Splinter on the Tide

by Phillip Parotti

  The remainder of their trip south proved uneventful save for the fact that Ash heard a gin rummy tournament had been started down on the mess deck. Participation was limited to off-duty men who were not needed elsewhere, the prize being a bucket of draft beer, if the winner happened to be of age, or a pre-paid movie ticket to the film of the winner’s choice, if he turned out to be underage, distribution of the prize to be withheld until the ship next gave the men liberty. On the bridge watch, Glick as well as the lookouts dropped occasional hints designed to make Samarango, Hamp, or Solly reveal when that liberty might be expected, but they had no more of an idea when the ship would be in port long enough for time off than Ash did. Liberty for the crew, as with shore leave for the officers, would be determined by the pace of their operations and nothing else, and Ash had no way of knowing what to expect in that regard. They might have a night or two in Norfolk when they arrived, but then they might not, so Ash kept his silence. Better not to dangle plums in front of them that he could not deliver; better to let whatever orders they received speak for themselves so that everyone, officers and crew alike, would think themselves in the same boat, and on that matter, as with no other, leave the heat for COMDESLANT to take.

  In the offing, while the convoy made a safe entrance into Hampton Roads, delivering its ships into the Chesapeake by 1100 hours the next morning, COMDESLANT did not allow them much of a breather. Alongside the naval piers, Chaser 3 took on fuel, topped off her water tanks, and received and stowed two crates of stores, along with a quantity of fresh bread. Without so much as allowing the crew time to go ashore for a freshwater shower, the chaser was turned right around again and sent north as the escort for three oilers riding low in the water, two refrigerator ships, a freighter loaded to the gills with Texas cotton, and an ammunition ship carrying the output from some depot or depots located to the south. The oilers and the freighter were destined for Delaware Bay and, probably, the ports of Wilmington or Philadelphia; the ammunition ship was to be turned over to yet another escort somewhere off Cape May and proceed on her way to join a massive convoy collecting in Casco Bay prior to a departure for Liverpool or Glasgow. In the event, Chaser 3’s third convoy left Norfolk at 1600 that afternoon and reorganized from a line astern into a five-ship box 2 or 3 miles east of the Cape Charles lighthouse. Judging the ammunition ship, at that particular moment in the war, to be the most valuable of the five, Ash placed her at the center of the formation but opened the distance between the ammo carrier and the merchantmen on her flanks to a thousand yards in straw-grasping hopes that if a U-boat did succeed in stalking them, one or another of the flanking ships would absorb the torpedo. In doing so, Ash had taken a risk, he knew, because if an attacking U-boat did manage to hit the ammunition hull, the resulting enormity of the explosion might be enough to damage or sink them all. Still, he thought, better to lose a few bales of cotton or a shipload of oil than an entire cargo of hard-to-replace ammunition destined for men actually in the fight somewhere. It was the kind of decision that men sitting behind typewriters in the newspaper offices where he had worked would never be called upon to make. For men like Ash, riding seagoing splinters in the midst of the Atlantic, he rather imagined that it would be the kind of decision that they would always have to make because there would be no one else to shoulder the responsibility.

  As the ships lumbered north into rising seas, Bell reported that the barometer had started to drop.

  “Dropping quick?” Ash asked.

  “Not quick, Cap’n,” Bell replied, “but she’s been going down slightly across the past three hours.”

  “Looks like we might be in for a bit of a nor’easter,” Ash said.

  “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so Cap’n, I’d just as soon not,” Bell replied up the voice tube.

  Ash laughed. “We’ll keep an eye on it,” he said.

  “I hope you’ve got your rain slicker handy,” Ash said to Hamp who was Officer of the Deck, “because it looks to me like we’ve got a gale coming. Get the word down to Samarango and Chief Stobb and have them pass the word to stand by for heavy weather.”

