Pacific Standoff, page 24
Suddenly he sat up. The pea soup seemed to be turning lumpy on him. He reached for the telephone handset. “Radar to bridge.”
“Bridge, aye, aye.”
“Radar contacts, sir, all around us, range fifteen hundred to six thousand yards. I’ve lost them now.”
“What did they look like, Radar?”
“Dunno, sir. Little islands, maybe. I’m getting them again. The closest one bears 2-2-0 degrees. Shit, they’re gone again. Sorry, sir.”
“Keep on it, sailor, and pass the word if you see them again.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Moments later the intercom speaker blared, “Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge!” followed closely by the doorbell chimes that called the boat to general quarters. Tony stayed where he was—this was his battle station—and tried to block out the hubbub behind him, but he felt a bubble of excitement growing in his middle.
Jack paused in the control room just long enough to pull on foul-weather gear and stuff a big wad of lens tissue in his pocket. Lou wouldn’t summon him topside on a night like this without good reason. Perhaps his gamble was finally paying off. He knew that tanker convoys from Borneo, some of them at least, must be using the Palawan Passage, the relatively narrow corridor of deep water between the island of Palawan and the shoals of Dangerous Ground, but in five days of patrolling, none of them had turned up. Perhaps they were cutting east of Palawan, through the Sulu Sea, or going north toward Indochina before turning toward Formosa and Japan.
Coming through the bridge hatch into the rain was like walking into a wall. A small river immediately found its way through his collar and started trickling down his spine. Lou leaned his head close and shouted over the moaning of the wind. “I think we’re smack in the middle of them! I saw one, off the port quarter, fifteen hundred yards or less. Tankers, I think.”
Jack moved into the lee of the shears and tried to pierce the curtain of darkness and rain. It was hopeless. For a moment he thought he saw a darker bulk within the darkness, but he knew it could be the result of trying too hard to see. He turned back. Lou was filling in Bob, whose battle station was here. Jack tapped them on the shoulder, pointed to himself, and pointed below. They nodded vigorously. Halfway down the ladder his foot slipped on a wet rung and he fell heavily to the deck. White hurried over to help him up, but he shook him off irritably. A year ago he wouldn’t have fallen; or if he had, it wouldn’t have hurt as much. He rubbed his knee and limped over to the radar console.
“Columbus, isn’t it?” he said to the surprised rating. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“Well, sir, it looks like something here, and here, and here, and maybe here and here, too. It’s not too clear right now, but every once in a while the grass dies down and you can see they’re blips.”
“How have the positions changed since you first spotted them? That was good work, by the way.”
“Thanks, Skipper. It’s hard to say, but it’s like they’re all moving slowly ahead and to starboard. This one, now”—he indicated an area of fuzz to the left of the center of the screen—”was at fifteen hundred yards when I alerted the officer of the watch, and now it looks like less than five hundred yards.”
“Five hundred yards!” Jack stared at the screen. Whoo-eep! Whoo-eep! The collision alarm screamed through the boat.
* * * *
“Ship ahoy!” Bob Church spun around at the cry from the lookout. At first the wall of black rain looked just the same, but gradually his brain began to sort out the pattern of impressions and he realized that he was looking at the starboard bow of a giant tanker. He felt a sudden chill in the pit of his stomach. So close! How did it get so close? Galvanized suddenly into activity, he slammed his fist on the collision alarm and shouted into the bridge speaker. “Hard right rudder! All ahead emergency!” As the submarine started to turn out of the wind, the bow dipped into a wave that rolled back along the foredeck and crashed into the fairwater. A solid, compact mass of seawater arched up and fell onto the bridge, driving Bob to his knees and blinding him with its salt sting. Wiping at his eyes with one hand, he pulled himself erect. Under the sudden surge of power Manta was pulling ahead and away from the Jap tanker, but her best advantage, surprise, was lost. Half a dozen faces stared across from the enemy’s deck, and moments later two heavy machine guns started firing wildly. Then the curtain of rain fell once more, and Manta was alone in the heart of the storm.
