Dust on the Sea (63 page)

This too had been rehearsed. Instantaneously the monotonous, sharp
WHACK, WHACK, WHACK
of the forties began, their crews racing about, jerking the quadruple clips from their racks, slamming them into their loading slides. The forties were fitted with tracers and had almost a flat trajectory. He could see them, arching only slightly, reaching toward the enemy ship. Some were exploding on contact. The others, armor-piercing, were going into the dark hull. An unearthly glow suffused the escort's angular silhouette as they struck, or as the tracers illuminated it briefly on passing, leaving its dark bulk even blacker on the black sea. There was another flash of flame on her foredeck, only the fourth or fifth. She was not making nearly so good practice (as
the old gunnery saying went) as
Eel
. A critical factor, of course, was that the submarine had more than double the heavy armament. Furthermore, the forties had aircraft proximity fuses. Some of their bursts were not on impact but in the air, over the deck. They must be inflicting terrible casualties on exposed personnel. So far, the enemy tincan had not opened up with any automatic weapons—undoubtedly because, coming end-on as she was, her own bridge and superstructure masked at least some of them. But now there came a series of red flashes from the top of her bridge structure. Someone had got a machine gun going up there. It was small, however, probably no larger than fifty-caliber, hardly able to reach effectively across the intervening half-mile or more to the submarine.

So far
Eel
had received no hits, and at the same time Richardson was certain that his five-inchers must have struck the enemy several times. Clearly, the forty-millimeters were hitting repeatedly. Several times he had heard a whistling, tearing sound, knew it to be the passage of a large-caliber shell overhead. The closest must have passed a good ten feet above the bridge. The enemy was shooting over. That was a good sign.
Eel
's own five-inchers must have pumped out ten shots each by now. Surely they had already dealt significant damage.

“Range one thousand yards!” shouted Quin in his ear, screaming to be heard above the monotonous regular pounding of the forties.

“All right, men!” yelled Richardson, pounding the shoulders of the group huddled with the fifty-calibers alongside him on the bridge. His gesture took in the twenty-millimeter crew. “Commence fire! All weapons!”

It was like a jet of fire spurting from
Eel
's bridge. Three thin arcs of fifty-caliber tracer ammunition, arching fairly high, dropped upon the enemy ship, as did a pair of twin tracers arching slightly less high from the twenty-millimeter mount immediately aft. Up forward, from the forward torpedo room trunk, another single arc of fifty-caliber tracers streamed out toward the enemy.

The five-inchers were methodically continuing their destructive pounding. Their pace was slower now, having used up the ready ammunition laid out in advance. The pointers by consequence were aiming each shot with careful deliberation.

“Enemy speed has slowed to eight knots,” shouted Quin. They had hurt her. If the damage was to her main propulsion plant, while
Eel
's was still in full commission—assuming the men in the after engineroom had been able to get the leak under control—
Eel
could probably outrun her. If the damage were to her hull, so that the tincan's skipper had been forced to reduce speed because she was taking water, so much the
better. But, of course, slowing might have been for some other reason, not related to damage.

Richardson had only to give the order for the full power of
Eel
's two batteries, quickly followed by the hastily started diesels, to begin escape and evasion. He could head the ship southwest. Perhaps regain contact with the last fleeing transport if
Whitefish
had not sunk her. Possibly, somehow, he might one more time find the means to bring
Whitefish
into contact for one last attack with her remaining torpedoes. Perhaps, now that the troopship was bereft of escorts,
Eel
might be able to sink her by gunfire in a night action. If his brain was still able to function to plan the search. If he could find her, after all these hours. Provided there was still no air cover, or that the tincan did not get to her first.

But running would only hand the initiative over to the enemy. Once the tincan skipper was released from the pressure of
Eel
's fire, he could more easily cope with whatever damage he had sustained, reorganize his gun crews, and resume the pursuit. Logically, he would put his major effort into getting his biggest weapon, the four-inch gun on his forecastle, back in commission. On the other hand,
Eel
's five-inch guns would have to be silenced. It would be too risky to keep gun crews on the submarine's low, wave-swept deck at high speed, and even more hazardous to keep hatches open and ammunition trains functioning. The tincan would have unopposed target practice with his four-incher as long as he could keep the sub in range. A single chance hit could easily turn the tables a second time.

