Dust on the Sea (24 page)

“But you had trouble all the same, didn't you? Somebody has got to have some common sense around this submarine! I absolutely forbid your taking her into action against enemy combatant ships in the shape she's in!” Again there was that look of strained intensity. “The subject is closed,” Blunt said. “
Chicolar
will probably show up in due course, and we'll all wonder why we made such a fuss about it.”

Looking back on them later, the next several days were for Richardson probably the most uncomfortable he had ever spent. The vision of Tateo Nakame with both hands planted on the skin of
Eel
's ballast tanks on the port side near the stern returned in full force. Combined with it, however, was an even more vivid vision, that of
Chicolar
, damaged, leaking, wracked by depth charges, her pressure hull—probably the conning tower—ruptured by shell fire. A bad leak or other damage would have driven her to the bottom. There, once her location
was precisely determined, it would be marked with a buoy. The Japanese escorts would slowly and deliberately cruise back and forth across the spot, sowing depth charges with the depth setting devastatingly determined for certain.

Every night, during the ritual planning and strategy council in the wardroom, the discussion would begin on the subject of
Eel
's hydraulic system. Al Dugan reported that at least two bypass valves in different return lines seemed to be sticking occasionally and might be responsible for the continual bleeding down of the accumulator. This was apparently the cause of the rapid cycling and might have led to the scoring and other troubles. If nothing of greater seriousness developed, he thought, the system could be kept under careful surveillance and give satisfactory service for the remainder of the patrol.

As to where enemy ships were going, the arguments were no different from before. Everything had been said several times. Adamantly Captain Blunt held to his mid-area patrol thesis, insisting that sooner or later ships must cross the Yellow Sea. In the meantime, it became distressingly evident that something serious had happened to
Chicolar
. At the very least, her radar and radios must be out of action, a theory hopefully advanced by Larry Lasche and seized upon by Blunt. But after the first day, no one made further mention of this possibility.

After the second night without news, Richardson hesitantly brought up the need to reorganize the combined operations of the two remaining members of the wolfpack. Blunt became agitated at the suggestion, peremptorily ordered it dropped. Only when it became
Eel
's turn to send the routine weather report for the Yellow Sea area did he permit a single terse sentence concerning lack of word from
Chicolar
to be included at the end of the message.

Rich could sense the dropping of morale throughout the ship. Years ago he had learned that no secrets could be kept from the crew of a submarine. This was axiomatic.
Chicolar
and her crew had gone to join
Nerka, Walrus
, and the other submarine casualties of the war. The fact cast gloom upon all of them, particularly
Eel
's skipper, since he could not rid himself of the thought that just possibly, if he had persisted a little more strongly in his initial impulse to go to her assistance immediately, he might have won the argument with Blunt. Clearly, he should have insisted on returning to the spot after sinking the three freighters. A submerged approach at dawn might have been successful in picking off one of the destroyers, or even two, had he been lucky, but, most important, a sudden salvo of torpedoes would have distracted them from the wounded
Chicolar
, even perhaps convinced them she had got away. Then, if she were indeed disabled on the bottom, it might
have been possible later to communicate on sonar and render some help. At a minimum he could have stood by to rescue those of her crew able to escape via the rescue breathing apparatus.

Over and over in his mind Richardson revolved the alternatives that might have been. Every time he did so, his thoughts went back to the same point: he was the captain of the
Eel
, and he held the responsibility for what she did, or didn't do, to help her consort. Was this not, indeed, what Blunt had almost said? But it was all too late now.

After the fourth fruitless day of patrolling with nothing but fishing boats of various sizes sighted, and no messages from ComSubPac, he tried a new approach.

“Commodore,” he said, once again pointing out the various salient features of the shore topography around Korea and the coast of China, “we've been in the area eleven days. We have only nineteen days more before we have to pull out. So far,
Whitefish
hasn't made a single contact. He's got a full load of twenty-four torpedoes, and we need to figure out some way to give him a chance to shoot some of them.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Blunt.

“Well,” Rich said slowly, trying to speak matter-of-factly, “this is Whitey's first patrol as skipper. He's never made any night surface attacks, but he always was good with a periscope. So maybe if we could find a deep spot close in to shore somewhere, where ships might be pretty sure to pass, we could send him in there. He'd still be in radio contact at night, so we could coordinate our operations if a big convoy came by.”

Richardson was startled at the alacrity with which the wolfpack commander seized upon his suggestion. Within an hour
Whitefish
receipted for a message directing her to proceed close into the coast of China south of Tsingtao, where, the chart showed, relatively deep water extended fairly close to the shoreline.

Again there was the waiting, the deadly boredom of readiness with nothing happening. Two nights later a message arrived from
Whitefish
:
SANK FIVE THOUSAND TON FREIGHTER X DEPTH CHARGED X PROCEEDING TO CENTER OF AREA TO REPAIR DAMAGES X FOUR TORPEDOES EXPENDED

“Good for Whitey Everett,” said Blunt when the decoded message was placed in front of him.

Rich tried to press his advantage. “Commodore,” he said, “this at least proves that there are ships moving. The total bag for the patrol so far is four, but they're all relatively small coastal freighters. Maybe that's all the Japanese have left. Anyway, now that
Whitefish
is back in the center of the area, it's our turn to go close into shore, and I was thinking that this spot off the west coast of Korea . . .”

“With your hydraulic system in the shape it's in?” said Blunt. “Not on your life! I forbid it!”

“Commodore,” Rich spoke sharply, “this submarine is not a cripple. We're perfectly able to carry out our functions. If not, there's a submarine tender at Guam, and we should go back there for repairs. We've been two weeks in the center of the area now, sir, and we haven't seen a thing come through here. The four ships our wolfpack has sunk were all picked off close to shore.” There was a bite to Richardson's voice, a compound of annoyance and of frustration.

