“It’s like a sling,” he said in the lookout’s ear. “If you go over the side the line won’t cut you in half at the belly, it’s around your legs and body.” He paid out the line as the lookout worked his way up to a lookout stand in the periscope shears.
“One hand for you, one for the ship,” Hinman yelled at the lookout. “Hang on, fella!” The lookout grabbed the waist-high pipe railing around the lookout stand with one hand and raised his binoculars to his eyes with the other.
“I got ‘em!” he yelled. “Three ships bearing about three two zero, Bridge. Look like two little freighters and one destroyer. Destroyer’s making lots of smoke. They’re headed this way!”
“Get him down from there and rig me up,” Hinman said to Rhodes. “I want to get a good look.”
Hinman scrambled up to the lookout stand. He clung there for a long moment, searching through his binoculars.
“Sound General Quarters!” He yelled suddenly. “Plotting Party to the Conning Tower!” He balanced himself against Mako’s savage rolls and pitching, raising his binoculars whenever Mako steadied for a few seconds at the top of a roll. He heard Joe Sirocco’s voice, faint under the wind, reporting to the Bridge that he had the targets in the search periscope.
“Give me a range and a bearing,” Captain Hinman yelled as he scrambled down into the bridge and stripped off the safety line.
“Targets bear three four zero, sir,” Sirocco’s voice came up the hatch. “Range is two five zero zero and the angle on the bow is ten starboard.”
Mako rose on the top of a long wave and the people on the bridge could see the targets. Two small coastal freighters of about 3,000 tons and an old coal-burning destroyer. A bright light winked briefly on the destroyer’s foredeck.
“Destroyer’s opened fire with deck guns,” Hinman yelled. “Lookouts below!” A gout of water shot up on the side of a long wave, far off to Mako’s starboard bow. “He can’t hit anything with that kind of a platform, he’s rolling like hell!”
“Left ten degrees rudder,” Hinman ordered. “Joe, I’m going to run down the starboard flank, shoot from that side.”
“That’s where the destroyer is, sir,” Sirocco answered.
“Affirm, Plot,” Hinman said. Mako slid to the top of a long wave and the guns on the destroyer fired again. A shell went by high overhead, its screech muffled by the wind. Captain Hinman leaned over the hatch to the Conning Tower.
“Plot! How does it look? Are we going to get a shot?”
“Yes, sir,” Sirocco called up through the hatch. “In about a minute we’ll all be in the same wave trough. We can shoot then. Torpedo run will be twelve zero zero yards, sir.”
“Open the outer doors in the Forward Room,” Hinman called. “Here we go!”
Mako breasted the crest of a wave, spray whipping across the bridge, and Hinman saw the three ships.
“Come on!” Hinman yelled. “I’ve got the bastards right in front of me up here! Give me a solution!”
“Commence shooting whenever you’re ready, sir,” Sirocco yelled.
“Fire one!” Hinman yelled. The destroyer was steady on its course, rolling heavily as it tried to turn toward the Mako.
“Fire two!”
Captain Hinman saw the first torpedo leap clear of the water far short of the target. The torpedo tail-walked for a few brief seconds and then plunged back into the water, turning to the right; it was porpoising in and out of the water and headed in a long, curving course back toward Mako.
“Right full rudder!” Hinman screamed. “The fish is running wild! Close the tube doors!”
“Fish is running well aft of us, Bridge!” Hinman looked upward and saw Grabby Grabnas, the seaman who had grown up in the Southern Florida shrimp fleet, clinging to the periscope shears like a big monkey, his eyes on the porpoising torpedo.
“Bridge! We’re gonna be pooped!” Grabnas’ voice was a high scream.
“Rig for dive! Close the main induction!” Hinman’s bellow was a split second behind Grabnas’ warning as he looked aft and saw what every seaman dreads, a great wave towering over the stern of his ship, running at the ship with hundreds of thousands of tons of water.
“Hang on!” Hinman yelled and slammed the hatch to the Conning Tower closed and flung himself down on it, twisting at the hand wheel to dog it tightly closed.
