Pacific Standoff, page 15
The four skippers nodded.
“Good. The amount of Russian shipping our surveillance has picked up suggests that the Japs have left a broad fairway through the strait unmined—or rather, unmined on the surface. We can assume that there are plenty of moored antisubmarine mines. Next point: the Japs want in the worst way to keep the Ruskies out of the war. They are not going to be eager to fire on a surface vessel that fails to give the proper recognition signal if there’s a chance that it’s Russian. Our conclusion is that a night surface transit of the strait has an excellent chance of success.”
Wild Bill muttered something under his breath. “What’s that?” Garfield demanded.
“What I said, sir, is that it sounds like sticking your cock in a bottle. The problem isn’t getting it in, it’s getting it back out again.”
“We haven’t overlooked that,” Miller said when the laughing died down. “The way we’ve planned the operation, Kraken, Manta, and Hammerhead will transit the Strait on the night of July fourth—we hope without fireworks—and take up positions in the north, center, and south of the Sea of Japan. Hammerhead and Manta will lie doggo until Kraken has had time to reach its sector. You will then have ninety-six hours to attack any shipping you find. At the end of that period run like hell for La Perouse. Eel will be mounting a diversionary attack on Matsuwa To in the Kuriles. If our luck holds, that will draw some of the patrol boats northward, away from the strait. You’ll get a more complete briefing later, but do you have any questions now?”
“What about tactical command?” said Jack.
Dusty grinned. “Gee, did I forget to mention that? I’ll be flying my flag in Eel. However, and I want to stress this point, this is not a wolfpack operation. I do not intend to exercise tactical control unless there’s a major snafu of some kind. Once you’re through the strait and the clock starts, you’re on your own. Anything else?” Silence.
Admiral Garfield stood up. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said as they scrambled to their feet. “I hope you will all join me for lunch at 1200.”
Chapter 14
Jack leaned back from the periscope and rubbed at his eyes. The crescent moon had already set, and a light haze was dimming the starlight. A perfect night for the sort of hugger-mugger on their schedule, but hellish for making periscope sightings. He had heard that night vision was one of the first things to slip once you passed twenty-five. Not that he had had any trouble seeing those two Russian freighters; they had been lit up like Christmas trees from stem to stern, with spotlights trained on the stack with its hammer-and-sickle emblem. Both of them had stayed about a mile north of the center of the strait, slightly closer to the Russian coast, and Jack intended to do the same. He had also seen more than a dozen darkened fishing boats chugging here and there, which gave him an idea. With her decks awash, Manta’s outline in this darkness would not be too unlike that of one of those sampans. Instead of making a dash through the Strait, the submarine was going to chug through at one-third speed. It might be a little harder on the nerves, but it might also give them an extra edge.
He reached over and touched Delancey on the shoulder. The sonarman turned and lifted one earphone. “Anything?” Jack asked.
“Nothing, sir, unless you count a lot of fish yakking it up.” He turned back to the console and Jack checked his watch again. Manta had drawn the northern sector, which meant she was the last of the three to run the strait. Kraken had set off over three hours ago, and Hammerhead, an hour and a half later. If either of them had run into trouble, Delancey should have heard something. Apparently the Japs had not yet noticed anything unusual. If only they stayed asleep for another few hours!
It was time. “Prepare to surface,” Jack said quietly. “Rig boat for collision.” As the lookouts gathered in the conning tower, he motioned them to him. “Okay, men, listen up. We’re going right into the heart of Japland tonight. Keep your eyes peeled, but if you see anything, pass the word quietly. We’re pretending to be an innocent Jap fishing boat, and somebody shouting ‘Ship Ahoy!’ at the top of his lungs won’t help. If we have to dive, clear the bridge fast, because we won’t have time to stop and count noses. White, crack the hatch. Lookouts to the bridge!”
Twenty minutes later, just as Jack was starting to hope for an uneventful passage, he was startled by a loud pop! from the bridge loudspeaker. Knowing how well sound travels over water, he quickly cranked the volume down and bent over to put his head close to the speaker. “Bridge,” he heard. He recognized Deegan’s distorted voice and pushed the talk button. “Bridge, aye, aye.”
