Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  We were approaching the heavy steel-and-wood gangway which spanned the distance from the side of our dry dock to Walrus' deck. A group of our crew was already gathered there, and more were straggling in. I used the opportunity to tell Jim of my interview with Captain Blunt and of his own impending qualification for command of submarines.

  It was quite a long gangway, and Walrus lay propped upright many feet below us. "You'll have to draft the letter," I was finishing, "that can be your initiation to one of the more prosaic problems of command." My gaze wandered to our ship resting sedately in the now-pumped-out dry dock. There was no one to be seen on her decks. She was bare, deserted.

  Not even a gangway watch.

  "Jim!" I ejaculated, as I took it in, "didn't you leave a duty section aboard?"

  "No, sir!" He looked me evenly in the eye. "I pulled them all off, every one! Right now there's not a soul down there!"

  "You know what the Navy regulations say about that?"

  "You're God damned right I do! We were on the keel blocks and shored up. That part was done. This was an emergency, that carrier is the most important ship in the Navy, right now, and I don't give a hoot in hell what the regulations say, and you can forget the qualification, too!" The defiant look had come back. He put his hands on his hips, waiting.

  "Jim," I said honestly, "you're absolutely right. I'd have done the same thing." I didn't know whether I could have or not, but there was no question that the Navy could much better spare both me and the Walrus than it could the Enterprise.

  Considering the stakes at issue, the personal risk to myself as Commanding Officer, or to Jim, since he had, in an unofficial way, temporarily relieved me, was as nothing compared to the larger importance of preserving our only effective aircraft carrier.

  I grinned at him. "But now that the fire's out, let's get a watch section down in the ship before somebody comes and starts asking a lot of embarrassing questions."

  Jim grinned back. "Roger!" he said.

  9

  The system evolved by ComSubPac gave us two weeks of freedom in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. A "relief crew," complete with skipper, my old friend Eddie Holt, who came with orders detaching me temporarily so that not even legal responsibility for Walrus remained, took over the ship in its entirety. They would see to the completion of our outstanding work items, clean the ship thoroughly after the refit, stand all necessary watches, and turn Walrus back to us as good as new. In the meantime, for two weeks the whole gang of us, crew and officers alike, were billeted in luxury, and had nothing to do except lie on the sand or sample the other pleasures of Waikiki Beach.

  Jim and I, as skipper and Exec, drew a corner suite with a sitting room between our two bedrooms. The place was nicely furnished, though it was apparent that some of the more delicate furnishings had been removed. Still tacked to the inside of the door was a card giving the prewar rates. Our suite, we immediately noticed, had gone for seventy-five dollars a day.

  We had been assessed a payment, ostensibly for linen, of one dollar per day each. Our crew, billeted in another wing, got theirs for twenty-five cents a day.

  A long, soaking hot bath felt wonderful, after our workout in the fire, and so did the stacks of personal mail which had arrived for everyone. I had several from my — mother telling of the doings Of the little town in which I had spent my boyhood and of the difficulties of the ration system. There was a note from Stocker Kane, hoping we would meet somewhere in the Pacific, written just before departing on his first patrol and Hurry, his wife, had also written.

  Hurry Kane's letter was chatty and- friendly. She occupied herself with war work, had joined the "Gray Ladies," took a turn at serving out coffee and doughnuts at the San Francisco USO, rolled bandages three days a week, and in general kept as busy as she could. She made no mention of her loneliness for Stocker, but it was there between the lines, the very fact that she had written to me at all, for the first time after our years of closer-than-average acquaintance, showed that.

  The thing which most excited my interest was a paragraph halfway through her letter. "I saw quite a bit of Laura Bledsoe after you all left New London," she wrote. "Poor girt having Jim go off to war so soon after they were married was pretty rough on her. She stayed on in the Mohican Hotel for several days-just didn't seem to know what to do with herself. When she came over to the apartment to help me pack and follow Stocker, that was only the next week-I really felt sorry for her. You men will never be able to understand how it feels to be left behind."

