Dive Beneath the Sun

by R. Cameron Cooke

  “Two hundred and eighty-eight feet,” Trott heard himself say. “That’s deep enough, right, sir?”

  Keane shrugged. “It used to be, until some congressman blabbered about how deep our boats could go. Now, the Japs set their charges deeper.”

  The officer with the flashlight reappeared, his uniform now damp with seawater and grease, as if he had crawled through a pipe. He made his way over to Keane, casting a curious glance at Trott before reporting, “We’ve isolated the flooding in the forward torpedo room, Captain. The fill line for the port tube bundle was the culprit. Not sure if we’ll be able to use those tubes again.”

  “I’ll settle for getting back to the surface, XO,” Keane replied sanguinely.

  “We’ll have to get the water off first, sir,” the XO replied tersely, his tone laced with frustration. “We’ve taken on at least ten thousand pounds, probably more. I’d like to use the drain pump, but I can’t, because I’ve still heard nothing from the maneuvering room. For all we know, the bus is down hard and isn’t coming back. Even if we can power the pump, tilted like it is, it’ll make one hell of a racket. The Japs won’t need their sonar to find us.”

  The XO was visibly distraught, like an investor watching the value of his stocks dwindling away to nothing before his eyes. Keane appeared not to notice it. The Wolffish’s captain remained composed, an optimistic ray of hope amidst the uncertain faces all around him.

  “We’ve still got plenty of pressure in the air banks, XO. And we can always jumper the breakers, if we have to. We’ve got a few hours left on the batteries. It’s not all that bad, considering.” Keane paused, as if to allow his executive officer a few moments to collect his thoughts. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a turn back aft, Tony,” Keane said, after the XO had calmed considerably. “Make sure things are buttoned up back there, will you. You can check on the maneuvering room while you’re at it.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the XO nodded tiredly, and then ducked out through a door in the aft end of the room.

  Perhaps Keane was a bit too confident, Trott considered, given the number of damage reports still streaming in over the voice circuits. Was it humanly possible to bring this broken sub to the surface again?

  Then Trott suddenly remembered the reason he had come to the control room in the first place.

  “Captain, I wish to report an injury. Petty Officer Greenberg hit his head during that last bombardment. He’s knocked out cold up in the wardroom.”

  A brief look of confusion crossed Keane’s face before he gestured to the sailor with the phone set. “Pass the word for the corpsman.” Have him lay to the wardroom.”

  “Woodbury’s back in number two machinery room, Captain,” the sailor reported, “patching up Chief Coleman.”

  “What happened to Coleman?”

  “The chief broke his arm on a valve handle when those last ash cans hit, sir.”

  Keane smiled grimly. “A head injury wins out over a broken bone. Tell the chief, he’s going to have to suffer a little while longer, and have the corpsman lay to the wardroom.”

  A few moments later, a thin sailor bearing a marine’s rucksack passed through the control room. Trott did not need to be introduced to discern that this was the Wolffish’s corpsman, the closest thing the submarine had to a ship’s doctor. The corpsman soon returned with two other sailors helping him carry Greenberg’s unmoving form.

  As Greenberg was passed through the compartment, Trott noticed several sailors showing little sympathy or concern for the injured man. In fact, they appeared to regard his wretched condition with some measure of satisfaction. Trott assumed he was imagining things, and had dismissed such thoughts as preposterous, until he overheard one of the sailors utter in a low tone, “That’ll set things right!” This sailor quickly turned away after receiving a venomous glare from a nearby chief petty officer, but his behavior, and that of the others, left Trott puzzled.

  “The doc’s taking Greenberg to the crews’ mess to have a look at him,” Keane said. “Why don’t you go with him, Frank. Things are kind of busy here.”

  The next moment, a shrill ping reverberated against the hull. The enemy sonar sounded slightly different now, as if it had changed pitch, and this change instantly cast an ominous tension throughout the room.

  “High speed screws again, sir! Constant bearing.” This report came from the open hatch in the overhead, where a man wearing a large set of headphones peered down over the edge.

