Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  The men loved it; especially whenever one of them got me, as make-believe submarine skipper, into a box from which, try as I might, I could not escape. More than once my theoretical submarine was rammed by the destroyer; and much more frequently I was driven below periscope depth, after which the whole group would repair to the sonar rooms and with high. hilarity try to knock me out with depth charges. Part of the time the submarine won the fight, too, and when it was my turn to shoot torpedoes at the destroyer, I always pretended, in my own mind at least, that I was shooting them at Bungo Pete.

  Stocker Kane showed up with the Nerka shortly after had taken over the Attack Teacher, and many pleasant hours of visiting with him in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel ensued before he set out for his next patrol. He had loved Australia. was as he imagined America must have been a hundred years ago, he said.

  He talked a lot about Hurry, too, and a little, not much, about Laura. "You know how you'll take a liking to someone," said. "Laura and Hurry seemed to hit it off especially well, and they've been corresponding with each other ever since you all left New London. Hurry doesn't think she's happy, though.

  She's been trying to get Laura to come out and stay with her in San Francisco, so that she'll be there when they send the Walrus back for overhaul." He chuckled. "She says Jim doesn't write enough. Hurry's always looking around for someone to mother a little, not having any youngsters to keep her busy." The faintest suggestion of a shadow crossed his face.

  "Maybe she's working on me, too," I said. I told him of the two letters she had written me.

  "She told me she was going to. She thinks you ought to get married, Rich. Leave it to Hurry! She probably thinks you ought to have been the one to marry Laura, instead of Jim."

  I managed to smooth my startled look into a grin.

  This would be Nerka's sixth patrol, probably Stocker's last for a while. The rotation policy rarely permitted a skipper more than five patrols in succession. But Nerka would most probably be heading for Mare Island or Hunter's Point for a much- needed overhaul after her sixth, and no doubt ComSubPac was willing for Stocker to have the privilege of bringing her back.

  Three weeks later I was, of course, on the dock when Walrus came in, having completed her seventh patrol on the way back from Australia. She was something to see as she came bravely around the point of ten-ten dock. From her bullnose to the top of the periscope supports was a perfect clothesline of small Japanese flags, each one representative of a ship she had sunk.

  She looked weather-beaten, tired, patches of rust showing here and there, though with no visible damage, but there was no denying a certain elan about her and about the sure manner in which Jim put her alongside the dock.

  His fame had preceded him. He had made three patrols in and out of Australia instead of two. His second run had been better than the first, and on his third he had entered an enemy harbor, sunk two ships there and shelled a fortified island, ex- changing fire for half an hour and escaping unscathed. He had sunk a Japanese cruiser near Palau, and he had put three torpedoes into one of the huge Jap battlewagons, a sixty-thousand- ton monster. A Japanese submarine had fired a torpedo at him; personally seeing it first himself, he had swung away to avoid the torpedo track, then fired two torpedoes out of his stern tubes back at the submerged Jap. A great explosion had announced his success, and all sorts of debris had come to the surface by way of proof. With only nine torpedoes left, three forward and six aft, he had engaged in a melee with a six-ship convoy during which he had actually backed into action at one point, and sank three more ships. Finally, with no torpedoes remaining, he had attacked one of the surviving freighters with the four-inch deck gun and every automatic weapon the ship possessed, silencing her defensive battery and sinking her, and still without receiving a scratch in return.

  To cap it all, he picked up four prisoners and brought them back with him. The crowd which awaited Walrus was the biggest I had ever seen for any submarine. Jim looked wonderful; bronzed, alert, brimming with self-confidence.

  I shook hands with him right after the Admiral and Captain Blunt.

  "Hi, Rich!" he said. "How's the leg?" Still holding my hand, he turned to Admiral Small. "Here's the man who's responsible for all I know about submarining, Admiral." He winked at me as the congratulations engulfed him.

  Keith also looked tan and fit, as did Hugh, Dave and the rest, though I did not see Jerry Cohen. Leone's grip was hard and firm. "Hi, Captain! Glad to see you back on your feet! Guess I'll be joining you here for a while!"

