The Commodore

by P. T. Deutermann

  The night seemed to get even darker as the heavy, humid air pressed in on all the topside watch standers. Steel helmets, a lumpy hot kapok life jacket wrapped around everyone’s torso, shirts buttoned up to the neck, trouser cuffs stuffed into their socks, the officers wearing gun belts with a heavy .45, extra clips of ammo, a medical kit with the morphine syringes, a flashlight, and a big knife. Sluff thought about increasing speed just to generate a breeze, but then the torpedoes began to launch into the black waters around them. A whoosh, a big splash, and then silence. Five fish went off the ship in quick succession, burrowing down into the sea and then rising to the preset depth, then screaming away at the onrushing Japanese ships at nearly thirty miles an hour. The Mark XV fish could go forty-five knots, but at the slower speed its range increased to almost seven miles. Sluff wanted the torpedoes to hit them way out there to give his little band time to then shoot them up with five-inch. Five away, five left.

  The Japs were coming straight at them at thirty-five knots. Combined with the speed of twenty-six knots for his own torpedoes, Sluff calculated a closing speed of almost seventy miles an hour. “Time on target?” Sluff asked Combat.

  “Eighty seconds,” the exec answered.

  “Officer of the deck, inform the snipes to stand by for thirty knots.”

  His plan was to stay at fifteen knots so that the gun computers would have a stable speed input for the initial minute of firing. Then they were going to kick her in the ass and run like hell northwest to get on the enemy’s starboard bow before the next round of gunfire.

  “Main Control says they’re ready-teddy,” the OOD announced. Sluff grinned. Apparently his chief engineer was sensitive about having to be told to be ready for a sudden high-speed dash. And yet he knew that, down in four main holes, two boiler rooms and two engine rooms, the snipes would be dumping their coffee cups into the bilge and getting up close to their giant steam machines, making sure that all the critical temperatures and pressures were in range, the steam leaks reduced to a bare minimum, and the boilers ready for a huge temperature transient.

  “Twenty seconds,” Combat called. Everyone on the bridge held his breath. Sluff was tempted to go out on the bridge wing to see what happened, but in a few seconds he’d be ordering the whole formation to open fire, and then the noise of the guns would overwhelm conscious thought if he went outside.

  “Mark intercept,” Combat called. “They didn’t change course, so—”

  At that moment flares of red and white explosions lit up the horizon to the north. Sluff picked up the TBS handset and ordered the other two ships to open fire with guns. Then he looked at his watch, as the two five-inch on the bow opened up with a satisfying pair of ear-squeezing blams. He could feel the other three guns aft doing the same as the ship performed its full-salvo wiggle from bow to stern. Then another salvo. Then a third. When the fourth salvo let go he ordered the division to increase speed to thirty knots.

  J. B. King palpably jumped when the snipes opened the throttles and hit the turbines with a bolus of steam for fifty thousand horsepower. The forced-draft blowers screamed as they spooled up to feed the boiler furnaces with enough air to atomize the sudden gouts of fuel oil going into the fireboxes. King was the lead ship, so if the other two didn’t get the message, there was no danger of King driving over the top of a destroyer still loafing along at fifteen knots. They’d better be paying attention, he thought. If we don’t all move out now, the Japs will soon be sending us a lethal message.

  As the ship accelerated, a welcome breeze blew through the pilothouse, which happily pushed the gunsmoke out of everyone’s eyes and noses. The guns stopped firing on command from CIC. He went out to the bridge wing to see if the other two had also stopped shooting. He saw one last full salvo come off the third ship in line, but then they, too, went dark. He went back to the bitch-box.

  “Combat, Captain, turn in two minutes or whatever it takes to keep the range at about eight thousand yards. Once all three ships have steadied up, open fire again for one minute. You give the commence-firing order and keep passing our range and bearing data to the other two ships.”

  “Combat, aye,” the exec said. Sluff trained his glasses out on the dull glow of several fires four to five miles away. It would take Combat a few minutes to sort out how many ships had been hit or at least stopped, and if there were still any of them pressing on toward Guadalcanal. If nothing else, he thought, we sure as hell achieved surprise.

  He got back up into his chair and waited. It was so dark that his eyes were having trouble readjusting after the flashes of the forward gun mounts. He swiveled the chair around to the right, where he could still see the dull glow of fires on what looked like the horizon. Suddenly there was a massive explosion, bright enough to reveal three Jap destroyers in silhouette. They appeared to be milling about in the vicinity of the torpedo intercept point. The TBS transmissions were just about constant now, as the exec’s team in CIC fed the other two ships range and bearing data. Then he heard the words he’d been waiting for, the order to turn the column to the north. The ship heeled smartly at thirty knots, tilting enough to make the bridge team grab something to stay upright. The relative wind changed suddenly and a blast of air ruffled all the charts on the chart table behind him, sending the quartermaster scrambling after them. Ninety seconds later, the command went out: Commence firing.

