Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  Then we raced for the Bungo Suido.

  We had left our calling cards liberally sprinkled on both sides of the entrance to the Inland Sea. Now it was time to play it slow and easy and to watch developments. The closer in we could get, the better. Bungo would no doubt expect us to stay well away.

  For a day-three days and the nights between-nothing happened. Again we were making sure our garbage would sink without trace. And we allowed two old ships, proceeding alone, to enter the harbor unmolested.

  "We'll let it jell for a while, Keith," I told him. "We've raised enough Cain around here. He'll come."

  But he didn't. Keith put his finger on it the third day. We had the chart of the area out on the wardroom table, were studying it, as had become our habit in hope of ferreting out some clue to Bungo's operations.

  "You know, skipper," he said, "this guy Nakame is no slouch.

  He's a very particular operator. Have you noticed that he hardly ever shows his hand until whatever boat is in this area has been here for a while? Maybe he even waits until the boat is low on torpedoes."

  "That doesn't hold for our first patrol in the Walrus," I told him.

  "No, Sir, but it does for the rest of the cases. That must have been an accident. We'd only been in the area a few hours, and he couldn't have known we were there yet." — Looking back over the boats which had been lost, and the experiences of those, like Walrus on her fourth patrol, who had come through it, a certain pattern began to take shape. Stocker Kane and the Nerka had been in AREA SEVEN for three weeks before Bungo had got him. Jim likewise. So had we, on our fourth, before he came out.

  Evidently he studied the tactics of his intended victim, waited methodically for them to become clear to him, then sallied forth to lay his trap for him. As Keith said, our first patrol had been an accident, in that the contact had been unexpected by Bungo as well as ourselves.

  No doubt he searched the area of a contact or action, especially after he had depth-charged a submarine-for the telltale sacks of garbage, which might float around for several days, but if there were no submarine activity he would probably not bother.

  Bungo would be puzzled at the apparent reappearance of Walrus, would remember that twice before he had thought he had sunk her, and twice before been fooled. Once he had even swallowed evidence of the existence of an entirely fictitious submarine. Furthermore, Jim's reputation had been made as a night fighter, on the surface, while every ship the pseudo- Walrus-ourselves-had sunk, with the exception of the first one, had been as a result of a submerged day attack. It was logical that Bungo would want to wait and evaluate for a while.

  But how would he be getting information? We had seen no one enter or leave the Bungo, except the two freighters. It was possible, though hardly likely, that he had slipped by us to search for evidence…

  "Of course!" I said aloud. "We missed one of the most obvious things!"

  "What do you mean, Captain?" Keith looked puzzled.

  "The fishing boats! Of course the fishing boats! They are his lookouts. Those are the people who find the sacks of garbage for him! No wonder we've not seen anything. They're probably just plain, simple, old Japanese fishermen, but he tells them where and when to look, and he sits back and analyzes the results!"

  "Then you think he may be waiting for more garbage?"

  "Nope! He's got that by now. But right now he doesn't know where we are. No point in just rushing out to where a ship was sunk-we'd be gone. He wants a contact of some other kind, one where there might be a chance of our sticking around for a while to give him time to come after us." An idea was growing.

  The fishing boats-there were quite a few around, and more up and down the coast, in both directions from the Bungo Suido.

  "Keith," I said, "let's go find us a fisherman, hey?"

  "Going to put a bomb in the garbage sacks and teach him a lesson?" Jim might have gone for that idea, but Keith, I could see, was a little dubious.

  "Not quite. We're just going to let him find us!"

  Keith relaxed in a wide grin as he got the point.

  It was the next day, a bright mid-morning, before we found one. We had purposely moved a goodly distance away from the Bungo Suido. It was a regular wooden boat with a sort of plat- form on which a half-dozen straw-hatted figures sat cross-legged, tending fish lines and poles. The day was balmy, bright, and sunny, though in the eastern sky storm clouds were gathering.

  "These fellows will want to be back home by nightfall, be- fore the wind blows the sea up," I told Keith.

