by Robb White
A Japanese destroyer is bearing down straight at us dead ahead. There isn’t enough water to go under him. There isn’t enough room to get around him. He intends to ram, I think. We just have time for one salvo but, coming straight at us this way makes him a very small and hard-to-hit target. If we miss him he will ram. All hands stand by to abandon ship through the escape hatches. Break out all Momsen lungs. And remember, if you’re taken prisoner tell them nothing except your name, your rate, and your serial number. That’s all. Good luck.”
From conn Ken could hear the soundman chanting, “Two thousand five. Two thousand four. Two thousand three.”
The chief said, “That boy’s barreling in here.”
The seaman cried, “Why don’t we shoot? What’s the matter?”
The chief looked over at him. “Son, when we shoot it’s going to be so close that that can won’t be able to turn an inch to dodge ’em. That’s when we’re going to shoot if Mr. Carney does things the way I think he will.”
The bearing reader: “Zero on the bow. Zero. Zero.”
Carney sounded perfectly calm. “Get her absolutely steady on the helm.”
“Helm steady, sir.”
The telephone talker went past Ken, trailing his phone line, and stood beside the chief. “The Skipper wants to know if you’re all set, Chief?”
“Tell him we’re set.”
“The Skipper says this is going to be a kill-or-miss shot, Chief.”
“Tell him I know that,” the chief said.
“The Skipper says good luck, Chief.”
“Tell him that if we come out of this one I’ll buy him a steak dinner at P. Y. Chong’s.”
“He says it’s a deal, Chief.”
The soundman: “One thousand five. One thousand four. One thousand three.”
Kens hands were sweating.
A first class petty officer said, “If we hit with a shot like this they’ll never believe it in Pearl.”
“We’ll never see Pearl again,” the seaman said. “We’ll never get out of this bay again.”
Then Willy came in. He had a small metal tray with a pile of sandwiches covered with a clean, damp, white cloth. “You hungry, Mr. Braden?”
“Not right now, Willy. Thanks.”
Willy looked disappointed. “You hungry, Chief?”
“No, Willy. Thanks.”
“Well,” Willy said, sitting down on a bunk, “no use wasting all these good sandwiches.” He began to eat as he, too, stared at the red fights on the torpedo tubes. “Book says you can’t do this,” Willy declared.
“Do what?” Ken asked.
“Book says never shoot at anybody’s bow. Book says you bound to miss and then, since he’s coming your way anyway, he’s going to swarm all over you. That’s what the book says.”
The chief picked up one of the sandwiches, then put it down again. “It’s a good thing our Skipper never read the book.”
The soundman: “One thousand. Nine hundred five. Nine hundred.”
The chief turned back to face the tubes.
Doherty, in conn, said, “Set. Set. Set.”
“If any of you guys want to pray,” the chief said, “do it now.”
None of the men moved but it seemed to Ken that on each mans face there was a change, a deepening of expression. “FIRE!”
The deck of the boat slid under Kens feet.
“FIRE!”
It slid again.
The telephone talker said, “Number one fired electrically. Number two fired electrically.”
“FIRE!”
“Number three fired electrically.”
“FIRE!”
There were strange sounds in the tubes—as though some monstrous animal were gulping in water. First there was the backward pouring of water into the tubes and then the hiss of air as the boat drank the air in rather than have it bubble out the end of the tube.
“Go, little gals,” the chief said. “Go, little gals.” Then he turned to Ken. “Now we wait.”
“What’s the run time, Chief?” a man asked.
“I’d give number one ten on the outside. Eight for two.” Down through the water and through the double steel hulls of the boat and into the room with them came the thum thum thum of the Jap destroyers propellers. Thum thum thum.
The soundman: “All torpedoes running hot and straight.” Someone in the conning tower was counting seconds. Carney ordered, “Stand by five and six.”
The chief said, “Tell him were ready.”
The time counter droned on: “… three seconds … two seconds … one second … zero. Number one should be there, Skipper.”
