Dust on the Sea (52 page)

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 for 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.

“Range to escort,” one thousand.” Keith's voice from the conning tower hatch. The escort was now clearly in view just forward of
Eel
's port beam. For a few minutes Rich had been wondering whether she might indeed be one of the
Mikura-
class frigates. In this case, he would again have to revise his estimates as to her size, armament, and draft—upward this time. He could see her clearly now. Her silhouette had broadened. She was nearly broadside-to again. She was a twin of the first escort
Eel
had sunk, might well be one of the two survivors of that attack. All three had been identical.

The ASW ship was not quite as long as
Eel
and probably was smaller in displacement. No doubt she was designed to outrun the submarine in a fair chase. She was big enough to carry a heavy gun of some sort, at least one four-inch (the briefing had specified such a gun), plus various rapid-fire weapons of her own.
Eel
would have to fire first, and effectively, immediately following the moment of surprised recognition to knock her out before she got her own guns going.

It had been about five minutes since the escort had come into view. She still gave no indication she had seen the ungainly silhouette off to her port side. Freed of the hurried pace of the periscope observations, Richardson could look her over carefully. She was a handsome ship, low to the water, her long clean side unbroken by any hint of portholes or other penetrations. Her forecastle was sharply raked, with a rather large square bridge set at least a third of the way aft from the bow. Amidships a single fat smokestack squatted incongruously, its height not quite equal to that of the bridge structure. There was some kind of a gun forward on the forecastle, but it was trained fore and aft, with no sign of anyone preparing it for combat. Abaft the bridge, around the stack and all the way to the square flat stern, was an indistinguishable jumble of top hamper and deck gear. He thought he could distinguish depth charge racks on the very stern, but of this he could not be sure.

Detail after detail stood out. Strange that he could see clearly, and yet there was no indication
Eel
had been seen. Doubtless the much smaller size of
Eel
's silhouette, the fact that it was obscured by the dark hills behind it, that the enemy escort was outlined against the nothingness of the sea and the heavy sky, must be the determining factors. That and the matter of initiative. The Japanese had had no indication there was an enemy submarine waiting outside their harbor, no doubt were still settling down to their sea routine.
Eel
, on the other hand, had been primed for desperate action for three days, her every sensing capability at maximum alertness. Clearly audible was the gentle slap of waves splashing under the wooden slats of
Eel
's main deck.
Eel
's ventilation sets had never seemed louder. Her air-conditioning machinery sounded as if all its gears were stripped, and he could hear the rhythmic beat of the compressors. Likewise, he could hear the enemy escort's engines, diesels from the sound of them, their loud stutter borne in over the water, intensified by the acuteness of his senses.

“Bridge,” said Keith through the hatch, “target is at new CPA, range nine-five-oh, steady course.”

There was still a very real danger that
Eel
would be seen as the destroyer swept past. Perhaps an after lookout would be more alert than those forward. Nevertheless, the likelihood from now on would diminish. Richardson had been holding his breath for nearly a minute. Three fifty-caliber, two twenty-millimeter and two forty-millimeter guns were still trained on her, were silently following her. They would continue to do so for a few minutes longer, but already the extraordinarily black night was beginning to close around the little ship. In a few minutes she would be swallowed by darkness again. Her outlines were growing hazy. He expelled a second long-held breath. Now she was gone.

“Range to escort one-four-five-oh, Bridge, opening. No change in course.”

Richardson again twice clicked the bearing buzzer built into the handle of the port TBT. This would let Keith know that he had heard and acknowledged the report. He would, however, keep his gun crews on the alert for a few minutes longer, for insurance. . . .

“Range to leading ship four-six-five-oh, Bridge. Plot still shows him on the same course. The near escort is now at two thousand yards, still going away. He's drawn up abeam of the last ship in column.”

The danger had not materialized. Suddenly, unaccountably, Richardson almost wished it had. Nothing could have withstood the surprise fusillade of automatic fire
Eel
had been ready to lay upon her—he caught himself up short. Was this after all so very different from the
fate he had dealt Bungo Pete? Or was it the old death wish in another guise? There was an ebbing of feeling within him, a wearying. The adrenalin flow was dissipating, and with it his sense of mission and combat. A deep yawn forced his jaws agape. Sleep would be delicious.

But there was work yet to be done. He moved to the bridge microphone, pressed the button. “Keith,” he said, “give me a course and speed to trail. I'd like to stay about seven thousand yards astern of the last ship, but close enough to have a good radar return on all of them.”

Dawn was breaking. About an hour previously,
Eel
had slowed nearly to a halt to permit the convoy to gain distance. Two more messages had been sent to Whitey Everett in the
Whitefish
. Now it was approaching the time for the critically important message. Everyone expected the convoy would make a radical course change at dawn and head at maximum speed on a southeasterly course, but it was still possible that the ships would instead continue along the coast of the Shantung Peninsula to its farthest extremity or even around it, ultimately to turn left into the Gulf of Po Hai.
Eel
must inform
Whitefish
just as soon as the evidence was clear.

Two special messages had been made up in anticipation of the two possible situations. One, a single long dash, would indicate that the convoy was continuing to hug the coast. The second consisted of a short dash followed by the wolfpack letter code for course and speed.

Richardson had been on the bridge all night and had begun to realize how cold it could be in the northern reaches of the Yellow Sea in early winter. He had taken the precaution of once again ordering Keith to get some sleep. It would be important for Keith to be well rested for the daylight pursuit anticipated. Blunt, of course, he could not control, but Blunt was not concerned with
Eel
's proper functioning. Since the attack on the freighter north of the Maikotsu Suido, Blunt had changed. He made no further reference to sabotage of the hydraulic system and was no longer taciturn. He had become, if anything, at times loquacious. He slept frequently. Except for sporadic interest, as in the discussion preliminary to the present operation, he took no further part in what went on about him. With occasional exceptions which had to be anticipated and handled carefully, for the past several days he had acquiesced in whatever instructions were given, in his name, to the other submarine under his command.

Eel
had dropped so far astern that, with growing daylight, the only thing visible of the convoy was a faint cloud of smoke beyond the horizon. She had at the same time moved off the track to starboard in
order to gain distance away from the land. The Japanese as well as the Chinese might be employing coast watchers, and it would be well to have sufficient water for diving in case of attack from the air.

Now, within a few minutes, would be time for the convoy to change course, if it was intending to. The blackness of night had long since turned to a gray haze, and this, too, was burning off. The sun, not yet over the horizon, would burst in full splendor upon the scene in about half an hour. Richardson was mentally prepared for the report, when it came: “Bridge, radar reports convoy has changed course to the right.”

“Very well, Conn,” responded Richardson, pushing the bridge microphone button. “Can you give me a course? Is there any indication of increased speed?”

“Not yet, sir. Plot and TDC are working on it.” He wished Keith were coordinating radar, TDC, and plot, but determined that he would not call him. The others surely should be able to operate the various components satisfactorily. But Richardson need not have worried. The next report from the conning tower was in Keith's voice. He had evidently left word to be called when the situation changed.

“Bridge, conn. Target has increased speed. Plot and TDC are tracking him on course one-three-oh, speed thirteen. All three ships have changed course to the right in a column movement. The last one is just completing her turn now.”

“Good work, Keith,” said Richardson on the speaker. “Are you sure enough of your information to send the message to
Whitefish
?”

“Affirmative, Skipper. Got it ready to go.”

“Send it as soon as you can. Let me know when you get a receipt.”

The bridge speaker blared again with Keith's voice in a slightly different timbre. He was speaking from the radio room. “Message sent and receipted for by
Whitefish
, Bridge,” he said.