THE NEPTUNE STRATEGY: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 4)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  Sasaki’s voice echoed up, “Yes, Sir.”

  Yukota turned to Kosuga. “What noise?”

  “Something aft. A rumbling of some sort.”

  The telephone buzzed. Yukota yanked it from its bracket. “Conn.”

  It was Lieutenant Inichi, the chief engineer. “Starboard shaft bent, sir. It’s a yard job. Also, the main condensate pump is--”

  “--How much speed can you make on the port shaft?”

  “Three knots, sir. And I wouldn’t go any faster. Too much loose stuff flapping and clanking around outside.”

  “Hold on.” Yukota turned to the helmsman. “Starboard motor stop. Port ahead one third. Maintain course.”

  The helmsman spoke the order into the sound powered phone. Then he nodded with, “Engine room reports port motor ahead one third.”

  Yukota asked, “Kosuga?”

  Kosuga slowly shook his head. No more noise.

  Yukota turned back to the phone. “That’s it, all right, Inichi. Starboard shaft’s making too much noise. Is it still operative?”

  “Can’t tell until we surface and run it up.”

  “Anything else I should know about?”

  “Well, the bilge pump strainers for the engine room are clogged, and we’re having trouble keeping pace with theBA

  Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham:

  Kosuga looked up. “Those were much further away. And I think we’re under the rain squall. It sounds like its right overhead. “

  “All stop,” Yukota ordered. He turned back to his phone. “We’re going to try and hold her here, Chief. How much flooding do you have back there? Inichi? Inichi?” The line was dead. Beset with problems, the chief engineer had hung up. Yukota sat on a padded bench and wiped his brow.

  Wham. Wham.

  Further away. Maybe they were below the layer. An interminable, dripping silence passed. At length, Kosuga sat up straight. “No screw noise, sir.”

  “What? How can that be?”

  “Maybe he stopped?” Kosuga’s eyebrows went up.

  Stopped. It was too much to ask. For a brief moment, Yukota considered going to periscope depth and snapping off a shot at what could be a sitting duck. But then maybe it was a ruse. Maybe—

  “Small screw noise. Barely hear it. Maybe a motor boat.” Kosuga turned to Yukota. “Captain, if they’ve put a boat in the water that meansBA

  Yukota waved a hand. “I know what that means.” He looked to Sasaki and nodded. Possibly, it had worked. All that crap they’d pumped through the torpedo tubes: instruction manuals, newspapers, old code books, rice cakes, chicken bones, plenty of I-49 stationery and clothes. And two corpses stolen from a Tokyo morgue. For a bit of irony, a May 3, 1943 issue of Colliers magazine was sent along.

  And now, the Americans had lowered a whale boat to go out and examine the wreckage. Unusual, Yukota thought. They had taken the bait so easily. The Americans were supposed to be more cautious than that. Or were they just plain impatient? Maybe it was a new crew, or maybe they were in a hurry to see their movie tonight: it was seven in the evening topside. Yukota visualized a beautiful Australian sunset on golden seas.

  Two humidity-laden hours later, it was dead quiet. Yukota slapped his knees and stood. “Anything, Kosuga?”

  The sonarman listened intently, then slowly shook his head. “No, Sir.”

  “Very well. Port motor ahead slow. Come to course two-six-five. Sasaki, take us to periscope depth.”

  “Sir!”

  With a meter of water in the engine room, the I-49 took eighteen minutes to labor her way up to periscope depth.

  “Sonar?”

  “All clear,” reported Kosuga.

  Yukota trusted Kosuga. He was a good sonarman. If he said>all clear’, then nothing was there. The enemy destroyer must be gone.

  “Very well. Up periscope.”

  The periscope hissed up the well; Yukota squat to grab the handles, then rode it to full height. Doing a tedious 360 degree scan, he found the sea calm. Stars glittered on an oily surface. No squall. No destroyer. “All clear. Lookouts to the conning tower. Stand by to surface.” Yukota peered down the hatch into the control room. “ Sasaki?”

  “Ready, Captain.”

  “Very well. Surface!”

  High pressure air hissed, the I-49 rose from the depths of the Arafura Sea. With her conning tower hatch clanging open, Yukota scrambled to the bridge and made a quick binocular scan. No moon. Brilliant stars. Sharp horizon. No contacts. “Lookouts up.”

