CHAPTER 17
Respite
Island
Respite Island appeared
to be all its name implied as the squadron approached it from the
northwest the following morning. Doubtless volcanic, the island
featured a pair of high peaks near its western coast, and the land
around them was a mixture of dense, exotic jungles, interspersed
cultivated fields. Limestone cliffs jutted skyward along the north
flank, heavily undermined by the relentless sea, but as the ships
steamed east, they encountered a broad barrier reef that protected
a vast anchorage on the northeast coast. Achilles was once more under her own power, but
Icarus led the way, flying a large
pennant to summon a pilot. Before long, a small, extreme,
single-masted topsail schooner slashed its way toward them from
beyond a point of land. It was a gorgeous little craft, Matt
decided: around fifty feet long, painted dark blue with bright
yellow trim and a white bottom. It was only about twice as large as
one of Walker’s launches, but carried a
truly magnificent spread of canvas. It was fast too, faster than
anything Matt had ever seen under sail. He grinned at the sight of
her.
“Pretty little
thing,” the Bosun commented.
“Yeah,” Matt replied.
“One of these days when all this is over and I get to retire, I
want one just like her!” His grin suddenly faded. “I bet Sandra
would like that,” he murmured. Gray said nothing. What could he
say?
Quickly, the little
schooner raced to Icarus’ side and the
smaller Imperial frigate hoisted a clear signal to “follow me.” As
they steamed around the point and farther out to sea to avoid the
reef, the schooner dropped back and paced Walker for a distance, its crew openly gawking at
the sleek, freshly touched-up old destroyer that moved along so
apparently effortlessly with her twin screw propellers. Matt
doubted they gawked with envy; they had no reason to be envious,
given their trim, beautifully appointed little craft, but he
conceded they might have been struck with amazement.
Imperial shipmakers
had developed crude screw propellers, but they were virtually
unused. Paddle wheels were “tried and true” and required no
underwater hull piercings, which tended to leak. Matt firmly
believed that paddle wheels were far more vulnerable, not only to
battle damage but to heavy weather as well, but he could understand
why a ship without them might look strange to people so accustomed
to their use. However inefficient they were, they worked, and in a
very visible way. Walker could throw up
quite a wake at higher speeds, but right now there was little more
than if she’d been under sail. This, combined with her odd
appearance and obvious steel construction, had to make quite an
impression even on people more technologically advanced than the
Lemurians had been at first. The little schooner certainly made an
impression on him.
Many of the Lemurians
held up their hands, palm out, in their traditional greeting, and
the schooner’s crew appeared to notice them for the first time.
There was a sudden disarray among its sails, and then she was
slanting away, back the direction she’d come. Some of the bridge
watch chuckled, and Matt did too. He doubted the schooner was
supposed to abandon her pilot—whoever she’d put aboard Icarus was probably throwing a fit.
After a long reach to
eastward, the pilot must have indicated the channel, because
Icarus turned and steamed back toward
the island. Achilles made the same turn
at the same point, and Walker followed
suit. At their crawling pace, it would still be nearly an hour
before they came under the guns of the looming limestone fortress
overlooking the anchorage that Jenks had told them to expect. All
the same, Matt summoned Boats Bashear.
“Another thirty
minutes I should think, then line the sides, if you
please.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,”
Bashear replied and left the bridge, fingering his bosun’s pipe.
Exactly half an hour later, the pipe trilled insistently and the
crew turned out in style. White T-shirts, blue or white kilts and
dungarees, and the ever-present Dixie cup hats had become the
standard tropical (as if they’d needed any other kind) dress, and
as the mixed crew lined the rails, Matt was pleased by how good
they looked. Maybe a little bizarre—with humans and ’Cats, tall and
short, the ’Cats with their multicolored furs—but good. Behind him,
Chack’s Marines had lined the weather deck in full battle garb of
dark blue kilts with red piping, white leather torso armor, and
crossed black cartridge box straps. There were polished bronze
greaves, sword hilts, and “tin hats” on their heads, and bright
muskets on their shoulders with gleaming fixed bayonets. Chack
paced among them, inspecting the troops for perfection, while he
still wore his own battered American helmet, pattern of 1917
cutlass, and a Krag rifle suspended muzzle down by a strap over his
shoulder.