  Without another word to Trott, Keane dashed up the ladder, the urgency of the situation evident in his step.

  “Splashes, sir! Depth charges on the way down. These are going to be close!”

  “All compartments brace for depth charge attack!”

  The battle lanterns stopped twinkling as each man grabbed the nearest handhold. Trott did the same, placing his hand over a nearby valve stem, that it might not strike him when the charges went off.

  The agonizing wait seemed like minutes, but it took only seconds for the explosive-packed canisters to descend to the ocean floor. An odd series of clicking sounds outside the hull tricked Trott into hoping that the charges were duds – but these were merely the depth charge fuses, triggering at their assigned depth. An instant later, the depths exploded with four distinct detonations so close that the ear-splitting roar seemed to come from inside Trott’s own head. The hull visibly rippled from the shockwaves, as if the steel skin had turned to rubber for an instant. A pipe burst mere inches from Trott’s face, emitting a pin-like jet of high-velocity water that sliced through a man’s arm on the opposite side of the room and then began tearing away at the bulkhead insulation. Trott felt a man fall into him with his full weight, sending both of them into the outboard where Trott’s back impacted with the edge of a pipe hanger. When the other man finally crawled off of him, Trott discovered a nasty gash behind his own right shoulder. After a quick examination, he concluded the wound was only skin deep, but the ensuing bruise would be much worse.

  As the reverberations of the explosions faded away and the Wolffish came to rest again, the intercom circuits came alive with damage reports. A seasoned-looking petty officer stepped up onto a locker and shut a valve in the overhead, which instantly stopped the menacing leak. White wisps of smoke seeped from an electrical panel, and this too was quickly dealt with by a few short bursts from a fire extinguisher.

  The compartment fell silent, except for the groans of the wounded and the chatter from the intercom speaker. Men who were not injured moved about helping those that were. Trott saw only two men that had received wounds severe enough to warrant removal to the crews’ mess. The rest began making repairs, or stowing equipment, books, and other items scattered by the shaking.

  Keane was still up in the conning tower. Trott could hear his low voice and that of the sound operator as they tracked the position of the enemy warships circling above. Again, everyone else had something to do, and Trott decided he could best be utilized in the crew’s mess, helping with Greenberg and the other wounded.

  He joined the line of men waiting to pass through the aft watertight door, like two lines of automobiles taking turns crossing a one-lane bridge. Just before it was his turn to duck through the door, the sound operator up in the conning tower announced again.

  “Splashes, sir! More this time. I counted six.”

  Somewhere, a sailor muttered, “May the Good Lord help us.” And, once again, every man braced for the coming devastation.

  CHAPTER IX

  Keane rested his forehead against the cold steel of the periscope mast and felt his brow touched by a trickle of seawater curling around the chrome tube. Leakage past the periscope seals, he thought. Just another leak to add to the dozens that had manifested themselves since the last attack.

  Keane sighed. He was exhausted.

  It had been over two hours since the first depth charges had fallen on the Wolffish. In that run, and in the subsequent runs, the enemy warships had dropped a total of twenty-six depth charges,
many exploding close enough to rock the immobile sub resting on the sandy bottom. Nearly every one of the submarine’s eight compartments had reported damage of some kind, and many of the crew had suffered injuries, ranging from slight to severe. The physical injuries, however, were nothing when compared to the psychological ones – the dazed expressions, the empty stares, the dreadful anticipation as the unseen barrels of death hurtled towards them time and time again. Like prisoners repeatedly undergoing mock executions, they waited for the fatal blow that would finally crack the hull and kill them all.

