Dust on the Sea (61 page)

Under the steady gaze of his skipper, Livingston was intent on redeeming his spurious warning. He carefully repeated the message, afterward treasured the fleeting smile of gratitude from his superior's strained, stubbled face when he reported, “Two-three-seven, true, sir.”

The enemy was still dead astern. The total time elapsed since the most recent salvo of depth charges had been less than five minutes. There was still a little breathing space. This would be the moment to relieve some of the tension. If the new helmsman behaved true to form, he might be the means. “Sodermalm, you don't look big enough to steer the ship in hand power. Get some others to help you, and see if you can ease the course right to zero-five-seven.”

“Ease right to zero-five-seven, aye aye. I can handle this better than those conning tower jockeys anytime. This is no sweat. Just tell me what you want and leave it to me, sir!” Sody, as Rich knew the crew called the irrepressible little Swede, was nothing if not a self-confident sailor. Smiles appeared on several faces. Rich also grinned inwardly, and then decided to let some of it show.

Now for the most difficult problem. Access to the sonar gear and Stafford's expertise was imperative. The tincan would be getting ready for another run soon. “Livingston, tell conn to open the hatch. I'm coming up.” Control had been wrested from Blunt with ridiculous ease. It was important for morale that it be absolutely clear there had never been a threat to Richardson's command of the submarine. He swung himself onto the rungs of the ladder. Quin would repeat the instruction
from Livingston loudly enough for all in the conning tower to hear. Blunt would realize he had been bested, would give in as gracefully as he could.

The hatch dogs moved a trifle, but then they returned to the engaged position. The hatch remained closed. Livingston gave the clue. “Quin says the commodore is standing on the hatch!” But the words were no sooner out than the dogs precipitantly turned free. The hatch sprang open. He leaped up the ladder rungs.

A scuffle was going on. Blunt, Williams, and Lasche were struggling between the periscopes. Quin staring aghast. Scott—it must have been he who had kicked open the hatch—the same. Cornelli, still braced at his useless steering wheel, rigidly keeping his eyes front. Only Stafford, padded earphones covering half his face, seemed oblivious. “Stop!” roared Richardson. “Stop it! All three of you!” The three were breathing with tremendous heaves. Rich, too, had hardly recovered from his run from the after engineroom, and was panting again from his swift ascent to the conning tower.

The wolfpack commander was the first to speak. He was sputtering with rage, the querulous note in his voice never more evident. His eyes were unnaturally wide, staring. His whole face was loose. Even his words were loose, poorly pronounced. His breath came in great, fetid wheezes. “Richardson, I took command of this ship when you left your station! Somebody has to take care of things around here! I'm charging these two officers with assault on a superior in the performance of his duty, and I want them transferred as soon as we reach port!”

“He wouldn't get off the hatch when you wanted to come up,” said Williams, “so Larry and I pulled him off. We knew you weren't hurt. He made that up. Maybe he was thinking of Keith—is he all right? What about the flooding aft?”

Ignoring the questions, Richardson spoke rapidly. “We've got to surface. Get the gun crews ready!” He turned to Blunt. “Commodore,” he began, spacing his words but speaking gently, “you're not yourself. Please go below. The pharmacist's mate will report to you. . . .”

“No! You can't make me! I've taken charge here!” Blunt's voice trembled.

He would have said more, but Stafford interrupted. There was excitement in his tone, combined with dread. “I think she's shifted to short scale and started a run! She's dead aft in the baffles! Our screws are making so much noise I can't tell for sure!”

Were
Eel
to turn to clear the sonar for better hearing, her partial broadside would return a far more definite echo than the
Mikura
could
get by pinging up her wake, as she was at the moment forced to do. For some time Rich had been considering another idea, born of what he had read of German submarine tactics. “Control,” he called down the hatch, “Al, open the forward group vents. Get ready to blow a big bubble through forward group tanks!”

“Control, aye!” A moment later Dugan leaned his head back again. “Forward group vents are open. We're ready to blow!”

“All stop,” ordered Richardson. Cornelli reached for his annunciator controls, but the order had been called down to the control room. Cornelli had forgotten he was disconnected. He dropped his hands, helplessly looked backward.

The follower pointers still functioned, however, and clicked over to “stop” just as Al Dugan called from below, “All stop, answered.”

“Blow forward group, Al. Full blow! Half a minute!” The noise of air blowing. A different sound in the water rushing past, because full of bubbles.
Eel
coasted through them as they rose from her open vents and broke up into millions of tiny, sonar-stopping granules of air. A long bubble streak would form on the surface as well, but in the rapidly growing darkness this might not immediately be noticed. When it was, the tincan skipper would very likely think he had delivered a lethal blow at last. Whatever else, for a time his sonar would never penetrate the double barrier of
Eel
's wake, thrown directly into his receiver, and the cloud of diffused air immediately following. He would have to proceed through the entire mess before his sonar conditions would be back to normal, and might well assume, temporarily at least, that the air bubble marked the rupture of
Eel
's pressure hull; that the now flooded submarine, dead at last, was lying on the bottom under it.

Rich was looking at his watch.
Eel
's speed had only begun to drop. He ordered emergency speed a few seconds before the half-minute expired, and the needle on the pitometer log indicator again began to rise. It was hardly possible the enemy tincan would recognize the change through the reverberations in the water and the blanket of air now astern. Very deliberately, Rich put on the spare set of sonar earphones. In the depleted condition of her battery,
Eel
could not run long at full battery discharge, but a long run was not in his mind. Depth charges were; and after a lengthy silence, during which the roaring of water rushing past and the vibration of whatever it was that had been damaged topside seemed to grow ever louder, he suddenly relaxed.