  "You being rotated?"

  "Yep! They tried to make me get off in Australia, but I said nix to that. So this is my last trip in the old Walrus. Dave took leave in Brisbane during the sixth run, so now he will finally get his chance at the TDC."

  "Good! You rate a rest, after seven runs-where's Jerry Cohen?"

  "Oh!" Keith chuckled. "We've been calling him Cobber in- stead of the skipper. He stayed in Australia-liked it better than anybody, but by this time he's probably out on a patrol with one of the boats regularly based there."

  Jim's Exec, a Lieutenant named Knobby Robertson whom I had met when he reported aboard the Walrus after my injury, now approached. "Will we see you at the Royal tonight, Commander Richardson?"

  "Oh, no," I demurred. "You fellows have a lot to talk over your first night in. I'll drop over later."

  "No, sir. The Captain said he might not get a chance to ask you himself, and for me to make sure that you come!"

  That night I realized finally that I had lost Walrus completely.

  There was a difference about my old comrades, a difference hard to put into words. They looked the same-they were the same-but the songs they sang, the stories they told, and the general tough, devil-may-care attitude about them were all new. Perhaps I was subconsciously disappointed to find such a radically complete change. I had almost forgotten that nearly a year had elapsed in the interim, that Walrus had made three more patrols, three hard-hitting, supremely successful patrols, since I had last seen them. They had gone on, had continued to pursue their destiny. It was I who had grown slack and soft.

  The whisky flowed, more and more bottles were opened, and I felt myself drifting away from them, a little farther with each story retold. This was their party, their right to relax from tension, their given privilege-not mine. I wondered if Jim's request for my presence had only been politeness after all. He had become reeling drunk.

  Finally I heaved myself to my feet, declined the proffered additional drink, made the excuse that I had work to do the next day.

  "No, you don't! Not yet, skipper-I mean Rich!" Jim grabbed me around the neck, nearly fell, then steadied himself. "Listen.

  I got something I want to tell you. Been meaning to for a long time." He turned me half-around, fumbled on a nearby table, grasped a bottle by the neck, waved it at the others.

  "See you all later, fellows! Here's the best skipper the old Walrus ever had, my old pal Rich, and we're going away to have a talk!" With that he pushed open the door into the adjoining", room, kicked it shut behind us, sat, or rather flopped, on the bed. He held out the bottle.

  "Pour a drink!"

  "No, thanks. Don't you want to save this for later, Jim? I've got to go."

  "Pour a drink, I said!" The bottle wavered in his hand. I took it, poured some in a glass in the bathroom, pretended to sip it.

  "That's better. Lissen." Jim's eyes were bloodshot, bleary.

  His voice was loose, his face puffy. "I've been meaning to tell you this for a long time-took too much whisky so I could.

  Lissen. I'm a bastard."

  "No. you're not, Jim. Quit it. We can talk tomorrow." I rose.

  "Siddown! Gawdamit, Rich, the Captain of the Walrus, the best gawdam submarine in the Navy, wants to talk to ya."

  I sat. There seemed nothing else to do.

  "I've been doing some thinking. All during these last patrols.

  Not just last three. Before that. 'Member when you stopped my qualification on
the old S-i6? I swore then I would get even with you. I swore I'd make you regret the day you did that to me.

  I was gonna sabotage everything you tried to do. I was gonna mess you up so bad you'd wish you'd never seen me. Laura told me not to. Said she'd never marry me if I did that. Said the war would find you out for what you were. Said I should stick it with you for crew's sake."

  I sat staring, embarrassed to hear him. I had realized that Jim must have told Laura something of our contretemps, but naturally I could not have supposed it had gone this far. Nor had I suspected that Jim's apparent friendliness had all been a sham. But I couldn't see what he was driving at now.

  Jim upended the bottle, took a deep swig. "Siddown. I'm not finished yet. I pretended to like you, and went along with you and the Walrus, and all the time I hated your guts. I thought you were yellow for not tangling with that first Jap sub we saw, and I hated your guts all the way out to Japan. Then when ole Bungo Pete got after us I saw a real submarine skipper in action, and I realized it was you that saved us all. And gradually I came to know that you were a prince of a fellow and that I didn't know the first thing about being a skipper. When you gave me Walrus I found out."