  Keane felt it, too. How could he not? After the third barrage, he had left Ficarelli in charge in the conning tower while he took a tour of the ship, stepping gingerly over the spots where the deck plates had been taken up to make repairs. The damage control efforts were well in hand. Everyone was working together, and no one was panicking. Not yet, anyway. Through every one of the Wolffish’s compartments – from the forward torpedo room to the after torpedo room – he had encountered the anxious but determined faces of his disheveled crew, whose scrubby appearance did not match their resolve. He had encouraged them wherever he thought necessary, chatted with the veterans about their systems, and simply let them do the jobs they did so well. Even the pilot, Lieutenant Trott, did his part, helping Woodbury tend to the wounded in the crew’s mess. Chief Hicks had been there, too, and in multiple places at once, it seemed – sometimes in the outboards, sometimes welcoming him as he entered the next space, as if Keane were performing a pier-side inspection tour. When Keane had completed his rounds, Ficarelli had presented him with the initial damage report, reading it off of his notebook like a grocery list.

  “…a flood valve stuck in the open position on number two auxiliary tank, flooding the tank. We compensated by blowing the contents of the tank to sea. We also have a leak in the forward engine room from the main induction. That last charge unseated the induction valve. You already know about the leakage past the SD mast packing gland, as well as the rupture in the mast’s hydraulic line. That’ll take at least three weeks of repairs at Midway, and might possibly need to be fixed in Pearl. We have fuel-oil leaking into the hull from a ruptured emergency vent fitting for number five fuel ballast tank, but we think that one is under control. Sure smells like a refueling in progress in the forward engine room. Three low pressure air leaks have been isolated. The engine cooling system in the aft engine room is also leaking…” Ficarelli had continued on and on, Keane’s mind picking out the items that would affect the ship’s ability to escape.

  They had been through it all before, on other occasions, but the damage was bad this time, and Ficarelli’s tone indicated that he fully comprehended the presumptuous nature of his own words. Midway and Pearl Harbor were places the Wolffish may never see again.

  Now, as Keane leaned against the periscope, the steel and the trickle of seawater revived him. He had slumped, and his eyes had come near to closing for some long missed sleep. He knew this was partly due to the fact that he had not had four hours of straight sleep in over a week, but mostly from the low oxygen levels that now threatened to be an enemy equal to that of the pressing sea. Keane smiled weakly. Both the air inside the boat and the water outside might very well kill them all, and he wondered which would win the race.

  But then, discipline took over, and he stood up as straight as the tiny conning tower would allow. He had to be confident. He was their captain. They needed something solid to put their hopes in, something unswerving and unwavering.

  Ficarelli came up the ladder, an urgency in his step. “I think I’ve discovered why those depth charges are so dead-nuts accurate.”

  Keane looked at him curiously.

  “There’s a discrepancy in the number 5 fuel ballast tank level. Fuel level has dropped by a thousand gallons in the last hour alone. Howard thinks the fuel fill line is leaking overboard.”

  “So, we’ve got a tail.”

  “Very likely, sir.”

  That would explain a lot. In the dozen depth chargings Keane had endured in the course of the war, this was by far the worst. With that much fuel seeping out into the sea, there would be a sizeable oil slick on the surface. The sheen would be visible from miles away, acting like a beacon to the enemy warships.

  “Well, that does it then,” Keane said, not attempting to hide his irritation this time. “So much for playing possum. We can’t stay here. Jansen, report contacts.”

  “I hold three contacts, Captain,” the sound operator responded as he slowly steered the Wolffish’s hydrophone through the azimuth. “The same warships we held before – one destroyer and two escorts. They’ve faded slightly to the west, but they’re still there. They’ve spread out quite a bit, too. I hold one at zero six zero, another at one two five, and the third – that’s the destroyer – he’s moving off to the south with a high bearing rate. I hold him at one seven zero currently.”

  That was odd, Keane thought. He had fully expected Jansen to tell him the enemy was preparing for another depth charge run.

  “The two escorts have slowed, Captain,” Jansen reported, after a few more minutes of listening. “They’re doing small circles in the ocean. I’d say they’re at least ten thousand yards away. They’re still pinging.”

  “And the destroyer?”

  “Fading to the south, sir. Now bearing one eight five. It sounds like he’s leaving the area.”

  “He’s headed back to the barn,” Ficarelli concluded after both he and Keane had moved over to study the chart. “I don’t get it, skipper. If they can see our oil slick up there, then why aren’t they dropping everything they’ve got? What’s it mean?”

