Read Ebook: The admiral's walk by Merwin Sam Kiemle H W Henry William Illustrator

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Ebook has 130 lines and 8026 words, and 3 pages

"Say when," he said. "I think we both need this. I'm Admiral Edward Kirkham of the United States Navy. Your health, Admiral. And don't bother to drink mine. I haven't any, you see."

"United States Navy," said Nelson, accepting the glass gratefully. "You have a brilliant man in Stephen Decatur, and your new frigates trounced the French soundly. But what do you in these waters since the Tripolitan pirates have been defeated?"

"Admiral," said Kirkham, sitting down and motioning Nelson to take the seat across from him, "explanations seem to be in order from both of us. How to begin?"

"At the beginning, perhaps," said Nelson with the ghost of a smile. However mad the circumstances, he could not but like this bluff flag officer. American or no, he was one of his own kind.

"That would take years," said Kirkham. "We have a saying at home which goes, 'The time, the place and the girl.' Its implications should be understandable to a man like yourself."

"Entirely," said Nelson with a faint smile.

"Well, Admiral, consider yourself the girl for the purpose of metaphor. We are roughly a hundred miles southwest of Cadiz, so the place and the girl are right--remember, you're the girl. It's the time that's cockeyed."

"Cockeyed?" said Nelson. Then, "Oh! And just why is it cockeyed, Admiral?"

"Because, dammit, you've been deader than a doornail for more than a hundred and fifty-five years. Look at that book in your hand. It tells the story, if you're man enough to take it! You died at Trafalgar on October twenty-first, eighteen hundred and five."

"And this is the night of October twentieth, nineteen-sixty!" mused Nelson. He shuddered briefly.

"Eh?" said Kirkham. He looked apologetic. "Sorry to give it to you so brutally, Admiral, but you're on a ship of men who have little longer to live. We've been washed by so much radioactive water our only hope is to get her back to port before we become derelict."

"Radioactive water?" said Nelson. Then he dismissed the question as of no account. He laid the book on the table without opening it and looked earnestly at his host.

"Tell me, Admiral, did we win?"

"You knocked them to pieces," said Kirkham. "Your twenty-seven ships of the line hit Villeneuve's thirty-three so hard, you forced eighteen to strike without the loss of a ship yourself."

"Tell me, Admiral," said Nelson. "What tactics did I employ to gain so signal a victory?"

"You smashed their line by attacking in double column. They failed to employ low raking fire and aimed as usual at your rigging. Once through, you had them."

Nelson sighed, but it was not with relief.

"Thank you, Admiral. You say it's all in here?" He tapped the book with his left hand.

"All there," said Kirkham.

"One thing troubles me, Admiral. How am I to fight this battle if I am not with my fleet?"

"Good heavens!" Kirkham stared at him open-mouthed. The enormity of what had happened seemed just to have sunk in upon him. "Then the ships my watch and radar-men reported must have been yours!"

"Exactly," said Nelson. "And perhaps you would be good enough to tell me how I was plucked from my own admiral's walk to the decks of this very strange vessel?"

"I'm no Einstein," said the American. Then he laughed. "I'm no scientific wizard, Admiral. But that last atom blast that nearly got us must have kicked the Earth right back on its own time trail for a second. It certainly made enough of a fuss. And we may get more any minute."

"What sort of war is this?" Nelson asked, disturbed. "You say you and your men are dying, you talk of earth-shaking 'atom' blasts, yet you fight in sealed cabins."

He moved quickly to the bookcase, pulled out a few volumes and laid them on the table. They were illustrated histories of sea power, and in them he traced the development of warships from the sail-driven four-deckers of 1805 through the first steam frigates, the early breastwork monitors, the dreadnoughts and the mighty superdreadnoughts of World War Two, to the semi-submersible ships of the new conflict.

"We have them too," he stated, pointing to the last-named. "But we've had all these old-style ships like this wagon we're aboard, built and ready. So they sent us out as a raiding force to plant guided atomic missiles on the enemy's vitals from close inshore.

"There were only twenty-four of us to begin with--the Kentucky, the Missouri, the New Jersey, battleships; the Midway, the Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Coral Sea, carriers; the Alaska, Guam and Hawaii, large cruisers; three San Diegos, small cruisers; and a dozen of the big new destroyers.