Thum thum thum Carney: “Down periscope.”
Thum thum thum
Soundman: “Number one still running hot and true, but fading.”
“We missed,” the chief said.
Thum thum thum
“… two seconds … one second … zero.”
THUM THUM THUM
Soundman: “Number two fading, sir.”
THUM THUM THUM
Soundman: “Four hundred… .”
“We missed,” the chief said.
THUM THUM THUM WHANG
There was sudden thunder and lightning in the boat. The deck disappeared under Ken’s feet and he felt himself floating.
Carney’s voice sounded far away—in another world—as he said, “Hard left rudder. All ahead full.”
WHANG
As Ken fell against a bunk the ship heaved again and he was thrown all the way across the room.
Carney: “Come around to two seven zero. Sound, what do you hear?”
Soundman: “He’s too close to make it out, sir. But his screws have stopped.”
“Is he on top of us?”
“No, sir. Just abeam now. About a hundred feet away.”
“Up periscope.”
Ken picked himself up off the deck as the whine of the periscope motors sounded through the boat.
Now, outside, he could hear strange sounds. Metal was straining and breaking, there were hissings and bubblings and grindings, and there were many little explosions and tinkling sounds.
Carney said, “He’s going … going… . He’s down with all hands. Down periscope. Sound, keep the depth coming.”
Soundman: “Seventy five … eighty … ninety … one hundred…
Carney: “Take her down to sixty feet. Frank, are those patches on number two still holding?”
“Tight as a drum, Skipper.”
“Depth sixty feet.”
In the torpedo room men began to move and talk again. Color began to come back into their faces.
The talker said, “The Skipper says nice shooting, Chief.”
The chief only nodded.
“The Skipper says you owe him a steak dinner at P. Y. Chong’s, Chief.”
The chief looked for a long time at the slick steel floor. Then he raised his head. “Tell the Skipper that’s one I don’t mind losing. No, not at all, I don’t.”
The first class petty officer said, almost whispering, “He rammed it right down his throat. Right down his throat. They won’t believe it when I tell ‘em in Pearl. It can’t be done.”
The seaman, his face a blank, said, “We hit him. We hit him, didn’t we?”
The chief turned and looked at him. “Sure we hit him. What’d you expect, son? We got a Skipper on this boat.”
Willy said, “Look like somebody ought to want a sandwich. I go to all that trouble making ‘em and nobody’ll eat ‘em.”
The chief took a sandwich and bit into it. “What you got in here, Willy? Battery plates?”
“Couldn’t get any battery plates, Chief. Sparks said he couldn’t spare me any.”
Ken, too, took a sandwich. Then he noticed the air cylinder he had put down on one of the bunks.
Suddenly it seemed to him that a thousand years had passed since he had come into the torpedo room to see the chief about refilling the air cylinder.
A thousand years.
/> III - MIDNIGHT
Chapter 1
All day long the Shark had been moving, submerged, toward the atoll. Now the air in the boat was flat and stale and contained a thousand odors. It smelled and tasted of diesel fuel and hot oil; there was the peculiar odor of ozone from the brushes on the motor commutators; there was the smell of rubber, linoleum, old and fresh sweat; the faintly acrid odor from the heads; of cooking. When you breathed it felt as if you had not drawn in enough air; that it didn’t do you much good.
It was hot in the boat, too. An oppressive, still heat which fans and blowers seemed only to move from one place to another. This moving heat struck you and flowed around you and didn’t cool you.
As the long day wore on, men looked more and more at the clocks on the bulkheads, or their watches, waiting for nightfall. Then the boat would go back to the surface. The hatches would be opened and the powerful blowers would drive the cool, sweet, fresh, ocean air down into the boat, forcing it into each compartment and space and forcing out this stuff which left a taste on your tongue with every breath you took.
Ken finished his day’s study of the Japanese language and, taking his books and papers, went across to the cabin he shared with Si Mount and Pat Malone.
