Free Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson Page A

usual. “You’re wondering why we didn’t just take over and how come we don’t treat the ’Cats like some people treated colored folks back home. Well, if any of us ever thought that way, we don’t anymore. Navy ’Cats are Americans, far as I’m concerned. They’ve taken the same oath you did, and they mean it. Captain Reddy could have taken over, I guess, and made himself king. From what I heard, they practically asked him to. But these people are our friends, Commander, and even if the Skipper had wanted to be king, he knew the Alliance would never hold up and Baalkpan would still be all alone against the Grik. As for being under the command of “foreign leaders,” well, we are and we aren’t. It’s complicated.” He shrugged, then glared at the Dutch flyer. “But even if we were bound to follow their every whim—which we’re not—I guess us Asiatic Fleet guys were already used to that back home, after Tommy Hart got the shove. . . .”
    “You were treated rough by the Japs, Commander,” interrupted Letts more softly, before Perry could make an enemy of Conrad Diebel. “And you’ve wound up in a situation you don’t understand. You’re being careful and trying to watch out for these other guys. I get that. But in a way, we’re still fighting the same war here that we left behind. Sure, we’ve got a few good Japs on our side, and Shinya, at least, is a swell guy. Another Jap named Okada took the ship that brought you here up against the tin can that was with her.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “That’s the last we heard. Chances are, he’s dead now and that ship’s on the bottom of the sea, but he was on our side, fighting bad Japs. And most of the Japs that made it here have wound up with the Grik—and the Grik are much worse than Japs!
    “The Grik keep people . . . Lemurians, anybody they catch, I guess, in the holds of their ships as rations. I’ve seen that, the aftermath, so I can kind of imagine what it looked like in the hold of Mizuki Maru . That said, I can only guess what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japs. I’m sure it was hell, sir, and the Japs who put you there belong in hell. With all due respect, though, Commander, you can’t have any idea what it was like for us when we first wound up here, all alone and practically sinking.” He gestured around. “It seems like we’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and I guess we have, but at first it was only us and we had less idea where we were or what had happened to us than you do.” He shrugged. “That hasn’t changed, really, besides some wild-assed guesses, but where we are isn’t the all-consuming question it once was, and at least we’ve lived long enough for some of us to kick it around a little.
    “Now, if you think you’re going to just show up out of the blue and pull rank , there’s something you better know.” He held his thumb and forefinger about a quarter inch apart. “When we got here, we were that close to coming completely unwrapped, and only two things kept that from happening: the Skipper and the ’Cats. Captain Reddy never gave us a chance to wring our hands and worry and never allowed us to fall apart. He just kept doing his duty and expecting us to do ours . . . and we did. Not because of any oath or for a country we’ll probably never see again, but for each other.” He looked hard at Herring. “And for the skipper.” He lowered his voice. “It never even occurred to anyone until later that maybe we weren’t in the Navy anymore, but by then, it didn’t matter. The skipper was still the skipper, and Walker was the Navy.” He sighed and scratched his nose. “So the Navy’s a lot bigger now, and there aren’t many of us guys from Walker and Mahan and S-19 left, but, by God we did the right thing, the only thing, and Captain Reddy deserves most of the credit.
    “As for the ’Cats, we never would’ve made it without them, and, of course, all the ones here at