Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  Shortly before dawn, having run at maximum speed to the east all night, Eel slipped between two of the islands at the southern edge of the western side of the Maikotsu Suido. Immediately she felt the current set to the north. Relentlessly Rich drove her toward the coast of Korea, intending to get as near as possible before it became necessary to dive. Perhaps all the aircraft patrols were far to the west into the Yellow Sea. Morning twilight was well advanced before the need to remain undetected caused him reluctantly to submerge.

  By ten o’clock Eel was patrolling 2,000 yards off a point of land around which any ships heading up or down the coast would have to pass. It was an ideal spot for submarine patrol, provided one was acclimated to shallow water. There was no way traffic hugging the coast could avoid a submarine stationing herself here. Shortly after noon a single freighter, unescorted, chugged slowly up the coast, zigzagging perfunctorily, puffing a cloud of black smoke from obviously ancient boilers, secure in the information that ships had been passing daily, that no submarines were close in to shore. The approach was almost like a dance, simple in its execution, flawless in its performance, strenuous only in some of the details. With a slight stretch of the imagination, the maneuvers, the periscope work, the macabre ritual before the sacrifice, could be compared to the high leaps and entrechats of a dancer acting out the denouement of a tragic ballet. Shortly before Eel achieved the firing position, more smoke appeared to the south. The situation was exactly as Rich had hoped it might be. One last pirouette, a rising crescendo of music, a final leap before the graceful submission to the inevitable outcome—only the ending was barbaric because it was real, not fanciful, its artistry shattered in the thunderous roar of two torpedoes striking ten seconds apart, a cloud of smoke, debris, and steam rising from the vitals of the doomed ship—this too was real—and it was death, and murder, and war, and no longer artistic, but only dreadful.

  And then the ship was gone, leaving wreckage floating about on the water, a matted slick of coal dust, junk and life rafts, and a single damaged lifeboat into which a dozen men climbed. More men were on the life raft, and more clung to pieces of wreckage. But some of them clung to nothing, merely floated motionless, scalded to death in the engine room or boiler rooms, broken by the shock of the earthquake which had overwhelmed them, converted suddenly from living sensate beings into the pitiless flotsam of war.

  Far to the south, three columns of smoke turned sharply westward. They would move well out into the Maikotsu Suido before heading north again, knowing that the submarine so catastrophically revealed in their path could not possibly follow submerged. An aircraft would soon appear, did appear, circling the area of devastation off the little point of land. Richardson watched it all through the tiny tip of the attack periscope, barely exposed above the placid surface.

  Four hours later Stafford reported distant explosions to the northward. Some of them, he said, sounded like torpedoes, but this must have been his imagination willfully embroidering upon the situation. No one at that distance could tell a torpedo from a depth charge.

  He had, however, counted twenty-five or more explosions. Six of them, or perhaps as many as ten, judging by their timing, could certainly have been torpedoes. Whitefish must have got into action.

  ATTACKED THREE SHIP CONVOY POSITION MIKE XRAY FORTY TWO X SANK ONE FREIGHTER X DEPTH CHARGED X TEN TORPEDOES REMAINING ALL TUBES LOADED X CLEARING AREA TO INSPECT FOR DAMAGE X. The message was sent in the wolfpack code and therefore required no identification as to addressee or sender.

  “He fired six fish and probably missed with his second salvo,” commented Blunt. “At least he equalized his expenditure of torpedoes and has six forward and four aft ready to go. That was good planning.”

  It was, of course, exactly what every submarine skipper should endeavor to do. Although considerable design effort had been expended, no workable scheme had ever been developed to permit torpedoes to be transferred from one end of a submarine to the other without taking them out of the ship. Even though dismantled into its three main components—air flask, warhead, and afterbody—the air flask was too long to be maneuvered around the bends in the congested fore-and-aft passageway, even if there were equipment to do it with. Obviously, a prudent submarine captain would do his best to equalize torpedo expenditures between the forward and after torpedo rooms so that the undesirable condition of having a surplus of torpedoes in one end and empty tubes in the other would not occur.

