Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  When Eel entered the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, her first war patrol at an end, a coxcomb of eight tiny Japanese flags, four of them radially striped naval ensigns, the others the standard meatballs denoting merchant ships, would fly from her radar mast. Richardson had not wanted them, but he had permitted the crew’s enthusiasm, as rendered by Keith, to control the decision. The prospect of entering port was, as usual, conjuring up the anticipation of mail, fruit, respectful admiration by the crews of other submarines who were already in port and had already had their moment of attention. Except for Rich. This was part of the bleakness. The patrol had had as its express purpose the destruction of Bungo Pete. He had been extraordinarily successful against U.S. submarines. Early in the war, before anyone had known who he was or what his real name was, Nakame had earned the sobriquet of “Bungo Pete” from those who had experienced his depth charges. He had sunk seven subs off the Bungo Suido, one of the entrances to the Inland Sea of Japan. The last two were the Nerka, commanded by Richardson’s close friend, Stocker Kane, and the Walrus.

  It had been a difficult, emotion-wracked voyage. But he would have to relive it yet one additional time for the admiral and his staff, principally his chief of staff, Captain Joe Blunt, and then again, in greater detail, for the debriefing team. It had all been laboriously written into a two-part patrol report—one part labeled “Confidential,” the other “Top Secret,” but the debriefers would insist on getting it all verbally, too.

  From his hospital bed, Rich had used his influence with the chief of staff to give the Walrus to her executive officer, Jim Bledsoe. Jim had promptly taken off on three supremely successful patrols to Australia and back. But instead of sending Walrus back to the States for a badly needed overhaul upon her return, Blunt had reluctantly ordered Jim to make one last patrol. Admiral Nimitz had directed the Bungo Suido be kept under surveillance. Walrus had been the only submarine available.

  Nakame had claimed sinking Walrus in a Japanese propaganda broadcast on the same day Richardson’s new ship, the Eel, completed her training prior to departure on patrol. The news came on the heels of the Navy’s official announcement that Nerka was overdue and presumed lost. Joe Blunt, his first submarine skipper, later his squadron commander in New London, and now chief of staff to the Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet—Vice Admiral Small—had been the emissary of both bits of bad news. The cumulative wound had been deep.

  Walrus, Blunt explained, had been reporting weather every three days. Three days previously, Jim had added to the routine report the further information that he had only four torpedoes remaining, all of them aft. The next message, due that morning, had not arrived. Instead, there was a propaganda broadcast detailing the claim that the USS Walrus had been sunk by Nakame’s forces.

  In despair at the news of the loss of his old ship, following so closely on the loss of Stocker Kane in the Nerka, Richardson pleaded for assignment to the Bungo Suido. The upshot was that Eel’s orders were changed: instead of AREA TWELVE, the East China and Yellow Sea, she was sent to AREA SEVEN, with particular instructions to destroy Tateo Nakame and his Special Antisubmarine Warfare Group.

  Richardson soaped himself all over for the second time. Now, Eel was returning. He had carried out his mission. Bungo Pete was dead, sliced to bits by Eel’s propellers. Sunk, during a storm, were all three ships of Nakame’s little squadron: the Akikaze-type destroyer, a disguised “Q-ship” (an old freighter with big guns, filled with flotation material), and a submerged submarine behind the pseudo merchantman. Eel had expended her last torpedoes on them. Three lifeboats remained, launched, as their destroyer sank, by Nakame and his professional crew.

  Of course, the lifeboats. Nakame would weather the storm in them. Less than fifty miles from shore—he’d be back in business in a week: A little boat with oars tossed against the sky. A row of faces staring, suddenly knowing what was to come. Eel’s huge bow raised high on a wave, smashing down. Guillotine.

  A brief search for the second boat. The bullnose rising, striking it on the way up, smashing it in, rolling it over. Still rising, grinding the bodies and the pieces of kindling down beneath Eel’s pitiless keel.