“Radar contact, skipper, on the port quarter. It’s bigger and faster than a sampan. Bearing 2-0-5, range ten thousand yards.”
“Acknowledged,” Jack snapped. “Keep those bearings coming.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He raised his binoculars and searched the horizon aft and to the left. There seemed to be a patch of deeper black in the darkness, but he could not really be sure. He tapped the port lookout on the leg. “See if you can spot anything at 2-0-5 relative,” he whispered. White was not training his glasses in the same direction. The lookout swept through thirty degrees and started back, then stopped.
“I’ve got him, sir,” he said in an excited undertone. “Looks like a patrol boat.”
“Angle on the bow?”
“Can’t tell, Skipper. It looks like he’s on a parallel course, but it’s too dark to be sure.”
The bridge speaker crackled again. “Relative bearing now 2-2-0, range ten thousand.” That confirmed the lookout’s impression. The Jap boat was passing through the strait on the same course as Manta, but at a greater speed. It might not even be on patrol, or if it was, there was no reason yet to think that the Jap lookouts had sighted the low silhouette of the American sub, much less identified it for what it was. “Rearing 2-5-5, range nine thousand.”
“Acknowledged. Helm, steady as she goes.” Even as Jack spoke, one of his hopes was dashed. A light blinked rhythmically off the port beam.
“She’s signaling us, sir!”
“I see it.” He leaned over the speaker and said urgently, “Range?”
“Holding at nine thousand, skipper.”
“If it starts to narrow, let me know at once.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
So far the patrol boat was not interested enough to come over and investigate them, but that could change at any moment. The signal light was blinking again, and he imagined that he sensed irritation in its pattern of dots and dashes. Should they reply with some random signal, or was it better to seem oblivious? Surely uneducated fishermen often forgot the recognition code, or went to sleep at the helm, or put out to sea without a working blinker light. The Manta was only five miles from Russian soil, too. There must be Russian as well as Jap boats in the area, and some of them might be in the habit of ignoring the patrols. Would the Nips be thorough enough to check every time it happened?
The patrol boat blinked its challenge once more. The Manta continued steadily westward at a plodding five knots. This was the decisive moment. If the Jap skipper swerved to starboard to investigate their silence, he could be alongside in ten minutes. Before that happened, Jack would have to take the boat down and try to evade in waters that were both shallow and mined. He was confident that he could escape an attack, but if he had to submerge, their greatest weapon, surprise, would be lost before the battle started. The enemy would move swiftly to block their escape route through the strait, leaving the three boats bottled up in the Sea of Japan until they were found and sunk, or until their fuel and food ran out. Jack made a private resolve that he would never surrender the boat to the Japs. He had heard stories about the way they treated prisoners of war. In the last extremity he would make a run for Vladivostok or another Russian port. He and his men might have to spend the rest of the war interned, but that could not conceivably be as bad as falling into the hands of the Japs.
“Bridge. Bearing now 2-9-5, range ninety-two hundred.”
Jack wiped his damp palms on his sleeves before acknowledging the new radar information. The patrol boat had not changed course. Their ruse had worked this time, and they were already halfway through the strait. Apparently Admiral Garfield’s staff had figured the odds well.
As dawn approached, Jack ordered the lookouts below and pressed the diving alarm. Ah-oo-gah! Ah-oo-gah! The boat, already awash, took on an alarming down-angle, and spray was coming over the front of the bridge as Jack jumped down the ladder and slammed the hatch closed. Only now, when he could relax, did he realize how tense he had been. His shoulders and neck were knotted up, and the sleeves of his khaki shirt were soiled where he had continually wiped his sweating palms. But they had made it, and now they could take it easy for the day and a half Kraken needed to cover the three hundred fifty miles to her station. H-hour was set for 0800 on the sixth.