"Our main attack is coming over the North Pole--airborne, and we were merely a diversion. We had luck and launched our missiles successfully. The troop landings are coming off almost without opposition according to the latest dispatches. But the enemy isn't through by a long shot. There's a lot of him and he's out to finish us."

"I can understand that," said Nelson, "though I confess much of your terminology is beyond me. But how can an incredible steel floating fortress of more than fifty thousand tons be damaged?"

"The answer to that lies in the fact that only this battleship, the Midway, the Alaska and Guam, one of the light cruisers and seven of the destroyers are still afloat. And of these, only the crews of one cruiser and three destroyers have not been doomed by radioactivity."

"What is this radioactivity you speak of, Admiral?"

Kirkham told him, crisply, graphically. At its conclusion his listener's face was even paler than its wont. He rose and saluted the American gravely.

"You and your crew deserve the salute of every sailor who ever lived"--he stumbled a little over the phrase, caught himself and went on--"and I am proud to salute you in their behalf. War has become a terrible thing."

"It always was," said Kirkham. He had reached for the glass to pour another pair of drinks when a buzzer sounded and he flipped the switch on a box at his elbow.

"Enemy plane sighted and destroyed fifty miles off port bow," came the report. Kirkham swore and closed the switch. He rose, looked at his strange visitor.

"Care to come up and see the fireworks?" he asked. "We've just been spotted by another plane."

Nelson rose quickly. His host started toward the door, then checked himself and came back.

"Better cover that costume of yours, Admiral," he said. "Since they saw your ships, the boys are a bit jumpy and they're in no mood for what they might think were gags. Here--put this raincoat on. It will cover you."

With the book clutched under his left elbow, Nelson followed Admiral Kirkham up through a bewildering series of corridors and companionways to an armored gallery high on the conning tower of the battleship. He stayed close to his host as suggested by the latter.

The Englishman's eyes widened at the spectacle that greeted him. From where he stood he had a view of the entire immense foredeck with its huge rocket launchers and tier upon tier of lesser weapons. Like a great steel monster it cut through the dark waters at incredible speed.

"Take these," said Kirkham, thrusting a pair of binoculars with complex attachments into his hand. "They're infra-red. You'll see the Midway off to starboard. Her night fighters are taking off now."

Without asking for explanations, Nelson stuck the book under his right armpit and handled the heavy binoculars awkwardly with his one good hand. Once he had them focussed he forgot their awkwardness and weight.

Through their lenses, which displayed the night as if it were daylight, and brought the horizon close, he saw the amazing sight no man of his era could ever have witnessed.

A mighty flat-decked vessel with a huge superstructure stood into the wind as Admiral Kirkham had predicted. From her deck, a small machine rose, dipped below the level of her towering square bow and then rose through the air with incredible speed. Another, another and another appeared, to vanish in the clouded heavens above.

"A lot of good they'll do," someone muttered close beside him. "The yellowbellies won't send over bombers and trying to stop their guided missiles with planes is like trying to stop a leak with tissue paper."

Nelson smiled faintly to himself. Though they were talking of weapons he had yet to understand, he understood the simile. He was glad he had not compared "iron men in wooden ships" to "wooden men in ships of steel," a paraphrase that had been on the tip of his tongue. These seamen were worthy of any navy in history--girding themselves to fight on, although their doom had been already sealed by some devilish mechanism devised by man to come.

So huge was the ship that at first he was not aware it had changed course. But the mighty flat-topped vessel to port was swinging about, as were the two lesser vessels within the range of the binoculars. The entire squadron was doubling back upon its course. Oh, to have ships so maneuverable without recourse to whim of wind and weather as these beneath him!

"They'll not be apt to drop a pattern where they've already sought us," Kirkham said in his ear. "So we'll move northeast before we swing back toward the west."

"Where is the British fleet?" Nelson asked.

"North of Scotland with our main body," said the American. "They're supporting the main troop landings to follow the airborne in. Those devils will wish they'd never driven us to fight them before we're through."

"I am glad we are allies," said Nelson.

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