Final Harbor (The Silent War Book 1)

by Harry Homewood

  “Good shot!” He screamed as he saw bright orange burst at the target’s water line. He saw the lazy tracers of the machine guns reaching for the target, searching out the windows of the ship’s bridge, sweeping across the decks. And then he saw other tracers arcing toward him, heard the clang of bullets striking metal around him and he realized that the target, hopelessly out gunned, was shooting back at him.

  “Get that machine gun on that ship!” he yelled at Dick Smalley on the 20-mm guns. He watched as Smalley’s tracers walked in at the source of the other tracers and then steadied and hammered on the other gun station.

  “Target is down by the bow!” Dusty Rhodes’ bellow could be easily heard above the roar of the deck guns.

  “Cease fire!” Hinman yelled. “A case of beer to the gun that puts him under. Commence slow fire!” The forward gun barked and Hinman saw a burst of fire near the water line of the target’s bow. The after deck gun bellowed and there was a burst of flame at the target’s exposed hull aft and then a muffled explosion and the ship jerked sideways and broke in two.

  “After gun gets the beer!” Hinman yelled. “Plot, where in the hell has that third ship gone to?” He turned to climb up in the periscope shears and stopped as he saw the dark rivulets running down the mottled camouflage paint of the periscope shears. His eyes followed the dark streams upward and he saw Grabnas hanging like a limp rag doll over the pipe railing of his lookout stand.

  “Doc to the bridge!” Hinman yelled. He scrambled upward to Grabnas, lifting the man’s limp upper body, and as Grabnas started to slide out of the lookout stand, Hinman heard Major Struthers’ voice below him.

  “I’ve got him, Skipper. Let him go. I’ve got him.” Hinman eased Grabnas’ sagging head by the rail of the lookout stand and felt the man being taken from him. He scrambled down to the bridge.

  “No need for your medico,” Struthers said slowly. “The man’s had it. You want me to hand him down to someone?”

  “Where’s he hit?” Hinman said, his breath coming in huge gasps. “How do you know he’s had it, damn it!”

  “Captain!” The Australian’s voice was hard, flat. “The man’s been cut near in half!” He put his hands under Grabnas’ armpits and with one foot kicked Grabnas’ limp legs into the hatch opening.

  “Below there, mates! Take this chap!” Joe Sirocco reached upward and let the limp legs fall against his chest and took the burden. He turned to the Control Room hatch.

  “Below, there! Take Grabnas, will you, Pete?”

  “I’ve got him, sir!” John Barber’s voice was steady. Sirocco released the body and spun back to the periscope and began a search for the third ship. He swung the periscope around in a complete circle once, then twice.

  “Can’t see the other target, sir. He must have hauled his ass out of here while you were taking care of the other two!”

  “Lots of Japs in the water, Captain,” Major Struthers was unsnapping the flap on his pistol holster. “Mind if I pot a few of the bloody bastards? I’ve got a lot of good chums dead at the hands of the Jap! Wouldn’t do for this lot to get picked up or to swim to one of those bloody islands and live to fight another day!”

  Hinman stood, his eyes closed tightly. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Struthers and up at the dark traces of blood on the periscope shears.

  “Deck guns, secure and get below. Fifty-caliber machine guns switch stations to the bridge stanchions. Smalley, begin firing at the targets in the water! Major, pick your own targets!”

  Mako moved slowly through the flotsam of the two sunken ships, the machine guns hammering steadily at the men in the water. A flash off the port bow caught Major Struthers’ eye.

  “Ah, you bastard!” the Major said genially. “Shoot back at us, would you? Poke your bloody head up for another look-see!” He steadied his heavy pistol on the bridge rail and aimed carefully. The pistol roared and bucked upward. “Got you! Just like shooting ‘roos in the outback!”

  “Aircraft!” Smalley’s scream cut through the noise of the guns. Hinman looked aft and saw Smalley swing his twin 20-mm guns upward and begin firing a long burst out to the starboard side. Then he saw the plane, a black bulk against the starlit sky, saw it suddenly soar upward as the tracers reached toward it, saw two bulky black objects fall from the plane and tumble toward the water. The bombs hit well out to starboard and exploded with a huge roar squarely in the middle of a huge cluster of swimmers.

