by Robb White
The deck of the boat stayed at a steep angle as it dove for the depths, the gauge unreeling.
While they were waiting, everyone watching the depth gauge, the talker said, “Radio reports that just before we went under he got a message for us from COMSUBPAC, sir.” “Ask him if were the action addressee, and what’s the priority?” Carney asked.
The talker reported in a moment, “Radio says no action required by us and priority only routine.”
Carney nodded. “We’ll decode it later. Level off at three hundred.”
Then he turned to Doherty. “Don’t you think, Frank, that if we stay in close to the carrier we’ve got a better chance of not being picked up? There’s going to be so much noise coming from the cripples we’ll be hard to hear and the cans will expect us to make a high-speed run away from here.”
“I think it’s our only chance, Skipper.”
“Three hundred feet, sir.”
Carney nodded. “Run at silent speed. Stop blowers. Stop ventilators. Turn on emergency lights and stop generators. Patrol quiet.”
One by one the many sounds in the boat ceased. The whine of the engines dropped to a growl and stopped. The rush of blowers and fans died away. The busy little sound of the electric generator stopped. Men with nothing to do got into their bunks. Men who had to walk anywhere took off their shoes and either went barefoot or put on sneakers. Tools and other metal things were handled with extreme care so that they would not be dropped or otherwise make a noise.
It was very quiet except for the sounds from the surface coming through the loud-speaker and a gentle swishing noise as, running silently, the propellers barely kept the boat moving.
The talker said, his voice low as though he was afraid it would carry up through the three hundred feet of dark water, “Forward torpedo room requests permission to reload.”
“Not granted,” Carney said. “It’d make too much noise.”
“Not granted, Chief,” the talker said, almost whispering. “Make too much noise.”
A voice from control said, “We’re going down slowly, Captain. Want to let in some air?”
“Not yet. Wait. But not deeper than three hundred and fifty.”
Just as the soundman started to say something Ken heard from the loud-speaker a faint sound. Far, far away, it sounded like a single tiny tinkle—a ping.
“Sonar sound, single, approaching,” the soundman said. “Low-range sound. He’s slowing down.”
The sound from the loud-speaker grew steadily louder. It was an irritating, annoying, constant thing.
Peep … peep … peeep … peeEEEP … peEEEEP … Then fading away.
Carney unconsciously looked upward. “He went right over us.”
Doherty said hopefully, “But he didn’t change his rate.”
“Coming back,” the soundman said.
Peep … peeep … peeeeep … PEEEP PEEEP PEEEP PEEEP PEEEP… .
“High frequency,” the soundman said as the peeping seemed to search all through the boat.
Carney said quietly, “We’re tagged.”
“It was bound to come, Skipper. Those eight Japanese destroyers aren’t going to let us knock off a carrier and a cruiser without getting sore about it.”
Malone suddenly laughed, short and quietly. “Oh well,” he said, “we deserve a going over. There they were, bucketing along to beat up our Marines on Tarawa and we stop ’em in their tracks. We deserve a few ash cans.”
Carney looked at him and grinned.
The peeping came back, faded.
Ken watched the red second hand on the bulkhead clock moving along with a steady, irritating nervousness. When it reached twelve the minute hand jumped forward.
It was now ten minutes past one o’clock in the morning.
Suddenly, with no warning, no preparation, there was a loud, hard, metallic CLICK.
Ken looked at the others in the conning tower. Every face changed, grew suddenly older, more serious.
He couldn’t help saying it, although his lips were stiff. “What’s that?”
Pat Malone just looked at him with somber eyes.
Then it came.
WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM.
Chapter 8
For Ken the next long hours were terrible. He thought, many times, as they dragged on, that if he could survive them nothing in life could again be as horrible as those hours in the cold, dark depths of the Pacific.
The Shark was heavy. As each torpedo had been fired the water which had replaced it in the tube had been drained out into the forward torpedo room bilges. At three hundred and fifty feet down the pressure of the sea against the hull of the boat was now around three hundred million pounds. The stern tube packings, the sea valves, and other openings in the hull could not stand the torture of this enormous pressure, so that, in many places, the sea was entering the boat-sneaking in like the enemy it was—and adding pound after pound. Like a thief, it was stealing the boat’s buoyancy.
“Were about four tons heavy, Captain,” Doherty said, whispering.
Carney nodded and tapped the inclinometer. There was a fifteen-degree up-angle on the boat, slanting the deck so that it was hard to keep on your feet.
“Don’t you think we’d better pump now, sir?” Doherty asked, his voice low and anxious.
Carney shook his head. “Make too much noise.”
The talker said, “Engine room reports bilges full and running over around the reduction gears, sir.”
Carney reached for the phone. “Bill? Get a bucket brigade going. Dump the water into the after torpedo room bilges. No noise.”
The soundman, who had cut off the loud-speaker at the first click, now turned it on again.
The conning tower pulsed with the thrum thrum thrum of the Japanese destroyers’ propellers.
The soundman said, “Sounds like they’re in a circle, with us in the middle, sir.”
With the thrumming came an almost steady peeping from the echo-ranging gear.
