by Peter Albano
Willard-Smith followed the captain’s example. “I’ll be buggered,” the Englishman mused, turning the key. “Winds up just like a bloody toy. That’s a bit of all right.”
“Watch it when you fire,” Brent cautioned, with a controlled, steady voice. “It pulls up real hard on a long burst. Squeeze off short bursts.” He managed a weak joke, “Even Al Capone had trouble with the damned thing.” Two American lookouts laughed nervously.
Brent said to Williams in a formal, military timbre, “Captain, I suggest we have the fire-and-rescue team on deck — unlimber a fire hose.”
“Good idea, XO.” Williams shouted the command, and three men rushed up through the hatch and ran forward to a locker attached to the front of the bridge. Within seconds, a large fire hose was pulled out from its reel and two men held the nozzle firmly. The leader of the group, Chief Torpedoman Masayori Fujiwara, looked toward the bridge for instructions.
“Check pressure!”
The hose thickened and writhed like a live reptile, and a fierce stream shot out over the side at least thirty yards.
“Secure.” The streaking water died off, and Williams said, “Hit any boat that comes into range!”
“Aye aye, sir.
“Radar! Range to the nearest small boat?”
“Two hundred fifty yards, sir.”
“Very well.” The captain checked his safety on his Thompson and then slung it over his shoulder. “None of them are making a move on the DD.”
Brent said, “If there are any Rengo Sekigun, they’ll want Blackfin. By now the whole world knows we destroyed Gefara and put down one of their cans.”
“What are the chances?”
“Very remote, but you can never tell — never predict what a terrorist will do.”
“Yes. Of course. We won’t risk our boat.”
Now the first of at least a score of boats decorated with gay ribbons and balloons and colored paper lanterns were sweeping down on the bow. Most were crowded with screaming people waving streamers of colorful paper banners. Williams leaned over the windscreen. “Chief, Fujiwara! Turn on the hose and spray it in an arc ahead of us and to the beams. Let ‘em know they can’t come in close.”
The chief cranked the handle on the brass nozzle, and the stream shot in a forty-yard arc from beam to beam. The small boats parted and swung to the sides. Brent and Crog brought the muzzles of the Brownings down. Seeing this, the wildly cheering men and women crowding the boats lost most of their enthusiasm. They began to circle, most moving out to about a hundred yards. The occupants continued to wave, however, the cheering almost ceased.
With the boats circling, the two warships steamed in slowly toward the great naval base. “Seems okay,” Williams said, almost to himself. Fite’s speed dropped suddenly. “All ahead slow,” Williams said to Sturgis.
“Speed four, sir,” Sturgis said.
Before Williams could answer, a lookout shouted, “One’s coming in at two-seven-zero.”
“Fire hose!”
Chief Fujiwara pulled the hose to the port side and let loose the stream. The boat, a powerful speedboat with an inboard motor, dug its stern into the water and leaped forward in unbelievable acceleration. There were two men in the cockpit, and one appeared to be armed with an automatic rifle.
“Right full rudder. All ahead flank and keep her in a circle!” Overstreet whirled the helm over hard and rang up the command on the annunciators. But it would take time — too much time to bring the heavy boat up to speed. And there was no chance Blackfin could outmaneuver a speed boat.
“If the stream doesn’t stop them, open fire!” Williams screamed.
“Might be too late, Captain!” Brent warned, bringing the boat into his sights. Already he was forced to come up on his toes to bring the muzzle down enough to line the target up in his sights. Willard-Smith snapped off his safety and stood next to Brent, his Thompson leveled. Williams, too, crowded to the port side, weapon ready. The boat reached the edge of the stream, not deviating from its course.
“Commence firing!”
The roar of the Browning and the two submachine guns deafened everyone, the windscreen vibrating with the blasts. Acrid smoke rolled up and hung in a brown cloud in the heavy air of the bay. Hundreds of bullets ripped the water and smashed into the boat. But the two men had disappeared. Brent guessed behind a sheet of armor plate. They could even have a periscope. He kept the trigger down, spraying the front of the boat and trying to punch holes in at the waterline. However, the craft was built of plastic, did not shatter and splinter like wooden boats. Forty yards, thirty yards it charged into the storm of bullets. Suddenly it swerved and began to slow, its bow dipping low as it scooped up water. Then the blast came.
