by Robb White
Ken looked down at him. The morphine had already taken effect and his eyes were glazed and sleepy-looking, his words slow and indistinct. “Nothing, Si. Go to sleep.”
“Yeah. Sleep,” Si said, closing his eyes.
By this time the blood had been washed off Murphy’s face. Ken saw him slowly raise one hand to his eyes and then let it fall back into his lap. “It was my fault,” he said, whispering. “I left him up there.”
“No, it wasn’t, Murph,” Pat said, sitting down beside him. “You couldn’t see anything through all that blood. And I heard you asking if there was anybody up there before you closed the hatch. It wasn’t your fault or anyone else’s, Murph.”
“I thought the Skipper went below with the first ones to go,” Murphy said in a low voice. “I didn’t even know he was wounded.”
“Nobody did.”
Murphy began to cry. “It’s my job to see that the bridge is cleared before I close the hatch. It’s my job!”
The Pharmacist’s Mate said quietly, “The morphine’s getting to him, Mr. Malone. He’ll be asleep soon.”
As Murphy put his head down, the loud-speaker clicked and Carney said, “All officers report to the conning tower.”
As Pat and Ken walked aft, Pat said slowly, “I wish there was some way I could take back the things I said about the Skipper. I wish there was some way I could apologize to him and tell him that he was a brave man.”
“I do, too,” Ken said. “What he did took all the guts in the world.”
When they climbed up into the conning tower the place was crowded. There were not only the regular watchstanders but all the officers as well as the talker and the lookout who had been on the bridge.
The lookout was talking as Ken and Pat found a place to stand.
“Well, Mr. Carney, it wasn’t long after the Skipper noticed that the radar antenna wasn’t turning that I saw this black dot up in the sky. Oh, right after he noticed the radar had stopped he warned me to keep a sharp lookout.
“Anyway, I guess the plane was five miles away when I saw it. But it was already in its dive. It came right out of the sun so I didn’t see it until it was on top of us. So I yelled that a plane was coming. So the Skipper said, ‘Clear the bridge,’ and I jumped down from the scope housing and went on down the hatch.”
“Were you the first one down?” Carney asked.
“Z was, sir,” the talker said. “Right after the Skipper ordered the bridge cleared he pulled my phone jack out and pushed me toward the hatch. I went on down. I never did see the plane.”
The lookout said, “It was a twin-engine bomber, sir.”
Bill Adams, who had been on the bridge, said, “It looked to me like that new Mitsubishi with the 20-millimeter cannon in addition to the 50-caliber machine guns.”
“They were shooting something heavier than 50’s,” Carney agreed.
Adams went on, “As the splashes came across the water I could see two or three that were much bigger than the others. Then, when they came up the deck and began to hit the screen and come into the bridge, I saw Si Mount get it. It knocked him all the way back against the searchlight. I went back there to get him and helped him to the hatch. The Quartermaster and I got him started down the ladder all right, but he slipped and fell. Then I went down.”
“Where was the Skipper?”
“I don’t know, sir. It sounds stupid now, but at the time I thought, considering how long it had taken me to go aft and bring Si to the hatch, that the Skipper would have had plenty of time to get off the bridge.”
“That leaves only the Quartermaster,” Carney said.
“He says it was his fault,” Ken said. “But he says he didn’t see the Skipper get hit and that when he, himself, got hit he thought he had been blinded. He couldn’t have seen anything through the blood in his eyes anyway.”
“It wasn’t Murph’s fault,” Pat added.
“No. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Where was he when you saw him last, Bill?”
“He was on the starboard side. He had gone aft to see what was wrong with the radar and he must have still been back there by himself when he got hit.”
“Then he must have crawled or pulled himself forward to the voice tube,” Carney decided. “Very well. That’s all. I want the officers here for a moment.”
As the conning tower cleared a little, the officers stood in silence around Carney.
