"Jim!"
"Right here, Captain!" Jim's voice was close. He might have noticed the hand motion with which I discovered the position of the control handle, had in any event come over to the periscope in case I needed him.
Perhaps Blockman had for some reason turned the — handle to the low power position after his last observation, actually had accomplished the range-finding operation in high power after all. In this case everything was all right…
The periscope popped out of water, stopped its upward travel with a familiar jolt. And there it was. Catastrophe. I took it all in. Solid. My head nearly burst with the shock of it. Chill all over my body. Prickling sensation at the ends of my fingers. "Take her down!" I shouted. It was nearly a scream. "Take her down emergency! Series! Two thousand a side! Sound the collision alarm!" Hastily I flipped the handle to low power and back to high power again.
I was looking at the most fearsome sight any submarine commanding officer can ever be given to look at. just such a sight must have greeted poor Jones, skipper of the S-4, years ago off Provincetown. When his boat was finally raised, after all the heartbreaking failures, there was, of course, no one left alive to tell, but they found the periscope half-down, bent over at a sharp angle and stopped in mid-travel, its steel cables spewed forth by the unhalted hoist motors in strangling loops all over the control room. Jones must have given these same identical orders, in this same identical situation, four- teen years before. But the Paulding had been too close and going too fast, and the S-4 couldn't make it.
And now we were in the same spot. In high power, equivalent to a six-power telescope, which is exactly what it is, all the periscope could show me was a huge gray-painted steel bow, oddly broad because seen from right ahead, not slender and lean as a destroyers bow commonly looks, but deadly. In the center stood the sharp stem to which the bow plates were riveted, the rivets stood out plainly, — and some distance to either side I could see the outlines of numbers, too foreshortened to read the "189" which I knew them to be.
In low power, one and a half magnification instead of six, I could see part of the mast and all of the bridge, — and the curling bone in her teeth as she sliced swiftly through the smooth waves toward us. No time to take a range. No time, nor need, to do anything Can't take a range this close any- way-just look at it, let your eyes bug out, — this is the look of death coming at you, — at least your have had a privilege few people get-leave the scope up and pray they'll see it There was suddenly a lot going on. I could feel the frantic, hurry throughout the ship. The watertight doors slammed shut. Feet scurried into desperate action. Air whooshed out of regulator tank. There came the murmur of the diving planes suddenly jammed over into the full dive position the heartening tilt of the deck as it inclined downward, and the sustained push of our now racing propellers. The range must be about two, hundred yards now. Maybe Semmes will see the periscope and put her rudder over to avoid it-not much chance any more. They'd be looking out to the side, expecting to see the torpedo coming their way, ready to spot where it passed under their keel, and follow its track to where it surfaced.
Water closed over the end of the scope. No further purpose it could serve. No chance they might see it, nor of seeing through it-"Down periscope!" I barked. Instantly it whistled into the well.
"Depth!"
"Five-oh feet!" Tom had taken over the dive from the trainee. "Going down now, sir!" That situation was under as good control as it could be.
The periscope motors automatically stopped when the periscope bottomed, and Jim released the pickle. We could hear the destroyer coming now, a drumming-thumming, steadily- growing-louder sound. Great bronze propellers thrashing the water, shoving it astern, driving the ship ahead, dispassionately and unconsciously, — nonetheless inevitably-bringing doom our way. Gigantic bright bronze choppers flailing, slashing, projecting downward a good two feet below the Semmes' keel. One bite from a single, blade would be instantly followed by dozens of others, would open our pressure hull like a sardine tin. One blade already had a nick, for we clearly heard the swish-swish-swish of it going around. We must be sure to tell the skipper of the Semmes of it, if we get back.
Strange. If we get back. It's about time we'll know; it's about to pass overhead! If it's going to hit us, now's the time."
"Depth!" I snapped out the word question for the second time within a quarter of a minute. Tom was only six feet away but Jim was between us, and so were several others, "Five-eight feet!" Tom snapped the answer back. There was a roar of cacophonic sound, a sudden dropping of pitch, a thumping-banging-clanking of all sorts of miscellaneous machinery, and then the Semmes was past. I looked around, weak from the reaction, mopped my face. She hadn't hit us, but we had to make sure. "All compartments report!" I ordered. Jim, with white set face, moved with alacrity.
Hansen hadn't budged from the spot where he had been standing during our silent interchange only a few seconds earlier, but his face showed the strain it must have cost him to hold himself rigidly in check while others took care of the emergency which might cost him his life.
Blockman's round countenance was no longer stolid. It looked scared, in fact, but this was as nothing compared to the look that would be there after Hansen and the submarine- school authorities got through with him. Now the danger was past, I derived grim pleasure from the thought, and an insane urge to batter in that wet, stupid face shook my self- possession.
All the way back to our dock in New London my nerves were as tight as a violin string, and about as ready to screech if anything scratched across them. It was dark when we got alongside, — luckily the tide was with us and the landing was easy-and as soon as the boat was safely snugged down for the night I went below. I needed something to soothe my jumpy nerves, to relieve the tension which had grown worse instead of relaxing. The muscles in my arms and neck were jumping spasmodically.