  One more lifeboat. Nakame’s. Black water driving in solid sheets over Eel’s bridge. Somebody in the stern of the boat, heroically fighting back. Rifle bullets striking the armored side of Eel’s bridge, shattering the forward Target Bearing Transmitter. Eel’s bow alongside, sideswiping, slashing past. Shift the rudder! The boat bumping alongside, dropping on the curve of the ballast tanks, its side bellied in, its ribs crushed. Tateo Nakame: a short fellow with an impassive face; deadpan. A first-class naval officer. A professional. Dedicated. Tough.

  Around in a full circle. No avoiding this time. Bungo still fighting back. More rifle shots. The lifeboat in halves. The rifle flying out into the water. Nakame somehow managing to reach Eel’s side, get his hands on the slick tank tops—clutching, gripping, clawing to hang on. Grimacing with the effort, and with anguish at finally losing. Washed off by the sea as Eel hurtled past. Sucked under by the screw current. Doubtless instantly killed by the thrashing, sharp, spinning blades rising under him as Eel pitched downward into the hollow of an oncoming sea. . . .

  It was a glorious Hawaiian morning on Eel’s bridge as the submarine, coming up from the southwest, rounded Barber’s Point and straightened out for the Pearl Harbor channel entrance. The approach from sea was simple; straight in, perpendicular to the shore, past the sea buoy to the two entrance buoys and the black and red channel buoys marking both sides. A straight shot, with only a few easy bends after passing inside the shoreline. Always there was someone patrolling off the entrance, an old destroyer or one of the smaller PC-boats, and Richardson could not recall a day since the start of the war that there had not been aircraft overhead and a minesweeper chugging up and down the channel length.

  Today, however, the minesweeper was missing. As Eel approached the sea buoy—the farthest marker to seaward—it was noticeable that the heavy swells which the submarine had been feeling since the turn off Barber’s Point were considerably intensified near the shore. There was also a perceptible rise in the temperature of the air, a sultry warmth emanating from the shore. Richardson caught Keith’s eyes upon him.

  “Kona weather,” Richardson said. He had once been familiar enough with the moist winds, sweeping from the south, which could pick up the surf and on occasion batter the low-lying parts of the island. Keith had heard of it too, though probably he had never seen a real Kona blow. Keith nodded shortly.

  Lieutenant Buckley Williams, wiry and slender, finishing his fourth patrol, was Officer of the Deck and would have the privilege of bringing the travel-stained sub in to her berth. He, Keith, and Richardson stood together at the forepart of the bridge, the two younger officers on either side pressing against the overhang of the windscreen, Richardson in the middle leaning back against the periscope support foundation. Above them, standing on two little platforms built on to the periscope shears, protected from falling by guard rails, four lookouts zealously followed the orders that prohibited them from taking their binoculars down from their eyes. Their postures showed their discomfort as they held the heavy glasses. During the patrol, lookouts had tired rapidly. Perhaps something could be done for them during the refit period. Aft on the bridge deck, on that section still known as the “cigarette deck” from oldtime submarine tradition, when it was the only place where smoking was permitted, Ensign Larry Lasche, finishing his first war patrol, and Quartermaster Jack Oregon, a veteran of Walrus, were likewise obeying the ship’s standing order which required them, when not otherwise gainfully employed, to maintain a careful, sweeping binocular watch on the sea and the horizon. The order, strictly speaking, said “air” as well, but except for that terrible day when the war began, the air over Hawaii belonged to the United States.

  Buck Williams and Keith Leone were also using their binoculars in careful sweeps of the water where an enemy submarine periscope might suddenly and d
isastrously appear; only Richardson could be considered a passenger, in all the meaning of the word. A feeling of lassitude, of nonparticipation, possessed him. His had been the adamant insistence on the binocular order; now his own pair hung uselessly from their strap around his neck, not once having been used, their focus as yet unchecked from the setting Oregon habitually put on them.

  The waterproof bridge speaker, protected under the wind deflector in front of Williams, suddenly blared. “Bridge, this is control. Request permission to open hatches and send line handlers on deck!”

  “Permission granted!” bellowed Williams, reaching a thin, muscular arm to the starboard side of the bridge, where the “press-to-talk” button of the bridge speaker was located.