Richardson would always say he had not yet made up his mind which course to follow, when he saw the silhouette of the enemy ship broaden. There was a moment of exultation as he watched the tincan swing away, and then he realized what the enemy skipper was doing. He was unmasking his guns aft, presenting his broadside. Coming in bows-on had prevented effective use of his own gun battery. Perhaps he had also needed a little time to get it organized.
Eel
, after all, had had ten minutes of precious preparation time before she surfaced, and since that moment less than three minutes had yet elapsed.

But the enemy ship must have been badly hurt. The rate of fire of her four-inch gun on the forecastle had reduced greatly. It had not fired at all for nearly a minute. At 500 yards, announced by radar at about the time Richardson saw the enemy ship come around broadside-to,
Eel
's automatic weapons were hitting all over her, searching out every unprotected space topside, no doubt penetrating the thin metal of her hull to seek out some unfortunates below.

There was another tearing sound overhead, higher-pitched, lighter-weight than before—and then another—and another. Some kind of
heavy automatic weapon had opened up. Steady, repetitive blossoms of orange were showing amid the top hamper on deck abaft the enemy's squat stack. In seconds they would be bringing those screaming shells down on
Eel
's bridge. The hammering of
Eel
's own weapons made impossible any but the most basic of communications. The three bridge-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns, clattering away alongside Richardson, had been directed to concentrate their fire on the enemy's bridge. Best not to disturb them. This was a job for the twin twenties on their stand aft of the periscope shears, and perhaps the after forty. Abruptly, Richardson left his post alongside the port TBT, dashed around behind the periscope supports to the starboard side of the bridge, arrived amid the gun crew of the twenty. They were changing ammunition canisters. The gunner was a man named Wyatt, picked for his imperturbability and his rock-steadiness in pointing the gun. Richardson grabbed him by the shoulders, began to shout into his ear, suddenly felt the gunner's body jerk. There was the sickening sound of a heavy, blunt object tearing through flesh, shattering bone, exploding. Wyatt's head dropped. There was no struggle, no reflex action. The man had been there one moment, was gone the next. There was the ricochet of something striking the periscope shears, the scream of a bullet glancing off and spinning sidewise, misshapen, through the air. Richardson was conscious of several resounding smashes against the heavy side plating of
Eel
's bridge.

There was no protection around the twenty-millimeter, nor the two forties. Three or four other men were down—he could not tell for sure in the darkness and the hurry. Two twenty-millimeter ammunition canisters had been replaced on the two guns. Hastily he let Wyatt slump to the deck, grabbed the charging-handles of the guns, pulled them toward him. He could feel the first shell in each gun slide home. He pressed his shoulders into the shoulder rests, grabbed for the combined triggers. Despite the heavy mount, the shock of the twenty-millimeter recoil slammed against him, driving its hard vibrations into the upper part of his body.

He was part of the fierce rhythm of the moment. The dance of death. By raising and lowering his entire trunk, swiveling from side to side, he could aim the tracer bullets. He could see them landing in the water. Too close. He stooped down a little. That elevated the trajectory. The water splashes—the Valkyries arriving—marched up to the hull of the enemy ship. The curved red trail of the tracers now terminated on the dark low-lying hull. There were no more splashes. He was hitting the side of the ship. Elevate just a touch more. On to Gehenna! Reap the vengeance of battle!

He dropped the tracers directly into the center of the orange flashes. Twitch slightly to right and left, raise up a trifle—yes, that brought some splashes into the water—bend at the waist a little more, march them up into the area where the enemy gun is shooting from. Back and forth, back and forth. Kill them! Kill them! Kill them! A mere movement of his shoulders marched the beserk arc of screaming bullets half the length of the after part of the tincan. Berserk. The demoniacal ejaculation! Suddenly he realized that he was no longer watching a tracer arc. He had fired off both canisters of ammunition. The guns were empty. With a savage motion he released the triggers, stepped back from the shoulder rests. “Reload!” he shrieked.

