Sea of Death

by Richard P. Henrick

  “At case, sailor,” returned Slaughter, who watched as the Dodger pitcher proceeded to walk in the tying run.

  “And you’re right, Mr. Morales. He is dying out there.”

  Morales responded, a bit more relaxed now.

  “You should know, Captain. After all, pitching was your specialty back at the Academy. Scuttlebutt has it you turned down an offer by the Giants.”

  “Actually, it was the Cardinals,” corrected Slaughter.

  “And who knows if I would have made it out of spring training. The way I look at it. Uncle Sam offered me a lot better job security.”

  A heavy set, crewcut man wearing a stained apron walked out of the food preparation area. One look at the newly arrived pair of officers caused this individual’s youthful face to light up, and he readjusted his wire rims and spoke out warmly.

  “Good evening. Captain Slaughter, Lieutenant Commander Kram. Don’t tell me it’s inspection time already.”

  “That it is, Mr. Mallot,” returned Slaughter, who had seen enough of the baseball game.

  “Why don’t you start out by giving us tonight’s menu?”

  Petty Officer First Class Howard Mallot readily complied with this request.

  “In honor of payday we’re serving New York strip steaks, onion rings, corn on the cob, garlic toast, coleslaw and hot peach cobbler & la mode for dessert.”

  “That lineup sounds like areal tasty winner,” said Slaughter.

  “Looks like the crew won’t be voicing any complaints about the chow selection tonight.”

  “About that special low-fat diet I tried out on the men last week,” the sensitive head chef put in, “I still think it makes sound health sense in the long run.”

  “We’re not doubting your intentions. Chief,” observed the XO.

  “It’s just that the crew was ready for some diversity. Turkey is still turkey, no matter how you disguise it.”

  A sailor walked by with a plate of fresh chow, and Mallot carefully surveyed the man’s food.

  “Damn,” said Mallot to no one in particular.

  “Those rings still look overcooked.”

  “Could it be that new oil you’re cooking in, Chief?” offered the XO.

  “You mean the canola oil, sir?” returned Mallot.

  “No, that’s not the cause. I’m afraid we’ve got us a bad thermostat on the deep fryer. The last couple of temperature checks showed a slight deviance from normal. Yet from the looks of those rings, I’d say that the oil is hotter than I suspected.”

  “Sounds to me like it’s time to replace that thermostat,” suggested Slaughter, as aseaman assigned to the radio room entered the galley and handed him a folded message. After thoroughly reading this communique, he handed it to his XO. Benjamin Kram hurriedly skimmed the dispatch, while Slaughter readdressed the Hawkbill’s head cook.

  “Mr. Mallot, you’d better have your men complete the meal preparations at once. And be prepared to indefinitely delay normal serving hours.”

  Fully aware that this most likely meant the Hawkbill was being called into action, Mallot nodded in compliance.

  “Aye, aye. Captain.”

  With this. Slaughter turned for the forward hatchway, with his tight-lipped XO close behind him. They wasted no time heading directly to the control room.

  This compartment was lit by a muted red light to protect the crew’s night vision. In this space, the size of a one-car garage, was situated a wide variety of manned consoles that could influence the sub’s speed, depth, course, and fighting abilities.

  Waiting for the two senior officers beside the periscope well was the boat’s navigator and current officer of the deck. Lieutenant Rich Laycob. A product of the Naval ROTC program, Laycob had served on the Hawkbill for over a year now. Known as a practical joker, the navigator was all business as Chris Slaughter and Benjamin Kram joined him at the conn to determine the sub’s current operational status.

  “Mr. Laycob,” the captain said in a subdued tone, “we’ve just received a flash dispatch from the Enterprise, ordering us to investigate a suspected breach in the task force’s northeastern security perimeter by an unidentified submerged contact. Here are the exact coordinates where this penetration supposedly took place. The XO will take the conn, while you plot us an intercept. If there’s indeed a hostile submarine out there, I want to tag it long before it knows we’re on to them.”

