Thunder at Dawn Read Online Free PDF

you again you can tell them —” Smith paused, thinking.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “You can tell them I’ve sworn you to secrecy.”
    Daddy looked at him blankly and Smith went on, “Well, it’s better to be sworn to than at .”
    Daddy took the point and the empty cup philosophically. “Aye, aye, sir.”
    Smith grinned wryly at his departing back.
    *
    They raised Guaya at noon. The port itself lay two miles up-river on a big basin. They first entered what appeared to be an estuary but was really one channel of several of the river’s delta mouth. The coast was hills dropping green forest down steeply to the sea and the river. The river ran wide from the basin for a mile then on approaching the sea split into channels that threaded through a tangle of tree-clothed islets, most of the channels so shallow as to be swamp. Thunder steamed up the most direct channel that had for that reason been cleared, and was kept clear, by dredging.
    They passed the signalling station to port where it stood on a low hill, Punta Negro. Past it another channel wound away between forest walls. The delta in that direction, north, was a huge swamp that bred a yellow fog with each dawn. The telephone line that linked the signalling station to the port looped sagging across that channel to the mainland. A small launch was moored against a little jetty from which a narrow track led up to the signalling station. The launch was the only other link between station and port; there was no road. To starboard a cove was bitten out of the forest: Stillwater Cove.
    Smith thought that Cherry would have known of Thunders arrival since the station saw her lift over the horizon. So he could expect Cherry and his explanation soon. He shifted restlessly on the bridge.
    Thunder rode rock-steady in this sheltered water, only the slightest nodding of her bow as she butted into the current, steaming slowly with the engines thump-thumping over, slipping through the water of the river that was brown with mud. On either hand the hills rose up from the river and climbed to the sky. A bend in the river lay ahead. They hauled slowly up on it, rounded it and opened up the basin and Guaya. There were a score of ships in the basin and room for them. Most lay out at anchor but three lay at a long wharf taking on copper ore. Guaya was a mushroom town. Twenty years before it had been a village, but then the copper mines opened inland and it had boomed.
    Smith took in the town, white buildings against the green of the hills behind. He also took in the ships in the basin and one of them in particular. As Thunder’s three-pounder saluting gun began its metronomic popping, saluting the port, Smith stared at the ship.
    Garrick, telescope to his eye, said quickly, “U.S.S. Kansas , sir. She was reported in these waters. Brand new, her first cruise. Rear-Admiral Donoghue.”
    America was still neutral.
    Smith grunted. “He rates a salute. See to it.”
    Aitkyne said softly, “By God, what a ship. Twenty-one knots and thirty-odd thousand tons.” ( Thunder was twelve thousand.) “Twelve fourteen-inch guns and twenty-two fiveinch.”
    “And one of those fourteen-inch shells weighs half-a-ton.” Smith grinned at him. “So if they look our way, smile.”
    The salutes rolled flatly across the basin, Thunder rode to her anchor, the port medical officer came and went and Cherry came aboard. He was short and dapper, dabbing at his round face with a handkerchief.
    He held out his hand. “Cherry. Delighted to meet you, Commander. Only wish in the circumstances — your Captain —” He shook his head then fished an envelope from his pocket. “Telegram for you, coded.” And as Smith passed it to Knight: “Can we talk?”
    Smith led the way to his cabin on the upper deck but not before he growled an aside to the plump and pink-checked Midshipman Wakely. “Ask Miss Benson if she’ll be good enough to join us in my cabin.”
    “Aye, aye, sir!” Wakely shot away.
    Cherry asked, “Did