Stafford was also grinning, for the first time that day. Through the earphones, dim in the distance and masked by the tumultuous wash of
Eel
's thrashing screws, there could clearly be heard the thunder of
many depth charges. The tincan was depth charging the air bubble! It would be long minutes before the enemy skipper realized he had not driven
Eel
to earth at last.

This would be the opportunity. Richardson had given Blunt no attention for several minutes, was on the point of forgetting him when he realized he was still in the conning tower. The wolfpack commander was still breathing hard, still slack-jawed, his eyes still glaring under the bunched, bushy brows. Obviously he was still confused, still antagonistic. He would be terribly in the way. It was not possible to stop the sharpness in Richardson's voice. “Commodore, please! I asked you to go below! We're going to have to do a battle surface!”

“No! You can't make me!” The identical words as before. Unreal. Manic.

“Quin, pass the word for Yancy to come up here.” Richardson waited until the pharmacist's mate appeared on the ladder. “Commodore, unless you go below with Yancy by yourself, we'll have to have you carried down. I really mean it, sir!” Not until later did Richardson recall his next words, wrenched from the depths of his private grief. They were expressive of all that had happened between them, all Rich had tried to do for his onetime idol; symbolic, too, of the change in their relationship, and of the onslaught of time which casts one up and at the same moment must cast another down. “I've come to the end of my rope, Joe,” he said. It was the first time ever that he had used Blunt's given name.

There was something juvenile, something pitifully childish, in the stubborn refusal, the retreat into the accustomed corner under the bridge hatch. But there was neither time nor any more emotion to waste.

Quin was trying to get Richardson's attention. “Mr. Leone is on the phone. He says the engineroom is lined up to pump, and he's beginning to pressurize the compartment. He says he'll have to use a lot of air if we stay down.”

Once air pressure in the after engineroom became equal to the sea pressure at the depth, water would cease coming in. When air pressure exceeded sea pressure, water would begin flowing back through the same hole through which it had entered. This would be true, of course, only so long as the water level in the engineroom covered the hole; and anyone remaining in the compartment would be subjected to the same pressure, with consequent danger of the bends if prolonged. But there was no longer any need for that worry.

He picked up the handset. “Keith? . . . Go ahead. We'll be coming up in a very few minutes, so hold it down to ten pounds' pressure.”

It must be quite dark topside.
Eel
would slow down and come to
periscope depth immediately. This would greatly reduce the necessary air pressure in the after engineroom. The bubble in number seven tank would expand as the ship rose nearer to the surface, giving additional buoyancy, but of course additional buoyancy would be needed as she slowed down. Exactly how much was the problem. As the lifting effect of the stern planes became less pronounced, the whole business of balancing weights and buoyancy submerged would become more ticklish. The risk of emitting another bubble, if the buoyancy aft became too great, would have to be accepted.

Richardson paced around the periscope in the darkened conning tower, becoming readjusted to the reduced light. He could hear the repeated orders to “blow” and “secure the air”—and once or twice a quickly telephoned order to the after torpedo room to “crack the vent,” then shut it tightly again—as Dugan fought to maintain submerged trim.

There were other noises too. The bustle of breaking out ammunition, the preparation of the gun crews, the setting up of the ammunition supply parties. At one point, Richardson got on the telephone to all compartments and quietly announced his instructions to the gun crews. The gun captains and the pointers and trainers of the two five-inch guns were summoned to the conning tower for specific instructions. Their first move would be to check the bore-sight of their guns, for their telescopes might well have been damaged or knocked out of alignment. They could do this swiftly by sighting on the previously laid-out marks on deck forward and aft, using Buck Williams' improvised bore-sight telescope jammed into the open breech. Then they were free to swing on the target, but they were not to open fire until ordered.

The six men, goggled and garbed in heavy clothing, listened gravely. This was very near to the situation for which they had trained and planned two months ago, and for which periodically, whenever they had the opportunity, they had checked out the guns. Their only chance to fire them since leaving Pearl had come briefly, some twelve hours previously, at the last troopship. Combined with awareness of the emergency, it was also clear there was a certain relish at the prospect of vengeance against their tormentor. The gun captains would wear telephones and would receive range settings from Buck Williams, who would be manning another set in the conning tower. Buck, in turn, would receive ranges from the radar and firing bearings from the bridge TBTs.

Final instructions were for Keith alone. “If anything happens to me on the bridge,” Richardson said, “do not dive under any circumstances. We'll have to hope that water hasn't gotten into number three and
four generators—Johnny Cargill and Frank will be checking on that. The first thing to do is to damage this tincan so that he won't be able to follow, or anyway, keep up with us.” It was characteristic of Keith that he should merely nod.

Time for all the preparations could not have taken ten minutes. The crew was working in desperate haste, well aware of the danger that the destroyer might come upon them before they were ready. In the dim visibility through the periscope, the tincan could barely be seen in the darkness.
Eel
's high-speed run had gained considerable distance. Now the enemy was slowly and methodically moving up her wake. He had probably finally realized his mistake with the air bubble, but was still beset by confused echoes from his own recent depth charges and from the turbulent water left behind by the submarine's propellers. Nevertheless, the sonar conditions would clear, and at the end of the disturbed water he must find the submarine.

The conning tower was crowded with men, nearly all wearing red goggles. All wore heavy clothing, for it would be cold topside in contrast to the atmosphere inside the submarine, which was hot, smelly, and humid. The profuse perspiration pouring down Richardson's skin inside his own heavy jacket bothered him not at all, but the perspiration around his eyes as he looked through the periscope was more annoying than the drip landing on his forehead. Ceaselessly he wiped his face on a towel, frequently was forced to use a piece of lens paper on the glass objective lens of the periscope as it clouded up with the moisture exuding from his face.