Matt raised his
binoculars. He hadn’t expected much harbor traffic, and he’d been
right. There were several ships at anchor, but none appeared to be
warships, and a couple even looked like they’d been through the
recent storm. They were weathered and washed out, as if they’d been
too long at sea, and their lines were a little jagged with missing
rails and spliced yards and masts. Only one was a steamer and it
was rather small. They were close enough now to see the Imperial
flag floating high above the fortress, and when a thought struck
him, Matt studied the ships once more. Hmm. All but the steamer
were flying the Company banner. He had to force himself to consider
the probability that regardless of how corrupt the Company may be,
chances were that the officers and crews of those ships were just
honest sailors working for a living. He wondered what cargo they’d
brought, however.
More small boats of
every description darted to and fro, seemingly suspended on air.
Now that they’d entered the vast lagoon, the water was utterly
clear, almost crystalline in its purity.
“Skipper,” Palmer
said, “Achilles sends that she’ll put
in at the Company dock. It’s the biggest one. There’s no naval dock
here. Commodore Jenks says he’ll signal Icarus to take up a blocking station to prevent
those Company ships from getting underway, and asks if we’ll
position ourselves to cover Icarus and
Achilles with our guns. He . . . ah . .
. begs that you’ll give the people here the benefit of the doubt
for now, and he’s going to try to sort things out
himself.”
Matt watched a series
of signals race up a halyard aboard Jenks’s ship. “Very well,” he
said, then lowered his voice to a grumble. “What does he think I’ll
do? Just start blasting away?” He hadn’t meant for anyone to hear
him, but the Bosun chuckled.
“Prob’ly. And why
not?” He motioned at one of the Company flags. “We may not be at
war with the Empire yet, but the last thing we saw with one of
those flags shot at us without warning. We are at war with the Company, ain’t
we?”
“The Company, but
maybe not all Company ships. Yet.” Matt said.
“Jumpin’ Jesus!”
Kutas almost chirped.
Bradford was on the
starboard bridgewing, studying the island beyond the port, but at
Kutas’s words he looked back at the chief quartermaster’s mate.
“What?” he inquired. Kutas’s face was practically
purple.
“Them boats! The
little ones . . . the fishing boats!” was all he
managed.
Bradford redirected
his glasses. “Goodness gracious!” he exclaimed. Many of the small
boats Kutas had been trying to avoid running down were crewed
almost exclusively by practically nude women. Some were nude, and their bronze skins and dark hair
suddenly drew every eye. Even the men lining the rails had begun to
lean incredulously forward, trying for a better view. To them,
Walker had suddenly entered some magic,
mythical paradise. It was Shangri-la without the snow.
“The joint’s swarming
with broads!” somebody shouted excitedly. It was true. Even if the
island hadn’t been exotically inviting enough before, the apparent
abundance of dusky-skinned beauties lining the dock and the beach
beyond was enough to send an electric thrill down every human
spine. It was like a scene out of Gable’s Mutiny on The Bounty. Many women working seines
through the light surf along the shore were naked too, as best the
men could tell—and they did their very best to tell.
“Stand those men to
attention this instant!” Matt told the Bosun, and Gray bolted down
the stairs and through the forward hatch onto the fo’c’sle. For a
moment he paused, staring at the boats, as guilty as the rest of
the crew. He shook himself.
“What’s the matter
with you . . . you . . . perverts?” Gray ranted with considerably
less than ordinary zeal and imagination. “Them gals are practically
children, fer God’s sake! Don’t tell me you devils never seen nekkid women
before!”
“Can’t,” Stites
breathed, “but it’s been a long, long
time!”
“Shut up, you! You’re
supposed to set an example!”
Paul Stites rounded
on the Bosun. “What kind of example you want me to set, S.B.?
Jeez!”
