By midwatch December 1st, nearly everyone had forgotten the lecture and its implications. But Frank was worried by his own attitude toward Hardy: Was it the fact that the Professor had punched as many holes in his theories as he had into that skewered globe? Was it jealousy he was feeling?
Lieutenant Danby came up the ladder to relieve Frank as conning officer. “We’ll be surfacing soon, Mr. Frank. Skipper wants you below.”
As Frank dropped into the control room, the bridge lookouts, wearing red night goggles, were already standing by to surface. Byrnes and Dorriss were at the plotting table, deep in conversation. Hardy was behind them, his face puckered, as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. Frank moved forward, well past the hatch ladder, and waited. With the barest hint of a smile, Byrnes stepped away from Dorriss and shouted up the hatch, “Mr. Danby, take a look!”
Over the whine of the other motors, Frank heard the hiss of the periscope hoist lifting the tube out of the well.
“All clear, sir,” Danby replied, “but we’re in fog.”
Byrnes grunted something as he stepped to the center of the control room. Then he gave the order, “Prepare to surface.”
The red combat lights went on as Stigwood readied the boat. He gave the orders quietly.
“Slow to one-third.”
The talker passed the order back, and Byrnes waited for the change in rhythm. He glanced at the clock. It was 1952. He snapped, “Take her up, Mr. Stigwood.”
Dorriss punched the button, and the blare of the surfacing alarm rang through the boat. Frank shifted his balance to compensate for the lifting sensation that would come when the main ballast tanks were blown free of water.
“Blow all main ballast,” called Stigwood.
Roybell timed his move with the third blast of the klaxon. His hand closed over the high-pressure-air manifold valve wheel. He strained, trying to turn it. He gave it a tremendous yank, but the wheel would not budge.
“Sir,” he said, “pressure manifolds are not responding.”
Stigwood was caughtoff guard. “Try it again.”
Byrnes turned a steady gaze on Roybell. The Chief wrapped both hands on the valve wheel... nothing.
“No response, sir. It’s frozen.”
Stigwood barked the next order: “Pump trim tanks to sea!”
The trim manifold operator tried his best. “Nothing, sir. I can’t even move the trim pump switches.”
Byrnes kept his voice quiet as he ordered, “Blow the bow buoyancy tanks,” and got the same results.
Frank slipped between the men to check the barometer and the depth gauge. “We’ve still got pressure,” he announced. “Holding steady at periscope depth.”
The boat was holding where it was, refusing to respond. Examining all the options, Byrnes made up his mind quickly. Turning toward the radio room, he shouted, “Giroux!”
The radio operator stuck his head out of his cubicle. “Yes, sir?”
“Contact the Frankland! Tell them we are having problems surfacing and request them to stand by.” As Giroux ducked back, Byrnes gave a string of instructions to the control-room talker. He wanted watch commanders to check all compartments and Cassidy to take some men to check the air-bank hull stop valves.
Frank felt no threat of immediate danger, but he noted, with some satisfaction, that most of the men in the control room showed signs of a tension that he did not feel at all.
Giroux approached Byrnes with the reply from the Frankland. “She’ll stand by until we’re surfaced, sir. She wants us to remain surfaced until everything checks out.”
Frank saw the smirk on Byrnes’s face and knew why it was there. Byrnes would not even consider submerging again until he had found out what had prevented them from coming up. Safety. Safety first Frank continued his appraisal of the control room. His eyes rested on Hardy. The Professor was rooted where he stood, stroking his beard and, for want of a better description, looking pleased... Frank blinked in surprise, wondering what he had to be tickled about. He followed Hardy’s gaze to the clock on the forward bulkhead. The time was 1959.
Byrnes’s movement to the air-manifold operator’s station distracted him. The Captain grabbed the valve wheels and tried them himself. After three tries, and just as he threatened to become violent, one of the wheels responded. Roybell stared at him, incredulous.
“Why you and not me?” he asked.
Byrnes triumphantly moved the other valve wheels. Frank was still staring at Hardy when the whoosh of compressed air brought him around. Byrnes stepped back from the panel, satisfied.
