Maelstrom (21 page)

He glanced at his watch and compared it to the clock on the bulkhead. It was almost time for the watch change, and he’d soon relieve Dowden, who currently had the deck.

“One thing I can’t stress enough,” he reminded, interrupting the ’Cats and the naturalist, “is that you immediately try to learn as much as you can about the reports of an ‘iron fish.’ If it’s a submarine, as I suspect, I need to know as much as possible about what it looked like and where it was most recently sighted. I understand it hasn’t been seen for months. It’d undoubtedly be out of fuel by now, so we’ll have to base our search on its last reported position, investigate the closest islands and so forth. Hopefully, we can begin that process while your discussions are still underway, if they drag out too long. We really need to find that boat. It could make all the difference.”

“What makes you so sure it
is
a submarine, Captain?” Bradford asked. “Who knows what creatures lurk in these mysterious seas? And even if it is one, what if it’s an enemy vessel? The Japanese on
Amagi
have shown no inclination to aid us, certainly!”

“C’mon, Courtney! An
iron fish
? And the stories tell how strange, tail-less creatures went inside it before it swam beneath the sea! As for it being one of ours, it only makes sense. We had lots of boats in the area, more than the Japs. They might’ve even been enough to make a difference, but their torpedoes weren’t working either. If it weren’t for our crummy MK-14 and -15 torpedoes, we might’ve even
stopped
the Japs.” His voice had begun to rise, and he stopped himself and took a deep, calming breath. “If a sub was in the vicinity of the Squall, like the PBY was, it could have been swept here just like us. Unlike us, they might’ve made for the Philippines, looking for a familiar face. Last we heard, we still had Corregidor, and subs were getting in and out. If they poked their scope up at Surabaya—I mean Aryaal—and saw what’s there now, the next place they’d check, their only hope really, would be the Philippines. If it was a Jap sub . . . I really don’t know where it would head, probably not the Philippines, though. Maybe Singapore. They’ve got some really big, long-range boats; they might’ve even tried to make Japan.”

Adar shuddered. “How big would this ‘sub-maa-rine’ be, if it was Amer-i-caan?”

“Depends on the class; either about the same length as
Walker
, or three-quarters as long.”

“Just imagine,” Adar gasped, “cruising beneath the sea, and in something that small!”

Matt nodded grimly. “You bet. I always thought submariners were nuts, and that was before there were fish big enough to eat the whole bloody boat. God, I hope that’s not what’s happened to her!”

“You’ve mentioned before how . . . aad-vaan-tage-ous . . . it would be to find this amazing vessel, but despite the happy prospect of finding more Amer-i-caans, what good would it be? You have already recognized the terrible dangers of operating it, particularly underwater. I’m sure, if they live, the same dangers have occurred to its crew.”

Matt nodded. “Sure, but the danger would be much less within the confines of the Makassar Strait, or Baalkpan Bay itself, and didn’t you already hear me say it might have torpedoes aboard? We only have one left, and we know why they weren’t working now. She might be our ultimate surprise against
Amagi
.”

“I should think securing more troops than the few San-Kakja has already sent would be our highest priority, not finding a submarine that may or may not exist,” Bradford opined.

“Probably, but that’ll be largely Adar and Keje’s job. If we can manage both, however—” He was interrupted by the clanging bell that signaled the watch change. “Let’s just hope we can manage at least one or the other.”

They could have made Manila before sunup, in the wee hours of the morning, but Matt didn’t want to sneak in; he wanted to be seen. He also wanted to see the city in the light of day, gauge the reaction of its people to their arrival. Most would know what it meant, and why they were there; refugees had been crowding into Manila for months. He hoped the sight of his ship, newly painted with most of her visible damage repaired, would inspire confidence in their cause. She’d made quite a sensation the first time she steamed into Baalkpan Bay, after all. So they loitered in the mouth of Manila Bay in the dark, while swarms of fishing boats hurried past her for the morning catch. Most never saw her, or if they did they paid no heed, since her arrival wasn’t a surprise. The mission had been announced over a month ago, plenty of time for even one of the lumbering Homes to bring the news. A few boats stopped, their people staring at her with their uncanny vision, but none stopped to chat. Matt wondered if that was good or bad. A few coastal traders came out with the sun, scudding before the brisk morning breeze, but they immediately went on their way. Matt cleared his throat.

