Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  “Shift targets,” said Richardson. “Up periscope!” He laid the cross hair on the stack of the second ship—a neat-looking but older vessel. “Mark!” he said. Again the train of events was set in motion. He felt Eel jerk three more times, recognized on the one hand the death he had dealt out and on the other the fact that there could be no stopping the process, once it started, neither for himself nor anyone else.

  He spun the ’scope around. The stern of the destroyer which had just passed overhead loomed huge in his magnified field of view. It had not been more than sixty seconds since it had gone over. Everything was still calm and peaceful on the surface of the sea. Nothing yet could have happened. “Right full rudder! Down periscope! All ahead full! Give me a course for stern tubes!”

  Keith crowded alongside of Buck in front of the TDC, gave Rich the answer. “Recommend course three-four-zero for about a right thirty-degree gyro for tubes aft,” he said.

  “Starboard stop! Starboard back two-thirds!” said Rich. This would help increase the speed of the turn and at the same time keep Eel from gaining too much speed through the water at this crucial moment. He watched her swinging around on the dial of the TDC. It took so long for a submerged submarine to turn! She moved so slowly, had so much weight to swing around—not only her own steel structure, but also the water in her ballast tanks. She had such a huge ponderous bulk to push around through the water, so little power with which to do it. Maneuvering on the surface was a totally different thing, even on the battery.

  “Approximate bearing of the third ship is twenty degrees left of the second one,” he said to Buck, “and increase his range by five hundred yards.” Buck furiously cranked the dials of the TDC.

  “How long before our first spread gets there, Larry?” Rich asked.

  “Thirty seconds to go.” He watched the bow of “own ship” on the TDC pass 300, pass 320—it was swinging a little faster now. It passed 330.

  “Starboard stop,” he said. “All ahead one-third.” His judgment had been right, Eel’s speed had remained at about two and a half knots, but her swinging had perceptibly increased. Al Dugan was doing a masterful job at depth control with the speed changes, full rudder maneuvers, and six torpedoes fired forward at rapid intervals.

  “Steady on three-four-zero!”

  “Up periscope!” The deadly ritual again. “Shift targets. Bearing, mark! . . . Shoot!”

  “Fire seven! . . . Fire eight! . . . Fire nine!”

  “Three torpedoes aft fired electrically.”

  He spun the periscope around, saw a huge geyser of water shoot up alongside the leading ship. “A hit!” he announced. A second later the boom came in. He turned to the escort. Still no sign, still stern to. A second geyser rose alongside the forward part of the leading ship. With two torpedoes in her she was gone regardless of whether the third one, spread aft, missed or not. But as Richardson watched, the ship must have slowed down enough from the effects of the two hits to make sure the third hit also. It went off almost in the same place the first one had struck. Even as he watched her, she began to list toward him, still belching smoke and steam from her stacks, her decks boiling with startled, terrorized humanity.

  The escort had evidently put his rudder left, was turning around. A cloud of steam, or vapor, burst from the stack of the second ship. The reverberations of the third boom had barely died away in Eel’s conning tower when a geyser of water arose alongside the forward part of the second ship and, seconds later, another in her after section. He swung to the third ship, caught the explosion there. The torpedoes had been spread to allow for variations in the solution for target speed, course, and range. If they ran as intended, one at least of each salvo should have hit each target. Six hits for nine torpedoes, fired with large gyro angles, were more than could normally be expected.

  He spun the periscope around once more. A jet of steam came up from the stack of the fourth ship in column. A whistle or siren. She had turned radically to the left, was still swinging. No chance for a shot there. He swung back to the escort. Still in his turn, listing away, undoubtedly coming back to where he would assume the submarine must have been, possibly where a now-chastened sonar watch stander remembered something unusual in his echoes. The aircraft had also turned, was headed back toward the gutted convoy.

  “How’s the reload coming forward?” he asked.

  A second’s delay. Quin answered. “They got one in. The second one’s going in now. Neither one ready yet.”

