The sarcasm was lost on Taubman as sweat broke out on his forehead. His knuckles went white and he clutched a pipe overhead.
Another pair of depth-charges roared, shaking the submarine violently. A blue bolt of electricity arced across the compartment. Cork dust spewed about, and Ingram could hardly see more than a few feet.
The lights flickered. Then they went out, plunging the compartment into darkness.
Someone yelled on the intercom. A lone emergency light of questionable wattage went on. Shimazaki yelled and in the gloom, Ingram saw him flip a switch.
“Gott,” swore Taubman.”
“What?”
Taubman said, “Stern-plane stuffing-tube ruptured back there. They’re taking on water.”
“No!” Once again, the closeness and the odors and the opaque cloud raged at his senses. Get out!
“Worse.”
“What?”
Taubman’s voice shook. “ The stern planes are jammed at full dive.”
“Good God.” What the hell do we do? Ingram’s heart thumped in his chest like a raging bullfrog, as the I-57 dove deeper. He could only image the physics outside as ever increasing-water pressure compressed the hull, making it groan and pop in protest, as metal grated against metal. Her down angle increased to thirty-five degrees, and he braced a foot on a deck-mounted stool. About him, the sounds of loose gear, crockery, cabinets and tools, clanged and crashed about. Something swished past Ingram’s head and shattered onto the console. Another blue-white bolt of electricity zapped across the instrument panel, outlining Taubman and Shimazaki’s faces in a hoary luminescence. The odor of ozone overwhelmed them, ripping at their nostrils.
Suddenly, the hatch to the berthing compartment slammed open. A figure lurched though, flashlight in hand and reached in a cabinet for tools. Ingram glanced aft, realizing he was looking up into the berthing compartment. Their lights were also out, jiggling beams of flashlights producing the only illumination. Seven or so men were on their knees, clustered around a deck-mounted assembly of some sort. And a thin, two inch pipe extended from the device all the way to the overhead at an obscene angle. Something shrieked, ripping at his ears. Suddenly, Ingram realized the pipe was not a pipe. It was a cold stream of water, blasting into the compartment under enormous pressure. Ingram covered his ears, the shrill noise of the water-leak raking his ear-drums. Two men slipped on the deck and tumbled forward, their bodies glistening as they slide down the deck and slammed into the bulkhead, where they lay groaning.
The man from the aft compartment grunted and, apparently satisfied, stepped through the hatch and pulled it shut.
Quiet. Blessed quiet, except for the hull’s groaning and creaking. Ingram uncovered his ears and blinked with the certain knowledge that he’d just had a glimpse into hell. Unlike the uncontrolled mayhem in the aft berthing compartment, here he discerned what was going on. But it was a false sense of security, he knew. Their problems could rapidly become his problem. All of their problems. Especially, if that leak got away from them. And especially, if they didn’t fix the stern planes.
How deep is it here, he wondered? 6,000 feet? 10,000? Dead is dead, no matter whether it’s 125 feet or 3,000 fathoms. Oh, God. Please no, dear God.
To his left was another swish, a thud, and a groan. Intuitively, Ingram knew Shimazaki was down, but he couldn’t see in the darkness and yelled. “Shimazaki is hurt.”
“Was?”
Ingram reached over head, found a battle lantern and flicked it on. Its beam stabbed down through cork dust and floating bits of insulation, Illuminating a ghost-white Martin Taubman. He threw his hands across this face. “Mein Gott.” he yelled, reaching out to the console, slipping and falling to the deck.
Ingram reached down and found Shimazaki’s head covered with a sticky wetness. “Come on, Martin,” yelled Ingram. “Do something.” His eyes darted to the inclinometer and his heat thumped: the down angle was forty-two degrees! Both feet were braced on the side of the maneuvering station console, as if it were the deck. Only the single battle lantern illuminated the compartment, and it was hard to pick out familiar objects. He realized he was looking down at the forward bulkhead and the engine room hatch.
The intercom screeched again. Ingram yelled, “Martin, what’s he saying, for Pete’s sake?”
Taubman’s lips quivered.