“Hard right rudder,” Carney ordered.
The boat swung slowly, as though moving in tar.
Then one set of thrumming screws came closer, louder. The peeping rose in intensity until the soundman reached up and turned off the loud-speaker.
Then it was silent.
The soundman said, “He’s right on top of us now, sir.”
Carney nodded. “You’d better take those phones off, Swift, or you’ll get a busted eardrum.”
The soundman took the phones off and laid them on the narrow shelf in front of him.
“Rudder amidships.”
“Rudder amidships, sir.”
The Shark turned sluggishly again.
It did no good. As the first depth charge exploded it sent a concussive wave outward. This wave struck the Shark with a loud CLICK.
WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM … on and on and on and on.
Ken had been looking at a pipe painted green which ran along the overhead of the conning tower. When the explosions struck the boat the pipe vibrated so wildly that it could not now be seen at all.
Men were knocked down all through the ship. The air became gray with dust and paint and cork. Things were torn from racks. Deck plates and gratings—heavy metal slabs— rose and danced, the noise of their clanging unheard, overwhelmed by the tremendous sound of the explosions. Tools and spare parts flew around, deadly missiles in the gray air.
At each WHAM the very sides of the boat contracted, moving inward, then bouncing outward again.
The lights went out, leaving only dim light from the battery lamps. Light bulbs all through the ship shattered, sprinkling thin, hot glass everywhere.
Slowly the sound subsided, the air fell back to the deck and became clearer. Men groped their way up to their feet and stood, wondering if they were still really alive; wondering if the Shark was still a complete hull in the cold and pitch-black depths of the sea.
Carney, in falling, had cut his head and now blood was running down thro
ugh the sweat on his face. The young sailor got a rag and helped Carney tie it around his head.
The soundman picked up the earphones and listened again. “They’ve got us boxed in, Captain.”
Blood had soaked through the rag but was no longer running down Carney’s face. “When the next one breaks off to make his run, let’s try to sneak out through the hole he left in the circle.”
Doherty nodded.
Ken looked down at himself. He had on a khaki shirt, khaki trousers cut off above the knees, and sneakers. He was completely soaked with sweat.
So was everyone else. If a man walked sweat oozed out of his sneakers and ran over them to the soaking deck.
Pat Malone came over to stand beside Ken. “Very smart cookies—up there.” He jerked his thumb up.
Sweat was dripping steadily from the point of his black beard.
“How much of that can we stand?” Ken asked.
“They’re getting close.”
The soundman said, “One is breaking off, Captain.”
“Give me a course I”
“Two seven oh.”
“Steer two seven oh! All ahead flank!”
The boat swung faster this time, with full power on the propellers. Carney put on the other phones and listened, his face intent, his eyes without expression.
Suddenly he turned and snapped, “Sfop engines/”
He took the phones off. “Didn’t work,” he said calmly. “They filled up the gap with two other cans. Must have figured we’d try a sneak-out like that. They were waiting to nail us.”
“He’s overhead,” the soundman said.
It was six o’clock in the morning.
This, Ken thought, is the most horrible part of it all. This standing here, leaning forward against the up-angle of the deck; this waiting. Up there, the destroyer, moving in the clean air and brilliant colors of dawn, moving in the realm of the earth man was designed to occupy, was now dropping the barrels into the sea. Ken could imagine them sinking, maybe spinning end for end as they came down, maybe just rolling smoothly. But coming down—down out of the bright surface of the sea, down through the green light, down into the blue, then the deep blue, the dark purple, and into the black. Coming down with, inside them, the firing mechanism preparing itself, the pressure plate coming closer and closer to the trigger.
And there was nothing a man in a submarine could do except pray. Nothing but wait and pray as the barrels sank toward him. Wait, and hope that they wouldn’t be so close as to crush in the black hull, and crush out his life.
This time forty-eight depth charges racked the Shark. Her hull rang as though pounded by sledge hammers; it whipped as though flexible, and twisted as though in mortal agony.
The young sailor who had given Carney the rag vomited on the deck, and as the spasms racked him, he looked up with streaming eyes at Carney, as though asking his pardon for doing such a thing; and asking Carney not to think him a coward simply because his guts were filled with fear.
As the giant pounding ground to a stop and the needles of the dials ended the wild, quivering dance, everyone looked at some indicator, some mechanical thing which would tell him that the Shark was still alive. Carney looked at the depth gauge. The Chief of the Boat looked at the Christmas tree. Men at valves and packings looked to see if wild water was flowing in.
The Shark had, somehow, survived again.
Carney helped the sailor to his feet and poured some salt tablets into his hand.
The talker said, “Divisions report only minor damage. After auxiliary panel went out. They’re looking for the trouble, sir.”
Carney turned to Ken. “Would you mind going aft and see what’s going on, Ken?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He pulled himself up the steep slope to the ladder and went down it.
At the foot of the ladder he stopped in his tracks.
The Shark was almost unrecognizable. Slabs of insulating cork had been ripped from the overhead and lay everywhere. Paint had been peeled off. Everything usually stowed in orderly rows and racks and brackets lay all over the deck in a tangle of tools and gear.
