Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  Leaning back and raising his voice, he called up the hatch, “All ahead one-third!”

  “All ahead one-third answered,” came the reply from Cornelli, a split second after the annunciator clink.

  To the bow planesman Williams said, “Ease your bow planes. Try to hit one-five-oh feet with a zero bubble and hold it.”

  “One-five-oh feet, sir, zero bubble,” responded the man operating the right of the two large shiny wheels in front of Williams. He had been progressively lightening himself, removing his binoculars, divesting himself of foul-weather bridge jacket and at the same time holding the bow planes on full dive with a free hand or occasionally a knee. Now he took the bow plane wheel, leaned into it counterclockwise. The bow plane indicator rose toward the zero position.

  A moment later, Williams swung to his left, spoke to the man on the trim manifold, pointing to him for emphasis. It was the first order he had given him. “Flood forward trim from sea, one thousand pounds.”

  “Flood forward trim from sea, one thousand pounds,” echoed the man, fitting his wrench to the manifold and turning it. Watching one of the gauges above it, in a moment he reported completion of the operation.

  Buck Williams continued to concentrate on the diving panel. “Stern planes on zero,” he ordered.

  The stern planesman put his planes exactly on zero, held them there. Attentively, Williams watched the gauges. His concentration increased.

  “Pump from forward trim to after trim, five hundred pounds,” he ordered. This maneuver completed to his satisfaction, he continued watching the instruments, his posture gradually relaxing.

  “Pump from auxiliary tanks to sea five hundred pounds,” he ordered. This done, “Bow planes on zero.”

  The ship’s speed, as indicated on a dial on his diving panel, had dropped below four knots. Keel depth was a fraction less than one hundred and fifty feet. For a long minute Williams watched his dials, said nothing. Then, leaning back again, he called up the hatch to the conning tower. “Final trim, sir. One-five-zero feet, one-third speed.”

  To Klench he said, “Damn good compensation, Chief. You were right on, fore and aft. I figure she was only five hundred pounds light overall, maybe less, once she starts soaking up a bit.”

  “Thanks, sir,” said Klench, obviously pleased. “I did figure she’ll soak up about five hundred pounds when she gets settled down.”

  “Control,” called Rich from the conning tower. “I have the conn. Make your depth six-five feet. Bring her up easy.” To the sonarman in the conning tower he said, “Search all around. Let me know when you have completed your search.”

  With planes on full rise, her propellers turning over at minimum speed, Eel slowly swam toward the ordered depth. It took several minutes to get there because of the slow speed, and the further fact that on the way up Rich ordered ten degrees right rudder in order to permit the sonar to listen on the bearing which had been blocked by Eel’s screws. Satisfied, he allowed Williams to bring her all the way up without interference, raising the tall attack periscope as the ship passed seventy-five feet in order to take a quick look as soon as its tip broached the surface. He was rewarded by the sight of the underside of the water, now under full sunlight, looking exactly the same as it would from above the surface. The Yellow Sea obviously deserved its name. The water was not yellow, but the color of light brown mud.

  The periscope broke the surface, surged upward. With his right elbow crooked around one handle, holding it to his chest, his left hand pushing on the other, he quickly walked it around, inspecting first the horizon, then the air. Nothing in sight.

  He walked around a third time with the periscope elevated at maximum elevation. Nothing.

  Back to the horizon for a more leisurely search. Still nothing. He lowered the periscope.

  “Control,” he ordered. “Five-eight feet. Prepare to surface.”

  The radar periscope had better optics than the attack periscope because of the larger diameter and greater simplicity of its lens system. His next search would be through it.

  “Five-eight feet, aye aye. Prepare to surface, aye aye.”

  Buck Williams had come one more step up the ladder from the control room. “Captain, how soon do you figure to surface?”

  Williams, who had been up since 3:30 that morning, was really asking whether he would have to bundle up again and go back on the bridge, or whether he could turn that chore over to Al Dugan. Al, no doubt, had already been called and was probably having breakfast at that very moment.

