Pacific Standoff, page 26
“Is Pulaski standing by?” he demanded on the telephone talker.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. We will surface flooded down, just long enough to get off the contact report. After that, we’ll see.”
Murphy and Lou exchanged glances. To expose even the bridge above water this close to the enemy was to invite instant attack. But Manta’s information was vital, and they were sworn to put themselves in harm’s way.
Again the depth gauge started its cautious creep. The air in the conning tower felt thick and heavy. Suddenly Paul’s voice, high and desperate, blared from the intercom. “The high-pressure blow is stuck open! I’m losing depth control!” As he spoke the needle on the depth gauge seemed to leap upward and the submarine surged to the surface in the midst of the Jap fleet.
“Flood negative! Take her down!” A series of explosions shook the boat as an alert destroyer charged in, deck guns blazing. “All ahead emergency!” Jack cried. “Full dive!”
WHRANGG! A three-inch shell slammed into the superstructure aft of the bridge and detonated. The men in the conning tower were knocked off their feet, but the heavy steel pressure hull protected them from the blast and fragments. They were counting themselves lucky when they heard Paul’s voice again. “They got the main induction valve, Skipper! We’ll go straight to the bottom if we try to dive!”
Jack stood very still, suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of fatality. It was the malfunctioning main induction on the Sebago that had killed his younger brother and almost ended his own career. And now a damaged main induction was about to kill him and all his men. Perhaps he should accept his fate, continue the dive, wait while the ravening ocean rushed in and took its revenge on these upstart men.
Some deep well of defiance opened within him and a mighty NO! boiled upward. They would play the hand out, even if they did cash their chips at the end.
“Surface!” he shouted. “Lookouts to the bridge! Stations for gun action!”
The main body of the enemy fleet had moved past them, but two destroyers had stayed behind to deal with the intruder. As they charged in from opposite directions, Jack desperately turned to bring both bow and stern torpedo tubes to bear. There was no time to set up; he fired all ten fish by seaman’s eye, then turned again to run. The battle would be over before the tubes could be reloaded.
Waterspouts erupted off the starboard bow and he turned toward them, hoping to throw off the Jap gunners’ aim. Flames suddenly silhouetted him from behind, and he whirled to see one of the destroyers settling in the water. Its skipper must have incautiously turned into the path of one of the torpedoes. The other tin can pressed the chase, sending streams of tracer shells arching through the darkness toward the fleeing sub.
Manta’s gun crews did what they could. The twenty millimeter on the cigarette deck was gone, destroyed by the same unlucky shot that had wrecked the main induction valve, but the forty-millimeter Oerlikon that he had wangled on their last refit sounded its steady pom! pom! pom! as the two gunners worked frantically to keep the pitching destroyer in their sights.
A squall of lead whipped the sea to froth and marched inexorably toward the side of the boat. Jack ducked, though he knew that the thin steel plating of the fairwater was no more protection than a wall of paper. There was a noise like pebbles shaken in a tin can, magnified ten thousand times, a rending crash, then a silence made more complete by a tiny whimpering from one of the gunner’s mates, whose left arm now ended just below the elbow.
“Pharmacist’s mate to the bridge,” Jack bellowed, then ordered another evasive twist. The destroyer was overtaking them, but not as quickly as Jack had expected. He might decide to break off the chase, now that the submarine was safely away from the fleet. More waterspouts, off the port beam, and more evasion. Jack glanced around. Murphy, his exec, was seated on the deck, leaning casually against the TBT mount. His hands were clasped in front of his abdomen. He was looking down at them, his mouth open with astonishment. Suddenly a stream of dark blood gushed from his lips and he slowly slumped over.
“Pharmacist’s mate! Where’s the pharmacist’s mate!”
Wham! A shell struck the bow and exploded, destroying the bow buoyancy tank. At once the boat started to pitch more wildly, burying her nose into each surging wave. One of the crew on the deck gun screamed as a wall of dark water caught him and bore him away. “Another man to the deck gun!” Jack shouted. “Hard left rudder!” The most vital areas of a submarine were below the waterline, protected from shellfire by the ocean as well as the sturdy pressure hull. As long as they could continue to run and to fight, the situation was not lost. “Steady as she goes! Guns, give him everything you’ve got!”
Now the countless hours of drill proved their worth. Shell after shell was fed into the breech of the four-inch gun and sent howling toward the enemy destroyer. The wounded gunner on the Oerlikon had been replaced by now, and it overlaid a faster tenor rhythm on the bass of the cannon. Orange flame blossomed on the foredeck of the oncoming Jap, and for a split second Jack believed that, incredibly, their shells had hit. Then the starboard lookout screamed, “Incoming Mail!”
Jack hit the deck as the shells exploded on the water, only scant yards from Manta’s side. “Hard right!” More flashes, and a pair of waterspouts ten yards to port. That Nip son of a bitch had the range, all right! “Left rudder! Now amidships!”
“Incoming Mail!” The lookout was hoarse with screaming. Jack looked toward the enemy destroyer and saw a pinpoint of yellow in the air, arching toward him. It seemed to grow with astonishing swiftness.
* * * *
On June 29, 1944, at headquarters Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet, the USS MANTA, CDR JACK MCCRARY CO, was posted as OVERDUE—PRESUMED LOST.
Richard Deming, Pacific Standoff
