Dust on the Sea

  The message sent and NPM’s R having been received, Keith nodded his thanks to Nelson, hung up his earphones, picked up his papers and the intercepted message—Nelson was certain it was indeed from Whitefish—and started back to the wardroom. There, he knew, one of the interminably long conversations with the wolfpack commander was undoubtedly taking place. He had, however, hardly moved forward into the control room when it was apparent the uneventful night he had been anticipating was not to be. Dimly, through two open hatches, he heard Al Dugan’s “Clear the bridge!” Simultaneously the diving alarm rang twice. Men came jumping down from above. “Dive! Dive!” shouted Al, nearer. He must now be scrambling through the hatch, latching it behind him. “Take her down! Take her down fast!”

  Almost instantaneously the three red lights in the “Hull Opening Indicator Panel”—the “Christmas Tree”—for the three main engines in use winked off, to be replaced by green ones just below. Starberg, on watch on the hydraulic manifold, had already yanked open all the main vent valves. As the last engine exhaust valve went shut on the Christmas Tree, he slammed closed the main induction. Then, leaning aft a foot, he grabbed another lever and pulled it forward. This would start the bow planes rigging out to their submerged attitude. In the meantime, Eel’s deck tilted downward. The annunciators clicked to “ahead full” as the electricians in the maneuvering room, with hardly a pause in the rotation of Eel’s main motors, connected the battery to them and went to full speed ahead.

  “Hatch secured!” shouted Al from the conning tower. Seconds later his sturdy legs appeared through the hatch as he jumped down into the control room. Glimpsing Keith, he hurriedly said, “Aircraft! Right up the moon streak! Close!”

  “Last sounding was two hundred feet,” said Keith. “That checks with our posit on the chart. Better hold her at one hundred fifty feet.”

  “Full dive on all planes,” ordered Al. “Make your depth one-five-oh feet. Ten degrees down angle! Come on, men! Lean into those wheels!”

  The lookouts, still clothed with their foul-weather gear in anticipation of a night watch on the surface, obviously needed little urging from the diving officer. Not bothering to divest themselves of any of their bridge equipment, casting worried glances at the slowly moving depth gauges, they were trying to twist the diving plane control wheels off the diving panel.

  “Rig for depth charge!” shouted Al.

  Keith lunged for the speaker button on the ship’s announcing system, pulled it down, spoke into it, trying to give his voice a calm tone despite the surge of adrenalin he could feel running through his system. “Rig ship for depth charge,” he said. “Shut all watertight doors!” He could hear the watertight doors slamming throughout the ship.

  Quin appeared, picked up the battle telephone headset, adjusted it on his head. “All stations report from forward aft,” he said. He listened a moment. “Ship is rigged for depth charge, Mr. Leone,” he said.

  “What is it, Keith?” Richardson had apparently come from the forward battery compartment into the control room just before the watertight door was closed.

  Briefly Keith explained, “We’re under now, sir,” he said, watching the depth gauges.

  “That was a fast dive, Al. How close do you think the plane was?”

  “Close!” said Al. “Coming right at us! We must have been silhouetted in the moon streak. It’s a good thing we had the quartermaster and two lookouts concentrating on it astern.”

  “Good work, Al,” said Rich. “We’ll know soon enough if he dropped on us.”

  WHAM . . . WHAM! The submarine’s sturdy hull twanged with the reverberations. The tense group in the control room could feel the deck lift under them. Bits of cork flew through the air; the electric lights, hanging on short pieces of wire from their sockets, danced crazily.

  “Passing seven-oh feet, Captain,” said Al. “I think both of those went off astern.”

  Richardson said, “We’d better stay on at full speed for a little while in case he comes around for a second run. He probably dropped a flare to mark our position, but with all that juice we took out of the can today we’ve got to slow down as soon as possible.” He thought a moment. “What course were you on when you dived, Al?”