  “Commodore,” said Rich, “I think we’d better follow Whitey and clear the area too. We’ve raised so much hell here in the Maikotsu Suido that they’ll have all of their available ASW forces out looking for us. By now they’ve got to know for sure that there are two submarines involved.”

  “What do you suggest, Rich?” asked Blunt. There was a querulous note in his voice.

  “This is the first time any submarine has gone into the Maikotsu Suido since the Trigger, more than a year ago. Before her it was the Wahoo, but they were the only two. Both were topnotch subs, with top skippers, and both reported this area as being difficult for submarines because of the high current and confined waters. No subs have come here since the Trigger, and the Japanese have had a clear run through here. No doubt they figured for some reason we simply were not up to sending any more boats here. Now, all of a sudden, they have lost six ships in the Maikotsu, and two more just beyond its borders. They’ve already saturated the area with antisub air patrols. They’ve got to know, now, there are two submarines here. They’ve got to stop all traffic, at least in this vicinity, until they find them.”

  Blunt seemed to accept this analysis.

  “So, all we’re going to find around here for the next few days are air and surface patrols. We have about a week left in the area, and I think we ought to try to get rid of at least some of those ten fish Whitey has remaining. If we move right away and catch a convoy running along the Chinese coast, the Japs might even think there are four subs in the Yellow Sea. That will likely make them shut down all their traffic for a while, and that alone will hurt them.”

  Blunt appeared to agree, yet he remained irresolute. “There’s no reason for Eel to go over there,” he said. “Those two fish you have left aft won’t be much use.” The unstated portion of the argument, the important part of it, Blunt still could not see: without the presence of the Eel to drive her, Whitefish would find no more targets.

  The discussion would have gone on longer. Richardson had not expected an easy victory. The degree to which he could push for his own point of view had to be balanced against the resultant stiffening, the psychological resistance which Rich had by now come to expect. Admiral Small, in Pearl Harbor, made it all academic. For the second time, his message was most complimentary: DEPREDATIONS OUR BOATS CLOSE INSHORE KOREA HAVE CAUSED JAPANESE FITS X WELL DONE BRUISERS, it said. Then it went on to the meat of the communication:

  KWANTUNG ARMY EMBARKING TWO DIVISIONS THREE LARGE TRANSPORTS TSINGTAO X DEPARTURE IMMINENT X ESCORTED BY TOP ASW TEAM RPT TOP ASW TEAM NOW REDUCED FROM THREE TO TWO MIKURAS PLUS DAYLIGHT AIR COVER X INDICATIONS CONVOY BOUND FOR ICEBERG X WILL SORTIE DURING DARKNESS FOR HIGH SPEED DAYLIGHT DASH ACROSS YELLOW SEA TO COAST KOREA X MUST NOT RPT MUST NOT ARRIVE X COMSUBPAC SENDS X TERMINATE ALL OTHER OPERATIONS CMA MAKE MAXIMUM EFFORT X

  On a moonless night in a cold but musty sea, Eel arrowed at maximum sustained speed to the northwest. The storm of the past week had blown away the customary overcast, but this could not last long in the Yellow Sea, and the cloud cover with its atmosphere of sea dust had returned. Somewhere to starboard, Whitefish was also running for the same destination. Now, the decision made, Richardson found himself unable to remain in the warmth and comfort of Eel’s below-deck spaces, or to participate in the interminable strategy sessions in the wardroom. Nor was there solace in the bellowing roar of four powerful diesel engines, the purposeful routine of the control room, or the quiet readiness of the conning tower. There was no interest left in the torpedo rooms; only two useless fish remained
, both aft—well, not quite useless. If Eel could engage the escorts, take them away from the convoy, Whitefish had ten torpedoes with which to deal with the three troop transports. Eel’s two fish might give her some capability, should an opportunity develop, of handling at least one of the two remaining Mikuras. As to the other, he would simply have to take what came and do what he could. The important thing was to make it possible for Whitey Everett to carry on, for only Whitefish could do the job that had to be done.