  Richardson afterward was never able to explain what it was that pierced through to his consciousness at this precise moment. Perhaps it was some long-submerged recollection of his training under Joe Blunt in the Octopus, his first submarine, now, like Walrus, a casualty of the war. Perhaps it was just that things simply did not seem right, that some sixth sense was in rebellion. He jerked upright from his indolent pose of a moment ago. “Belay that!” he shouted.

  Buck Williams’ reaction was characteristically quick. “As you were! Belay my last! Do not open hatches!” he shouted into the speaker. Then he straightened up, looked at Richardson. “Sorry, Captain,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  Keith was also looking at him inquiringly, the widespread gray eyes in his sensitive face—no longer boyish after eight war patrols—showing startled surprise.

  All Richardson’s senses were suddenly alert. Something was dreadfully wrong. The empty channel must somehow be involved, but his rational senses gave no clue to what it was. “Make sure that all hatches stay shut!” he said. Then he raised his binoculars and for the first time swept deliberately around the area. Eel was passing the sea buoy, had passed it. Less than a mile ahead, the red and black entrance buoys beckoned. Deliberately, as though in the grip of some greater comprehension than his own, he stepped to the side of the bridge and peered astern.

  Lasche and Oregon were also staring uneasily astern. No one could have said what it was that was bothering him—and then, suddenly, clearly, there it was! He swung around.

  “Buck!” he said savagely, “Get everybody off the bridge! Put Oregon in the hatch, ready to shut it on order!” Keith waited to hear no more, dived wordlessly below to his station in the conning tower.

  “Clear the bridge!” bellowed Williams, the timbre of his voice showing his wonder. “Oregon!”—as the quartermaster raced past him—“You wait till last, then stand on the ladder and be ready to shut the hatch on orders!” Wide-eyed, Oregon stepped aside, let the lookouts precede him, looked questioningly at Williams and his skipper.

  “I’m staying up here, Oregon,” said Richardson. “I just want you to be ready to shut the hatch if necessary!” The quartermaster scuttled down the ladder.

  “In the space of twelve seconds the bridge had been abandoned, except for the Officer of the Deck and skipper. “What is it, Captain?” said Williams.

  “Take a good look aft, Buck,” said Richardson, putting his own binoculars back to his eyes.

  “I don’t see anything, Captain—nothing, really—the horizon does look a bit strange out there, though. . . .”

  “That’s not the horizon, Buck. It’s a lot closer than that!”

  “But it is too the horizon! There’s nothing beyond it!”

  “No, Buck. It’s the top of a big wave. It’ll be breaking here in a couple of minutes!” Richardson’s voice held a calmness that surprised even himself.

  Williams stared at him. “I don’t get it, sir,” he said.

  “Once in a while this happens in what they call Kona weather, Buck. A big wave sweeps in from the sea, and unless you’re ready for it, it can do a lot of damage. There must have been a couple already today. That’s why there was no minesweeper in the channel. We’re going to be pooped in a minute. Better be ready to hang on. . . .”

  “Should we send for a line to lash us to the bridge?”

  “That would have been a good idea if Pearl had thought to warn us about this, but I don’t think we’ll have that much time now. Matter of fact, here it comes!” Mesmerized, the two officers stared aft.

  Suddenly Richardson reached behind Williams, pressed the bridge speaker button. “Conning tower! Keith! You have the conn! Keep us on course through the periscope!”

  “Conn, aye aye!” said the speaker in Keith Leone’s unmistakable voice. “The ’scope is up! What’s going on?”

  “Kona wave about to poop us, Keith. We may not be much good up here. You’ve got to keep us in the channel!”

  “I will keep us in the channel. I have the conn! Should we shut the main induction, Bridge?”

  The question was an eminently logical one. Judging from the sudden precautions taken on the bridge, it was evident that massive flooding was expected from the pooping wave. While the main induction valve, thirty-six inches in diameter, and its associated piping were as well protected from the sea as could be arranged, the four big ten-cylinder diesel engines running in Eel’s two enginerooms sucked an enormous quantity of air into the ship. Were the induction valve to be submerged, water instead of air would be sucked in and flood the engineering spaces. Prolonged flooding—for several seconds—might even endanger the ship, not to mention much delicate electrical machinery. By shutting the induction valve, Keith also inferred the obvious shift to battery propulsion, which, of course, required no air.

