Ghosts of Bungo Suido (18 page)

Three minutes later Russ clunked up onto the bridge, and Gar went below, red goggles back on. There he had the DRT picture, the chart, radar, and the mine-hunting sonar scope right in front of him. He announced that he had the conn and slowed further to 8 knots. The notch was directly ahead at less than a mile. Then they heard distant gunfire coming down the hatch. Not their guns—shore batteries. Before Gar could react, the exec called down from the bridge.

“Shore batteries, port and starboard,” he shouted. “But it sounds like they’re shooting over us, way over us.”

“Don’t shoot back,” Gar ordered. “I’ll tell you when.”

“Captain, those destroyers are changing course. Heading east now. There’s some trash on the scope around them.”

Then it dawned on him. The shore batteries were shooting at their own destroyers. Gar heard more thumping booms, a steady cannon fire in the night, but there were no shell bursts rising anywhere near the Dragon.

“I think they’re shooting at their own ships,” Gar said to the plotting team. “Focus now on the nav problem. We go through, we turn hard left just past the lower channel buoy, then hard right to split the next two buoys. Then southwest for deeper water.”

The navigator pointed to a fish weir just past that first buoy. “We may hit that, sir,” he said.

Gar nodded. “If we do, we do,” he said. “Better that than actual pilings. Range to the notch?”

“Eight hundred yards,” he said. “Should be a reflector buoy coming up on our starboard hand.”

Gar passed that to the exec and asked if he saw anything. Negative. Just more snow. A long minute passed. The shore batteries were still blasting away up into the Kure harbor approaches. The two radar contacts were maneuvering in all directions.

“I can hear the beach to starboard,” the exec called down. The diesels were echoing off the steeply terraced sides of the island.

“Can you see the bridge beacon?” Gar called up.

“Negative,” he said. “Just more—wait! Wait! Affirmative. We need to come left two degrees to head right for it.”

“Finally,” Gar said. “Navigator, make it so, and you take the conn.”

The chart showed that the bridge across the strait had a lighted reference beacon right in the middle of the structure to help ships and boats come through. A minute later they sailed under the bridge, which is when the Japs heard them.

A flare of white light lit up the hatch above as shore searchlights snapped on from just below the bridge structure.

“Shoot ’em out, XO,” Gar shouted. “Use the twenties.”

Instantly the 20 mm guns began to bark topside, and empty shell casings clanged down on the overhead of the conning tower.

“Unlighted buoy abeam on the port hand,” the exec yelled over the racket of the 20s.

“Coming left to one three zero,” the navigator called out.

Their second 20 mm got into it now, and the noise down in the conning tower became deafening. Suddenly the white glare from above went out and the shore guns stopped firing.

“Come right with full rudder to two zero zero!” the navigator shouted.

Gar felt the boat heel as they made the sharp turn, and then there was a scraping and rumbling sound along the port side as they wiped out the thin pilings of the fish weir. Gar held his breath, wondering if they should have stopped the port screw, and then came the deeper rumble of that propeller entangling itself in something. Gar wanted to stop it, but they needed that prop to push them through the tight starboard turn. The rumbling became heavier, and then subsided as the engineers took it into their own hands to shut it down and lock the shaft.

“Steady two zero five,” the navigator called. “Captain, what speed now?”

Not the 20 knots we needed, he thought. “Go to full power on the starboard screw,” he said. “Head for Moroshima. Control, get me damage reports.”

Gar climbed back up to the bridge, where the gun crews were kicking 20 mm brass over the side. The snow was still falling as the boat accelerated out into the lower reaches of Hiroshima Bay.

“Anybody hurt?” he asked.

“Cookie burned his hand on the port twenty barrel,” the exec said, “but the Japs never fired a round at us. I think they were all getting flat once the twenties started in. What’d we hit?”

“That damned fish trap, I think,” Gar said. “We’ll have to stop and send a diver over, but first we need to get to deeper water.” He looked at his watch. They had three, maybe four hours left until daylight, and there would most definitely be a search on by then. On one screw they could make about 15 knots, and it was only 12 miles down to the Moroshima Strait, where the water was 300 feet deep. Once through Moroshima they’d be in the deep part of the Seto, where they could go to ground and plan the next steps.