  Sluff remained in his chair as the two forward guns spat fire and steel into the night. On the third salvo, he heard something else: incoming. The Japs, fully alerted now, had opened fire on their tormentors. They were off in range, judging by the shell splashes and explosions in the water around King, but they were right on in bearing. That meant they had guessed correctly that the American column was running fast. If they think they know our course and speed, Sluff thought, they’ll get a torpedo solution. Four large waterspouts rose close enough to the ship that everyone could hear metal splinters humming through the night air. Then the guns fell silent.

  “Combat, Bridge, immediate execute over TBS: Speed fifteen.”

  “Combat, aye, speed fifteen.”

  The Americans might have stopped shooting, but the Japs were now in full cry. He could no longer see the ships themselves, but their gun flashes were rapid, disciplined, whole-ship salvos. Damn, he thought, admiringly: they’re good. They’re really good. But as his column slowed down to half the previous speed, the incoming shells began to walk ahead, still all over the place in range, but definitely still being computed as if the Americans were still blasting through the night at thirty-something knots, just as the Japanese would have been. Sluff hoped they wouldn’t fire star shell, because then the plan would have to change.

  “Combat, Captain. Immediate execute: speed ten.”

  “Combat, aye,” the exec said, but his voice sounded doubtful.

  “Based on their shell splashes, they still think we’re going thirty knots,” Sluff said. “I want their torpedoes ahead of us, not amongst us.”

  “Combat, aye,” the exec replied, as the ship began slowing even more. Ten knots in a running gunfight was unheard of, but as long as the Japs didn’t have radar, Sluff thought, this ought to work.

  “Bridge, Combat, sonar detecting high-speed screws, up Doppler.”

  And? Sluff thought.

  “Passing ahead,” the exec called. “Multiple screws. Good call, Captain.”

  This time, Sluff thought, but now we have to finish this somehow. “Combat, Captain. First, alert the division: Stand by for second torpedo attack. Second: Order up thirty-three knots, and turn us to the northeast, to whatever it takes to get back into torpedo range. We’ll run for four minutes, slow down, and let loose.”

  “Combat, aye.”

  Sluff heard the orders going out to resume thirty-three knots speed, and then a course change order to 040, farther right than he had expected. Then the warning to stand by for a torpedo attack. He relaxed in his chair as they sped up and then executed the turn. The Japs had quit firing once they’d
dispatched torpedoes, probably because they couldn’t find the Americans.

  “Combat, Captain: Any idea of what we’ve accomplished?”

  “There are three contacts milling about in one location,” the exec replied. “There’s one intermittent contact, but no sign of the other two. The good news is that they’re all bunched together.”

  “And not moving south?”

  “No, sir, probably rescuing survivors. Recommend we slow down early and send the fish in, before they realize what’s happening.”

  XO was right, Sluff thought. “Concur, set it up. And once our fish arrive, we open fire again, and this time we keep it up until they stop shooting back.”

  “Combat, aye.”

  Two down, four to go, he thought. Maybe only three if that fuzzy contact was low in the water due to battle damage. It was a strange feeling to sit here in his chair on the bridge and listen to his exec issuing formation orders. But there was no getting around it: The exec and his team down there had a plotting table that showed where everyone was and which way they were moving, friendlies and enemy alike. They had a radar picture, which meant that they could assign search radar contacts to the gun director’s radar directly, converting them from contacts into targets.

  Another course change went out, this time to 060, as the exec adjusted their direction of attack to ensure their torpedoes would be within range. Then a speed change, followed by a final stand-by for launching torpedoes. The fires on the local horizon were muted now. Hopefully the Japs thought the Americans had gone into the night. When that ship blew up and lit up the sea, they’d have been able to see there were only three American destroyers out there opposing them, not cruisers or something even bigger.

  The ship plowed into the sea as she slowed and her own wake caught up with her, the bow pushing a mass of water to either side as the guns came out to the surface-action starboard position, pointing south. He watched the pitometer needle as it wound down to the left to indicate fifteen knots. When it stopped moving, the order went out to let them go. This time it was King’s after torpedo mount firing, with none of the recoil and hammering blasts of the five-inch. Just muffled thumps as five torpedoes leapt into the black water and drove away into the darkness. Behind King the other ships were also launching, and soon a swarm of fifteen torpedoes would be streaking toward that dull glow on the horizon only four miles away.

  He waited. He wanted to ask Combat how long it would take, but he didn’t want to disturb their concentration. As the fish ran toward the cluster of Jap ships, the gun director and main battery plot were honing their solution, getting ready to take control of the gun mounts and begin rapid continuous fire. As soon as the first shells started landing, the team in CIC would see the splashes showing up as small pips among the bigger ship targets. They could then call main battery plot and apply spots, small adjustments in range and bearing to merge those little contacts with the actual Jap ships.

  “Bridge, Combat, mark intercept time.”

  Nothing happened.

  Five seconds, ten seconds. Fifteen. Had every one of those fish missed? Nothing out of fifteen fired?

  Then came a single large explosion in the general direction of the Jap formation. A yellow-white ball boiled upward, and then another one, both explosions turning red and then into a profusion of what looked like tracer fire erupting into the night in all directions. A magazine hit, he thought.

