Trial of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  Doran reported Fite’s transmission to Brent: “‘My regrets for Admiral Allen. Cease fire. Cut a course for Tokyo Bay. I will tend to the survivors.’”

  Brent grunted angrily and glared at Crog and Willard-Smith, who stared back at him unflinchingly. “Give him a ‘Wilco’ and AR (end transmission.)”

  While Doran worked the light, Brent shouted his commands. “Right standard rudder, steady up on three-three-zero. All ahead two-thirds.” The rhythm of the engines picked up and the boat swung in a big arc to the west and then north until Sturgis met the swing and finally said, “Steady on three-three-zero, sir.”

  “Pitometer reading sixteen knots, three-hundred-twenty revs, sir,” came up from Nelson in the conning tower.

  “Very well,” Brent answered. And then down into the speaker, “Navigator, cut me a course for Tokyo Bay.” Cadenbach’s voice squawked back. He was obviously looking at his gyro repeater. “I would suggest you maintain course three-three-zero until I take my evening sights, sir. I’ve got to bring my DR track up to date. We must be miles off our last estimated position.”

  Brent glanced at the low sun which was balancing like a red ball on the string of the horizon. It would be less than an hour before the fix. “Very well,” he said.

  There was a clatter on the ladder and Lieutenant Reginald Williams pulled himself up through the hatch. A bloody bandage was wrapped around his head, and he gripped the windscreen, unsteady on wobbly legs. With anger clouding his face like the shadow of a squall darkening the sea, he glared at Brent with eyes as black as the bottom of a grave. All eyes were riveted on the two officers. “The stink of death woke me. Blood sprayed through my vent,” Williams hissed. He stabbed a finger within inches of Brent’s face. “You sank the can,” he spat.

  “That is correct.”

  “And you expect a ‘well done’ for this?”

  “I expect nothing.”

  “And you shot survivors in the water.”

  Brent’s voice was calm. “That is correct.”

  “Correct my ass. Not in my command.”

  “May I remind you, Captain — with you disabled, I was in command.”

  “You don’t remind me of shit, mister. Those were helpless men.”

  Brent felt the heat begin to rise again. “They were terrorists. They’re animals to be exterminated. That’s all they are.”

  Williams spoke as if he had not heard. He waved at the butchered lookout, hanging from the shears. “Flying your pennant, Mister Ross?” he said, voice stinging like dry ice. “How appropriate.”

  “I won’t take that,” Brent snarled. He eyed his captain’s injury and relaxed his fists. “When you’re well we have a few things to settle.”

  “I agreed long ago, ‘American samurai.’ We’ll do it privately.” He turned to Crog and Yuiji Ichioka and his voice was suddenly thick: “Bring him down.” He stabbed a finger at the corpse. “He deserves better than that.” The two men moved quickly to the ladder.

  Williams shifted his eyes back to Brent, but before he could speak, he was interrupted by gunfire. Hollister screamed, “They’re killing them!”

  Everyone looked back over the stern. Fite was steaming through the wreckage at a high speed, machine guns firing, blasting men off wreckage and shooting swimmers. Then six great explosions blasted hundreds of tons of water and spray into the sky like great blue-white cliffs as six-hundred-pound depth charges set for thirty feet ripped the sea.

  “Salt water enemas, you pricks!” Brent shouted gleefully, waving a fist.

  Williams stared at Brent with disbelief. “My God... is that ‘tending to the survivors’? What kind of war is this? What kind of war is it where you shoot helpless men in the water, bust their intestines with depth charges?”

  Willard-Smith, Humphrey Bowman, Todd Doran, Ben Hollister and Williams stared hard at Brent’s face. The lieutenant answered quietly, “The only kind of war they know. They made the rules. No Geneva Conventions, no humanity, no gentlemen in this war.” He gesticulated wildly at the carnage. “This is the only kind of war they know.”

  “The only kind of war?” Williams repeated.

  “Yes. You should ask Captain Fite about his son, Captain. Maybe then you”d understand.”

  There was silence on the bridge as Blackfin steamed into the gathering gloom.