  I debated whether to mention the passage in Hurry's letter to Jim. There was no reason why I shouldn't I thought, picking it up. I crossed the sitting room, pushed open the door to Jim's room, found him sitting half-naked on his bed, smoking a cigarette, with mail strewn all around him. He had received much more than I, and among the pile were many in identical blue envelopes. "How's Laura?" I asked him.

  "Fine. She's back at her, job in New Haven." Jim stretched his arms, stubbed his cigarette, and flopped back into the pillow. Most of his mail, including several of the blue envelopes, was still unopened and, carelessly pitched on the bed, was now crumpled beneath him. "What's that you've got there?" He wasn't interested, merely making conversation.

  "I just heard from Stocker Kane," I side-stepped with a half- truth. "He might go to Australia, you know."

  "The lucky stiff! One of my buddies from sub school is down there on the staff. He says there are twice as many women as men around, and they're all starved for affection. He's doing his best to help them out, and it keeps him pretty busy."

  Jim stretched his arms to either side again, looked up at the ceiling. "Let's us try to get sent down there, too, skipper.

  He can't handle all of that stuff by himself."

  "There are probably twice as many women trying to stay out of your friend's reach as there are cooperating with his campaign to keep them from being affection-starved," I growled. I stuffed the letter into a pants pocket.

  The Royal Hawaiian was wonderful. Three free meals a day, hours of lying in the sun, surf-boarding, playing billiards, wandering around the streets of Waikiki, it was the ideal life, a wonderful rest. After twenty-four hours of it we were bored stiff.

  I took to spending hours in the submarine base, watching the operations board, reading the dispatches as they came in, wandering around the Walrus, and watching the progress of the work on her, much to the annoyance of Eddie Holt, who as Relief Commanding Officer was serving his apprenticeship for his own command. I had wondered why it was that there were so many people always out to welcome every submarine in from patrol or from the States, and likewise to see them off.

  After I had met my third I ceased to wonder.

  Jim's reaction was nearly the same as mine, except that I did not see him much around the submarine base. He took to disappearing for long periods "in town," as he put it. And the rest of our crew went their own ways, each according to his own, instincts and desires. Hugh and Keith, lively young fellows, that they were, quickly found friends among the families still living in their homes in the Moano Valley, Waikiki proper, or elsewhere in the vicinity. And nearly every time I happened to be in town I would run into a Walrus sailor or sailors, sometimes in pairs, more frequently accompanied by a heavily tanned Hawaiian belle.

  Despite the fact that he and I shared a suite, I practically never saw Jim at all during the last week of out "recuperation period." But the mystery was explained when the-submarine base threw one of its monthly dances on the BOQ terrace, and Jim showed up with a girl whom he introduced as Joan Lastrada.

  She was dark, with masses of black hair, deeply tanned, and very slender. Her face was rather too thin, I thought, giving her full sensual lips an almost outsized appearance. The dance was one of those difficult affairs where there are at least ten men to every woman, and it was hard to get away from the determined stag line. I cut in on Jim once myself, nearly gasped aloud when Joan stepped into my arms from Jim's reluctantly released embrace.

&n
bsp; It was not only her lips that were sensual I decided, after someone else had taken her away. She was sensual all over.

  Jim gave her new partner less than half a dozen steps before he claimed her back, and then he led her into a corner as far removed from the stag line as possible. But keeping Joan undiscovered must have been about as hard to do as keeping a gold mine under wraps, and the determined stags, conspicuously Keith and Hugh, gave him no peace. Half an hour before the party had been scheduled to break up, I realized Jim and Joan were no longer there.

  Walrus was not quite the same when we moved back aboard, more of the bridge superstructure had been removed and a 20-millimeter gun had been installed at either end of it. The Admiral was of the opinion that we should be able to take care of ourselves in case we ran into one of the wooden armed sampans which had been appearing in ever-increasing numbers around the home-island waters of Japan. Some of the boats had been replacing their three-inch anti-aircraft deck gun with a broadside four-inch or five-inch also.