“Very well. Mr. Kutas, I have the deck and the conn,” he said, much to the chief quartermaster’s relief. Kutas had rarely conned the ship in confined waters. “Relieve Reynolds on the helm and take us in. Carefully and politely, though, if you please.” It was Reynolds’s turn to gulp with relief. The young seaman had only recently been rated capable of standing a helmsman’s watch.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Kutas replied. “You have the deck and the conn.” He turned to Reynolds. “I relieve you, sir.” Reynolds gratefully stepped aside and unobtrusively relieved the talker of his headset. The ’Cat, just as glad, scampered up the ladder with a pair of binoculars to add his eyes to the already numerous lookouts. Manila Bay was reputed to be the busiest waterway in the known world, and the last thing they needed with everyone watching was to collide with anything, even a rowboat.

They entered the bay much as they always had so many times before, back on their own world before the Japanese drove them out. They steamed up the Boca Grande between Caballo Island and the El Frailes. Just beyond Caballo—startlingly barren of the familiar Fort Hughes—was the imposing form of Corregidor. Unlike the Corregidor they remembered, there’d been no fortifications upon this one until recently. Now a great stone works was under construction. Through his binoculars, Matt saw the two heavy thirty-two-pounders Baalkpan had sent San-Kakja as gifts, brooding through embrasures in the hastily built walls. Interestingly, they’d been joined by several more, and he realized the Manilos were now making cannons of their own. No reason they shouldn’t, once they understood the concept; their industry was certainly up to the task. It still left him feeling odd. In the past, the gift of artillery to native peoples had often been a double-edged sword.

He felt like they should salute the fort in some fashion, but the Maa-ni-los had no flag, and he wasn’t about to fire a gun. They’d had few blanks, and those were given over to Bernard Sandison with all their empty shells, so he could reload them with the experimental solid copper projectiles and black powder. He settled for having their own flag dipped. Perhaps they’d understand the courtesy. He gave the order in a hushed tone, however. Even he wasn’t immune to the strange emotions sweeping the men around him at the sight of the familiar, but alien landmarks.

Beyond Corregidor was the Bataan Peninsula, and there was even a small town, of sorts, where Mariveles ought to be. In the distance, barely visible in the early morning haze, stood the poignantly familiar Mariveles Mountains.

“Recommend course zero, four, five degrees,” Kutas said, glancing at the compass and breaking the spell that had fallen upon the Americans in the pilothouse. Juan had appeared unnoticed, carrying a tray of mugs and a coffee urn, and when Matt glanced his way he saw unashamed tears streaking the little Filipino’s face as he gazed about.

He coughed. “Thanks, Juan. I was just thinking some of your coffee would taste pretty good right now.” A brittle smile appeared on the steward’s face, and he circulated through the cramped pilothouse, filling the mugs taken from his tray by the watch standers. For once, none were left behind. Sensitive to the gesture, he bowed slightly.

“I will bring sandwiches, if you please, Cap-tan,” he managed huskily. “It has been a long night . . . for all of us.”

“Thanks, Juan. Please do.” When the Filipino left the bridge, there was an almost audible general sigh, as nearly everyone realized that no matter how hard it was for them, entering
this
Manila Bay must be a waking nightmare for Juan. Looking around, Keje sensed the tension.

“What is the matter?” he quietly asked. “This is our goal, our destination. All should be glad we have arrived.”

“In that sense, I guess we’re glad,” Matt answered, “but where we came from, this was our . . . base, before the war against the Japs. I’ve told you before, I was here for several months, but others were here for years. They considered it home. What you may not know is, for Juan, it
was
home. He was born here . . . there . . . whatever. We all understand the places we came from are lost to us, probably forever, but to see it with our own eyes . . . I try not to think how I’d react to see the place that should be my home near Stephenville, Texas—a place on the far side of the Earth—but I can’t always help it, and neither can anyone else.”

Keje refrained from pointing out the impossibility of anyone living on the far side of the Earth. He suspected Captain Reddy meant it metaphorically. Regardless, the point was clear. “You have my deepest sympathies. I cannot imagine how you feel. I only hope time and good friendship can help ease the pain.”

