Iron Gray Sea - 07 Read online

  “Later,” Letts said. He wasn’t very hungry just then, and needed to get the new arrivals away from the Screw as soon as he could. There. He saw them now. Five men sitting alone at a table surrounded by ’Cats who looked at them occasionally, blinking curiosity. “Damn,” he said aside to Brister. “They look like hell.”

  “They all do, those that survived. The Japs really put them through it,” Brister replied.

  Letts said nothing. The condition of the men could make this even harder. He took a breath and crossed the remaining distance to the table, where he stopped and waited until the men noticed his presence.

  “Which of you is Commander Herring?” he asked as courteously as he could. They all wore dungarees they’d been issued in Maa-ni-la before Saan-Kakja tossed the very hot potato they represented at Alan, but none wore any rank designations.

  With a grimace of pain, likely from aching joints, one of the skinny men stood. “I’m Commander Herring,” he said softly. “Commander Simon Herring, United States Navy.”

  Letts looked at him. The two were about the same height, but Herring’s graying hair established him as at least a dozen years older than Alan’s twenty-five, though it was hard to tell. The ordeal he’d endured had doubtless aged him.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Alan replied. “I’m Commander—or Lieutenant, jg, if that’s how you prefer to look at it—Alan Letts. And this is Commander—Lieutenant—Perry Brister. Might I ask that you and your companions follow me? Maybe we can find someplace a little quieter to talk.”

  “That’s fine, Lieutenant,” Herring said, “as long as you don’t mean ‘more private.’ Right now, I don’t want to go anywhere my friends and I might just . . . disappear.”

  “Sir, I strongly resent the insinuation. . . .”

  “Resent all you want,” Herring said. “But maybe you can forgive me if, after what we’ve been through and under the circumstances, I’m a little careful.”

  “The parade ground surrounding the Great Hall is as public as it gets,” Brister ground out, “but it’s quiet. It’s a military cemetery now, see?”

  * * *

  The Parade Ground Cemetery that occupied the space around Adar’s Great Hall and the mighty Galla tree around which it was built seemed sparsely populated at first glance. Only about four hundred actual graves occupied a relatively small portion of the vast area at the center of the city. Looks were deceiving. Lemurians much preferred cremation to burial, but a surprising number, Navy ’Cats mostly and a few Marines, lay beneath simple markers alongside their human comrades. They’d ended up more devoted to their shipmates than to tradition. Less than half the humans lost from Walker, Mahan, and S-19 actually rested there either; many had been lost at sea or died too far away to be brought to this place. For now. Many hundreds of names had been engraved into a great bronze plaque, however, and like the cemetery itself, there was plenty of room for additions. Another, separate plaque, with thousands of names representing the people and crew of Humfra-Dar, a Lemurian Home that had joined the American Navy and been altered into a carrier (CV-2), had recently been emplaced. The bronze was still shiny, the names still bright.

  The cemetery was a quiet place for reflection in the middle of the bustling city, and there were benches here and there in the shade of bordering trees. Ben Mallory was waiting for them when they arrived, gazing grimly at Humfra-Dar’s plaque. The scenes and memories that haunted his eyes and hardened his features warred with his otherwise boyish face. He’d known every flyer on Humfra-Dar and personally trained many of them. He turned at their approach.

  “That never should’ve happened,” he snapped, gesturing at the plaque. “One damn bomb, and Captain Tikker said she went up like a volcano! ’Cats are fanatics about fire safety on their Homes, but we’ve got them carrying fuel oil, high-octane gas, bombs, and loose gunpowder for the cannons, for cryin’ out loud! When you think about it like that, it was inevitable . . . and it’ll happen again!”

  “I know, Ben,” Alan said softly. “Keje’s working on new procedures, better magazine and bunker protection. . . .” He shrugged. “None of us were ever on a flat-top. There’s so much we’re still making up as we go—and nobody was expecting Grik zeppelins!”

  “Procedures!” Ben grumped, then sighed. “Look, Alan,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m kind of busy today. We’ve got those evals on the new radial this afternoon, and I’m still trying to wrap up the nuts and bolts of deploying half my modern birds.” He shook his head. “I know I agreed, but there’s a lot more to it than just flying the damn things off to the front! Asking me to believe the fuel and airstrips are ready without seeing ’em is kind of like expecting me to believe in the tooth fairy—and I know we haven’t got parts prepositioned all the way to Andaman yet. We can’t afford to lose any ships and pilots on the way, and even if all the ships make it, half are liable to be down, waiting for spares.”

  “Relax, Ben,” Alan said. “This is important. Besides, you just worry about getting the squadron ready. We’ll sort out the logistics on my end. It’ll still be a few weeks before you get the go date. We’re organizing the supply-ship schedule, so if any of your guys have to go in the water, there’ll be somebody nearby to fish ’em out in a hurry.”

  “For what good that’ll do,” Ben replied. Considering the prolific and voracious nature of the aquatic life on this world, particularly within the Malay Barrier, any rescue ship would have to be close indeed.

  Letts flashed a pained expression. “We all do the best we can,” he said. He truly sympathized with Ben. The P-40s had been a glorious gift, and he knew the airman considered them—and their rapidly improving, mostly ’Cat pilots—almost like children. Alan himself was half tempted to keep them all here. The planes had come in very handy when Grik zeppelins suddenly appeared over Baalkpan itself several weeks before and began dropping bombs. Three Warhawks took to the sky and destroyed the crude dirigibles before they could do much damage, but they’d been the only things available that could have done it at the time. Now they’d armed a few of the home-grown PB-1B “Nancys” for air defense, but the P-40s alone could savage any Grik invasion attempt like the one that had so nearly cost them the city and ended it all. The thing was, they could also savage any similar force that came against First Fleet—and it was better to do it there than here. It was an old argument, but ultimately they all agreed that any weapon, no matter how irreplaceable, was useless . . . if you weren’t willing to use it.

  “Okay,” Ben said, changing the subject. “So, what’s up? These the new guys?”

  Alan fidgeted. “Sort of.” He glanced at the men. “This is Commander Herring.” He paused. “I haven’t been introduced to the others yet.”

  “Excuse me,” said Simon Herring in a reserved tone. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten some of the niceties of civilized behavior.” His voice moderated slightly. “Let me present my companions. That stocky fellow there with no neck and the black jungle of a beard on his face is Gunnery Sergeant Arnold Horn. The one that looks like his taller twin with a neck is Lance Corporal Ian Miles. Both are from the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines. I shipped out of Shanghai with them to the Philippines, and they’ve been watching out for me ever since.” The men nodded but didn’t salute.

  “The skinny blond Dutchman there—we’re all kind of skinny, I’m afraid—is Lieutenant Conrad Diebel of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force. I’m sure he would have appreciated one of the P-40s we saw earlier. He was battling the Japanese—very near here, as a matter of fact—in Brewster Buffaloes until they were all shot out from under him.”

  “I was shot down twice,” the man confirmed in accented English, “but I got four Japs.”

  The last man didn’t wait for Herring to introduce him, but actually stepped forward. “You were on Walker?” he asked Letts with a clear Aussie twang. “I’m Leadin’ Seaman Henry Stokes, HMAS Perth. We was in the Java Sea together.”

  “You were sunk.”

  �
�Aye, with Houston, later that night in the Sunda Strait. That was a helluva fight! Me an’ some o’ me mates swam ashore an’ dodged the Nips for a few days, but they nabbed us. Set us to breakin’ sodding rocks.” He shook his head sadly. “Me mates died there or in the ship with these blokes, an’ I never seen any o’ me other shipmates again.”

  Perry Brister, still silent, advanced and extended his hand. Hesitantly, the Australian took it.

  “You’ve got quite a collection here, Commander Herring,” Letts said. “All with the same . . . reluctant views?”

