, sank kumpits almost at will, while the fast boats, with their superior speed and maneuverability, easily shot up or swamped the attacking force’s outboard-powered pump boats. At this point Commodore Millikan did not yet recognize the threat posed by the attack force’s Q-boat. He ignored the pleas of Gunner Torres to take her under fire, arguing that the conservation of his limited supply of three-inch ammunition was of greater importance in the long run. This was the first of his mistakes.

“Goddamn it Billy! Don’t waste ammo on that floating junk heap! We can take her later with a boarding party, for Christ’s sake.”

“I don’t like the looks of her, sir. And there’s lots of men on that trader. All of ’em have guns.”

“Popguns! To hell with them. Get those pump boats.”

“Aye, sir.”

“What’s that on her deck? Those bales?”

“Look like bales to me, sir.”

“Take a closer look with your binoculars. Is that marijuana?”

“Hard to tell, sir, but it could be. Color’s about right.”

“All the more reason not to shoot her up, Billy. We can use that stuff—help pay for some of this damage at least. Six Thunders blown to hell! God knows what these Commie terrorists have done to the boat basin and the Balbal fort. Washington’s gonna be pissed, Billy. Mightily pissed.”

Shortly after Sortie, heavy weather, which had been building throughout the day, descended on the embattled vessels. Icy winds poured down at gale-force velocities from the white-edged, black-bellied anvil clouds gathered over the islands. These winds, which resemble Aleutian williwaws, are known locally as vientos azores (“hawk winds”), because of the speed and ferocity of their assault. Under their blast on this day, seas rose instantly in great, churning, conflicting surges, swamping pump boats and fast boats with impartiality. Two of the Millikan force’s Thunders went under with all hands. Many of the attacking pump boats survived, however, drifting awash with crewmen clinging to wooden hulls and outriggers until the winds moved off to the east. Fortunately, the yawl Seamark , making her way north out of harm’s way, was proceeding on engine power—had she been under sail, she would have been knocked down and swamped instantly. These winds, though, were just what the attack-force commander, Captain Katana, had been hoping for. It gave him the opportunity to lure the Millikan force farther to the north.

“Why the hell didn’t you open up on him when we had the chance?”

“The time wasn’t right, old man. If he’d seen we outgunned him, he’d likely have made tracks out of range. I want him well away from San Lázaro, up in the reefs of the Dangerous Ground, where he can’t turn tail and run from us. We’ll—ah, there he is, see him? He sees us, too. Yes, he’s coming on, old son. Just the way we want him.”

* * *

Nonstop lightning, thunder as loud as naval gunfire, sheets of rain and seawater slashing ships and men with the impact of chilled bird shot, seas moving at speed in all directions, colliding, erupting in bone-white bursts that stood frozen in the lightning glare, taller than mastheads; sudden rifts in the swirling black clouds, blue sky, hot sunlight turning the water milky green where it wasn’t white, glimpses of Balbal emerald-green and silver with the flailing undersides of coco fronds. Seamark tossed, bucked, rolled her masts nearly to the wave tops, throwing Miranda to the bitter end of the lifeline she’d tied to the rudderpost. The harness bit deep into her back, but she kept her grip on the helm while the big dog crouched with wide-planted paws on the cockpit’s leaping deck, his eyes grave through wet-matted hair, riding it out, weathering it. To the west the Moro Armado rolled rail to rail, her blunt bow scooping green water and catapulting it aft, over the pilothouse, where Millikan stared through binoculars into the chaos ahead . . .

“There they are, Billy—030, about five hundred yards, maybe seven hundred. Right standard rudder.”

“In this sea, sir? We’re damn near on our beam ends now.”