  Our Operation Order this time directed Walrus to proceed to Dutch Harbor for briefing, and thence to Kiska, which was to be our patrol area. The Japs had landed at Kiska and Attu and attacked Dutch Harbor at the same time as they had made their attempt on Midway. There were those who even claimed that the Midway attack was a feint, and that the real objective of the enemy the whole while had been to gain a foothold in the Aleutians. This was a bit hard to believe, considering the size of the fleet he had sent to take Midway, but the theory sounded plausible to some.

  The evening before Walrus got under way, I had dinner again with Captain Blunt and the Admiral in the latter's quarters in Makalapa, as the Navy housing area was termed. Several other officers were also present, two of them skippers of boats just in from Australia. The talk was desultory, mainly anecdotal but through it all ran a grim undercurrent. The United States, recognizing Germany as the principal menace, was indeed devoting its strength: and resources to the ETO, just as President Roosevelt had said we would. We in the Pacific would have to wait our turn as patiently as we might.

  It was a hard outlook to be in sympathy with.

  Things were rough indeed in Australia, according to the skippers just back from there. There was hardly a family but had one or more male members already in the war against the Axis before the Japanese struck. Now they felt defenseless, exposed, ripe for the plucking should the enemy make a deter- mined effort. Our own Guadalcanal invasion, and the campaign in the Solomons, were their only hopes of staving off an invasion. From their point of view the Japanese had so far shown themselves invincible and were only a few miles away in Malaya, Sumatra, Java, and New Guinea.

  It was with thoughtful concentration that I attacked the Operation Order next day, as Diamond Head faded over the horizon. The Japanese had landed on Kiska, and were presumably preparing for further conquests in the Aleutian area. Their supplies were undoubtedly being brought in by submarine and transport, though so far little was known about the size of this traffic. Our job would be to reconnoiter, report any suspicious or unusual movements, any movements of the enemy at all, in fact-and, of course, try to intercept as much of the supply traffic into and out of Kiska as we could.

  The Operation Order went on to caution us that United States fleet units also were operating in those Waters, and that Japanese fleet units might well be expected. We were to attack immediately any unidentified war vessels encountered, having due care to the possibility of their being friendly and the necessity for adequate, recognition signals. We. would be informed, so the order said, of the proximity of any friendly vessels or planes.

  It didn't seem to be a very satisfactory system to me, and still didn't after we had arrived at Dutch Harbor with the Walrus and had our briefing as promised in the Operation Order. The idea of operating in the close proximity of our own forces, worrying-in addition to the normal quota of worry about the intentions and movements of the enemy-over what our own ships were doing, where they were going, and above all, whether they would be able to recognize us as friendly, was not too pleasing. We had all read entirely too many treatises about the manner of treating suspected submarine contacts: Full-scale all-out attack instantly, no waiting around.

  Said the doctrine, "The only good submarine is a dead one."

  Fine and dandy-but what if it had been on your side?

  I need not have worried. The thirty days we spent patrolling off Kiska amounted to the most wasted month any submarine spent during the whole war. The weather was lousy; no other adjective could describe it. It was cold, freezing or nearly so, always rough except when very close into land, over- cast, foggy or misty almost all of the time, and not once during the whole period did we sight an enemy ship?

  Once our surface forces planned an assault, and a bombardment was carried out for several hours. We had hoped that some Japanese action might have been forthcoming as a result, that perhaps some ship might have attempted to escape or enter the harbor. And for a time, as we read the operation dispatches received, it appeared that we might he stationed in a position where such vessels would be forced to pass near enough to give us a chance for an attack. We had grown rusty in our attack procedure, tempers had flared over trifles, our daily drills had been performed perfunctorily; try as Jim and Keith might, they could not evoke interest in them, and my efforts along the same line produced little better result. Now, with the prospect of action to relieve the deadly boredom, we all took on a new incentive. For a week we drilled with a will, spent longer than usual at some of the operations which required polishing, overhauled the torpedoes once more, especially, so that there would be no hitches on their account, and then the whole thing, so far as we were concerned, fell apart into little useless pieces.

  It must have been one of the last preparatory dispatches of the operation, and Dave and Hugh's initial eagerness to decode it gave way, less than halfway through, to disgust.

