by Robb White
The only machines running were the spare generators, the blowers, and the cooling pumps, so that the boat was unusually quiet.
Willy took some coffee and sandwiches into Si Mount’s stateroom. By now the effects of the morphine had worn off and Si’s wound was hurting him a good deal.
Then Pat Malone squeezed into the room past Willy and looked down at Si. “How’s the boy?”
“I hurt.”
“That’s a fine attitude,” Pat told him. “Here you are with a brand-new hole in you and you’re complaining about it.” He took one of Si’s sandwiches and began eating. “You’ve got the Purple Heart, man!”
“That’s a medal I could do without,” Si told him. “What’s the word, Pat? The last thing I remember the plane was strafing us.”
Pat sat down carefully on the edge of the bunk and told him what had happened.
At the end Si said, “If they spot us we’re finished.”
Pat nodded.
Si laughed and then winced. “And they told us this was just going to be a joy ride.”
At last the water of the bay sank low enough to expose the holes in the side of the Shark. The silence which had been so heavy in the boat was instantly broken. Machinists with heavy hammers attacked the ragged edges of the holes.
An electric grinder roared and screamed. Other machinists sawed and shaped steel plates for the welder.
On the bridge Carney gazed nervously at the silent green jungle and then out across the bay and on out toward the rolling Pacific. The ear-splitting din rose up in clouds from the deck.
“I bet you can hear this racket for fifty miles,” Carney said to Ken.
Ken, too, looked at the green, silent island. Only birds moved, some of them skipping along the beach, others sitting in the palm trees screaming warning signals into the jungle.
With the sun high in the sky there were no longer the shadows of the trees flowing out into the water. Ken put on his mask and fins and swam out into the bay looking for the plastic coconut.
The water was beautiful to swim in—clear and warm. He could see the canister when he was still yards away from it.
By the time he got back to the Shark the hammering and grinding had stopped, and the men were now rigging a framework out over the side. Using bed springs and rope, they covered the whole thing with mattresses, making a crude tent which would keep the flash of the welders arc from being seen from the sky.
Ken put his gear away and got dressed. In the cabin with Si he drank some coffee and talked.
‘It’s already eleven o’clock,” Si complained. “How long is it going to take those monkeys?”
“Doesn’t much matter,” Ken told him. “We can’t get off the ground until high tide lifts us off, and that’ll be after four.”
Si swore. “I’m getting out of this sack. If I’m going to get my ears knocked off I want to be on my feet.”
Ken laughed and, when Si tried to get up, pushed him back against the pillow. “Your leg is doing fine now. If you get up and walk around it’ll get worse, and that just means trouble for all hands.”
Si relaxed. “Six more hours. I’ll be an old man by then.”
Ken finished dressing. As he started out, Si said, “Listen, if anything happens give me the word, will you? I don’t like lying here and not knowing what’s going on.”
“Every hour on the hour,” Ken told him.
Back on the bridge he found Carney and Pat Malone studying the area chart.
“There’re Japs here,” Carney said, pointing to an island on the chart. “And here, too. There used to be a lot of shipping into this island before the war so there are probably docks of some sort.”
Pat measured off the distance with the dividers. “Eighty miles, Skipper.”
Carney played his finger tips on the bridge rail. Then he leaned over and called down, “How you coming, Chief?”
The chief looked up. “Only a few more minutes now, Skipper. You can start pumps now, if you want to.”
Carney nodded and turned to the voice tube.
Soon the tent of mattresses was taken in and the welders swung back on deck. Doherty came out of the forehatch and inspected the plates which had been welded over the holes. Then he walked aft to the bridge. “They look all right, Skipper. Want to try ’em?”
“Let’s don’t take a chance on sand, Frank. See if you can pump her empty into the other tanks.”
“Yes, sir.”
Soon Ken heard the sound of pumps starting inside the boat.
As they waited, Pat said, “If there’s no leak are you going to try to get her off the beach now, Skipper?”