The bow vanished in a bright orange flash that shook the bridge and hurled water, wreckage, and spray in a wide ring. Plastique had been packed into the bow — not a big charge like the five-hundred-kilogram bombs dropped by the Stukas, but big enough to blow a hole in the damaged Blackfin’s pressure hull and sink her.
Brent looked around anxiously. A few fragments of wreckage had hit the superstructure but all hands seemed unscathed, including the fire party and the lookouts on the shears. Everyone straightened and peered at the shattered boat where the water still boiled and debris continued to rain in a wide circle.
Explosives can do strange things. Indeed, the bow and entire front of the boat had vanished, but the rear half from the cockpit aft had shot back as if propelled by a rocket charge and actually appeared intact as it slowly sank. A head bobbed up through the wreckage and an arm made a weak attempt to swim. One man with a life jacket. The other man had vanished.
“Course, sir?” Sturgis shouted.
Williams, leaning over the windscreen with his Thompson raised, seemed not to hear. He brought up the weapon and squeezed off a long burst, holding the bucking weapon down with his powerful arms. The great tumbling slugs struck with uncanny accuracy and devastating effect. The head jerked in a thicket of splashes, pieces of bone and gray brains exploding from the skull and scattering across the blue water. Finally, the firing pin struck on an empty chamber. Slowly he lowered the weapon, breathing like a man who had just run a hard ten-kilometer race. The black eyes were the pitiless, fierce eyes of a predator. Everyone stared in amazement.
Sturgis caught Brent’s attention and gestured to the repeater, which was clicking off the degrees like seconds as the boat continued to circle and gain speed.
“Captain,” Brent said in alarm, “we’re going in circles.”
“What? What?” Williams stared into Brent’s eyes. The glassy look was back. He seemed not to understand. “They tried to kill my ship,” he pleaded, as if he were trying to convince a tribunal.
There was an awkward silent moment. “We know, sir,” Brent said softly. He circled a single finger over his head and repeated, “We’re going in circles, sir.”
Williams looked at the dead man, whose head had been shot off down to the jaw. Only his lower teeth, tongue, and one ear remained, surrounded by the shattered bone of his skull like a jagged, bloody bowl. His throat had been punctured and a jugular still spurted blood, a red stain spreading in a widening circle. A laconic smile twisted the captain’s lips into a frightening leer. “Going in circles. Yes, indeed, we’re going in circles, aren’t we. Round and round we go...” He began to laugh, a frightening, humorless sound.
The captain seemed to be losing his grip on reality, his ability to command. As executive officer, Brent was empowered, actually compelled, by naval regulations to take command if the commanding officer was incapacitated. “Sir!” Brent persisted for the last time. “Your orders, Captain.” He gesticulated anxiously at a covey of boats fleeing the bows of the rampaging submarine. “We’ll ram them!”
Williams shook his head like a man awakening from a bad dream. “You have the con, XO, and take her in.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Brent spoke to Sturgis, “All ahead slow, left full rudder. Steady on...” He sighted thr
ough the bearing ring. “Steady up on two-seven-seven.” The quartermaster rang up the command on the annunciators and put the helm over. Brent eyed the captain who was leaning against the windscreen. “May I suggest, Captain, that you get some rest. I’ll call Corpsman Yasuda...”
“Negative!” Williams retorted hotly. “I’m okay — okay. Just follow my orders — con the boat.” He turned to Bowman and spoke with authority as if to show everyone his composure had returned and he was still in command of himself. “Put on a full box of ammo and stand by the port fifty.” And then to Willard-Smith, “Stand by, we’ll remain at General Quarters.” He shouted down the hatch. “Four more drums for the Thompsons.” Then he leaned over the screen and spoke to Chief Fujiwara on the foredeck, “Keep the hose manned. Your orders are unchanged.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the chief torpedoman said.
Sturgis said to Brent Ross, “Steady on two-seven-seven, sir.”
“Pitometer?”
“Speed four, Mister Ross.”
“Speed over the bottom?”
“Three-point-five, sir.”
