Into the Storm (6 page)

Encounter’
s turn came next, and with appalling suddenness. Another ranging salvo of eight-inch shells screeched in, the sun glinting off the projectiles in flight. Geysers of spume marched across the sea—and across the British destroyer. In the blink of an eye, for all intents and purposes, she was gone. When the spray cleared, all that remained was twisted wreckage, already awash, and a few men scurrying about on the buckled deck, throwing anything that would float into the sea. The three tired greyhounds raced on. There was nothing they could do. Matt knew it on a rational level, but deep down he felt an overwhelming sense of shame. His jaw muscles tensed, and he ground his teeth as he forced himself to watch what was left of
Encounter
slip farther and farther astern. Chief Gray stood beside him, watching too.

“I’m getting sick of leaving people behind,” he growled.

Matt nodded. “It could just as easily have been us. And we wouldn’t want them hanging around to get slaughtered picking us up.” The Bosun shook his head, but Matt would have sworn there was a damp sheen in his eyes.

“With your permission, sir, I’ll see if Spanky and his snipes need a hand with anything, like patching holes, or keeping the screws from falling off.” Matt felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward by themselves. Gray must really be frustrated if he was willing to descend below his holy deck and help engineering do anything
.
He shrugged at his captain’s look. “Hell, Skipper, if they sink the bottom half of the old girl, the top half goes too.”

“That’s true, Boats, but Spanky’s keeping up with the problems below for now, and I’d rather have you up here to direct damage control for the deck divisions if need be.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rogers’s voice piped down from above. He was still in the crow’s nest, where he’d been almost all day. “Skipper, there’s a promising cloud off the starboard bow. Looks like it’s working up to rain pretty good.” Matt raised his binoculars.

“Sir, signal from
Pope
,” supplied Riggs. “Make for the squall.”

“Acknowledge. Helm, right ten.”

The cloud hung before them, growing darker by the moment. A new flurry of enemy shells kicked up spray as their pursuers noticed their course change.

“Jap planes! Bombers! Six o’clock high!” came the shout from the crow’s nest. “Three pairs of ’em! I thought they were those observation planes, but they’re comin’ right in!”

Almost immediately, there came the
thump thump thump
of the little three-inch gun on the stern, throwing up shells in the path of the oncoming planes. Matt craned his neck upward and saw them, dark specks growing larger fast. Two angled for
Walker
through the small black puffs of smoke. He looked toward the cloud and saw it had started to rain. Harder and harder it fell, only a couple of miles away. They’d never make it. He looked at the planes, trying to judge their angle of attack and praying he could predict their release point. “Steady as you go, helm!” he ordered tersely. “Make them think we’re easy.” He waited. He couldn’t see the furtive glances exchanged around him.
Wait. Wait! NOW!

“Left full rudder! All ahead flank!”

Walker
heeled so sharply it was difficult to stand, and she surged forward with an audible groan. Two small objects detached themselves from the pair of descending planes. They grew rapidly larger until it seemed they’d fall right on the ship. Two thunderous explosions ripped the sea less than a hundred yards off the starboard beam and fragments spanged against
Walker’
s side. The heavy bellow of the .50-cals and the lighter clatter of the .30s sent tracers chasing the fat-bodied dive bombers as they pulled out and thundered away. Their ungainly fixed landing gear seemed only inches above the water. Glaring red circles clearly contrasted with the white-painted wings.

“Damage report!”

The machine guns stuttered to a stop as the planes flew out of range.

“Just some scratches in the boot topping.”

“How about the other ships?” Matt asked, looking for himself. They seemed okay as each emerged from the spray of bomb splashes.

The squall was closer. Still at flank speed,
Walker
strained with every aged fiber to reach the camouflaging shroud of the torrent ahead. To starboard,
Mahan
labored to keep up. Farther away, her interval doubled since the loss of
Encounter
,
Pope
blurred as she dove into the opaque wall of rain.

The bombers were re-forming and Matt urged his ship forward as she stretched her tired legs. Suddenly the bow disappeared as it parted the edge of the storm, and within seconds the windows were blanked out and a heavy drumming sound came from the deck above. Water coursed onto the open quarterdeck behind them, and small smiles of relief formed on several faces.

