Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  The chief of staff was standing, gazing out the window, his hands massaging themselves behind his back. Characteristic gesture. Suddenly it was reminiscent of that night, two months ago, when, standing in the same pose, Blunt had told Rich of the loss of his old boat. Different in only one thing: night instead of mid-morning. Then the lights of the navy yard had been strong spots of brilliance in the distance, beneath them the black waters of the harbor. Now the bright sun of a late fall morning streamed through the window, tingeing the waters beside the pier an unaccustomed powdery green.

  Blunt turned as Richardson announced himself. The pipe in his mouth was freshly lighted, drawing well. He held it between clenched teeth, spoke by moving his lips, articulated behind artificially rigid jaws. “Rich,” he said, “that was a tremendous patrol you turned in. You have no idea of the effect here when your message came in about Bungo Pete, and then the later one when you rescued the aviators. Admiral Small made a special report to Washington about it. I want you to know that.”

  He could have used some of this knowledge a week ago. But this was not why the chief of staff had asked Richardson for a conference. He waited.

  “How are you feeling, Rich?”

  Why should Blunt ask this question at this time? “Fine, sir. I’ve never felt better. . . .”

  “No, I don’t mean that, Rich. I’m thinking about your state of mind. This patrol took a lot out of you I know—now wait. . .” as Richardson began to protest. “Any war patrol takes a lot out of the skipper. Most of them don’t realize how much they’ve had to drive themselves, but you really had a particularly tough deal.”

  Maybe old Joe Blunt had read a lot more between the lines than Richardson had meant to put there in the patrol report. Or maybe, under the influence of the admiral’s whiskey, he had revealed himself far more than he had intended. Joan, he knew, had guessed. And no doubt Keith understood. Perhaps Blunt still possessed that sensitivity of understanding which had made him so beloved of his junior officers in the Octopus.

  “We were wondering whether the fight with Nakame had really gotten to you. You should have sent someone else to unlash the rubber boats when that Jap patrol plane came over. Doing it yourself doesn’t seem the smartest move. You left Leone in charge of Eel under enemy attack. There was a damned good possibility that you might be killed, along with the aviators you were trying to rescue.”

  “Commodore, there wasn’t time! The boat was diving! Keith was already below. The patrol plane was practically on us. . . .”

  “Plane! Plane!” The foghorn blast. Men dashing to the bridge, tumbling below. Eel’s vents open, air whistling out of them. Consternation: the heaving line fast to one of the bow cleats, the other end still attached to the rubber boats. As Eel submerged, the line would drag the boats under, dump the injured fliers in the water. Richardson the last man on the bridge, seconds left in which to get below before Eel went under. “Shut the hatch, Keith! Take charge!” Jumping down on deck, running forward to free the line, Blunt’s old aphorism reverberating through his mind as the diving submarine took him under with her: “Take it easy, take your time, do it right; take it easy, do it right!” Many feet under, water pressure on his back from Eel’s forward motion bending him over the cleat, he at last managed to get his fingers under the rapidly tightening heaving line, pull it free. It was murder pushing himself clear of the huge cleat digging into his abdomen.

  Reliving it, Richardson could remember the pain all over again. For a few minutes he thought the heavy rounded cleat had emasculated him. He passed out, must have bobbed to the surface practically under the rubber boats. The flier caught his arm, undoubtedly saved his life.

  The Japanese aviators were playing the cat-and-mouse game, hoping to entice Keith to surface. When their plane came close, he would dunk the ’scope and not raise it again until they were back on their way to the horizon. Richardson timed the plane’s movements, motioned Keith to bring Eel as close as he could, snagged the periscope as it went by, signaled for Eel to surface as soon as the plane went out of sight. Keith neatly brought the boat up directly beneath the two rubber boats, landed the three wounded fliers and the painfully bruised Richardson on deck. The bang of the hatch opening, men racing down on deck, recklessly gathering up the four temporary castaways, pitching them down the open hatch, slamming the lid, opening the vents, getting her back under. Haste. Haste. The plane coming back. Take her down! Take her deep fast! Lean into those diving control wheels! All ahead emergency! For God’s sake, get some down angle on her!