  “I was headed right up moon, nearly due south, Skipper,” said Dugan. “Keith said a north or south course would give us the best radio signal to Pearl. South was against the current, and minimum silhouette across the moon streak, too. Maybe this fellow came in on our radio beam. He came right up our tail, low to the water. There were no APR signals or anything!”

  There had been the usual discussion before surfacing. Perhaps Richardson should not have brought up his proposal that they move rapidly northward. Blunt had almost automatically opposed it. The lack of strong countermeasures by the convoy escorts, he said, was according to a pattern ComSubPac had observed from analysis of hundreds of patrol reports. Transmitting a lengthy radio message while making high speed would alert enemy DF stations as to their intended movements. The argument was cut short by the wolfpack commander in the manner recently more and more of a pattern of his own: having delivered his dictum, he rose and left the wardroom.

  Possibly the aircraft had been sent by a vector from a shore DF station, but not likely. The coordination would have had to be too good, too swift. Most probably the immediate reaction to Eel’s attack on the convoy had been to establish a night aircraft patrol. A combination of an accurate estimate as to the sub’s later movements, plus a bit of luck, perhaps even a small direction finder in the plane, had brought it overhead. The obviously hurried nature of its depth bomb attack supported the hypothesis. Now, however, perhaps the incident could be turned to advantage. Remaining in the vicinity was out of the question. But no further discussion. Seize the opportunity.

  “As soon as you’re down to depth, Al, reverse course to north. Maintain full speed for ten minutes and then slow again to one-third. The current will give us a four-knot boot in the tail. The flare will of course drift with the surface current, but the wind will affect it also. It can’t burn forever. The plane’s navigation probably won’t allow for current at all, unless he’s a lot smarter than I think he is.”

  Quin had been listening attentively through his earphones. Now he spoke. “All compartments report no damage,” he said.

  “Well, Commodore,” said Richardson a few minutes later, “it looks as though we’ve alerted this area pretty thoroughly. That fellow was obviously out looking for us, and he darned near caught us. As it was, that was one of the fastest dives this ship has ever made, about thirty seconds.”

  “Um,” said Blunt, taking his pipe from his mouth and sipping a mug of coffee. “Who have you got working on that message you picked up just before we dived?”

  “We broke out Larry to do it. He was setting it up a few minutes ago, and we should have the decode any minute.”

  The message said: ATTACKED TEN THOUSAND TON FREIGHTER X ONE HIT X PROBABLY SUNK X DEPTH CHARGED X WHITEFISH SERIAL TWO X SIXTEEN TORPEDOES REMAINING X

  “Why didn’t he report this to me?” Blunt said.

  “Maybe he tried before we surfaced, Commodore,” Rich said swiftly. “The best time to get the messages off to Pearl is right after surfacing, but we were late coming up tonight. Keith says he was on the circuit before we were. I’ll bet he’s still trying to get us on the wolfpack frequency right now.”

  “Um,” said Blunt again, apparently at least partly convinced. “That’s probably the ship that got away from you. It must have been the biggest one of the lot.”

  In Richardson’s opinion, the freighter was nearer to five thousand than ten thousand tons, but there was no point in bringing this up.

  Surfacing the Eel was a long and careful procedure, involving thorough sonar search before coming to periscope depth, and then a long careful search for aircraft through two periscopes before tanks were blown. Once surfaced, two main engines and the auxiliary were placed on the battery charge and the remaining two main engines, to b
e augmented by a third as soon as the charging rate permitted it, at full power on propulsion.

  A simple one-letter signal on the wolfpack administration frequency brought an immediate response from the Whitefish. The message obviously was in her radio room awaiting the call: ATTACKED ESCORTED FREIGHTER COURSE WEST SPEED FIFTEEN POSITION GERTRUDE 43 TIME 1950 SUBMERGED STERN TUBES DURING TWILIGHT FOUR TORPEDOES EXPENDED SIXTEEN REMAIN X CLOSE DEPTH CHARGE ATTACK POSSIBLE DAMAGE RETIRING TO AREA CENTER FOR EVALUATION X

  “Maybe we had better do the same,” said the wolfpack commander in a thoughtful tone. “The Japs know there is a submarine in the Maikotsu Suido. They probably won’t send anything through here for a while.”

