Over the Hill: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 6)

by Craig DiLouie

  “I’ll let Pearl know.”

  “I also saw Lieutenant-Commander Reilly of the Dartfish at the camp. Pass that up too.”

  “I will.”

  Charlie felt a strange pull to go back to be with his shipmates, another to slumber in the deep with his command. “Were there any other survivors of the Sandtiger?”

  “Thirty-three men made it off your boat. They were all picked up.”

  “Thank God.” It was nothing short of a miracle.

  “A chief named Braddock got them out.”

  “He’s one of our best.” If Braddock had died, Charlie would have heard no end of it from the chief when he showed up in Heaven.

  “The papers made a big deal of it. The Sandtiger fighting the Yamato, the escape. Braddock gave some speeches last December as part of a war loan drive.” Boyer leaned on his elbows. “Is it like the papers said? You charged, on the surface, straight into the thick of the Japanese fleet to buy time for our carriers?”

  Charlie blinked at a blurry vision of the Sandtiger dying in the sea.

  “Commander?”

  He released the breath he was holding. “We fought off four destroyers, put two shots in the Yamato’s guts, and forced him off the line.”

  “A hell of a thing.”

  “Then our single Mark 18 did a circular run and nailed us in the stern. We went down quick.”

  The captain paled. “Jesus. The dope is a DD holed you.”

  “The dope is wrong.”

  “Well, what you did changed the battle, Commander.”

  Charlie shook his head. “The Johnston changed the battle. He started it all off. We just followed his lead and did our part.”

  “That was Captain Evans. Some of his men made it off the ship, but Evans himself was never found.”

  “The ship went down fighting.” He remembered taking the ship’s name as his own during captivity and how it had given him a deep well of resolve. “I owe him a great debt.”

  “How so, Commander?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “There aren’t many targets out there anymore,” Boyer said. “Most of the Nip merchant fleet is on the bottom. Their navy’s out of gas. We’re one of several wolf packs in the Bathtub. Auckland’s Avengers. With a name like that, you’d think we were taking on the Yamato. For weeks, we’ve been fighting coastal frigates and sampans. Auckland even worked up a few commando operations, sending parties ashore to blow up railroad tracks and the like. Then that convoy came along, something finally worth a torpedo. We really sank our teeth into it. Finally! I’d thought. Finally, some decent targets.” He grimaced. “Then I find out I murdered hundreds of good men.”

  Charlie peered at him. “They don’t mark their prison ships.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact.”

  “I’ll tell you something else you should know.”

  Interested, the captain leaned forward. “Yeah?”

  “We wanted you to sink us. No, not because we’re patriots. We wanted you to sink us because drowning in a Jap hold would have been a relief.”

  Charlie knew all about the kind of guilt Boyer must have been feeling. He wanted the man to know that, no matter how things turned out, the Thornfish had saved the prisoners aboard the hell ship.

  “Well, we pulled you out of the water.”

  “You did. And I haven’t thanked you yet.”

  “I’ve killed a lot of men in this war,” the captain said. “Rescuing a fellow captain was probably the best thing I ever did.”

  Charlie understood that now too. So had Rusty, whose highlight of the war was saving downed flyers in Leyte Gulf. For Charlie, it wasn’t sinking the Yosai or charging the Yamato, it was rescuing Jane and the civilians from Mindanao. It had taken him an entire war, and thousands of dead Japanese sailors, to discover this.

  “Anyway,” Boyer added. “Our patrol is coming to an end. We’re going back to Guam for a refit. Not you, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “New orders.” The captain handed him a sheet of paper.

  FOR THORNFISH X RENDEZVOUS SWORDFISH AREA TWELVE X TRANSFER HARA KIRI TO SWORDFISH X WELCOME BACK SON X COMSUBPAC SENDS X

  Charlie wracked his brain to remember which stretch of water was Area Twelve. “That’s the Seto Inland Sea. Why?”

  “We’re gonna find out,” Boyer said. “You wanted to pitch in. Well, Uncle Charlie himself has something planned for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE SWORDFISH

  Submerged, the Thornfish arrived at the designated coordinates in the Seto Inland Sea and circled the deep, awaiting night.

