Mercurio and Jorgenson started to rise, but Perry waved them back into their seats again. Instinctively all three men looked up as the pulse beat of the intruder’s screws grew closer.
“If he has K guns, we’re dog meat,” Jorgenson commented judgmentally.
“Could be,” Perry nodded, “if he spots us down here.”
The propellers stopped.
A moment of total silence stretched out and then burst with an abrupt crashing roar.
“Anchor chain going down,” Perry said.
A second crashing roar followed a minute or so later.
“A second hook,” Jorgenson added. “Double mooring. He must figure on being around for a while.”
“Likely. He may not know we’re down here after all.”
“But it sounds like he’s sitting right on top of us.” Mercurio interjected uneasily.
“Pretty close.” Perry agreed. “There was a little wind chop the last time I took a look around topside. Maybe just enough to break up our outline from the surface.”
Sweat began to prickle under wash khaki shirts as heat radiated upward from the ranked battery jars beneath the wardroom decks. With the airflow from the ventilators secured, the sense of claustrophobia that lurks aboard every submarine began to creep out of the comers.
Mercurio asked the question. “What do we do now, Skipper?”
Perry looked down at the chessboard deployed on the wardroom table. “Well, let’s see. Which would you like this time? Black or white?”
“Up scope.”
For the first few instants of observation all Perry could see was a dimly glowing void of jade green, then the lens head pierced the surface and he peered into the twilight.
With another vessel sharing the close confines of the lagoon, he hadn’t dared risk raising the periscope in broad daylight. Now with dusk settling in topside, the danger of a betraying glint or splash of foam was reduced. Yet there was still adequate light to reveal their unwelcome neighbor.
Slowly Perry rotated the knurled metal knob of the periscope ranging gauge. “A naval auxiliary,” he murmured. “ ‘Bout three hundred fifty feet in length . . . four, five thousand tons. Two superposed gun mounts forward . . . twin open mount DPs . . . four point sevens or five-inchers . . . a single raked stack amidships and a low well deck right aft with what looks like a heavy duty crane at the deck break.”
“She’s an Akitsushima class seaplane tender,” Mercurio reported, looking up from the silhouette book. “Only a couple of years old. She’s intended to support large flying boats in forward combat areas.”
“What the hell is he doing here now?” Swede Jorgenson demanded, his head framed in the open ’tween decks hatch.
“Likely the same thing we are, Swede,” Perry murmured into the side of the scope barrel as he rotated it slowly. “It makes sense. We’ve got a high tide tonight and a full moon, perfect for flying boat operations, and this is the only sheltered water in the central Philippine Sea. That’s why we heard him putting that second anchor down astern, he’s rigging a fixed moorage to handle aircraft. He’s got no idea that somebody else is here to do the same thing.”
“Just like our guys have no idea that somebody else is going to be sitting here waiting for them. Christ, this deal is FUBAR, totally Fucked Up Beyond All Recall.”
Perry could only lift shaggy eyebrows and nod. “I suspect you’re right, Swede. . . . Whoa, yeah, we got more company coming. A flying boat is on approach. A big bastard. Down scope!”
Niobe’s skipper stepped back as the attack periscope sank into its well. “Gentlemen, the floor is open for suggestions.”
“We have to contact Pearl,” said Mercurio. “They’ve got to recall our plane.”
“That could be considerably easier said than done, Danny, on both counts.” Perry glanced at the bulkhead chronometer. “It’s currently eighteen fifty and that PBY is scheduled to touch down shortly after twenty three hundred. That’s four hours from now and we don’t know where he’s coming from. A PBY can stay airborne for almost a full day. He could already be well past his point of no return with no alternative landing sites.
“For another point, we’re a long way from Pearl. Just sticking a couple of feet of radio mast out of the water won’t give us the range we’ll need. The only one who’d be sure of hearing us would be the radio guard over on that Jap tender. To reach COMSUBPAC we’ll have to surface.”
“Any chance of us hauling out of this hole and making rendezvous with the PBY in the open sea?” Jorgenson inquired.
“Nah. We barely made it through the lagoon entry channel surfaced and with a full turbo blow on all ballast tanks. There’s no way in hell we could get out submerged or even running with our decks awash. Anyway what chance would we have of conducting a surface rendezvous and refueling with a flock of Emilys and Helens in the neighborhood? When that waxing moon rises its going to be bright as day up there.”
Perry glanced up at the cable-studded overhead once more. “No, I suspect the only way we’re going to salvage this operation is to kill that party-crashing son of a bitch by the most expedient means available. Mr. Clancy, you have the conn. Swede, Danny, let’s do some planning.”
They withdrew to the wardroom. Soon however, they learned that the new environment was no more conducive to solutions than the conning tower.
“If this pathetic-ass excuse for a chart is to be halfways trusted,” Swede Jorgenson snarled, “we’re screwed. There’s no way in hell we can put a fish in that goddamn tender from here.”
“Are you kidding, Swede?” Mercurio protested. “We’re already at point-blank range.”