They steamed northeast at a leisurely and courteous—but awe inspiring to the natives—twelve knots against the prevailing wind, and the closer they got to Cavite and Manila, the more surface craft they met. Most were the ubiquitous feluccas: fore-and-aft-rigged boats, large and small, that seemed universally known and used among all Lemurians they’d met, even the Aryaalans and B’mbaadans. Matt often wondered about that. Compared to the massive Homes, the smaller craft boasted a more sophisticated rig: a large lateen-rigged triangular sail on a relatively short mast with a fore staysail, or jib, allowing them to sail much closer to the wind than even the Grik square-riggers could accomplish. Of course, they couldn’t sail
with
the wind as efficiently. . . . It suddenly struck him the rig might be yet another legacy of those long-ago East Indiamen. Their small boats and launches might have carried a similar sail plan. Of course, not all Lemurian feluccas were open boats. Most had at least one deck, and sometimes two, and he’d seen several over a hundred feet long, really not feluccas at all. Kind of a cross between a felucca and a caravel. He shrugged inwardly. It didn’t really matter. He was more interested in the generally positive reception they were receiving.

He’d half feared they’d be met with stony glares. Manila was where most of their own “runaways” had fled, convinced the arrival of the Americans and their iron ship had started the war with the Grik in the first place. There was nothing he could say to that. Doubtless there were people back home who thought Pearl Harbor was America’s fault, but most were more sensible. The same seemed true of the majority of Lemurians, thank God. Those in the boats they passed weren’t exactly cheering and throwing flowers, but they appeared friendly, and even somewhat glad to see them. They were certainly fascinated by the ship they’d no doubt heard so much about. Some of the more daring captains of what must have been primarily pleasure craft even tried to pace them. It was impossible, of course; no sailing vessel could steer directly into the wind, and even their tight tacking maneuvers soon left them behind, but many of
Walker
’s human and ’Cat destroyermen lined the rails and cheered their efforts. It was a relief in more ways than one. There was no overt hostility associated with their arrival and the request that arrival implied, and it took the men’s minds off the gloomy thoughts that had filled them.

They reduced speed to ten knots, then eight, and finally five as the bay grew ever more crowded, and they picked their way carefully through the capering boats. Matt had been warned how busy Manila was, but he hadn’t truly credited it until now. Baalkpan was a major city, but essentially compact, having been hacked out of the hostile wilderness around it. Evidently Manila was a far more sprawling and populous place. Homes and small docks began to appear ten miles short of Cavite, and the shore grew more densely populated the closer they got to the peninsula that had once been the center of America’s Asiatic naval power on that other world. It was a natural place for similar activity here, and a massive shipyard and repair facility dominated it even more thoroughly than they remembered. The tripod masts of a dozen seagoing Homes jutted from the yards and Bacoor Bay beyond, and more of the massive vessels were moored before Maa-ni-la.

When
Walker
first steamed into Baalkpan Bay almost a year ago, her people were impressed by the size and vitality, the riot of color, and the architectural wonder and singularity of the place. Even the more familiar, almost medieval appearance of Aryaal, with its walls and spires and arches, had not been as impressive. But Baalkpan was positively provincial compared to Maa-ni-la. When Matt asked Nakja-Mur what differences to expect, he’d been told Maa-ni-la was “a little bigger,” but he now saw that had been a significant understatement. The closer they came, the more clearly he grasped that
everything
was bigger here. The exotically eastern, pagodalike structures were virtual skyscrapers in comparison, and the docks were proportionately massive. The Bosun once compared Baalkpan to Chefoo, but if that was the case, Manila was Shanghai, or some alien, chaotic, eastern-flavored Manhattan. There was no Empire State Building, of course, nothing even close to that, but everything was taller, more tightly packed, and far more densely populated than Baalkpan when they first saw it. The only thing less impressive was the massive Galla tree growing up in the center of the city. Presumably encompassed by San-Kakja’s Great Hall, the tree wasn’t as tall as the one in Baalkpan, but then again, Maa-ni-la was a younger city, closer to the shifting center of trade and commerce. There were land homes on northern Borno now, and even in Japan. If the water was deeper and more dangerous, its coastal bounty was richer. Homes were rarely bothered by mountain fish, except for certain times of year, so they increasingly dared the deeper seas, and a place was required to build them, supply them, and trade for the rich gri-kakka oil they rendered. So even though Baalkpan prospered and enjoyed much influence, Maa-ni-la not only prospered, but grew.