The general surprise lasted all of four seconds. Stigwood took over and controlled the Candlefish’s rise to the surface. Whatever tension had been building in the control room vanished as the sub’s low-pressure blowers kicked in. And Hardy watched the clock tick off the seconds past the hour of 2000.
Frank gazed at the depth gauge and called out, “Zero feet!” He heard Danby in the conning tower giving the order to crack the hatch, then open it. This time nobody minded the change of pressure as the sea air washed over them, replacing the staler air that they breathed while running submerged. What was normally considered an uncomfortable transition was greeted with enormous relief as fresh air circulated through the boat.
“Lookouts to the bridge!” came Danby’s voice over the intercom. The lookouts scampered past Byrnes and up the ladders to the bridge. The Captain took one sweep around the control room, then followed. Hardy limped over, swung in behind him, and horsed himself up the metal rungs.
Byrnes ordered, “Ready main engines!”, then checked the dense fog that all but obliterated the top decks of the sub.
“Anybody pick up the escort?” He tried to pierce the white blanket that shrouded them. “Sound the foghorn,” he ordered.
The deep blasts seemed to get swallowed up. And no one picked up any answering sounds. He hit the intercom button. “Scopes! This is the Captain. Where’s the Frankland
Frank’s eyes moved up to the high triple towers over the scope shearwater and the slowly turning radar dish.
“I’ve got them at range thirty-two hundred yards astern and bearing one-seven-three starboard, sir.”
Byrnes gave the order to charge all batteries on two engines, ahead one-third. He rested his hands on the TBT and stared straight ahead.
Frank stepped closer. “What do you think went wrong?”
Byrnes glanced at him and started to answer.
He was interrupted by Hardy. “It wasn’t twenty hundred.”
Byrnes glanced over the other shoulder quizzically and muttered, “What?”
“It wasn’t twenty hundred hours,” Hardy repeated. “If the area was clear, we always surfaced at twenty hundred. I told you that. Check my log.”
Byrnes made an effort to control himself. He spoke thinly. “Just what the hell has that got to do with when I want to surface?”
If Hardy was aware of Byrnes’s anger, he chose to ignore it. “We got away with it once, but from now on,” he continued, “if you want the boat to cooperate... I would follow that log.” His smile was lost on the Captain.
Frank was flabbergasted. He spoke across Byrnes’s back. “That’s a little farfetched, Professor, don’t you think?”
Hardy turned and gazed off into the fog.
Byrnes was disgusted. He jabbed the intercom switch and bellowed: “Cassidy! Get up a work party and check out the electrical system. From stem to stern! I want an explanation!” Then, for Hardy’s benefit, he added, “A believable one!”
He released the switch and turned his back on both Frank and Hardy, gazing down the forward deck, which was completely obscured by fog. And in Frank’s opinion, for the first time, so was Hardy’s head.
Hopalong Cassidy was stretched out on his stomach, checking the last of the stop valves, when the Captain’s order came over the speaker. “Chief engineer, chief engineer,” he grumbled. “Always the Chief—never the Indians.” He got up and went looking for Witzgall. When Cassidy foun
d him, the old electrician’s mate had already assembled a small group of trouble-shooters. Quickly they split the boat up into sectors. Witzgall started forward, but Cassidy grabbed him. He suspected that if the trouble were to be found, it would be found aft.
The two old men zipped through the forward engine room, heading for the battery cage in the maneuvering compartment—the large junction box containing all of the boat’s circuit-breakers. There were enough volts in the cage to burn a bungler to a crisp.
Witzgall grabbed a battle lantern and opened the gate. Carefully they eased themselves inside and scanned the banks of electrical contacts. Working from memory, Cassidy isolated the sections that activated the ballast tanks. “Okay—we’ll start here,” he said.
Witzgall played his light beam on the contacts. Both men hoped that what they were looking for would be visible. They had no desire to do too much digging—not in here. After several strained minutes, Cassidy released a disappointed sigh. Everything looked to be in order. He reached for the lantern, then turned to Witzgall. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Pass the word not to make any sudden course changes.”
Witzgall grunted and went forward to relay the order.