“No!” said Blunt, slamming his fist on the table. “I'm running this wolfpack, and as long as I'm in charge you will operate in accordance with my instructions!”

This time it was Richardson who, in scarcely concealed anger, abruptly rose and left the wardroom.

He climbed to the bridge, seething. There was no question that something was wrong with Blunt. He had been a highly competent peacetime skipper of the
Octopus
eight years earlier, and he had been a source of strength and support with the old
S-16
and the
Walrus
. Beginning with the recent period at Pearl, however, Blunt seemed to have changed, and he had not bounced back upon going to sea. The stimulus of a patrol had not had the hoped-for effect. His thought processes were not as incisive as they once were. He looked older, acted older, spoke in unaccustomed clichés. Rich also was convinced he was getting far from enough sleep. His eyes always looked blurry and tired, and he spent hours in the wardroom drinking innumerable cups of coffee, morosely speaking to no one. No doubt Admiral Small had thought getting him to sea, away from the routine of his desk and the distractions of Pearl Harbor, possibly also away from Cordy Wood, would restore him. But the problem obviously was deeper. Something else was wrong.

Perhaps the loss of
Chicolar
had begun to prey upon his mind, but Richardson had truthfully to admit to himself that he, at least, had begun to notice disturbing signs before the patrol began.

“Permission to come on the bridge?” Keith's voice. Evidently he had followed him, having waited a decent interval first. Rich welcomed the opportunity, walked quietly to the after part of the cigarette deck, leaned against the rail, waited for him.

“Skipper,” said Keith in a low voice, “I have to talk to you about the commodore. He's got me worried, sir.”

“How, Keith?” said Richardson wearily.

Keith was his confidant and best friend on board, but years of navy training and of ingrained respect for his former skipper were behind the deep reticence Rich now felt.

“He's not the same as he was back in New London, sir. He was different this time in Pearl, too. Ever since we left Pearl Harbor he has been acting more and more strange. He hardly ever sleeps, and he hardly ever talked to you, or anybody, until lately. But now he's beginning not to make sense.”

Richardson could think of nothing to say. The idea would have been startling a few days ago. Not so now.

“He's your old skipper and all that, and I worried a lot about whether I should tell you this. He's driving us all batty.”

“Oh, come on, Keith,” said Richardson uncomfortably. “He's got a lot more on his mind than you know.”

“No, that's not it.” Suddenly Keith spoke with a tone of passionate vehemence. “He doesn't usually talk much, as I said, but for the last two days, when you're not in the wardroom, he's been talking a lot. All he talks about is maybe somebody is sabotaging our hydraulic plant!”

“Now, wait a minute, Keith. You don't expect me to believe that a member of our crew is deliberately trying to wreck the hydraulic system!”

“Nobody's trying to sabotage anything! That's only the commodore's idea. We're all trying to help Al figure out what's wrong. The best man we've got on the hydraulic plant is Lichtmann, but lately the commodore has decided Lichtmann must be the saboteur. Don't ask me how he came up with this one, but it's all he's talked about for a day, now, and it's giving us a fit!”

On the forward part of the bridge, the quartermaster and Officer of the Deck maintained their vigil, while behind them the four lookouts stood motionlessly, elbows on the bridge bulwarks, binoculars steadily sweeping the murky horizon, which could hardly be seen. One part of Richardson wanted badly to continue the conversation, but he could not, would not. “Keith,” he said, “I don't want this subject to be talked about. Not anywhere, and especially not in the wardroom. It's up to you to keep the rest of the wardroom in line when I'm not there. Blunt may be passing through a tough time—but he does have a lot on his mind, remember that. Anyway, I don't want you or any of the others worrying about him. He's my problem. I'll handle him. He's an old friend, and I'll take care of him.”

Having made a decision, Richardson was surprised at the ease with which he was able to placate Keith. Perhaps Keith also felt he had said enough. Rich searched his mind for a new topic of conversation, found it. “Keith,” he said, “have you thought much about what types of ships those three escorts were that got the
Chicolar
?”

“Only what I've already told you. Nobody saw them. They must
have been pretty small, because on the radar scope they were only half as big as the freighters. The three pips all looked exactly the same, so all three escorts could be the same type of ship. They increased speed from ten to eighteen knots, by our plot, when they closed in on
Chicolar
. They weren't just patrol craft, that's one thing sure. We counted over ninety depth charges, so that means each one carries at least thirty and probably a lot more. Anybody carrying that many depth charges——”

“Must have been designed for ASW work,” broke in Richardson. “It's a good thing for us, sitting here charging batteries in the middle of the Yellow Sea, that they aren't out patrolling, instead of sticking to convoy escort duty.”

“One of those new
Mikura
class escorts, if that's what they were, might waste a lot of time just patrolling an area,” said Keith. “We could avoid him pretty easily. He'll give us a big enough silhouette at night that we should see him before he sees us, and anyway, we should have him on radar long before he's onto us.”

“Right, Keith, but the Jap Navy won't pass up the duty to patrol. Remember the fishing boats. They're made of wood, and wood doesn't give as good a radar return as steel. I daresay the three escorts who got
Chicolar
were
Mikuras
, all right, but I'm beginning to wonder whether we might be seeing one of those big sampans they warned us about just before we left Pearl. Twice we've seen a pretty big one. Sea-going junks, I'd call both of them. Or maybe we saw the same one twice. It could easily be a patrol boat.”

“Our operation order says the big ones are. They're on patrol to spot submarines. Their hulls are low to the water, and our radar doesn't see them very soon, either, that's for damn sure.”