  “Clear the bridge! Down periscope! Dive! Dive!” Hinman’s voice was a roar. “Major, damn you, get down the hatch!” He shoved Struthers toward the hatch and waited until the lookouts and the machine gunners had hurled themselves down through the hatch, not bothering to use the ladder, depending on the big hands of Joe Sirocco to catch them and spin them toward the hatch to the Control Room. Hinman slammed the diving alarm twice with his hand and dropped through the hatch.

  “One hundred feet!” he snapped as he slid down the ladder to the Control Room. “Get some down angle on her, damn it! There’s a plane up there!” Mako knifed downward. Far off to one side they heard the crash of two more explosions.

  “Mako it one hundred and fifty feet,” Hinman said. He stood, panting, watching the long black needles of the depth gauges move around the dials of the gauges in front of the bow and stern planes.

  “That’ll do it. Level her off.” He turned round to Aaron, who was standing quietly by the gyro table.

  “Where’s Grabnas?”

  “In the Forward Torpedo Room, sir,” Aaron replied. Hinman nodded and ran forward. Ginty was standing by the torpedo tubes.

  “He’s in Number One tube, sir,” Ginty said, his voice a low growl. “Doc made sure nothing could be done for him. I thought the tube was the best place for him, until you give some orders.”

  “Very well,” Hinman said. He stood, staring at the shiny brass face of the torpedo tube door, tasting the bile that had risen into his throat. Then he turned and went back to the Control Room.

  “Stand easy on Battle Stations,” he said to Sirocco. “Tell the galley to serve coffee to all hands and ask Tom to bring me a cup, please.”

  “He can’t, sir,” Dusty Rhodes said. “Tom took a bullet through the neck from that first ship. He wouldn’t go down below when I told him to go. He’s in the Crew’s Mess, Doc is working on him.”

  “Oh my God!” Hinman said. He ran aft to the Crew’s Mess. Thompson was laid out on a mess table surrounded by crew members.

  “How is he, Doc?” Hinman demanded.

  “I think he’s gonna be okay, sir,” the Pharmacist’s Mate said. “He took one right through his neck. Good thing he’s got such a big neck! Lots of room in there for something to go through. There isn’t any arterial bleeding so I figure the bullet didn’t hit anything serious. What I’m worried about is infection. I heard the Japs rub garlic on their bullets. That would cause infection.”

  Hinman looked down at his cook. Thompson’s normally coal black, smiling face was ashy in color.

  “How you feeling, old friend?” Hinman said.

  Thompson opened his eyes. “Fine, sir. Doc’s gonna fix me up just fine.”

  Chief John Barber came into the Crew’s Mess carrying a pair of long-nosed pliers, an alcohol torch and a piece of stiff wire 18 inches long. He put the torch on a mess bench and, using the pliers, he bent one end of the wire back to form a smooth, blunt end. Then he formed a larger loop at the other end. He stuck the pliers in his pocket and lit the alcohol torch and passed the flame up and down the wire several times. He handed the torch to one of his machinist’s mates and held the pliers in the flame.

  “That ought to sterilize it,” Barber grunted. He held the wire in the pliers, the larger loop toward the Pharmacist’s Mate.

  “Okay, now thread your gauze through that loop and then I’ll crimp it closed so it won’t slip out.” The Pharmacist’s Mate put a half-dozen six-inch long pieces of cotton gauze into the loop of wire and Barber carefully squeezed the loop tightly closed. He han
ded the wire to the other man, who dipped the gauze into a bottle of iodine.

  “This is gonna sting you some, Tom, so hang on.” The man on the table rolled his eyes and then closed them and his big hands clamped down on the edge of the mess table.

  “Someone hold his head steady.” Doc Whitten said. Chief Rhodes moved around to the end of the table and put his big hands on either side of Thompson’s face.

  Doc Whitten crouched down until his eyes were on a level with Thompson’s neck. He pushed gently, feeding the stiff wire into and through the man’s neck until Barber, standing on the other side of the table, grunted and reached down and got a grip on the end of the wire with his pliers.

  “Pull it through very slowly,” Whitten said. “I want that iodine to touch everything in there.” Barber nodded and began pulling on the wire. The iodine-soaked gauze disappeared into the hole in Thompson’s neck and the big man on the table gasped and Rhodes clamped his hands tightly on Thompson’s face. Barber began to pull on the wire and a low moan came through Thompson’s teeth.