* * * *
“No, dammit, we can’t attack!” Jack slammed-his palm on the plot table in frustration. “By the time we make visual contact in this chowder, we’re too close to shoot, and the radar information is too fuzzy to feed to the TDC. It’ll be sheer blind luck if we avoid running straight into one of the bastards! No, we’ll pull well ahead, hope the weather eases off, and make a submerged attack at dawn. Lou, the crew can stand down from battle stations, but keep the boat rigged for collision until we’re well clear of the convoy. I’ll be in my cabin.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Jack stopped in the control room to exchange some joking remarks with Paul and the ratings on duty, then undogged the watertight door and made his way forward to officer country. He carefully closed the green baize curtain across the doorway to his room, waving off the steward’s offer of coffee, and fell white-faced onto his bunk, clutching at his stomach with both hands.
* * * *
Grudgingly the night gave way to dawn. The tropical downpour had slackened to a drizzle. In the torpedo rooms, forward and aft, the men sweated and cursed, wrestling the Mark XIV fish out of the tubes and replacing them with the new Mark XVIII electric torpedoes that left no betraying wake behind them. In the conning tower Bob Church charted the zigzag course of the tanker convoy. The radar showed them more carefully spaced now, with escorts on point and both flanks. Clearly they were on the alert.
On the bridge Woody Stone raised his face to the warm, soft rain, and allowed himself to forget for a moment that he was in the middle of a worldwide war. Whatever the rest of the day held, in this brief space he felt at peace.
Jack was asleep when the messenger came to call him to the conning tower. Two splashes of water on his face and he felt ready for anything. As he recrossed the wardroom, he called out, “Coffee and toast in the conning tower, Sam.” The steward replied with a big, gleaming smile and a snappy “Aye, aye, Captain!” The agony of the night before seemed very far away, almost as if it had happened to someone else.
“Here’s their track over the last hour, and this is my projection.” Bob pointed with his pencil, tapping at a tiny X. “We are here, two thousand yards off the track. We can refine the position as they come closer.”
Jack studied the plot, compared it with the large-scale chart, and nodded. “Good. Let’s pull the plug.”
Ah-oo-gah! Ah-oo-gah! The lookouts clattered down the ladder, followed closely by Woody and the quartermaster. There was no particular rush this time, but it was a point of pride and fierce competition to clear the bridge as rapidly as possible. The bow dipped even as the hatch was being dogged tight. In less than sixty seconds Manta was lurking at periscope depth, waiting to pounce. Ten packages of high explosive were ready for delivery, and fourteen more sat in the torpedo racks awaiting their turn.
Lou took over at the plot table, collating data from sonar and periscope bearings. As he worked, it became clear that the convoy would pass farther to the east than projected, but still within easy reach. There were five large tankers, and Bob reported that the escorts looked like modern fleet destroyers. This one was no pushover.
The lead destroyer was abreast of them now. Jack began an elongated S-curve approach that would put them inside the escort on the port flank and Lou moved to the TDC to set up on the lead tanker. Everyone on the boat knew his job, and if there was an air of suppressed excitement, there was no confusion. Bob passed on final bearings, Lou fed them to the computer, and when the dials indicated a distance to track of 1750 yards, Jack gave the order to shoot. The boat lurched as the three electric fish left the tubes. Bob calmly switched targets and passed on new bearings and ranges, Lou cranked them in, Jack ordered three more torpedoes launched and began a sweeping-left turn to present the stern tubes to the convoy. Then all hell broke loose.
“Port tin-can speeding up!” Delancey warned from the sonar rig.
Two distant explosions jolted the boat, followed immediately by another, much closer. Bob twisted the elevation control on the periscope, turned quickly to left and right, shouted, “Aircraft! Two Judies!”
A giant hand reached under the stern of the submarine and flipped it upward. “We’ve broached, Captain!” someone yelled.
“Get her down, fast! Deep submergence!” Jack grabbed a stanchion to help him keep his footing as the boat’s down-angle grew sharper.