Si, his wounded leg propped up on pillows, looked tired and drawn when Ken came in. “How long before we get some decent air?”
“Couple of hours.”
“You can cut this stuff with a knife.”
Ken nodded as he put away his books. “Want that bandage changed?”
Si looked up at him. “I sure do.”
Ken cut the old bandage off and looked at the wound in Si’s leg. It had healed nicely, leaving only two purplish-red areas where the bullet had gone in and come out. As he put on fresh bandages, Si said, “I’m going to get up.”
“It’ll be all right if you take it easy.”
“I’d love to get over to the wardroom. Just to sit around a little while.”
“Long enough to get the sheets changed on this sack, anyway,” Ken told him. “The place smells like a fox den.”
“I’ve been thinking about Phil Carney,” Si said as Ken kept on wrapping the bandages. “That must have been hard-watching the destroyer coming down on us. It’s bad enough to make an attack on a destroyer when he doesn’t know where you are. A can is hard to hit even with a perfect shot on his beam, and if you miss him it’s just—Katie bar the door. But to do it the way Phil did … He knew that if he missed we were gone. But it was the only chance he had and he took it. I wonder what Stevenson would have done?”
“I don’t know,” Ken admitted. “Maybe the same thing.”
“He might have,” Si agreed. “But I wonder if he would have been steady enough for it. The way Phil did it was a beautiful piece of timing. He had to give the fish enough distance to arm themselves and settle down after being fired. But, at the same time, he didn’t give the can enough distance to escape them after they were sighted. They must have seen ’em coming, but the way Phil set it up there was nowhere the can could go without getting one. Nice.”
Ken got some clean clothes for Si and helped him put them on.
“By the way,” Si said, “has Phil said anything about how he’s going to get you ashore on the islands?”
“Not a word.”
“Has he got the op plan you made for Stevenson?”
He nodded.
Si frowned. “That’s funny. If he’s not going to do it the way Stevenson planned it, looks like he’d have said something to you about it, doesn’t it?”
“He may not have had time.”
“He’s had plenty of time.”
“Maybe tonight. Nobody can think in air this foul.”
“Has he moved into the Skipper’s cabin?”
Ken nodded. “Willy moved him this morning. You all set?” He helped Si get to his feet. “How does it feel?”
“Weak and wobbly, but it doesn’t hurt much.” Si looked at himself in the mirror. “Oh, horrid I” he said, rubbing the tangled beard he had grown. “I look worse than Malone. I never knew a skeleton could grow a beard.”
By holding on to the doorjamb, Si pulled himself out into the corridor. Then, leaning on Ken, he walked over to the wardroom and sat down, stretching his leg out as far as he could.
Willy stuck his head through the little opening from the service pantry. “Hi, Mr. Si,” he said. “You navigating again?”
“Just dead reckoning, Willy.”
“You want some java and a sandwich?”
“Just some java, Willy.”
“You ought to eat something,” Willy told him. “You look thin as a pin. How about a bacon and egg sandwich? I got some good eggs—not more’n a month old. You hold your nose and don’t look and they go down real easy.”
“OK, Willy.”
“I’ll toast that sandwich and spread some of this air on it so you won’t notice the egg so much.”
When Willy went out Ken asked, “Does he ever sleep?”
Si laughed. “Pat says he caught him asleep one time sitting on a stool, but he’s the only one.”
Before Willy got back Carney said over the loud-speaker, “Prepare to surface.”
“Good,” Si said. “I always get a headache at the end of a day’s run under the water.”
“Surface!” The Klaxon sounded harshly and Ken felt the angle of the deck change. Soon they could hear the superstructure breaking the surface of the water, the sea piling down the sides of the bridge, then pouring off the decks.
The main induction opened with a crash, and at the order to start engines, the diesels began to throb.
“Don’t see how,” Si said, “but they seem to get this boat up and down without my advice.”
The first blast of fresh air felt almost cold as it came rushing down into the wardroom. Si leaned back and breathed deeply. “This is a time in the submarines I always like,” he said. “That first breath of real air when you come up at night. You look forward to it all day long.”