“That just the problem, Mr. Mercurio. We’re below point-blank range.” The torpedo officer twisted the chart around on the tabletop so it faced the exec. “Look, right now we’re resting on the bottom in the eye of the lagoon. This is the only patch of water on the inside deep enough for us to submerge in and there ain’t a hell of a lot of it.
“Beyond the eye, the lagoon shallows rapidly to between twenty and thirty feet in depth, plenty of bottom for a seaplane but no damn amount of water for a submerged sub. Now, take a look at the depth gradients and the area of deep water we have to work with.”
Mercurio studied the chart for a moment, scowled, then reached for a navigator’s compass, measuring distances against the chart scale.
“The deeps are only about seven hundred yards across.”
“Yeah, and that Jap bird farm is sitting about a hundred and fifty yards off our starboard side, almost in the dead center of the deep water. That puts him three hundred and fifty yards away from the shallows on any bearing . . . and a Mark XIV needs a minimum run of four hundred and fifty yards to arm after being launched. The friggin’ fish would dud, Mr. Mercurio. They’d just bounce off of him.”
“Jesus, Swede. I see what you mean. We are screwed. And so are the guys in that PBY.”
“Not necessarily, gentlemen,” Perry interjected slowly. “What this means is that we can’t apply the classic submariners methodology to this situation. We may to have to go up top and deal with this gentleman the hard way.” Jorgenson and Mercurio exchanged startled glances and then refocused on their captain.
“Skipper, you can’t be thinking of doing a battle surface with this guy?” Jorgenson demanded.
“Why not, Swede. Niobe and the other V-boats were built as subcruisers. We’re designed be able to fight on the surface, more so than any of the new fleet types. We mount the heaviest deck guns in the fleet. Those six-inch shorts may not have the reach of a CL’s main battery rifles, but at close range they pack the same punch. That’s why we only have a six-tube torpedo group aboard. Our fish were almost intended to be a secondary armament.”
Jorgenson nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s so, Skipper, but still, the V-boats were meant for commerce raiding. It was intended we be able to shoot it out with something like an armed merchantman or a subchaser. It was never in the books to conduct a surface action with a s
erious man-of-war.”
“Fleet auxiliary,” Perry corrected mildly.
“You’re not going to get a hell of a lot of change on the difference.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Mercurio said. “And you were right about that Akitsushima’s bow turrets. The book says they’re five-inch twin mounts. It also indicates she carries four triple twenty-five millimeter pom-poms as well. She’s a combat tender and she’s going to put up one hell of a fight.”
“We’ll have surprise on our side, Danny. They don’t have a clue we’re down here yet. They’ve got to figure they’re safe from subs in this lagoon. They’re sure not going to expect one to pop up practically alongside. Beyond that, I have a couple of other notions that could give us the edge when the time comes.”
Perry paused a moment to brush a last few strands of sweat-damp hair back across his balding scalp. “Anyway, gentlemen, what other choice do we have? We can’t get off a submerged torpedo attack. Our only other option is to kiss off that inbound PBY and sit tight on the bottom, hoping that tender hauls out again before we run out of air and battery. I don’t think much of that notion for a lot of reasons.
“For one, we weren’t sent out here just on a whim. That plane has got to be doing something pretty damn important to justify this operation. For another, if that Jap operates in much the same way as our own flying boat tenders do, he could stay anchored here for the next month.
“For a third, if a PBY shows up way the hell out here in the middle of nowhere, somebody on that tender is going to start thinking and looking. We aren’t the only ones who know about refueling a seaplane from a submarine. If the Japs trap us inside this lagoon it will literally be like shooting fish in a barrel.
“And finally, let’s go back to that PBY again. We’re their only chance. We either get them home or they don’t go home. Abandoning that aircrew does not sit well with me, gentlemen, not at all.”
Mercurio lifted a frustrated hand off the tabletop. “Hell, if you put it that way, Skipper, why even talk about it? It’s going to be a hell of an interesting scrap though.” Cullen Perry grinned back mirthlessly. “Like two damn old tomcats in a bag, Danny.”
From somewhere beyond the hull, a low droning buzz began to grow in intensity.
“Another Japanese flying boat taxiing in,” Perry commented. “Our friend is getting himself another customer. That’s good.”
“It is?”
“Uh-huh, very good. Danny. I want the Airedales aboard that tender to be kept busy for the rest of the evening. And later on, those seaplanes could prove to be real handy.”
“Yeah,” Jorgenson commented dryly, “for the Japs.”
“No, Swede. For us.”
. . . looks like I was very wrong about this mission, Amy girl. It has turned into a shooting job after all, a mean one. So mean, in fact, that I am wondering if you will ever read these words.
I can’t speak about this to any of the crew of course. I can’t speak about it at all, save in this letter of ours that never ends. Here’s where you keep me strong, Amy, with the strength of the captain’s wife. Even ten thousand miles apart, I still have someone with whom I can talk out my fears and my uncertainties. That is a treasure beyond price to me now.