  Richardson had his answer ready. “They’ve got to send their ships somewhere. Those they can send into port, or keep there, they will. A number are probably already en route, however, and so tomorrow they’ll saturate the area with air and surface patrols. The plane that bombed us proves they’ve also got night air patrols out. He’s probably already radioed in his report, giving our position and our course as south at slow speed, so if we’re lucky they may think we’re planning to stay in this vicinity. It makes sense, because that’s where we found the ships. Tomorrow, when they get no sign of us, they’ll think we’re lying low, probably heading west.”

  “So why don’t we head west right now, before another plane comes out and makes us dive again?”

  “Because that’s just what they’ll expect us to do. That’s where the night patrol planes will concentrate. For sure, they won’t send any convoys of ships outside the Maikotsu. Don’t forget, Whitefish got that freighter outside the island yesterday. They’ll stop what ships they can, but the rest they’ll run as close to the coast as possible, and under maximum protection.”

  “What are you figuring to do? They must by now realize there is more than one submarine here.”

  “They’ll concentrate all available forces here, and that means there’ll be less available for other areas. The chart we got from that patrol boat shows a place up to the north where, for a short distance, they have to round a point of land. At that spot there are no more inshore islands to run behind. It will take all the speed we have to get there, if we’re lucky enough to stay on the surface until dawn, and we’ll have to finish the run submerged in the morning. The current will be a big help. . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  Indefinably, he began to feel a surge of confidence as he spoke. Blunt was listening. There was a weariness in Blunt’s face and around his eyes, combined with something else—relief; he did not have to think; the operation of a single submarine was strictly the responsibility of its captain, so long as it remained compatible with the larger responsibilities of the wolfpack. It would be easy to let Richardson have his way. To make any speed submerged—to get the most benefit from the helping current—would require remaining well below periscope depth: a morning free from worries, free for a good long sleep. Blunt’s face showed the struggle for decisiveness. The normally bright lights in the wardroom had been turned down. The resulting shadows reflected the play in his sagging jowels. “All right,” he said.

  Carefully, Rich kept his own face expressionless. “Aye aye, sir,” he replied. Too much enthusiasm might still cause Blunt to reverse the assent just given. Worse, it might jeopardize the second part of the idea he had been mulling over. Whatever convoy-control organization the enemy had would hardly permit convoys to move for the next several days, but single ships might be handled differently. They might not even be under centralized control at all. If Eel could get far enough away from the carnage of the previous day, she might find small-scale local traffic still moving, as yet unaware of the sinkings to the south. This would be the chance to restore Blunt. Richardson had convinced himself that the crux of Blunt’s problem was lack of confidence, based on never having commanded a submarine in combat. This he could, just conceivably, do something about. The total reversal in Blunt that very day, when in desperation Rich had given him the periscope, had been the clue. It would not, after all, be much different from letting Keith Leone or Al Dugan bring Eel alongside a dock, or make a submerged approach during training.

  It would take careful planning, the right arguments to make to the commodore, and a considerable degree of luck to bring it off. It made no demands on anyone, except himself and Blunt, and required only a little cooperation from the enemy. It was worth a try.

  Eel dived before dawn, with the outline of a peninsula and the relatively large island directly to the west of it clear on the radar. Keith had not had time for his customary morning star sights, but these were unnecessary since the radar range on land provided an accurate position. There was still some distance to go before Eel could reach the position selected: in the center and deepest portion of a small body of water, roughly defined by the peninsula to the north, the outlying island to the northwest, the coast of Korea on the eastern side and, far to the south, the northernmost island of the chain demarking the Maikotsu Suido.

