Robert Jones - Blood Tide

“The sea’s coming every which way, I don’t see it makes any difference how we steer. And stop questioning my orders. Right standard fucking rudder!”

“Aye, sir. Helmsman, right standard fucking rudder. Steady on fucking 018, if you can hold her there.”

“Aye aye, sir! ” Smirks in the gloom . . .

“Watch your language on my bridge, Billy! Goddamn it, that’s the third time we’ve seen them in the past half hour, and we’re not closing on them. What’re we making?”

“Turns for ten knots, sir.”

“That shit box can’t make ten knots. It can’t make five knots from the looks of her. What’s going on?”

“It’s these seas, sir. Maybe moving her along quicker than us? Who knows in seas like these.”

“Well, let’s get her. Now! Ring up all ahead flank.”

“Sir, this old engine, sir. She’ll tear herself apart at flank speed. We’ll—”

“Don’t question my orders, Gunner Torres! All ahead flank!”

“When’s the last time you pulled sea duty, Commodore?”

“None of your goddamn business. Just ten years ago, you insolent, mutinous son of a bitch.”

“Well, I refuse to destroy this vessel unless you put the order in the log, sir, and in writing to me personally.”

Millikan laid his hand on the butt of the .45-caliber model 1911A1A Colt automatic pistol holstered at his right hip, then saw that Torres had his own hand on a similar gun butt. A great following sea crashed over the gunboat’s fantail, and the ship shuddered, faltered, squatted scupper-deep in the confused and roaring combers. Her bow lifted skyward, corkscrewed sharply to starboard, her keel screaming. . . . Slowly she regained her feet.

“You have the conn, Mr. Torres,” the commodore said when the gunboat had struggled back to equilibrium.

“Aye, sir. Helmsman, I have the conn. Boatswain’s mate of the watch, enter that in the log. Time: 1523.”

As the first wave of hawk winds moved off to sea, small craft that had survived its fury began rejoining their mother ships. Those swamped but not sunk pumped their bilges or bailed by hand. As they did so, a predator in false colors moved sharklike among the disabled Thunders of the Millikan force. It was the Blue Thunder fast boat stolen early in the operation by Katana’s competent subordinate, Kasim Ali of Jolo, the Samal sea raider whose men comprised most of Katana’s pump-boat fleet. His pilot was the renegade American known as Curt Hughes, late of the Millikan force. Kasim sought out those swimming Tausuqs and crippled Thunders that lay helpless in the water, pumping out or trying to start their waterlogged engines. He destroyed them without mercy.

“A la derecha, Brusco. Pronto, pronto. Más rápidamente .” The Thunder spun to its right, and Curt saw the target—another fast boat spewing white gushers from its bilge pumps, the two-man crew emptying buckets of water over the sides, oblivious of approaching danger. Kasim was calling him Brusco and it took Curt a while to figure it out. Then he got it. Brusco is Spanish for ‘abrupt’—or ‘curt.’ They found they could communicate okay in Spanish. Kasim was all right. But Christ, what a killer . . .

“ Despacio, mas despacio. Sí, bueno ,” Fifty yards now, forty—the crewmen still unaware. Then one looked up. He smiled first—a helping hand!—saw the truth. Horror widened his eyes. He jumped for the M60, but before he could reach it, Kasim’s Lewis gun was hammering him, hammering the Thunder, chopping it to pieces. Curt brought their boat alongside the other, Kasim emptied the drum into the cockpit, then popped a stick grenade—smoky sizzle of the fuse—and tossed it into the enemy boat.

“ Adelante! ” Curt nailed the throttle, and they leapt ahead just as the grenade exploded. Behind him he saw the other Thunder break in half, explode as fire hit its fuel tanks.

Kasim laughed uproariously, then spotted swimmers in the water ahead—Tausuqs from a sunken boat. Dead meat before they knew it . . .

Only two Thunders made it back to the Moro Armado . They reported another fast boat still afloat behind them, pumping out when they last saw it, and possibly a fourth heading up from the south to assist it. Moro Armado , known irreverently among the saltier members of the Millikan force as the Albino Armadillo , was gaining now on Bloedig-Feeks . Seas were settling fast, but occasional gusts and swirling low clouds still swept down from the heights of Balbal. That island now lay astern on Armadillo’s quarter, and the eponymous prison island of Moro Armado dead abeam. It appeared deserted from the vantage point of Armadillo’s bridge, no boats at anchor or alongside in Narr Lagoon. But the commodore did not have much time to reason why. (He did not know as yet that the camp commander, Balabatchi, had defected to the “other side” and removed the healthier, more combative and influential prisoners from the island, taking them to San Lázaro itself to provoke a popular rising.) The commodore was understandably concerned: each time a squall blew through, obscuring Bloedig-Feeks from his sight, she seemed to leap far ahead of him. At one point, toward the end of the main storm, he had her within half a mile’s range. Now she was at the very limit of his three-inch guns’ reach—nearly four miles. Then he would close again, to three miles, two and a half. Another squall. Back out to four miles. Now, though, with sunset only an hour or less away, he had her within the grasp of his guns.

“Put a shot over her bow, Billy.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll get the crew to the gunmount.”

“They’re not at their stations? Goddamn it, Billy, we’re at general quarters! Where the fuck are they?”

“I sent the crew below in shifts, sir, for a hot meal. We may have a long night ahead. You know what they say, sir. A stern chase is a long chase.”

“Bunch of goddamn pogy-bait pansies you’re making of them, Billy. Let ’em eat horse-cock sandwiches at their battle stations. Hot joe’s hot chow enough when you’re going into combat.”

The gun crew raced to its mount, trained out on the wake of the Bloedig-Feeks . Torres, down at the gunmount, cranked in some more elevation. Shell loaded, breech closed and locked. Fire. The splash fell astern of Bloedig-Feeks , a bit to the left.

“Add fifty, right seventy-five,” Billy told the trainer.

Fire again. Still short, but on line this time.

“Add twenty-five.”

Fire. Over, about five yards. The splash threw water back on Bloedig-Feek’s bow.

“Drop ten. Fire.”

This time the splash was fifty yards astern of the trader, fifteen yards to the right.

“What the hell’s going on? You had her bracketed! Now get on her, Billy, and pound her. To hell with that marijuana—I want that cracker box in slivers. Now!”

“I think she speeded up, sir. Just before we fired that last time.”

“Just shoot, Billy. Hit her!”

And so it went for half an hour—Moro Armado expending ammunition in a futile attempt to lay just one round on the fragile wooden hull of its jinking, stutter-stepping, seemingly helpless target. Each time Katana saw the gunboat’s forward crew loading, he increased or reduced the Q-boat’s speed. His exec, former Chief Boatswain’s Mate James Francis Culdee, USN, had the helm. An accomplished ship handler and Korean War Bronze Star winner, Culdee managed with each change of speed to slip Venganza subtly to starboard or port. This totally confused Gunner Torres and his crew. As for Commodore Millikan, never a calm man at best, it reduced him to a state approaching apoplexy.

With dark fast approaching and the radar he’d ordered from BuOrd in Washington still not installed, he knew he must make use of the remaining daylight or run the risk of losing his prize. As this game of ducks and drakes proceeded— Armadillo’s three-inch shells skipping futilely off water where the enemy should have been but wasn’t—both ships were fast approaching the reef-studded waters of Dangerous Ground, just east of Perniciosa Island. The sun was settling fast on the horizon. Captain Katana excused himself from the schooner’s fantail and went below to the cabin. Boatswain Culdee conned the ship into the entrance of Dangerous Ground’s tortuous channel.