Rising Tides

CHAPTER 20

Respite Island

M att felt like he was fighting for his life. His opponent’s sword tip seemed to be everywhere at once, striking like a snake and slashing at him like lightning from a clear blue sky. He was on the defensive and he knew it-hated it-reduced to parrying the blows and jabs as they came, and he just couldn’t keep up much longer. Steel clashed against steel in a veritable blur of blades, and he knew he was giving ground even while his soul screamed attack. Attack! He couldn’t. He’d never been much of a swordsman at the Academy. He’d never expected to ever need to be, and though his fine sword had seen much more use on this accursed world than he would ever have imagined possible, he’d never faced an actual skilled swordsman-or swordscreature-before. So far, when the necessity arose, he’d just muddled along, hacking at Grik. They had no real “swordsmen” that he’d ever met. Mainly you just had to keep their teeth and claws and short, sickle-shaped swords at arm’s length until you saw an opening-or until one of the spearmen at your back did them in. Personally, he’d rather shoot them.

He was gasping for breath and the sandy shore dragged at his feet as he tried to make the half-remembered responses to the attacks. Not that what he’d learned at the Academy was doing him much good… The man he faced was doing things with a sword he’d never seen before and he had no choice but to try and do the same. Again, it hardly mattered. He felt the growing, sickening certainty that he would lose. His responses were just too slow, and he’d never developed the muscle memory required for such a contest. He had to Think about everything. That he’d lasted as long as he had might speak well for his ability to think under stress, but it wouldn’t save him. Besides, having suspected the battle was lost, he knew it already was. There was nothing left but to see it through. He parried a lunge against his flank with a crash of steel-just a little late-and realized the attack was just a feint as his opponent took another long step, past his sword, and planted his own sword tip in the center of Matt’s chest. The blade bowed slightly as the blunt point pushed against the padding.

“You’ve improved,” Jenks complimented. Naturally, both men were sweating at that latitude, but maybe Jenks was sincere. At least he was breathing hard this time.

“I’m still dead,” Matt objected.

“True, but as both our cultures recognize, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Honestly, you are much better. Certainly better than most of the young Imperial hotheads who take the field on the New Scotland dueling ground! You almost got me there, at the beginning, with your… unorthodox attack. Nothing to it, really, but experienced aggression, but sometimes that’s enough to give you an advantage over more classically trained opponents. It’s distracting, and not at all expected. If you can finish it then, why, what difference does it make how good you actually are?”

Matt took a deep breath and managed a wry grin. “Sounds like a good description of every scrape I’ve been in since the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.”

Jenks remained silent. He’d learned a good deal about the “other earth” the Americans came from, and the war that raged there, just as Matt and his people knew a lot more about the Empire now. The mention of Pearl Harbor tweaked Jenks a bit, however, as did any reference to Imperial territory that had belonged to the Americans on that other world. Pearl Harbor simply didn’t exist, as the Americans remembered it, but the “Hawaiian” Islands did-in a sense. They composed the very heart of the Empire. He knew that as far as a few of the remaining Americans were concerned, Pearl Harbor, or the “Hawaiian” Islands still belonged to them. Most were more philosophical than that, including Matt. They recognized that tiny Tarakan Island, for example, had never been a U.S. possession before they “got here,” and Matt used an interesting phrase to describe the situation: “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” That didn’t mean that knowing parts of their “homeland” was under “foreign” occupation was easy on them. Jenks could sympathize. None of his people had any idea who, if anyone, occupied their own almost mythical ancestral Britain. In that sense, both the human destroyermen and Jenks’s Imperials had a lot in common with the Lemurians, whose homeland had been under Grik occupation for untold ages.

Jenks realized that the Imperial possessions in North America might someday become a source of contention as well. For the time being, however, territorial ownership was the least of their concerns. They were united-the Americans, and at least that portion of the Empire that Jenks and Governor Radcliff represented-in a task that might prove difficult enough even if they all worked in perfect harmony.