  Chapter Three

  Luckily, the first part of Blackfin’s 1,000-mile voyage to Tokyo Bay was made in mild weather with only the scend of the flat North Pacific swells pushing in unchecked from across the width of the ocean. The five-inch gun was secured with cables on the centerline of the boat. The short in the electric cables was found exactly where Lieutenant Brooks Dunlap had predicted, and electric drive was restored. However, Number One Ballast Tank continued to leak, and the sounds of pumps were heard day and night. Speed was held down to sixteen knots, the boat finding the way a trifle smoother in the wake of DD-1, which steamed five hundred yards ahead of her.

  The captain remained in his bunk for most of the first day. His long and vicious head wound had laid the skin open to the bone from just above the right eye to a point behind his ear. Sixty-seven sutures were required to close the gash, leaving the captain unsteady on his legs and with a shattering headache. Corpsman Chisato Yasuda was forced to administer a strong sedative. Brent conducted services for the dead at dawn.

  Although Brent stood over five canvas-wrapped bodies, he said services for nine men — four members of the five-inch gun crew had been blown over the side. Three of the dead were Japanese and, to the surprise of the seven men standing at attention by his sides, he mouthed both Christian and Buddhist prayers from memory. For the Christians he called on Psalms 107:23, 24, and 25, which traditionally consign “Those who go down to the sea in ships,” to their graves in the deep. Then, quotes from the Four Noble Truths from the Sermon of Benares were the last rites for the Buddhists. There was no time for eulogies, and after the prayers, the bodies were quickly consigned to the deep. Four Christian crewmen remained to recite the Twenty-Third Psalm together.

  That afternoon Reginald Williams revived and began to wander around the boat like a lost spirit. But he was still capable of exercising command and wanted all hands to know this. He had little to say to Brent Ross, only those words required by command and discussions of problems which demanded the attention of the executive officer. The implacable black visage remained free of emotion, but Brent could see hostility and acrimony lurking in the eyes as if small lamps backlighted the gleaming pupils. Strange how he seemed to collide with this man on every major issue from football to the treatment of prisoners.

  Fite had not killed all the prisoners. He had picked up four men who had paddled a raft to the periphery of the massacre. Brent could not understand why Fite relented. Perhaps he wanted some prisoners for interrogation. But Arabs knew little, and they rarely divulged useful information. Limited by a lifetime of tribal and village feuds, they had little knowledge of naval tactics and utterly no concept of global strategy. Sometimes, however, with some persuasion, they could provide information on their own units and on the strength of others. But they seemed incapable of relating pieces to the mosaic of the whole. Or maybe they were clever. Certainly, as the most treacherous people on earth, they all shared the common characteristic of duplicity. Killing them was the best decision.

  With thirteen dead and three wounded, Blackfin was terribly short-handed. Restricted to the surface, there were enough men to steam her, but not to fight her. Captain Colin Willard-Smith became part of the ship’s company. He actually asked to be assigned as a gunner-lookout in Brent’s section. This pleased Brent. Despite their bitter disagreement, he liked the Englishman and was pleased with his company. He found Willard-Smith reciprocated. Both men wanted to put the heat of their clash behind them, and the pair had long conversations in the wardroom when off duty. The killing of the four men on the raft was never mentioned. Instead, they talked of the usual things lonely men at sea talk about: home, girl friends,
their favorite cities — London, Liverpool, Paris, Southhampton, New York, Los Angeles — nightclubs, pubs — and of course, food and good liquor.

  Less than two days out of Tokyo Bay, the first PBM Mariner picked them up. Fite had detected the aircraft and its IFF on his radar and ECM, relaying the information to Blackfin by flashing light. When the graceful gull-winged flying boat finally droned over the horizon, it dropped down cautiously and made a big circular reconnaissance of the two vessels, well out of AA range. The bridge crew waved and cheered, and a half-dozen off-duty men crowded onto the bridge and the wet main deck aft, where they were all soaked. So much hell had fallen from the skies, but now an ally, a friend, had found them. The cheers became frantic as the big plane finally dropped down almost wave-high and thundered over the submarine, barely clearing the periscope shears, her two huge Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp radial engines deafening everyone and shaking the entire bridge structure with their power. The lookouts on their platform actually ducked, which brought raucous laughter from those beneath them.