“Very well. There’s very little set. Steady as she goes.” And then into the speaker, “Station the Special Sea Detail!” Within seconds, a dozen men clambered up the ladder and joined the fire-hose party on the deck. The four mooring lines were broken out from their lockers.
Slowly Blackfin cleared the end of the first pier and entered the channel that ran between two rows of berths. First built by the Imperial Navy and then expanded and improved by the occupying Americans, Yokosuka was a vast installation. Shops and warehouses, some still housed in the old semicircular quonset huts of World War II, lined the shore. Cranes like arthritic old birds crouched over a pair of Fletcher-class destroyers, a half-dozen supply ships, a depot ship, and swarms of lighters. DD-One already had her lines over and was mooring at Berth Five.
Brent could see huge “4” painted on a warehouse and on the pier in white. An ambulance was parked next to the warehouse, and four white-jacketed attendants were standing next to the vehicle. Two large pumps had just been unloaded from a truck, a crane still hulking above them. With the cables from the crane still attached, yard workmen were already scurrying about, hooking up wires and hoses to the pumps. A black Mercedes staff car and a large van with barred windows were parked close to the edge of the pier. Big and burly, a half-dozen seaman guards with slung Arisakas stood in a group watching the submarine.
And indeed, hundreds of pairs of curious eyes were focused on the damaged submarine. Workmen stood on the buildings and the docks and crews came to the rails of their ships to stare in amazement at the low-riding submarine with the blasted, blackened foredeck and wrecked guns. As they passed the depot ship and two Fletchers, crews dressed in blues lined the weather decks at quarters and saluted smartly. Then a roar of thousands of voices shouting “Banzai!” turned Brent’s head.
The crew of Yonaga was drawn up in solid rows of blue on the edge of her flight deck while hundreds of others crowded her upper works. Again and again they shouted “Banzai!” and waved their hats. Brent’s throat suddenly thickened and the deep blue of his eyes glistened with a layer of moisture.
Technically, the crew of Blackfin should have been called to quarters. However, short-handed and with the special sea detail posted, Williams was incapable of mustering enough men on deck to answer the honor. Instead, the captain turned and saluted smartly at each vessel as the cheers rolled in and the deck force waved their hats and shouted their greetings.
“Bowman!” Williams shouted hoarsely. “Stand by the gaff.”
Quickly the gunner’s mate dropped down the ladder and took his station aft, loosening the lines to the ensign. Then one after the other the depot ship and the three warships dipped their colors.
“Dip colors!” Williams yelled back over his shoulder.
Working the halyards, Bowman dipped the battle ensign four times. Cheers rolled and echoed back and forth, most resounding from the gargantuan bulk of Yonaga like a great sounding board.
Lieutenant Brent Ross was jarred from his euphoria by the voice of Lieutenant Reginald Williams. “I’ll take the con, XO.”
Brent stared at the captain. Although the lines of fatigue that framed his mouth were deeply chiseled, the black eyes were steady. Calmness and composure showed on the massive face. No doubt Williams felt compelled to show the crew and the thousands watching he had his senses and the best start would be to dock Blackfin.
“Aye aye, sir. We’re coming alongside starboard side too. Speed slow ahead both main engines. I suggest we rig in the bow planes.”
“Very well.” Williams said into the speaker, “Diving station! Mister Battle, rig in the bow planes.” Slowly the steel pinions rotated ninety degrees and thudded into their recesses. The captain looked around. Not a single small boat was in the restricted waters of the naval base. He shouted into the speaker, “Secure from collision stations, secure from battle surface.” And then to Sturgis after glancing at the dock and the repeater, “Right to two-eight-zero-steady as she goes.” And then down to the deck crew standing by with lines, “Stand by to moor starboard-side-to.”
“Starboard-side-to!” Boatswain’s Mate Hitoshi Motoshima shouted back.
The dock was very close. “Dead slow ahead all engines!” Williams said.
Then as the distance to the dock narrowed even more and the bow swung in, “All stop!”
Momentum kept the boat moving through the water slowly. Motoshima whirled a monkey’s fist over his head and a line whipped over to the dock, where a seaman grabbed it and pulled the mooring line ashore and wrapped it around a cleat.
“Number two spring line secure, sir!” Motoshima shouted.
