Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  Close in to land, the shore return or “grass” on both radar scopes generally blotted out any pips on the land side, though not to seaward. It was this fact which alone made possible Eel’s otherwise untenable position, and indeed had caused that position to be selected. During three nights of experimentation, Rogers had discovered, however, that by beaming the radar parallel to the coast and greatly reducing his receiver gain it was possible he might get some impression of a large object once it cleared the shore. He was already operating in this mode, concentrating of course on the Tsingtao harbor entrance. But it was far from a precise thing, and it would be easy to miss something.

  “Radar, aye aye,” came Rogers’ voice. A few moments later he sang out again, “I think I see something there. Might be a ship. Range about four thousand. Looks like two ships.”

  “Do you see anything, Buck?”

  “No, sir. What do you see?”

  “I think I can see something. It’s all so dark. The point seemed a little bit longer all of a sudden. Now it’s shorter again—there it is again.”

  “Yes, I see it too, now. It must be ships.”

  “That makes three I’ve seen. Ask radar what they’re getting.”

  Williams had no opportunity to ask the question, for suddenly Rogers’ voice came up through the conning tower hatch, “Bridge, radar has three big ships and two little ones. Looks like they’re moving out of harbor.”

  “Shall I call the crew to battle stations, Skipper?”

  “Affirmative, but don’t use the general alarm. Pass the word by telephone.” This had already been prescribed, but it would not hurt to reemphasize the instruction. “Gun crews stand by in the control room and crew’s dinette.” Williams leaned over the hatch and gave the orders.

  “Tell radio to send the first of those messages to the Whitefish.” The first of a set of prearranged messages in Keith’s wolfpack code, only a single letter in length, would alert the other submarine to the fact that ships were leaving the harbor. Later, depending upon which way they went, one of the others would be sent. Whitefish’s radio operator would answer by exactly repeating the signal he had heard.

  “Bridge!” Rogers’ voice, pitched higher, betraying some of his tension and excitement. “Bridge, radar has three ships and two escorts. Range is decreasing. I think they’ve started to head this way, sir!”

  “What’s the range?” bellowed Buck, forgetting the injunction for quietness.

  “Four thousand! But I’ve got a column of ships on the PPI ’scope now, and the range to the leading one is getting less!”

  “I’m in the conning tower, Bridge.” Keith’s voice. “It looks like they’re coming out, all right. Whitey has the alert message. Three big ships in column. The lead one has turned to his left and is coming up the coast, just as we figured.”

  “What are the escorts doing?”

  “Can’t tell yet. One is out ahead, but it looks like he’s favoring the seaward side. The other one, we can’t tell at all. The convoy looks like three real big ships!”

  The message had said two divisions of the Kwantung Army, and had specified three troop transports. Its information was right on the mark.

  “Buck, get your gun crews up here on the bridge; I’ll take over the deck. Have them load and train out, but nobody is to open fire until I give the word.”

  “Aye aye, sir—you don’t need a turn-over do you, Captain?”

  “No. I have all the dope.”

  Rich fixed his binoculars in the direction where he knew the ships should be. Nothing. The dark shadows of the blacked-out ships must be there, but the total absence of any light whatever, the lowering overcast so common to this area, the lack of any moon or star illumination, all combined to create a stygian emptiness that the human eye could not pierce. He had, as a matter of fact, figured on exactly this. It was part of his plan, for it would be even harder to see Eel’s much reduced silhouette, particularly since lookouts from any surface ship would be many feet higher above the water and would have to look down into the dark sea. The only danger lay in the possibility that one of the escorts might elect to run inshore of the convoy and thus, by mischance, blunder upon the flooded-down submarine. Indeed, the escort would probably draw much less water than Eel required in her nearly submerged condition. This, too, had been considered. Merchant ships would not dare move so close in to shore as to suck mud into their condensers and cooling-water lines. They would require probably a minimum of fifteen feet of water under their keels, whereas Eel, with all machinery stopped, ready to move on the battery, would need no large water intake and could afford to be in water so shallow that her keel nearly touched. The enemy convoy should pass by at least a mile to seaward.