  After sunset, she prepared to surface.

  In the crowded control room, Bryant turned to Boyer. “Ready to surface in every respect, Captain.”

  “Very well, Exec. Take her up.”

  Charlie stood by the TDC while the Thornfish’s crew expertly executed their surfacing procedures. His anxiety quashed any comfort he took in observing this all-too-familiar ritual.

  The Swordfish was out there, already surfaced and waiting for him. He didn’t want to leave. Despite his cleithrophobia, he felt safe in the bowels of the boat. Not quite home, but home enough.

  The surfacing alarm bleated. High-pressure air blasted into the ballast tanks. The planesmen angled the submarine for her ascent.

  Leaving the boat meant he’d eventually wind up back at Pearl. The doctors would pull him from the war for good. He didn’t want that. He wanted to stay as close as possible to Rusty and Percy. He wanted to pitch in as long as he could to end this war. And he was afraid he could never truly go home.

  From his hatred of the Japanese to his horrific nightmares, he’d feared becoming like one man. Reynolds, the S-55’s XO.

  How could Charlie ever function in the civilian world again? His life before the war seemed like a naive dream. Maybe he’d find Jane after all. She’d understand. He’d let Evie go for good. She’d be better off without him. Jane would soothe him. They’d caress each other’s scars. They’d live for the day, running just one step ahead of yesterday.

  The boat reached the surface. The quartermaster called out the all clear and added the Swordfish was nearby and waiting.

  “Showtime, Commander,” Boyer said.

  Wearing a Mae West over his service khakis, Charlie climbed the rungs to mount the bridge. Still weak and easily fatigued, his sluggishness irritated him.

  At the top, the cool night air was refreshing after living in the hot submarine for the past five days. The Swordfish lay at full stop a mere fifty yards to port.

  The sailors ignored him while they rigged out a raft. They hadn’t quite figured out how to treat the broken hero and regarded him as just another piece of equipment to be rigged and stowed as needed. Which was just as well.

  The captain and Bryant mounted to the bridge. Boyer shook Charlie’s hand with a firm grip. “Good luck, Commander.”

  “Thank you, Captain. I owe you my life.”

  “That might go both ways.”

  Boyer meant he’d chosen to regard Charlie’s rescue as a redemption of sorts for his torpedoing a prison ship and sending 1,500 Allied servicemen to a watery grave. Charlie was glad to hear it. He didn’t want to see the captain end up like Saunders, filled with regret.

  “Take care of yourself, hotshot,” Bryant said.

  “You too, Bryant. Be sure to tell Manning thanks again for everything.”

  The sailors helped him into the raft and started paddling. As they drew near, the Swordfish’s hazy, black outline clarified in the gray moonlight.

  She was a Tench class, the latest in submarine design, just introduced when Charlie last put to sea. She was about forty tons heavier than the Balao class and better built. Two five-inch deck guns. Twenty-eight torpedoes. And a ballast tank converted to fuel storage, which increased the boat’s range from 11,000 to 16,000 miles.

  Her sailors appeared in the gloom as the raft approached. One called down, “Hey, Thornfish!
Did you bring that target you stole from us in the Bungo Strait?”

  The chief rowing beside Charlie shouted back, “Sorry, we sank so many targets, we must have misplaced it!”

  The men laughed, though the kidding was edged with real resentment. Targets had largely dried up, and more submarines than ever were operating across the waters once ruled by the crumbling Japanese Empire. Each was commanded by a skipper who wanted to make a name for himself before the war ended, creating a bitter rivalry among the boats.

  “Here’s our stop, Commander,” the chief said as the sailors finished rowing beside the submarine. “Good luck, sir.”

  A hand reached down to haul Charlie up onto the Swordfish’s deck.

  A familiar voice: “Miss me, sir?”

  Only one man could make “sir” sound like “asshole” quite like that.

  Surprised, Charlie looked up and found Chief John Braddock grinning back at him. “You know what. I actually did.”

