That was the job of the two little Dutch warships. Just get in range and fire off a few broadsides, then scamper—hopefully—out of harm’s way. But drawing off the picket boats—or at least directing their attention elsewhere—while the real strike went in.
The “real strike.” Yeah, right. The harebrained scheme, cooked up by two American kids out of some books they read on the Civil War.
But he didn’t have time to dwell on the sarcastic thought. Jimmy was urgently squeezing his arm and giving it a little shake.
“Look! D’you see it?”
Jeff squinted along the line of Jimmy’s pointing finger. His friend had better eyesight than he did, even with his glasses on. Leaving aside the fact that Jeff’s glasses were covered with rain water.
He saw nothing. Then . . . It was just a thicker darkness, at first. But, much faster than he would have expected, the darkness congealed into a shape.
“That’s it, all right. A Spanish galleon, sure as shit. Good-sized one, too. Okay, Jimmy, we’re on. Get the guys up here.”
Jimmy motioned urgently. Four of the men left off rowing on the oars and hurried forward. Moving quickly but carefully, they slipped the heavy spar holding the torpedo forward until it had reached maximum extension. Behind them, the men remaining at the oars threw their backs into it. Again, moving a bit slowly—even with muffled oars, no one wanted any noise—but digging into the pulls with as much power as they could muster. The fishing boat began to surge forward.
Jimmy watched Jeff, waiting for the signal. Jeff was studying the distance to the enemy ship, trying to gauge the right point at which to lower the torpedo into the water. Too soon, and the boat’s speed would be slowed right when speed was most important. Too late, and the splash might alert whatever sentries were on deck. Really too late, and the whole exercise would be wasted. For the torpedo to work properly, the explosion had to happen underwater.
Part of him, too, was studying himself. All through the night, and the days leading up to this event, Jeff had been . . . wondering. Hoping desperately, really. Hoping that a thing which had happened to him only three times in his life would happen again.
The first time, at the age of sixteen. When, driving his father’s car on a two-lane highway through the hills, he’d suddenly seen an oncoming car in his own lane. The stupid idiot had tried to pass a truck on a curve. Jeff had saved his life and his mother’s that day, calmly and steadily—not a trace of panic; his nerves like ice—steering his own vehicle onto the shoulder and narrowly missing the head-on collision.
The second time, when he’d come around another curve on his motorcycle and seen Becky Stearns sprawled on the road with Croat cavalrymen about to kill her. Again, without any thought on his part, the ice shield had come down. He’d laid down his bike—almost casually—and slain all of them, never feeling anything at the time beyond calculation.
Later that same day, it had happened again, when other Croat cavalrymen had come smashing into the gym where some of the Americans were fortified. Jeff had killed several of them as coldly as a snake. He’d not even felt anything when he saw Mr. Trout cut down in front of him. Not even, that he could remember, when he himself had been sent to the floor from another saber cut. He could remember being puzzled a little, when he saw the Croat about to kill him have his head split open by a saber in the hands of Gustav Adolf.
That he could handle himself in combat, Jeff knew already. What he didn’t know, crouched in the bow of a boat on a dark and rain-swept night, was whether he could do the same thing when the danger did not come upon him by surprise. When, to the contrary, he’d had days to plan for it in advance. Days in which his fear and apprehension could slowly and steadily saturate every nerve in his body.
He was still considering the problem, with a part of his mind, when the other part said—calmly, icily—”Okay, that’s it. Now, Jimmy.”