“Martin. You’re the submariner. Do something. Shimazaki is out.” That wasn’t quite right. Shimazaki was groaning and trying to sit up, a horrible gash ranging across his forehead. Blood glistened on his face, his left eye completely covered.
The intercom came to life again, the caller’s voice hoarse with frustration. Terrible thuds and crashes echoed in the background, while in the maneuvering room the lights flicked in a kaleidoscopic dance.
Ingram chanced another look at the inclinometer: fifty-eight degrees. Then he took a sharp breath: the depth gage read forty meters, more than 120 feet. His mind raced with the math. This submarine is about 350 feet long. If the depth is 120 feet at the maneuvering room, then the bow must be poking through 350 feet!
Ingram didn’t know what crush depth was on this submarine, but he would have laid odds they were close to it. God! He reached over to Taubman and shook his lapel. “Martin. We gotta do something. It looks like we’re in an uncontrolled dive of some sort. I’m wondering if the motors need to be reversed. How do we do it?”
Taubman looked up as the I-57's hull gave a long ranging groan, almost as if a ghost were wailing somewhere in the bilges. Tears ran from his eyes and he mumbled and sputtered.
As Taubman sniveled, Ingram heard the frantic hiss of air coursing from the high pressure air flasks and into the ballast tanks.
“Martin! They’re blowing ballast tanks.” Just then he noticed the engine order telegraph was still in the ‘all ahead flank’ position. “That doesn’t make sense. What the hell’s wrong? Shouldn’t we be backing down?”
Taubman sputtered, “Power to the engine telegraph synchro must be out, just like these damned lights. I think you’re right. They don’t want an ahead flank bell. They need an all back emergency bell.”
“Well then, what the hell do we do?”
“I...I...” Taubman’s lips quivered and he reached for Ingram.
“No!” Ingram pulled himself free, while his eyes quickly darted about the control board. Then he spotted two large handles with arrow signs pointing forward and aft. Positioned next to those were smaller handles with numerical graduations running to ‘30.'
Here goes. He yanked what he hoped were the motor speed regulators to the ‘0' position. He was rewarded to hear the motors wind to a stop. Next. He pulled the direction levers through the neutral position to reverse. Then he eased the motor speed regulators forward to ‘15.’ The motors spooled up slowly.
“All right.”
I-57 began to shake and rattle as the screws bit the water. “Okay!” Ingram shoved the power handles all the way to ‘30.’ The motors wound up faster, as the screws churned in reverse. His eyes flicked to the depth gage: ninety meters! Inclinometer: seventy one degrees. Nearly twenty degrees to straight up and down. But the I-57's plunge seemed arrested while air hissed, blasting from the air flasks to the ballast tanks.
The depth meter stopped winding. In fact, it began rising. “Martin. Look!”
“Ahhhh!” Shimazaki rose next to him, wiping a rag over his bloody face. But he seemed alert as he reached up to match pointers on the engine room telegraph. But it was still in the ‘all ahead flank’ position, so he flicked on the intercom button and shouted at the officers in the control room. A heated exchange followed, as the submarine shook and vibrated, her screws frantically pulling her from being crushed like a water-melon. At the same time, the down angle decreased from 71 degrees to 65...to 55...40...25...15.
The submarine was nearly level when Shimazaki muttered “Bako.” Throttling down the motors, he disengaged them, threw the motor reversal switches forward, then set the power at ‘15.’
Ingram nearly shouted for joy as the down angle rapidly became an up angle. Like a drunken whale, the I-57 lurched toward the surface, the up angle now twenty degrees. Then the angle increased to thirty degrees and loose gear that had plunged to the forward bulkhead, now soared on a new journey to the aft bulkhead, crashing about he and Taubman and Shimazata, the cacophony worse than before.
The I-57 blasted through the surface, her bow crashing back onto the water. She slid back under for a moment, then shook herself back to the surface and rolled in a glassy sea, water spilling from her decks and limber holes. As she wallowed back and forth, the conning tower hatch opened. A lone figure crawled out, and lacking the strength to stand, lay with his back to the bulkhead.