  “Sorry, Buck,” said Richardson. “You’ll have to take her up yourself. The visibility is excellent. We can triple our area coverage on the surface, and I want to get back up there.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Buck.

  Suddenly Williams stepped off the ladder to make room for someone to come up to the conning tower. Blunt. “Rich,” he said. “Why are you surfacing?”

  “Your orders, Commodore. We’re just finishing our trim dive. We’re on station in the middle of the area, with no land nearer than a hundred fifty miles. Visibility is excellent, so we’ll have no trouble seeing enemy aircraft before they see us.”

  “I gave no such order, Rich. I said you should use your best judgment about running on the surface in the area. I also said I don’t want to be detected.”

  Rich was uneasily conscious that Scott and Cornelli, the other two persons in the conning tower, had expressions of irresolute surprise on their faces. “Let me show you on the chart, Commodore,” he said. Perhaps if he could get Blunt into a low-voiced conference in the back of the conning tower it would be possible to straighten things out with no further damage to morale.

  A large-scale area chart was already laid out on the plotting table. “Your written orders say remain on the surface whenever possible, and last night you sent the wolfpack a message to conduct surface patrol on a north-south line,” said Rich. He indicated a lightly penciled dot with a small circle around it. “Here’s our morning dead reckoning position. Saisho To, here, or Quelpart Island, is the nearest land. There are no airfields indicated, although I suppose there could be some. Here are the other two boats—Whitefish is twenty miles to the north of us and Chicolar is twenty miles to the south. We are in the middle of the area, right on the line between Shanghai and Sasebo. If anybody comes through here, one of the three of us should see him and be able to vector at least one other boat into position for a submerged attack.”

  “I know,” growled Blunt, testily sucking his pipe. “But they don’t know we are in the area yet. That’s why we have to stay submerged. I don’t want to be detected or have our presence known until we get our first big convoy.”

  Richardson stared at him. Blunt’s cheeks were sagging, his eyes streaked with tiny red veins. This was exactly the opposite of what he had said the previous night. “But Commodore,” Richardson protested, “we sent the ‘surface patrol procedure’ signal to the other boats last night, along with the coordinates of the patrol line!”

  “Well, countermand it, then. I want to patrol submerged! I can’t stay up all night and all day, too!” Blunt turned away from the chart, stuffed his pipe in his mouth, and went below.

  Dilemma: to send a message, Eel would have to surface; but if Rich was any judge of Blunt’s state of mind, it would be necessary to gain his specific approval to surface even for a short time.

  In the meantime Whitefish and Chicolar would be surfacing after their own trim dives. At this very moment, in obedience to orders, they would be setting a daylight surface patrol routine. Squatting on his heels to talk through the control room hatch to Williams, who, once the wolfpack commander had passed, again had partly mounted the ladder, Richardson explained that surfacing would be delayed slightly. Then he sent for Keith.

  “Keith, how’s your fix coming? Can you take over the conning tower for a while?”

  “Sure. The computation is finished. Oregon can plot it. We can’t be more than a mile off our dead-reckoning position anyway. What’s
up?”

  “Fine. Make routine periscope observations and put this message in our wolfpack code while I go talk to the commodore.” He handed Keith a piece of paper.

  “Captain Blunt won’t let us surface?” guessed Keith.

  “That’s right. He’s changed his mind from last night.”

  “You know, Skipper,” said Keith as Richardson stepped on the ladder rungs preparatory to descending into the control room, “he must have been up all night. The chiefs say he just wandered back and forth, and sat up in the wardroom drinking coffee. He never even lay down. Maybe he’s not feeling well.”

  “Maybe so,” said Richardson as he ducked down the ladder. He had the feeling that Keith had not said all he might have liked to say, that his eyes were trying to convey something to him.

  Ten minues later, when he returned to the conning tower, Keith handed him the completed message. “How are we going to get it out?” Keith asked.

  “I’ll take over again, Keith. The commodore has okayed our broaching long enough to get the message off. You take the message to the radio room, and as soon as your antennas will load up, send it out. Let me know on the bridge speaker when you get a receipt.”

