The Bosun paced the fo’c’sle, bellowing at the crew of the number one gun in his inimitable fashion, while Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites assembled his gun’s crews atop the amidships gun platform.
Ensign Fred Reynolds and his copilot/observer Kari-Faask dumped their breakfast in the can under the amidships deckhouse, despite Earl Lanier’s ranting, and raced toward where their Nancy’s “deck crew” was clearing and securing its cover, and preparing the hoist davit that would put the plane down in the water alongside. The same “deck crew” would also serve as a “plane dump detail” if the aircraft was ever damaged in action or became a deck hazard in any way.
Chack’s Marine drummer sounded a long roll, and the Marines not assigned to gun’s crews abandoned their ordinary seagoing duties and scrambled to one of the old vegetable lockers aft of the number three stack, to grab their leather armor and bronze “tin hats.” The company armorer issued their muskets from a new locker beside the galley, and they assembled on the weather deck, port and starboard of the numbers one and two funnels. First Sergeant Blas-Ma-Ar quickly called the roll over the racket.
On the rebuilt aft deckhouse, where the auxiliary conn was located, Frankie Steele took his post and Gunner’s Mate Pack Rat and Chief Bashear roared at the crew of the number four gun, as well as the depth charge handlers on the fantail below.
Matt watched this activity with growing satisfaction. He knew Spanky, Miami Tindal, and Tabby would be sorting things out below. The drill was unorthodox by prewar standards, but it was efficient, and it worked well for their purposes under the circumstances.
Chief Signalman Lieutenant Ed Palmer was the talker at the moment, repeating the readiness reports as they came in. “Wireless comm gear is under continuous watch,” he finished for his own division. “All stations manned and ready, Captain.”
Matt glanced at his watch. “Not quite a record, but not bad,” he remarked. “Not bad at all.” He made himself grin at those around him. “All stations may secure from general quarters. Continue steaming as before under condition three alert. Chack’s Marines may commence their morning exercises.”
Courtney Bradford and Selass-Fris-Ar, Keje’s daughter and currently
Walker
’s medical officer, ascended to the bridge. As usual, Courtney wore his wide, battered “sombrero” and had to remove it before entering the pilothouse. It was a standing order for him alone. His red, balding pate was shiny with sweat when he snatched the thing off.
“Well, we’re off again at last, I see,” Courtney said, glancing aside at the atoll slipping away off the port quarter. “Just as well. Of all the mysterious lands we’ve encountered, that one had absolutely the least to recommend it!”
“You mean to tell me you didn’t discover anything unusual?” Matt asked.
“Well, not as you would say ‘unusual’ ... now. A few odd crabs, I suppose, but nothing astonishingly peculiar, if you know what I mean? Of course.”
“You’re getting spoiled, Mr. Bradford. When we first met, a strange twig would’ve kept you enthralled for days.”
“I’m
not
spoiled, sir! I merely have ... higher expectations now. With good reason!”
Matt looked at Selass. With his human preconceptions, it was always a little tough for him to accept that she was even related to Keje, much less that she was his daughter. She couldn’t have looked less like him. She was sleek and thin where Keje was thick and muscled. Her fur was almost silver, while her father’s was a reddish brown. Keje’s eyes were about the same color as his coat, but Selass’s were almost as startlingly green as Saan-Kakja’s were ... goldish—whatever. Lemurians had no photography of course, so Matt had never seen a picture of Keje’s lost mate. He’d have been willing to bet anything that Selass took after her mother.
He also knew she and Chack had a “history.” Given his understanding of what ’Cats considered attractive, he could understand it. Male Lemurians were drawn to physical beauty, just as men were, and Selass was stunning even to his eyes. Exotic rarity also seemed to enhance perceived attractiveness, and that was probably why Saan-Kakja, Safir Maraan, and even Selass were viewed almost as icons of Lemurian beauty. Saan-Kakja with her amazing eyes, Safir Maraan with her jet-black fur and silver eyes, Selass with her silver fur and green eyes ... Shoot, maybe it was just the eyes. Matt mentally shrugged. There was no doubt about it, Lemurians were handsome creatures. He wouldn’t dwell on the fact that some of his men, including Silva, apparently considered them more than just “handsome.” He supposed the only thing ’Cat women got out of such hypothetical relationships was the exotic rarity of humans. He thought he felt something squirm down his back.