He drew in a sharp breath. Looking aft, the last thirty foot section of the teak main deck had been ripped away as if by the gnarled hand of Susano‑o, the storm god, brutal brother of Amaterasu, the benign sun goddess. The starboard screw guard was twisted like a pretzel, with stanchions and other topside gear bent to obscene angles. In the distance, he saw a lone B-24 circling a smoke float, perhaps fifteen kilometers down sun: a miracle. Another miracle was just two kilometers ahead: a rain storm approached. A third miracle was that the port engine coughed into life pulling oxygen-rich air through the stricken I-57.
In the maneuvering room, Superior Petty Officer Kenyro Shimazaki threw his switches.
The I-57 staggered to safety.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
27 June, 1944
IJN Submarine I-57
Indian Ocean
At first glance, Commander Hajime Shimada thought that he’d soiled himself. No! It was sea water that darkened his crotch, not urine. He’d been drenched when he popped the hatch to the bridge, soaking half his body. Grabbing a handrail, he lurched to his feet, glad for these few moments by himself. The I-57 was making close to fourteen knots and they’d halved the distance to the rain clouds, lighting crackling in its midst. Only a few hundred meters to go
Perfect.
Aft, he saw the Liberator still flying lazy circles over the smoke float. Then it straightened and came in low, two black specks falling from its belly. Thirty seconds later, two enormous geysers spewed up as the four-engine bomber pulled up and out...
...the storm cloud swooped over them. Safe! It was raining and it felt wonderful.
Shimada stepped over the hatch and yelled down, “Lookouts, up.”
“On their way, Captain.” Shigeru Kato, the executive officer, stood in the conning tower, looking up, his fatigue cap splotched with oil.
“Who’s listed for junior officer of the deck?” Shimada barked.
“Ensign Kintomo,” sir.”
Shimada groaned, “How is he doing?”
“His leg is broken, Captain. The Doc has him lashed to his bunk.”
Shimada seethed with the memory of the report from the forward torpedo room. The one remaining torpedo had broken loose, just as they passed the sixty-five degree down angle. Three men, including Ensign Kintomo were seriously injured trying to secure it. How did they ever do it? He wondered. “All right then,” said to Kato, “you’d better get up here as OOD. And find a new JO to help you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have damage reports?”
“Yes, Sir,” Kato began his climb. “That’s why I was coming up.”
The more Shimada thought about the fact that they’d almost died for nothing, the angrier he became. “Hurry up!”
“Yes, Sir.” Kato scrambled up and saluted.
Shimada returned the salute. “Go ahead.”
Pulling a grease-smeared sheet of paper from his pocket, Kato began, “The stern planes are still jammed in the hard dive position.”
Shimada whisked off his cap and held his face to the rain, letting the water run down. It felt wonderful. “What happened?”
“The hand-tilting shaft bound against the pressure hull with the second depth charge attack. Then the coupling shattered and nothing worked. Worse, the stuffing tube on the starboard side gave way, setting up a major leak in the after berthing compartment. Half the place is flooded. But it’s almost pumped dry now, and the coupling should be repaired in another thirty minutes. Then we can zero the stern planes.”
The rain became a downpour and the water really felt good. Shimada took off his shirt, letting the fresh, cleansing water cascade over his body. “What about the starboard engine? When does it come on-line?”
“As soon as we fix the 500 pound air-starting line. It ruptured in several places with that one depth charge.”
“Kato, I asked you when.”
Yes, sir. Fifteen minutes.”
Shimada nodded and wrung out his shirt. “Now solve a mystery for me.” His gaze found Kato’s eyes.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s the damned chief engineer. Why haven’t I heard from him?”
“Lieutenant Matsumoto was in the engine room when the attack occurred. He slipped on the deck, then fell against the bulkhead and was pummeled with flying debris. He was unconscious until a few moments ago. Now he’s with the work party on the starboard engine.”
Shimada nodded. “Another mystery. What happened in the maneuvering room? Why didn’t they answer the backing bell? As our top electrical NCO, you would have thought Shimazaki would have figured what to do.”
Kato shrugged. “I don’t know about Shimazaki. What I do know is that the a/c auxiliary power motor generator circuit breakers tripped with the depth charging. So the engine room telegraph was inoperative. It was still set at ‘all ahead flank,’ even though you had ordered an ‘all back full’ bell on both motors.”
