SILENT RUNNING
A novel of the Pacific War
By Craig DiLouie
SILENT RUNNING
A novel of the Pacific War
©2016 Craig DiLouie. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel
are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
Lyrics from “The Pirate Song” are by Henry F. Gilbert, published in 1902 and now in the public domain.
Excerpt of The Tempest is by William Shakespeare, now in the public domain.
The short speech by “Tokyo Rose” is from an actual historical recording of one of Radio Tokyo’s propaganda broadcasts.
Cover art by Eloise Knapp Design.
Published by ZING Communications, Inc.
www.CraigDiLouie.com
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SILENT RUNNING
Area of operations. The Philippines.
CHAPTER ONE
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
December, 1942.
Charlie Harrison set down his sea bag and smiled at his new home.
The Tambor-class submarine lay tied at the end of a pier that extended from the jetty housing the submarine base. A sea tender refitted her for war. Shirtless workers in dusty dungarees toiled in the sun amid a tangle of hoses, wiring, and gear.
Rivet guns whirred. Sparks flew from welds. Trucks unloaded spare parts. A pair of sailors in a rowboat repainted the hull. Mattresses hung on a line to air out. Charlie watched the sailors go through their routine.
No sign of the crew, who had long left for Oahu’s beaches and beer halls.
The submarine lay a football field in length and twenty-seven feet wide at the beam. When on the surface, four massive GE motors drove her at a top speed of twenty knots. While submerged at depths as low as 250 feet, a pair of Sargo batteries propelled her up to nine knots. She could travel an impressive 11,000 nautical miles.
Her name was Sabertooth.
Like all submarines, she was named after a creature of the sea. The sabertooth fish was a small but fierce tropical predator with big curved teeth. Sabertooth’s teeth consisted of twenty-four torpedoes, which she fired from six tubes forward and four aft.
Lieutenant-Commander Robert Hunter captained the boat. With a name like that … Charlie had hoped it was an omen, that the captain knew how to find and sink Japanese ships. Back in Brisbane, he found out Sabertooth’s war record spoke otherwise. Three patrols, only two sinkings.
To the west, dozens of powerful warships lay moored among calm blue waters and waving palm trees. Pearl was a militarized Eden. Then he spotted the distant listing hulk of the great battleship Oklahoma, still half-submerged in the water. A grim reminder of the day that started the war. December 7, 1941.
In just a few days, the Navy would mark the first anniversary of the vicious surprise attack.
Charlie couldn’t stand here, where America’s war began, without feeling reverence for the dead. That, and a sense of awe. He gazed across the harbor waters and tried to picture what it must have been like on that terrible day.
Two hundred fighters and bombers roared out of the rising sun.
He knew the story well enough; every man in the Navy knew it. Every fist-clenching, teeth-grinding, blood-boiling bit of it.
The first wave assaulted Battleship Row and the six airfields. In only minutes, a bomb crashed through the Arizona’s two armored decks and struck the magazine. The resulting explosion ripped her sides open like tin foil and broke her back in a massive fireball. She sank within minutes, taking more than a thousand souls down with her.
Six torpedoes hammered the West Virginia, which also went under. Nine torpedoes drilled into the Oklahoma, making her list so heavily she almost capsized. The fighters strafed the airfields, chewing up the planes parked wingtip to wingtip in neat rows.
Then the second wave screamed out of the clouds; 170 planes joined the attack.
Flag flying and AA guns blazing, the Nevada steamed through black smoke toward the open sea. A swarm of howling bombers surrounded her. After several hits, she beached herself off Hospital Point.
For the men at Pearl, it had been two hours of pure horror.
Charlie could imagine it now. Bombs whistling. Geysers from misses. The great battleships bucking at the hits. Black smoke rolling across the sky. Planes roaring. Tracers streaming up from the AA guns. The bow of the destroyer Shaw exploding in a spectacular spray of fire and debris.
The men screaming in the water. The water afire and choked with corpses.
Everybody helpless against the merciless onslaught.
A year ago, he heard the news of the attack while serving on the destroyer Kennedy in the Atlantic. He’d listened to the President’s address on the radio. He’d joined the submarines hoping to pay the Japanese back for what they did. He’d longed for action, and he’d found plenty of it on his first war patrol with the S-55. He had the wounds, Silver Star, and promotion to prove it.
Now he stood ready to do his duty and get back into the war.
The ghosts of this war still haunted Pearl, but so did the martial spirit of an angry, awakening giant. The battle had ended, but the war continued. A reckoning was coming. Japan had started it. Men like Charlie were determined to finish it.
For this was not a battle of nations, but of men, and of the endurance of men.
CHAPTER TWO
TO ALL THOSE LOST AT SEA
A solitary figure in service khakis emerged from Sabertooth’s metal sail. The man returned the deck watch’s crisp salute and strode down the pier.
Charlie came to attention and saluted. “Lieutenant Charles Harrison.”