  Restlessly, Richardson wandered from forward torpedo room to after torpedo room. The supreme test of his career, of his command of Eel, was about to come. He must be ready for it, must meet it, without adequate weapons. Only once before, in his youth, had he been faced with a similar situation. On a camping trip with three other boys, all of them Eagle Scouts, they had come upon a female grizzly bear with young. The bear attacked, the boys ran, and she caught one of them. Rich had saved his life by making a huge show of attacking the cub, striking it with a stick until it bawled, with result that its mother left her victim and made for him instead. He had by consequence spent the night in a tree, from where he had continued to occupy the bear’s attention while the other scouts took their injured companion to safety. The totally unexpected conclusion to the affair was that the Senator from his state, learning of it from a newspaper account, had offered him a vacant appointment to the Naval Academy for the following year.

  That had been nearly fourteen years ago, and there were some analogies to his present situation. The wolfpack commander had been quite right in his observation that the two torpedoes remaining, both in stern tubes, would be of little use. Perhaps they could sink one of the transports—indeed, if the chance offered, he would seize it. But Eel’s job clearly was to help Whitefish get into action with her ten torpedoes, and if necessary she must be prepared to take the required risk. If Richardson could divert the attention of the escorts, Everett would be able to make an unopposed approach. With the transports in close formation, as they would be, he ought to be able to hit at least two of them.

  In the ensuing confusion Eel would have her best chance to evade the escorts. Then, if she could somehow get on the surface unobserved, and providing she had not been forced to expend her two now doubly precious torpedoes—how fortunate that he had insisted on taking the two extra fish!—there might yet be an opportunity to pick off the third troopship. Even if Eel’s torpedoes were all gone by then, there were still the deck guns. Or, by re-engaging the escorts (for they would have raced to rejoin their injured charges) Eel might still be able to provide the ingredient which would enable Whitey Everett to make one final effort.

  The dangers of the course he was setting for Eel were, however, also very clear. With only two torpedoes remaining, and both of them in stern tubes, she was not in a good defensive position. There were, of course, the deck guns, and a single unescorted troopship might be attacked with surface gunfire; but the transport, too, would have guns. Furthermore, she would be calling for aircraft on her radio. A long fight would undoubtedly ensue, and the longer it lasted, the more the probability that an airplane would abruptly terminate it. A fight with the two escorts was even more out of the question; and should there be only one, whatever the outcome of such a battle, Eel would almost certainly be in no condition to pursue and attack anything.

  The only place in the ship which seemed to offer what he sought—the silence, the solitude, the contemplative peace—was the alert quiet of Eel’s darkened bridge. Here he could come closest to the privacy his troubled thoughts craved. It was cold, but he had protected himself with foul-weather clothing. The air was calm and relatively dry. The cold did not seem to penetrate, even though Eel was surging through the quiet waters at maximum speed.

  There must be a following wind. The exhaust from four main engines, spewing their diesel defiance into the dark Japanese-controlled sea, proved him right. With Eel fully surfaced and the sea quiet, the exhaust pipes were a good six inches or more clear of the water. The water spray and smoke were directed downward, but the smoke reversed itself, rose lazily in four tiny plumes which hung suspended above the ship as they continually rose and were continually fed from beneath, until they disappeared above into the dark night.

  He stood silently against the after rail, bracing himself in the corner it made with the forty-millimeter gun cradled there. A few feet forward of him, two lookouts and a quartermaster, maintaining their vigil, paid him no attention. Farther forward loomed the bulky after portion of the periscope standards, and beyond them the bulletproof bridge bulwarks and windscreen in which he could dimly make out the round heads of the Officer of the Deck and two more lookouts. He had forgotten to notice who had the deck—no, he hadn’t forgotten; it was Al Dugan, who had reported as Rich came on the bridge that the most recent survey of the hydraulic system indicated it was performing as well as could be expected, but would require another thorough overhaul upon return to Pearl Harbor.

  Bungo Pete had not been in his mind of recent days, had been pretty well driven out of it by the emergency over Joe Blunt. Moonface had also helped him forget for a time. It occurred to him that he might have happened upon the motivations behind the pseudo samurai. Ambitious he undoubtedly was. He was also imbued with the idea of rediscovering an ancestral culture, which, in California, must have been ridiculed. Had he been able to bring in the broken commanding officer of a second submarine, after the destruction of Chicolar, his status among his fellows would have risen high indeed; but it would have risen highest in his own recently repatriated mind.