  “You’ve got it. Captain,” answered the navigator ashe took the dispatch and hurried over to the nearby chart table.

  “Bring us around slowly to course zero-three-zero, Ben. And take us down to four hundred feet,” instructed Slaughter.

  “I’ll be over at sonar if you need me.”

  “Shall I sound battle stations?” asked the XO.

  The captain shook his head.

  “Let’s hold off awhile, Ben. At least until we’ve got the first real hint of a positive contact. For all we know, that Seahawk may have merely chanced upon an unwary whale.”

  As the Hawkbill silently turned on its new course, Slaughter crossed the control room and approached a large console manned by three individuals. Each seated man wore headphones, and had his attention focused on the bank of glowing cathode-ray screens and digital readouts he was assigned to monitor. It was to the sailor situated at the far right position that the captain was drawn. This was Senior Sonar Technician James Echoles, or Jaffers ashe was known to the crew.

  At the moment, the big, black enlisted man was one of a trio of sailors acting as the sub’s eyes and cars. By the utilization of both passive and active means, it was up to these three to determine the presence of other vessels, both submerged and on the surface, and any other physical obstacle that could endanger the Hawkbill.

  At present, only the passive mode of observation was being used. This was the most stealthy means of detection available to them. It primarily relied on a series of strategically placed hydrophones, positioned around the boat’s hull. These ultrasensitive listening devices relayed a cacophony of both artificial and natural sounds into the sonar console for interpretation and analysis by the technicians.

  As the senior sonarman on duty, Jaffers was the one Slaughter was relying on to convey the first concrete evidence of another submarine’s presence. He had demonstrated his incredibly sensitive hearing ability on many past occasions. Yet when this quality was combined with a probing intellect, an unyielding determination to succeed, and an almost uncanny power of intuition, what resulted was one of the best sonar techs in the entire US Navy. Considering himself fortunate to have such a talented sailor in his crew. Slaughter gently touched the sonarman on the shoulder.

  “Evening, Jaffers. What have you got out there?”

  The senior sonarman looked up from his console as if he was breaking from a trance.

  “Hello, Captain,” he replied with a grin.

  “You caught me trackin’ the Enterprise.”

  “How would you like the chance to go after some real game?” Slaughter offered with a wink.

  Jaffers was quick to take the bait.

  “I’ve been prayin’ for something’ excitin’ to come along and shorten the time left for chow. I hear Mallot’s gone and broke out the prime sirloin steaks — and I don’t mean turkey.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can have steak every day for the rest of this patrol. All you have to do is tag a submerged contact that’s supposedly been shadowing the task force from the extreme northeastern security quadrant.”

  “Is it Ivan?” asked the senior sonarman.

  “The Airdale who got the initial drop on them couldn’t get a definite. Hell, we still don’t even know if it’s another submarine or not.”

  “Well, you certainly came to the right place to find out the answer to that question, Captain. Just get us within range, and leave the rest to me.”

  “I was counting on that, Jaffers. Lieutenant Laycob is plotting the intercept. We’ll be going in nice and quiet, with a passive search mode only.”


  “That’s the way I like to do my hunting’, Captain.

  Can we deploy the towed array?”

  “I don’t see why not,” answered Slaughter, ashe looked at his wristwatch.

  “I’ll check with navigation and get you details on our approach. Meanwhile, you can brief your men on our new objective.”

  “I’ll get on it at once, sir,” said Jaffers, who appeared anxious to get down to some serious work.

  Satisfied that the sonar team could meet this challenge, Slaughter proceeded over to the chart table, where he joined the navigator. Rich Laycob was in the midst of formulating a plan of attack, that would take the Hawkbill immediately beneath the Enterprise task force. Effectively masked by the variety of sound signatures being produced by these ships as they continued sailing north, the Hawkbill would then creep off to the northeast, deploy the towed sonar array, and sweep the area where the Seahawk helicopter had made the initial contact.