“I’m going to try but I don’t think it’s going to work, Pat.”
In a moment Doherty’s head appeared in the hatch at their feet. He was grinning. “Tight as a drum, Skipper. I put as much overload on her as I could get out of the pumps but the needle stayed steady. I think she’s as strong as she ever was.”
Carney blew a breath of air up past his nose and smiled. “Good work. Tell Newman and Jones I’m proud of them. Best welders in the fleet. Now, Frank, what do you say we try to get off this beach?”
“I don’t think she’s going to come off before high tide, Skipper. If then.”
“Neither do I, but do you think it’s worth trying?”
Doherty thought for a moment. “We might do this. Pump everything out of one valve. Then maybe Ken could go down there and see that we haven’t jammed anything into the valve. I can see some good-sized sea shells down on the bottom and it wouldn’t take but one jammed in the valve seat to take care of us but good.”
“Is that feasible, Ken?” Carney asked.
“Easy. I can do it standing on my head. In fact, that’s the only way I can do it.”
Ken went below and got a rebreather since he was used to them and wasn’t yet sure about the new Aqua-Lung they had sent him.
By the time he got the absorption cylinder in and the oxygen bottle hooked up, Doherty had pumped all the water out of the boat.
On deck Carney showed him just about where he could find the valve and, carrying a towel, Ken went over the side.
He found the opening without any trouble at all, and found, also, only a thin coating of sand on the valve seat. He wiped this off with the towel and then hammered on the boat.
Keeping out of the way, he stayed down there as the valve slowly closed.
Back on deck Carney helped him out of the rebreather and said seriously, “I think every sub ought to have one of these outfits, Ken, and a man who knows how to use it. There’re a lot of times when a skipper would give his right arm to know what’s going on below the water fine. What does it take to learn how to use a lung like that?”
“Not much, Skipper. At first you panic. Everybody does. That’s why you always go down first with someone else. Then, when you get over panicking, there’s nothing to it—at medium depths anyway.”
“What happens when you go deep?” Carney asked, walking back toward the bridge.
“That’s something psychological that they don’t know much about yet. I’ve never felt it but they thought back at school that a few of the deaths were caused by it. The guys I’ve talked to who have felt it say that it’s a kind of happiness. You get so happy down there you forget what you’re doing and where you are. You forget to watch your air supply and everything else. They say it’s a wonderful feeling; like nothing else they ever felt. But it’s dangerous.”
“But that’s only down deep?” Carney asked.
“Below a hundred and fifty feet.”
“How deep can you go?”
“I don’t know, Skipper. One man at school went a long way. We don’t know how far he actually went because he never came up again. But he was alive and able to communicate all right when he reached four hundred feet.”
“Four hundred!” Carney said, whistling. “The pressure of the sea would flatten this boat at four hundred feet. At least, I’m not going to take her down that far to find out
what would happen. I’ve been in a boat at three hundred and she screamed in every joint.”
On the bridge Carney began giving orders to start engines and try to back off the beach.
As the diesels began to throb, Carney called, “All back full. Maximum power.”
The whole boat trembled and shook as the gushers of sandy water flowed around her stem and poured forward toward the shore. Pat Malone kept his eye on the beach.
The Shark didn’t move.
“All engines stop,” Carney ordered.
“There’s not enough water to float her,” Doherty decided. “Nothing to do but wait.”
Over the loud-speaker system a boatswain’s pipe shrilled and then the sad voice called, “Reee-lieve the watch.”
As men came out of the forward and after hatches to relieve the men on the guns and lookout stations, Carney turned toward the hatch. “I’m hungry,” he announced.
Pat Malone was folding up the chart. Frank Doherty was talking over the bridge rail to a man on deck. Two lookouts who had been relieved were climbing down the outboard ladder of the bridge. Ken was waiting for Carney to get clear of the hatch before he, too, went below. The whole crew of the forward gun suddenly started laughing.