On the deck itself was an inch-deep slime of oil and sweat and vomit and water, a filthy, greasy, nasty-smelling gunk through which he had to wade.
At the great bronze wheels of the bow and stern planes, sailors, almost naked and dripping sweat, strained to keep the planes pressing against the sea. A man could stay on the wheels for only a few minutes at a time, so a fine of sailors stood, dripping, waiting to relieve.
As Ken sloshed his way aft he noticed that the auxiliary-man and the trim-manifold man had their tools lying on the deck instead of in racks.
It was quiet down there, almost silent. The men, if they talked at all, spoke in whispers.
They were now strangers to him. Their faces were drawn and their eyes vacant. Many looked on the point of collapse as they shuffled dismally in the dim light.
Aft he found that when the distribution board circuit breaker had blown—shooting sparks all over the place—the electrician had yanked open the depth-charge lock-in switch, turning off everything aft. The only light now came from a few battery-powered lanterns.
In the gloom he could see a line of men leading from the engine room to the after torpedo room. In the silence, and silently, they were passing buckets of water from the engine room bilges to the torpedo room, and passing the empty buckets back.
Further aft he found a working party with a hand lamp fumbling around in the slime on deck. The chief, covered with the mess, finally straightened up, holding a piece of wire in his hands. Somehow the insulation had been torn off it and the bare wire had fallen into the gunk.
At the panel they cut out that entire circuit, and soon the fights came on again.
Back in the conning tower he reported to Carney and then took up his station aft, out of the way.
The attack upon them went on, methodically, hour after hour. At irregular intervals a destroyer would break out of the circle which kept them trapped. It would pass directly overhead, as though it knew exactly where they were, and then the depth-charges would pour down upon them.
By the end of the day men were beginning to fall and not get up. Their mates would let them fie there, only seeing to it that their noses and mouths were clear of the deepening slime on the decks. Now, on the plane wheels, no man could endure for more than four or five minutes but had to be relieved before he fell, exhausted.
By midnight the air in the boat was so foul that each fight seemed to be shining in a grayish fog. Breathing was hard, each man gasping rapidly. Faces were becoming faintly blue. No one smoked for there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air to sustain a flame.
“Test atmosphere,” Carney said when the Shark had been below the surface for twenty-four hours.
In a moment the talker, listless against the bulkhead, suddenly straightened, his eyes scared as he reported, “Carbon dioxide two and a half per cent, Captain.”
Pat Malone, standing beside Ken, groaned and whispered, “At three per cent we pass out. At four—we’ve ’ad it.”
Carney ordered, “Open all oxygen bottles and spread all CO2 absorbent.”
And the long night went on, shattered hour after hour by the hail of depth charges.
Nothing the Shark did—no twist, no turn, stopping, starting— nothing she did let her escape from the trap of the circling destroyers.
And hour by hour the air in the boat grew fouler and less able to sustain life. Men could now no longer stand up but lay on the deck, where the heavier oxygen settled, gasping and, when the depth charges roared around the boat, almost drowning in the horrid slime flowing back and forth over them.
“Atmosphere tests two point eight,” the talker said, trying to keep the phone out of the gunk.
Carney slowly got up to his knees. He could barely speak, his voice hoarse and halting. “Were done for. They’ve got us and they know it. They won’t leave us alone until either they can no longer hear us
or we surrender. We have two choices— go up and surrender, or go below the cold zone. This boat wasn’t designed to go that deep and the chance of coming up again isn’t good. Let’s think it over awhile.”
But then a barrage of depth charges assailed them, crushing in the sides of the boat, ruining the lights.
When it was at last over, Ken whispered to Pat, “What’s the cold zone?”
“It’s a layer of cold water so dense that the sonar beam can’t get through it.”
“How far down is it?”
Pat turned his head slowly. Above the jet-black beard his face was now blue, his eyes bloodshot and dead-looking. “Very,” he said.
Carney pulled himself to his feet and clung to the periscope tube. “What shall it be?” he asked, breathing deep between each word. “Who wants to surrender?”
The sick young sailor held up his hand. But then he looked slowly around at the others and slowly brought his hand down again. Then he began to cry.
Carney smiled at him. “You answered the wrong question, son,” he said. “Who’s for the cold zone?”
Hands went up slowly, just raised and lowered.
“Ken?” Carney asked.
Ken had not thought that he was involved in this. He stared stupidly at Carney.
Carney smiled, his blue lips terrible-looking. “It’s your life, too.”
Ken raised his hand and let it fall.
“All right,” Carney said, turning on the mike. “Were going to try to get below the cold zone,” he told the boat. “All hands go to your divisions. Close and dog all compartment doors. Rig for very deep running. Each compartment report any serious leaking. Good luck.”
The tilted deck, for the first time in hours, came down to level. Then, slowly, it dropped, tilting slightly downward.
The hand of the depth gauge began to move: 370 … 380 … 390 … 400 …
The soundman tried but could not get up into his chair. Carney, barely able to walk, got over there and turned on the loud-speaker so that they could all hear the steady thrum
and peep of the destroyers, endlessly circling, endlessly tracking them.