  The four lookouts on the bridge and the one who had just gone below had been selected for their night vision and steadiness under stress, and specially trained to handle the forty-millimeter cannon at either end of the bridge. Augmented by six more men who came up from below, they quietly busied themselves with getting the guns ready.

  “If we have to shoot, it will be port side first, Buck.” If it came to a gun action, Richardson intended to begin it on opposite courses, so that the enemy would have to turn completely around in the shallows to pursue the submarine. In the meantime, Eel would have a start in the run to deep water.

  “Bridge, range three thousand. Three ships in column on a northeasterly course. Passing up the coast. Our plot shows them two miles off the beach. Both escorts have taken station on their seaward flank. They’re real big ships, Bridge!”

  That was Keith, standing under the conning tower hatch, speaking quietly up into the blackness above him. A dim red glow suffused his strained features as he stood framed in the hatch opening. Richardson had not remembered noticing strain on him before, although it was clear that the war had burned something out of him as it had of everyone. He wondered whether he also showed strain, surmised that he probably did.

  There was virtually no wind. As usual, the sea was almost glassy smooth, its placidity accentuated by the shallow water effect. The land smell, once pungent, was now no longer noticeable. Eel’s position had not changed. Perhaps the wind had shifted. The most likely explanation, however, was simply that they had become accustomed to the odor. Besides, the heightened pulse and increased flow of adrenalin associated with the approach of danger would concentrate perceptions in a different direction.

  Had Eel a salvo of torpedoes remaining in her tubes, her torpedomen would be making them ready at this very moment. This would have also required a totally different plan of action, for torpedoes almost invariably went deep before reaching their running depth. They would strike bottom if fired from Eel’s present position. The torpedo situation, in fact, had been the determining argument in getting Blunt’s approval to place Whitefish offshore, in deeper water, and Eel inshore in the shallows. Even so, Whitey Everett would be uneasy at the limited depth of water available to him.

  Richardson had never approached this close to enemy ships without being able to see at least some outline of their shapes, no matter how dark it was. The absence of light this night, however, was profound. At range 3,000 yards, even though he was looking right at them, exactly on the bearings both sonar and radar were giving him, before his eyes was only fathomless blackness, a dull, porous, velvet curtain he could not pierce. Strange that he could make out the loom of land on the starboard quarter, extending forward to the starboard beam, and yet could not see the ships to seaward! Somehow he had got an indication of them as they passed out the harbor entrance, but up ahead, where the sea stretched black to join the black night and the black sky, there was not even a hint of shadowy discontinuity which might outline a ship less than a mile and a half away! Almost continuously, he tried his old trick, looking above and below where he judged the horizon to be.

  Wait. There was something, something lighter than the darkness. It was bigger than he expected, and, surprisingly, elevated well above where he had thought the horizon was. Su
ddenly he could see it, a huge shadowy shape, dark gray sides looming a faint, ghostly white, moving ponderously and irresistibly across Eel’s bow from starboard to port.

  “Bridge, range two thousand five hundred. Leading ship should be dead ahead. Whitefish has our second message.” That was Keith calling quietly up from the conning tower.

  “I see them, Keith. Angle on the bow is about forty-five port.”

  “That’s the way it looks on plot, Bridge. Three ships in column. We’re tracking them at nine knots, and their closest point of approach to us will be about a mile, broad on our port bow.”

  Now Rich could see the second ship in column, following in the wake of the first—and in a moment, the third. Having started up the coast, no doubt they would continue following the line of the Shantung Peninsula, in the shallowest water possible, until daybreak. Then they would turn directly across the Yellow Sea in a high speed zigzag run to gain the shelter of the shallow water on the Korean side. Once the convoy had passed, Eel would follow from astern and radio to Whitefish the vital particulars of enemy position, course, and speed, which would permit her sister submarine to submerge ahead of the convoy’s daylight track.