  Keane smiled heavily. “It means our leaky fuel tank might just be working in our favor – for the moment. That tin can’s been dropping on us for the better part of two hours, and we haven’t moved from this spot. With that much oil streaming to the surface, they must think they’ve made a kill. They’ve chalked us up.”

  “Then why are those escorts still sitting up there?”

  “Maybe they want to be sure.” Keane shrugged. “Maybe the destroyer is out of depth charges, and the escorts are covering the area while she goes back to port to reload.”

  “They’re between us and open water, Captain,” Ficarelli said, running his finger across the two pencil marks representing the enemy ships. “Do you think it’s a trick to get us to move?”

  “Of course it’s a trick, Tony. We’re hemmed in by shoals to the north and a minefield to the south. They know we have to clear to the west, so that’s where they’ve gone to wait for us. As soon as they see our oil slick move, they’ll come back for the kill – assuming they have any depth charges left.” Keane glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. “So, we wait until nightfall, and then we make our move.”

  Ficarelli looked at his watch and nodded. “Two hours. Then it’s to be a mad dash on the surface, eh? Straight between them?”

  “No, Tony.” Keane shook his head. “They’ll expect that. And we can’t try it submerged in that direction either. They’ll pick us up for sure, and I don’t think this boat can take another pounding.”

  “Then where do we go?” Ficarelli asked after a long pause, though his tone indicated he already knew the answer.

  Keane placed his finger on the chart near the tip of the headland, where several hashes had been etched to mark the location of the suspected minefield. “We go south.”

  Ficarelli simply looked at the chart, saying nothing in response. The other men in the room did the same. The sudden silence was deafening, as if he had just pronounced their death sentences.

  Perhaps they were right, Keane considered. Was he mad to suggest such a thing? Were the toxic gasses inside the pressure hull affecting his judgement?

  No, Keane reassured himself. This was the only practical option. He was confident of that. The Wolffish could do as the XO had suggested and make a flank speed run on the surface for the open sea, but she was sure to be seen. She would be caught between the guns of bot
h escorts. And there was always the possibility that the diesel engines would not start. One engine was already out of action. Who knew what damage remained yet undiscovered? While the minefield was hazardous, and their chances of successfully navigating through it were slim, it was still their best chance for escape. It might seem like a bold, reckless decision, but Keane had only come to it after careful consideration. For the Wolffish still had one more trick up her sleeve – one that he was sure the Japanese were not counting on.

  He glanced at the canvas covered panel in the corner, unmanned and de-energized, like a star football player reserved on the bench for the fourth quarter. The FM sonar was a new thing, necessitated by the ever-changing aspect of the war in the Pacific, and the Wolffish was one of the few boats fitted out with one. The new sonar was a short-range, active device that sent frequency modulated pulses into the water to detect nearby objects with great accuracy, including small objects, such as Japanese Type-93 submerged mines. With the Japanese retreating on all fronts, and their merchant shipping increasingly confined to coastal waters, American submarines were encountering more enemy mines than they had in the early years of the war. It was suspected that a good portion of the dozen boats lost so far this year had met their ends after running over one of the spherical, horn-tipped killers. The FM sonar was the answer to this new threat, and the submarine fleet was slowly being equipped with them. In theory, the new sonar gave the submarine an edge when navigating through enemy minefields. But, like many of the new inventions spawned by this war, it was heavy on theory and light on field testing.

  “I guess we’ll get to tell ComSubPac how well his new sonar works,” Ficarelli said light-heartedly, in an obvious effort to raise the mood in the room. “Either that, or…”

  He did not have to finish. They all knew what would happen if the sonar did not work as advertised.

  “Anyway, it’s high time we put that thing to good use,” Ficarelli added awkwardly. “Let’s hope the damn transducers aren’t damaged.” He then forced a grin. “And let’s hope Shelby was paying attention when he went to the school to learn how to use the thing. That bastard better not have been playing on the beach the whole time.”