  “Affirmative, Keith!” Richardson responded. “Here comes the wave!”

  In the space of less than a minute since Richardson had triggered the first alarm, Eel had traveled approximately one-quarter of the distance between the sea buoy and the main channel entrance buoys. Now it looked as though she were crossing a narrow, shallow valley of water. Ahead, on the far edge of the trough, watched the Pearl Harbor channel entrance buoys. It was mandatory to pass between them, for they lay on either side of the dredged and blasted passage into the harbor. Astern, what Buck Williams had thought was the horizon was now clearly the crest of a large wave, racing toward land. Already it was drawing water from the area ahead of it, creating a depression in the water level through which the submarine was passing, and adding to its own crest at the same time.

  “Rich!” called Williams. “It was nice knowing you!” The comment was made in a jocular tone, but it was the first time Richardson had ever heard one of his juniors use his nickname. Buck Williams would be a damned good submarine skipper someday, if somebody didn’t cashier him first for irreverence in the face of danger.

  The two men braced themselves in opposite corners of the bridge. Astern, the wave had crested, foaming at the top, formed into the shape of a huge breaker. Moving shoreward at a speed far greater than that of the submarine, it began to lift her. Eel’s stern rose. Her bow depressed, until water was within a foot or two of flowing over her slatted main deck forward. But the wave rose much too rapidly for Eel’s stern to follow, and the huge breaker began to submerge the submarine’s after parts. Still it came on, curling higher, standing on the main deck nearly as high as the tops of the periscope supports.

  Richardson had heard no orders given to shut the induction, but the thump of the valve beneath the bridge deck, as the hydraulic mechanism closed it, could be mistaken for nothing else. Keith had shifted to the battery. Except for the hatch on the bridge, the submarine was as tight as she could be.

  “Buck! Get below!”

  “I’m staying with you!” shouted Williams. To confirm his determination he leaned under the bridge overhang, shouted to Oregon, whose worried face could be seen framed in the bridge hatch. “Shut the hatch!”

  The bridge hatch slammed shut. The wheel on its top twirled to the shut position as Oregon spun it from underneath. Williams and Richardson were now isolated on the submarine’s bridge. The breaking sea, curling in mighty splendor, stood on the Eel’s main deck.
The wave’s forward progress slowed as it gathered strength from the shallow water it had scooped up into its corporeal self. Its forward face became steeper—“A wonderful surfboard comber if one dared to ride it!” thought Richardson. The wave touched the after end of the cigarette deck, bellied up from beneath, leaned forward even more. It foamed at the top, became suddenly concave, with a million lines of curved vertical ribbing, and broke.

  “Hang on!” shouted Richardson, and as he did so he heard Williams shout the identical words to him. Both men gripped the bridge railing and took a deep breath.

  Afterward, Richardson would recall an impression that, though there was no noticeable temperature to the sea, he suddenly found himself standing in water to his waist and for a second looked straight up inside the hollow of the breaker. He saw its crest strike the top of the periscope shears, adding yet more spray to its descending, broken, frontal edge. Then he was engulfed in roaring water. There was a sensation of color, of white mixed with streaked lightning, and of pressure. His feet were no longer securely on the deck. He was weightless, buffeted. His hands strained to hold the rails, were swept free. Something hit him on the back of his head; whether he blacked out for a moment he never knew, but his next recollection was a sudden awareness of the solid structure of the bulletproof front plating of the bridge pressing against his back, the slatted wooden deck driving upward against his thigh and buttocks.

  Water, draining freely between the slats, held him immovably in place. He could see its shiny surface above him, exactly as it looked so often through the periscope when a sea rolled over its eyepiece—except that this time it was tilted at a crazy angle. Then his head broke through, and in a moment he could move and pull himself upright. Surprisingly, he had felt no need for air. Perhaps there had not been enough time.