  Already two such messages, consisting of only a single letter each, had been sent. The chance of their interception by the enemy ships was remote. But it would be necessary to be sparing of messages, even extremely short ones.

  “Leading ship at closest point of approach, Bridge. Range at CPA, two-one-double-oh, beginning to open.”

  The three ships were now clearly visible. Great, silent, crowded giants, grinding forward on the silent sea. In a moment more he could hear them as well as see them, for in the quiet on Eel’s bridge the calm water carried their machinery noise distinctly to his ears. Big ships, but single-screw, he thought. He could hear their propellers thunking steadily, their machinery clanking, an air blower shrieking with a dry bearing. In the second ship, someone was beating on something with a hammer. The sound of metal on metal must be projected directly through the ship’s structure into the sea surrounding it. The steady, systematic pounding was occasionally interrupted for brief intervals as the man first plied his hammer, then paused, probably to inspect his work, then resumed hammering again. Perhaps the ship had a blacksmith’s shop, but more likely, mused Richardson, someone was repairing something by the time-honored sledgehammer method.

  “Second ship at CPA, Bridge,” from Keith. “Formation is still the same, but the rear escort is moving over a little, and dropping aft.”

  “Bridge, aye,” said Richardson in a low, carrying tone. Probably he could have used a normal tone of voice—no doubt the Japanese crews a mile away were doing so—but the stillness of night and the quietness that enveloped the Eel held their own requirements, even if only psychological. “Keep a careful watch on him. We’re manned and ready for surface action up here if he becomes suspicious.” He need have said nothing, of course. Keith did not need to be told to do or not to do anything about that astern escort. Rich had merely accommodated a compulsive requirement of his own. It was indicative of his own nervousness. He must take a grip on himself, not permit his own inner tension to show through.

  The need to lie to quietly was an onerous one. Everyone in the ship would rather be underway, even on the surface—best of all, submerged clear of the shallow water. Lying still, partly submerged on the mud flats, hiding in the sea and yet so horribly exposed, produced a feeling of helplessness, of vulnerability. Yet it had all been argued out, thought through, explained carefully to the entire ship’s company. Clearly it made sense, in this instance, to behave contrary to the normal submarine pattern. Eel was taking maximum advantage of all passive alertness equipment. Her sound heads were rigged out (with instructions for instant raising if any orders were given to the motors); her radar detector was continuously manned; all her radio receivers (except the one tuned to the wolfpack frequency) were being constantly tuned throughout their ranges to pick up any nearby transmissions. Her search radar, which normally did emit a signal, was being operated intermittently, its transmitter keyed only at sporadic intervals for quick sweeps, its receiver continuously watched for signs of any other radar interference.

  Were danger to threaten, Eel could get underway instantly, silently, on her main motors and battery. At the maximum discharge rate, once her main ballast tanks were blown fully dry, she could reach a speed of eighteen knots, though only for a very short time. But the ship would be running in eerie quiet, with no plume of diesel exhaust to assist pursuit, no thunder of main engines drifting over the quiet waters, which, by their sudden cessation, might betray the moment of dive. A dive would be ridiculously simple once adequate depth of water was reached, for there would be no engines to stop, no main induction to shut, no switching from generators to battery. All that was necessary was to open the main vents, shut the bridge hatch, and drive her bodily under.

  She could even make a respectable speed in the flooded-down condition. Nothing like eighteen knots, of course. But it would be necessary to keep bow planes and stern planes manned, and Al Dugan would have to give careful attention to the diving station; for in this condition Eel had practically no buoyancy at all and would submerge without warning upon the slightest wrong movement of the planes.

  “Third ship is nearing CPA, Bridge. Still twenty-one hundred yards. Leading two ships are opening out. Range to leading ship three thousand. The rear escort has moved over and is now dead astern of the third ship.”