  “Will do,” said Keith.

  Richardson crossed to the control room hatch, squatted on his heels again. “Buck,” he said, “are you ready to surface?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. We’re not going to surface all the way; I just want to broach on high pressure air. We’ll not cut in the main engines, but flood negative tank in case we have to make a quick dive.”

  “Got it,” said Buck. “Do you want lookouts?”

  “Yes, we’ll need the lookouts, but nobody else. Send them up to the conning tower now. We’ll shut the control room hatch before we come up, just in case she ducks under again.”

  Rising to his feet, Richardson said to his exec, “Better get below, Keith. . . . Another thing . . .” as Keith stood poised in the control room hatch opening, “in case we have to dive suddenly, she might go down pretty fast, so you might find yourself in charge for a while. Don’t worry about us up here. We’ll get in the conning tower somehow.”

  In a few moments the four lookouts, in full foul-weather gear with binoculars slung around their necks and inflatable belts around their waists, were in the conning tower. A jacket and belt had been handed up to Richardson also. “Scott,” said the skipper, “I want you to remain in the conning tower and stand by the bridge hatch. Shut it if water comes in. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shut the lower hatch!” Williams pulled the control room hatch lanyard from below. It slammed down. Scott stepped on it, held it down with his weight on one foot as he kicked its two dogs home with the other.

  Richardson made a final sweep with the periscope, pressed the toggle on the intercom. ‘Control, this is conn. When ready, broach the ship.”

  The whistle of high pressure air. A springlike lifting effect. The depth gauge needle began to revolve counterclockwise. Richardson swung the periscope around rapidly several times, stopped momentarily, looking dead ahead. “Bow’s out,” he said. He swung aft. “Stern’s coming up.”

  Williams had already stopped blowing. Now came the noise of negative tank taking on the water which, when ballast tanks were again flooded, would give Eel thirteen tons negative buoyancy.

  “Stern’s up,” said Rich, still looking aft the periscope. He swung it around forward. “Bow’s going under . . . good!” The noise of high pressure air again could be heard from the control room. Watching his depth gauges and bubble inclinometers, Buck was giving another shot of air to the forward ballast tanks to compensate for the water taken into negative tank.

  Rich snapped up the handles on the periscope. “Down periscope,” he said. One of the lookouts pushed the hydraulic control lever. “Crack the hatch!” Scott, already standing on the rungs of the ladder, quickly spun the handle. There was a slight hiss of escaping air as the small volume of air in the conning tower quickly equalized to the atmosphere. “Open the hatch,” ordered Rich. Scott released the latch, shoved the hatch upward, stepped back. In three quick leaps up the ladder rungs, Richardson was on the bridge.

  A swift look around with his binoculars: all clear. “Lookouts!” The four men clambered up the ladder, climbed to their places. One of them ran to the after part of the periscope shears, tugged briefly on the rope knotted there, released the whip antenna. A spring swung it upward into a vertical position.

  The skipper and lookouts surveyed the horizon and the air. There was nothing in sight. Eel rode easily on a quiescent mud-brown sea, her main deck at the water’s edge, her main structure, except for bridge and periscope shears and the two five-inch guns, visible only from directly overhead.

  From the bridge one could see tiny little rivulets of water sloshing among the slats of her wooden deck, or swirling alongside as the submarine moved sluggishly ahead under the leisurely thrust of her motors.

  The bow planes were still rigged out. They would be kept on rise for their planing effect. The sky was gray, not overcast. Simply gray and dank. There was a musty odor to the atmosphere. The sun could not be seen, but visibility, Richardson judged, was at least fifteen miles, maybe more.

  Water still dripped from the bridge structure as a multitude of tiny pockets slowly drained away. With unaccustomed clarity of sound, because there was no engine murmur from aft to preempt the ears, the water streams could be heard dropping directly on the sea which half-covered the conning tower beneath Richardson’s feet.