  “Let me know just as soon as they’re ready to shoot forward.” The destroyer was perhaps five hundred yards away, heeling over to starboard under the impetus of left rudder. It was clearly one of a new class of submarine escorts. No doubt one of the new Mikuras. “Frigates,” they were called in the recognition pamphlet. In describing them to the wolfpack commander he had, without forethought, called up the possibility it might be this same trio which had accounted for Chicolar a few days ago. If Eel could remain at periscope depth, not be driven under, he might have a chance to exact retribution from one of them.

  He spun the periscope completely around again. The aircraft might also be a problem, but the opaque Yellow Sea water was on his side. The two-stack passenger freighter was lying flat on her beam ends, stacks toward him. He could see water climbing up her deck, now vertical, which had only so recently been horizontal, pouring through deck openings into her interior. Anybody still below decks was now caught, would be unable to get out, would go down with her in the trap she had become. Her port side lay horizontal above the water. Many men were standing there, outlined against the sky. Lifeboats and life rafts hung crazily from their nests on deck, or from their davits. There had been no time to launch any of them. Her passengers and crew, the troops she carried, would be dependent for survival upon whatever wreckage broke free, of which apparently there was already a goodly amount. Land was three miles distant. They had a good chance of saving themselves if they could get free of the sinking ship, either by swimming to land or through rescue by one of the escorts. Strange. They were soldiers. He should hope they all drowned.

  All this, his mind took in with instant comprehension. Number two ship had taken two hits, was down by the stern. Water was already coming up over the main deck aft. Her bow, where the upper part of a jagged hole just forward of the mast could be seen, was rising preparatory to the final plunge to the bottom.

  The third ship, struck by a single torpedo, was the smallest of the three. The torpedo had hit her aft. She was stopped and also well down by the stern. Farther aft, the fourth ship, approximately similar to the last one hit, had turned course radically to the left. Belching clouds of smoke, she was obviously racing away from the carnage which had overtaken her sisters.

  Farther to the left, the single escort which had been astern, an old destroyer of some kind, had apparently experienced some uncertainty but now also was turning away. Perhaps she would accompany the single undamaged ship in her flight eastward. Nothing else in sight: all was serene and calm through the remainder of the periscope’s circular sweep.

  Back to the escort up ahead. She was still in her turn. The aircraft was coming also, but not dead on. Evidently the pilot had no fix on Eel’s position. The Mikura frigate (if that was the correct class name) was the main concern.

  “Down periscope.” The tincan was a perfect shot for bow tubes, if there were but a single bow tube ready. He cursed the zig away which had forced him to change his plans at the last minute and left him without the torpedo he had planned for this eventuality.

  “How much longer before we’re ready to shoot forward?”

  He could hear Quin repeating the question in the telephones. No answer. He knew they must be working with maximum urgency. At least one torpedo must be ready soon.

  “Up periscope. Observation,” he gritted. “Bearing, mark!”

  “Three-four-eight,” said Keith.

  “Range—use forty-five feet—mark! Down periscope.”

  “Five hundred twenty-yards,
” said Keith.

  “Left full rudder! New course, three-three-zero!” He needed no TDC helper for this obvious move. The less the gyro angle, the better.

  Buck was frantically spinning the dials on the TDC. Keith brushed past Richardson, began spinning one of them himself.

  “Angle on the bow?” said Buck.

  Rich had deliberately waited, since Buck had only two hands and could only get two pieces of information into the TDC at once. Keith’s help had relieved that problem.

  “Port one-twenty,” said Rich, “but he’s turning toward. Set him up at port ninety, and I’ll take another look.”

  The total time since the first torpedo had been fired was in the neighborhood of three minutes. Most of the time had been occupied by the necessity of turning to bring the stern tubes to bear. The Mark Eighteen torpedoes required a run of about 350 yards before the arming mechanism in the warhead rotated enough to activate the exploder. Since there were no wakes in the water, the Jap escort would not know immediately where to look for the submarine. He would instinctively reverse course, but it was possible there might be a moment or two of indecision while he searched. . . .

  “Up periscope!”