  Now, in a moment of understanding, Richardson could see why his occasional images of Bungo Pete, in reverie or nightmare, almost always were a composition of persons he knew and admired. Sammy Sams, from Walrus’ training days in Balboa; funny that he should have so stuck in his mind. Joe Blunt, naturally—before the present patrol. Jerry Watson, occasionally. Admiral Small. But never Moonface. Moonface was the antithesis of Nakame, of all he admired in his superiors, all he could admire and appreciate in an enemy. Yet even though Rich could admire such an enemy as Nakame, he could at the same time set in motion the events which, because there was a war, might result in Nakame’s death no less surely than that of an enemy despised.

  Or his own death. That was never far from the equation.

  In the effort to restore Blunt there had been another motive, of course: that of regard for a once-adored superior. He had done all he could, all he knew to do. And he had failed—that he now recognized. The occasional strangeness, the lack of sensitivity, even Blunt’s new habit of speaking in a series of tired clichés, were evident at Pearl before the patrol began. The wonder was that Admiral Small had noticed nothing. Perhaps more accurately, the admiral had not realized that what he had seen was deeper than mere staleness at a desk job. Otherwise Small would never have permitted Blunt to go to sea.

  Lately Rich had begun to feel Blunt’s difficulty was more than psychological. The mind which only a few months ago had been so precise, so capable, so courageous, now could not stand stress or responsibility. Keith must be right: while some sort of psychological breakdown could not be ruled out, the signs pointed to something physical. His shifts of mood, even of capabilities, were too sudden, too extreme, to be merely a state of mind or emotion. Keith had suggested taking Yancy, the pharmacist’s mate, into their confidence, but Rich refused, agreeing finally only to Keith’s borrowing, without explanation, some of the texts Yancy had stowed in his medical locker. But the books, which both Keith and Richardson studied surreptitiously, gave little enlightenment beyond appreciation that a number of obscure influences could be at work.

  Bungo Pete and Moonface were both now in the past. He had killed Nakame. This was something that had to be done. But he had refrained from killing Moonface when he had the chance. And of the two, Moonface unquestionably deserved destruction far more than Bungo Pete. But the destruction of Moonface would have had no meaning. Bungo had been an honorable opponent, a respected—if feared—enem
y. Moonface was a sadistic maniac. Why had he stayed his hand with Moonface? Why had he not taken him prisoner when he had the opportunity? Was his failure to do so an indication of an unexplained weakness within himself that responded in some peculiar inverted way to the stresses of war? Or was he losing his sense of proprieties under the stresses of war and combat? Was he, somehow, equating the mercy shown Moonface as, in some strange way, expiation of the blood sin he had committed against Nakame?

  But in a larger sense, what was sin? In a disordered world, could one hold to any fundamental of order, or must one’s basic sanity, one’s sense of right or wrong, also be laid upon the altar of conflict? The war had been begun by evil men controlled by ambition and greed, but even they had ceaselessly announced the holiness of their aims, the legitimacy and rightness of what they sought to accomplish. Did they believe their own propaganda? Of this, of course, he had no way of knowing, but it was at least possible that they did believe it. Furthermore, millions of good men, not involved in the high political machinations which had resulted in the war, believed it because they had to. They had no other choice. Yet, in so doing, they sacrificed their own individuality, their own clearness of perception, their own birthright of humanity.

  He, Edward Richardson, Commander, U.S. Navy, encased in his steel prison which was also his instrument, his pride, and his weapon, his submarine Eel, his samurai sword, was only a tiny piece of flotsam amid the jetsam of the world. Yet he was master of the destiny of eighty men on board, in a way controller of the destiny of eighty more men in another submarine a few miles away. He had set them once again hurrying through the night on an errand at the end of which, if all went as he planned it, lay death and destruction for hundreds, possibly thousands, of human beings who had neither done him offense nor could do so even if they were aware of his existence.