“And?”
“And reports are that Shimazaki didn’t answer the verbal command because he was unconscious. To what degree yet, I don’t know. But apparently he was out for a while. Also, Korvettenkapitän Martin Taubman was out.”
“Where was the prisoner?”
Kato shrugged.
“Right there with Shimazaki and Taubman?” Tiny embers flared in Shimada’s eyes. “What about the guard?”
“Well, uh, yessir. They sent Masako forward to the engine room to help rig for depth charging.”
Shimada stood to his full height. “You’re telling me that with Taubman and Shimazaki unconscious, the American was at liberty to move about the maneuvering room?”
“It looks that way. Yes, Sir.”
“And throw us into a suicide dive?”
Kato said, “I’m not sure yet, Captain. But that certainly could have happened.”
“I see.” Shimada jammed his cap on his head. “What else?”
“Topside main induction for the starboard engine is dished in. But we can fix that. Also, the master valve for the main ballast tank six is jammed open. That’s going to take some doing, that and the stern-diving plane-stuffing boxes.” He waved a hand aft. “And the decking back there is ruined, but that’s a yard job. The biggest thing now is cleaning up the litter down below, which is considerable -- everything from rice cakes to socket wrenches -- replacing light bulbs, and getting the ship looking more like a ship than a whore-house.” Kato turned red. “Excuse me, Sir.”
“Injuries?”
“Ensign Kintomo. That’s the most serious. Then the two men in the forward torpedo room have various sprains and contusions. After that are minor injuries to Shimazaki, Herr Taubman and Matsumoto.” After a polite cough, he added, “We should be at full operational capability in no less than two hours.”
Anger boiled within Shimada but he did his best to not let it show. He waved a hand at the rain falling around him. “Very well. Take the deck and the conn now. Keep us in this rain storm, no matter what. That Liberator is out there sniffing for us, but they can’t find us in here. We’ll stay in this until dark, then proceed on our normal course. Remain at fourteen knots, and put the starboard engine on charge when it comes on the line.
“Yes, sir.” Kato saluted. “I relieve you, sir.”
Returnin
g the salute, Shimada said, “I stand relieved. Now, I’m going below to inspect damage”. Shimada watched as the lookouts scrambled to the bridge and took their places in the periscope shears, Lieutenant (j.g) Hayashi joining them as JOOD.
After everyone had passed, Shimada descended through the conning tower and into the control room. He had business aft, all right. But first, he walked forward to get something from his stateroom.
Circuit breakers for the auxiliary power system were reset which allowed the electricians to turn on the lights and air conditioning, giving everyone else a sense of normality. Fervently, men dashed about fixing leaks, unclogging drains, sweeping up broken glass, screwing in lights bulbs, and returning material to shelves and brackets. In the engine room, Ingram was on hands and knees wiping hydraulic oil off the deck plates. A drum had broken its lashings and had caromed about the compartment spewing the rich smelling red stuff, like a child flinging ice-cream at a birthday party. Already, two men had slipped and hurt themselves, giving Ingram’s job a high priority. Several feet away, a shirtless Martin Taubman helped with restoring 500 pound air to the starboard diesel starting line.
In retrospect, the hideous mess in the engine room seemed nothing compared to what they’d faced with 71 degree down angle. The I-57 had been headed for crush depth and somehow, they had escaped. After broaching, Shimazaki, blood running from his forehead, grinned and clapped Ingram on the back. Strangely, Taubman was silent.
The rumble of the port engine starting was like a call from heaven, gilded even more so, as Shimazaki threw his switches to engage the port diesel to the motor-generators. After that, Ensign Shigeaki Morimura, the Assistant Engineering Officer, relieved him on the control board. Shimazaki walked forward to the temporary hospital on the messdecks to have the jagged cut on his forehead sutured and bandaged.
Men scampered fore and aft, carrying parts and tools, as Ingram scrubbed. It got so that he didn’t rise, only watching their split toed sandals dashing past in another important errand.
THE NEPTUNE STRATEGY: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 4) Page 15