Captain Mealey fidgeted on the cigaret deck. In a half hour the first light of the false dawn would begin to show and he’d have to submerge to escape detection by the morning air patrols. He gripped the twin barrels of the 20-mm machine gun on the cigaret deck and ground his teeth together in frustration. Joe Sirocco’s voice floated up through the hatch from the Conning Tower.
“Bridge! Here they come!”
Mealey pushed by the OOD and paused at the hatch. “I want the lookouts to strain their eyeballs until they pop a blood vessel! I won’t be surprised by some aircraft out early or a damned patrol boat nosing along the reef!” He dropped down the hatch to the Conning Tower. Sirocco stepped away from the periscope.
“Bearing three two two, sir,” he said. Mealey put his eye to the rubber eyepiece and stared at the distant horizon. It was bare. He moved the periscope minutely from side to side and then he saw them.
Far away, barely visible against the still dark sky he saw two tiny, hair-thin sticks, the upper masts of the leading destroyers. He clung to the periscope handles, centering the periscope’s cross-hairs on the faint lines. He watched, fascinated by the sight of the thin masts and then suddenly he realized that the thin lines were thickening, growing more distinct.
“Mark!” he snapped and Sirocco noted the periscope bearing. Mealey swung the periscope in a full circle to search the horizon and the sky and then came back to the bearing where he had seen the two masts
“Damn it!” he said. “The horizon’s getting light and they’re getting close! The bastards are an hour late! We’ll never be able to get a fix on them before we dive!”
“Bridge, sah!” The deep rolling voice of Thomas Thompson, the Officer’s Cook and a superb night lookout came down the hatch.
“Bridge! I have two small dots on the horizon bearing three two five, sah!”
“Bridge!” The starboard lookout’s voice was a yell. “Aircraft! Bearing zero nine zero, taking off and circling!”
“Down periscope!” Mealey said, snapping the periscope handles up against the barrel of the periscope as Sirocco jammed a broad thumb against the button that lowered the periscope. Mealey took two long steps to the ladder to the Control Room and turned his face toward the bridge hatch.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” he yelled.
Sirocco heard Pete Simms yell “Clear the bridge!” and then the lookouts were thudding down into the Conning Tower, taking one practiced step backward and turning and plummeting down into the Control Room. Simms slid down the ladder to the Conning Tower deck, edging to one side to let the quartermaster reach up past him and grab the toggle that hung from a short length of bronze cable fastened to the inside of the bridge hatch. The quartermaster heaved downward on the toggle and as the hatch slammed shut and latched Simms reached up and spun the locking wheel tight. Mako’s bow buoyancy tank sighed noisily as its vent valves opened and all seven main ballast tanks burped mightily and Mako slid under the sea.
“Two hundred and fifty feet!” Mealey said to Simms as he landed on the Control Room deck. “Make it fast! We’ve only got four hundred feet of water so don’t hit our ass on the rocks!”
As Mako leveled off at 250 feet Mealey punched the Battle Stations alarm button. The clanging of the gong sent Mako’s crewmen racing through the ship to their battle stations. When all the compartments had reported all Battle Stations manned, Mealey picked up the telephone and turned a switch that would let him talk to all compartments by loudspeaker.
“This is the Captain,” he said.
“The enemy destroyer line is in sight. Somewhere astern of the destroyer line there is a big battleship.
“The battleship is our primary target.
“This morning we are going to make submarine history. No other American submarine has had a shot at a battleship. No other submarine, to my knowledge, has ever successfully broken through an escort of twelve destroyers helped out by aircraft.
“We are going to make that penetration!
“We are going to hit and sink that battleship!
“Now hear this: I want complete silence about the decks. The success of our attack depends entirely on surprise, on our ability to slip under the destroyers and attack.
“Set depths on all torpedoes at twenty-two, repeat two two, feet.
“I intend to fire all tubes forward and then swing ship and fire all tubes aft.