  When finally typed in the smooth the message said: WALRUS PROCEED TO POINT ONE HUNDRED MILES DUE SOUTH OF SOUTHWEST CORNER KISKA RPT ONE HUNDRED MILES DUE SOUTH OF SOUTHWEST CORNER KISKA X. REMAIN ON SURFACE X. FRIENDLY FORCES REQUIRE YOUR SERVICES NAVIGATION MARKER X. DURING AND AFTER ASSAULT BE PREPARED TO VECTOR IN AND ASSIST SURVIVORS DAMAGED AIRCRAFT.

  We didn't even have the satisfaction of seeing any of our surface units, the cruisers and old battleships, sweep by route to the bombardment. It was nice weather, for Kiska, with visibility about five miles, and we knew when the task force went by because they told us by radio. But as far as seeing anything was concerned, the day was exactly like all the others we had spent in the area.

  Jim's suggestion was probably about right: Our task-force commander, worried over the possibility of enemy submarines, must have insisted that the only US submarine in the vicinity be withdrawn. If any submarines were to be detected, didn't want to have to worry over recognition procedures be- fore permitting his destroyers to do their stuff.

  We went through the motions of the remainder of time on-station without further incident. Tempers grew short again, harsh words were exchanged and apologized for, and Russo wore himself out trying to inject a little variety in our monotonous existence. After a full month cruising aimlessly around Kiska, our radio brought not the release we had anticipated but a directive to remain for three days longer pending the arrival of the submarine sent from Pearl Harbor to relieve us.

  Our relief was to be the Cuttlefish, one of the first fleet boats, antedating even the Shark and Tarpon, and notable primarily for her slow speed. The three extra days of waiting seemed particularly long to live through, and I remember strongly resenting the fact that we had to wait while she touched at Dutch Harbor for a briefing, just as we had.

  During the third day we edged over to the limit of our area, the closest point toward Pearl, and waited impatiently. When the notification arrived that Cuttlefish had at last arrived off Kiska, we were, within minutes, going south at full speed.

  But the patrol had one good thing to be said for i
t: Almost from our departure from Pearl, I realized that Jim had changed at last. He seemed entirely his old relaxed self, and his support during the trying thirty days of inactivity off Kiska was heartening. I could sense it, almost touch the Difference, and that contemplative awareness was gone.

  This time there was no avoiding Midway. All of us could testify, after three weeks among the sand dunes, that even the gooney birds looked human.

  As we completed the refit and prepared for our third patrol, new faces for the first time began to appear among our crew.

  A rotation policy had been set UP whereby certain numbers of every crew were to be left ashore after each war patrol, with the looked-for result that the entire crew of men and officers would have been rotated after a reasonable number of patrol runs. Lobo Smith was gone, and so was Wilson, our Chief in Charge of the engine rooms. Tom had protested at losing his right bower, as he put it, but the needs of new construction back in the States took priority. A first-class Motor Machinist's Mate named Kiser was promoted into Wilson's shoes and Jim, after some inquiry, found the means to make him a Chief Petty Officer so that he could have the added rank and prestige to go with his new responsibilities.

  Our officer complement remained the same, however, except that a new Ensign was ordered to us, and everybody except Jim and rue received a promotion. Tom became a full Lieutenant; so did Keith. Hugh and Dave found their names in a promotion AlNav to the rank of Lieutenant, junior Grade.

  Our new wardroom occupant was jerry Cohen, fresh out of the submarine school and as green as grass. Though he had been sent to us for training, so said the ComSubPac Personnel Officer, it was obvious that he had to have a job and a battle station, and that some revision in our setup was therefore necessary.

  Jim, Keith, and Tom, of course, stayed in their depart- ments as before. Jerry Cohen, a short, slightly built lad, became assistant to Keith in the gunnery and torpedo depart- ment and took over Dave Freeman's chores with the commissary department. He also relieved Hugh on the navigational plot in the conning tower at battle stations, freeing that young man for direct help to Tom Schultz during such times.