“Secure from flank, all ahead two-thirds. Come left ten degrees. The Japs can’t see us, but neither can our sisters. Let’s put some space between us.”

“Jesus,” muttered Sandison, and dabbed sweat from his face with his sleeve.

 

Lieutenant Garrett, along with the rest of the fire-control team, was soaked to the bone and water poured off his helmet, obscuring his view. No one had any idea where their consorts were. They’d altered course several times to accomplish the dual necessity of staying within the squall and continuing in a general direction away from the enemy. Garrett and his division did their best, straining their eyes to spot another ship or warn about upcoming “light” spots, but realistically they would probably run into one of their sisters before they saw her in time to turn. It was growing lighter ahead, however, and there were no “dark” areas to advise the bridge to steer for. He huddled over the speaking tube when he raised the cover to prevent too much water from pouring in.

“Bridge. We’re breaking out of the squall.”

 

With almost the same suddenness that they’d entered it, they drove out of the squall and into the afternoon sunshine. They all blinked their eyes against the glare, and the water on the decks and in their clothes began to steam. Then, less than five hundred yards to port,
Mahan
emerged and seemed to shake herself off like a wet dog as she increased speed. Men immediately scanned for enemies.

“Oh, my God, Skipper! Look!” shouted Sandison. The Bosun swore and Matt shouldered in beside him on the starboard bridgewing. He felt like his heart had stopped. There, about four miles off the starboard beam,
Pope
was enduring her final agony. She wallowed helplessly, low by the stern, while aircraft swirled like vultures in the sky above. Massive waterspouts rose around her as the spotting planes summoned the cruiser’s fire upon their carrion.

“Skipper! Can’t we . . . I mean, is there . . . ?” Young Reynolds clamped his mouth shut, realizing the pointlessness of his appeal. Then he looked at his captain’s face and was shocked by the twisted, desperate rage upon it. With an audible animal growl, Captain Reddy spun back into the pilothouse. Ahead, about seven miles away, another squall brewed. It was huge, and darker than the last one, almost green, and it blotted out much of the horizon. For some reason, it seemed to radiate an aura of threat nearly as intense as the force that pursued them so relentlessly.

“Make for that squall!” ordered Matt in a tone none of the men had ever heard him use. It was the voice of command, but with an inflection of perfect hatred. “Signal
Mahan
. We’ll keep this interval in case we have to maneuver. Helm, ahead flank!”

Another squall, lighter, was a little to the left of the one they were heading for. It was dissipating rapidly, though, as if the first was somehow draining it, sucking its very force. As it diminished, two dark forms took shape.

“Holy Mary,” muttered Gray, crossing himself unconsciously.

Before them, racing to prevent their escape into the looming rainstorm, were yet another destroyer and a massive capital ship. There was a collective gasp.

After a moment spent studying the apparition through his binoculars, Matt spoke. “That, gentlemen, is
Amagi
.” His voice was harsh but matter-of-fact. “She’s a battle cruiser. Not quite a battleship, but way heavier than a cruiser. I know it’s her”—he smiled ironically, but his expression was hard—“because she’s the only one they have left. Built in the twenties, so she’s almost as old as we are”—he snorted—“but they’ve spent money on her since. Major rebuild a few years ago. Anyway, I remember her because I was always impressed by how fast the Japs could make so much metal move.” He sighed. “I guess it’s fitting, after everything else, she should show up here. They
really
don’t want us to get away.”

He turned and spoke to Riggs in a voice that was white-hot steel. “Signal
Mahan
to prepare for a torpedo attack with port tubes. Mr. Sandison, speak to your division.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his hands clenched into fists. “We can’t go around her and we can’t turn back. That leaves only one choice.”

Gray nodded with grim acceptance.

“Yes, sir, we’ll have to go right through the son of a bitch.”

