At the Midway (54 page)

"Hell if I'm going to wait to find out," Ensign Garrett told some of the others in forecastle. In bare feet and boxer shorts, he started to follow the stretcher bearers.  Then he thought twice, and went back to don a cotton undershirt.  He had no desire to put his colorful abdomen on display.  That done, he caught up just as the injured men were being taken through the infirmary door.

The surgeon had been preparing as thoroughly as any gunner on board.  His bandages, unguents and extra beds were set in order as if to tempt patients, while surgical instruments were laid out in all their cruel gleaming sharpness as if to chase them away.  But these early injuries came as a surprise, the more so because of the peculiar symptoms some of them evinced, a profound lassitude verging on death.

There was no mistaking what had happened to Gilroy, however.  The curious sailors gathered outside the infirmary took one glance at the fireman as he was carried in and knew immediately the marines had fallen in love with him.

"Here's the bastard," they said, dumping him on one of the extra cots.  No sense giving him one of the softer beds.

"What happened to him?" the surgeon asked.

"He fell asleep."

"Fell on his face, too, it seems."

"This is the grease monkey that started the fire."

Gilory was not one of the engineer's mates.  However, the marines on the
Florida
used the derogatory term, nearly as old as steam engines themselves, for anyone who worked near the ship's power plant.

"How do you know that?" the surgeon asked them.

"He told us."

The surgeon raised his hand in frustration.  "Then why bring him here?  Take him where he belongs!"

Exchanging grins, the marines hefted the unconscious stoker and carried him out.  Garrett could not resist the urge to follow.  The way the Leathernecks were acting, they were as likely to toss him overboard as into the brig.  Along the way the ensign heard details of what had transpired below.  He was incredulous.  All his indifference fell away.  One of their own had tried to destroy the ship. 
His
ship.  The twelve
-
inch gun Garrett had invested so much intellectual and emotional energy upon might have been sent to the bottom by some idiotic, drug
-
intoxicated stoker.  The opprobrium would have been endless, the shame eternal.  The
Maine
was remembered for being sabotaged by the Spanish.  The
Florida
would have been ballyhooed as the battleship sunk by a dope fiend.  Next to that, the possibility that they all might have been killed was secondary.

There were angry murmurs among the bluejackets, but the marines held them back.  They were jealous of their victim.  No one else would be allowed to beat up on him.  But there was one sailor they could not stop.

Captain Oates roared up, cursing and spitting hotter than memory served.  The bluejackets squeezed back against the walls, appalled by the apparition.  Even when they had been posted in the observation ward, the captain had not looked this mad.  A rabid land
-
going shark.  With no concern for formality, received or returned, he bowled over several sailors and followed hard on the marines carrying Gilroy into the brig.

"Wake him!  Wake the son of a bitch!  Get him on his feet.  Set fire to
my
ship, will he!"  He knocked the marines aside and grabbed the stoker, shaking him like a doll.  No one had suspected such strength in the old man.  It soon became obvious Gilroy would not open his eyes again any time soon.  Frustrated, Oates turned on the gawkers at the door.  He immediately spied out the nosegay of bruises that comprised Ensign Garrett's face.  "You!  What are you doing away from your station?  Out of uniform!"

"Sir, I--"

"Mr. Garrett, what the hell are you doing running around in your shorts?"

This stunned them all, since half the men present were in their shorts.  Those further back in the corridor began slipping silently away, hoping Oates had not and would not spot them.  Those in front had no such hope, Garrett least of all.  Facing Oates in this temper was as bad as staring down the throat of a typhoon.  The ensign went blind with embarrassment.  He turned sideways, like a man in a lopsided duel praying the marksman's bullet would only glance him.  The captain came forward.  The end of the ensign's career seemed at hand.

And then an angel appeared
-
-
in the guise of Lieutenant Grissom.  Slipping between the captain and the sailors, he put on a breathless air and whispered, "Sunrise, captain.  And we can't raise Midway."

0610 Hours

Brought up short, Oates blinked, as if a matador had disappeared before his eyes.  "Nothing at all?"

"HH told us he would signal at first light.  We've received nothing."

Oates contemplated the implications a few moments, then looked from his exec to the men trying to make themselves invisible in the passageway.  "All right.  You men in shorts--stay in them.  You men in uniform.  Strip. There's going to be some hot work today, I guess.  We'll do it like Dewey in Manila Bay.  I was there, in case you didn't know.
 
Down to our skivvies and giving hell to the Spanish.  Gather the men on the gun deck and give them the word."

The crew gathered at the gun deck and Grissom read out from the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy.

A cheer, ragged but heartfelt, burst from the sailors.  Hot hell and glory!

1030 Hours

"Battle stations!"

The men scattered, their bare feet pounding a martial tattoo.
The C-clef staccato of bugles spread rapidly through the ship, frantic hammers of sound waking the few men not already awake, putting delight and fear of the future into those who were.

"Clear for action!"

Davits, boats, ventilator funnels and flagstaffs disappeared from the decks.  Preprinted labels that said 'Overboard in Action' were attached to items that might get in the way.  More than one bluejacket alleviated the suspense by surreptitiously tagging the backs of mates racing past.

The first lieutenant excused himself from the bridge and went below to Central Station.

Pulling open the hatch to the twelve-inch turret, Ensign Garrett studied the smooth milkline of dawn to the east as he waited for the gun crew to arrive.  The captain's rebuke stung bitterly.  He had been ready to die for the sake of the
Florida
.  Now he was half inclined to die with her.  His last day on earth
-
-
possibly.  A line of clouds curdled.  So be it.