  Herring frowned. “Let me explain. It’s not our intention to cause trouble or disrupt your operation here, but you must understand our situation . . . our concerns. Those of us who were in the Philippines were ordered to surrender, and we were treated like animals by our captors. Lieutenant Diebel and Mr. Stokes may have had it even worse, but I can only speak to our own ordeal. The misery and despair Horn, Miles, and I witnessed and endured is hard to describe. Discipline broke down completely and men no longer obeyed their officers. It was dog-eat-dog. Sadly, many officers abandoned their responsibility to their men as a result, and the Japs encouraged that state of affairs to make the men easier to handle, I suppose. Ultimately, men just sat there and watched each other die.” Real, almost physical pain clouded Herring’s eyes. “And all that was long before they stuffed us in that damn ship, where we met these other fellows”—he gestured at the Australian and the Dutchman—“already aboard. The enemy was taking us to die in the coal mines of Japan.”

  “But you were an officer,” Alan said softly. “What did you do?

  “Very little, I’m sad to admit,” Herring confessed, then hesitated. “You see, as far as the Japs knew, I wasn’t an officer, and my Marine friends here helped me maintain that fiction.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Not that it matters here . . . now. I’m—was in—ONI. The Office of Naval Intelligence.” Herring replied.

  “Sometimes he tried to do stuff,” Gunnery Sergeant Horn defended, his voice surprisingly clear and firm, considering his appearance. “We all did what we could, and things got a little better as time went on, from a discipline standpoint. But we couldn’t let the Japs know Herring was an officer.”

  Letts looked back at Herring and the man nodded.

  “I had connections to the Kuomintang, and I was trying to establish the same with Philippine resistance leaders when the surrender took place. We tried to get out, but we were caught. To preserve the identities of people I was in contact with, we decided I should masquerade as an enlisted man.” Herring straightened. “To the Japs, all enlisted men are peasants, Mr. Letts, and therefore incapable of producing any useful information if questioned.”

  “I . . . see.”

  “In any event, that was then. Perhaps you can understand why we are hesitant to place ourselves under what seems to be a very . . . irregularly constituted authority. I’m given to understand we won’t be forced to serve, and that gives us some relief, but the fact is I am a Naval Officer, and the most senior present on this . . . world, by legal reckoning. That leaves me feeling somewhat awkward, and I have a responsibility to these men who have helped me. We won’t simply jump aboard this . . . odd alliance without further understanding the situation.”

  “I can understand that, Commander, and respect it. But why didn’t you just talk to Saan-Kakja in Manila? She’s a swell dame, and smart as a whip. She could’ve sorted it out for you.”

  “I’m . . . not sure the, ah, authorities in Manila fully understood that I needed to speak with the senior Naval Officer,” Herring said stiffly.

  “That’s Captain Reddy,” Letts stated firmly, “and he won’t be here for some time. In fact, you were closer to him in Maa-ni-la.”

  “That was explained, but . . .”

  “He means he—all of us—wanted to talk to people,” Corporal Miles interrupted sullenly, and Herring glared at him. “There weren’t any in Manila besides us and the other survivors of that damn Maru . . . well, and a bunch of half-naked broads out of the East someplace.”

  “Miles!” Gunny Horn snarled, seeing the faces of their hosts redden.

  “Well, it’s true!”

  “That’s enough, Corporal!” Herring said, but looked at Letts. “I apologize for the unseemly interruption, but Corporal Miles has voiced a point that still needs clarification. I’ve heard of this Lieutenant Commander Reddy and what he’s done. What all of you have accomplished is impressive, to say the least. But before I submit myself and these others to the authority of a man who is actually junior to me, I need to know just exactly who is in charge here.” Herring stated.

  “Let me tell you something, Commander—” Ben Mallory began.

  “Wait a minute, Colonel,” Letts said, stressing Ben’s new rank like he hadn’t done for his own. “Remember how we felt when we first met the Lemurians? It took us a while to figure things out.” He looked hard at Herring. “But that’s because we didn’t have anyone to tell us that ’Cats are people. Well, I’m telling you now, Commander, and don’t ever forget it! They may look strange until you get used to them, but we look just as weird to them.”

  The Dutchman stirred. “But you have placed them in positions of authority! Even your ‘supreme commander,’ your Captain Reddy, follows their orders! This seems like on our world, you obey the Javanese or . . . Chinese coolies, yes?”