“As soon as possible begin a reload forward of tubes one, two, three and four. Set depth on the reload torpedoes at two, repeat two feet.
“As soon as possible aft begin a reload of tubes seven and eight. Set depth on reload torpedoes at two repeat two feet.
“Reload of torpedo tubes fore and aft will begin as soon as possible without direct orders from me. Once we shoot down this battleship we’re going to have to fight our way out of here against the destroyers.
“Rig ship for depth charge attack!”
Ginty grunted as he knelt down on the deck between the two vertical banks of torpedo tubes and set the depth at twenty-two feet on the torpedoes in tubes five and six. He snapped out the depth-setting spindles and yelled at his telephone talker.
“Tell ‘em depth set at twenty-two feet all fish and spindles disengaged!” He got to his feet and walked -back into the torpedo room and began to lay out the block and tackle, called the “Tagle,” used to pull the reload torpedoes into the tubes.
“You fuckers in this here reload crew,” he growled. “Don’t panic when you see water pourin’ in from the inner doors when they open. I ain’t gonna wait until them tubes is dry enough to sleep in before I open the inner doors! Soon’s as I can manhandle that fucking inner door it’s gonna open and when it does you get the safety strap off’n the fucking fish and start pullin’ the bastard into the tube!”
Lieut. Nathan Cohen sat in front of his sonar dials, his ears covered by the big muff-like earphones, and listened to the distant sounds of ship’s propellers. He sat loosely on a stool, his eyes closed, opening them only to note the bearings on the dials, which he reported in a soft voice to Joe Sirocco. Captain Mealey watched as Sirocco plotted in the bearings on a tracking chart. Mealey turned to Lieutenant Simms.
“We’ve got maybe an hour before they get here. You’d better review your compensation figures. Once I start shooting and they start reloading fore and aft you’re going to have to be sharp as hell, Mister!” Captain Mealey’s voice was cold, impersonal.
“You broach me or dip the periscope so I can’t see and you’ll think the end of the world has come and it will have, for you!” Simms nodded and managed a sickly smile as he took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and began to study the rows of figures he had written down earlier.
Sirocco glanced at Simms and felt a sudden pang of sorrow for the man. Simms was an able Diving Officer but the assignment he was facing called for a sensitive feel for the ship and a mind that could coolly handle a dozen or more intricate mathematical calculations simultaneously, interpret them and then give the necessary orders.
Adjusting the trim, or balance of a submerged submarine is an intricate exercise in mathematics at any time. Determining the amount of negative buoyancy that will be just sufficient to allow the submarine to cruise at a desirable depth can be figured, can be figured so closely that a single man walking from either end to the center of the ship will cause the ship to slowly sink downward.
A submerged submarine can be compared to balancing a yardstick on the edge of a razor blade after putting dozens of tiny weights of varying sizes along the length of the yardstick. Move one weight a fraction of an inch or remove a weight and the yardstick is out of balance and will tip one way or the other. When Captain Mealey began shooting at the battleship each torpedo that was fired would represent the loss of 3,000 pounds. The water that would pour into the open torpedo tube would not be as heavy as the torpedo and when the outer door to the tube was closed that water would be blown to a Water ‘Round Torpedo (WRT) tank that was aft of the torpedo tubes. Each torpedo that wa
s reloaded represented a different problem: the shifting of 3,000 pounds 30 feet farther forward than where it had been resting on its rack. The problems that would be raised as a torpedo was fired every 6 seconds from the forward and then the after tubes was enough to drive a diving officer mad. To solve the problems the Diving Officer had to first calculate all the weight changes and write them down and then, as was usual, adjust his calculations to the speed of the Captain’s firing. It required, as well, a perfect performance. from the machinist mate who manned the trim manifold which, with a trim pump, controlled the water pumped from or flooded into the forward and after trim tanks, two auxiliary ballast tanks, negative and safety tanks. Vic Abbruzio, a Boston Italian who had ten years on submarines, stood at the trim manifold, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready for the challenge he faced. He looked at Lieutenant Simms’ wan face and grinned, his white teeth flashing in the dense black beard that covered his lower face. He made a thumbs-up motion and Pete Simms managed a weak smile.