  "You're drunk, Jim. You don't have to tell me all this "Down, I said. I'm still not through yet. Gotta get this thing off my chest. This is war, tough racket, maybe I'll get sunk next time, maybe you will. May never get another chance to talk."

  He took another swig, wiped his mouth.

  "So now I'm skipper of the Walrus. You gave her to me. I'd never have gotten her if you hadn't talked ole man Blunt into it. And I've had three patrols to learn what it's like to be all alone. There's nobody out there for the skipper to look to, tell him what to do… You know that? You're all alone. You got no buddies. You got friends-sure, everybody on the ship's your friend-but you got no buddies. Nobody to tell you what to do.

  You got to figure it all out yourself, cause you're all alone on your own. That's what you been trying to teach me, Rich, ole man. I want you to know that I think you're a great man.

  You're my best friend, an' you're wunnerful, an' I'm sorry I was such a bastard-an'-an' I already wrote to Laura and tole her so…. Tell her again too…"

  The bottle slipped from his hands. He was swaying where he sat on the bed. His voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble. I laid him back, pulled off his shoes, trousers, and shirt, threw a blanket over him. He wasn't quite gone yet. "Laura," he muttered, "Laura, she's a sweetheart. I'm a bastard, always was.

  Never should… never should…"

  I quietly went out the door into the hall, turned out the light, and softly closed the door behind me. I felt sorry for him, and oddly at peace.

  12

  Despite my desire to see more of my old shipmates, our paths for the next three weeks were cast in dissimilar patterns. The three patrols they had made "down under," and the taste of Australia in between, were enough to set them apart, make them somehow different, from the men I had known. And now that they were back again from, patrol, entitled to temporary freedom from care at the Royal Hawaiian, there was a practical barrier too.

  I caught a glimpse of Jim once, driving the station wagon issued to Walrus, with the handsome, dark face of Joan beside him. Neither of them saw me. She was sitting rather away from the right-hand door, but even so the breeze through the open window rippled her heavy black hair as she turned attentively in Jim's direction.

  Keith I saw a couple of times. Being due for detachment upon Walrus' departure, he had been left in charge of her refit until the regular crew returned from their recuperation period.

  This gave us a few opportunities to renew old acquaintance- ship as we occasionally encountered each other around the submarine base, and I came to notice him more particularly than before.

  He had changed mightily from the willing but inexperienced youth who had reported to the S-16's fitting out and precommissioning office three years and some months ago. Tanned and fit, as most of us were who were fortunate enough to draw topside bridge watches, he was now poised, confident, sure of himself and his abilities. His wide-set eyes had turned a deep gray from their original pale blue-some of the color of the sea had seeped into them-and the set of his jaw betokened strength fired through experience. His once-boyish face was now a bit finely drawn, his hair bleached to a lighter shade by the sun and salt wind, his voice a perceptible amount deeper. He was the same old Keith, but a stronger, more vital one.

  For that matter, Jim, too, had undergone changes. He was decisive, sure of himself, the old wayward immaturity long burned out of him. Probably all of us showed evidences of the passage of time and the effect of the hell of undersea combat.

  There had been talk about sending the Walrus back to the States for overhaul, but it was eventually decided that she was in good enough condition to make one patrol before doing so. When the day came for her to depart, Keith and I were there to see her off. She looked beautiful in her coat of new gray paint, beautiful, lean, and deadly. The aura with which she had arrived was still there. Compared to some of the newer boats she might have an old-fashioned look about her, but neither could any of them boast her record of thirty-three ships sunk or damaged. It was hard to appreciate that she was only two years old-the Octopus had been still considered brand-new at the comparable time.

  Next day Keith left for the States for a well-merited thirty days' leave, and I returned to my office, to the suddenly hum- drum routine of the Attack Teacher. I could hardly sit still.