The wave, inexorable, unstoppable, overtook Mako, burying the periscope shears and the bridge under 20 feet of solid green water. The ship staggered sluggishly under the great weight and then, with all four main electrical motors driving the screws full astern on Sirocco’s order, Mako began to back out of the wave.
Captain Hinman was conscious of bodies on top of his own as he was flattened against the hatch cover. He held on to the hand wheel on top of the hatch, holding his breath, trying to stem the panic that rose within him, waiting for the upward surge of the ship under him that would tell him that Mako had recovered from the over-run of the great wave. The weight on him eased and he felt the ship surging upward. He opened his eyes and then gulped in air and scrambled to his feet.
“The lookout!” he croaked. He looked upward and saw Grabnas, his arms and legs wrapped around the periscope shears.
“Get down from there, you damned fool!” Hinman yelled.
“Bridge!” Sirocco’s voice over the bridge speaker was tinny. “We’re going all full astern on the motors! You all right up there?”
“Open the hatch,” Hinman ordered and the quartermaster squatted and spun the hand wheel and opened the hatch. Sirocco came up the ladder until his broad shoulders were in the bridge itself.
“We’ll have to come around again if you want to get another crack at them,” Sirocco said. “We’re on the motors, sir, going all full astern.”
“Very well,” Hinman said. “They get the main induction closed in time?”
“Checking now, sir,” Sirocco said. He looked down as a hand plucked at his leg.
“Main induction is dry, Bridge,” Pete Simms said from the Conning Tower.
“Rig for surface,” Hinman ordered. “All ahead two-thirds. How do we look on the plot, Joe?”
“We’re turned around, sir,” Sirocco answered. “We’ll have to start over to get a position.”
“Get me a bearing and range on the periscope,” Hinman ordered. Sirocco dropped down the hatch into the Conning Tower. Hinman looked around and then called down to Sirocco.
“We’re coming up on the crest of a big one, keep your eyes open, you might be able to get a good look.”
“I’ve got his smoke, Bridge,” Sirocco called out. “Bearing is one eight five. Looks like he’s headed away from us.”
“Aircraft! Broad on the port beam! Low down!” Grabnas’ immersion had not hurt his voice.
Hinman took one quick look and saw the dark shape to port.
“Clear the bridge!” he shouted and squeezed to one side as the lookouts and the quartermaster plunged down the ladder into the Conning Tower. He looked again to port and slammed the heel of his hand against the diving alarm.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” He yelled as he went down the hatch, pulling on the hatch lanyard to close it.
“Three hundred feet!” Hinman ordered as he stood in the Conning Tower. “I don’t think he can get anywhere near us. He’s coming across that wind and he’ll never be able to hold a fix on where we were.” He cocked his head as two dull explosions rocked Mako slightly.
At 300 feet Mako was still at the mercy of the great waves that rolled by overhead. The needle on the depth gauge gyrated wildly, showing 260 feet one minute and then dipping below 300 feet as Mako rolled heavily in the seas. Captain Hinman dropped down the ladder to the Control Room and studied the chart.
“Joe,” he said to Sirocco, “let’s get back on course to the patrol area. Where’s Don Grilley? Don, I’d like a reload of those two empty tubes forward if you think it can be done.”
“I think we can do it,” Grilley said. “But if Ginty says he doesn’t want to
try it maybe we’d better hold off a while.”
“I’ll go up and help out,” Hinman said. “I don’t want those two tubes empty any longer than they have to be. Joe, we’ll stay at General Quarters until the reload is completed and then we’ll secure and eat the noon meal.”
“You gave me bad torpedoes,” Captain Hinman said to Ginty as he walked into the Forward Room. “Mr. Cohen said the first fish ran out of the tube and then I saw it jump out of the water and start a circular nm. I saw the second one come straight up out of the water and then do a nose dive!”
Ginty flushed, his face angry. “Sir,” he said in a cold voice, “them fish went out of the tubes and they both ran hot, straight and normal, Mr. Cohen said that! You can’t fire torpedoes in seas that big! Fish runnin’ at forty-five knots starts up the slope of a big wave and it’ll get airborne and when it comes down it can go in any direction! The gyro in the fish tumbles and the depth mechanisms get all messed up!” His eyes were hot, his face stern and set.