“Very well. Port engine back one-third.” Then quickly two more lines were over and Blackfin was warped smartly into her berth, the stern line put over last to keep the slack free of the screws. “All stop!” The vibrations ceased and all lines made fast. “Light-off Auxiliary Engine Number One!”
Brooks Dunlap’s voice came back through the speaker, “Auxiliary Engine Number on line.”
“Very well. Secure the main engines.”
The throbbing rumbles and blasting exhausts of the two big Fairbanks-Morse engines ceased abruptly. The silence was eerie. It struck with physical force, a cool salve that refreshed battered eardrums and soothed taut nerves. Blackfin was at rest at last.
Exhaling his tensions with a loud sigh, Brent sagged against the windscreen and moved his eyes hungrily over the great carrier across the channel. He had a full, warm feeling as if he were seeing his home after a long absence. Pride stirred and the old sense of value achieved swelled, the feeling of spiritual and physical exhaustion sloughing away. Even his anger with Williams faded. In six years of serving on Yonaga, he had never been able to truly appreciate the carrier’s size. On the high seas there are no comparisons to be made except for sea, sky, and a distant escort. But here she dwarfed everything. Here she was gargantuan. And she was beautiful.
Her battleship antecedents had given her a low flight deck that swept back elegantly in a straight line for almost a fifth of a mile. Pyramiding upward gracefully like a great gray Fujisan, her superstructure was layered with the flight control bridge, flag bridge, and navigation bridge, and topped by her optical gun-director station. All were of molded steel and glittered with armored glass. Scaffolding had been erected on the giddy heights; the men working there and other crewmen still staring down at the submarine were as small as insects.
Her mast was a tripod, topped with more range finders, AA-guns, radar antennas, and signal flag halyards. In typical Japanese style, her single huge stack tilted outboard slightly. It was cluttered with four searchlight platforms and rows of life rafts. Attached to the back of the stack was the aft mast with its battle gaff where the ensign was flown when at sea. Her flight deck was lined with galleries where triple-mount 25-millimeter machine guns and five-inch dual-purpose cannons pointed toward the sky like a young for
est. Everything, ships, warehouses, water towers, and office buildings were dwarfed by the behemoth. She was splendid, majestic, and powerful, and the fact that she could obey the will of one man defied credibility.
Brent knew her intimately. For six years Admiral Fujita had pored over her blueprints with him, explaining her unique design and incredibly complex construction. Led by Yoshi Matsuhara, he had studied her from directors to keel, from bulbous bow to graceful cruiser stem, not missing one of her 1176 compartments. He knew her better than Blackfin, better than anyone or anything he had ever known. Her history and the secrets of her construction had been pounded into his brains during hours of study and discussions with Fujita, Matsuhara and a dozen other senior officers.
The fourth of the Yamato class of superbattleships, she was the largest and most powerful. The first two hulls became battleships Yamato and Musashi. Displacing 64,000 tons and armed with nine 18.1-inch guns, both were sunk by aircraft. Shinano, the third hull, was converted into a 71,890-ton aircraft carrier. She was sunk by submarine Archer-Fish. All of the class were 853 feet long and were powered by twelve Kanpon boilers driving four geared turbines at 27 knots. But not Yonaga.
Admiral Hiroshi Fujita conceived, planned, and supervised her conversion. He brought in an old friend and Japan’s greatest naval architect, Vice Admiral Keiji Fu-kuda, as a consultant. The pair lengthened Yonaga to 1,050 feet and equipped her with sixteen Kanpon boilers, driving her four geared turbines with 200,000-shaft horsepower and raising her flank speed to 32 knots. They retained the large torpedo blisters below the waterline and her main deck already armored with from four to eight inches of tapering steel became her hangar deck. When the flight deck was built on top of the hangar deck, Fujita had it layered with 3.75 inches of steel, reinforced by a layer of.75-inch steel 33 inches beneath it. Box beams were sandwiched between the two layers and the space filled with concrete, sawdust, and latex. The two admirals calculated it was capable of withstanding the impact of 1,000-pound bombs. The rectangular flight deck was gigantic. One thousand by 130 feet, it had an area of almost 15,000 square yards (over three acres) and was punctured by two large elevators, one forward and one aft.