  “Number one tube is ready,” shouted Quin.

  “Observation! Bearing, mark! Range, mark! Down scope. Angle on the bow, port sixty. Turning toward.” He needed the essential bits of fire control information, heard Buck set the data into the TDC.

  “Set!” said Buck.

  “Set depth four feet!”

  “It’s already set, Captain,” said Keith.

  “Open outer doors forward,” said Rich.

  “Number one outer door is open,” screamed Quin, his voice pitched much higher than normal, his tenseness betraying itself in the steaming, sweating, densely packed conning tower.

  “Stand by forward,” said Richardson. Suddenly he felt calm. This was the time to be deliberate. This one shot must be a good one. He would leave the periscope up and aim the torpedo deliberately.

  “Number two tube is loaded, Captain. Depth set four feet. You have two fish ready forward.” Keith’s voice.

  “Bearing, mark! He’s still turning. Angle on the bow, port forty-five.”

  “Zero-one-zero!”

  “Set,” said Buck. “I’m following him around.”

  “Short-scale pinging, bearing three-four-oh!” Stafford.

  “Check fire!” roared Keith. “Correct solution light has gone out!”

  “Down ’scope,” said Richardson, almost wearily. The chance was gone. Obviously, with the destroyer swinging toward, the distance the torpedo would run before hitting would be too short to arm it. “Shut the outer doors,” he ordered.

  “He’s starting a run! Shifted to short-scale pinging!” This was Stafford, repeating himself at the sound gear. His voice also was elevated a notch.

  “Rig for depth charge,” said Richardson, knowing well that the ship was already fully rigged for depth charge except that the control room hatch had not been closed. Torpedoes in the forward and after torpedo rooms, however, were in the process of being reloaded. “Quin,” he said swiftly, “forward and after rooms! Secure for depth charging immediately.”

  Wide-eyed, Quin repeated his orders into the telephone.

  “Shut the lower hatch,” he ordered. Someone in the control room, probably Al Dugan, pulled the oblong hatch down on its lanyard. Scott leaped on it, kicked the handles shut. Unlike the hatch to the bridge, it was not fitted with a hand wheel.

  Blunt’s voice from the forward part of the conning tower, “Aren’t we going deep, Rich?”

  He had forgotten the wolfpack commander. During the entire time Blunt had stood holding on to the hatch lanyard under the bridge hatch. It was too late now to permit him to go below, even had he been willing to do so, or had Richardson been willing to spend the effort to convince him to do so.

  “We’ll take this one at periscope depth,” announced Richardson. “He’ll figure we’ve gone deep and will set his depth charges deep. Maybe after he passes we’ll get a chance for another shot.” He crowded over alongside of Stafford, just forward of number one periscope. Silently, Stafford indicated a section of the dial to which his sound head arrow was oriented.

  “There he is, sir. Short-scale pinging. He’s speeded up!”

  “He may not have seen the periscope, but if he did, he’ll figure we’ve gone deep now. As soon as he goes by, we’ll try to line him up for a stern shot!” Richardson spoke in answer to the thought wave he felt hurled at him from everyone in the conning tower. If Eel could survive this first quick attack at periscope depth he might be able to get a shot off while the destroyer was getting ready for a second. All depended upon being able to get that periscope up for an observation, upon the likelihood that the tincan might have to wait a few moments for the disturbance of her depth charges to die away before she could regain contact. There might also be the necessity to do some reloading of depth charges in her launchers. He did not mention the airplane. It could not see beneath the surface. Not in the Yellow Sea. The only danger from it was a few additional bombs or depth charges dropped in the wake of the escort’s barrage. Of course, if it sighted his periscope at the crucial moment when he had it up to aim the torpedo . . . He left the thought unfinished.

  The sonar dial was calibrated in relative bearing, but through a connection with the submarine’s gyro compass a second dial, concentric with the first, gave true bearing as well.

  “True bearings!” he snapped to Stafford.

  “Three-three-five, steady on three-three-five,” repeated Stafford. Rich’s instinctive selection of course 330 for a minimum gyro had been a good one.