  The Eel swam sibilantly toward the fishing boat, passed close alongside. Nothing disturbed the monumental calm of the wizened graybeards under the straw hats. I was looking right at them with the periscope, only a hundred yards away as we went by. We turned around, came back. Closer this time, about fifty yards abeam. Still no sign of having seen us.

  "Keith," I muttered, as he took a look at them, "if this is the best kind of help Bungo has got, the old rascal is slipping badly."

  Keith chuckled as he put the scope down. "Don't waste too much pity on him, skipper. Nobody ever tried to get discovered before. These guys have probably never seen a submarine in their lives, and never expect to."

  "We'll fix that!" I crossed to the hatch, looked down to the top of Al Dugan's head. "Control, watch your depth. We're going to go right underneath this little guy!"

  "Watch the depth, aye, aye!" Al leaned his head back, acknowledged the caution.

  Eel turned around again. Instead of going right under, Keith suggested we pass within a very few yards. This would permit continual observation of the fishing boat, whereas passing right under would require dunking the 'scope. We must have been less than five yards away from the boat as we passed this time, and I was looking through the periscope in low power practically under one of the straw hats. Keith had the other scope up, was doing likewise.

  He was an old Jap in the classical mold. A long gray beard, about twelve inches long, wispy, and doubtless silky to the touch, ended in a point on his chest. His face was leathery, seamed from years under the sun's unshaded rays. No telling his age. It could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. His eyes were closed, or half-closed, and he was the picture of peace and contentment as he sat there, balanced bolt upright with his bare toes sticking up from behind bony knees.

  The picture changed radically and suddenly when the old man opened his eyes. It must have been the noise of the water rippling past our extended periscopes, or perhaps the shadow of the most tremendous fish he had ever seen passing beneath him. Whatever the immediate cause, his peaceful contemplation was shattered beyond reclaim. His eyes grew as large as two butter plates, and his mouth, startlingly red, popped wide open. I could have sworn I heard him scream with terror, he jumped to his feet, forgetting the fishing pole he had been so blissfully tending, pointed frantically right at me.

  The other five old men hopped up as if stung, crowded to his side, all six mouths wide open, an even dozen eyes staring with stupefied terror. They looked over into the water on both sides of their boat-no doubt our gray hull and black topsides could plainly be seen down beneath them-gesticulated violently, pointing down, raised their hands to their heads, waved them around helplessly.

  "No more fishing for those fellows for a while," Keith commented grimly. "Guess we taught them a lesson at that!"

  "I hope they have a guilty conscience for helping old Bungo,"

  I laughed. "Serves them right!"

  Through our sonar equipment we could hear the high- pitched putter of a light gasoline engine. Our fishermen friends had started for home, as fast as their little craft could carry them. We watched them fading out of sight toward the shore, in the meantime set our own course at best-sustained speed back toward the Bungo Suido.

  "Let's see," mused Keith over the charts a few hours later.

  "Let's see. Give the six old men three hours to get home and another hour to get the news through-they'll have a phone somewhere in their village, don't yo
u think? Old Bungo ought to be stirring his stumps some time this afternoon. Maybe he'll come on out tonight."

  "That's the way I've got it figured, too, Keith," I answered.

  "He'll have us pegged for a day-submerged operator, so he'll plan on flushing us at night."

  Buck Williams had been an interested listener. "Do you think maybe we might have overdone it?" he asked. Buck's apparent nervousness was just a mannerism, I had already decided. His brain was clicking all the time.

  "Could be," I answered him. "But we've already used up fourteen torpedoes leaving our calling cards on Bungo Pete's doorstep, and we have only one full load left for our torpedo tubes. The best way would be to try to sink another ship, but then we'd have some dry tubes when we finally did meet up with the old rascal!"

  Buck nodded, convinced. "I guess he'll be sufficiently sure of himself to come after us anyhow," he said.

  "Well," responded Keith as he folded up the charts and handed them to Oregon, "he surely knows we're around any- way, and has enough reason to wonder what is happening out here in his back yard. If he can, he'll be out tonight. Otherwise, tomorrow for sure. That's my guess!"