  Richardson had gambled on his certainty that Blunt could not resist the bait if offered in the right way. Finally, a conditional acceptance in his grasp, he had managed to talk Blunt into turning in. In a short time he, too, would lie down and seek a couple of hours’ rest. It had been an exhausting night with an exhausting day preceding. His knees and thigh muscles ached from the combined effect of the bruises inflicted by Moonface and his own rigorous stint on the periscope less than twelve hours before. There was still blood in his urine, and the yellow, blue, and purple bruises all over his body were still as vivid as ever. He gave careful instructions to Keith, Al, and Buck for running toward the selected spot and, once there, setting a periscope watch. Then at last he sat on his bunk, removed his shoes, lay back with a sigh of relaxation.

  Someone was pounding on the aluminum bulkhead of his stateroom alongside the green baize curtain. “You’re wanted in the conning tower, Captain,” said the messenger. “Smoke on the horizon!”

  He hadn’t expected it this soon. He was instantly wide awake, yawning nevertheless, glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. Both hands stood straight up and down. He had been asleep—or rather, totally unconscious—for at least five hours! It was good of Keith to let him rest so long. Swiftly he pulled on his shoes, knotted the strings, stepped into the passageway, through the watertight door, around the control room table, and up the ladder into the conning tower.

  “What is it, Keith?” he said, as his head came up through the hatch.

  “Smoke, bearing southeast,” said the executive officer. “It’s coming this way, I think.”

  A quick look through the periscope showed a faint brown smudge in the indicated direction. Rich spun the periscope around rapidly, settled back to inspect the smoke one more time. Alongside him Keith said, “We’re running at sixty-five feet, with only about a foot and a half of periscope out. It’s almost a flat calm out here, as you can see. And so far this morning, we’ve seen the same airplane three times.”

  Rich lowered the periscope. “What bearing?” he asked.

  “To the south. Some distance away. It’s patrolling, I think.”

  “Good,” said Rich. “If they’re patrolling south of us, it means they don’t think we’ve come this far north.”

  “I figure the same,” said Keith. “So I let the current carry us up inshore of that outlying island. We’re about eighty-five hundred yards off the tip of the point now, but there’s plenty of sea room north and south, and to the west. The island bears southwest, but it’s out of sight unless we come up a couple of feet.”

  “Good,” said Rich again. “When did you see the plane last?”

  “About an hour ago. He came up from the south, turned around, and flew back.”

  “Good,” said Richardson for the third time. “If we’re lucky, his coverage won’t extend this far to the north. Maybe there won’t even be any coverage over this ship if he comes up this way.”

  “That’s a lot to hope for, Skipper,
” grinned Keith. Then, with a more sober expression, he asked, “Are you going to try that business with Captain Blunt? Isn’t this rather soon after yesterday?”

  “This may be the chance. Maybe it is a little soon, but that might just be the best way.”

  Another periscope observation confirmed that the source of the smoke was approaching. Soon, several looks later, three masts could be seen.

  “Send for the commodore, Keith,” said Rich, the upper part of his face still pressed into the rubber periscope eye guard. “This one is for him.”

  The periscope down, Richardson gravely reached over the TDC, where, around one of the knurled knobs securing its face, the white celluloid “Is-Was” hung on a string. Only a few years ago, this and the now obsolete “banjo” had been the only fire control instruments available to a submarine. The Torpedo Data Computer had replaced it in the so-called fleet boats, of which Eel was one of the newer representatives. By consequence, the Is-Was had become primarily a badge of office for the assistant approach officer (usually the executive officer), whose duty it was to assure that all matters relating to the approach were properly carried out, that the check-off lists were executed on time, and that the submarine commander was instantly apprised of all the information required to bring the submarine into a successful attack position. This had, of course, been Keith’s function; and Richardson himself had performed it many times in drill, first for Joe Blunt and later for Jerry Watson in the Octopus.

  As he passed the loop of the cord attached to the Is-Was around his head he felt a curious melting away of the years. Symbolically, with the donning of the badge of office, he had traveled backward in time.

  The wolfpack commander was hurrying up the ladder into the conning tower. “What is it, Rich?” he said.