An hour later, in seldom-used civilian dress, I stood at the bar in the club, with my second drink as yet untasted in my hand. The first had not helped a bit, for suddenly I knew what the real trouble was. The old naval saying that an emergency properly prevented never becomes one was ringing loudly in my ears. Had we become a casualty this afternoon, joined the S-51 and the S-4, or even merely suffered superficial damage, I knew that it would have been my fault more than Blockman's. I should never have permitted our safety to rest upon such a narrow margin. I had waited too long to take over the periscope; I had let the situation develop too far be- fore asserting myself. My job was to help protect the trainees from their inexperience, — it had been my fault, not Blockman's.
I hadn't decided whether my drink was shaking because my taut nerves had not yet unwound or because of the sudden realization of my awn shortcomings, when Jim's familiar voice interrupted.
"Captain, we were hoping we'd run into you here. This is Laura Elwood."
Jim's arm through hers drew her gently forward. His voice ran on, receding into the general background hum around us.
Laura was tall and slender, erect of carriage, and her hand felt cool as she placed it in mine. I remember looking straight into gray-green eyes, wide-spaced in a soft golden tan. Every thing in the room dropped away.
Jim was still talking, but it didn't register. The smooth line of her throat vanished in the suggestion of gently rounded full- ness. Her blond slimness was set off by a soft green jersey dress which left her arms and throat bare' and gave her an elusive air of feminine innocence.
"You're going to have a hard time living up to the buildup Jim's been giving you, Captain," she said.
"Call me Rich," I said.
"That's right, Laura." Jim grinned in high good spirits.
"Don't pay any attention to me because I'll still have to call him "Captain'-It's that good old Navy Tradition I've been pumped full of."
"That suits me fine, Rich," Laura said. Then, taming to Jim with mock concern, "Will you look this serious when you get to be a Captain, too?"
Jim hesitated. Laura's eyes
flicked to me with sudden apprehension. "I'm sorry, Rich. Did I say something: wrong?"
"Of course not," I told her. I made room for both of them at the bar.
"We almost had a little trouble today, but it came out all right," Jim told her. "It was just one of those things that could have happened to any sub in this training racket. It was over so fast that nobody had any time to get really scared except the skipper."
The light from the candles above the bar wavered in the depths of Laura's eyes. As she waited I thought quickly for the right words to get it over to her without becoming too technical.
"One of the officer students was malting his graduation approach," I said, "and he got us right in front of the target at close range. So there was just enough time to pull the plug and go deep to clear before the other ship passed overhead.
It didn't actually hit us, but I guess it passed pretty close."
As I said the words I could again see the huge white numbers on the Semmes' bow, the geometric furrows turned on either side of the steel stern of the destroyer as it rushed directly toward us, the rows of rivets I could practically have counted, the fact that had the two ships struck, even very slightly, we might have been dragged, or knocked, upward enough to permit the old destroyers heavy low-slung propellers to rip into our hull.
The strain of the scare must have communicated itself to my voice in spite of all I could do, for Laura's face filled with sympathy. But she said nothing, for which I mentally thanked her. The nerves were jumping steadily in my right arm.
"I don't blame you for feeling a little rugged about it, skipper," said Jim, "but, after all, we got away with it so why worry. A lot of bolts have had close shaves that we never heard about."
Laura turned to him. "Jim, can't we take Rich in with us to dinner? He needs cheering up."
I thought Jim seemed just a trifle taken aback, but he grinned quickly at her. "Sure," he said. "Why don't you ask him?"
She had already turned back to me, slipped her arm impulsively through mine, hugged it to her. "You will, won't Rich?"
Emotions submerged for four and a half years flooded to the surface. Had the events of the afternoon and then this meeting with Laura opened me up emotionally? Had they taken me back to those firmly forgotten days when I had decided that a career was more important than marriage?
I had been very young and noble about it, too dumb to realize that I could have had both.
I could see now where I had been wrong. This was one of those decisions which need not have been made. Marriage or a career, — you couldn't launch them both at the same time.
But other men had, and successfully, too. The day that Stocker Kane married Hurry and I was best man, I knew then I'd been- a fool. But Sally had gone away with the wound I had dealt her. Later I heard she had married.
And now, here was Laura, and what was I going to do about it?
Laura, I soon learned, had come down from New Haven, where she had been working since the death of her father as combination secretary and assistant to the head of a small accounting firm. Professor Elwood, a widower of many years, had taught economics at Yale, and it was there that she had first met Jim. She wrinkled her nose impishly at him when they got on the subject, it was a straight nose, slightly aquiline, with delicately chiseled nostrils and barely the suggestion of an upturned tip.
I needed to know more I about her, searched desperately for a suitable conversational gambit. "Laura," I finally lamely asked her, are you one of those whizzes at balancing books?"
She made a gesture of deprecation. "It's surprising what a mess the average storekeeper will make of his accounting," she answered, "and that's what gives us our business. For a small fee we'll come in and straighten things out for him.
Otherwise, some of them never would know from one year to the next whether or not they're making money."