Whang! The conning tower seemed to squeeze inward from the deafening clangor. A large chunk of cork detached itself from the overhead and fell on the plot table. Bob turned to Jack, his face pale. “The attack scope won’t move. It’s stuck in raised position.”
Ryan, on the battle phones, interrupted. “Flooding in the aft torpedo room, sir. They can’t control it.”
“Tell them to clear the room and bleed in high-pressure air.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Distant explosions announced that more of Manta’s fish had found their mark, but there was no time to celebrate. Just as the boat passed the two-hundred-foot mark, Delancey called out, “Short-scale pinging, sir.”
Wham! Wham! WHAM! The closest of the depth charges seemed to go off just over the submarine’s damaged stern. The boat shied to starboard and the stern dipped alarmingly.
“I can’t hold it, Skipper,” came the frantic word from Paul at the diving station. The boat’s up-angle passed the critical fifteen-degree point. Without immediate action she would slide ass-first to the bottom or take on such a slant that the engines broke their moorings and crashed through the hull.
“Every free man to the bow,” Jack barked. “On the double!” The extra weight forward, coupled with Dutch’s swift and precise manipulations at the diving manifold, was enough to bring the submarine to a more tolerable slant, but the depth gauge had already passed her test depth of three hundred feet and the needle was still moving.
“Blow negative!”
Ryan touched Jack’s arm. He spun around, fists clenched. “What is it now?”
“Leak, sir, number five port fuel ballast tank. Mr. Andrews says she held mostly seawater. He’s cut her out of the system.”
“Very well.” Another series of depth charges exploded. He glanced at the range estimator: 150 yards off target. His brow furrowed, then cleared. “Left rudder; now steady as she goes. Sonar, what word on the tin can?”
“Starting another run, Skipper.”
Jack folded his arms and tried to look imperturbable, but in the shelter of his elbow his fingers were crossed. The seconds stretched into minutes, then another series of explosions. The range estimator read seven hundred yards. Jack’s shoulder relaxed a fraction of an inch: the Jap destroyer had been suckered by the slick from Manta’s leaking oil tank!
He kept the boat at deep submergence for another half hour, even after Delancey reported that he could no longer hear the enemy vessels, then went cautiously to periscope depth. The attack periscope was useless, of course, but he raised the night scope and scanned the scene. The rain had stopped, and to the west the patch of blue that sailors call Dutchman’s britches offered a promise of better weather. Palawan loomed on the eastern horizon, dark green against the gray sky. The surface of the sea was bare, but faint smoke to the north revealed the location of the fleeing convoy. After a careful sky search he surfaced the boat and set the men to work repairing the damage. The holed fuel tank was of no consequence, and the attack periscope, with squeals of protest, was soon forced down into its well, but the aft torpedo room was another matter.
Just after lunch Jack returned from the shower to find Charlie waiting for him. “We’ve patched the leak,” he said abruptly, “but the outer door is sprung on number nine tube. Two of the reserve torpedoes got a pretty thorough soaking, too. I wouldn’t want to count on them.”
“Hmm.” Jack dabbed at his shoulder with the towel. His left arm felt stiff today. “I’d say we got off pretty light. No hope of catching up to the rest of that convoy, though.”
“No. How did we do this morning?”
Jack shrugged. “We heard two sets of explosions, and radar says two tankers are missing from the convoy. That’s not enough to convince them back at Pearl, but it’s good enough for me.”
The diving klaxon suddenly blared. Jack leaped for the communicator over his bunk. “Conn, this is the captain. Why are we diving?”
“Patrol plane, Skipper. I don’t think he saw us, though.”
Twice more that afternoon Manta dived to avoid the searching eyes of Jap reconnaissance planes. Jack was thinking hard about taking the boat to a less active location when ComSubPac took the decision out of his hands. An ULTRA despatch ordered Manta to intercept a carrier task force en route from Luzon to Singapore. It gave precise times and coordinates for the interception. He read the message with mixed feelings. He recognized that the intelligence on enemy movements and intentions was more valuable than half a dozen battleships, and as far as he was concerned, the code-breakers deserved all the medals and praise that secrecy kept them from getting. On the other hand the brass had gotten into the habit of sending submarines all over the map after enemy fleets, with very little in the way of results. If they would only let the Sub Force concentrate on clearing the ocean of Jap shipping, the enemy fleets would be helpless in a matter of weeks, months at the outside. But the folks back home would rather sink one carrier than ten tankers, even if the loss of the tankers hurt the foe more.