Chack’s history with Selass. That’s what he’d been thinking about. He’d almost refused to allow her on the mission because of that ... but then, he really couldn’t have refused, could he? With Sandra gone, Jamie Miller with the fleet, Karen pregnant, and Pam Cross a nervous wreck after Silva’s abduction with the others, he couldn’t have taken Kathy McCoy. For such an important mission, though, he did need a “high-profile” medic. Selass was it. She was good with human and ’Cat physiology, and she’d earned her “nurse lieutenant” status. She’d changed dramatically from the self-centered, spoiled brat teenager Matt first met, and she was utterly devoted to Sandra. She’d grown up. The war and the loss of her first mate, Saak-Faas, had finally made something of her. If Matt had refused to take her, it might have been seen as a slight by some of his very best Lemurian friends. The problem was, no matter how well she hid it, Matt and Sandra had long known that Selass was still hopelessly in love with Chack.
Chack was virtually mated to Safir Maraan, Queen Protector of B’mbaado. They’d planned to announce their betrothal and perform their nuptials after the liberation of Aryaal and B’mbaado, but after what they found there, the time just didn’t seem right. Now Matt had dragged Chack thousands of miles from his beloved and he felt really bad about that, but damn it, he needed the kid! He was a veteran of vicious combat now and a steady leader. He’d earned his post, and Matt couldn’t have taken anyone else. What he didn’t need was Chack getting all a-twitter and confused around his old flame, though. So far, it didn’t seem to be a problem, and Matt hoped it wouldn’t be. Probably wouldn’t. Chack was “engaged,” and he and Selass had their duty. They’d both amply demonstrated how important that was to them.
“Good morning, Selass,” he said, nodding at her.
“Good morning, Cap-i-taan,” she replied. She’d begun accompanying Bradford to the bridge after the two of them prepared her “battle station”—the wardroom—which would become a surgery in the event of battle. It certainly wasn’t due to any policy or anything; she just did it—like Sandra always had before. It probably even made sense in a way that the medical officer would want to come to the bridge and see for herself what was happening, so she’d have some idea what she might be about to face in the way of casualties. Matt hadn’t liked it when Sandra did it—at first—but as time went on, he couldn’t change it and didn’t really want to. She’d always known when it was time to leave. Now ... to chase Selass off when there wasn’t any need would be hypocritical.
“Coffee?” Matt offered. Selass blinked distaste. Most Lemurians hated coffee, or “monkey joe,” as the destroyermen had dubbed the local equivalent. They considered it a medical stimulant, not a staple of daily life.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Bradford said.
Juan had returned with another carafe and he happily poured a steaming cup. “At least someone appreciates the labor necessary to render the strange seeds I get into something almost as good as the coffee I used to make!” he proclaimed piously.
Matt was glad he hadn’t been taking a sip just then, or he’d have spewed it out his nose. “Trust me, Juan, everyone appreciates it,” he interjected truthfully.
“That vile, bloated cook, Lanier—he just incinerates the beans and grinds them up! Sometimes he will even waste an egg!”
Matt’s brows furrowed. That explained a lot. Vile and bloated as Lanier certainly was, his monkey joe was actually better than Juan’s. And it didn’t have green foam on top.
“You know, I always kind of liked an egg in my coffee, Juan,” Matt experimented delicately.
“Nonsense, Cap-tan! If you want lizard-bird eggs, I will cook them for you, any way you like! Why eat disgusting green eggs, full of grounds?”
Matt sighed. “Oh, never mind.” Maybe he could drop another hint later. Juan was good to him, to all the officers. To come right out and tell him
Walker
’s greasy cook made better coffee was out of the question. “Maybe I’ll have an egg sandwich, then, after all.”
“Good!” Juan approved. “You did not eat before GQ. You need to eat! You get too skinny!” The little Filipino—who probably didn’t weigh ninety pounds—scampered down the stairs behind them.
“That was close!” Bradford said. “For a moment I feared you might have gone too far! If Juan ever got his feelings hurt and went on strike, I know
I
would starve.” He shuddered. “Has Lanier ever actually bathed?” he asked. “Or even washed his hands, perhaps?”
Matt grinned sheepishly. “I had to try.” He turned back to Selass. “How’s everything in your department?”