 

Blowers roaring, haggard destroyermen performing their duties in an exhausted fugue, the two battered, venerable old ladies slightly altered course and together began their final charge. Matt noticed that even Captain Kaufman was on the foredeck now, hauling shells. Lieutenant Mallory and two ratings scurried up the ladder behind, each festooned with belts of .30-cal. It was clear to everyone that getting past the two ships ahead and disappearing into the strange, ominous squall was their only hope. It was equally clear that it was impossible.

Ahead waited
Amagi
: 46,000 tons of cemented armor plate. As they watched, she began a leisurely turn to present her full broadside of ten 10-inch guns. Her secondary battery of 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch guns was entirely superfluous. The sleek new destroyer at her side was all but forgotten despite her guns and deadly “Long Lance” torpedoes. The additional threat she represented was almost laughably insignificant under the circumstances. She could have taken them by herself.

The shriek and splash of incoming shells proved the cruisers behind hadn’t forgotten them either, and the growing drone of propellers indicated the bombers had seen them too.

“Looks like every Jap in the Java Sea’s in a race to sink us,” mumbled Gray.

Five miles away,
Amagi
opened fire. She pulsed with flame from one end to the other as she salvoed her big guns. Seconds later, the rattling roar of ten-inch shells thundered toward them. They sounded deeper than the eights, Matt reflected absently. Then he stepped into hell.

 

The first salvo fell short, but it threw up a wall of spray that drenched Greg Garrett and his team and probably soaked Lieutenant Rogers way up in the crow’s nest. Rogers had fallen silent, and Garrett tried to adjust the fire of the number one and three guns, but he couldn’t bloody
see
.
Walker
pierced the spume raised by
Amagi
’s main guns, but the splashes from the secondaries and the cruisers behind were uninterrupted. He thought of all the times he’d shot turtles in the stock tank behind his grandmother’s house—now he knew how they must have felt. There was a loud
bang
behind him and he twisted to see chaos on the amidships deckhouse.

A roar overhead made him turn to see a dive bomber pull up and blow by, its wingtip a dozen yards from the mast. An enormous explosion convulsed the sea to port and bomb fragments whined off the rail and the range finder. Tracers rose to meet the plane and something fell off it. Another mighty salvo rumbled in, the splashes seeming to concentrate on
Mahan
. He half expected to see a twisted wreck as the spray fell away, but somehow she staggered out of the trough and shook herself off. Water sluiced from her. Her aft deckhouse was wrecked, and her number four funnel lay on a crushed lifeboat davit. The searchlight tower had fallen as well.

Something went
crump
forward, and a 5.5-inch plowed a furrow in the starboard bow and ricocheted into the sea. The big anchor chain that normally disappeared into the well trailed over the side from the bollard. Another salvo bloomed ahead, less than three miles off.
Damn we’re close!
he thought as the shells almost sucked the air from his lungs as they passed—just barely—overhead to thrash the sea astern. He peered through his binoculars during a momentary respite.

“There they are! Right there!” he shouted into the speaking tube. “I mean, surface target! Bow! Estimate range five five double oh!” The salvo buzzer sounded more shrill than usual before the pathetic report of their own guns. Greg held on tight as
Walker
turned sharply to starboard.
Amagi
seemed almost motionless, the destroyer tucked under her skirt like a timid child. Beyond them, much closer now, the squall beckoned. Dark and alive with a torrential green rain.

Another salvo slashed out from
Amagi
just as six torpedoes chuffed from their tubes and lanced in her direction. Black smoke poured from the stacks again and Garrett felt a sense of anxious elation now their torpedoes were on the way. With any luck . . . A thunderous crash and a fiery cloud of hot, black soot and steam swept him to the deck.

 

Walker
heaved when a ten-inch shell on a virtually flat trajectory punched through the forward fireroom. It didn’t explode, but the sudden decompression of the compartment caused the burners to fireball. The flames didn’t kill the men, but the steam from ruptured lines did. The destroyer’s speed dropped and Matt turned to Chief Gray, but he’d already left. His gaze returned to the shattered pilothouse windows, sweeping past the speaking tube that led to the crow’s nest. Blood dripped from it to join a widening pool. Electrician’s Mate Janssen’s blood was there too, as well as Rodriguez’s. Rodriguez had been carried to the wardroom. Janssen was dead.