“Let’s get something to drink,” Matt suggested. “All this Errol Flynn stuff is hard on you in this heat!”

“Indeed,” said Jenks, unstrapping his own padded vest and then helping Matt with his. He’d noticed before that Captain Reddy sometimes had a little trouble removing things from his left shoulder. An old wound, he assumed. “Particularly if by that you mean ‘capering in the sand with swords.’ ”

“That’s exactly what he means,” supplied the Bosun in a gruff tone. “The Skipper’s a regular Captain Blood. You might be a little better at all that fancy ballroom dancin’, but in a real scrap with no rules and real killin’ to do, the Skipper’s a regular artist!”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Jenks replied seriously as he and Matt stepped through the sand to a small thatch pavilion erected at the edge of the trees. Chief Gray was reclined on a wickerlike lounge alongside O’Casey. Neither man stood as their superiors approached, but Gray leaned forward and tilted an ornate pitcher of chilled nectar into a pair of mugs for the two men.

“Thanks, Boats,” Matt said sincerely, and after he removed the iron face guard he’d been wearing, he greedily gulped the sweet fluid. Jenks nodded his thanks as well and took a long, slow sip. Matt set his mug on the table and stared at the two reclining forms as he poured it full again.

Today, Gray and O’Casey were the only “security” personnel accompanying Matt and Jenks. As always, Gray carried his 1911 and a Thompson submachine gun. With only his right arm, O’Casey made do with a cutlass and four long-barreled flintlock pistols stuffed in his belt. Matt knew he was a cool and formidable opponent. That neither commander would allow, or felt the need for, a larger security force reflected the fact that Matt and Jenks really had come to like and trust one another. That their combined “squadron” and Governor Radcliff had firm, uncontested control of Respite left no one with any real concern for their safety.

Matt had grown to appreciate that “Respite” was the perfect name for the island where they took their enforced ease while waiting for the Allied supply ships to arrive. Despite the oppressive heat of the latitude they’d all more or less grown accustomed to, and the daily rains that kept the humidity high, the place was a virtual paradise in many ways. From the perspective of the human destroyermen, there was liberty, of course, and a kind of liberty none had enjoyed since they’d been forced to flee Surabaya in the “old” war. Commerce at Respite’s suddenly booming brothels was carefully regulated because the ladies there were still “obligated,” but Courtney’s mission to “buy” indentured women was beginning to bear fruit. Matt hated that his men were visiting brothels full of what were essentially slaves, but he’d literally had no choice but to allow it… at least for a while. He couldn’t, in good conscience, explain to his long-deprived men that the smorgasbord of smooth, nubile, female flesh displayed for all to see was not-could not be-for them. He would probably have faced a real, albeit temporary, mutiny. His old maxim to “never give an order you know won’t be obeyed” still rang true.

He’d assembled the men and told them that Respite had… facilities… for seafaring visitors, and there’d be liberty on the standard rotation-as long as the men behaved. He then went on to explain a little of the “way things worked around here,” and he’d been stunned by the response. He had to immediately quash a rising, incredulous, spontaneous crusade among his crew-human and Lemurian-to “Free the Wimmen!” He’d been stunned… and proud. As miserable as the scarcity of women had made the men of USS Walker, their daily association with “’Cat gals” in labor or combat had made the revelation that Imperial women lived in almost universal servitude even more horrifying to them than it might otherwise have been. Once, some might have even wistfully dreamed of a place where women could be their virtual slaves. No more. They wanted women, and no mistake, but their perhaps unique experience with the prolonged “dame famine” made the very idea that “some Joe” might practically own a whole passel of them utterly hateful.