* * * *
The interception was a fiasco. Manta was in position, and at 0230 radar picked up a force of two large and half a dozen good-sized ships moving southwest at better than twenty knots. But the Jap warships were not precisely on course, though they were on time. Jack ordered emergency full speed and bent on everything but the kitchen ranges in his attempt to intercept, but it was a waste of good diesel oil. The closest they were able to get was over ten thousand yards. As the range widened hopelessly, Jack cursed and ordered Charlie to ease his straining motors back to two thirds, then set a course for Cam Ranh Bay.
Chapter 22
Jack leaned back in the chair and lit a Lucky, ignoring the faint twinge from his tummy. Admiral Garfield released a cloud of smoke from his pipe, shook out the match, and focused his piercing blue eyes on Jack. “First of all,” he said, “you’re getting a second Navy Cross. The word came in a few days ago. Congratulations.” He waved aside Jack’s thanks and continued. “This means your men are entitled to a number of lesser decorations. Get your recommendations to me in the next day or so, and I’ll schedule a ceremony before Manta leaves on patrol again.”
Which of the men most deserved a medal? If it were up to him, they would all get them; but that wasn’t the Navy way. The admiral was waiting for a reaction, and he realized that he must have missed something. “Sorry, sir?”
“I said that I have sent Washington my recommendation that Manta receive the Presidential Unit Citation. Not many boats have scored such consistent successes against the enemy, and I have no doubt it will eventually be approved.”
“Thank you, sir. The men deserve it, and I know they’ll be very pleased and proud. May I tell them? Of your recommendation, I mean?”
“I suppose so, as long as it’s clear that Washington has the final say.”
“Believe me, Admiral, my men will appreciate your recommendation more than they would anything Washington might do!”
“Thanks, McCrary,” Garfield said gruffly. “Now my next piece of business, which you may or may not like. I’m detaching your exec to new construction.”
“Bob Church?” said Jack, looking astonished.
“Certainly. He’s ready for command, isn’t he? There’s a paper in his file to that effect, with your signature at the bottom.”
“Oh, certainly. He’s one of the most capable officers I know. It’s just…we’ve shipped out together for quite a while now. It will be strange not to have him beside me. But that doesn’t matter. He’ll get his own command?”
“Um-hmm, one of the new thick-skinned Balao-class boats now building at Portsmouth.”
Jack pulled himself together and said, “That’s great news, Admiral, just great. May I tell him myself? I imagine he’s already at the hotel.”
“Surely. His orders are being cut now. He can stay out this liberty here if he chooses, or return Stateside at once. He has a good deal of leave coming to him, I believe.” He returned the pipe to his mouth and turned his chair to face the window. Below were the finger piers of the submarine base and the length of Southeast Loch, pointing like a finger toward what once was Battleship Row. As the silence lengthened, a familiar feeling of foreboding clamped coldly around Jack’s chest. Whatever was on the way, he wouldn’t like it.
Finally the admiral turned back to face him. “We’ve worked you too hard, McCrary,” he said. “You’re due for a rest.”
“Not at all, Admiral,” Jack protested. “I’m fit as a fiddle!”
“You’re thin as a rail and you have bags under your eyes that weren’t there three months ago,” Garfield retorted, “so don’t give me that guff about ‘fit as a fiddle.’ Look, Jack,” he continued in a softer tone, “you’ve had—what?—half a dozen war patrols in Manta, and another half-dozen before that in Stickleback. You’re one of the most experienced skippers we have. It’s time to start passing the benefits of that experience on to a new generation. New London would grab you like that! There might even be a position at the War College or the Academy.”