“It was my fault then, Ginty,” Hinman said with a broad smile. “I had to kid you a little fella! I want to reload those two empty tubes if you think it can be done. She’s not a very steady platform, not even down this deep.”
“I can do it,” Ginty said evenly. “All’s I need is for the officers to get out of the way because this ain’t no place for an observer if the Divin’ Officer don’t keep the ship’s bow up and a fish starts to run into the tube too fast.”
“I thought you might need some muscles on the tagle,” Captain Hinman said. He grinned at the big torpedoman.
“Sir,” Ginty said, his voice still cold, “I think you’d better let these here people I’ve trained do that work.” He turned away and vented Number One tube and opened the inner door. He touched the telephone talker on the shoulder.
“Tell the Divin’ Officer we’re about to start a reload on Number One,” he said. “And say please when you ask him to try to give us a half degree up bubble if he can.” He walked back along the length of the torpedo, still held in its rack by a heavy metal strap fastened with a large brass nut and bolt.
“If you don’t mind, Captain, Mr. Grilley,” he said evenly, “I need some room to work. I got to get a snubbin’ line on the tail of this fish so it can’t go out through the outer door if we take a big down angle.” He caught at the torpedo skid with one hand as Mako rolled and nosed downward. “Like now!” His big, deft hands threw a bowline knot into the end of a piece of stout line and he made a noose and slipped it around the torpedo’s tail. He handed the end of the line to Johnny Paul.
“Take a turn around the end of the skid,” he growled. “We take another one of them down angles and if you lose this fish don’t let go of the line. Go out the fuckin’ outer door with the fish because you’ll be safer out there in the water than in here with me!” He picked up a wrench and carefully loosened the nut that held the belly strap tight around the torpedo.
“Take a light strain on that tagle, shitheads! When I get this strap off ease her in a little at a time, just like you put it in your old lady the first time! Keep your fuckin’ eyes on me and your ears open!”
Captain Hinman and Don Grilley watched Ginty start and stop the torpedo on its way into the tube, sensing the motion of the ship through his feet and legs, using all the skills he had learned in years of muscling torpedoes in other Torpedo Rooms. When he had closed the inner door and engaged the gyro and depth spindles he turned to his talker.
“Tell Control that Number One tube is reloaded, gyro spindle engaged, depth set four feet, depth spindle disengaged. And tell ‘em we’re starting the reload on Number Two.” He turned to the reload crews. “Now lay out that tagle, you cowshit kickers and see if we can do this one half-way right!”
Captain Hinman ducked through the low water-tight door and went into the Wardroom. Grilley followed him and the cook put fresh cups of coffee in front of the two officers.
“The American submarine sailor is an amazing individual,” Hinman said. “Just amazing! Take Ginty; I doubt that he had a high school education. His service record is full of incidents of trouble he’s been in. He’s been reduced in rank three times. Always for fighting while on liberty. He came to us because he got in a fight with British and French sailors in Hong Kong and the skipper of his S-boat figured that if he didn’t transfer him he’d be court-martialed again and get an Undesirable Discharge.”
“He’s never been in trouble on Mako,” Grilley said.
“That’s due to Dusty Rhodes,” Hinman said. “Ginty’s the strongest man I’ve ever seen but he respects Rhodes.”
Sirocco had come into the Wardroom while Hinman was talking.
“Tubes forward are reloaded, we’re secure from General Quarters and steady on the course to the patrol area, sir,” he said. “The last weather report we got before we dove indicates the water front is moving past us and we should be clear of it by nightfall. We’ll be off Luzon by morning.”
“Very well, Joe,” Hinman said. He yawned. “I’m going to get some sleep. Call me an hour before dark.”
Mako plowed on beneath the sea, rolling heavily from time to time. Dusty Rhodes drew a half cup of coffee from the urn in the Crew’s Mess and made his way forward.
“Heard you had some high-priced help up here on the reload,” he said. Ginty scowled at him.
“Fuckin’ gold braid! Why can’t they stay the hell out of a sailor’s way? Ain’t no call for the Old Man to come up here and want to pull on the tagle! That’s my work! He’s gold braid, he oughta keep himself apart from the troops.
