“Hit!” he yelled. “Hit on the second target!”
“I’ve got fast screws bearing two six zero, sir!” Blake said suddenly. Brannon swiveled the periscope around and saw the destroyer that had been farther back on the convoy’s starboard beam racing toward him. He swung the periscope to the right. The first target, still listing, was underway but with no sign of smoke or fire. Brannon saw the white bow wave of a destroyer cutting across the listing tanker’s bow.
“Right full rudder,” he snapped. He swung the periscope back and forth, looking first at one destroyer and then the other.
“Down periscope!” he snapped. “Take me down! Four hundred feet! Fast, damn it, fast!” He grabbed at the bridge ladder for support as the deck tilted sharply beneath his feet as Eelfish burrowed deeper into the sea.
“Fast screws bearing two six one. More fast screws bearing three five four,” Blake reported. He was shifting on his stool, gathering his legs beneath him, his face dripping perspiration as he tried to sort out the welter of sounds in his mufflike earphones.
“Passing two hundred fifty feet, down angle fifteen degrees,” Jerry Gold said.
“Very well,” Brannon replied. “Rig for silent running. Rig for depth charge.”
The destroyer screws could be heard now, drumming through the submarine’s hull in a high, thin sound that seemed to set everything in the submarine vibrating. The sound got louder and then one ship passed almost directly overhead, the Eelfish shaking in the volume of sound.
“Rudder amidships,” Brannon ordered. He looked up as a high, sharp, cracking sound penetrated the Eelfish, the sound of a depth-charge exploder mechanism going off, and then the depth-charge explosion shook Eelfish savagely. Another sharp crack and then two more pierced through the tremendous noise of the first depth charge, and the world of the Eelfish crew became a nightmare of explosions that twisted and racked the submarine’s thin hull, twisted the ship in the vortex of underwater explosions, knocking loose everything that wasn’t screwed or bolted down. Cork insulation rained from the overhead and light bulbs and gauge glasses shattered. Shards of glass were scattered over everything.
“More fast screws, sir, I can’t tell you a bearing, too much noise!” Blake’s face, powdered with flecks of pale green paint from the cork insulation, was agonized as he tried to get a bearing on the destroyer above. He winced as the sharp crack of a depth-charge exploder mechanism sounded in his earphones, and then the Eelfish was caught again in a roaring, smashing, series of depth-charge explosions.
“Left full rudder, five hundred feet,” Brannon said. He looked upward as the drumming sound of a destroyer’s propellers filled the interior of the Conning Tower with sound. Eelfish staggered through the explosions of the sinking depth charges that twisted the long, slim length of the ship, straining the rivets and welds that bonded the thin skin of the ship to its frames, throwing men off their feet:
“Damage reports,” Brannon ordered. Olsen spoke quietly into the sound-powered telephone set that hung around his neck. He turned his face upward to the Conning Tower hatch.
“Some small leaks, sir. Nothing serious. Most of the lights are broken, using battle lanterns in all compartments. Some bruises, one bloody nose. No broken bones, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He dropped through the hatch to the Control Room and looked at the plot.
“Didn’t get a chance to shoot at the third tanker,” he said calmly. “Didn’t dare take long enough to shoot at the two destroyers. They were coming at us from two different angles.” He looked up as Blake’s voice came down the hatch.
“Two sets of twin screws aft, sir, one bearing one seven five, one bearing one six zero, sir. Both coming this way.” In the Control Room Brannon could hear the sound of the screws building to a thunder. He looked at his wrist watch.
“Right full rudder, all ahead two thirds,” he said.
The destroyers attacked as a team, depth charges rolling from their squat sterns, their Y-guns hurling the clumsy charges far out to each side. The Eelfish staggered under the attack.
“They might not stick around too long,” Olsen said in a low voice. “You blasted that second tanker. You hit the first one, I timed that one for a hit. The tankers are more important than we are to them. They might leave in a while.”
Brannon nodded and reached for a towel that Pete Mahaffey had hung from the fathometer. He mopped his dripping face and looked at the thermometer hanging near him. It read just over 105 degrees. The humidity reading on the dial just below it stood at 98 percent. He handed the towel to Olsen, who rubbed it over his face and neck.
