Robert Jones - Blood Tide

Culdee stood and faced him. They weren’t a yard apart.

“Turner.”

The man stepped back, went for his pistol.

“Culdee?”

He slapped at the holster flap, his pale blue eyes red with the smoke, that weak chin, wattles along his jawline. Turner, sure, but old now.

“Goddamn right,” Culdee said. “Culdee, J. F., Chief Boatswain’s Mate, USN.”

He swung the bolo. Turner ducked. The blade clipped his left arm, and the satchel charge dropped. He had cleared the holster flap now, he had the pistol coming out, coming up. Culdee moved in and chopped again. Again Turner dodged. The gunbarrel was up now. There was the close slam of the .45. Culdee dodged sideways, swinging the bolo. Fire flashed from the pistol, whined, smacked. Culdee reeled to his left—shit—the bullet. . . .

My right hand, he flashed. That’s the one that’s busted up the worst. He shook it. Two fingers were gone. Where was the bolo? Turner fired again . . .

Another shell from the Moro Armado smashed home, amidships this time. Turner was lost amidst the flash and the flames, smoke heavy and choking all around him.

Culdee saw the bolo, crawled toward it. He heard the near, loud crash of the 4.7, saw its shell smack the Moro Armado at the waterline. A perfect smoke ring blew from Sôbô’s gun muzzle. Then smoke blinded him again. Must have been like this then, on the Fat Lady . . .

Sôbô opened the gun’s breech block, and the brass clanked out in a bright yellow whirl, thumping on the deck behind him. Ghosts of white smoke rose up, acrid from the plug. He groped for another shell, grabbed it by the ogive curve, swung it up, and slapped it into the receiver tray. And rammed it home. He closed the block. Easy now, easy now. He looked hard through the smoke and saw the Moro Armado close aboard, broadside to him. He sighted down the barrel of his gun. He cranked in some deflection, cranked the muzzle down until it was smack on the gunboat’s pilothouse. He fired. Another hit. The pilothouse exploded in spinning fury. But the three-inch barked back at him. The shell whined overhead. Sôbô opened the breech block. He reached for a shell . . .

Culdee hunted Turner through the smoke. On his hands and knees. Slipping in blood, his own blood. Splinters bit when his shoulders moved. He was spiky as a porcupine—wooden ships . . .

Turner was hiding beside the stump of the mizzenmast. Flames licked behind him. He flattened himself on the deck. Too much, too much—they can’t ever pay me enough for this shit duty. . . . He saw Culdee briefly through the smoke, angling toward him, left to right. He leveled the .45 and slapped the trigger. Bang—gone wild. . . . No, dork, it’s not a shotgun. . . . The receiver locked open. It was empty. He reached into his hip pocket for another magazine. No hip pocket. He felt his shirt pocket. No more ammo. Billy’d blown it all away . . .

Sôbô hit the Moro Armado again, at the waterline. Billy fired back at his muzzle flash. The shell flew high once more, loud and almost visible in the dark. Sôbô swung the breech block open, grabbed another round. He saw the flash of the Moro Armado’s muzzle. Splinters skewered his face. His right eye went dead. He pulled himself up, his hand sizzling on the gun barrel. He cranked the muzzle down again, point blank. Yes, he’d chambered the round just as the three-inch hit. He fired. In the afterimage of the flash he saw the gunboat shudder, spew gouts of smoke, list heavily to port. The gunner would have to correct now, maybe he couldn’t correct enough, couldn’t depress his muzzle quite enough to hit the schooner. Diagrams flashed through Sôbô’s mind—he smelled the Inland Sea, the chalk on the instructor’s blackboard, Eta Jima, Gunnery 101. . . . He reached back for another shell as he opened the plug . . .

Culdee’s legs were broken. His shirt was on fire, flapping against his back with its own self-inspired wind. Fuck it. He rolled over onto his back, squelching the flames. Blood welled from his belly. He looked down, wished he’d hadn’t. There was a big frag from that last one, in his belly. The blood was slow and dark, and there were pieces of crud in it. He could smell shit along with the blood. “Shit!” he yelled. Then he laughed. You heard about it on the midwatches, your shipmates had seen it, and here it is. No pain yet, though. Thank Christ for that.

Where was Turner?

He heard the dead cranking of an engine. That nagging, sullen whine—Viv carping about payday, about shore duty. Turner was over the side, in the fast boat. Culdee could hear him muttering down there in the dark. Abandon ship. The Fat Lady . They all died, didn’t they? Or most of them, anyway.

Sôbô fired again. Culdee saw the hit, again at the waterline. Then he saw a flash from the gunboat’s forward deck. Not a gun flash, a grenade launcher. Like in the delta . . .

The grenade hit Sôbô in the chest, blew through him, exploded against the gun. The round Sôbô had just chambered went off, but the barrel was bent now. The gun exploded. It shredded Sôbô like raw meat in a whizbang.

Surigao autumn . . .

Culdee’s head clanked against something hard and metallic. He could hear Turner cursing as he turned the starter again and again. Culdee reached behind him, felt the metal. It was the punt gun, where he’d laid it before the fight started. The weapon was already loaded with half a pound of black powder, a heavy charge of cannister. He began pulling himself toward the taffrail, hauling the punt gun beside him every few drags of his elbows. Caps? He slapped what was left of his shirt. Yes, right there in his pocket, where he used to keep his smokes. He could see the Moro Armado listing dangerously to port now, her nearside scuppers dipping close to the sea every time a wave reached her. He saw the grenade launcher flash again, heard the grenade blow, back near the gun Sôbô was serving. He looked over toward the gunmount. In the flare of the fires he saw Sôbô dead against the smashed gun. Culdee’s elbows skidded in the blood and oil on the deck. His face hit the planking, and two teeth splintered. Burning coals fell on his back and shoulders. He crawled on.

Turner was still trying—the engine had taken frags through its feed line. When he saw gasoline leaking, smelled it on his feet, in the boat’s bilges, Turner pulled the gas line free. There was a spare tank. He pulled the sloshing steel tank aft and plugged it onto the tit. He pumped the rubber bulb, priming it. Then he cranked the starter once again. A choking splutter. The smell of gas fumes . . . flooded. He’d have to wait another minute.

But Torres was still lobbing grenades. The gunboat was quite close now, and Turner could see Billy on the fo’c’sle, the M79 stubby against his shoulder like a blunderbuss, thumb clear of the breaking lever, pop—flash— bam . This time too close.

“Cease fire!” Turner yelled. “Cease fire! They’re done, you idiot! They’re all dead, don’t waste any more grenades!”

“Fuck you, sir,” Billy yelled back. He popped a round at the commo, saw it burst on the schooner’s cabin roof. Then he broke the launcher and slipped in another round. Turner crouched down in the Thunder’s cockpit. Court-martial for that man, no doubt about it now . . .

Culdee reached the rail. He dragged the punt gun up and slid the barrel out over the side. Turner was just forward of him, cowering in the fast boat. But Culdee couldn’t depress the muzzle of the punt gun enough to hit him. The barrel was too long, longer than a tall man is tall. He’d have to stand to do it, and he couldn’t stand on his wasted legs. Turner was up again, on his knees. He was grabbing for the starter key. He was turning it. Culdee heard the engine fire. Then it died. Turner cursed. Culdee fumbled in his pocket for the box of caps. He got it open, took one between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, the stubs of the last two fingers still leaking blood onto the deck, onto the gun itself. He felt a bone in his right thigh poke through his skin and the bite of the air on its marrow. He tried to cap the nipple of the punt gun. The cap slipped off, tinkled on the deck, bright and brassy in the firelight. He took another.