Carney said, “Under Article 181 (b) of Navy Regs, I’m assuming command of the ship. Frank, you’ll be the Exec. Bill, you’ll have to take over as First Lieutenant until Si gets on his feet again. Ken, what do you know about communications?”
“Only what I learned in midshipman school, sir.”
“Can you run a coding board?”
“A little.”
“Good. The first thing to encode and send as soon as we get up is this:
COMMANDING OFFICER SHARK MISSING IN ACTION STOP PRESUMED DEAD STOP EXECUTIVE OFFICER ASSUMING COMMAND STOP MISSION NOT JEOPARDIZED STOP REQUEST INSTRUCTIONS STOP.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Ken said, writing it down.
The Pharmacist’s Mate stuck his head up through the hatch. “Skipper, Murphy’s all right. But I don’t know what to do for Mr. Mount. You think I ought to run a penicillin swab all the way through the hole in his leg, or just let it soak through?”
“Have you probed for broken or splintered bones?” Carney asked.
“Yes, sir. Can’t find any.”
Carney thought for a moment. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea to run a swab through. Put a lot of penicillin on each side and then give him a stiff shot of it.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Carney turned to Frank Doherty. “Why’ve we got such a list to starboard, Frank?”
Frank was about to answer when the telephone talker said, “Captain, the Chief of the Boat says he can’t keep pressure on the starboard main ballast tank. Says it’s full of water.”
“Tell him to keep her level by filling tanks on the other side.” Then Carney turned again to Frank. “What do you think?”
Doherty was frowning and pulling at his right ear. He looked over at the clock on the bulkhead and then at the inclinometer.
Carney said to the talker, “Ask the chief to recheck his valves and vents.”
In a moment the talker said, “Chief reports all valves and vents shut tight, sir.”
Carney turned to Doherty again. This time Doherty nodded his head.
“Must have been those 20-millimeter cannon,” Carney said.
“I heard them hitting the boat,” Doherty told him, “but I didn’t hear any explosions afterward.”
“Neither did I. They might have gone off on impact.” Carney looked at the clock. “Eight more hours of daylight, at least.”
Doherty nodded.
“With the main starboard tank full of water we can’t keep her from sinking,” Carney said.
“Maybe we could pump out all the other tanks and get enough buoyancy to keep her where she is,” Doherty declared.
“That might roll her over, Frank. If the water here isn’t too deep we can let her go to the bottom and sit it out until nightfall. Then bring her up to the surface and see what we can do about the holes. Sound, how deep is it here?”
The soundman flipped a switch and listened for a moment. Then he said slowly, “Fifteen thousand feet, Captain.”
Doherty bit his lip.
“All right,” Carney said. “The only way we can keep her from sinking all the way is to pull maximum power on all engines and maximum up-angle on the planes. The batteries won’t take that for eight hours.”
The depth gauge now read 130 feet.
Carney turned to the talker. “Tell all hands that we’ve got a hole in the boat. Were going upstairs. If those planes are still hanging around we’ll have to fight ’em off with the deck guns. We can’t stay down here any longer.” Then he added, talking only to Doherty, “Or we’ll be down here forever.”
Doherty nodded.
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As the talker repeated the message—his voice just a murmur in the guarded mouthpiece—Carney went to a phone on the bulkhead. “Sparks? We’ve got to ram this boat up to the top. Give her all-ahead flank. Don’t nurse it; give her all you can get.
“Surface!” Carney ordered.
The horn sent three blasts through the boat.
“Blow all ballast.
“All hands man your battle stations for surface action.”
Carney watched the depth gauge as the sound of the electric motors became stronger and stronger until it was almost like a thousand people screaming.
The hand on the depth gauge began to move back toward the 100-foot mark. At the same time the deck began to tilt sharply to starboard.
Doherty said, “She’s getting critical, Skipper.”
“Let’s don’t roll her over, Frank. Let’s see if she can twist herself out of it. Keep her ahead emergency on the starboard prop but try going astern for fifteen seconds on the port.”