“Here they come again!” Blake called down. “First ship bears three four five. Second ship bears three five eight, sir. Both coming fast!”
Once again the thunder of the destroyers’ screws filled the Eelfish hull. Brannon looked briefly at the plot. “Right full rudder,” he said. The helmsman strained at the big brass wheel, pulling it around by brute force.
“He’s dropped!” Blake’s voice had a sudden maturity. Brannon braced himself at the gyro table, his knees bent to take the shock of the explosions. He heard the helmsman muttering to the brass wheel.
“Take it easy, old girl,” the helmsman said. “This ain’t nothing to what you can take.’’ He grabbed at the wheel as the Eelfish reeled to port and then to starboard as the depth charges exploded. John Olsen pressed the talk button on his phone and spoke softly. He listened and then turned to Brannon.
“No serious damage, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Let’s hope you’re right, John. Maybe they’ll put more weight on protecting the tankers we didn’t get than keeping on us. They aren’t too good. They haven’t used a sonar on us once. They’ve been attacking using passive listening and by guesswork.”
“Damned good guesswork,” Olsen said. The two men looked upward as Paul Blake reported.
“One set of screws, dead slow, bearing one six zero, sir. Other set of screws has speeded up and is going away from us bearing one nine five. That set of screws is going away, sir!
Brannon reached for the towel and mopped his streaming face. “You’re guessing pretty good, John. One of the dogs has gone back to his sheep. All we have to do is be cute and let the other one get discouraged and maybe he’ll leave. Pass the word, dead silence about the decks. I don’t want to hear anyone even cough. Make turns for dead slow.”
An hour crept by with whispered reports from Blake that the enemy destroyer was still above but far out to one side. Eelfish crept away from the destroyer, running as silently as possible. Olsen looked at the clock on the bulkhead above the helm. The glass face of the clock had been shattered, but its black hands continued to move.
“Another hour should take us in the clear,” he whispered to Brannon. “He’s got to get discouraged and go back to his other ships.”
The eerie silence in the Eelfish was suddenly shattered by a whining scream from the after end of the ship. Brannon whirled around.
“Belay that damned noise!”
The high, whining sound kept rising in pitch. Blake’s voice came down the hatch.
“Destroyer is picking up speed, sir. He bears two seven five! He’s speeding up.”
“Damn it, shut down that noise!” Brannon snapped. Olsen looked up from his telephone, his face stricken.
“After Torpedo Room reports that the torpedo in Number Seven tube was fired accidentally with the outer door closed! The torpedo is running hot inside the tube!”
“Here he comes!” Blake wailed from the Conning Tower.
CHAPTER 7
The moaning scream of the runaway torpedo vibrated throughout the length of the Eelfish. Mike Brannon turned, his face grim.
“Flanagan, what in the hell can be done about this?”
“Only one thing to do, Captain. Get back there and open the inner door of the tube and snake that son of a bitch out of the tube somehow and shut the engines down.”
“You ever see it d
one?” Brannon asked.
“No, sir, but I sure as hell am going to find out how to do it.”
“Get back there. Lee, go with the Chief. Keep me informed.” Flanagan headed aft, opening each watertight door as he came to it. Lee, following him, closed the doors behind them.
The thunder of the destroyer’s screws drowned out the noise of the runaway torpedo as Flanagan and Lee hurried through the engine rooms. The first depth charge of the renewed attack went off with a shattering roar, throwing Flanagan against the guard rail of an engine in the After Engine Room. Lee heard him curse quietly as he regained his balance.
The scene in the After Torpedo Room was one of frantic activity. Fred Nelson had put in place the heavy bars that joined the skid supports on either side of the torpedo room and had moved the reload torpedo for Number Seven tube on to the crossbars. His reload crew, working with sheer muscle, had moved the 900-pound spare torpedo skid from the port side of the room over the tops of the reload torpedo in front of Number Eight tube and the torpedo that was now in the center of the room and put it in position in line with Number Seven tube. Flanagan and Lee ducked under the torpedo that was sitting on the skid cross bars and duck-walked their way up to the after end of the room to the clear space in front of the tubes.
