“We have about a month and a half, usin’ just enough to keep body and soul together,” Silva said. Lelaa nodded agreement. She’d estimated as much.
Sandra sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Lawrence,” she said at last, “your people have no knowledge of the Philippines, correct?”
“None, except I.”
“I imagine those ... proas are a lot faster than this boat, with as little sail as it can carry.”
“True,” Lawrence agreed.
“Twice as fast?”
Lawrence didn’t know. The only one he’d ever sailed, he’d built himself, and it was very small.
Lelaa had been looking at the lines of the boats in question. “At least that,” she said, “which would shorten the trip, but those boats do not look as well suited to heavy weather.”
“And ours is? How much food and water do they have?”
Lawrence asked, and discovered that the refugees had less than they did, for all intents and purposes.
“Saan-Kakja may kill me,” Sandra muttered, “but ask them if they want to go someplace way bigger than they’ve ever seen; where no wave can ever wash their lives away.” She looked at Lelaa. “I don’t think Saan-Kakja even has a colony on Samar, does she?”
CHAPTER 26
Talaud Island
“
J
eez, Mr. Laumer,” said Shipfitter Danny Porter nervously, watching the distant mountain through binoculars, “I don’t think I can take this much longer! I’m starting to think poor Sid got off easy.”
Laumer stood beside him on S-19’s conn tower, beneath the brown-gray sky. He turned and gave Porter a blistering stare. “Stow that crap right now, sailor! Sid didn’t give up, and neither will you.” Laumer paused, taking in the hellish scene of desolation surrounding the boat. The island was a dusty, skeletal corpse, and the strange winds and twisting thermal eddies kicked up random vortices that danced among the wooden bones. The air was full of an ash so fine that it resembled a smoky haze, and everyone who came up from below wore bandannas. They didn’t help much. The whole crew had hacking coughs, and some were coughing blood. The dust was everywhere, and even below, red, puffy eyes streamed constantly.
“Look,” Irvin continued, less harshly, “I know you’re scared. Everybody is. This is the screwiest situation imaginable. But think about it like this: you were at Baalkpan, under Chapelle, right?” Danny nodded. “I wasn’t even there,” Irvin said with a touch of bitterness. “I was at Sembaakpan with the ‘women and kids.’ Tell me this—which was scarier, this or a couple hundred thousand Grik coming to eat you?”
“Well ... that was,” Danny confessed, “but there was fighting, see? We were
doing
something! There wasn’t all this time ... just sitting and waiting.”
Irvin nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been waiting a few days, but we’ve been busy too. We’ve been working on the boat and waiting for the lagoon to clear enough for us to get out of here. That was a chance Captain Reddy, you, and all the ’Cats never had at Baalkpan—a chance to get away from what was coming. By all accounts, you didn’t lose it then, and you’re not going to now. Got it?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The steel beneath their feet reverberated with a gasping, metallic groan, and black soot mixed with rusty red dust exploded from the port exhaust, aft. For almost a full minute, they listened to the labored, clattering rumble of the port diesel, before it belched and died.
“Looks like Sandy might finally have a handle on that thing,” Irvin observed. “Seems the biggest problem with it was that a leaky exhaust vent let water in, rainwater mostly, thank God, and it rusted everything up in the cylinders and seeped into the crankcase.” He raised his own binoculars and scanned the lagoon. There was still a lot of debris, and the water around the anchored submarine was dark and gray with mud. But most of the detritus had washed ashore by now, or gathered into tangled islands close to the beach. “Which is good,” Irvin continued, “because we’re through waiting. As soon as the tide clears as much of that junk out of the mouth of the lagoon as it’s going to today, we’re getting the hell out of here!”
“Torpedo room reports that the submerged anchor’s secure,” Tex Sheider announced over the rumble of the starboard diesel and the distant, fitful cracks booming from the mountain.
Irvin nodded, glaring at the volcano. “Bitch acts like she doesn’t want us to leave,” he murmured. “Very well,” he said louder. “Lookouts to the bow, and as far aft as they dare. Stand by to fend off debris. Make all preparations for getting underway.”
Midshipman Hardee tooted a call on a bosun’s pipe—the kid had a real talent for the thing—and Lemurians scurried from below, positioning themselves for the prearranged detail, closing the hatches behind them. Just moving around on the boat was a real chore now. With her strakes burnt away, her furry crew had to climb over and under the exposed deck supports and they looked like kids charging through a set of playground monkey bars armed with long poles and lashed-together broom handles.