  Blunt was still talking. The tone of his voice was the one he used when he was displeased. “Why didn’t you radio the task force to provide air cover? You should not have made Leone surface your boat right under that Jap Betty to pick you up!”

  The direct accusation caught Richardson unprepared. This, of all matters, he had not thought would be brought under unfriendly scrutiny.

  “But I was in the rubber boat, Commodore! There was no way I could tell Keith to send a message! He couldn’t have sent one submerged anyway. Maybe we should have sent one before, but we were occupied with getting those men aboard. There just wasn’t time to set up and send a message!” Lamely, Rich added the word “sir” to the sentence.

  “Well, maybe not,” said Blunt. “But you should have had a message ready beforehand. That’s the way it’s got to be in submarines, Rich. You’ve got to think of everything, all the time. Trouble with you young skippers is that you don’t look ahead. You could have lost your boat, or been lost yourself, along with the three fliers you were trying to help!”

  Years ago, Blunt had used that same tone of voice to upbraid Rich for a poorly executed dive in the Octopus. Afterward he had praised him for quickly diagnosing and remedying the trouble, improper compensation of the after trim tank. Richardson felt the sudden return to the attitudes of eight years ago, when he had been the inexperienced new arrival to Blunt’s brand-new submarine. He sat uncomfortably in his chair. Blunt was being a little hard. It was almost contrary to tradition to rake a newly returned skipper, especially on the day following return from a successful patrol.

  Apparently Blunt had come to the end of his chastisement. “Anyway, it came out all right,” he said. “You were lucky and got away with it. So let’s forget about it.”

  But Rich could not forget about it. There was something behind Blunt’s words. Was there a hint of vindictiveness in his manner? Could he have been reasserting himself, his superiority, after the night in his quarters and the conversation in the jeep? And what about Blunt’s reaction to his personal risk in casting loose the rubber boats—that, at least, had brought him the most peace and contentment of the entire patrol. So far as leaving Keith in command for a time, that had been an incident of combat. Keith had long since qualified for command; else he could not have been exec. Richardson would have trusted him anywhere. Was there, in truth, a real reason behind Blunt’s probing? Richardson himself had secretly wondered whether there had been a subconscious wish to risk death underlying his action. Had Blunt sensed this? Even yesterday, when Rich could have gone below, he had remained on the bridge when the Kona wave had pooped the boat. He might well have been washed overboard. Was that part of the same underlying wish?

  Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face. Blunt continued in a kinder tone. “Nearly all our skippers are young, like you, Rich,” he said. “You’re not the only one with a few problems and frustrations. Here in Pearl some of us at least get a chance to relieve some of them. Maybe you need a little more of that stuff you got last night.”

  “Goddammit, Captain!” burst out Richardson, half rising in his chair.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, take it easy, Rich. This is a world war we’re in. Everybody’s in it, the men and the women too. And don’t forget the women are giving it all they’ve got, just like you are. Just who do you think those girls were, anyway?”

  “You’re not trying to tell me . . .” Richardson stopped. Was this a hint at the puzzle
about Joan’s work at Fort Shafter?

  “They just happen to know more about what’s going on in Japan than either of us ever will, unless we take over the admiral’s job, but I’m not going to say anything more, so forget what I said.” He had long since removed the pipe from his mouth. It had gone out, unnoticed, on his desk. Now he palmed it, tamped down the contents of the bowl, gently shook out the loose ashes, relighted it.

  A deep, satisfied puff. A curl of smoke gently rising toward the ceiling. “Anyway, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you heard about the wolfpacks we’ve been organizing?”

  “Yes, sure,” said Richardson, relieved that Blunt had shifted the conversation away from the events of the previous night.