  Inichi got the I-49's two great 5,503 horsepower diesels going, their exhausts tearing at the night. Inside, new air was sucked into the boat, the crew gratefully heaving their lungs with pure, rich oxygen. Yukota looked down the hatch into the conning tower, where instantly, it seemed as if the bulkheads changed from a dripping, putrid green to their original stark white.

  “All engines ahead two-thirds. Make turns for twelve knots. Steer course two six five.” Water frothed under the I-49's stern, as her screws spun.

  Sasaki joined Yukota on the bridge and handed over a mug of tea. “Just spoke with Inichi. Starboard shaft holding up. Vibration not too bad. But noisy.”

  “Did he say how much speed we can get out of her?”

  “Fifteen to eighteen knots.”

  The rest of the damage reports were passed up. Nothing terribly bad. Everything could be put right within a few hours, except that damned starboard shaft. Yukota whipped off his cap and let the wind whip at this hair. Soon, he would have to go below and draft a radio message for Shimada.

  But to the world, the I-49 was dead. The Americans topside had fished the evidence from the Arafura Sea, and in the next two or three weeks, naval headquarters in Tokyo would list them as overdue and write them off.

  They had planned this so well. Luck was with them. But he didn’t want to admit the depth charging had been far worse then he’d ever imagined.

  Reading his thoughts, Sasaki asked. “This still going to work, Captain?”

  Yukota allowed a smile. “We’ve done our job, Ryozo. Now it’s up to Shimada and that German riding with him.” He swept a hand across a star-glazed sky. “Beautiful, isn’t it? How does it feel to be dead, Ryozo.”

  Sasaki stood straight. “I’ll let you know after I have a beer.”

  PART ONE

  Stay with me God. The night is dark

  The night is cold; my little spark

  Of courage dies. The night is long;

  Be with me, God, and make me strong.

  Anonymous British soldier in North Africa – 1942

  CHAPTER ONE

  6 June, 1944

  U.S.S. Maxwell (DD 525)

  North Pacific Ocean

  11° 56.3' N; 147˚ 32.1' E

  She rolled easily in the swells, her mast sweeping a thirty degree arc across a red-streaked sky. Emerging from a rain-squall, indigo wavelets slapped her hull and steam rose off her glistening decks, compressing a setting sun to an orange-red oblong sphere. She was the USS Maxwell (DD 525) a Fletcher class destroyer of 2100 tons heading east at twenty-two knots for a rendezvous with Task Force 58.

  Her crew consisted of 332 men, twenty-three officers, and one illegal monkey named Dexter. Dining on scraps in the chief’s quarters, Dexter was given the run of the ship. He often slept in the flag bag on the signal bridge, just aft of the pilot house. Many times, a signalman would reach in the bag for a pennant, only to be surprised and terror-stricken as the screeching animal leaped out, spitting, and baring razor-sharp teeth. The legend went that a second-class torpedoman, long since transferred off the Maxwell, had won Dexter in a poker game while the ship was nested with the three other destroyers of Destroyer Division Eleven (DESDIV11) in Noumea.

  That was supposedly eighteen months ago, but now, with rapid crew turnover, nobody was certain how or when the monkey boarded the ship. In fact, instead of attributing Dexter’s origin to an inglorious poker game in Noumea, the ship’s company now preferred to convey the honorific of “plank owner” to Dexter.
In essence, they claimed he was part of the original crew when the Maxwell was commissioned. But the Maxwell had been built and commissioned by Bethlehem Steel in San Francisco, California. Nobody tried to justify how Dexter, an obvious non-California native, had embarked in San Francisco.

  Dexter played cards, smoked cigars, pitched a pretty good soft ball, and was often timed hand-over-handing up the starboard shroud to the top of the mast and down the port side. Best time: twenty seconds. Once he was allowed to squeeze off a few rounds of twenty-millimeter canon fire when the officers weren’t looking. With this, Dexter was presented with a regulation blue jumper, complete with gunner’s mate third class rating insignia sewn in the appropriate place on the right arm.

  Dexter’s sublime moments were interrupted when the Maxwell steamed in a seaway producing rolls of more than twenty-five degrees. In those conditions, the ship would pitch and pound, corkscrew and generally bob like a “tin can” in a rough bath-tub. Dexter would stagger down to the chief’s quarters, and lay on the mess deck, groaning and turning a virulent shade of green. Sometimes, the little creature would vomit and could barely move.