  Okay. Three to go. He reached for the bitch-box to order commence-firing, opened his mouth to say the words, but the forward gun mounts beat him to it with satisfying blasts. He jumped out of his chair and went out onto the starboard bridge wing to make sure the entire formation was shooting. It was, with fifteen five-inch guns flashing yellow gouts of fire to the southwest. There was enough light from the gun flashes for him to see his other two ships, his other two ships, their images blinking like a slow-motion film as their guns fired, the red-hot shells arcing away, rising at first and then descending in a lethal arc, ending in a red flash as they either hit something substantial or tore into the sea and then went off underwater.

  The Japs started shooting back, but the volume of fire was nothing like the first time. He thrilled to the knowledge that they were battering their blinded and confused enemy. Then he remembered: Once they can see you, they’ll send the big dogs.

  “Combat, Captain,” he called, shouting over the noise of the forward guns. “Speed three three. Now.”

  “Combat, aye,” the exec replied. “We’re killing them. Can’t tell the shell splashes from the targets anymore.”

  The order went out on an immediate execute. Speed thirty knots. Move. Jump out of the way of any incoming fans of Long Lance. We saved some fish—they would have, too. J. B. King settled for a moment in the froth of her suddenly accelerating propellers and then lunged ahead.

  We did this before, he thought. Vary the speed. Now we need a course change, too. He called Combat and told the exec to order a thirty-degree change of course to the right. The range no longer mattered: the American guns could shoot out to eighteen thousand yards, but he was still wary of giving the Japs a steady fire-control solution.

  “Tango, this is Tango Baker. Immediate execute: Corpen zero niner zero, I say again, corpen zero niner zero, stand by—execute!”

  The ship heeled to port as she came around, still accelerating from fifteen to thirty knots. Sluff had a blinking memory of a Western movie, with the Indians riding around the wagon train in a big circle, shooting everything up. He heard a ripping sound above the ship as a salvo of Japanese fire passed right overhead. He fought off a sudden urge to turn right into the Japanese formation, to take it down to point-blank range and kill them all.

  Reason prevailed. From eight thousand yards out in the darkness and executing a huge circle around the cluster of Jap destroyers, they should be able to pound them into submission with relative impunity.

  “Captain, Combat, Carter’s been hit in her after engine room. Can’t sustain thirty knots.”

  “Slow down to twenty, then,” Sluff said, “relative” obviously being the correct term of art. More shells passed overhead, a little lower now as the Japs searched for the correct range. He went out to the bridge wing to see if Carter was burning and thus more visible, but all he could see were the flashes of gunfire from both ships behind him. He put his binoculars out in the direction that his own guns were pointing, trying to hold them steady as blast after blast of fire and smoke cracked the night air, almost right in his face. There was still a red glow in that direction, but it was now punctuated by the flashes of their own shells going in.

  “Combat, Captain, how many of them still afloat?”

  “Two for sure, possibly three, but there’s so much shell-splash return over there we can’t be sure.”

  “Cease firing, and turn the formation back to the northeast, zero six zero, speed two-zero. I’m declaring victory before they find the range.”

  “Combat, aye, ceasing fire, zero six zero, speed two-zero, by turn movement. Going out now.”

  A turn movement meant that the ships would turn together instead of following the guide ship in a column, as in a corpen movement. The sooner they turned, the sooner they’d be running away from the Long Lances while presenting the smallest possible target to those dreaded torpedoes.

  The sudden silence brought palpable relief. His ears still rang from the five-inch salvos, and the inside of the pilothouse looked like a seedy pool hall with all the smoke. He could hear the clink and clank of brass powder cases rolling all over the forecastle deck. As long as they outran any torpedoes coming their way, they could indeed declare victory. It looked like they’d sunk half the Jap resupply force, if not two-thirds. He looked at his watch by the light of his red-lens flashlight: 0215. The Japs would have to retire now because they needed to be well out of range of the Cactus air forces by daylight. His orders had been to break up the resupply effort. As soon as they turned north back toward Rabaul, it would be mission accomplished.
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  “Combat, Captain: Get me an update on Carter’s damage. I plan to run northeast for twenty minutes, then turn down in the direction of Tulagi. What’s the range to the Japs now?”

  “Range is thirteen thousand and opening. Radar shows two contacts now; the third one is no longer onscreen. Looks like we maybe got four of them.”

  “Four out of six ain’t bad,” Sluff said. “And if those other two are damaged, Cactus’ll be after them by daybreak. Get a report off to the flyboys with their position and probable course and speed. Tell ’em they were carrying Jap soldiers, so there may be some work to do in the morning.”

  He shone the light on his watch again. If they ran for twenty minutes at twenty knots, they’d be almost twelve miles away from the Japs and any pursuing torpedoes. It was still darker than a well digger’s ass out there, so the Japs should not be able to target them, much less pursue. That was one of the big differences between Jap and American destroyers: The Japs carried reloads for their torpedo tubes. The Americans did not.

  Combat came back five minutes later with a report on Carter’s damage. A shell that went off right on the deckplates had wrecked her number two engine room. The entire engine-room crew had been killed by the explosion and subsequent superheated steam leaks. The space had been isolated, but Carter was starting to fall behind. Sluff ordered up eighteen knots to keep his formation together.

  “You still hold those two ships?”