Dust on the Sea (40 page)

The next submarine to transmit would be
Eel
. Nelson pressed his transmitter button, had it humming and fully warmed up when Radio Pearl receipted to the nearby boat.

“68
TC
v
NMP K
,” said NPM.

“
NPM
v 68
TC OP
—
RADIO PEARL FROM EEL PRIORITY ACTION REPORT
. . .”

As Nelson pounded out the coded message, laboriously composed and then encoded while
Eel
was awaiting the time to surface, Keith could reflect that across three thousand miles of water, bouncing at least once off the ionosphere now lowered over the dark Pacific, this particular stream of rapid dots and dashes carried the news of the death of four ships and most of those on board. It told of
Eel
's own escape after minor depth charging, the possibility that some other submarine, possibly
Whitefish
, might have been in position to pick off the lone straggler which had escaped to the west. It stated that
Eel
was now down to seven torpedoes, two forward and five aft, and that ComSubPac was undoubtedly correct about ships moving north and south close in to land along the west coast of Korea. On the game board in ComSubPac's office in Hawaii, the little submarine silhouette marked “
Eel
” in the Yellow Sea would now have seven tiny Japanese flags attached to it. If
W
3
AU
was indeed the
Whitefish
, it was possible that she might have earned a second little flag added to her silhouette, if she had, as instructed, been patrolling outside the island chain directly westward of
Eel
.

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 be 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.