  The storm when it came proved to be far less than a full blown noreaster, but that didn’t matter much to the men riding Chaser 3, because within an hour, the winds had produced waves of at least 20 feet, all of them coming in from the north and northeast, their combined effect causing the ship to pitch like a mean horse with a burr thrust under its saddle. As the front passed, it brought a blinding rain, a rain that blew in cold and eliminated almost any chance Ash might have had for keeping visual track of the ships in the convoy. Huddled inside their slickers with heavy sou’wester rain hats tied beneath their chins, Ash, Hamp, and the lookouts endured, made their best efforts to keep the convoy in sight, and rode up and down the oncoming waves like men straddling the balance point of a vicious see-saw. All the while, Chaser 3 took green water over the bow, the waves crashing back over the 3-inch to pound the windows of the pilot house. Once more, more or less trapped in their bunks, men became sick; once more the barf buckets came out; and once more the swabs and the scrub buckets followed.

  “You might have warned me about this,” Hamp shouted to Ash over the screech of the wind. “I could have cut class and stayed in Brooklyn with the lovely Chana.”

  Ash was pleased to see that Hamp remained game.

  “What?” Ash shouted back, “and miss this gentle lapping of the waves? You have to remember, my man, that a good woman is a good woman, but a good ship is a ride!”

  An hour later, after passing through the front, the rain subsided. Somewhere above the dense cloud cover that hung low in the sky, Ash knew the moon to be waxing, and as a result, the lookouts and the watch were once more able to monitor the convoy. The freighter had slipped out of position, but her captain, alert to the lapse, put on turns and brought her back into place without Ash having to prod him, and for that, Ash was grateful. Even with the worst of the storm behind them, the seas, much to everyone’s displeasure, did not moderate until the following morning, when the waves managed to drop down to what Ash estimated as a steady 10 feet. In heading into them, the ship continued to pitch until noon, when, not far from Cape May, Ash saw the body of the convoy plow away to port in order to enter Delaware Bay. Meanwhile, Ash exchanged the ammunition ship he’d been shepherding for three freighters, two oilers, and four colliers that an aging four-piper destroyer led out to him before taking over responsibility for the ammunition ship and heading north beside her.

  Having been warned ahead of time by a message from COMDESLANT, Ash ordered the largest convoy he had yet tried to escort into a three-ship by three-ship box and started them south on a return transit to the mouth of the Chesapeake, all of them arriving safely and without incident save for miserable bouts of seasickness aboard Chaser 3, the sickness brought on rapidly by her incessant roll and the fierce yawing that accompanied a following sea.

  This time, after fueling and topping off with water, Ash had been directed to take the ship alongside a destroyer tender for the night, the tender providing the men a plethora of fresh steaks, fresh vegetables, a gallon of ice cream, freshwater showers, overnight laundry for every man in the crew, and a showing of The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin for entertainment. Ash did not give the men liberty, and none went ashore. They had known before they tied up that reveille would be piped at 0400 the following morning so that they could take out a convoy of four freighters and one collier bound for Charleston.

  12

  The trip to Charleston differed from Chaser 3’s previous voyages because for this voyage, a minesweeper–one commanded by a persnickety lieutenant– accompanied them, the lieutenant’s seniority placing him in command of the convoy. As a result, while the minesweeper pressed out ahead, screening back and forth from port to starboard across the convoy’s narrow front, the lieutenant’s frequent flag hoists sent Chaser 3 racing down one side of the assembled ships and up the other–an evolution that became far less than pleasant in the rough w
aters east of Cape Hatteras and which Ash thought to have been ordered at two or three times the frequency necessary to protect the convoy. In fact, given the relative inactivity of the minesweeper, the whole exercise struck Ash as bordering on the officious. Regardless, Ash carried out his assignments promptly, made something of a pest out of himself on the lieutenant’s behalf by nudging merchant captains who had slipped out of position by as little as 200 yards, and remained ever alert to the sweeper’s flag hoists, which kept popping up like unwanted relatives at every skip and turn of the zig-zag.

  The hoist that finally gave Ash and Solly–Solly standing as Officer of the Deck when it came in–a moment of relief accompanied with no little amusement had been designed by the lieutenant as an obvious rocket; only in this instance, much to Ash and Solly’s well-concealed pleasure, it turned out to be a rocket which backfired. The rocket came by flashing light, Glick rattling it off, word by word, as the signal was flashed.

  “From the sweep, Cap’n: Equipment adrift on fo’c’sle; rectify.”

  Ash and Solly glanced down at the fo’c’sle, then at each other, and stifled their laughter.

  “To the commodore by light,” Ash said, “In the event U-boat sighted, mousetraps elevated for immediate engagement.”