“We need to stay on the surface, then,” the exec said.

“Yup. I don’t expect aircraft out in this weather, but they definitely know which way we’re headed. What they don’t know is which strait we’ll take to get back out to deep water.”

“Moroshima’s the closest,” Russ said. “If I had any patrol boats out, that’s where I’d tell them to converge.”

“Me, too,” Gar said. “Keep the radar off until we get right to the straits. Secure all the guns, and get these people below. We run into bad guys, we’re going downstairs in a hurry.”

“You think Moroshima’s mined?”

Gar hadn’t actually considered that. He was more tired than he realized. “The only way we’ll
know
is to go through submerged, with Hell’s Bells on,” he said, thinking out loud. “You’re right. That’s what we should do. Okay. Stay up here while I go below to see what the snipes think.”

Gar went down the ladder, checked the nav plot, and told Cob to let people stand easy on station, get some chow and coffee while they transited. He told the sonar team they’d be submerging at the entrance to Moroshima and possibly going through another minefield. Everyone in the conning tower looked positively delighted at that prospect. He went in search of coffee. The cooks came through—there was hot soup, sandwiches, and coffee in all the right places. Gar had one of the mess cooks take chow and coffee up to the bridge. Then he went back to Maneuvering.

The chief engineer, Billy Bangor, must have heard he was coming because he was there before Gar arrived.

“Whaddaya think?” Gar asked him.

“We tried to keep it on the line, but the vibration was just too bad,” Billy said. “I think we need to stop, send a guy over the side with a battle lantern and take a look.”

“This is a tough place to do that, Billy.”

“Yes, sir, I know. But if that prop is as badly damaged as I think it is, we gotta get rid of it. It’ll be too noisy otherwise, even if we’re just dragging it.”

“Blow it off?”

“Yes, sir. Primacord.”

“Who’s gonna set that?”

“That would be me, Cap’n,” he said with a grin. “I’m a certified diver, and I’ve been to school on Primacord.”

“You an
experienced
diver?”

“No, sir, not at all,” he said brightly. “But I’ve got this really super certificate from the dive school. And a secret Primacord decoder ring.”

It was Gar’s turn to grin. “Ask Cob if we have anybody in the crew who’s maybe done this before.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“We’re going to submerge just before going through the next strait. That way we’ll be able to see mines if there happen to be any. I’ll be able to give you maybe thirty minutes to look, decide, and then blow the damned thing off. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Piece’a cake.”

Cob was obviously infectious. The more unreasonable the request, the more likely everybody would be mentioning cake.

The coffee wasn’t doing anything but pressurizing Gar’s bladder. He went forward, talking to people, telling them what they’d done and where they were bound next. He checked in with Radio, and they said they’d gotten the second message out. Finally he hit the head, and then his rack. They were transiting across the Inland Sea of Japan. By now the entire Jap navy was probably looking for them. In a snowstorm, admittedly, but in an area where they just about had to be after transiting that notch. They’d sunk two destroyers and two ammo barges, torn up the Kure dockyard, maybe hurt their new carrier, maybe not, and then got clean away while the shore batteries fired at their own approaching ships. The Dragon was down to one screw and 15 knots tops, on the surface. Underwater, maybe 5, and, more importantly, no ability to duplicate that twisting maneuver which had extracted them from their little spider box in the Bungo Suido minefield.

He looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes to get to Moroshima. He picked up the sound-powered phone.

“Conn.”

“This is the captain. When we get five miles out from Moroshima, take a radar sweep. If we’re clean, stop the boat and let the engineers take a look at the port prop. Show no lights. When the snipes are done with what they have to do, we’ll submerge for the passage through Moroshima. Tell the XO.”

“Got it, Cap’n.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m gonna take a nap.”

That word would get around the boat in about two minutes. He lay back on his bunk. “Piece’a cake,” he mumbled before passing right out.

FOURTEEN

ComSubPac Headquarters, Pearl Harbor

Admiral Lockwood was listening to the morning briefing when a messenger came in from Communications and handed a piece of paper to Captain Forrester. He scanned it and passed it to Lockwood. The briefer, seeing there was something going on, stopped talking while Lockwood read the message and then nodded his head.