“You give me a choice and I’ll take that miserable fuckin’ Mealey any time over these buddy-buddy fuckers, even if Mealey did turn the water off in the showers! That son of a bitch of a Mealey, he knew he was the Captain and he let you know it! He knew his place and he knew my place and he knew the place of every shithead aboard! Fuckin’ Navy’s gettin’ too soft! For a while there after this Old Man’s old lady got creamed at Pearl he was like a regular Navy officer. Bite your ass off if you looked at him sidewise. Now he’s back like he was when I come aboard, grabassin’ around all the time.
“Shit, he even put a rubber spider in the Jew-boy’s bunk! Anyone puts rubber spiders in any bunk in my Room and they’ll have that spider up their ass, believe you me!”
“I know how you feel, Cinch,” Rhodes said gently. “Do me a little favor, huh? Don’t tell anyone else how you feel. You have to understand, Cinch, that the Old Man was hit real hard when his wife was killed. Now he’s got a new wife and he’s as happy as a clam in muck. But because he’s happy and plays a little grab-ass doesn’t mean he isn’t a good submarine man or a good skipper.”
“Fuckin’ Japs don’t play no grab-ass!” Ginty muttered. “He was over in the States when we found that out, Chief. He don’t know what those depth charges sound like yet.
“Another thing; the people in the Radio Shack say that Pearl’s been tryin’ to raise two boats out here for the last five days and they ain’t gettin’ no answer to the calls. That only means one thing, Chief, fuckin’ Japs have got those boats! Ol’ Jap don’t play grab-ass, we both know that.”
Rhodes nodded, making a mental note to tell Lieutenant Cohen to tell his people to keep their mouths shut about things like lost submarines. He touched Ginty lightly on the shoulder.
“Hell of a job on the reload, Ginch. I don’t think there’s another Forward Room could have done it, rolling and pitching like we were. If you want to sound off, do it to me. I’ve got good ears and what they hear doesn’t go out of my mouth.”
Mako surfaced at full dark in seas that were still long and rolling but without the wind that had torn spray from the wave tops and hurled it like buckshot. Lieutenant Cohen took a position report and a contact report on the small convoy into the Radio Shack. An hour later Cohen came into the Control Room.
“Captain on the cigaret deck?” he asked Sirocco, who nodded.
“We’ve got a special mission,” Cohen said in
a low voice as he climbed the ladder and went up to the bridge.
Chapter 24
“Welcome to General Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Submarine Navy!” Captain Hinman said to his officers who had gathered in the Wardroom. He put his hand on the message Nate Cohen had given him earlier.
“Our orders have been changed,” Hinman continued. “We are not going to our patrol area. We are ordered to proceed to Subic Bay, south of Manila, and there contact some Army people who must have escaped from the Japs after the surrender at Marveles. These Army people, they’re apparently a guerrilla force, have found a Scotch missionary and his wife and their two small children in the jungle. We are to make contact, pick up the family and take them to Brisbane.”
“Sounds interesting,” Pete Simms said. “Go in to the beach, rescue people! We’ll have to make up a landing party, sir. I’d like to volunteer to lead it!”
“That won’t be necessary,” Hinman said. “The message says the Army people have a boat and will bring the people out to us.”
“If I may, sir,” Don Grilley said slowly, “I don’t quite understand the part about ‘General MacArthur’s Submarine Navy.’ ”
Hinman looked around the table.
“As most of you may know,” he said, “I don’t like politics in any form. Apparently the submarine command in Australia is one big pot of politics. It boils over constantly, I am told. One of the more influential politicians down there is the Commanding Officer, SouWestPac. He’s reputed to be a very close friend of Dugout Doug, or to be formal, General Douglas MacArthur.
“Captain Rudd filled me in on a lot of this before we left Pearl. He told me that submarines operating out of Australia do an awful lot of special missions because MacArthur wants them to do those missions. It follows, or this is the way I see it, that when a submarine is on special mission it isn’t shooting torpedoes at the enemy, damn it! The situation down there, I’m speaking of the political situation now, is so bad that a number of officers, including one Rear Admiral, have offered to resign their commissions!
Final Harbor (The Silent War Book 1) Page 27