  The Yellow Sea is far from the coldest body of water in the world, but Richardson was beginning to feel the December chill. He hunched his shoulders inside his jacket, put on the mittens which he customarily kept ready in its pockets, checked his rubber lifebelt for the carbon dioxide cartridges which should be there to inflate it on need. What could be holding up the message, he wondered.

  “Bridge!” Keith’s voice. “Chicolar has the message. We can’t raise Whitefish.”

  He might have guessed. Whitey Everett was taking his own time about surfacing. No doubt he would greet the instruction to patrol submerged with pleasure, maybe relief, but in the meantime his being submerged and out of communication was keeping Eel on the surface and in a very uncomfortable cruising situation.

  Rich had argued strenuously with the wolfpack commander for a normal surfacing operation, pointing out that the ship was customarily able to dive to periscope depth in about forty-five seconds, even with a start at slow speed. But Blunt, already climbing into his bunk, had refused to permit it, had finally agreed to broaching as the only compromise he would accept. Well, he, as well as the rest of them, would simply have to wait.

  There was one thing which had not been discussed, however, and it could therefore be accomplished without disobeying any order. Rich pressed the bridge speaker button. “Control, this is bridge. Equalize pressure through the main induction.”

  “Control aye aye,” from Buck Williams.

  The quiet on the bridge was eerie. Richardson could clearly hear the remote operating gear engage the inboard induction flapper in the forward engineroom. Then came a whoosh of air under the cigarette deck, in the midst of which, barely distinguishable, was the clank of the thirty-six-inch-diameter main induction valve. There had been a lot of air inside the submarine, what with negative tank twice having been vented into the hull. The noise lasted about three seconds, was followed by the clank of the main induction shutting and the further noise when the engineroom flapper snapped shut on its spring.

  After half an hour Richardson, inadequately prepared for cold weather with only his jacket, guessed that Whitey Everett must be having breakfast submerged. Nearly an hour after Eel broached, by which time he had decided Whitey had added a nap to his breakfast schedule, the welcome news came from Keith in the radio room that Whitefish had received the message.

  “Clear the bridge,” he said. The lookouts went below. He took a last look around
with the binoculars. This would be a good drill, he thought. “Take her down!” he shouted, a spurious alarm in his voice. He hit the diving alarm twice, jumped for the hatch. Scott slammed it shut behind him, dogged it. He could feel the bow planes reversed to full dive, digging in, the increased drive of the propellers as the motors suddenly went to full speed. The main vents were open, but there was understandably little noise of air vented and water entering, since the ballast tanks had been only partly emptied.

  “Did you start a watch?” he asked Scott. Without replying, the quartermaster held out his left hand. In it, suspended from a piece of cord which he had looped around his thumb, lay a stopwatch. The hand was passing fifteen seconds. At that moment the sea, which could be heard gurgling around the outside of the conning tower, closed over it. Several more seconds passed. “Forty-seven feet,” said Rich, who had crossed to where he could watch the depth gauge.

  Scott stopped the watch. “Twenty-four seconds flat, Captain,” he said, holding it out for him to see. “Not bad, sir.”

  Rich nodded, pleased. He would say something congratulatory to Buck Williams also.

  A quiet discussion with Keith confirmed what he had suspected. “I know darned well he was submerged,” said Keith. “Either that or his radio had broken down. When we finally heard him, he came in loud and clear.”

  Nelson, the chief radioman, shook his head. “He wasn’t broken down, sir,” he said. “I could hear him loading down his wet antennas when he answered us. He had just surfaced.”

  For a short time Rich worried about what he should report to Blunt when the latter asked him the reason for his long delay on the surface, until it came to him that the wolfpack commander must have slept through it all.

  At the end of four days Richardson realized that he had become distinctly restive. So had Keith, and so, he could see, had Buck Williams and a number of the other members of the crew. They would quickly go stale, lose their fine edge of alertness and training, if some change in the deadly routine could not be made. Every night for four days, with the area chart spread out on the wardroom table, he had gone over the same arguments with Blunt.