Even at a slow, battery-conserving speed, Manta was in place by midafternoon, with nothing to do but wait. A few minutes before 2000 Lou, who had drawn the first watch, ambled into the control room, coffee cup in hand, and joined Woody near the helm. “Ready to turn over the watch?” he asked.
“Sure,” the youngest officer replied, with assumed nonchalance. “What’s for dinner?” On the last patrol he had made the odd discovery that fear made him hungry. He had not yet learned to accept his fear or realized that most of his shipmates were just as scared as he, but he took his increased appetite easily in stride.
“Baked seagull with bread stuffing, pie for dessert. What’s the poop?”
Woody unconsciously drew himself up to attention. “The boat is proceeding at one-third speed on course 2-7-0, maintaining two hundred feet depth. At 2000 we will come about to course 3-6-0 for one half hour, followed by half-hour legs at 0-9-0, 1-8-0, and 2-7-0. At 2200, come to periscope depth, search the area for enemy vessels, and if the area is clear, surface and commence charging batteries. The captain is to be called before surfacing.” He dropped the formal monotone and grinned. “Did I leave anything out?”
“You forgot ‘Carry out all instructions in the front of this book,’ but we’ll overlook it this time. Very well, I have the conn. Leave some pie for the rest of us.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
* * * *
Lou hooked his left arm over the handle of the periscope and used his right hand to guide the scope in a careful circuit of the horizon. The sea glittered faintly in the moonlight, and no suspicious form intruded on its expanse. “Make your depth forty-five feet,” he said over his shoulder. The extra elevation of the periscope head allowed him to search a much wider area; still no sign of Japs. “Stacey, find the captain and inform him that we are preparing to surface.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” As the messenger scurried below, Lou clicked the handles up and watched the gleaming periscope disappear into its well.
“Prepare to surface. Lookouts to the conning tower.” He waited until he saw Jack on the ladder, then said, “Surface.”
Ah-oo-gah! Ah-oo-gah! Ah-oo-gah! As the klaxon blasted through the submarine, Bolton, the quartermaster of the watch, climbed to just below the hatch, ready to fling it open the moment the bridge was above the surface. Lou kept his eye on the depth gauge as the needle crept downward. “Open the hatch! Lookouts to the bridge!”
He followed them up and was raising his binoculars to scan the area forward when both lookouts started shouting.
“Jesu Maria, look at that fucking wave!”
“Big wave aft! Big wave aft!”
Lou dashed to the starboard side of the bridge and looked back. At first he could not make sense of what he was seeing. The horizon was too close, too high, too slanted. Then his visual field reorganized and he saw an impossibly huge wave rolling toward the stern of the submarine at impossible speed. In his mind he heard the voice of a lecturer his second year at the Academy: “The tsunami is better known as a tidal wave, although in fact it has nothing to do with tidal forces, being the product of seaquakes or underwater volcanic explosions. It is most frequently encountered in the vicinity of the so-called Ring of Fire, the chain of volcanoes that runs along the western coast of the Americas, across the Bering Strait, and down through the Japanese archipelago. Some observers have reported tsunamis that were well over a hundred feet high. The accuracy of these reports, however, can be questioned. If any of you gentlemen have the misfortune to encounter a tsunami, you will no doubt understand the difficulties in forming a reliable estimate of its height.”
The stern was starting to lift, and for a fraction of a moment Lou allowed himself to hope that Manta could ride it out, but the submarine, her ballast tanks still partly filled, did not have enough buoyancy. As the fantail disappeared into the slope of the wave, he broke his fascinated paralysis and screamed, “Shut the main induction and the hatch! Hang on!”
The submerged stern continued to rise faster than the bow, until the boat was tilted at a thirty-degree angle. Lou lost his footing and clung desperately to the railing, watching the wall of black water rush inexorably toward the conning tower. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, cradling his head between his arms. The next instant it was as if he had been flung into a wall. His feet lost the deck and his body was tossed around like a balloon in a high wind. His lungs seemed to expand, pressing against his ribs and his throat. In a moment he was going to have to release the breath and gulp for another, but there was no air. The roaring in his ears grew suddenly louder.