For once, even the
Bosun was speechless. “Just grab yer eyeballs before they drop in
the water!” Gray managed at last, “or by God, I’ll kick’em back in
yer head!” He turned, glaring down the rail. “All you shif’less,
useless bastards! Try to be destroyermen a little longer, or you’ll queer the
Skipper’s plans, and I will kill you
for that! We make the wrong impression here, we might as well just
turn around!” He whirled back at Stites. “And as for you, get back
to your post on the number one gun! We’re showin’ up here all
friendly an’ such, but there might be a goddamn
fight!”
Above, Matt rubbed
his forehead. It had been a year and a half since his men had seen
any women but the nurses and “nannies.” The few women they’d
rescued from S-19 who’d been . . . willing . . . had been a help,
but this was like whacking a shark on the nose with bloody meat. He
watched Achilles maneuver close to the
dock as Icarus proceeded toward a place
where she could supervise the Company ships. A slow roll of gunfire
erupted from the side of Achilles as
she saluted the fort’s flag far above the harbor, and the smoke and
report of the cannons drifted back across them. Perhaps that would
have a sobering effect. Momentarily, an answering salute rumbled
from the fortress.
“All stop,” Matt
said. “All astern one-third.” He looked around at the others in the
pilothouse. “I think we’ll not go any closer for now. Kutas, we
won’t anchor either, so try to keep this position if the current
allows.” He turned to Frankie Steele, who’d just stepped into the
pilothouse. “Rig out the launches and make preparations to take the
Marines ashore. If Jenks needs a hand, I think Chack’s ’Cats might
scare the locals, but probably not as bad as those sex-starved men
out there.”
Ultimately, there
wasn’t any fighting. As soon as Achilles touched the pier, her own Marines swarmed
ashore and three squads of red-coated troops swept into the city
and along the docks. Another squad formed up on the dock itself,
and a fifth rowed out to each Company ship in turn, leaving only
when the Imperial flag had replaced the Company banners. It was
that easy, and it all happened about that fast. Matt knew his own
Marines were probably better infantry than Jenks’s Marines, and
Jenks knew it too, but the Imperials seemed professional and
intimidating enough at the moment.
“Achilles wants us to come on in,” Palmer reported.
“Snug up to the Company dock just astern of her. Jenks has all the
local cheeses gathered up for a talk.”
“Very well,” Matt
replied. “Take us in, Mr. Kutas.” To the Bosun down below, he
called, “The crew will remain on parade until further notice. The
first man who utters a sound will be transferred to the tanker
squadron when it arrives. Do I make myself clear?”
Walker eased up alongside the dock, gray smoke
curling skyward from the second and fourth stacks, blower almost
sighing with relief. Boats Bashear trilled his pipe and Lemurian
line handlers threw ropes at gawking men on the dock. One, dressed
much like a thousand dockworkers the Bosun had seen in a hundred
ports “back home,” just stood there when a ’Cat expertly tossed him
a line and it fell to the dock and dropped in the
water.
“Catch the goddamn
rope!” Gray bellowed at the man. “Ain’t you never seen a rope
before? It’s called a rope! You’re
supposed to catch it, you imbi-cile!”
Gray nodded at the ’Cat to haul in and try again. “Drop it this
time, and I’ll tie the whole damn ship off to you, since you ain’t
got the sense of a stanchion!” he warned the stranger.
This time the man
caught the wet rope and took a creditable turn, although he still
seemed shaken. “Dumb-aass,” muttered the ’Cat, loud enough to be
heard, and the man just gaped again.
Gray glanced from bow
to stern. “Singled up, fore and aft, Skipper,” he called to the
bridgewing.
“All stop, finished
with engines,” Matt commanded and Pack Rat rang the engine room
telegraph. He looked back at the dock. Men by the dozens, then
scores, some dressed as laborers and others in their finery, were
approaching the ship. Commodore Jenks strode among them,
accompanied by a group of well- but practically dressed men with
wide straw hats on their heads. Another man, rather fat, and easily
the most elaborately dressed, rode at the head of the procession on
the back of an honest-to-God donkey,
fanning himself with yet another wide-brimmed hat. Matt suspected
the donkey was a descendant of cargo carried by those early
Indiamen. Jenks’s Marines were still formed up at the Achilles gangway, and when Matt caught his eye,
Jenks gave him a slight nod.