  There was more joy when Radioman Second Class Goroku Kumano repaired the SPS-10, unshielding the boat’s eyes. Now Brent could look at the revolving antenna behind the shears and feel confident the unseen beam was searching both sea and sky in an eighty-mile radius. The radios remained out, apparently damaged beyond repair. Then, just one day out of Tokyo Bay, the storm struck.

  It was not a severe storm for these latitudes and at first did not threaten with particularly fierce winds. In fact, the barometer never did drop beneath 1002 millibars. However, in Blackfin’s damaged condition and with its low freeboard, any storm was a menace. It struck during Brent’s afternoon watch.

  First a dark, mountainous shape humped up over the northern horizon where most North Pacific storms are born. Then solid droves of puffy clouds stormed over the horizon and swirled and raced to the south like terrified wildebeest fleeing the lion of the wind, dark gray on their undersides, brilliant white where the afternoon sun caught their peaks. Quickly the low clouds scurried above Blackfin, filling the void to the south. The seas became leaden rollers that swelled and peaked frothily, rushing down on the submarine relentlessly in infinite rows that stretched from horizon to horizon.

  With the sun turned into a Satanic red low on the horizon, the light faded and changed, turning a sickly greenish-yellow hue like the shine of decay on a corpse. The strange light caused the clouds overhead to glow with a malevolent jaundiced yellow. Staring at the phenomenon, Brent felt an icy dread grip his soul. “Satan’s Beacon” — the harbinger of doom — came to mind. It was everywhere, filling the voids of shadows like liquid. And it came from all directions: from the heavens, the clouds, from every atom of air, the steel of the submarine, filling every corner of the bridge, bathing the boat, turning flesh the color of days-old corruption. Mariners of all races, of all persuasions, knew it and feared it. He looked around at the other men, wondering if they, too, were gripped by superstitious dread. Their faces told him they were. Even Captain Colin Willard-Smith appeared awed by the preternatural glow, pivoting his head, his pilot’s eyes apprehensive and puzzled.

  Brent knew the fear was foolish and irrational. He had been to sea for too many years and knew better. He assured himself the eerie light was nothing more than the rays of the sun low on the western horizon slanting into the cloud peaks and reflecting downward and at the same time streaking in from below to color the streaming clouds and their vaporous trails with beams of filtered light. But somehow he could not rationalize away this malignant phenomenon that was part of the mariner’s lore, the fearsome stygian light that lured a doomed ship inexorably to its fate.

  Fortunately, the weird light faded with the sun and the mood went with it. “In for a bit of a blow,” Willard-Smith said, staring at the clouds while pulling the hood of his parka over his head and securing it with its drawstring. Every man in the bridge force emulated the Englishman.

  The wind increasingly mourned about them and then the rain crashed down in torrents, obscuring vision beyond an arc of a few hundred yards. Now the destroyer was visible only in intermittent glimpses. Abruptly the wind backed into the north and the pattern of the rollers changed, taking Blackfin on her starboard bow. Born in latitude seventy, the gusts were icy with Arctic cold, ripping the breaths from the men in ribbons of steam and splattering the rain on their faces with the sting of frozen sand.

  Still heavy in the bow, the submarine was unable to woo the swells; instead she warred with them, trying to crush them and churn them under, and failing in her attempts. All ships have elasticity built into their hulls, but a submarine is a rigid steel tube built for the depths.

  Seas crested against Blackfin’s unyielding hull and swept the length of the weather deck, battering the bridge and rolling the boat brutally from side to side. Brent called the lookouts down from the shears and latched the hatch cover to the conning tower.

  Clothed in heavy foul-weather gear, Reginald Williams came to the bridge. Brent reported course and speed to the captain. Williams nodded and clung to the windscreen, a dull look that bordered on incomprehension in his eyes. He clutched his head suddenly with a single huge palm and rocked from side to side. “Bitchin’ headache — a real bitchin’ headache. The goddamnedest hangover I’ve ever had,” the captain said. At that moment, Brent realized the blow to his captain’s head had done more damage than he had at first suspected. Williams had the look of a man with a concussion.