"You mean you're one of those stony-hearted business women like in the movies?" I teased.
"I'm not, but my boss can be pretty hard-boiled," she smiled, "especially when it comes to cheating, which we find now and then."
"You don't look tough enough for that kind of a job."
She laughed outright. "You'd be surprised to see what efficient little accountant Katharine Gibbs turned out. I majored in accounting and business administration, you don't have to be a man to add two and two." She grew a little more serious. "Of course, being a girl sometimes helps you to find out things, too."
There was a trace of thoughtfulness in her voice and a hint of a wiry core to her character.
But she was changing the subject, asking me about life in the submarine service, and I found myself telling her all about it and about my most terrifying experience on board the Octopus, when the carrier Yorktown rammed us during a fleet problem. The Octopus welded hull shuddered violently under the impact of the Yorktown's speeding bow, recoiled drunkenly into the depths. Tons of foaming sea water, backed up by rapidly increasing pressure as the boat careened down- ward, roared through the hole.
Laura listened with rapt attention, her face reacting to the different aspects of the crisis as I recounted them. The tips of her fingers rested on my arm as I told her about our struggle in the control room, — the absolute blackness, the ship almost on her beam ends, sinking rapidly by the bow.
Frantically working with the lights of battle lanterns and flash- lights, we split our high-pressure air manifold so as to concentrate all the air remaining in our air bottles into the forward tanks.
Thus we gained the precious air volume necessary to blow our forward tanks completely dry against the compressive force of the sea and start the ship back up to the surface before it was irrevocably too late.
"Is that why you're so disturbed over this afternoon?" she breathed.
I was startled. I had to think this one over. "Why, yes.
I guess subconsciously it is," I responded slowly, feeling for the solid ground. It had not yet occurred to me to make the comparison, but Laura had hit it unerringly. This was undoubtedly the core of it, the background reason for my distraught nerves, the subconscious reason why our own near disaster had hit so hard and had stayed with me. But now that it was out in the open, there was a sensation of a knot slipping at the base of my brain, the pressure in my temples that was almost a headache beginning to disappear. I could feel myself, for the first time, slowing down.
Dinner passed in a haze of delight. Not for years had I so enjoyed merely being with a girl. I had almost forgotten the completeness the right girl can bring in life. Laura's eyes, now gay, now thoughtful, now sober, contained enough promise to drown in. I began to wonder whether I would have a chance to dance with her after dinner, when a bustle in the lounge heralded the arrival of the orchestra. Jim was on his feet in a moment. They were the first couple on the floor.
I waited a respectable time and then cut in on them. One of the arresting things about Laura was the steady straight- forwardness of her personality. It was typical of her, I realized immediately, to come simply and directly into my arms from Jim's without self-consciousness. Nor was she unaware, and in my heightened sensitivity I appreciated the compliment.
All my senses responded to hers. She moved when I moved, stayed when I stayed, and in a little while the side of her forehead rested against my cheek, and I felt the brush of an eye- lash. I couldn't tell whether we were dancing or drifting on a cloud, and I fiercely willed the music to play on and on and on, — but after a while it stopped and Jim was standing there with his hand outstretched to claim her.
I have no further specific recollection of the rest of that Saturday night. I danced with Laura once more, then said good-by. Back on the S-16, I turned in to a deep, thankful slumber, punctuated by a recurring dream of having Laura for my very own for ever and ever down a long, white, slick marble stairway.
A feeling of well-being possessed me the next morning.
For the first time in months, ever since leaving the Octopus, I felt completely relaxed. This was Laura'
s doing.
And then the reasoning part of my brain took charge. I had seen her only once. I had met her at a moment when mental and physical tension had been high and were yet to unwind themselves. She had unwound them, true, but I should not try to infer too much from that. As far as I was concerned, she belonged to Jim. Sternly I concentrated on that salient fact.
During the following months I came to see more and more of Laura. She came to New London nearly every week end when Jim and she could be together. The hectic training schedule and the fact that the 16-boat had only three watch- standing officers did not allow them much time.
I had to admit that I welcomed every opportunity chance threw my way to see her or dance with her. Though there were no further moments of strain comparable to the one which she had banished on our first meeting, the heightened awareness remained with me, and she reciprocated with a generousness and basic good will which warmed me every time we met and I resolved that if Jim ever dated another girl that would be my chance. But he never did.
Jim and Laura made a handsome couple, and little by little, as the months drifted by, it came to be accepted that some sort of understanding had been arrived at between them.
It was on December 7, a cold, rainy Sunday in New London, that I, for one, knew it must be so."
I had gone to the Club for lunch, and finding Laura and Jim there, accepted their promptly wigwagged invitation to join them. Afterward we settled on one of the deep-cushioned divans in the sitting room. It was about 2 P.m., there was a crackling fire in the fireplace, and someone at the bar had turned on a radio. We could hear music playing and occasionally the strident voice of an announcer touting something or other. And then we sensed an electric change in the pro- gram. A new voice was talking on the radio; the excitement he conveyed was real, altogether different from the synthetic sales talk of a moment before.
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