“Zigzag her!” Sam shouted.
There were three more direct hits. Other missiles plunged into the water on both sides and aft.
“Our radar’s gone,” Byron said. He ordered the rocket crews to fire back, using visual calculations.
“But where are they?” Sam said.
“Up on the cliff!” Byron and Detweiller said at the same time.
“Thee!” Joe said, pointing out the stern port.
While Byron was asking for reports on the damage and casualties, Sam looked along the titanthrop’s massive finger. About five hundred feet up, where there had been an unbroken wall of rock, there was now an opening. An oblong, it was thirty feet long and seven feet high. Tiny faces looked out from behind launchers, and the sun glinted on the silver of missiles and tubes.
“Jumping Jesus H. Christ!”
John’s men must have found a cave up on the face of the mountain, and they’d carried rockets and launchers to it. A shield of some sort, probably papier-mache simulating a patch of lichen, had been placed over the opening. While his rocketeers waited inside it, John had fled up the strait.
“Suckered!” Sam said, and he groaned.
A minute passed as the boat churned down-River. Then, making him jump though he knew they were coming, about twelve large missiles sped from the opening, the interior of the cave lit up for a second by flames.
“Hard aport!” Sam yelled.
Only one of the rockets hit. A steam machine gun disappeared in a cloud, pieces of bodies and metal flying out from it. When the smoke cleared, there was a large hole where the platform, gun, and three men and two women had been.
For a moment, Sam was numbed throughout, unable to move or to think anything except: War is not my element. War is no rational man’s element. I should have faced reality and given Byron the command. But no, my pride, my pride. John was wily, wily indeed, and he also had the great Dane, Tor-denskjold, as adviser.
Vaguely, he became aware that the boat was heading toward the bank. Byron’s voice, as if from a long distance, was saying, “Should I keep her on course, Captain?”
“Tham, Tham,” Joe rumbled behind him. “Chethuth Chritht, ve’re going to run into the bank!”
Sam forced himself to move, to speak.
“We won’t stay on course. Head her down-River and get back in the middle.”
There were bodies on the main deck. Youngblood, Czerny, and de Groot. And there was the upper part of the beautiful Anne Mathy, the former Hollywood star. She looked like a China doll which some sick child had mutilated.
He had seen corpses and blood before, and he wasn’t any youngster playing Confederate soldier. There was no Wild West to run away to, leaving the Civil War to those with a taste for it. He couldn’t desert now.
From fear he went to anger. The cup of bourbon that Joe— good old Joe!—handed him fueled his wrath. Damn John and his sneaky tricks! He’d send the man to hell, go with him if it was necessary.
He spoke to Byron. “Do you think we could blast those bastards out of that cave?”
The exec took a long look. “I think so. Of course, if their missile supply is exhausted, there’s no use wasting ours on them.”
“I don’t see any in the tubes,” Sam said. “But they might be keeping them out of sight, hoping we’ll come back to attack. Let’s go back and make sure. I don’t want those hyenas laughing at us.”
Byron raised his eyebrows. Evidently he thought it was foolish to risk more hits. He said, “Yes, sir,” and went back to the intercom. Sam told Detweiller what he wanted. And while the Not For Hire turned again, the rocket crews readied for their mission.
Byron gave his report in a flat cool voice. Twenty dead. Thirty-two badly wounded. Eleven of the wounded could be patched up and returned to duty. One steam machine gun, one rocket battery, and one cannon were destroyed. The rockets and the cannon shells had blown up also, doing more damage than the missiles themselves. There were two large holes in the flight deck, and the cabins in the lowest tier of the pilothouse had been blown out. Enough of the structure of the base remained to ensure stability. This couldn’t be guaranteed if another rocket hit the structure. Their firepower was reduced, but the boat’s performance was not affected.