Ken could feel the wrenching pressure of the opposed screws as the red bubble slid back toward the center.
The depth gauge moved down to 90 feet.
“All ahead now,” Carney ordered.
So they brought her up, twisting and rolling, and very slowly.
At sixty feet Carney put the periscope up and walked it all the way around. “Don’t see anything, but they can be up there.”
He kept searching with the scope as the boat went on up.
Ken then heard the water draining from the bridge and gushing out of the scuppers.
As she broke the surface a stream of men poured out of all hatches and ran to the guns. It took only seconds to man the two cannon, one on the foredeck and one aft, and to unlimber and load the two machine guns on the bridge.
The boat was lying on the surface with a hard list to starboard, so that half the deck was awash most of the time.
“Let’s take a look, Frank,” Carney said. “Ken, hold that dispatch to Pearl until we see how much damage they did.”
Ken followed Doherty and Carney up the ladder and out on the bridge. Bill Adams had the deck and reported the radar screen clear of enemy aircraft.
Carney climbed down the outside ladder to the deck. Already the Chief of the Boat was there with a small group of men. “What a lashup,” the chief said with disgust as Carney came over. “With the boat over on her side this way we can’t find the hole. And there’s no way to get the water out without closing that hole.”
Carney nodded as a wave hit forward and sent water running around his legs. “How big a hole is it, Chief ?”
The chief shrugged. “A 20-millimeter can do a lot of damage. Maybe they got two or three into us. She filled up in thirty seconds.”
Doherty said, “We’d better head for Midway, Skipper.”
“That long run on the surface isn’t healthy,” Carney said. “Anyway, I’d hate to come home with, maybe, only a couple of small holes in her.” Then he said angrily, “I wish I knew how badly we’re hurt.”
“Let me take a look,” Ken said.
Carney stared at him. “The hole’s down there somewhere. Under water.”
“I know. But if there isn’t enough daylight—and I think there is—I’ve got a good underwater lamp.”
“Ohhh,” Carney said slowly. “The UDT stuff. Fine, Ken. Go ahead.”
It didn’t take Ken long to strip down to his skivvy pants and get the rebreather on. He was clumsy in it as he climbed out of the hatch and walked back to Carney.
Carney called up to the bridge, “Stop all engines. We’re putting a man over the side.”
Ken gave the chief one end of the life fine and tied the other to his belt. “One yank means I’m OK. I’ll yank it every now and then. Two means pull me up. But a lot of them, coming fast, means pull me up in a hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” the chief said. “One, OK. Two, pull up. Three or more, heave away.”
Ken exhausted all the air from his lungs so as not to put any nitrogen in the rebreather, then he clamped the face mask on and opened the valve of the oxygen tank.
He heard the oxygen hissing into the canvas lung on his back and felt the lung fill up. Still standing on deck, he took a breath to check the gear.
Trailing the fight nylon rope, Ken waded down the flooded deck, climbed over the subs fife fine, and sank slowly into the water.
The Pacific was warm and the water very clear. He fended himself away from the rough side of the boat as the waves washed him back and forth.
He sank slowly down until he was below the scuppers. Then, in a systematic search, he moved forward and aft, going down a foot or so each time. It wasn’t necessary to feel with his hands for he could clearly see the steel side of the boat.
He searched for half an hour without finding any break in the hull. Each time he went down deeper he would give one yank on the cord.
He knew that he was taking a long time and that Carney would be unhappy about it. After all, lying dead-still on the surface was an invitation to murder, but there was nothing else he could do. He had to keep on, slowly, looking at every inch of the dull steel in front of him.
He found, at last, three holes with ragged edges. To make sure, he kept on searching past and below them, but there seemed to be only three of them.
On the way up Ken measured with how many lengths of his body it took before he reached the scuppers. As he waded out of the water and slipped the mask off he heard Carney yell up to the bridge, “All ahead standard.”
Ken walked over to the group. “There are three holes about the size of my head, Skipper.”