“Have Mr. McFarlane
secure number two, if you please, but maintain pressure on number
four.” Matt turned to Bradford, who’d rejoined him on the
bridgewing after rushing up to the fire control platform above to
get a better view. He hadn’t been gone but a minute or two, and
seemed uncharacteristically nervous. “What’s the matter, Courtney?
You seem distracted. Looks like you’ll be able to lay in a lifetime
supply of those goofy hats you like.”
“Indeed,” Bradford
replied, then allowed a small smile. “The ‘matter’ is, Captain
Reddy, I’m a ‘diplomat’ in name only. I’ve only ever dealt with
beings whom I was relatively sure were being honest with me. I
wouldn’t count Billingsley, since he turned out to be . . .
whatever he is, and besides, I never had to bargain with
him. Perhaps dealing with Saan-Kakja’s
Sky Priest Meksnaak might count as a ‘disingenuous encounter,’ but
he turned out fairly honest in the end. In any event, I’ve never
had to negotiate with anyone who was practiced at it at all, and
perhaps today—surely at some point, with this entire empire to draw
upon—I’m bound to encounter someone who’s been studying diplomacy
and deceit their entire lives!”
“I wouldn’t worry too
much about it, Courtney,” Matt said, and his voice went
flat.
Bradford didn’t
notice. “Easy for you to say! You’ve had plenty of practice at what
you do!”
Matt shook his head.
“Notwithstanding this fine, clear lagoon, we’re all in murky waters
here. None of us really knows what will happen. I just mean that
you shouldn’t worry too much about what to say. Our mission’s
pretty straightforward: find Sandra and the princess, and make the
people who took them pay.” He shrugged. “Since it looks like those
‘people’ are the Company, it has to
pay. In that respect, our mission and Jenks’s new cause do overlap,
and if we’re both successful in achieving that, it might even help
us gain another alliance of some sort as well. But make no mistake;
we’re not here to ‘negotiate.’ At least not for anything beyond
what we discussed yesterday evening at dinner. Apparently, that’s
more of a business transaction”—he made a face—“and I’m sure you
can handle that.”
The procession had
come to a halt alongside Walker and
appeared to be waiting expectantly. “Pass the word,” Matt said,
speaking louder. “The Bosun, Stites, Chack, and two Marines of his
choice will accompany me and Mr. Bradford ashore.”
“Weapons?” Steele
asked.
“You bet. From now
on, always.”
Marine Captain
Chack-Sab-At proceeded across the gangplank, followed by two
Marines with muskets on their shoulders. Matt was interested to
note that he’d chosen First Sergeant Blas-Ma-Ar, whom the Bosun
called “Blossom” for some reason, and the former Aryaalan noble,
Corporal Koratin. Matt and Courtney followed them, dressed in their
best, with 1911 Colts holstered at their sides. Courtney wouldn’t
wear a cutlass—he was more of a menace to himself with one than to
anyone else—but Matt had his now somewhat battered but highly
polished Academy sword. Bringing up the rear was the Bosun with his
Thompson and Stites with a BAR—Browning automatic rifle. Together
they stepped briskly up to the mounted official and Chack and his
Marines stepped aside.
“Governor Radcliff,”
Jenks said to the man on the quite ordinary-looking donkey, “may I
present the man who has made our arrival here, bearing this gloomy
news, possible? There is no doubt that my ship and I, at least,
would have been lost in the recent action without him, and had his
people not previously rescued the Princess Rebecca, there would be
no hope at all that she might yet live.”
Governor Radcliff
slid the short distance to the ground from the burro’s back and
peered intently at Captain Reddy. The feat didn’t require much in
the way of physical exertion, but he managed it with a certain
athletic grace inconsistent with his girth. He touched his immense
graying mustache as if making sure every hair was in place. “Please
do, Commodore. From our . . . abbreviated conversation, it would
seem the Empire at large owes him and his people a great debt
indeed.”
“Very well, then.”
Jenks proceeded, bowing slightly and gesturing at Matt. “I present
my excellent friend, Captain Matthew Reddy, High Chief of the
American Clan, and Commander in Chief of all Allied Forces united
beneath the Banner of the Trees.”