  That afternoon I sought out the Chief of Staff. "Captain," I. said without preamble, "when may I have another ship?"

  He looked at me thoughtfully. "What's your hurry, Rich?

  Tired of the routine of Pearl Harbor?"

  "Yes. I just saw Jim Bledsoe go out for his eighth consecutive patrol. I've only made four. I've got a few more than that left in me."

  "Maybe we'll let you relieve Kane when he brings the Nerka back."

  "That's no good, Captain. She'll be going back to Mare Is- land, and Stocker rates bringing her back. I've spent enough time on soft jobs. Besides, my leg is OK now."

  "OK, Rich," Blunt surrendered gracefully. "I'll. put your name back on the active list."

  Back to the Attack Teacher. Back to making fifteen approaches a day, teaching doctrine to would-be dolphin-wearers, showing the latest tricks of the trade to skippers in for refresher, waiting for my ship to come in. The days passed, one upon another.

  Three weeks later I was back to see Blunt. The boats had been going through Pearl steadily. Quite a few changes in skippers had been made, but always, it seemed, there was someone waiting to whom the available boat had already been assigned.

  I was ready to put up a beef, but he didn't give me a chance.

  "Sit down, Rich. I was about to send for you." His voice was grim. "Do you know what day this is?"

  "Yes, sir. Tuesday, the twenty-fifth."

  "It's the day the Nerka was due back from patrol."

  "Was due. What do you mean?" I half-rose again. Not Stocker Kane!

  "Was due, Rich. We won't see her again." Blunt spoke gently, sorrowfully. "She was a grand ship, and had a grand crew. Kane was one of the best."

  "What happened to her?" I cried. "Where did she go?"

  For once the battered pipe lay unnoticed on the desk top. Blunt met my eyes steadily. "He was in AREA SEVEN. That makes six boats that have been lost there."

  "Six submarines lost in AREA SEVEN?" I was incredulous. No one I knew had had any idea of this.

  "Yes, six. The Needlefish, Turbot, Awlfish, Lancetfish, Sting- back, and now the Nerka."

  "But, good Lord, Captain, the Turbot and Awlfish were lost en route to SouthWestPac in Australia! And I never heard of the Stingback!"

  "Quite so. Naturally we didn't want to give Bungo any in- formation as to how badly he was hurting us. Incidentally, he thinks he sank several others too, among them the Octopus. But I think he's taken the Walrus off his list; at least, he doesn't mention
her any more. He got the Turbot last year and Eddie Holt in the Awlfish several months ago; we made out that they had been sent south, just to quiet the local rumor factories.

  Stingback was a brand-new submarine, built at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, but she had a veteran skipper and so we let her go in to SEVEN anyhow. She was the boat just before the Nerka. You were deep in the torpedo problem at the time, and I'm not surprised you don't remember her."

  I couldn't believe it. Poor old Stocker Kane! Why, only a few weeks ago he and I had sat up into the wee hours in his room at the Royal Hawaiian chewing the rag over old times. And now he was dead! Poor Hurry! I wondered how she would get the news. "How did it happen, about the Nerka, I mean?"

  "We don't really know anything, yet, Rich." The pipe went into Blunt's mouth at last. "He's only been overdue at our new base at Majuro for a few hours, but old Nakame has been claiming him for two weeks. And we've not had a message from him in that time."

  "Did Bungo give any hint as to how he sank her?" I was holding a wake, but I couldn't help it.

  "The old fellow is too smart for that. The only thing we know about him is that he is still apparently picking up garbage sacks, despite our caution to the boats about them, and is get- ting their names out of them. I guess it's pretty hard to keep all mention of your ship's name out of all your garbage."

  I was counting on my fingers. "Good God, Captain! Out of the last six boats that have gone into AREA SEVEN, he's sunk three!"

  "That's right. And of the last two, he's sunk both of them.

  And Jim Bledsoe is in there now."

  My stomach felt suddenly all washed out. "Walrus," I gasped.

  "Why did you send the Walrus? Jim's already made seven consecutive runs-the whole ship is tired. They deserve a rest!

  Not this! Why, this is suicide!"