“None are sick, oddly enough. I think they are too excited about our next landfall to malinger. All the injured have returned to duty but one, and he will recover.”
Matt remembered a striped, mustard-colored machinist striker who’d taken a rivet in the chest like a bullet when one of the thirty-pounders punched through the engine room. It had looked bad. Again, he was amazed by the curative properties of the Lemurian polta paste. “Glad he’ll be okay,” he said sincerely, then winced. “No, ah, screamers?” He asked, using Silva’s universally accepted term for diarrhea.
“None, Cap-i-taan. We seem to have arrived at a proper mix.”
The reason for Matt’s wince was that in spite of his best efforts to maintain Navy traditions and regulations, the U.S. Navy on this world was no longer exactly “dry.” One of Sandra’s longest-held concerns was that some bug in the water might annihilate the crew. This concern was not without foundation. For the longest time she’d insisted that the crew drink only ship’s water that had been either boiled or manufactured by the condensers. With personnel now spread so far apart, that was no longer always practicable. They’d consumed the various nectars and spirits produced by the Lemurians with no ill effects, but every time somebody even accidentally drank a little “local” water, they wound up with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge. Even the various ’Cat clans had a few problems along those lines. The massive, lumbering seagoing Homes collected sufficient fresh water to keep them independent, but they almost always got a little sick when they visited the Homes of land folk. Before the destroyermen had arrived, they’d had no idea what germs were, but they’d settled on the simple expedient of making a sort of grog by mixing water with highly alcoholic “seep.”
Seep was a spirit made by fermenting the ubiquitous polta fruit that gave the Lemurians food, juice, and the fascinating curative paste. When seep was further refined and distilled, it produced a high-grade alcohol. Alcohol could be made from other things, such as certain grains the’Cats used in the production of their excellent beer. A beetlike tuber worked well, and their efforts to boost the octane of their gasoline had resulted in the discovery of other things that could be used to produce ethanol. Seep, or its distilled version, still remained the preferred ingredient in Lemurian grog. Matt didn’t know if they’d come up with the idea on their own or if Jenks’s ancestors let it slip, but under the circumstances, necessity dictated that some form of grog—the weakest effective mixture—be reintroduced aboard U.S. Navy ships.
Matt was certainly no Puritan, and he’d considered prohibition a useless, stupid, harmful political stunt, but as far as
his
Navy was concerned, he’d done his absolute best to maintain its traditions and regulations. He wouldn’t have a bunch of drunks running his ships. Fortunately, the mixture required to purify water could barely be tasted, much less felt, and the condensers still provided enough fresh water to dilute the mixture even further. At least on
Walker
. She utilized an open-feed-water system, with seawater going straight to the boilers. This hadn’t worked as well on some of the new boilers they’d made. Corrosion and sediment in the steam lines were already becoming a concern on USS
Nakja-Mur
and USS
Dowden
. The closed systems they were using on some of the newer steam frigates about to join the fleet when
Walker
left Baalkpan were fresh-water hogs. They’d have to keep fuel
and
water tenders trailing behind them wherever they went.
Big Sal
’s massive engines were open systems, so maybe they could replenish from her. He shook his head. Ultimately, he wasn’t bothered nearly as much by the result of the policy as he was by the principle of the thing.
“How long until we reach this ‘Respite’ Island, Captain?” Bradford asked. “We’ll be there for a while, I take it?”
Matt refocused and shifted uncomfortably in his elevated chair. “A week and a half at this pace. Maybe more,” he said grudgingly, glancing out to port, where
Achilles
steamed. She’d set her fore course, topsails and topgallants, as well as her fore staysails. Soon, she would draw her fires and proceed under sail alone. She’d be just as fast, and didn’t have the fuel to keep her boiler lit for the entire passage.
“I say,” Bradford said, “couldn’t we just go on ahead without her? We could be there in a matter of days! If we dawdle along awaiting Mr. Jenks and his prizes, our oilers and other ships will most likely beat us there!”
“Oh, Courtney, come on. You know that’s ridiculous. I wish it were true, but our supply convoy from the Fil-pin Lands must travel under sail alone, and I’m afraid our stay at Respite will be longer than even you would like.” He didn’t say that he was far more anxious than Bradford to reach their destination and then be on their way. Billingsley,
Ajax
—and Sandra—drew ever farther from his grasp with each passing day.