  “Welcome back, Captain.”

  Braddock helped Charlie onto the deck. The Swordfish’s crew cheered as the chief enveloped him in a crushing bear hug.

  The Seto Inland Sea between the Japanese home islands of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  PROVIDENCE

  Braddock released his captain quickly. He didn’t want the man to get the idea he was going soft. Unsure what to say, he stepped back and fidgeted.

  Though a natural cynic, he couldn’t help but be amazed. He hadn’t trusted the radio message about Harrison’s rescue until he saw his captain with his own eyes. Even now, he hardly believed it. The whole thing was a miracle.

  Captain McMahon broke the awkward silence. “Welcome aboard the Swordfish, Commander.”

  Charlie saluted. “Thank you, Captain.”

  McMahon returned it deliberately and with feeling. “The chief will take you below and spell things out for you. I’ll be down directly.”

  As they made their way to the hatch, the security detail gaped at the hero of the Sandtiger. They reached out to pat the man on the back. Charlie flinched at the first touch. Then he grit his teeth and endured it.

  In the wardroom, Cotten had poured three mugs of coffee and set them on a small square table that was bolted to the bulkhead.

  The Alamo Scout stood. “It’s good to see you again, Charlie.” He offered a grim smile. “Though it’s hard to see you like this.”

  Braddock looked away. It wasn’t hard to see him; it was goddamn heartbreaking. Harrison looked dead on his feet. Rail thin, scars, chipped teeth, and more ghosts in his eyes than even Cotten had.

  He couldn’t imagine what the captain had endured.

  Another miracle the man was even still alive.

  Charlie shook hands with Cotten, who’d gone to hell and back himself and had the scars to prove it. “Good to see you too.”

  “The gang’s all here. You turning up is like divine providence.”

  The men sat, and Charlie pulled his mug toward him. “Is anybody going to fill me in on what’s going on? What are you doing on the Swordfish?”

  “Admiral Lockwood sent us to bust you out of prison.” Cotten snorted, smiling again. “But you being you, you had to come to us.”

  Charlie turned to Braddock. “They’re still there. Rusty and Percy.”

  “What about Morrison? Nixon?”

  He shook his head. “Gone.”

  Cotten: “How many Americans are at the camp?”

  “There are actually two camps.”

  “But all y’all were held at the branch camp,” the Scout said. “Special hellhole for submariners and airmen, right?”

  “About fifty men in that one. More airmen coming in all the time. In the larger PW camp, I’d guess around six hundred. That’s where Rusty and Percy are now.”

  Braddock glanced at Cotten, who responded with a subtle headshake. Not now. The chief scowled. If not now, when?

  Charlie said, “So when are we going?”

  “Not ‘we,’ Charlie,” the Scout said. “My boys will handle this. We trained for two months for this op.”

  Harrison narrowed his eyes. Braddock knew that stubborn look well. Right now, the man seemed to be running on pure determination. One way or the other, he was going ashore with the commandos.

  Braddock frowned. If Charlie pushed his way into the op, he just knew the earnest lunatics would try to talk him into coming too.

  The Scout slid a large aerial photo across the table. It depicted a series of buildings in an E shape. “You want to help? You can give us information. This is the camp as of a month ago. We know the layout, but we don’t know much about the guards. How many, their quality, their schedule, that kind of thing.”

  “I’ll tell you everything you need to know,” Charlie said. “What’s the plan?”

  “On August fifth, heavy bombers are scheduled to pound Kyushu,” Cotten explained. “The start of Operation Downfall, the invasion of the home islands.”

  “They’re going to hit Miyazaki again, and hard,” Braddock chimed in. “It’ll keep the Japs busy while we make our move.”

  The Scout nodded. “We go in hard and fast just before dawn, get the prisoners out, and load them up on the Swordfish and two other submarines that will rendezvous with us in the Hyuga-nada Sea. Then we make tracks for Third Fleet and get you all to a hospital ship.”

  Charlie stared at Cotten then Braddock. “You can’t fit that many prisoners on three boats.”