“The maneuvering watch is set,” Tex said, repeating a call from below. “Such as it is.” He changed his tone to that of an ominous lecture. “All hands are informed that the submarine service expects every man aboard, from the captain on down, to know his boat from the topmast to the keel,” he quoted, then shrugged. “All stations manned and ready.”
“Very well,” said Irvin again. He took a breath. He’d been in command of the operation from the start, but now, at last, he was about to command S-19 while underway. It was different. “Port motor, ahead slow. Steer zero, six zero, but stand by for prompt course corrections.”
“Port ahead slow, zero six zero, and stand by for corrections, aye.”
Slowly, almost unnoticeably at first, S-19 began to move under her own power once again. The merest wake ruffled back from her straight up and down bow, parting the mud-thickened sea. Almost immediately, the port screw bit something under the water. They felt it in the fibers of the sub and Laumer’s carefully neutral expression ticked just a bit. There was no change in the bass tone created by the turning port shaft, however, so whatever it was, it must have been insubstantial. It might have been the submerged carcass of an animal. The boat crept onward. Several times, the lookouts called out and pointed at something floating in the water and Irvin ordered slight course corrections to avoid the obstacles. Once, the forward starboard lookouts had to heave at something with their poles as they passed. After nearly an hour, S-19 finally eased out of the mouth of the lagoon and into the bigger waves beyond.
They literally weren’t out of the woods yet, though. Debris and shattered trees might extend for miles beyond the island, but as the boat began to pitch, Irvin called the majority of the lookouts away from their posts. A few would have to stay, but now, in clearer seas, they should spot any hazards soon enough to avoid them. Tex called some of his electricians to the bridge to resume work on the antennae aerial they’d begun rigging to the bent but now permanently extended number two periscope. Slowly, the dust that had hung around them like a shroud began to clear as a gentle northeasterly breeze carried it away, and a few ’Cats even removed their bandannas experimentally. On impulse, Irvin suddenly turned and looked back at the island, looming there, still dominating the horizon like a malignant blotch.
“Where to now, Mr. Laumer?” Tex asked.
“Hmm? Oh. Well, we’ll maintain this course for the time being, maybe add some speed after a while if the lookouts don’t see too much junk. Right now, I want to get as far away from that island as we can.” He snorted. “And I
don’t
want to get between it and Mindanao! We’ll steer northeast for the rest of the day and tonight, maybe tomorrow too, depending on how things look, then we’ll turn north across the Philippine Sea. We might try the San Bernardino Strait, but as long as we have the fuel and nothing breaks, we’ll go all the way around Luzon to Manila if we have to. We got this old gal off, Tex!” he said adamantly. “I’m damned if I’ll let that island snatch her back from us!”
“You think Danny’s right? You think Talaud’s gonna blow its top?”
Irvin shook his head. “How should I know? But if it does, it’s not going to get S-19! Too many have died to save her.” Suddenly, Irvin snapped a sharp salute toward the island and held it. Tex started to protest, then he understood. Grumbling at himself, he saluted as well. Soon, everyone topside on S-19 was standing straight, saluting not the island but
Toolbox
, Sid Franks, and all the others they’d left behind. Finally, Irvin lowered his hand and the others followed suit. “So long,” he whispered hoarsely and turned to face forward. “Get that aerial up, Tex. I’d sure love to be able to whistle up a tow, if it comes to that. A lot of folks probably think we’re dead already.”
S-19 gradually increased speed to six knots, a reasonably gentle demand on her single shaft, abused batteries, and the generating capacity of her starboard diesel. The sea remained a little choppy, but not bad enough to button up the boat. She desperately needed airing out after the long confinement of so many filthy and admittedly nauseated ’Cats in her claustrophobic, smoky, ash-filled pressure hull. Add the fact that only the officers’ head was working (the sea valve was jammed on the other one, probably from all the time the boat spent wallowing in the sand), and the slop buckets they’d resorted to made matters even worse. S-19 was a “pig boat” again, in most essential respects.
Sandy Whitcomb worked on the port diesel all night, with the eager assistance of his new “division’s” strikers. He knew the engine would run now; he just had to refurbish it sufficiently that it wouldn’t destroy itself if asked to run too long. Tex Sheider’s strikers had rigged what he hoped was a suitable antenna, and he thought he had the voltage requirements for his little transmitter about right. The crystal receiver had already been rigged, but even at its maximum extension, the warped number two periscope wasn’t as high as
Toolbox
’s shortest mast had been. So far they weren’t getting much but hash. Nothing was coming out of Paga-Daan on Mindanao, and anyone else with a transmitter was probably just too far away. They’d almost never been able to hear Manila directly.