Cassidy stooped over and placed the battle lantern on the deck. Gingerly he started to check the cables. Just hold her steady, he thought, just hold her steady... He stopped to wipe the sweat from his hands, then hunched over again. There was so little space in the cage, so little air—and the darkness. His hands felt along the bunched wires for the connectors. He tested each wire for firmness, each contact for solid coupling. He was on the next to last line when he found the problem. Cautiously he tugged on the heavily insulated wires and felt them give.
“Son of a bitch.”
The main air-bank connector contact was gone. A few exposed bits of copper causing all that trouble? He could hardly believe it. And he could see the outcome of all this. Byrnes would skin Danby, the electrical officer; then Danby would let a few electricians have a jolt—Witzgall included. Cassidy whipped out his bandanna and wrapped it around the defective wiring as a signal.
He picked up the battle lantern and backed out of the cage just as Witzgall returned. Cassidy played the light beam on his kerchief and said curtly, “There’s the problem. Fix it.”
Witzgall took one look at it and cursed, turning a pursed lip on Cassidy, who shrugged. They both knew it was Witzgall’s fault. The cage was the senior mate’s responsibility. Witzgall snatched the lantern and went inside.
The tension on the bridge was almost as thick as the fog. There was none of the usual small talk; even the lookouts were quiet. Frank stood over the TBT, one hand on his binoculars, his vision obscured by the mist, his brain clouded by thoughts. Hardy’s outburst could have been enough to trigger renewed doubts in Byrnes’s mind, start him building a case for scrapping the voyage.
“Found your problem, sir.” Frank turned and saw Cassidy half out of the bridge hatch, facing Byrnes on the cigarette deck.
“What was it?” asked the Captain.
“Play in the main air-bank circuit contacts. You could hardly notice, but they weren’t making a clean connection. Witzgall’s shimming them in right now.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
Byrnes didn’t even try to mask his triumph. He looked at Hardy with a flinty srnile, then thanked Cassidy.
Cassidy’s head disappeared down the hatch. The Captain, still pleased, rocked back and forth on his heels, then turned, pursed his lips, and fixed Hardy with iron-hard eyes. “So much for your twenty-hundred-hour theory, Professor. You may know all there is to know about Devil’s Triangles, geomagnetic anomalies, and other things we mere mortals aren’t privy to. But you can leave the running of the Candlefish to me. I don’t want to hear any more about when I should or should not surface. Is that understood?”
Hardy seemed to wilt. Without a word, he moved to the hatch and went below.
Frank had mixed emotions: He was glad to see Hardy chewed out, but he did not want to turn the man off and lose his cooperation. He moved alongside Byrnes. “Captain,” he said, “it took work to get him out here. Hard work. Don’t chase him away.”
Byrnes looked straight ahead. “Your hard work, Mr. Frank. This whole lashup boils down to your hard work. Do you realize we could have lost this submarine tonight?” he shouted. “As long as we can operate safely, we’ll go on. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to jeopardize this crew just to verify your hare-brained theories—and his! Understood?”
Frank could only nod.
“Get below and contact the Frankland,” Byrnes ordered in a burst of authority. “Tell them we’ve located the problem and we’re secure. We’ll submerge at 0400. If we get a visual contact with them before then, fine. If not, we’ll see them tomorrow night.”
Still shaking with anger, Frank stood by as Giroux raised the Frankland.
Cook informed Frank that they had gone to general quarters as soon as they had heard about the problem.
“It’s good to know someone’s thinking straight,” Frank replied, ignoring Giroux’s startled look. But when Cook asked, hesitantly, whether Frank had considered calling the whole thing off, Frank had no hesitation at all about snapping back a quick “No!”
He signed off before Cook could apologize and start a campaign of rationalization. He did not want to hear any of it.
Jack Hardy slipped into the wardroom. It was empty, and he needed solitude and quiet, time to examine his feelings. Maybe the Captain was right—he could be pressing too hard. But this was supposed to be a scientific experiment. The only official reason for his presence was to make certain that his log was accurate. Accepted scientific procedures should be followed. To deviate would do nothing but hinder the experiment. Why couldn’t Byrnes and the others see that? Hardy frowned at his reflection in the coffee cup.