  “Mason’s Marauders turned in a pretty good combined patrol, and so did Tremaine’s Tigers, but others haven’t been so lucky recently. It all depends on the area they get, and how well they’ve been trained beforehand, naturally. Also on how much dope they get in the area, and how aggressive the boats are themselves.”

  Rich nodded.

  “Anyway, what I’m telling you is that the admiral is giving me the next wolfpack, and I was wondering whether you would like to be in it.”

  “Us? The Eel? We won’t be through our refit and training for three more weeks!” Suddenly Richardson realized he did not want to be in a wolfpack under his old skipper. A day ago he might have welcomed the idea.

  “Timing is no problem. We’ve already picked the other two boats: Chicolar and Whitefish. The Chicolar is a brand-new sub, due to arrive from Mare Island in a couple of days. She has an experienced skipper, though, so she’ll need only routine refresher training. She’ll be okay. The Whitefish is an older boat and her skipper is due for rotation this time in. They’re already here, got in a couple of days before you did, so the timing is really pretty good. We’ll need the three weeks to plan our coordinated tactics.”

  There had been hesitation, less than enthusiastic acceptance, in Richardson’s manner. Had Blunt noticed? Had he expected a greater expression of pleasure at the prospect of being shipmates again? But even if so, this could not explain Blunt’s negative attitude toward the rescue of the aviators, for the wolfpack, at that point, had not yet been mentioned.

  Blunt was still talking. “Most of you young skippers say Jap convoys are too small for wolfpacks. Since the poor results from the last couple we sent out, the Old Man hasn’t been too willing, either. But last week he had a conference with Nimitz, and since then we’ve been putting this one together.”

  In Richardson’s opinion, the damage done by a single three-submarine wolfpack generally was not equal to what could be accomplished by three aggressive boats operating over a wider area independently. Furthermore, higher risk of detection and counterattack resulted from the wolfpack’s need for radio communications between its members.

  The disquiet, allayed a moment ago, was back. Blunt, who had taken the bewildered ensign on board the Octopus and made a submariner out of him, who had publicly qualified him with his own dolphin insignia in front of the entire crew, had always been a source of admiration and strength. This had been no less true later, at New London, and until very recently, at Pearl. But there was a subtle difference between the Blunt of today and the Blunt of even two months ago, when Richardson had last seen him. The voice, the mannerisms, the countenance, were exactly the same; yet, there was a new slackness about his jaws and a never before noticed unreality to his conversation.

  Only someone who had served under Blunt, who had experienced his vitality as a superior, would be able to see the difference. Admiral Small, obviously, had seen nothing untoward, for he would not otherwise have designated him as the commander of a wolfpack, in charge of three submarines on war patrol.

  Suddenly speculation took off on another tangent, and simultaneously it became certainty. Wolfpack commanders were commonly drawn from among underemployed squadron commanders, of whom there were a number in Pearl. Submarining was a young man’s game. The navy—the war—was passing the older men by. They were in the middle; they had had their boats before the war, and there could be but one force commander. The Germans controlled their wolfpacks entirely from shore. It was an American idea to put a wolfpack commander aboard one of the subs. The opportunity was much sought after. There were too many claimants. No one got more than one crack at it. No doubt Blunt had also been restive, perhaps even a little envious, like some of the others. But the chief of staff, of all the officers in Pearl, could not complain about being unemployed. There had to be a substantial reason for ComSubPac to deprive himself of his right-hand man. Something really important must be intended for this wolfpack. That conference between the two old submarine colleagues, Small and Nimitz, had done it!

  Then the inner voice of logic began to speak. Richardson should realize that his own perceptions were overdrawn, too finely sharpened by the pressures of the patrol just completed. Admiral Small had had far more opportunity to observe Blunt than Richardson. His view must be the correct one. If anything, he would be aware that Blunt was wearying under his heavy desk duties. The chief of staff’s job was essentially one of paperwork, a despised chore for a man of action, especially for a man of the sea. An assignment carrying with it unusual responsibilities of a completely different nature, at sea on submarine war patrol, doing what his entire career had been preparing him for, would appeal to the admiral as exactly the sort of change his valued assistant needed. This would clear the cobwebs from Blunt’s mind. And it would give him a taste of the action for which the admiral had many times expressed his envy. Joe Blunt might well have felt the same, might have asked for the assignment.