  "Mine tool Bungo will have a pretty good idea of where to look for us tonight-at least he will think he has. And that's why we should get back as near to the Suido as we can tonight.

  Maybe we'll be on him before he suspects we're laying for him!"

  All the rest of the day Eel raced for the entrance of the Bungo Suido, where we had been only the day before. It wasn't much of a race, as races go, for we had to balance our consumption of battery power against our speed and calculate carefully the degree to which it would be wise to allow it to be run down in prospect of the battle with Bungo Pete. We got in as close as we dared, right into the shallow water where the channel leading out of the Bungo Suido joined the open sea. It was dangerous because there was not enough water to go really deep-we'd hit bottom first-but it was the place to be if we hoped to nail Nakame before he realized what was going on.

  It presented our best chance.

  As the last rays of the setting sun were cut off behind the hills of Kyushu, the clouds to the east had grown until they covered nearly the entire sky. Through the periscope we could see that a freshening wind had already built up. Choppy waves four to five feet in height were running in from the east, and it was apparent that the wind also was coming from that direction.

  Shortly before it was dark enough to surface, Keith sought me out in the conning tower where I had gone to get ready.

  "It looks like a storm to me," he said. "We've had no radio warning of it, but all the signs are exactly like the description in Knight's Seamanship." He handed me the ship's copy of the classic, open to the on hurricanes. The page showed diagrams depicting the behavior of storms in northern and southern latitudes.

  I already had my red goggles on; so I didn't try to read the text. I had studied it all at the Naval Academy anyway. "I've been thinking the same," I told him. "With the weather coming in from the east, it looks as though the storm is to the south, and if it behaves the way storms are supposed to it will curve to- ward the east as it moves north. The storm center will pass just to the east of us, and this area will get a good lashing."

  "When will it hit us?"

  "Tonight, before morning, unless it goes erratic on us."

  "Maybe that will foul up things for tonight!"

  "It can't be helped, if it does. But old Bungo might think it will give him an advantages I had raised the periscope, was slowly swinging it around in a circle. It was growing dark rapidly.

  "Five-eight feet!" I ordered. "Stand by to surface!" The waves were high enough that I would need the two extra feet for better visibility.

  "Five-eight feet, aye, aye. Standing by!" Williams on the dive.

  He would have the first bridge watch, too. The whole ship was in a special state of super watchfulness. Keith and I had both napped, or tried to, during the afternoon, and we had put out instructions to the crew to do likewise. Our electric torpedoes had been given a specially loving last-minute check, including a freshening battery charge. Tonight there would be special extra lookouts on, and one torpedo at each end of the ship was in readiness for instant firing, needing only to open the outer doors-hydraulically operated, hence the work of a second. Eel was as ready as we could make her.

  I went around again, slowly. Something caught my eye to the northwest, in the direction of the Bungo Suido. Steady now, I fixed on it. "Keith. Mark this bearing!"

  "Three-two-eight! What is it?"

  "Dunno-ship, I think." I shifted the periscope from side to side ever so slightly. It was getting so dark it was hard to see. My eyes were not completely accommodated, for the red goggles are not one hundred per cent effective protection. It was growing darker faster than my eyes were accommodating themselves.

  But the object-ship, it must be-was getting nearer, too.

  "Bearing-Mark!"

  "Three-two-eight and a quarter-just a hair more than be- fore!"

  I spoke without taking my eyes away from the periscope eyepiece. "Keith, are all lights out in the conning tower and control room?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Very well." I spoke distinctly, still looking. "Sound the general alarm!"

  I could feel the bustle through the ship. Keyed up as we were, the tension mounted like steam in a boiler.

  "What is it, Captain? Do you think it's Bungo himself, already?"

  "Don't know, Keith," I admitted. "It doesn't look like a destroyer." We waited. Time had slowed down. This might be it, our big fight. No time to take a chance. Still getting darker, and the waves — bigger. The ship drew closer.