Irvin was on the conn tower, leaning on the rail facing aft. It was cramped there, like everywhere on the old boat, and two people wouldn’t have fit. The painfully bright sun hovered almost directly overhead, and beneath him, a ’Cat emerged, bearing a slop bucket and chittering disgustedly. She dumped it over the side of the outer hull superstructure, then waited for water to surge over the pressure hull so she could rinse the bucket out. She was still chittering when she disappeared, never looking up.
“You okay, Skipper?” Tex asked behind him.
Irvin nodded. “Just tired.” He yawned and smiled. “Glad to be underway, though.” He gestured to the southwest, where all that remained visible of Talaud was a pinkish-gray pall, almost fifty miles distant now, then turned to face his exec. “Put on a hell of a light show last night,” he said, chuckling a little self-consciously. “Almost like it was throwing a fit because we got away.”
Tex nodded. “I guess we did, though.” He chuckled too. “I have to admit—now—sometimes I wondered! That damn Danny was starting to give me the creeps!”
Irvin began to reply, but stopped when he saw Tex’s mouth drop open in stunned disbelief. He looked aft again and was too shocked by what he saw to speak himself. The distant, glowing smudge had become a black, sun-blazed mushroom of titanic proportions, roiling upward and outward with impossible speed and power.
It was almost a minute before Irvin managed to say “Jesus!” and in that time, the hideous stain on the morning sky just continued to grow.
“It looks like God just dropped a bomb!” Tex said, hushed.
“Yeah,” Irvin agreed. “A God-size bomb.” For a moment he said nothing more, then: “What happens when a bomb hits the water?”
“Well ... you get a really big splash.”
“Yeah ...”
After a while, the sea began to roar, loud enough to drown out the sound of the diesel.
“Oh, no,” Irvin said.
“What is it?” Tex shouted. Cries of alarm came from the hatch behind them.
“It’s the sound of the blast! Sound moves four or five times faster through the water!”
Tex’s face went pale. “I’ve heard tidal waves can move almost as fast as a sound through air!”
Irvin snatched his binoculars from his chest and focused them at the base of the distant, towering plume. In the gathering light of the sun, not yet engulfed by the expanding blackness, Irvin saw a distinct white line rising, far away, between the cloud and the deep blue sea. The horizon gave the impression of being almost slightly humped. The binoculars in his hands began to shake. Wrenching his eyes away from them, he turned and looked at Tex. “Rig for dive!” he shouted.
“
Dive?
We
can’t
dive! We’ll never come up!” Irvin thrust the binoculars at him and Tex took a look. “God almighty. That was one
hell
of a splash!” he said. He spared Irvin a look that could have said, “God help us,” “It’s been nice knowing you,” or “Why’d you let me volunteer for this?” but immediately stepped to the hatch.
“Rig for
dive
!” he bellowed down below. “Secure all hatches this goddamn instant!”
“Clear the bridge!” Irvin yelled, and reached for the dive alarm before remembering they’d never fixed the switch on the conn tower. The suddenly terrified Lemurian lookouts plunged down the ladder, followed closely by Tex. Irvin didn’t even take another look before he dropped down after them. In the control room, he twisted the roundknobbed switch three times.
Arrgha! Arrgha! Arrgha!
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” he said into the microphone. Almost immediately, the various station phone lights lit up. Expecting panicked demands for an explanation, he continued: “Trust me on this, people, it’s dive or die! Porter and Hardee, report to the fore and aft berthing spaces to pass instructions! Stay off the phones unless there’s an emergency.” He looked at Tex, who shrugged. “Mr. Sheider and I have the dive,” he said. He hoped they did. “Secure the starboard engine, close main induction. Answer bells on batteries!”
Tex took a breath. “Open all main vents! Vent negative!”
“Flood safety, flood negative!” Irvin continued. He heard Tex bark a laugh.
“Ah, pressure in the boat, Skipper,” Tex apologized. “The board’s green!”
Feverishly, desperately, Irvin, Tex, Porter, Hardee, and Whitcomb shouted, cajoled, explained, and pleaded with their otherwise Lemurian crew to learn and execute procedures most had never remotely expected to perform. Hardee had been just a frightened child the first time he submerged with the boat, but he’d been interested and picked up a lot then—and since. There were a few “Crazy Cats” who thought it would be fun, and had actually wanted to dive the boat all along, but not many. S-19 was designed as a submarine, but no one had ever expected her to
be
one
again
. Not on this world. With aching slowness, the scratch submariners feverishly struggled to force S-19 beneath the waves they’d tried so hard, so long, to put her back upon.