  Only one more question to ask, for which Rich already knew the answer. “Have you decided which boat you’ll be riding, Commodore?”

  “I figured you’d ask that. The admiral and I think I should be on the most experienced boat, with the most experienced skipper. This adds up to yours.”

  Perhaps, in the process of doing something really big, something of real significance in the war effort, the old Blunt would reassert himself. Once away from Pearl Harbor and its indivious subtleties, the old relationship Richardson had so valued could be revived.

  He could feel himself pulled in two directions at the same time, but all the decisions had already been made. Admiral Small of course knew that Blunt had once been skipper of the Octopus, and that Richardson had served three years under him there, as well as an additional time in New London. Obviously, it was Small who had decided that Blunt would ride the Eel.

  “Great,” said Rich, this being the only reply he could think of. “What do we have to do for training? And when can we start?”

  “There’ll be a little more work in it for you and some of your officers, of course, and you won’t have as much free time in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel as maybe you’d hoped. I want all of you to study all the reports of all the previous wolfpacks. And I want you three skippers to get to know each other pretty well, too. Then we’ll set up a training period to work out our tactics.”

  “Is our area picked already?” Rich asked.

  “AREA TWELVE, the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. That was where we were going to send you, remember, when we diverted you to the Bungo Suido last time. Matter of fact, we’ve not had a submarine in there since, and by now the Japs must be running a lot of traffic through there. There should be plenty of targets, at least in the beginning. As soon as we hit them, of course, they’ll close off again. So I want to go in and hit them real hard right away. Good thing they won’t have old Bungo to shift over there.”

  “Fine,” said Rich. “It sounds like a lot of fun.” “Fun” was the wrong word, but Blunt did not seem to notice. If Richardson’s latest evaluation was on target, there would be a lot more than “fun” involved. He hoped he had sounded convincing. “When do we start getting ready?”

  “Right after the Chicolar gets in, day after tomorrow. I’ll call all three of you skippers together, along with your ex
ecs. It won’t be too tough a schedule. You’ll have plenty of time off. There’ll be plenty of time to see the Lastrada dame, if she has any free time. After sixty days at sea you must really have had lead in your pencil last night. . . .”

  Somehow, Richardson managed to make a quiet retreat. There was something wrong, all right.

  To Richardson’s surprise, at the afternoon-long refit conference there was no resistance at all to his proposal to move the two Target Bearing Transmitters into little bulges built into the sides of Eel’s bridge. He had prepared himself with diagrams showing the increased arc which could be covered by either TBT in the event of failure of the other, and he was psychologically ready to discuss the loss of aiming capability from the forward TBT after Nakame’s rifle had smashed it.

  In this instance, Eel had no torpedoes remaining forward—or aft either, for that matter—but the principle was valid. Rich would use this argument last, had begun to describe his intended use of the side-mounted bearing transmitters for director control of the two five-inch guns, when he realized here was no opposition to his proposal. So far as the refit people were concerned, it was only the question of the physical capability to do the job.

  The reaction to his other primary request, that extra skids be provided for stowage of ten torpedoes in the after torpedo room, instead of the standard eight, was the same. He had been prepared for opposition, for no submarine had yet taken twenty-six torpedoes on patrol. Sufficient space existed, but the designed load was only twenty-four fish. Should Eel be unlucky enough to have a “dry run,” be forced to bring her full load of torpedoes back to her base, expenditure of fuel—lighter than the water replacing it—would cause her to be so heavy that submerged trim would not be possible without using Safety tank as a part of the trimming system. The extra gun forward compounded the problem. Well, Safety had been designed with a view to this potential necessity. It was already piped and valved into the trim system. If necessary, he would use it.