  “My fucking oath!” Major Struthers said.

  Johnny Johnson, the ship’s cook, handed Whitten a coffee cup. “I mixed as much sulfa powder in that vaseline as it would take,” he said. Whitten nodded his head and picked up a wooden spatula and began packing the sulfa-loaded vaseline into the holes in each side of Thompson’s neck. When he had finished he put a square of gauze over each hole and strapped the squares down with tape. Thomas opened his eyes.

  “You’re one hell of a surgeon, Doc,” Thompson said. “Next time I have to cut my toenails I’m gonna have you do it. Now lemme get up from here because I have to feed my people.”

  “No you don’t!” Captain Hinman said. “You’re going to get in your bunk and stay there!”

  “Captain,” Thompson said, sitting up on the mess table. “Ain’t no itty-bitty Jap bullet make me flake out in my sack!” He swung his legs off the table and stood up, moving his head from side to side gingerly.

  “Don’t hurt hardly none at all,” he said. “This old Doc has fixed me up just fine!” He smiled and started to walk and then suddenly collapsed in a heap on the deck.

  “Shock,” Doc Whitten said professionally. “Had to hit him sooner or later. Nothing to worry about. After we get him in his sack I’ll give him a shot to knock him out and he’ll sleep for about twelve hours. After that he should be okay if there’s no infection inside there.”

  Hinman walked back to the Control Room and stood beside Joe Sirocco. “I’ve got to come to a decision on Grabnas,” he said. “Barber just told me the temperature of the injection water, the temperature of the sea water outside, is ninety-six degrees! We can’t keep Grabnas’ body in that torpedo tube very long; it’s too hot. I can’t put him in the freezer locker, no one would want to eat any of the food.”

  “Burial at sea, sir?” Sirocco said gently. “It’s been done for centuries.”

  Hinman nodded.

  The following midnight John A. Aaron, Radioman Second Class, USNR, preached a short sermon over the ship’s communication system. The body of Andrew F. Grabnas, Seaman First Class, USNR, aged twenty-two, was carried topside encased in the heavy plastic cover from his bunk with a bar of lead lashed to his feet.

  As the officers and Chief Petty Officers of the U.S.S. Mako stood at attention on the main deck Captain Hinman read the traditional words that have been used to bury seamen far from home. When he had finished with a soft “Amen” Ginty and DeLucia slid the body over the side as Lieut. Nathan Cohen, standing on the cigaret deck, softly chanted the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning.

  Chapter 27

  The message ordering the Mako in to Brisbane for refit and a period of rest and relaxation came a week after the deck gun actions against the Japanese ships. There were no expressions of joy from Mako’s crew when the news came that the patrol was over and they were heading for port. The death of Grabnas had sobered the crew. The soft-spoken Floridian had been popular with his fellow crewmen. Tribute was paid to him in small subtle ways that only the men who knew and served with him appreciated. Ginty summed up the crew’s feelings in the Crew’s Mess, his deep growl dominating the compartment.

  “That Greek kid, that Grabby Grabnas. Called hisself a ‘Conch’ because he was born in Key West. He was proud of being born in Key West. Lousiest submarine base in the Navy to do duty in, I heard! What the hell is there to be proud of, born in a lousy place to do duty? I’ll say this for the bastard; he never came forward to my Room what he didn’t bring fresh coffee for the man on watch and a doughnut or a sandwich. Never shot his mouth off to no one. I’ll say another thing and any you poges want to call me wrong stand up; that son of a bitch wasn’t no ‘Conch’ or whatever he wanted to call himself. He was a submarine sailor! Coulda served on S-Boats with me and that’s something I wouldn’t say about very many of you bastards!”

  Two Australian Navy gunboats met Mako at sea off the Great Barrier Reef and escorted her into Marston Bay, where a uniformed pilot came aboard, and then into the mouth of the Swan River. On the way up the river the port lookout leveled his glasses at the shore line.

  “Someone over there on top of that little white building is sending us semaphore flag signals, Bridge! It’s two broads!” The off-duty crew members on deck enjoying the unaccustomed sunlight came alert.