  “I don’t think he knows what mousetraps are,” Solly said quietly.

  “Probably never seen them before,” Ash said. “I’m guessing that a reply will be delayed until he finds someone aboard who can identify them for him.”

  The delay lasted five minutes, the reply limited itself to “Good hunting.”

  By that time, everyone on the bridge and in the pilot house knew about their commodore’s shortcomings, the watch section’s laughter being universally shared.

  Two or three hours later, the convoy sighted and then collected five more ships coming out of Pamlico Sound. One of them, a rusted hulk flying a Panamanian flag, appeared to be carrying pigs, the stench coming off the ship detectable even at a distance. This, too, seemed to lighten the load, the crew, each time they plowed past her, claiming that they were being forced to endure an ordeal that no sailor in the United States Navy should ever have to suffer.

  “I suppose it does tweak the nose,” Solly said, “but I think we’re hearing a degree of exaggeration here that exceeds a multiplication by ten.”

  “Fits right in with the way they said that Joan Bennett and Garbo were supposed to have fainted dead away at the sight of them during our stay in New York,” Ash said. “With seagoing sailors, a fisherman’s lie seems to be the spice of life.”

  In the middle of the night, for the first time, south of Onslow Bay and not more than 15 miles east of Bald Head Island at the entrance to Wilmington, Gomez reported a solid sonar contact which he almost instantly classified as a possible submarine. Within seconds, Ash sounded the alarm for General Quarters and notified the commodore in the minesweeper. Then, as the minesweeper’s captain ordered Chaser 3 to investigate and attack, he kicked up the convoy’s speed in an effort to effect their escape.

  By the time Solly reported all battle stations manned and ready, Ash had already turned toward the contact, taken the chaser up to 16 knots, and alerted Hamp to set two of their depth charges in the rolling racks for 50 feet and the two on the K-guns for an even 100, and then, with Gomez calling up ranges and bearings from sonar, Ash raced in to make his attack.

  “Range 900, bearing 085,” Gomez shouted up to the bridge from the sonar scope.

  Ash steadied up on 085 and spoke to Hamp, who had raced to his station on the fantail in order to supervise the depth-charge crews. “Ready, Hamp?”

  Hamp immediately replied that the detonators were set and that the crews were ready.

  “Range 800, bearing 080,” Gomez shouted. “He’s swingin’ left, Cap’n; I think he’ll try to turn inside us!”

  That the U-boat, if it was a U-boat, would try to avoid the attack by turning inside it, Ash knew, but he knew too that while the U-boat commander might be anticipating a destroyer, it seemed unlikely that he would be anticipating a subchaser that, in so far as Ash knew, had a turning circle so small as to be able to keep up with him.

  “Range 600, bearing 065!”

  Ash continued to meet the contact’s turn, the little chaser heeling, pitching into each wave, speeding in, running quick and steady on the power of her big diesels. Meanwhile, Ash, Solly, who was back on watch, the lookouts, and Glick, all gripped the rails in order to keep from sliding across the wet deck, the mast leaning as they followed the slipping contact.

  “Range 300, bearing 050! She’s turning tighter, Cap’n!”

  “Left hard rudder!” Ash called down the voice tube. “Depth charges, standby!”

  Seconds later, as the turn tightened and the range closed to 100 yards, Ash dropped turns, steadying the ship at 12 knots in order to provide a more level platform for launching his depth charges. Then, steering 2 or 3 degrees ahead of where the contact was reported and breathing hard as Gomez shouted out that he’d lost contact because it disappeared into the sonar’s ground return, Ash gave the order to fire, both K-guns blasting away with resounding KRUMPS even as Hamp reported both rolling charges away over the stern. Without hesitating, Ash put on turns and began to open the range in order to give the ship more distance from the concussions that would shortly follow and which would also give Gomez the best chance for regaining contact. Then, following an elapse of mere seconds, the two stern charges blew, sending up huge geysers in the ship’s wake, lifting and pushing the stern with the their blast waves even as they showered her with spray. Not three seconds later, the charges from the K-guns exploded, port and starboard astern, lifting yet greater mushrooms from the sea while spreading their plumes of sea water in all directions.

  “Anything, Gomez?” Ash called down to sonar, his voice tense, his throat tight.

  “Nothin’, Cap’n,” Gomez reported after a few seconds’ delay. “No contact.”