  Slaughter had no objection to this plan, and quickly went about implementing it. An hour and a half later, it produced the desired results, when senior sonarman James Echoles picked up the distant signature of an unidentified submerged contact, following the task force on the extreme eastern boundary of its security perimeter. It was at this point that battle stations was sounded, and the Hawkbill cautiously moved in to further investigate.

  Back in the crew’s mess, this call to alert sent those sailors in the midst of a meal scurrying to their action stations. This included Howard Mallot and his staff, whose job it was to secure the galley for possible combat.

  A pair of sailors were tasked to clear off the dirty plates and batten down the diningroom This left Mallot and a single seaman stationed in the galley.

  Because of the captain’s forewarning, Mallot had long ago completed the bulk of the food preparation.

  There were only a couple of steaks cooking on the grill ashe switched off the flame and cut the power to the deep fryer. To keep the hot oil from sloshing around, he closed the lid of the fryer and then turned his attention to stowing away any loose items. Noise was a submariner’s worst enemy; a can or pot striking the deck had to be avoided at all costs.

  Mallot was in the process of sealing shut the china bin when the Hawkbill lurched forward in a sudden burst of speed. This was followed by a tight port turn that sent the portly chef crashing into the side of the sink to his right. Ashe struggled to regain his balance, he noted with some degree of satisfaction that all of the various kitchen implements stored around him had so far remained in place.

  “Hawkbill’s sure going some place in a hurry,” observed Mallot, who was forced to hold onto the edge of the sink when the bow suddenly angled sharply downward.

  The young seaman who had been assisting him failed to find a handhold, and smacked into the forward bulkhead with his shoulder.

  “Are you okay, lad?” asked Mallot, his tone full of concern.

  “I believe so. Chief,” replied the seaman, ashe tightly held onto a strip of elevated coaming.

  “What in the world’s happening out there?”

  The deck canted hard to the left, with the down angle on the bow now a good thirty degrees.

  “My guess is we’re playing cat and mouse with another submarine,” offered Mallot.

  “The captain warned me earlier that this might be coming down.”

  It was as the Hawkbill turned hard on its right side that Mallot’s attention was diverted by the sickening scent of smoke. He sniffed the air curiously while hastily scanning the narrow compartment. His startled gaze finally halted on a gathering plume of black smoke emanating from the direction of the deep fryer.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed.

  “The damn thermostat must have failed. Inform the conn while I hit the extinguisher!”

  Fire was one of the most terrifying events that a submariner could experience. Because of the restricted confines, if flame didn’t get them, toxic fumes would. Well aware of this fact, Mallot reached out to activate the range-guard extinguisher system.

  After burning his hand on the switch, he was forced to abandon the galley when a choking column of thick smoke completely filled the food-preparation area.

  He was gasping for breath ashe stumbled out into the mess, but was immediately aware of the voice blasting from the boat’s intercom.

  “Fire in the galley!” it reported tensely.

  A piercing electronic alarm followed, and Mallot struggled to put on an oxygen mask. He allowed himself three deep breaths to clear out his lungs before forcefully speaking into the mask’s throat mike.

  “This is Chief Mallot. I’m in charge in the crew’s mess. Pressurize the middle-level fire hose!”

  One of his alert coworkers who also wore a mask, handed him this hose, which had a thin, arm-length nozzle. He turned toward the galley, then charged into its smoke-filled entranceway.

  “Come on, men!” he bravely yelled.

  “Let’s work that hose in here!”

  Throughout the Hawkbill, the fire alarm brought dread. Especially in the control room. Chris Slaughter had been bent over the chart table when word of the emergency reached them. After putting on his oxygen mask, he rushed over to the periscope well, all the while ordering the OOD to break off pursuit of the other submarine.

  “Take us up to sixty-five feet. Emergency ascent!”

  he firmly ordered.

  Only one thing mattered now, and that was getting the boat to the surface as quickly as possible. But first they had to attain periscope depth, so he could make certain there was no surface traffic topside.