“Gar Hammond made it in,” he said and then looked up, realizing no one knew what he was talking about.

“The
Dragonfish
. They got through Bungo Suido and made it into the Inland Sea
and
they’ve attacked the Kure naval arsenal. How ‘bout that shit, eh?”

There was a murmur of approval as well as surprise among the gathering of staff officers, many of whom had had no knowledge that one of their boats was even going to try to get through Bungo Suido, much less attack a Jap naval base. Then another messenger came in with a second piece of paper. Lockwood read it and then shook his head.

“Amazing,” he said. “They got to Kure but the damned carrier was in dry dock, so Hammond attacked the dry dock! And sank two moored destroyers plus a couple of ammo barges.”

“Hammond and his destroyer obsession,” muttered Forrester. “Did they damage the carrier?”

Lockwood shrugged. “Who the hell knows, but if he sent torpedoes against the caisson wall and it collapsed, they certainly did some damage. Can you imagine an aircraft carrier coming off the blocks and then colliding with the stone sides of the dock? The Japs must be out of their minds about now.”

“Now comes the really hard part,” Forrester said. “The getaway.”

“God, yes. If there ever was a hornets’ nest stirred up, Brother Hammond has taken the cake. Get word to PacFleet, and see if they can get some air force recce assets over that base.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Forrester said as Lockwood motioned to the briefer to continue with the rest of the morning brief.

He was headed upstairs to make the call to Makalapa when the assistant operations officer intercepted him with a file folder.

“This is the information you requested on the
Hoshen Maru
sinking,” he said. “Looks like it was the
Gar
that did the deed.”

“The
Gar
?” Forrester repeated. “It would have to be the
Gar,
wouldn’t it.”

“Sir?”

“Never mind.”

“Do you want me to get a copy up to PacFleet JAG?”

“No,” Forrester said. “Let me take care of that.”

He went to his office, quickly scanned the folder, and then asked his yeoman to put in a call to PacFleet JAG and ask Lieutenant Commander DeVeers to come see him.

*   *   *

Sharon arrived at SubPac headquarters an hour later. She was wearing her blues this time, in deference more to the month of the year than any colder temperatures. Forrester gave her the folder and then asked her to read through it to see if that was what they needed. Sharon did so while Forrester looked out the tall windows at the subs moored down at the finger piers.

“Yes, Captain, I think this will do,” she said.

“Have the Japs starting beating the drums about this incident?”

“Not to my knowledge, Captain,” Sharon said. “But State doesn’t necessarily share what they know with us.”

“Are you familiar with the operating areas discussed in the report?” he asked.

“No, sir, not really. I can figure out what ‘empire’ means, but—”

“Perhaps I can help you,” he said. “Let me give you a quick tour of the operations briefing room. We have a large graphical chart for the areas.”

Sharon wasn’t quite sure what that had to do with the price of rice, but she agreed. Forrester made a call and then took her downstairs to the ops briefing room. When they came in she saw that the three walls were covered in huge maps, some of which had curtains drawn across them. Forrester took her to the largest map, which displayed the entire Pacific theater of operations. She was aware of the watch-standers all staring at her as if they’d never seen a woman in uniform. Captain Forrester was standing quite close as he explained the various area dispositions, almost like a proud teenager with the prettiest girl at the prom.

She sighed mentally. Another amorous captain, complete with wedding ring and family pictures on the desk. Next would be an invitation to lunch in the flag mess for an in-depth discussion of submarine warfare. Then an invite to a reception somewhere, followed by some lush tropical drinking and finally a hands-on experience on the dance floor. She thought back to her brief time with Gar Hammond and realized she missed him, lone wolf BS and all. Forrester was wrapping up his description.

“So you see, Miss DeVeers, this is a really big operation.”

“Wow,” she said, playing her part. “I had no idea. Where’s Gar Hammond in all of this?”

Forrester cleared his throat and then told her that that was, of course, highly restricted information. Some of the enlisted plotters appeared to be suppressing grins when she asked about Hammond by his first name. Her question seemed to be the signal to terminate the grand tour.