His mood failed to brighten when Cassidy entered.
Hopalong helped himself to coffee. “Christ, it was thick up there.” He eased himself into the booth, balancing the cup and saucer.
Hardy bristled. “What does that mean?”
The chief engineer looked up from his cup, surprised at Hardy’s tone. “The fog. Or didn’t you notice?” His spoon clinked, stirring the coffee.
Hardy felt foolish. He was convinced that Cassidy didn’t like him, but Cassidy was being oddly sociable now.
“Tell me something,” Hopalong said. “This business tonight—did the same thing happen on your original patrol?”
“You mean failing to surf ace? No. Why?”
Cassidy sipped his coffee and considered it. “Well, Professor, if you had those foul-ups then... Mind you, I’m not superstitious, but forewarned is forearmed and all that shit...” Cassidy’s face was friendly, but the question in his eyes gave him away.
Hardy relaxed. Maybe his impression of the yardbird was wrong. “The only thing I left out of the log,” he said, deciding to trust Cassidy, “was the plan that Basquine came up with.”
“What plan?”
Hardy hesitated. “You were pretty close to the truth when you called him psychotic.”
“I was just mouthing off. What plan?”
Hardy snorted, then spoke into his beard. “Billy G. Basquine was the nearest thing to a certified nut that I’ve ever come across. Just before the boat went down, he was going to come off station, assigned station, and take the Candlefish into Tokyo Bay.”
Cassidy was a moment in reacting; then he said, “Well, isn’t that initiative?”
“Initiative!” Hardy spluttered ,and pushed his coffee away. “Goddamned lunacy is what that was!”
Calming down, he outlined Basquine’s lone-wolf plan, meant to be the absolute, complete, final moment of glory for the USS Candlefish.
Cassidy listened, a look of amazement growing on his craggy features. “But that was December, 1944. The war was almost over—we just about had the Pacific. Why take such a risk then?”
“Tonnage! He wanted to c
halk up a record... make a name for himself and the boat, join the ranks of the heroes. He was so hungry for targets, I think he would have sunk anything—including our own ships! And Bates, the Exec—” Hardy struggled to keep the hard edge of remembered rancor out of his voice. “If anything, he encouraged Basquine.”
Cassidy shook his head in disbelief. “All alone? No diversion? No air cover?” Hardy shook his head too. “They were nuts,” Cassidy said, “both of them. Basquine and Bates.” He drained his cup and rose. “One other thing I gotta ask you. That talk you gave in the wardroom—with the skewers and the globe. For my own satisfaction, is there anything to that?”
Hardy smiled at Cassidy’s candor. “Just a theory, Hopalong,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Then you don’t expect any trouble when we get to this Latitude Thirty?”
“None whatsoever. Why?”
“I’ve been calming down the crews. Now maybe I can feel like an honest man.” He got up and headed out, turning at the door. “Hey, Professor, if you’ve got a sweet tooth, check out the galley in about twenty minutes.”
The submarine plowed steadily on, still wrapped in the depths of the massive fog bank, the muffled throb of her engines the only evidence of her presence. The lookouts had given up on their binoculars; they huddled on their perches, safe in the knowledge that the ship’s radar could and would pierce the all-pervading grayness and warn them of anything in their path. The strident hoot of the Frankland’s fog horn, deadened by the mist, was their only contact with the outside world as the Candlefish, fog curling and licking at her sides, inched through the Pacific night in a cloak of complete isolation.
Ed Frank came off watch at 2400, dropped into the conning tower, and gave the quartermaster details to record in the ship’s log. While he waited for Lang to complete the notations, he finished sorting out all his options in silence. The Captain was his problem at the moment. Byrnes, with his safety-first policy, still could not scrub the cruise without damned good cause. If Byrnes was considering termination, he would need something more substantial than minor equipment failure to get Melanoff and Kellogg to agree. Of one thing Frank was positive: Louis F. Byrnes would not do anything that would adversely reflect on his service profile. Cutting the cruise short without ample reason, with the attendant Board of Inquiry, could become a nasty blemish on his spotless record.
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