The man watching the pale green face of the radar said, “Bogey, Captain.”
Carney’s reaction was instantaneous. He turned loose the ladder rung and dropped the rest of the way down into the conning tower.
“Bearing one eight seven, distance nineteen miles, coining in fast. A plane.”
“Any IFF?” Carney asked.
“Not yet, Captain.”
Carney turned to the talker. “Sound GQ. Heads up on the guns.”
As the gong began to beat, Carney went fast back up the ladder to the open bridge. He grabbed the binoculars and, without bothering to wrap the strap around his wrist, began peering at the southern sky. “Plane coining over,” he said to the lookouts. “About one eighty at fifteen miles.”
Then he said to the men on the machine guns, “If this is an enemy—and I think he is—knock him down. We don’t want any more holes in the boat.”
A gunner grinned and said, “Knock him down, aye, aye.”
“Bearing still one eight seven, distance twelve,” radar said.
Pat Malone had unfolded the chart again. “Puts him right over the island, sir.”
Carney nodded.
“Want to try to get her moving again, Skipper?” Doherty asked.
“We’ve got a good, steady platform for the guns now, Frank. Let’s keep it.”
“When do you want to start firing?” Pat asked.
Carney tapped his finger tips on the rail. “If he’s high and on his way, he might not see us. Let’s wait and see what he does.”
With the sun now straight up above him the sky looked deep blue and empty to Ken. The water of the perfectly calm bay, however, now had the look of old, tarnished brass.
There wasn’t a sound on deck. Below there was the murmur of the generators and blowers, and there was a faint squeak as the radar antenna turned, now slowly, just back and forth a few degrees.
“Bearing still one eight seven, distance eight, altitude twelve thousand.”
Then, faintly, they could hear the sound of the plane. It came drifting down to them from the deep blue sky and whispered around them as they stood, every man looking up.
The sound of the plane grew stronger and stronger and, at last, Carney said, “There he is,” and pointed.
It was only a dot, a speck, in the sky. It seemed to Ken to be motionless up there.
Now a hammering noise came down on them from the sky. Carney turned to the talker and said, “Tell radio to ride the Japanese military plane frequency.”
In a moment the talker said, “Radio says he’s been on it for five minutes. He doesn’t hear anything.”
Carney just nodded and went on studying the plane now passing high above them. It was still just a dot high in the empty blueness.
In a moment the talker said, “Radio reports that something has opened up. Seems to be calling ‘Inoshi? at least that’s the only word that sounds like it’s being repeated.”
“Inoshi?” Ken asked. “Isn’t that a Japanese destroyer class?”
“You’re right,” Carney said. “How about it, Pat?”
Pat, still measuring on the chart, said, “Yeah. And I think we can expect company about quarter past four, Skipper.”
Carney looked at the chart. “Eighty miles,” he said slowly, “twenty knots. It’s going to be company all right if the Inoshi is there.” He jabbed at the chart.
“Were going to get some right now,” Pat said. “He’s turning around.”
Radar said, “Bogey turning, Captain.”
Carney looked up into the sky. “Well,” he said quietly, “here we go again.”
Chapter 10
Again the soft hammering of the plane’s engines floated down from the sky.
Carney picked up the binoculars, found the plane and studied it for a few seconds.
The voice of the radarman began to drone. “Turning three zero. Turning six zero. Turning seven five. Turning nine zero. Turning one twenty. Turning one eighty. Steadying.”
Carney said, “Give me range and bearing when you can.”
Radar said, “Steady on course zero zero seven. Range twenty thousand. Altitude ten.”
“He’s down a little,” Carney said. Then he reached for the microphone.
His voice through the loud-speakers sounded friendly and close. “Now hear this in the gun crews. That plane is coming back. I want some real old-fashioned Kentucky squirrel shooting.”
The muzzles of the deck guns swung around to starboard while the loading crew got ready, men standing in line from the gun to the hatch to pass ammunition. Up on the flying bridge the long snouts of the machine guns were moving very slowly downward.