The scrawny middle-aged man regarded him with frank amusement before lazily returning the salute. “Walt Lewis, exec. Harrison, eh? So you’re the dragon slayer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying, friend, but you don’t look like much.”
He bit back the first reply that came to mind. “Yes, sir.”
Lewis chuckled. “All the stories going around. I expected you to breathe fire.”
Charlie stood at respectful attention, waiting.
Still chuckling, the executive officer added, “We all get lucky sometimes, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie grated. “We do.”
“I hope you’ve brought some of that luck with you.” His tone turned serious. “You’re fit for duty? I understand you were wounded.”
“Yes, sir.” The truth was Charlie’s two broken ribs were still healing.
“Then I’ll take you to see the captain. He’s keen on meeting the man who sank the Mizukaze.”
They strode across the jetty, passing headquarters, maintenance, and barracks buildings. Drab, utilitarian structures that seemed out of place among such natural beauty.
Charlie asked, “So what’s he like? The Old Man?”
Was he aggressive or timid? Did his hands shake?
The exec paused to pierce him with a sharp glance. “I’ll let you in on one of the biggest secrets in the Navy: Bob Hunter is a scholar and a gentleman. One of the finest men I’ve ever served with, and anybody who says different is a liar.”
Charlie wondered why the exec had gotten defensive. Asking about the captain’s character had seemed a fair question.
“Come on, young Charles. We’ll be late for the mission briefing.”
With fanfare that mig
ht be mocking, Lewis ushered him into a three-story building that fronted onto the beach. Charlie expected more Spartan drab. He was surprised to see the beautiful lobby of a hotel used to house top-ranking submarine officers. Laughter and the plaintive trill of a ukulele streamed out of nearby doors.
They entered the officers’ club. Charlie paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the red light. Submarine officers from ensigns to captains filled the room. Cigarette smoke drifted through the air.
Lewis led him to a table where Sabertooth’s skipper sat surrounded by his officers. The beefy man with his big jaw immediately struck Charlie as solid and dependable. Captain Hunter leaned back in his chair as Charlie approached.
“Ah, Harrison. Gentlemen, we are in the presence of a bona fide war hero.” The man had a southern accent. Maybe Texas.
Charlie took a seat and ordered a Schlitz. The captain introduced the men: the hulking Dick Bryant, engineering officer, and the tall and wiry Jack Liebold, torpedo and gunnery officer. That gave Charlie a clue about his own pending duties, which would likely be plotting and communications. Bryant eyed Charlie as if trying to figure out a puzzle, while Liebold gawked.
Charlie had expected this. The S-55’s last war patrol soared into legend in the submarines, which to date hadn’t done much in a war that itself had delivered few big victories.
In a daring night surface action, the S-55 sank four Japanese ships at Rabaul, the heart of Japanese power in the South Pacific. Several days later, she sank the destroyer Mizukaze after a bloody duel. The S-55 died of her wounds with Cairns in sight. She’d taken her last dive into the sea with her battle flag streaming. There, the old sea wolf rested.
Liebold asked him to tell the story. The captain seemed interested as well, so Charlie did. He’d told the tale many times at the hospital where he’d recovered from his wounds. By the end, he had it down to a satisfying but economical version. Not just for modesty, but because when he told it, he relived that horrible night. During those weeks at the hospital, telling the story had been a useful way to process what had happened to him. Now it was just painful.
The angry glare of the searchlight. The big guns flashing in the dark. The punch and spray as hills of water rose from the sea. Captain Kane saying, “Very well,” just before the conning tower exploded. The ear-splitting crash as the destroyer rammed and rode up over the deck. Reynolds roaring they’d take the ship by boarding. The slaughter on the decks.
The bang of the deck gun as it blasted the destroyer’s rack of depth charges.
The final despairing shriek of the Mizukaze as she slid off the deck and sank.
Liebold’s voice: “Lieutenant?”
The Japanese were screaming in the flaming oil slick—
Then he was in the club again. He stared dazedly as if emerging from a familiar dream, one from which he could never truly wake. Liebold gazed at him with eyes big as saucers. Bryant scowled.
“That’s quite a tale,” Hunter said, frowning, though why, Charlie couldn’t guess.
He looked down. At some point during the story, his beer had arrived. Suddenly thirsty, he drained half the glass in a single pull. The red light made him feel claustrophobic. It was like being back on the S-55, rigged red for battle.
Lewis smiled. “Well, well. You’re quite the buccaneer, aren’t you?”
“Jim Kane was a good skipper,” he said. “Everything we did was because of him.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed at that, and Charlie suspected some indiscretion on his part.
“You’ve earned your laurels,” Hunter said. “I hope you understand you’ve got nothing to prove on our next patrol.”
Charlie nodded and drained his glass.
The captain added, “As for Kane, he took a big risk to get a big reward. That reward carried a price I’m not willing to pay myself. We’re going to go out there, sink Jap ships, and come back in one piece. There’s no buccaneering on Sabertooth.”
“Roger that, sir.” The beer churned in Charlie’s stomach.