  So the task fell on Bucky Monaghan, the Chief Hospital Corpsman, to bring Dexter out of it. Most of the time, Monaghan took the monkey to sick bay, but refused to say what he did, claiming protection under the Hippocratic oath and patient-confidentiality. Voo doo science, some grumbled. Others chided Monaghan for creating Frankenstein, the Monkey. The rumor was that he gave Dexter a shot of heavy-duty drugs, maybe ether, to put him out of his misery.

  But this evening, Dexter was asleep, presumably in the flag bag, when the 1 MC sound system clicked and screeched. Denver Falco, boatswain mate of the watch, cleared his throat and stood close to the bridge microphone. He bleeped his pipe and announced, “Now man your battle stations, condition three. Now set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. Duty damage-control petty officer make reports to the Chief Engineer’s stateroom.” After a five second wait, Falco bleeped his pipe again and gave the message everyone really wanted to hear. “Movie call will be on the messdecks tonight at 2000. Tonight’s movie is, ‘The Bride Came C.O.D,’ starring James Cagney and Bette Davis.”

  In the Captain’s sea cabin just behind the bridge, Commander Todd Ingram heard a collective howl from the bridge. They’d seen the movie several times. And Falco had made the announcement rather sarcastically, not caring about the crew’s reaction. He was new to the ship and was having a hard time adjusting.

  Ingram stretched, feeling better with the quick snooze he’d taken after chow. He sat up on his bunk and bent to tie his shoes.

  Noumea.

  They’d done everything Mitscher asked for. Ran 1,000 miles ahead of Task Force 58 on picket duty. They’d sent weather data and last night, Ingram volunteered to plunge another 350 miles ahead to look for a downed PBY crew. Miraculously, they found all eight in good shape. Now, they were heading back to rendezvous with Task Force 58 and transfer them to the Lexington. While alongside, they were to refuel, pick up Captain Jerry Landa, Commodore of Destroyer Division Eleven, Todd’s friend and superior officer, and scram. From there, the Maxwell was scheduled for an overhaul and much needed bottom job in Noumea. As sorry as Ingram was to be missing the show with Task Force 58, he knew that the Maxwell would be hard pressed to keep up. Even though she was just a year old, she’d been continually operating; her boilers needed re-tubing and her bottom was coated with disgusting six-inch thick growth.

  The best part was that upon reaching Noumea, Ingram and Landa were due to fly home for thirty days of leave. He smiled at the thought, His wife, Helen, was eight months pregnant, and he was counting on being there for the child’s birth. At the same time, Landa was due to be formally engaged to Laura West, the well-known pianist with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Ingram and Landa were scheduled to travel together stateside where, Ingram hoped, he and Helen could make Landa’s engagement party before she delivered.

  Once again, the 1 MC squawked: Falco blew his pipe and announced, “Now hear this, There are men working aloft. Do not rotate, radiate, or energize any electronic equipment while men are working aloft.”

  “Damn.” Ingram stood. The phone buzzed. He yanked it from its bracket. “Captain.”

  The line crackled with, “XO, Captain. The SC-1 radar antenna motor crapped out again. Mr. Duquette is right on it.” It was Hank Kelly, the executive officer. Ingram had met Hank Kelly aboard the USS Howell two and a half years ago. Kelly, a Purdue graduate, had been the ship’s engineering officer and a damn good one. After the Howell was lost and Ingram given his new command, he’d been lucky to dig Kelly up and assemble him into the Maxwell’s crew along with other Howell survivors.

  Ingram moaned, “Not again.” Kelly was telling him the air search radar was on the fritz, the third time in as many days.

  “Sorry, Captain. We expect it up in ten minutes,” said Kelly.

  A sickly feeling swept over Ingram. They were steaming blind. Instinctively, he glanced out the porthole, his eyes darting about, looking for squalls in which to hide. It was a weird equipment casualty. For no plausible reason, the motor that rotated the antenna just stopped working. It took two men to climb the mast, unscrew the access plate and fiddle with it. “Who’s aloft?”

  “Mouselle and Hogan.” Mouselle was a second class radarman, Hogan, a first class electronics technician, both top-notch.