In they came.  Plugmen, pointers, gun captain, the rest.  Last to arrive was Beck.  The man who had taken a beating and the man who'd inflicted it stood together as they pulled on the cumbrous hatch.  Their eyes did not meet.  Beck was looking ahead to avoid embarrassment.  Garrett held his gaze on the deck, looking for loose powder.

He had no intention of stopping if he saw any.

XXIII

0000 - 1238 Hours

Ziolkowski had posted guards around the compound, then positioned himself in the middle of the quad.  He'd averaged three hours of solid sleep every twenty-four hours.  Yet he was not exhausted.  He'd served in enough campaigns to have learned the art of sleeping in brief snatches.  Leaning against his Rexer, he closed his eyes in fleeting moments, dozing, yet ready to snap awake at the least sign of enemy activity.  Around midnight came the plaintive song of the creatures.

"Tooo... nel...."

"Henderson!  Enderfall!  I think they're headed towards the warehouse."

"I don't know, Top," came a worried voice.  "There's something moving out this way, too."

It seemed the nadir of military form not to leave sentries out.  But Depoy and Kitrell preyed on his mind.  Ziolkowski saw no point in suffering more casualties at the listening posts now that the
Florida
was due in the morning.  So, with the creatures prowling Sand Island, he had to decide on one more retreat.

"To hell with it.  Back to the bunker, everyone!"

The guards raced back, their hands on the guide ropes that led them straight to the bunker's entrance.  Ziolkowski stayed put until Enderfall shouted all were inside.  Then, grabbing a rope, he dashed across the quad.  He had just made out the dim light behind the bunker's blackout curtain when a loud hot chug charged the air behind him.  His blouse billowed out, then clung.

He was running in space.

Stinking humid breath shot over his skin and down his back.  The light from the bunker seemed to dart away like a mayfly.

Panic sucked his soul.  One of the creatures had launched after him, catching him by the shirt.  He knew what would happen next.  He had seen it happen to others.  The serpent would nod its head and he would be flicked between its teeth.

It was the Rexer that saved him.  He held on to it unthinkingly, spasmodically.  Added to his own stocky physique, it supplied enough weight to tear the shirt off his back.

He plummeted.  He could not see the ground, only knew it was coming.  No way to know when to roll to reduce the impact.

He could hear bones snap when he hit.  But he felt only the beating out of air.  Lights sprang out.  Then pain came sweeping like a comet, unifying his broken body in a scream of agony.

0000 - 1238 Hours

Lieber and Hart had seen the terror of a million nights hanging like a huge ghastly bauble outside the bunker.  When running into the bunker they'd felt the guide ropes whip violently in their hands.  Something huge was trammeling them and they shouted for Ziolkowski to hurry.  The dim light of the battle lantern allowed them to see the Top a second before he took flight.  They yelled in dismay.

When Ziolkowski fell, they did not hesitate.  They dashed forward.  The creature was not aware the morsel had slipped away and was busy flipping its head in an attempt to turn the shirt into something tastier.  Lieber and Hart grabbed the sergeant, ignoring his howls of anguish as they dragged him inside.

Sand exploded through the entrance, blinding the men and burying those nearest.  Some of them felt death on their face and screamed.

Hamilton Hart was one of them.  The scream forced from his lungs was the scream of Alaska, of the Kiltik, of all the men who had died under his command.  It was about to happen again.  Only this time, he would be a full participant in the death rite.

Yet even as terror crippled his mind, his body responded to the emergency.  He leapt to the front of the bunker to help free the buried men.  First he uncovered Lieber, then others.  Two were unconscious.  As they dragged Ziolkowski to the far end, he opened his eyes and moaned, "My fucking leg...."

"Looks like shit, Top."

The bunker shook again.  Sand rained down through the crossworks.

"Douse the lamp!"

"Belay that!" Ziolkowski shouted.  "I think they already know where we are."

This drew a peculiar twist of laughter from some of them.  The sergeant had been laid next to Ace, who had become feverish after his morning in the balloon.  The Japanese took one look at Ziolkowski, moaned, and fell back.  Hart glanced at them.

"I think they're all out there."

"How do you know that?" Ziolkowski gasped.

"It sounds like it."

"Hell, one alone sounds like a herd.  Hold off.  We want to toast them all."

"Gott!"  Lieber jumped back from one of the narrow gun slits as a dark shadow leaned in.

The bunker shook like sticks.

"Blow it!  The Top don't know--"

Ziolkowski forced himself up on one elbow.  "This Top Kick knows a fucking coward when he sees--"  Then the right side of the bunker began caving in.  His mind changed quickly.  "Do it, Hart!"

Just before he touched the wires to the battery poles, it dawned on Hart the creatures might have destroyed the connections.  They had buried the wires three feet deep.  The remaining gas cans were buried half their height at an angle so that the explosions would be directed towards the center.  But his calculations and precautions seemed meaningless in the turmoil.  After all, they'd figured the bunker would hold out at least a week--and it was already a shambles.

He pressed the wires to the battery.

His teeth shifted sides when the gasoline bombs went off.  Through a gun slit he saw volcanoes erupt.  Heat shot in like live coals down a chute.  He shielded his eyes with his forearm.  Light flared through his lids.  He let out a laugh of triumph.

Then he felt the walls caving in.

XXIV

June, 1908

28°20'N, 177°22'W

From the
Deck Log of the
USS Florida
: