The Conway had steered away from the Raven almost immediately after her waterlogged captain had climbed aboard, and was now heading southeast as fast as her engines could take her.  The outlying escorts reported that all of their flag signals to the American ship were being ignored as the destroyer left the area.
        It was just as well.
        “Ouch!”
        “I told you to hold still, Captain.  It’ll hurt worse if you keep flinching,” the ship’s doctor cautioned as he put another stitch in the bear’s nose.  He angled the large gooseneck lamp a bit, studied the result and selected another threaded suture needle.  “You know,” the beaver remarked, “you really should stop getting into fights with felines.  You keep leading with your muzzle and you’ll be nothing but scars after a while.  Hard to grow any fur through scar tissue, you know.”
        “You – ow! – you said that the last time,” Marcus growled, his eyes closed as he drummed his fingers on the side of the padded table.  He tried to hold still as the needle sank into his abused nose, and he winced with the effort. 
        “Yeah, that fight in Vancouver,” the doctor remarked, sopping up a bit of oozing blood with a small wad of gauze.  He chuckled.  “That barmaid.”  His paws withdrew from what he was doing so that he could laugh.
        “You’re as funny as a crutch, you know that?” Marcus said.  “Knock it off and finish up, please?”
        There was a knock on the door, and a rating entered.  “Excuse me, Captain,” the canine said.  “We’ve just gotten a message from Shrike, and one from Northern Group.”
        Marcus frowned, his watering eyes closed tight.  “Read them, please.”
        “Yes, sir.”  The young woman cleared her throat.  “’Have covered search area.  Nothing found.’”  She said, “That was all there was to the Shrike’s message, sir.”
        He gestured to tell her that he understood.  Gwanui was always very terse when using the wireless, and he was probably bored senseless.  A Haida tribesman, he was most likely itching for a fight.  He suddenly hissed as the doctor dabbed iodine on the fresh suture before saying, “Please have the wireless room acknowledge and signal Shrike to have them begin searching the next area.  What about the message from Northern Group?”
        “Yes, sir.  The message from Naikoon is ‘Have overheard plaintext message from USSConway regarding your position, course, speed.  Have you been fighting again?’  It’s signed by Vice-Commodore Hensley, sir.” 
        The bear grinned, then winced as his stitches pulled.  “Please send to Northern Group that we encountered the Conway and entertained her officers.  Send it worded exactly that way.”
        “Yes, sir.”  The radioman’s voice had an edge of amusement in it.  The door closed behind her, and the doctor switched off the light that had been blinding Marcus.  “Okay, Captain, you’re all fixed up for now,” he said briskly as he tossed another piece of bloody gauze into a bucket.
        The bear sat up slowly, blinking away tears as his nose throbbed.  “How many stitches this time?” he asked, his voice sounding nasal and distorted.
        “Four,” the doctor replied.  “I have to give you some credit, though.  You’re ducking faster.”
        Marcus chuckled as he stood and picked up his maroon uniform tunic.  He checked it carefully to make sure that he had avoided getting any blood on it before shouldering into it, leaving it unbuttoned.  He said, “Thanks, Doc.”
        “Go get some dinner, Marcus,” the doctor replied as he handed his instrument tray to an orderly.
        “Well, about time you showed up,” Moira Daniels said as he walked into the wardroom.  The only other furs in the room were the ship’s Engineer, Mason Stewart, and Gunnery Officer Annette Gold.  Stewart, a deceptively thin-looking feline, ran a paw over his ears and graying headfur as he said, “Moira was telling us what happened earlier, Marcus.  Wish I’d seen it.”
        The rest of the group laughed, and Marcus chuckled, then winced.  “Mase, it was fun.  I haven’t done that in a while.”  Annette, a usually taciturn vixen, smiled.  Marcus was given a plate of roast salmon and a ration mug of beer by a mess steward as he sat down, and he started eating while Moira said, “Marcus, we were thinking while you were getting your muzzle stitched.”
        “What about, Moira?” he asked around a mouthful of food.
        “We’re moving into the areas where those boats were lost,” Moira remarked, her paw tracing a spot on the wardroom table.  “But we have no idea what might be doing the sinkings.”
        “That’s right,” the bear said, nodding.
        “From what you’ve told us, and from what we know of these waters, the attacks’ve probably taken place at night or in heavy fog, which rules out an air attack,” Annette said.  Her English was marked by a light German accent.  “That leaves another ship, or a submarine.  Since none of the boats had a wireless, we have no way of knowing either way.”
        “Agreed, unless there’s a friendly someone out here who could give us some information,” Marcus said.  He took a swallow of the thick, strong ale and licked a trace of foam from his lips.  The Naval Stores Collective down in Vancouver always brewed excellent beer.  “What are you getting at?”
        “This tub’s got only three inches of armor at the waterline, Marcus,” Mason said bluntly, reminding him of the ship’s vulnerability to modern weapons.  “One torpedo could do an awful lot of damage.”
        Pierson put his fork down and gazed down at the plate for a moment.  “Okay, Mase.  You put your paw on the exact problem, I’m afraid.  I hate to admit it, but I had been trying not to think about that.  Suggestions, then?”  He shoved his plate away and sat back, sipping at his beer.
        “Vulture’s the only ship in the group with depth charges,” Annette offered.  “I say we have her stay fairly close, with her three patrol boats as a screen.  That way, if we do run across a sub, we’ll have some protection.”  Stewart and Daniels both nodded.
        “Okay,” Marcus said.  “We’ll be entering the patrol area where the ships vanished by first light tomorrow.  Where’s the nearest town?”
        “Wrangell,” Moira offered.
        “Wrangell, then.  We’ll have one of the escorts put in there and ask if anyone’s seen anything.  In the meantime, Moira, I want the ship at Battle Stations.  We’re going to operate under the assumption that we’re looking for a sub, and I’ll notify Northern Group of that.  Annette, get the gun crews ready, we might be needing them.  Mase?”
        “Yes?”
        “Have damage control parties ready.  Can I get twenty knots if I ring for it?”
        Stewart smiled.  “Anytime you want, Captain – now, if you like.”
        “Hah,” the bear snorted.  “You just want me to bet you that you can’t.”  The others laughed as Stewart nodded vigorously.  “Sure,” he said.  “I want a chance to win that bottle back from you.”


15 February:

        The trees on the islands around them were green-black smudges immersed in a thin gray haze as the sun started to rise the next day.  The thin wisps of fog drifting across the water promised to get thicker before the sun rose fully and caused it to burn off.  Marcus had ordered any crewmember not on duty to stand along the rails and watch for anything suspicious.  He himself stood on the port bridge wing, a mug of hot coffee steaming in his paw and a heavy jacket over his blue duty jumpsuit.  The fingers of his free paw tapped in nervous anticipation at the binoculars hanging around his neck.
        He glanced behind him, to where Moira stood her watch on the starboard wing, the hatches of the wheelhouse open so that they could communicate readily.  With the cruiser ready for action, the two hatches were the only ones left standing open.  Everything else was as ready as they could make it, and the crew stood nervously at their stations.  Since the old speaking tubes could be severed, the fairly new phone system had been activated and tested.
        She looked back at him and called out, “Anything?”
        “No, dammit,” he grumbled.  A gust of northerly wind caused him to close his eyes momentarily as they watered, and he said, “Which way is Wrangell?”
        “Well,” she said as she put her binoculars to her eyes, “this channel runs roughly north, then splits off like a lopsided T, one fork due west to open water and the other sort of northeastward to Wrangell.  We should be there before noon.”  He nodded, and she added, “Relax a bit, Marcus.  You’ll get ulcers.”
        “I like being nervous,” he growled, and she chuckled as he returned to gazing out at the rapidly thickening fog.  At least the helm would have no trouble navigating these waters; the channel was ten miles wide in spots, and plenty deep enough to accommodate Raven’s draft.  He lowered the binoculars and sipped moodily at his coffee.
        As the Raven entered the widest part of the T-shaped passage, he looked aft and noted that the Vulture was keeping close, perhaps a mile behind.  The three smaller craft that were part of the escort group were ranged ahead and to the east.  The other two escort groups were prowling around the smaller islands, and would leapfrog ahead once they were done.


        “Komandir, tih nadobnost’ vidyet.”  The ensign gestured to his commander, who left the chart table and came aft.  The rest of the crew went about their business.
        The commander asked, “Nu?  Chto eto, Mladshii Laytenant?” 
        “Vidyete, Komandir.  Odnu Dozhdnaya Ostrova kreyser.”
        The commander, a thin canine with graying headfur, looked and nodded in satisfaction.  “Eh, horosha.  Torpednu komnat’, prigotovlyat’ truboi odin, dva i tri.”  To the ensign he said, “Mischen kreyser.”  He studied a few instruments before adding, “Noschenyu dvadtset schest gradov, dalnost divyet nohl nohl metrov.”
        The crew moved faster now, with definite purpose.


        “Entering the cross-channel, sir, coming about,” the helmsman reported as he started to pull the wheel to the right.  Ktakchuk said, “Very well.”  The otter stepped over to the starboard hatch.  “Captain, we’re changing course now.”
        “Thank you, Mister Ktakchuk.”  Marcus squinted up at the sky.  Hopefully the sun would start to lift the fog soon.
        As the cruiser completed her turn he looked to the west, but a lookout in the after mast beat him to it.
        “Torpedoes astern, off port quarter!”



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