Jack was in the after part of the conning tower, looking over Deegan’s shoulder at the radar, when he heard the shouts from the bridge. He whirled around, but before he could even make out what they were saying, the deck canted under him and he rolled helplessly toward the bow, crashing into the periscope tube. Moments later a solid stream of water came pouring down the open hatch to the bridge. Choking and sputtering, he flailed around and dragged himself to his feet. “Close all hatches! Sound the collision alarm!”
The sea was still pouring in as the whoo-eep! whoo-eep! of the alarm screamed through the boat. Someone had managed to slam the hatch to the control room, and the water level in the conning tower was rising fast. Jim Ryan started up the ladder to the bridge hatch and was knocked down by the force of the stream. He doggedly picked himself up and started up the ladder again, but when he was halfway up, the flow miraculously stopped. He hesitated and looked around for the skipper. “Close the hatch!” Jack shouted again. Ryan hesitated again, then reached up to slam the heavy bronze hatch, twirling the wheel that locked it in place.
The conning tower was awash to above Jack’s knees. Under the influence of these tons of water, the Manta was down by the bow and rolling sluggishly from side to side. Jack took a fast look at the depth gauge and saw the needle tremble and start to move; at any moment the boat could go into an uncontrolled dive. The intercom was dead, shorted out by the salt water. He grabbed the battle phones. “Conn to control, conn to control,” he said evenly, forcing the panic from his voice, “blow safety. I repeat, blow safety. Commence high-pressure blow of all main tanks.” A faint “Aye, aye” came back to him. Safety, a ballast tank directly under the control room, was designed for just this situation: normally kept full, when it was blown it provided extra buoyancy to compensate for flooding elsewhere in the boat. “All compartments report, from forward aft.”
On the bridge Lou daCosta dragged himself to his feet and closed his eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He gingerly touched the spot on the side of his head where he had collided with something hard, then looked around. The bridge hatch was shut; maybe they had heard his warning in time. Bolton was huddled in a corner of the bridge, cradling his right arm and moaning. Lou glanced forward and froze. The bow was nearly awash. Even as he watched, a wave swept in from the side and splashed up through the slats of the deck. Christ, the damned boat was going to sink from under him!
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant, where’s Outerbridge? Jesu Maria, the kid’s overboard!” Antonelli was slumped over the guardrail of the port crow’s nest, blood trickling from a cut over his left eyebrow. Lou switched his gaze to the starboard lookout station. It was empty. He ran aft to check the cigarette deck, but there was no sign of Outerbridge. The darkness was complete now; the boy could be only twenty yards from the boat and he wouldn’t spot him.
The bridge speaker was supposed to be waterproof and pressureproof, but when he thumbed it, nothing happened; damage elsewhere in the system, then. One of the small lockers held a sound-powered headset. He plugged it in, blew into the microphone, and said, “Bridge to conn, bridge to conn.”
“Lou?” The skipper was doing his best to be cool and professional, but Lou could sense the relief in his voice. “What happened? What’s your situation?”
“We were pooped by a freak wave, a tsunami. We have one man lost overboard and two with injuries. The forward deck is awash.”
“Understood. The conning tower was badly flooded, but we’re dealing with it. Stand by to pass the injured down.”
The locking wheel on the hatch revolved. First through were two relief lookouts, followed moments later by “Doc” Huddiston, the pharmacist’s mate. He sent Antonelli below and started splinting Bolton’s broken arm while Lou warned the new lookouts to keep a sharp watch for a man in the water. A breeze sprang up from off the starboard bow and Lou started to shiver uncontrollably. Huddiston glanced up from his work and said, “You should go below too, Lieutenant. I haven’t read the chapter on treating pneumonia yet.”
* * * *
“Was Outerbridge wearing his Mae West?” Jack tapped his pencil in an irregular rhythm on the wardroom table while he waited for Lou’s reply.
“Yes, sir; it’s standing orders.”
“But ignored half the time. You recall seeing it on him?”