  "I can see him now. Big freighter. High, anyway, dark hull, no visible waterline-angle on the bow about starboard ten." I looked searchingly astern of him. Something was ringing a bell in my brain, something wrong with the setup, somehow…

  "Control! Five-five feet." Three more feet of periscope out.

  Have to watch it-that's eleven feet of it exposed, although the size of the waves makes for some reduction. We're in good position to shoot him on this course, just as we are, if he doesn't suddenly zig. He hasn't zigged yet. Wish I could get rid of the feeling there's something wrong with this whole thing. It's too easy. I have a feeling we're looking right into a trap, just like that time off Palau…

  Palau! The Q-ship! High out of water. Short and stubby, because floating high! No doubt loaded with cellulose, or balsa wood, or Ping-pong balls! So she could not sink, of course, even with half her side blown open!

  "Give him eighty feet, Oregon. Range-Mark!"

  "Three-five-double-oh!"

  "Angle on the bow starboard thirty! Mark the bearing!"

  "Three-four-five!"

  I could hear Buck Williams whirling the TDC cranks. "Set!" he said.

  "Ready to shoot, Captain!" Keith. He had anticipated everything. All I had to do was give the word.

  "We'll wait while the situation improves," I said. This smacked of something Bungo might pull. I kept looking for the destroyer, couldn't find him. But something else caught my eye, astern. Low and bulky. Not a tincan. My heart leaped into my throat-a submariner Coming along astern of the Q-ship!

  "Rig for silent running! Six-oh feet!" This would barely let me see over the tops of the waves, if I could see at all for long.

  I could feel sweat on my face around my eyes inside the rubber eye-guards, didn't dare take them away. "Boys, this is it! I think Bungo is on his way out to look for us!"

  How fortunate it had been that we had come back so quickly, had taken station so close to the harbor exit, despite the shallow water!

  We watched while the high, stubby Q-ship, for there could be no doubt of it now, went by. The submarine swept forward.

  Then I saw the tincan. A dull, dark shape on the far side of the sub, running about abeam of it.

  This was a quandary. We might get the sub, but then Bungo would have us exactly where he would like to get u
s, submerged, in shallow water. And the Q-ship was no slouch at depth-charging, either. No doubt they'd work a coordinated attack on us.

  "Range to sub-Mark!" Instinctively I spoke in a low key.

  Oregon read it right away. "Three-oh-double-oh!"

  "We have the sub on sonar!" Keith murmured in my ear, "The bearing checks."

  The sonarman's name was Stafford. An old-timer. He'd been around submarines for years. Suddenly I heard his voice, raised for me to hear him directly. "The submarine is diving!"

  So this was the play! This was how they had gotten Stocker Kane and Jim! Slow-speed convoy of a single ship, escorted by a single destroyer, zigzagging radically and making slow speed so that the submerged submarine could keep up! Walrus and Nerka had probably come in on the surface, fired their torpedoes, and been fired on in their turn by the submarine. A very, very slick stunt indeed! If the Jap sub didn't get a shot off at first, he must have had plenty more chances while Jim and Stocker came back in for another try at the cellulose-loaded Q-ship! And I could imagine old Bungo watching it all in his tincan, playing the part of an unwary and incompetent escort but ready to mix it if he had to.

  I could see the diminishing silhouette of the submarine, now, and seconds later couldn't see him at all. "Do you still have him on sonar?"

  "Yes, sir. Coming in like a threshing machine!" Stafford turned the sonar to loud-speaker so that I could hear it, a pounding, thrashing, gurgling noise. "He's pumping and blowing at the same time, I think!"

  "Keith," I said, speaking rapidly. "We've got to get the sub first! They won't expect us this close, probably won't settle down to a good sonar watch for a few minutes anyway. What range will he pass abeam?"

  Buck answered. "Twelve hundred yards!"

  "Good! We'll shoot him when he gets there! Figure him to be at periscope depth!"

  On and on came the bearing of the Jap sub, slowly creeping up to where we had decided to shoot him. It was a perfect sonar approach, exactly like those we had practiced for years at New London and Pearl Harbor, and rarely used in the war. The only new twist-funny we had never thought of it, was that it was sub against sub.