In the Forward Torpedo Room Ginty walked over to the port side where a small brass Buddha was fastened above a bank of gauges. He rubbed the brass belly of the Buddha with a spatulate thumb.
“Give us your luck, little Chiney man,” he said softly.
Lieutenant Cohen’s voice was soft but in the dead silence of the Control Room it carried to everyone’s ears.
“I have several sets of high-speed screws, Plot. These are screws that criss-cross each other’s bearings from two four zero to two nine zero. Somewhere in the background of those high-speed screws I have a very heavy multiple screw beat, probably four screws, that I cannot get a fix on as yet.” He paused for a moment.
“If I am permitted an educated guess I would say, estimating the decibel levels, that the range to the high-speed screws has been cut roughly in half, Plot, cut in half since we dove.”
“Mr. Cohen,” Captain Mealey’s voice was low, “the screws closest to us, those are high-speed screws? Doing what?”
“Coming closer,” Cohen said. “There appear to be four sets of those screws, sir. They criss-cross. There are some other screw noises in the background, they appear to be single screws but I can’t get any fixes on them as yet.”
“Do you think they’re making too much noise to hear us?”
“I would think so, Captain. The high-speed screws are revving up pretty strongly. I know that no one on those ships can hear anything at all over sonar. There is a chance, I’d do it if I was on the other side, that they’ve got one or two ships going very slowly and trying to listen to whatever they can hear above the sound of their own ship’s noises.”
“Let’s hope they don’t think of that,” Captain Mealey said. “Can you give me any estimate of the rate of closing?”
Cohen looked at a stop-watch that hung from a cord around his neck.
“I’d say the high-speed screws will pass ahead of us in eighteen to twenty minutes if they continue as they have been for the last hour, sir.”
Captain Mealey nodded at Sirocco and Grilley who were standing at the chart table over the gyro compass with their maneuvering boards and pencils. He climbed into the Conning Tower.
Mako waited.
Chapter 17
Lieutenant Nathan Cohen’s lean body was slumped on his stool in front of his sonar dials. His long, hairy legs stuck out at right angles from his rumpled khaki shorts. His eyes were half-closed as he listened to the clutter of sounds coming from the two rotating JP sound heads below Mako’s keel. Joe Sirocco came over to him and Cohen pushed one earphone up on his temple.
“I’m going to start the preliminary plot,” Sirocco said. “Can you give me any identification of the ships up there for the plot? So I know which ship is which?”
“I’ve got more ships up there than I’ve heard ever before at one time,” Cohen said. “The target ship is easy to pick up. It has a definite, slow beat. Four screws. He’s been on the same course since I picked him up. Doesn’t change course, doesn’t change speed.
“There are four other ships between his sound and our position. These are fast ships, twin-screw, very fast propellers. One of them has a nicked blade or a bent blade, he’s got a funny sound.
“There are some other ships out there but I can’t tell how many. Single-screw stuff making about the same speed as the target. I’ve heard three or four of those, maybe more.”
“The ships running between the target and our position are the van,” Sirocco said. “The Skipper figured they’d be there. They’re sweeping, looking for submarines. The other ships must be the rest of the escort. How about giving me some names for the ships?”
“I wouldn’t want to try that with each ship,” Cohen said slowly. “I could get fooled too easily. The main target is easy to identify, we could give him a name. Why not just give a name to the other groups, the four ships running fast and the other ones?”
“Fine,” Sirocco said. “What do you want to call the target?”
“Call it ‘Aleph,’ that’s the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It means ‘ox.’ ”
“That’s ‘Alpha’ in Greek, isn’t it?” Sirocco asked. Cohen nodded, smiling.
