Against the Tide Imperial: The Struggle for Ceylon (The Usurper's War: An Alternative World War II B by James Young (story reading txt) 📕

"Aye aye, sir," Commander Sloan said, also turning to look off the heavy cruiser's port side at the advancing weather. The swells the Houston was moving through were starting to cause the heavy cruiser to pitch and roll slightly as TF 25 continued southwards. Jacob strongly suspected that the storm was only going to make that worse.

Not quite looking like a gale, but certainly above a minor squall. Don't know how the fly boys are making it through that.

The storm’s lightning was wreaking havoc with the task force's radars. The electronics had still worked well enough to track the USN's carrier strike both coming and going.

Glad the flyboys stayed well clear of this task force. Gunners are a bit on edge.

"Sir, the Repulse is replying," a lookout called out. Jacob turned to look at the battlecruiser as her blinker light sent a rapid message. As it reached its end, the Houston's master exhaled heavily.

"Well that's sorted," Commander Farmer said sadly. "Thankfully it appears someone convinced Vice Admiral Godfrey it would be bad form to send a bunch of vessels on a sail to nothing."

Here I thought you'd be the most eager for revenge.

"I think that this battle is all over except for getting the cripples home," Jacob stated.

"Burying the dead, sir," Commander Farmer noted morosely. Jacob watched as the man closed his eyes for a moment, visibly upset. "We still have to bury the dead."

His service has been beaten bloody. At least one carrier gone from yesterday, another crippled. How much fleet do they have left?

"Speaking of, sir, Chaplain O'Malley has finished the list of the dead," Commander Sloan said somberly. "Are you still wanting to conduct services at 1600?"

Jacob looked over at the Repulse.

I don't think there's anything else the flag is going to ask of us. At least, I sincerely hope not.

"Yes," Jacob said, looking at the clock. "You have the Conn, XO."

Twenty minutes later, Jacob gradually made his way aft along the Houston's port side. The damage control parties had managed to clear the main deck, but the smell of burnt materials and flesh wafted upwards from below decks.

We've been in a fight but we're far from out.

Jacob nodded at work parties moving debris to be tossed over the side as he passed aft. The Houston's fires had gutted several storage compartments, and he tried not to think about the hundreds of dollars' worth of equipment the crew was committing to the Indian Ocean’s depths. Part of the starboard catapult had already been cut away in order to facilitate damage control, an act Jacob would not have believed possible before it happened.

Even if we could have somehow salvaged some of the equipment, it's not feasible in the middle of combat. The only reason we're burying the dead now is the lack of anywhere to put forty-three bodies.

Jacob tried to keep his face impassive as he thought about the cruiser's dead. In a way the Houston had been lucky, as none of the torpedoes that had missed the Massachusetts had carried on to hit the heavy cruiser. Still, as Jacob considered the four neat rows of canvas arranged on the vessel's stern, a brief wave of melancholy caused him to pause and regain his composure.

They died under my watch. Even having done everything we could to train and prepare, there are still almost fifty telegrams that will be getting sent out sometime in the next thirty days.

"Make way!" someone shouted from a hatch behind Jacob. Jacob turned to see a Chaplain O'Malley holding one end of a stretcher bearing yet another casualty. The man's face was red, and Jacob could tell it wasn't only from the exertion of carrying yet another victim of the Japanese attack.

Forty-four confirmed dead, four missing. Sixty-two…no, sixty-one wounded, ten of those critically.

"Sir, we have one more coming from the wardroom behind us," Captain O'Malley stated after setting the stretcher down. "One of the new mess stewards."

Forty-five. For what? So some young woman can eventually get married and give birth to different children than the man who sitting on a throne in England?

"Thank you, chaplain," Jacob said, glancing over at Repulse.

"Poor bastards," O'Malley said, also looking over at the Houston's companion.

Jacob looked to make sure none of the crew were in ear shot.

"I'm not feeling very sympathetic," he replied. "Indeed, I'm feeling a lot like a lieutenant who is now eating his food through a straw because his buddy got mouthy on shore leave."

O'Malley looked pensive for a moment.

"Well, sir, if you don't mind me saying so, that's a relatively asinine way of looking at it," O'Malley replied.

"Excuse me?" Jacob said, turning to glare at the chaplain. The priest did not flinch, meeting his captain's gaze with his own.

"You can lash me to that damn mast if you want to, sir," O'Malley said, gesturing forward. "Won't change my mind, and won't have me think any less of you if you can't tell the difference between the two sides in this little discussion our species is having."

Jacob was about to speak, but O'Malley clearly wasn't having any of it.

"I mean, those men over there?" the priest said, nodding angrily towards Repulse. "Their government is led by some right assholes, and I'm not saying that because their 'royal' forebears beat, starved, and generally acted like bastards towards mine."

O'Malley gestured towards the bodies on the deck, then stopped, clearly gathering himself.

"But the shits who did this?" O'Malley hissed. "They raped and murdered their way across most of China before the Russians beat their ass back in '41. My brother was a missionary in Nanking, and he can tell you stories that would make you puke."

The chaplain gestured vaguely to the northwest.

"Those other sons a bitches they work with? They gassed women and children in one of the world's finest cities. So, no, I'm under no illusions which side I want of fight with."

O'Malley fixed Jacob once more with an unrepentant, determined look.

"I don't think anyone who calls themselves