“I need to know you’re on my team, Harrison.”
He blinked. “Sir?”
Lewis cleared his throat. “You heard the captain, Charles.”
Charlie looked Hunter in the eye. “I’m on your team, Captain.”
“Good man,” the captain said and held up his hand for service. “Let’s get you another beer.”
The waitress arrived and set a glass of liquor in front of Charlie. He looked up at her pretty face.
“Courtesy of that gentleman over there,” she said, pointing. “Bottoms up, sailor.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled and tasted the drink. Scotch. Smooth.
He turned and gazed across the room at a large man sitting at a table with his own small crowd of officers. A lieutenant-commander. Their eyes met.
“That’s Dudley Morton,” Lewis said. “Commands the Dolphin. About to head out in Wahoo as PCO. Wants to get off his V-boat and into the war. A real fire breather from what I hear.”
“Big talk is what he’s breathing,” Hunter muttered.
Charlie raised his glass to the man in thanks. Morton nodded and returned to his conversation while the captain of the Sabertooth glowered.
Then he said, “To Sabertooth.”
The gesture seemed to please the others. While they tossed back their drinks, Charlie hesitated. He thought of Kane, Reynolds, and all the rest who’d died on the 55.
“To you,” he said and drank to their memory.
CHAPTER THREE
SILENT SERVICE
Charlie emerged from the smoky officers’ club. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim moonlight. At night, Pearl blacked out to deny Japanese bombers a target.
“Follow me,” Liebold said beside him. “I could do this blindfolded.”
The young officer strode off into the darkness. Charlie shouldered his sea bag and hurried after him. His head still buzzed from the strange meeting with the officers.
He’d started the day feeling gung-ho about getting back in the war and being useful. Now it was ending on a glum note.
By the end of his first war patrol, the S-55 had become a second home to him. Her crew, something like family. A part of him had hoped Sabertooth would be a homecoming after weeks in and out of hospitals.
Not in this Navy. He’d started all over again.
“How do you like serving on Sabertooth?” he asked.
“She’s a good boat,” Liebold told him. “We’ve got a good crew. The Old Man knows what he’s doing.”
Charlie sensed a “but” in there and decided to press it. Something didn’t seem quite right on Sabertooth. He said, “But the captain’s had some bad luck.”
“You could put it that way,” Liebold said cryptically.
“Is there another way to put it?”
“I’ve got some opinions, but they’re not worth sharing.”
“Try me. Come on. You know the saying. We’re in the same boat here.”
“Yeah, and loose lips sink careers. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Shut down again. Not just the exec, but the whole crew was starting to strike Charlie as a cagey bunch. They were hiding something, something important, but he couldn’t guess what.
Sabertooth, it seemed, had a secret.
He tried another approach. “The captain doesn’t seem to like me much.”
“He likes you just fine.”
Charlie said nothing, waiting. In a moment, he was rewarded.
Liebold said, “But I’m not sure he’s happy with himself.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
“The man does everything by the book. Exactly as he was trained. Just like all the other commanders. But nobody did what Kane did on an old S-boat.”
What Captain Kane had done had been previously considered impossible. The feats the S-55 had accomplished had possibly rattled more than inspired.
“And here we are,” Liebold added. He paused in the
dark, rustling keys. He opened a door and ushered Charlie inside, flipping a light switch that turned night into day.
In the bright light, Charlie got his first good look at the torpedo officer. Liebold was tall and gangly. He’d be stooped much of the time on a submarine, which explained his acquired slouch. He had a serious face that suggested wisdom beyond his years, accentuated by his gray eyes.
The quarters consisted of a bunk bed, kitchenette, and bathroom. Utilitarian like everything else in the Navy. Opulent, though, compared to where Charlie would be living the next few weeks on patrol.
He tossed his sea bag on the top bunk and noticed some letters there. His mail. He caught a glimpse of Evie’s flowing cursive. His breath caught. He forgot all about Captain Hunter, Sabertooth, and its secrets.
Liebold said, “Want some coffee?”
He’d been waiting so long for her reply. He ignored the man, tearing into the envelope.
And sucked in his breath.
He read; time blurred. Charlie found himself walking on the beach in the cool night air with little memory how he’d gotten there. He paused and regarded the breakers rippling across the sand in the moonlight.
His hand clenched around the letter.
He’d dated Evie for a year. They’d talked about getting married, but Charlie had an itch. He’d wanted to see the world, make a name for himself, and get some money stashed away for their future.
She’d watched him leave for the Navy. She waited two years while he steamed around the Atlantic on the Kennedy. She didn’t protest when he told her he’d signed up with the submarines to fight the Japanese.
She’d cried as he ended their relationship just before he left for Submarine School.
At the time, his thinking had been quite rational. He hadn’t wanted to burden her with a man who would be gone for even more years. A man looking at a hell of a lot of danger and possibly death in his future. Selfishly, he hadn’t wanted to weigh himself down worrying about her when he needed to focus on the war.
Silent Running: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 2) Page 1