“We're getting them from the dinette!” someone shouted. “The ammunition locker on deck is empty!”

That would take too long. They were probably frantically reloading empty cans in the dinette. Whatever gun had opened up on the main deck aft of the tincan, it had been silenced, but the fifty-caliber on the top of her bridge structure was still spitting. Through his binoculars he could see a group of men struggling with the four-inch gun on the forecastle. He had not noticed it firing recently, and in fact he could see—now that there was no gun firing in his immediate vicinity to blind him with its flashes—that the four-inch gun was not even trained in
Eel
's direction. It must be out of commission. As he watched it, however, the length of its barrel shortened. A new crew was bringing it back into action.
Eel
's own two five-inch guns were still firing away, considerably slower than their initial flurry of shots, but with telling effect. Despite the lack of visibility, there were some changes evident in the dark hull now only 500 yards away. It seemed lower in the water. The deckhouse was askew, not square; its originally angular shape was now marred. Probably splinters had played havoc in that general area.

But the tincan was still capable of doing damage. That four-inch gun needed only a single lucky hit. So far, he was morally sure it had not struck home.
Eel
's after forty-millimeter gun was still spewing forth its flat trajectory tracers, slower now, in groups of four as the ammunition train raced to hand up more ammunition from the open hatch on deck immediately aft of the bridge. Two steps aft to the forty. He created an oasis of silence around him by putting his hand across the magazine loading slot. “The gun!” he shouted hoarsely. “The gun on the forecastle!” He jerked the strap of his binoculars from around his neck, handed the glasses to the gun-pointer. The man nodded nervously. In the momentary lull, six four-round clips of forty-millimeter ammunition had arrived, were being held by the anxious gun crew. “Resume fire!” he shouted.

There was a flash—orange and red—from the enemy's four-inch gun.
Eel
's own forty-millimeter tracers were striking just at its base. Another flash, and then a sharp concussion forward of
Eel
's bridge. A third—another concussion. The enemy had scored at least two hits, maybe three. But then the fiery stream of tracers walked up the side of the enemy forecastle, impacted directly upon the gun and the crowded men around it. In the explosion as the bullets hit, Richardson had the impression of crumpled, shattered bodies, and in their midst the outline of the gun itself, somehow changed, not normal. Some part of it was bent, perhaps torn away. A gesture to the forty-millimeter pointer, and four screaming tracers searched out the top of the enemy bridge, putting an end to that valiant effort.

The tincan's hull was becoming shorter again. It was turning, all silent, dark and massive, turning as a wounded animal at bay might turn, blinded, dying, yet still dangerous, still seeking vengeance, still heroically fighting. Richardson was back at the port TBT. “Quin!” he shouted. No answer. Quin was not there. The three fifty-caliber machine guns were still being served, but on the starboard side of the bridge there were two prone bodies. He felt around the hatch for the telephone cord, followed it to the crumpled, still form wearing the headset. No time to tell if Quin was dead or still living. Hastily Richardson unbuckled the telephone, slammed the earphones over his head, buckled the mouthpiece around his neck. He pressed the microphone button. “Conn, do you hear me?”

In the earphones, which felt warm and slippery, he heard Keith's answering voice. “Conn, aye aye.”

“He's turning toward us, Keith. He's trying to ram!”

“Range four-five-oh yards. We're tracking him on radar. What's the angle on the bow?”

“Starboard ten—now it's zero. He's coming in!”

Richardson was holding the telephone speaker button down with his left hand, steadying the TBT binoculars with his right, as he watched the enemy bow swing, ominous and deadly, toward him. Perhaps it would not be necessary for the enemy ship to ram. The four-inch hits forward might already have done their business. An explosive, armor-piercing shell could shatter a huge hole through which the sea would pour in an impossible torrent. He half expected to feel
Eel
's deck incline under his feet, her hull grow logy and slowly sink beneath him. But it had only been a few seconds since the double impact, although there might also have been one or two other hits of which he was not aware. The pressure hull, however, was well below the main deck. Much of it—nearly all of it—was below the waterline. In all likelihood
it would be protected by the sea. If a shell did strike home, however, water would instantly follow.