Matt glanced at
Jenks. They’d considered numerous possibilities regarding how
they’d be received here. Apparently, Jenks considered this Governor
Radcliff an ally—for now. Matt saluted. “Captain Matthew Reddy,
United States Navy ship Walker. I
request permission to come ashore, sir.”
Radcliff looked at
Jenks with a frown. “Well, what is he? A captain or a
chief?”
“Both, Your
Excellency. Ah, as I understand it, he prefers ‘captain’ while in
direct command of his ship.”
“And he’s standing
right in front of you . . . Governor.” Gray growled under his
breath. He too was still holding a salute.
“Boats!” Matt ground
out.
The governor of
Respite chuckled and Jenks quickly whispered something in his ear.
“Oh! Of course!” He sketched a salute and Matt and Gray dropped
theirs. “Permission granted, certainly—not that we could deny it,
if the good commodore has been remotely accurate in his description
of your ship’s capabilities.” He turned to look at Chack and the
other Marines. “And what have we here?” An expression of genuine
wonder crossed his face.
“They call them
‘Lemurians,’ Excellency,” Jenks supplied. “Descendants of the
ancient”—he glanced apologetically at Chack—“ ‘Ape Folk’ that the
Founders described in their journals.”
“If I may?” Matt
said, not really asking. “As Commodore Jenks is likely about to
inform you, they don’t like the term ‘Ape Folk’ very much. I think
they’ve figured out what an ape is by talking to us, even though
they’ve never seen one. Jenks has told me you do have apes, descendants of pets aboard your old
ships. Seeing those apes and being equated with them is likely to
cause resentment. Trust me, sir, you really don’t want to create
resentment among my crew, and particularly among these Lemurian
Marines.”
“Indeed not, I assure
you!” Governor Radcliff exclaimed. “These friends of yours seem
rather touchy, Commodore,” he said in an aside to
Jenks.
“Still standing right
here,” Gray said. Matt rolled his eyes.
“Indeed. Please
forgive me,” the governor said. “I’m not accustomed to speaking so
forthrightly with strangers.”
“I believe you may
find, as I have,” Jenks stated in a neutral tone, “that is about
the only way to communicate with Captain Reddy and his people.
Perhaps it is time, and past, for a serious, forthright discussion
about many things, Your Excellency.”
“So it would seem,”
Radcliff agreed. “Captain Reddy, please do accompany us to
Government House.” He fanned himself with his wide hat. “We have
much to discuss, and this heat is most tiresome. I would be honored
if you would join me in some refreshment.” He glanced at Chack.
“And . . . charmed . . . if your Lemurian Marines and other
companions would join us as well.”
“Thank you, sir.
We’ll gladly attend. But maybe there are a few more pressing
matters?” Matt looked at Jenks questioningly.
The governor clasped
his hands behind his back and raised his chin. “Forthrightly,
then,” he said. “Captain Reddy, even as we speak, the Company
Director and all his factors are being placed under house arrest by
Commodore Jenks’s Marines. I have personally ordered the
territorial constabulary and militia to scour the island for any
possible Company agents. My militia is ill-equipped, and while they
may not be Marines, I expect they will be highly motivated.” He
paused and frowned. “I had never previously met Commodore Jenks
before this day, but his reputation as a discoverer, a loyalist,
and a man of irreproachable honor is universal within the Empire.
With the few brief words we have shared thus far regarding this
emergency, I have no doubt that the very existence of the Empire is
at risk.” He sighed. “Understand, something insidious has been
brewing beneath the surface for a great long time, and the people
here, and elsewhere, are not blind. I’m a loyal subject of the
Empire, but even I can see that something has gone fundamentally
wrong. Some will see this atrocity that you bring word of as the
final spark necessary to ignite a powder keg of secession that has
long been standing, waiting to explode. It may even be that Respite
must finally split from the government over this event, if it does
not suppress the Company at last. Perhaps I may repair the rift
before the split becomes permanent, but I have a sick feeling that
the twisted, almost incomprehensible agenda of the Company might
shatter my beloved Empire forever.”