He went on to explain the use to which they intended to put some of the gold on board, news that was met with universal acclaim. That lowered the steaming, evangelical kettle aboard Walker to a simmer. Now, though the men still visited the brothels fairly regularly, he’d noticed some had begun to “make friends” with other island women, both indentured and “free.” He encouraged that. Not only did friendships with un-obligated women gain them female “recruits,” on whose behalf Bradford was negotiating with Governor Radcliff to allow unrestricted emigration, but honestly, it gave Courtney an idea of which indentured women to focus on for “purchase” with their limited gold. Matt had already ordered the men not to ever come to him with any “special requests.” If a girl one of the guys was sweet on just “happened” to be chosen, that was one thing. If the men thought he was letting them go on a “shopping spree,” that would be something else, probably bad in any number of ways.

Respite had other interesting aspects as well. For example, the dreaded flasher fish so prolific within the Malay Barrier apparently hadn’t ever crossed the vast, deep ocean to this place. There were strange creatures, to be sure, and most of the more unusual probably guarded dangers as yet unsuspected. There were even vast numbers of perfectly ordinary-looking sharks clustered around the barrier reef that protected the fine, clear anchorage within the broad lagoon. But amazingly, for the first time since that terrible Squall brought them to this world, they’d found a place where they could actually take a refreshing dip.

Much to the incredulity of their Lemurian shipmates, human destroyermen thoughtlessly leaped over the side and capered in the water like children whenever their duties allowed. Armed watchers stood guard, of course, ready to warn of the approach of anything dangerouslooking beneath the crystal water, but simple, innocent pleasures such as that worked wonders on the men’s morale. The upbeat mood was infectious, and it benefited the ’Cats as well. Within a couple of days, a few of them were even goaded into the utterly unnatural element. They were watched like infants, and their reactions were almost always hilarious-and predictable. Spanky likened the spectacle to throwing housecats in the bathtub, and he wasn’t far off. Some of the hardier ’Cats eventually got sort of used to it. A couple even at least pretended to enjoy swimming as much as their human shipmates did.

Some days Spanky brought Tabby on deck where she could breathe fresh air into her damaged lungs. She still wore bandages over the worst of her burns, but many had healed enough that they could endure the open air, at least with some polta paste applied. To those who watched, Spanky was gruff but attentive, and Tabby, despite her pain, seemed happy. All were relieved that she would mend.

With that image in mind, standing there now with Jenks at his side, Matt was struck by the irony that ultimately, his people had more in common with the Lemurians than they did with the only human civilization they really knew on this world-one derived from the very same culture his own nation had sprung from. He shook his head. If there was one thing he’d learned since they’d wound up here, it was that his crew, his men, had a distinct talent for disrupting the status quo. That was perhaps the supreme irony of all: before the war, any change in the status quo in China or the Philippines was met with stiff resistance.

He smiled.

“I might better get back to the ship, Skipper,” Gray said. “Stites’ll be along directly to spell me at protectin’ you.” He grinned, but waved out at the lagoon where Walker lay at anchor amid the Imperial ships. “I swear, Bashear’s a good hand, but he don’t know how to be a proper bosun yet. Can’t get any work outta the men. Look at all them hoodlums jumpin’ in the water and splashin’ around! And our poor ship ridin’ there with new rust streaks down her sides!”

Stites arrived only moments later, ’03 slung on his shoulder. Instead of the usual banter with Gray, however, he stepped up to Matt, saluting. “Skipper,” he said anxiously, “I got a message here from the tanker squadron. Some’s from them and some’s been relayed on, tacked on, sorta. I, ah, read it, Skipper.”

“Thanks, Stites,” Matt replied. Grinning, he returned the salute. “That’s okay. I trust your discretion.” Everyone had been keeping close tabs on the aftermath of the Rangoon campaign and the buildup for the push against Ceylon. They were also hooked on the drama surrounding the expedition to salvage Santa Catalina. Of course, any news about Allison Verdia Letts was quickly passed around her shipful of “uncles” and “aunts.” Matt saw no reason to censor the transmissions they received. He took the message, written on Imperial paper Jenks had given them.