  “Make your course three-three-five!” ordered Richardson. “All ahead full!”

  “What are you going to do, Rich?” Blunt again. His voice was almost squeaky.

  “I’m going to run right under him at full speed! At this short range and with depth charges going off, he’ll lose contact anyway. Maybe we can catch him by surprise and get through the barrage before he’s able to drop them all,” answered Rich, forcing himself to speak normally instead of in the clipped tones he had almost used. He must not betray his own inner tension. If only Blunt would keep quiet! “Quin!” he said, “Tubes aft, report on condition of their reload.”

  In a moment the report came back. “All tubes secured aft,” relayed Quin. “Tube ten was not fired. Tube seven has been reloaded, but is not ready yet. All the other fish are secured in their racks.”

  “Very well,” said Richardson. “Tell tubes aft to turn to on that fish and get it ready. We’ll need it as soon as the depth charge barrage is over. Set depth on both, four feet.” He looked up at Scott. “Speed through water?” he asked.

  “Four knots, increasing. We’re steady on three-three-five.”

  Rich picked up a spare set of earphones, adjusted them to his head. The penetrating, high-pitched echo-ranging was clearly audible even before he put them on. Stafford was moving the sound head dome ceaselessly back and forth over a small arc concentrated right around Eel’s bow. He said something which Richardson could not hear. Rich moved his left-hand earphone over to his cheek, freed the ear. “Bearing three-three-five,” said Stafford. “Steady bearing. He’s close aboard now. He’ll be dropping any second.”

  Richardson could hear the whir of the screws. One of them must be bent slightly askew, for the thrashing sound of the damaged blade could plainly be distinguished. He could almost hear the rush of water past the enemy hull, visualize the concentration on her bridge as they calculated the optimum time for dropping the depth charges. Hopefully, his maneuver of turning toward and speeding up would take them unawares. Suddenly he found himself remembering the nearly identical situation years ago off New London, when, by miscalculation of one of the student officers out for a day’s training, the old U.S. destroyer Semmes with her knifelike bow and the two huge propellers extending below her keel had come near to knocking Richardson’s first command, the
S-16, into oblivion on the bottom of Long Island Sound. Semmes also had had a nick in one propeller. S-16’s periscopes were not, however, as long as Eel’s. There was now a full eighteen feet of water between the surface and the highest point of Eel’s structure. The Mikura could not draw more than ten. Fifteen at the outside. As soon as he passed overhead, Eel would slow down again and try to catch him with a stern tube.

  Funny he should think of it. That was the day Jim Bledsoe had introduced him to Laura.

  Stafford had been rapidly increasing the width of the arc covered by his sound head. The pings were coming in with undiminished strength no matter in what direction it was trained. Richardson could almost hear the echo bounce off Eel’s steel hull, even imagined he could hear a second echo reflected off the hull of the attacking destroyer. Here it comes, he thought. Idiotically, he remembered a line from one of his favorite books about sea fights in the days of sail. “For what we are about to receive,” one of the characters used to say, “O Lord, we give thanks.”

  Stafford ran the sound head all the way around the dial. “He’s overhead,” he said. Richardson did not need this information, for suddenly the entire interior of Eel’s conning tower reverberated with the roaring of machinery, the sibilant rush of water past a fast-moving hull, the spitting thum, thum, thum of propeller blades whirling pitilessly in the water, one of them carrying a scar which made a sort of crackling sound as it went around. There was a vibration communicated to the structure of the conning tower. Richardson could feel the submarine shudder, move bodily in the water, as the enemy ship drove by.

  “He’s dropped,” shouted Stafford. The sonar man reached up to his receiver controls, abruptly turned down the volume. The next second or two would determine whether Eel sank or survived. If the depth charges were set shallow, a thunderous explosion and tremendously increased air pressure coincident with the sudden roaring influx of water—or equally serious, a sudden extraordinary heaviness as water poured in through a hole in a more remote portion of the submarine—would signal the end for everyone.