  This could spell trouble. Eel’s purpose was to trail the convoy from astern. Detection by one of the escorts would of course ruin this scheme. Far worse, detection would subject Eel to a surface attack in a spot where she could not submerge. Enemy gunfire would spell disaster. Or one of the escorts, lighter and far more maneuverable than the half-submerged submarine, might try to ram. Its sharp bow would easily cut through superstructure, ballast tank, and pressure hull to transform Eel forever into a sunken, rusting, mud-filled hulk, slowly disappearing into the aeons-old estuarial flats of an ageless shore.

  Richardson was searching for the escort astern of the last ship, finally saw her gliding along, ghostlike, suspended in the darkness. The destroyer, or destroyer escort, was broadside-to, low in the water, a tiny superstructure forward, the barest suggestion of something aft. Strange how small she looked! The ComSubPac message had said the escorts were Mikuras. This tincan did not by any means look as big as the escorts Eel had already encountered. The blackness of the sea and the sky, the total absence of illumination or any indication of a horizon, the dwarfing comparison with the high-sided troop transports, must have robbed him of his ability to judge size. She was much smaller, indubitably, than the ships which had preceded her. In one way, the smaller she was the more dangerous; for a shallow-draft ship would have less hesitancy in entering shoal water. If she did not fear mud in her engine cooling system, she could nimbly run well inshore of Eel. Such a vessel could attack from any direction she wished, whereas the deep-lying submarine had only one choice open to her: an emergency burst of speed toward the deep sea. On the plus side, it was probable that a small escort would not carry heavy armament.

  “I see him,” said Rich. He waited. Apparently no one else could. He kept his binoculars trained on the enemy ship. If her silhouette shortened, it would probably mean that she was changing position again, most probably moving over to the inshore side of the convoy. Were she to do this, her chances of detecting Eel’s disembodied bridge, floating with such agonized quiet, would be greatly increased.

  There! The silhouette had shortened. The escort was now presenting a port angle of approximately forty-five degrees. If she turned all the way, to an end-on situation, it must be assumed that she had seen something suspicious and was coming to investigate. Considering the difficulty Richardson had had himself in seeing the escort after the radar told him she was there, he could hardly believe this was possible. She might be pursuing merely a routine zigzag plan, or be crossing over to the other side f
or some other reason. . . . A long, careful look convinced Rich that the escort was not turning all the way, had settled on a new course, which, at the moment, gave her somewhere between a thirty-and a forty-five-degree port angle on the bow. She would pass about a thousand yards away.

  For the first time Rich spoke loudly. “Men, remember your instructions. No gun is to shoot until I give the order. He’s heading over this way, but he’s not coming right at us, and I don’t think he’s suspicious. If he does see us, I’ll give the word to start shooting as soon as we can see him clearly. Do not shoot until I tell you. And remember, every shot is to go into his bridge!” Rich sensed rather than heard the murmur of agreement from the gun crews.

  “I see him!” said one of the men standing forward of the bridge overhang on the platform serving the forward forty-millimeter cannon. He was one of the regular battle lookouts. Now that the gun was completely ready, he was using his binoculars again.

  “Good. Keep your eye on him. Everyone else let me know when you see the target. . . . Buck, tell them down below what’s going on.”

  As Buck Williams leaned under the bridge overhang to call the information down the hatch, the other forward lookout spoke up. “I see him too, sir.”

  “Follow him with your gun. Do not shoot!” Subconsciously, Rich realized that the possibility of some overly tense sailor opening fire prematurely must constantly be guarded against. He had decided in his own mind not to open fire until there was no longer any doubt Eel had been detected. Initial detection would be followed by a period of curiosity, during which the enemy would continue to approach. Eel had an inestimable advantage, to be exploited to the limit. Not until the range had closed to the point where every shot could virtually be counted on to hit the target would Eel open fire. Once the enemy’s initial attack had been blunted, her bridge knocked out, the rapid-fire guns would be freed to rake the entire hull. Enough holes, even small-sized ones, at the waterline would sink her. Roughly half the rounds loaded in the fifty-caliber belts, the twenty-millimeter cans, and the forty-millimeter racks were armor-piercing. They could be depended upon to penetrate anything a tincan would be likely to carry.