  “Better see what they want, Bradshaw.” Captain Hinman said. The quartermaster climbed up into the periscope shears and squeezed himself in beside the port lookout.

  “Gimme your white hat,” he said to the lookout. “I’ll use my hat and yours for flags. God knows where our flags are stowed.” He held a hat in each hand and answered the girls on the small building. One of the girls began whipping her semaphore flags rapidly.

  “What’s she saying?” Hinman called up.

  “Meet ... you ... at ... gate ... sixteen ... hundred,” Bradshaw yelled out. “Hey, that second one is going now and she’s too fast for a Chief Signalman on a battleship to read! Man, can she go!”

  “Never mind that crap,” a voice yelled from the deck. “Just tell them we’ll be there with bells on!”

  Captain Hinman laughed and turned to the Australian Navy pilot.

  “I’ve been in a lot of ports in my life but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “This is your first trip here,” the pilot said. “Brisbane is a lonely city for women. You won’t see a man in civilian clothes on the street between the ages of seventeen and fifty unless he’s lost an arm or a leg or is blind.”

  “Why?” Joe Sirocco asked.

  “Our men made up most of the famous Ninth Divvy, the Ninth Division of the Australian Army,” the pilot said quietly. “The bloody British threw our men in against Rommel, in Africa. Rifles and flesh and blood against tanks! Rommel’s tanks cut our boys into ribbons! They’ve been overseas since late Thirty-nine and this city is a lonely place for women.”

  The official welcoming party at the New Farm Wharf lacked the enthusiastic celebration that the Submarine Staff at Pearl Harbor usually gave a returning submarine, but it was warm enough. A working party from the submarine tender brought aboard crates of tropical fruits and eight sacks of mail. As the crew spread out on the deck, chewing at fruit and reading their mail, Captain Hinman and his officers went up on the Wharf to meet and shake hands with the Submarine Staff officers. A tall, slim, Australian General stepped out and shook hands warmly with Major Struthers.

  “First things first, Captain Hinman,” the Operations Officer of the Staff said. “We are pleased to credit Mako with four ships sunk in the special mission at Bougainville. Four.

  “In all fairness I will say that we could not give Mako credit for any sinkings until Intelligence had confirmed the actual results. That confirmation has come in. The Japs have written off four of the ships as a total loss. Three other ships are badly damaged, engine rooms flooded, that sort of thing and you are credited with damaging those ships. Two other ships have been repaired so
we cannot give credit for those.” He paused and nodded his head at a junior officer, who stepped forward and handed Captain Hinman a large, flat manila envelope.

  “Open it, Captain,” the Operations Officer said.

  Hinman opened the envelope and pulled out a stencil of a bath house on stilts with a Japanese Rising Sun flag painted on its side.

  “Naval Intelligence also reports the Japanese Command at Bougainville reported that a Major General, a full Colonel. and two enlisted men were killed in what was described as the explosion of a probable aircraft bomb during an air raid while they were taking their morning shower on the date,” he paused and allowed a small smile to cross his face, “on the date Mako reports that the shore party had mined a bath house within the Japanese Army camp!

  “In view of the fact that both the Japanese officers were known to be experts in jungle warfare and inasmuch as the U.S. Navy’s Marine Corps is now engaged in a bitter battle to hold on to Guadalcanal, it has been officially decided that the, ah, mining of the bath house was a heavy loss to the enemy and Mako is hereby given credit for sinking one, ah, Japanese bath house!”

  “Bloody good show!” Major Struthers bellowed. “Our turn now?” He looked at the Australian General, who nodded.

  Major Struthers executed a smart left face, took two steps and did a right face and cracked his boot heels together. He put his riding crop under his left arm and snapped off a smart salute, his right hand quivering at his hat brim in the Australian Army style. The Operations Officer returned the salute and Major Struthers held out his hand. The General stepped forward and gave him a manila folder, one of two such folders the Major had handed him when he walked up on the Wharf.

  “It is my privilege to present you with this copy of my report to our General Command, sir.” He handed the folder to the Operations Officer.

  “I will summarize the contents for the benefit of those here and for the benefit of the U.S.S. Mako’s Captain and officers who have not seen the report,” Major Struthers went on.