“Okay,” Sirocco said. “Give me a name for the van, for those ships running ahead of the target, the fast-screw ships.”
“They remind me of a folding door someone is opening and closing all the time,” Cohen said. “In Hebrew ‘Deft’ means folding door. In Greek that’s ‘Delta,’ okay?
“The others, well I don’t know. Let’s stick to the Middle East since we started there. Call them the camels. ‘Gamet’ in Hebrew, ‘Gamma’ in Greek. How about the aircraft the Captain said would be overhead? If I pick them up on the sound heads you want me to give them a name?” His lean face was solemn but his brown eyes were twinkling merrily.
“Nate, you’re a character!” Sirocco said. He got up from his squatting position and heard his knee joints creak. “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.”
He walked over to the gyro table where Don Grilley had laid out the plotting charts. Grilley had spent hours drawing in the details of the atoll, the Northeast Entrance and the water depths shown on the chart on sheets of transparent paper. Then he had affixed each sheet of transparent paper to a plotting sheet so that by flipping the transparent sheet over the plot the position of the target, its escorts and Mako in relation to the reef could be seen at once.
In the Conning Tower Captain Mealey turned to Lieut. Bob Edge, who was at his station at the TDC, the Torpedo Data Computer.
“Pass the Is-Was down to the Executive Officer,” Mealey said. “I don’t want to clutter up the TDC with the preliminary sonar plots.” Edge nodded and took the celluloid “banjo” from a knob where it hung by a loop of cord. Before the development of the TDC the Is-Was had been the only fire control tool a submarine captain had at his disposal to work out the complicated mathematical problem in order to fire a torpedo at a target. Edge bent down and dangled the Is-Was by its cord and Sirocco took it and hung it around his neck.
“Let’s begin the preliminary shooting plot, Joe,” Captain Mealey called down from the Conning Tower. “Let me have your first plot as soon as you have it.”
Cohen nodded at Sirocco and watched his dials and made notes and then he began to feed a steady stream of information to Sirocco and Grilley, who worked rapidly over a plotting sheet. Sirocco reached for the Is-Was and began to work out the problem on the plotting sheet. He looked upward at the Conning Towel- hatch.
“We have the target steady on a course of two three zero, sir. That jibes with the course we assumed it would take to make its entrance to the atoll.
“Our planned point of intercept is eight hundred yards from the target’s course into the mouth of the atoll with an intersect angle of ninety degrees.
“We have been on our intercept course to that point for some time, now. We should be at our shooting point in thirty-seven minutes, assuming a torpedo run of eight hundred yards, sir.
“If we
assume the target was one mile astern of his van when we sighted the masts of the van, that is, the target was seventeen miles distant when we dove and that he was making fifteen knots, as the intelligence report said he would probably make, the target should be at the point of intercept in thirty-seven minutes, sir. With all due respect, sir, our timing is too tight. We have no allowance for planing up for a periscope observation, no allowance if the target decides to change course or speed. Mr. Cohen says we have a good fix on the target so you wouldn’t have to waste any time if you went up for a look, sir.” The hint in his words was just a trifle stronger than it should have been and the people in the Control Room and Conning Tower recognized that Sirocco was telling Captain Mealey what to do. Don Grilley raised his head from the plot and looked at Sirocco, his eyes widening, and then he bent his head to the plotting sheets.
“Very well, Mr. Sirocco,” Mealey’s voice was edged. “I plan to make two observations before we begin to shoot. Mr. Cohen, give me a bearing on the battleship.” Asking Cohen for the bearing rather than asking Sirocco to get it from Cohen was an implied rebuke to Sirocco, and the people listening recognized that, too. Cohen let his head drop on his chest, concentrating on sorting out the clutter of sounds filling his earphones. He spoke softly into the telephone microphone he had hung around his neck.
“Main target, designated as Alpha, bears three three seven, sir. Repeat: three three seven.”
Final Harbor (The Silent War Book 1) Page 18