  “Keep at it,” Ash called down, and then he turned to Solly. “If the sweeper is still within range, have Glick flash her this message: Made depth charge attack. Lost contact. Commencing box search.”

  Glick managed to flash the sweeper in the last few minutes before she drew out of range and received their instant reply: Prosecute 60 minutes; rejoin.

  Gomez regained contact only once across the following hour, and Ash made only one more attack. Then, with the possible U-boat having apparently gone deep beneath a thermal layer, Chaser 3 lost contact entirely, the German having slipped away and made his escape.

  Disregarding his orders, Ash stuck with his attack for another half hour, executing a widening box search for the contact. When the search failed to turn up a single return echo, he reluctantly took the ship all the way up to 17 knots, turned south, and finally caught up with the convoy on the following morning after a long chase. If Gomez had put them onto a U-boat, Ash didn’t believe that they had sunk it, but the job Chaser 3 had been sent to do had become a success when the convoy escaped without damage, and Ash knew that he ought to be content with seeing that job, the most important one, well done. The persnickety lieutenant had called Ash alongside when they’d rejoined the others, and then, speaking through the loudhailer, talked down to Ash as though he and the sweeper had been in the business of sinking a U-boat every time she went out. This, Ash was pleased to notice, miffed those members of the crew who happened to be on deck to hear the exchange, but Ash himself had kept his silence, his only reply being to say that he’d hope to do better with his next contact.

  “I’ll bet money that guy is a reservist,” Solly said to Ash after they’d pulled away and taken up station behind the convoy. “If you don’t mind me saying so, he sounds downright full of himself. I might be wrong, but I’d expect a regular to have a little better grasp of things.”

  “I’d say that pseudo-Guards mustache he’s sporting gives the game away,” Hamp said, permitting himself a laugh. “If that doesn’t show us his colors, I can’t imagine what might
.”

  Ash smiled. “Takes all kinds,” he said.

  Outside Charleston, they turned over the pig ship and three freighters to a convoy of seven that steamed out to meet them, an armed Coast Guard cutter relieving them of their escort duties as the new convoy formed and sped on its way south. Chaser 3 then fell astern of the sweeper and followed her into port before being released to break away toward the fueling pier where she topped off with fuel and water late in the afternoon. From there, she had a short trip to the nearest destroyer tender, which once more provided fresh provisions and the kinds of services that Ash and the crew had come to appreciate.

  Reveille the following morning went down at a congenial 0600, but by 0800, they were once more underway, leading out a single Navy sea plane tender that the appropriate fleet command had elected to move from Charleston to Jacksonville. The captain of the deep-draft vessel carried four stripes on his sleeve, but unlike the sweeper’s C.O., his grasp of their transit while alert, seemed both firm and assured, the various orders he handed down to Ash coming to him by means of simple flag hoists or signals by flashing light that showed Ash an appreciation for the protection that Chaser 3 was trying to provide. As with all of their convoys, radio silence remained tight, their voice radio unused, and when Ash finally delivered the ship, he received a warm thank you for his troubles.

  Ash did not take his ship into Jacksonville for the night. Instead, pursuant to a COMDESLANT dispatch, as the sea plane tender disappeared down the channel into Jacksonville, Ash picked up a net tender that was being transferred and a deeply laden U.S. Navy oiler, both of them bound for Key West. With their zig-zag included, Ash estimated the trip to be well over 500 miles, the longest transit that they had yet undertaken. To Ash’s surprise, it also turned out to be the most tranquil voyage that Chaser 3 had yet made. South of Jacksonville, as the early March hours began to stretch into days, the seas calmed down to a more than reasonable 3 to 4 feet, the skies brightened, and the air temperature rose swiftly, bringing with it an unwelcome humidity. South of Daytona Beach, Hamp, acting in his role as supply officer for the ship, finally saw to the issue of a special navy soap that was supposed to be effective for salt water. At that point the men began washing both their clothes and themselves in sea water dragged up in buckets from over the side, saving their dwindling supply of fresh water for drinking and for the galley. No one particularly liked it, but given the high humidity, the amount of sweat coming off their bodies, and the need for maintaining an acceptable level of personal hygiene, everyone washed with the soap and then, predictably, groused about it with grunts and chuckles.