  Brent gesticulated to the north. “We’re taking the seas on our starboard bow, sir,” he shouted into the roaring wind. “I suggest we change course to zero-zero-zero. Put our bows into her.”

  Williams nodded his agreement and Brent gave the order to Seaman Tatsunori Hara, who was manning the wheel and annunciators. Hara put the helm over, and immediately the violent rocking diminished. But the pitching and the assault of the seas on the boat’s hull and exposed decks did not. Doran informed DD-1 of the course change by flashing light. Then, Fite, too, changed course and the violent rolling of the narrow-beamed destroyer lessened.

  The swells mounted and seas swept in and crashed against the bridge like battering rams. Solid water impacted the superstructure with the force of great boulders, the entire structure shaking with the force of the attack, groaning, popping, and whimpering. The periscope shears snapped hard fore-and-aft and beam-to-beam against their stays — clanging, banging, and vibrating like green saplings all the way down into their wells in the control room. Alarmed, Brent shouted into the speaker, “Anemometer reading?”

  Cadenbach’s voice came back, “Force nine, sir.”

  Brent’s mind digested the information quickly. Force nine on the Beaufort Scale indicated a strong gale, winds up to 54 miles an hour, a much stronger gale than he had expected. True, it was far below the maximum at force twelve and wind speeds of over 130 miles an hour, but still very dangerous.

  “Captain,” Brent said, close to Williams’ ear. “We have fifty-mile-an-hour winds. This beating must be hard on the damage between frames forty-six and forty-seven and the sea valve in Number One Ballast Tank could let go. I suggest we reduce speed to eight knots. It would be easier on our hull, and we would still have good steerage way.”

  Williams indicated agreement with a nod and said, “Good idea, XO. Give the order.” He rubbed his head gently. “I’m not thinking.”

  Blackfin reduced speed, and the change was relayed to Fite, who brought his own speed down. The reduction in speed inflicted greater punishment on the tall, narrow vessel, but any other option might prove fatal to the submarine. The two vessels wallowed and plunged ahead, the heavy submarine battering and shouldering her way through the crests and dropping ponderously into the troughs like a pregnant beast. These were the terrifying moments — the moments when the seas loomed above the submarine like majestic liquid mountains ready to avalanche down and smother the tiny vessel in the sheer weight of thousands of tons of water. But the gallant boat always managed to struggle up the slopes
, screws straining against the tide, wind, and gravity, and churn through ridges and crests with angry bursts of water and spray.

  There was terror here, yet Brent felt himself filled with a perverse feeling of joy, a realization that at the moment he was pitted against one of nature’s most awesome onslaughts and he was prevailing in an arena where survival was victory. It was like fighting enemy depth charges, aircraft and artillery. Like all men who have fought other men at sea and grappled with the vagaries of the sea itself, Brent Ross lived life to the fullest when challenging death.

  “Captain,” he yelled into the wind. “I suggest full up on the bow planes.”

  Williams stared into Brent’s eyes. There was no animosity there, only the look of a confused man looking to another in his struggle to survive. “They could be carried off, XO.”

  “I know, sir. But we have no choice.” He gestured at the combers.

  “Very well.”

  Brent gave the order.

  “Bridge!” came up from the conning tower. It was Radioman Goroku Kumano. “I’m getting a lot of electrical interference from the storm — sea clutter and ghosts are jamming the radar scope.”

  “Damn!” Williams said. “Can you track the destroyer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. We just lost him in a squall.”

  Seaman Burt Nelson’s voice in the speaker: “Captain. Lieutenant Dunlap requests your presence in the maneuvering room.”

  Williams grasped his head and rocked with pain. “Very well,” he managed.

  Alarmed, Brent and Willard-Smith gripped the captain’s arms and helped him into the hatch. Hands reached up from the conning tower to guide the captain down the ladder. He looked up into Brent’s eyes. “Sometimes I hate your guts, XO. But you’re the best goddamned seaman I’ve ever known. I hate to ask any man to do this, but stay on the bridge until this storm blows over.” He pulled the wooden toggle and slammed the cover shut before Brent could respond.