“Cussed that damned extra skid every day since we left Fremantle,” Nelson said. “Now I could kiss the son of a bitch. At least we got something to put that bastard on that’s running away in the tube. If we ever get it out.”
“You got any bright ideas on how we’re gonna do that?” Flanagan grunted.
“Petreshock called from the Forward Room while you were comin’ aft,” Nelson said. “He figured the exhaust comin’ out of that tail cone would be hot enough to fry a man so gettin’ a line or a cable around the tail assembly to haul the bastard out would be a bitch unless we had asbestos hoods and gloves and we ain’t got any of them. He thought maybe we could shove a slewing bar down the tube, if we can reach the fish, and jam it in the screws.”
Flanagan shook his head. “Burn your damned hands off trying to put a slewing bar in the tube. You got some steel cable back here?” Nelson nodded.
“Get some steel cable. Make a coil, three or four turns about two feet across. Lash it together so it makes like a butterfly or a figure eight with a belt or something. We can feed a cable down one side of the tube so we don’t get burned off at the elbows and maybe whip it around until it catches in the screws. Might even catch good enough so we could use the cable to pull the fish out.” Nelson went scrambling forward on his hands and knees underneath the torpedo in the middle of the room. Flanagan turned to Lieutenant Lee, who had put on the Battle Station talker’s telephone set.
“Tell the Old Man what we are going to try to do, sir. Tell him we’ll do it as quick as we can.” Lee nodded and spoke into the telephone. He listened and then made a thumbs-up sign to Flanagan, who turned and looked at the cable that Nelson had prepared. He nodded his approval and picked up the heavy wrench that was used to revolve the bayonet ring that held the solid bronze inner torpedo tube door closed.
“All hands, out of the way. When this son of a bitch of a door comes open there’s gonna be noise and heat and gas like you never saw.” He put the wrench on the stud and spun it viciously. The door flew open and a high-pitched scream filled the room as boiling hot exhaust gases belched out of the tube.
Flanagan crouched below the level of the tube and to one side. Nelson gave him the looped end of the cable and Flanagan gingerly fed the loop into the tube. Nelson fed him cable as he pushed the loop down the tube. He felt it hit something solid.
“It’s at the fish,” he grunted. “Hold on to me, Fred, so’s I don’t slip and get in front of that damned exhaust.” Both men staggered as four heavy depth charge explosions shook the stern of the Eelfish. Flanagan took the cable in both hands and began to whip it up and down and to one side. Suddenly the cable jerked through his hands, and there was a grinding noise of gears shearing themselves to bits and the sound of the propellers stopped. The hot exhaust continued to pour out of the torpedo tube. Flanagan turned and saw that Nelson was laying out a block and tackle and fastening the cable to one block. The reload crew, coughing in the increasingly foul atmosphere of the torpedo room, were crouched on their knees in a line, ready to begin hauling on the block and tackle to pull the torpedo out of the tube. Flanagan turned to Lee.
“She ain’t frozen in the tube, sir. See that little bit of water leaking past the fish?” He pointed at a thin stream of water running out of the torpedo tube.
On the surface up above the Eelfish the sonar operator on the Chidori destroyer looked at his Sonar Officer.
“Whatever it was making that funny noise has stopped, sir. Shall I begin a sonar search?” The officer nodded and the sonar man punched a button. A sonar beam began pulsing out into the ocean, searching in a circle. Suddenly the beam bounced back, ringing loudly in the Sonar Room of the destroyer.
“Target bears zero two zero, sir,” he said calmly “Range to the target is five hundred yards.” The Sonar Officer murmured into the telephone he wore, and the Chidori’s bow reared high and then settled down as its engines went to full speed.
The first depth charge exploded above the Forward Torpedo Room of the Eelfish, driving Petreshock to his knees in front of the torpedo tubes, lifting the upper bunks upward and out of their chain hooks to fall with a crash against reload torpedoes. In the Control Room the bow planesman saw the bubble in his inclinometer move sharply, and he began to strain against the big brass wheel to tilt the bow planes upward to compensate for the downward push of the depth charge.