Radar said, “He’s coming straight in. Range fourteen. Altitude five.”
“That’s what I want,” a man on the 20-millimeter gun said. “I want him coming right straight at me. I want him right down low.”
Carney picked up the microphone again. “To the gun crew that gets him there’s going to be a steak dinner with all the trimmings at P. Y. Chong’s.”
The man on the 40 said, “I’m eating that steak.”
Radar said, “On course. Range ten. Altitude one thousand.”
Doherty said, “It’s going to be low level. Maybe a skip bombing. Or torpedo.”
Carney said into the microphone, “Fives, open on him at five thousand. Twenties and forties, hold your fire until he’s in to two thousand.”
The man on the 40 swore under his breath. “I won’t get a chance at him.”
Radar said, “On course. Range six. Altitude zero. He’s right down on the deck. I can hardly read him.”
Carney said in the microphone, “Stand by on the 5’s.”
Ken watched the plane coming straight at them. It was like a heavy black pencil fine in the sky, with the engines and fuselage black dots in the line.
A voice on the deck bawled, “Open fire!”
As the 5-inch cannon began to fire, Ken could feel the boat shaking under his feet. They fired rhythmically, gouts of smoke bursting from the muzzles and floating back to shroud the gun crews loading the shells. The report of the guns was an enormous CRACK-WHANG, which deafened Ken enough so that the sound of the empty brass cases falling and rolling on the deck was only a tinkling noise.
Radar said, “On course. Range three. Altitude zero.”
Ken looked out across the calm, peaceful, blue water at the plane sweeping toward him. A part of his mind said This is war. This is death. But it all seemed unreal to him. He could not make himself believe that there were men in that airplane who wanted to kill him. It seemed so impersonal, so harmless. The shells of the deck guns were invisible in their flight and they touched nothing.
The plane was right down on the water and coming very fast. When it was onl
y a mile away Ken could see the red Rising Sun painted on its wings and he could see the silver discs of the props and the glint of sunlight off the plexiglass dome. The glass across the pilot’s cockpit was dark—like an empty window.
Ken heard Carney’s voice. It sounded far away and, like the plane, unreal. “All right, gentlemen, let’s see if you can show the 5’s how to do it.”
The 20 opened instantly with a furious deep-toned rattle, the bullets cracking out of the muzzle.
Ken watched the tracers sliding away, bright little balls of fire sliding straight away from him and toward the plane. He knew that between each of the tracers there were invisible bullets, but he couldn’t believe it.
The wing guns on the plane began to fire. Ken watched the flickering at the muzzles—little bright flashes of light, regular little puffs of white smoke blown instantly away but left to hang behind the plane like footsteps.
But there wasn’t a trace of a bullet. Ken could see nothing, hear nothing.
He turned his head and looked at the other people on the bridge. Pat Malone and Doherty were looking fixedly at the plane. The loaders for the machine guns were moving, carrying shells to the rattling, jumping, smoking guns. The men on the triggers were hunched over, their bodies shaking as though they were part of the gun they were firing. They, too, were sighting through the rings at the plane rushing toward them.
Only Carney wasn’t looking at the plane. Ken watched him turn and look aft at the deck gun. Then he turned and looked forward at the other one. Finally he looked for a moment at the plane then at the 20-millimeter beside him. Carney’s face was still, his eyes deep and thoughtful, his lips pursed a little.
The noise around Ken was monstrous. Beside him the 20 rattled and roared, the 40 kept up a steady, huge POM POM POM while both the guns on deck CRACK-WHANGed. The air was thick with the smell of cordite and the smoke stung his eyes.
Radar said, “Range five hundred.”
Ken looked down at the brass falling around his feet. The empties were flying out of the gun, bright and cheerful in the sunlight, then falling and bouncing on the deck, at last to lie still, little tendrils of smoke coming out of the pitch-black holes in them.