As the sub began to move through the water, Ken followed Carney and the rest back toward the bridge. On the way he told them how far down he estimated the holes were.
“Oh-oh,” the chief said. “We couldn’t get to them with a welding torch even if we were on an even keel, Captain. They must have hit us when we were rolling to port.”
Carney just nodded as he stood looking ahead, his elbows on the splinter shield. Where the bullets had torn through it rust was already forming on the jagged edges.
Carney at last walked over to the open hatch and said, “Send up an area chart, please.”
Ken took his gear off and waited, the sun feeling good on his bare skin.
“What are you planning to do, Skipper?” Doherty asked. “Take her back to Midway or Pearl?”
“I don’t know,” Carney told him. “Those planes know we’re out here and they know just about where we are. They might also know that they rang the bell on us. There must have been a lot of bubbles of air coming up through those holes after we went down, and even after we got under way. My guess is that they’ve gone for help. Or to load up with depth charges.”
Doherty looked at his watch. “Six, six and a half more hours of daylight.”
Carney nodded. “It shouldn’t take them more than three or four hours to get back here from Kwajalein. It would take destroyers until tomorrow morning.”
“Maybe if we poured the coal to her we could get away from them.”
Carney thought that over, but shook his head. “The Japs aren’t dumb, Frank. They’d figure that either one of two things happened. First, if they don’t see us around where they hurt us, they’ll figure they either sank us or that were damaged but still able to move. If we can move, they’ll figure we’ve headed for Midway because it’s so much closer than Pearl.”
A messenger came up the hatch with a chart.
Carney unrolled it on the small shelf on the bridge and, for a long time, studied it, occasionally taking measurements.
At last he spoke again, “They’ll keep a search plane on our route to Midway, Frank, so that’s out.”
Doherty said helplessly, “What’s in, Skipper?”
Carney reached for the phone. “Pat? Here’s a detail for you. Call a working party together. Tear some cork off the overhead—rip out a good deal of it. Then get about a barrel of oil; good, black, used oil will do fine.
Then I want everything that’ll float—life preservers, mattresses, clothing—anything we can spare. And an air flask. Put enough weight on it to sink it.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Bill Adams. “Take us back to where they hit us, Bill.”
As the submarine turned and headed back, Pat and his working party began shoving stuff up out of the forward hatch.
After a few minutes the lookout called down, “Sharks, dead ahead, Captain.”
“Very well,” Carney said. He lifted his binoculars and looked for a long time at the dark blue water ahead of the boat. “All engines ahead one third,” he said. “Put the boat in a slow circle, Bill.”
Now Ken also could see the fins of sharks slicing through the water.
Moving slowly, the boat swung in a wide circle until it came back into its own wake.
Carney said slowly, “He’s gone. I only hope he was dead before the sharks got to him. All engines stop.”
“All right,” Carney called down, “dump that stuff overboard.”
The working party on deck threw over some mattresses, the drum of oil, slabs of cork, some life jackets, and a box of empty milk tins which floated tipped over.
Carney went down on deck as the air flask appeared from the hatch. “Just crack the valve,” he ordered. “All we want is a stream of bubbles.”
The weighted flask was lugged across the deck and dropped into the water. As it sank out of sight the silvery bubbles came steadily up and broke at the surface.
Carney stood for a moment looking at the trash floating in the water around the boat. “If I was a fly-boy I’d claim to have sunk a sub right here,” he declared. Then he called up to the bridge, “All-ahead emergency. Course two eight zero. When you get a chance, Bill, drop down to the engine room and encourage the boys to keep those diesels rolling.”
Ken suddenly remembered the message he was supposed to encode and send. He asked Carney about it.
“Nope. Hold it. No use giving those planes a fix on us by breaking radio silence now. Pearl will just have to wait.”
“Where are we going, Skipper?” Doherty asked.
“Not to Midway, Frank,” Carney told him. “Come on. I’ll show you.”