The sudden slant down by the bow that was caused by the crushing force of the depth-charge explosion brought the torpedo sliding out of the tube as Flanagan yelled a warning. The torpedo, its tail cone belching a stream of burning hot exhaust gas, its turbines howling inside the afterbody, slid down the reload skid and crashed into the thin metal side of the Engineering Log cubicle and jammed there. A 24-inch thick stream of sea water driven by the 500-foot depth Eelfish was cruising at, burst into the torpedo room out of the tube, slamming against the warhead of the runaway torpedo. Flanagan ducked under the stream of water, grabbed the bottom edge of the tube’s inner door, and tried to close it. It moved easily and then it stopped, kept from closing by the warhead of the torpedo. He ducked back under the warhead and the rock-hard stream of water and realized that Nelson had shut down the torpedo’s engines.
“Clear the room!” Flanagan bellowed, his voice loud in the suddenly silent torpedo room. “All hands get out except Nelson. Close the watertight door. Maneuvering Room, open the salvage air valves, get a pressure in here soon’s these people get out and close the door!”
The electrician on watch with Chief Morris in the Maneuvering Room pulled the watertight door closed and dogged it tight as Chief Morris, standing on the padded bench seat, reached up and opened the salvage air valves. Air under a pressure of 225 pounds to the square inch roared into the sealed-off torpedo room. Lee pressed the talk button on his phones.
“Sorry about the noise, Captain,” he said calmly. “The torpedo is out of the tube. It’s jammed into the Log Room bulkhead. We can’t close the inner door on the tube because the warhead is in the way. The tube will be secured as soon as possible. Salvage air is being bled into the room to try and keep the water level down. Water is now knee deep and still coming.”
“Very well,” Brannon said into the phone Olsen had handed him. He gave the phone back and turned to the auxiliary-man at the high-pressure air manifold.
“As soon as that son of a bitch upstairs makes another run, as soon as you can hear his screws, blow Number Six Main Ballast tanks. All of them.” The auxiliaryman repeated the order and moved his wrench to the blow valve.
“That bastard up there isn’t going to have any trouble finding us,” Olsen said.
“He hasn’t had much trouble since that fish was fired in the tube,” Brannon said. He l
ooked at the bubbles in the inclinometers in front of the bow and stern planesmen. The Eelfish was assuming a downward slant by the stern.
In the flooding After Torpedo Room Nelson had retrieved the block and tackle the reload crew had dropped into the water as they scrambled out of the room. He methodically untangled the wet lines and hooked one block over the horizontal surface of the torpedo’s tail fin. He carried the other block aft and hooked it into the skid. Flanagan joined him and took hold of the line.
“Take it easy on the haulin’,” Flanagan grunted. “We got a down angle by the stern. I don’t want this son of a bitch to hit the inner door and jam that fucker up.” The two men pulled carefully, and the torpedo slid out of the thin metal of the Log Room. Flanagan took the block off the tail and carried it to the nose of the torpedo. He pushed his hand and arm into the stream of water roaring out of the tube, wincing with pain as the water slammed into his flesh, and found the nose ring on the warhead. He got the hook in place and turned to Nelson.
“Get outboard of this fucker and when you’re set try to shove the ass end of the skid over far enough so the tail will clear the Log Room. Then we can pull the bastard back in the skid so’s we can get the inner door closed.” Nelson nodded and scrambled under the torpedo and braced his back against the hull. He put one big foot against the skid and pushed.
“Harder, Fred, harder!” Nelson heaved again and the skid moved another few inches. He scrambled toward the tail of the torpedo and explored the position of the skid and the edge of the Log Room bulkhead.
“She’s gonna clear,” he said, and ducked under the torpedo and took hold of the line on the block and tackle with Flanagan. The two men heaved mightily and then heaved again, fighting the downward angle Eelfish had assumed because of the increasing weight of the water pouring into the torpedo room. Lieutenant Lee heard Flanagan sob with effort and scrambled upward on the skid in the middle of the room, peering intently at the inner torpedo tube door and the warhead nose. The torpedo inched away from the inner door.
Silent Sea (The Silent War Book 2) Page 10