  It seemed to take the Hawkbill an eternity to climb out of the cold, black depths. His palms stinging from his hard grip on the steel handrail he’d grabbed to keep from falling backward, Slaughter contemplated a worst-case scenario. Envisioning toxic black fumes filling the boat with agonizing death, he looked out to the digital depth gauge and silently willed the sub upward.

  At eighty feet the steepness of their climb noticeably lessened. By the time they had passed the seventy-foot level. Slaughter had already raised the main scope. No sooner did the lens break the sea’s surface than he initiated alightning-quick, 360-degree scan. A blessed expanse of vacant black sea greeted him, and he immediately gave the order to surface.

  Slaughter was in the process of backing away from the periscope well when aportly newcomer wearing aport able oxygen mask and a smoke-stained, water soaked uniform, rushed into the control room.

  “Captain, Petty Officer Mallot reporting, sir.

  There’s heavy smoke in the forward compartment, mid level. But the fire is out. We had to use the range-guard system and two pressurized hoses to extinguish it. There are no injured personnel, and the damage appears to be limited to the deep fat-fryer thermostat.”

  Slaughter’s relief was instantaneous.

  “Thank God that’s the extent of it. Let’s ventilate the boat, and then see what we can do about relocating that bogey we were chasing when this whole damn thing came down.”

  “C–Captain Slaughter, sir,” stuttered Mallot nervously.

  “For what it’s worth, I take personal blame for this entire incident. I should have replaced that damn thermostat the moment I suspected it of malfunctioning.”

  “Relax, Mr. Mallot,” instructed Slaughter.

  “If there’s anyone to blame, it’s the manufacturer who’s guilty of selling the Navy faulty equipment. You were only doing your best. Besides, if we had stuck to your turkey diet, none of this would have even happened!”

  Four

  Approximately halfway between Okinawa and the Japanese mainland lay tiny Takara Island. Of volcanic origin, Takara rose from the sea some one million years ago, making it a relatively young landmass in terms of earth time. Seven and a half miles long and three miles wide, Takara was for the most part comprised of desolate, mountainous terrain.

  Only its southern shore was populated. The majority of this island’s inhabitants lived and worked around a horse
shoe-shaped bay, that had direct access to the sea beyond.

  Takara was first settled by a small group of Japanese fishermen from Kyushu, back in the mid-six-teen hundreds. Because of its inhospitable terrain, this was the extent of its development until the early days of World War II, when the Japanese Navy established an observation post on the island.

  It was to this facility that a teenage ensign by the name of Yukio Ishii was dispatched in the closing days of the war. Ishii’s primary responsibility had been to monitor the passage of allied air and sea traffic in the vicinity, but when the threatened invasion of the mainland failed to materialize and the atomic bomb sealed Japan’s fate, Ishii had returned to Tokyo as one of the vanquished.

  Just as post-World War II Japan saw the demise of one segment of the population — the militarists-it presented an unprecedented opportunity to many others. Ishii was one of those who took advantage of this situation, and he directly participated in the rebirth of his homeland. Still in his late teens, with his hopes and ideals intact, he enrolled in college and graduated seven years later, with degrees in both biochemistry and medicine.

  Having a talent for both basic research and business, Ishii’s first entrepreneurial venture was the marketing of kelp in the treatment of iodine deficiency.

  Success in selling this product led him to develop aline of pharmaceuticals, each of which was derived from an organism that had its home in the sea.

  As additional capital began pouring in, he turned his genius in another direction — developing away to extract a variety of minerals from the seafloor itself. This boosted his company, Ishii Industries, to one of the fifty largest private businesses in all of Japan. To grow even farther, all it needed was a suitable base of operations. Ishii eventually found this base on Takara Island.

  Now a decade had passed since he’d astounded his competitors by announcing the relocation of his entire business to this relatively isolated isle. An extended lease secured from the government gave him complete stewardship of Takara until well into the next century. With an eye to future expansion, he’d built a multimillion yen industrial facility on the shores of Takara Bay. This ultramodern complex included a city capable of sustaining over a thousand occupants with all the comforts of the mainland.