  For just a moment, Letts was stunned. It had been so long since something as ridiculous as race had occurred to anyone that it caught him completely by surprise. He knew there were similar issues in the east, that Second Fleet had faced some Imperial bigotry, but from what he understood that was more cultural than racial and the Alliance had largely settled that by saving the Empire’s ass.

  Ben appeared ready to explode, but Alan cut him off when he spoke in a wintry tone. “Have you seen a Grik, Lieutenant Diebel? We’ve managed to secure a small number of captive specimens. A couple are practically tame now, and we’ve finally begun to communicate with them and learn something about them. Most are still kind of wild though, and you ought to go down to the holding pens and have a good, long look. After you get a dose of their claws and teeth and . . . overall terrifying lethality, remember this: Really wild Grik can’t be taken alive. Only after they’ve been separated from the pack for a while do they seem to get a notion that they’d rather live than die killing you.

  “After that, try to imagine hundreds of thousands of them armed with swords, spears, arrows, cannon, and firearms of a sort now too, all coming not just to conquer your territory but to wipe you out! These Lemurians you seem to feel so superior to stopped them and have started to roll them back.” Alan shrugged. “We helped. Maybe we helped a lot. But we couldn’t have done it without them.” He grunted. “Hell, ask the Imperial rebels or Doms in the East how ’Cats stack up against humans in combat!”

  “I think you misunderstand,” Herring said with a warning glance at Diebel. “I’m sure your Lemurians are fine folk, but it has been disconcerting to see them, their Naval personnel in particular, parading around in a semblance of our Navy’s uniform, flying the American flag from their ships, and, indeed, considering themselves to be Americans! That’s odd enough. But then to find this . . . ‘American’ . . . force subject to the command of . . . foreign . . . leaders!”

  “Oh, I get it,” Brister suddenly interrupted, speaking for the first time, his rough voice even harsher than usual. “You’re wondering why we didn’t just take over and how come we don’t treat the ’Cats like some people treated colored folks back home. Well, if any of us ever thought that way, we don’t anymore. Navy ’Cats are Americans, far as I’m concerned. They’ve taken the same oath you did, and they mean it. Captain Reddy could have taken over, I guess, and made himself king. From what I heard, they practically asked him to. But these people are our friends, Commander, and even if the Skipper had wanted to be king, he knew the Alliance would never hold up and Baalkpan would still be all alone against
the Grik. As for being under the command of “foreign leaders,” well, we are and we aren’t. It’s complicated.” He shrugged, then glared at the Dutch flyer. “But even if we were bound to follow their every whim—which we’re not—I guess us Asiatic Fleet guys were already used to that back home, after Tommy Hart got the shove. . . .”

  “You were treated rough by the Japs, Commander,” interrupted Letts more softly, before Perry could make an enemy of Conrad Diebel. “And you’ve wound up in a situation you don’t understand. You’re being careful and trying to watch out for these other guys. I get that. But in a way, we’re still fighting the same war here that we left behind. Sure, we’ve got a few good Japs on our side, and Shinya, at least, is a swell guy. Another Jap named Okada took the ship that brought you here up against the tin can that was with her.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “That’s the last we heard. Chances are, he’s dead now and that ship’s on the bottom of the sea, but he was on our side, fighting bad Japs. And most of the Japs that made it here have wound up with the Grik—and the Grik are much worse than Japs!

  “The Grik keep people . . . Lemurians, anybody they catch, I guess, in the holds of their ships as rations. I’ve seen that, the aftermath, so I can kind of imagine what it looked like in the hold of Mizuki Maru. That said, I can only guess what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japs. I’m sure it was hell, sir, and the Japs who put you there belong in hell. With all due respect, though, Commander, you can’t have any idea what it was like for us when we first wound up here, all alone and practically sinking.” He gestured around. “It seems like we’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and I guess we have, but at first it was only us and we had less idea where we were or what had happened to us than you do.” He shrugged. “That hasn’t changed, really, besides some wild-assed guesses, but where we are isn’t the all-consuming question it once was, and at least we’ve lived long enough for some of us to kick it around a little.