  The Scout sighed. “That’s right.”

  “Just tell him, Jonas,” Braddock said.

  Charlie glared at Cotten. “You planned your op for the branch camp only.”

  “Yup.”

  “Rusty and Percy are at the base camp. How are we supposed to get them out?”

  “You were always straight with me, Charlie. I guess I owe it to you to do likewise. The answer is I don’t know. This is new information.”

  Overcome with emotions, Charlie was shaking in his chair.

  Braddock eyed him with alarm. “We’ll figure something out, sir.”

  “Yeah,” Cotten said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. You should rest now.”

  The Sandtiger’s captain still glowered at them, intent on figuring it out now. Then he shook his head and sagged, suggesting a weariness set deep in his bones that he just couldn’t hide anymore. “Tomorrow.”

  Braddock showed him to his berth. For the duration, Harrison would be hot bunking with the Swordfish’s officers. The chief fidgeted, and he was somewhat irritated he couldn’t give the man any crap for almost getting him killed again when the Sandtiger went down. Harrison had been treated so poorly it wouldn’t be right.

  “I ain’t tucking you in, sir,” he said. “Good night.”

  Charlie sat on the bunk. “Braddock.”

  “What?”

  “You did good.”

  “I wasn’t about to let the Japs give you any more shit, sir. That’s my job.”

  Charlie didn’t laugh. “You led the men off the boat. I don’t know if you got thanked enough, but now it’s my turn.”

  “You’re the big hero, not me.”

  “No.” The captain’s eyes blazed again. “I fought a ship. You saved the crew. Knowing you did makes me sleep a lot easier at night.”

  “I didn’t save them all. So don’t ask me how I’m sleeping. Good night.”

  “Braddock?”

  The chief froze in the doorway. “Yeah. What?”

  “Let me save the rest.”

  “It ain’t up to me, sir.”

  “I can’t go back without them.”

  Not won’t. Not didn’t want to. He couldn’t.

  “If there’s a way, we’ll do it. Good night, sir.”

  Braddock left fuming. For months, he’d built up a catalog of biting comments he’d hoped to unleash on Harrison the moment he saw him—just in case the captain thought Braddock went through all this trouble to rescue him because of any real affection. He’d even gone so far a
s to get Cotten to lie and say it had been all Lockwood’s idea instead of his own.

  Seeing Harrison in such a reduced state, unable to save his crew, however, robbed him of his instinct to be an asshole.

  Lying in his own bunk in the nearby chiefs’ quarters, he raged at what the Japanese had done to the man. What a single broke-dick torpedo had done to the Sandtiger. What Harrison had ultimately done to himself.

  And what the war had done to all of them. Beneath all the flags and bands and Copeland’s propaganda, the war was bloody, dirty, and horrific. A war fought between men who no longer saw each other as human.

  Total war.

  The Sandtiger’s captain screamed in his quarters.

  Braddock hustled to the stateroom where Charlie slept. The man lay taut with terror on his bunk, sweating and moaning.

  It reminded him of Harrison’s fever after Saipan. Braddock worried about him then too. The captain thought fighting together was supposed to be some big bonding experience, like bowling. Yes, together, they’d sunk the Mizukaze, skirmished on Mindanao, and survived the horrors of Saipan. None of it endeared the man to Braddock, however. In fact, each episode only pissed him off more.

  Seeing Harrison writhing in a fever at death’s door, and now hearing him cry out in anguish in his sleep, this made him care.

  The chief sat on the bunk’s edge and squeezed his captain’s hand. “You’re all right now, sir.”

  Charlie’s sweating hand gripped his back with surprising force. “Morrison!”

  “You’re on the Swordfish, Captain. You’re safe here.”

  “You’re a hell of a submarine officer. I’m proud to know you.”

  “I saw your girl in San Francisco on my way back from the bond tour,” he said. Charlie was in delirium and couldn’t hear him, but Braddock hoped the words would somehow get through. “Evie. What a doll. She made me promise to get you home.” His face contorted into a wry smile. “Now I’ve got both of you making me dance to your tune.”