  Ingram rubbed his chin. “Very well, Hank. Sound general quarters, Condition I AA. I’m coming out. And tell combat to inform the screen commander.” Ingram had no choice but to put the ship at her peak of vigilance when a key piece of equipment had failed. Especially now, at sunset, when they were vulnerable to an air attack from out of the sun.

  The general quarters gong sounded. Men dashed about the ship. Ingram grabbed his wind breaker and stepped through the gun director barbette room onto the open bridge.

  Falco announced, “Captain on the bridge.”

  Ingram looked in the pilot house and nodded. All hands were donning sound-powered phones and helmets with professional sang-froid. He stuffed his pant legs in his socks, donned a life jacket and helmet and stepped to the starboard bridge wing. He was met by Howard Clock, a rail-thin yeoman, who looked like a sixth-grade reject. With a longish face, Clock had clear-blue eyes, rimless glasses and acne. But he was a good yeoman and a good talker as well. “All stations report manned and ready, Captain,” he said.

  “Very well.” Looking up the mast, Ingram saw two men up high wearing safety slings, much like telephone linemen: Except these two couldn’t dig their feet into the mast. It was made of aluminum, not wood, and oftentimes, it was difficult to hang on up there. Ingram’s position on the bridge was thirty-five feet above the water. Here, the ship’s motion seemed slow, easy; one could wedge himself against a chart table or bulwark and hardly notice a thing. But aloft, Ingram shuddered to think; those men were one hundred twenty feet up in the air, swinging though an arc of at least two hundred feet, with nothing but the mast to hold on to.

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Anthony Duquette climbed up the inner companionway and walked up to Ingram. Like other officers, Duquette wore khakis. But there, the resemblance ended. He’d been a light-weight boxing champion, and, although he was only five six or seven, he had a well-defined muscular body, enhanced by tailor made clothes. His dark, shiny hair was always perfectly combed, and the other officers chiding him for glancing in the mirror so often. But Duquette was an electrical engineer from the University of Michigan; he knew radars and things that went ‘zap.’ The problem was, he lacked maturity. Too much of a pretty boy; too much looking in mirrors and thinking about girls. Often times Ingram wondered if Duquette was running the communications division, or his men were. Sort of like the monkeys running the zoo, he figured. Or in this case, Dexter running the zoo. Fortunately, this Dexter was good and highly motivated. Aside from Duquette’ s distractions, Ingram could have asked for no better man to be in charge of the finicky surface search and air search ra
dars.

  As usual, Duquette was bareheaded. Still, he tipped a finger to his brow and said, “Evening, Captain. Sorry about all this.” He snorted, checked his watch, and squinted aft into the sunset. “Bad timing.”

  Ingram drew a thin smile. “Yes, bad timing, Mr. Duquette.” He wasn’t going to let the young man off the hook. With the air search radar down, they were vulnerable.

  Duquette made an elaborate show of pulling a face. “We’ll have it back up, chop, chop, Captain.”

  Lieutenant Eric Gunderson, the GQ officer of the deck stepped on the bridge-wing and said, “Excuse me captain, XO asks for you to please pick up the phone.”

  “Very well. And Eric, make sure your lookouts are vigilant. We’re blind as hell.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Gunderson walked away and began talking to lookouts.

  Ingram eyed Duquette, “Better get back to CIC, Tony.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ingram walked in the pilot house, grabbed the phone and said, “Captain.”

  It was Hank Kelly, muffling his mouthpiece with his hand. “Message from the Commodore, sir.”

  “Read it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kelly cleared his throat and paper rattled. “’Interrogative status.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was a classic Landa gybe. He knew about the Maxwell’s radar troubles and couldn’t’ resist sending Ingram a blast. Ingram sighed. “Okay, Hank. Send ‘ETR ten minutes’. That’s all we can say for now.”

  “How about ‘get off my ass?’” Kelly, the consummate engineering officer, could be so crude at times and he didn’t hesitate to speak his mind. That’s why Ingram had sought him out. Not a yes man, Kelly was loaded with talent. Unfortunately, Landa liked to pick on Kelly, making life miserable for him. Ingram explained over and over to just roll with it. That Landa’s style was to pull strings and watch people dance. All Kelly had to do was to keep his mouth shut and say, ‘Yes, sir.’ But Kelly’s pride often got in his way, making Landa push the screws down tighter.