Now the boat was rolling a little and pitching in the sea as it moved through the surface waves. Under water there was no movement except straight ahead—not even a feeling of movement—although you could hear the electric motors running and the swish of the propellers.
Willy came back with sandwiches and coffee. “Dog if they didn’t blow all that air out of the boat before I could spread you some.”
As Si started to eat, Carney poked his head into the wardroom. “How you feeling, Si?”
“Better, sir. You can put me back on the watch list.”
“No hurry. Kens turned into a good communicator ”
“That was a nice shot, Skipper,” Si said.
Carney seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “Pat and Frank set that one up.”
“Who was on the periscope with you?” Si asked.
“Pat was my dancing partner. Frank had the target data computer. We missed you on the firing setup.”
“It was nice,” Si said again.
“Nice setup. He turned hard to starboard to miss the first one and the second one missed too, but that third one got him right where he lived. Ken, if you’re not too busy, how about getting off that dispatch to Pearl. Have you still got it?”
“Yes, sir. The one about Commander Stevenson?”
“That’s it. Let me know what COMSUBPAC says, will you? I’ll be in my cabin—I mean, the Skipper’s cabin. Take it easy, Si. We’ve got a couple of days to go and you might as well sack out until we get to the atoll.”
Si nodded as Carney went out.
“You want me to help you back before I go?” Ken asked. “Let me stay here. Somebody might come in and want to play a little acey-deucy.”
“You feel all right?”
“Fine. It’s a relief to be out of that bed.”
Ken got the dispatch and went down to the radio shack. The first class, Shelton, had the watch.
Ken encoded the dispatch about Stevenson’s death and handed i
t to Shelton, who sent it and then sat back in his chair. “It’s after midnight in Pearl so they’ll have to wake somebody up to get any action on that. Probably be an hour or so.
“I’ll wait,” Ken said, sitting down on the wastebasket.
Shelton put on one earphone and lit a cigarette. “Java?”
“Just had some. You want some?”
“No, thanks. Just finished chow.” Shelton glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. “FOX’ll be coming in in a minute or two.”
Ken vaguely remembered that FOX was a channel on which messages to the entire Navy were sent.
“Here she comes,” Shelton said, putting on the other phone.
He listened intently for some minutes and then said, “Nothing for us.”
Ken could hear the code snapping in the earphones. It sounded incredibly fast and he wondered how anyone could read it.
“Whoa, whoa,” Shelton said, grabbing a pencil and beginning to write. “Sounds like a promotion ALNAV.”
Ken wasn’t sure, but he thought an ALNAV was a message for all the Navy.
Shelton stopped writing and went on listening.
Ken watched the clock hand slide past eleven-thirty as he waited.
The FOX broadcast ended and Shelton shoved back one of the earphones. Then he rummaged through the desk drawers until he found the ship’s roster. “What do you know,” he said, running his finger down the signal numbers. “That ALNAV caught Mr. Malone. See? All ensigns between 150, 000 and 160,000 get promoted and he’s 155,165. That’s good. He deserves it.” Shelton handed him the piece of paper. “Will you give it to him?”
As Ken nodded, Shelton shoved the other phone back on. “Pearl’s calling us.” He began to write, and in a few moments, handed Ken the piece of paper with the groups of letters on it.
He put the strips in the coding board and went to work.
By the time he finished it was midnight and the Boatswain’s Mate was calling to relieve the watch.
He thanked Shelton and went back to the Skipper’s cabin.
Carney was studying some papers when he came into the tiny cabin. “Sit down, Ken,” Carney said, waving toward the bed. He put the papers away as Ken handed him the dispatch, which read:
LIEUTENANT CARNEY ASSUME TEMPORARY COMMAND OF SHARK STOP LIEUTENANT DOHERTY APPOINTED TEMPORARY EXECUTIVE OFFICER STOP PROCEED ON MISSION STOP COMSUBPAC SENDS.