Just in case, let me say it again. I love you.
To continue.
“Time?”
Perry could have looked for himself but it was an excuse to break up the thickening silence within the excessively cramped confines of the conning tower. The lead men of the antiaircraft crews were squeezed in among the watch standers and extra cans of 20-millimeter cannon and .30 caliber machine gun ammunition cluttering the limited deck space.
Browning automatic rifles and Thompson submachine guns from the arms lockers also stood propped in odd comers, ready to be passed upward through the bridge hatch. In the fight to be, every weapon Niobe possessed would be brought to bear.
“Twenty-three ten,” Mercurio replied lowly. “The PBY is scheduled to be over the lagoon in about another twenty minutes.” He, like everyone else in the conning tower, wore red night vision goggles, preparing his eyes for the surface darkness.
Perry nodded. “Right after moonrise. Let’s just hope he’s running a little late.” He reached over for the intercom hand mike. “Radio shack, this is the captain. The second we break the surface, get your mast up and get on with the pilot of the PBY. Advise him of the situation and have him circle until we get things under control down here. Also, if we go off the air suddenly . . . well, tell him good luck and that he’s on his own.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Will do,” the filtered voice replied over the squawk box.
“Forward torpedo room. What’s your situation up there, Swede?”
“Forward group loaded, Skipper. All fish set for six feet and at low speed. That should give them their best chance to settle down at running depth.”
“Good enough. Flood all tubes forward and open the outer doors when we sound battle surface. As soon as I can back us outside of arming range we’ll try and get off a spread. Until then it’ll all be the deck guns.”
“I’ll be topside with number one,” the grim reply came back.
“Okay. Just watch yourself, Swede. They don’t make parts for your mark anymore.”
“Ha-ha . . . sir.”
There was only a final set of orders to verify.
“Mr. Mercurio.” Perry used formal military protocol to underline the urgency of his words. “You will stand by in the control room. You will not come to the bridge unless I have been killed or otherwise put out of action. Your primary concern will be the recovery of the PBY crew and then in getting the boat home.
“No matter what anyone of any rank aboard that seaplane may say, you will not fool around with a refueling attempt. You will take the aircraft’s crew and passengers aboard, you will scuttle the aircraft, and you will get Niobe out through that channel and away from here with all possible speed. Is that understood?”
He gave a short acknowledging nod. “Understood, sir, perfectly.”
He looked young for the thought of that kind of responsibility. So many of them did these days. But he also looked unafraid of the thought.
“Then take your station, Danny, and God ride with you.”
“You, too, Captain.”
As the exec dropped down through the conn hatch Perry ordered the periscope raised once more.
The Japanese vessel still bustled with apparently routine activity. Work lights blazed on the well deck, silhouetting the outlines of a pair of huge Imperial Navy flying boats, four-engined Kawanishi H8Ks, the maritime patrol bomber the Allies had dubbed the “Emily.”
One nuzzled bow-on to the flank of the tender while the second had been hoisted out of the water, to rest in the servicing cradle on the ship’s fantail. A third Emily had been heard to touch down, but apparently it had moored out of sight on the far side of the tender. Between the close range and the periscope’s magnification, crewmen could be clearly seen working around the aircraft, preparing them for departure.
Perry theorized that the tender had been dispatched to January to serve as a temporary relay base for a long-range aircraft transfer. The Emilys had touched down at last light to refuel, service, and to grant their crews a few hours of rest. They were now preparing to take off by the light of the rising moon, ready to resume their journey to some far outpost of the empire.
This was all for the good. Each bomber would now be a giant gas can topped off to brimming full.
The Japanese didn’t seem concerned about having an enemy within a thousand miles, much less within one.
They hadn’t a suspicion that the tiger was already inside the tent.
Perry slammed the scope handles upright. “Down scope! Blow all ballast fore and aft. Take her up! Battle surface!”
The hoarse triple gagoooooogah blare of the diving alarm blended with the piercing metallic chime of the General Quarters alarm. The latter being a martial redundancy as every man aboard
had been standing-to for hours.
“Man battle stations, gun action! Man battle stations, gun action!” Another redundancy, all hands knew of the nature of the coming battle.
High-pressure air screamed and rumbled through the manifolds, blasting water out the tank groups. Niobe stirred, lifting off the bottom like an awakening sea serpent.
“Motor room, keep us on battery and stand by to answer bells. Engine room, do not, I say again, do not start the diesel plants until I give the word!”
“Aye, aye, Captain! Ready to answer bells on battery power!”
“Engine room, understood sir!”
“Mr. Clancy, maintain the high pressure blow after she breaks surface! I want all the buoyancy we’ve got as fast as we can get it.”
“Aye, aye sir, coming through forty feet. Breaking surface now!”
Beyond the steel, the rending sea could be heard hissing and streaming away from the superstructure.
“Open the hatch!”
A few gallons of blood-warm water sluiced past the quartermaster as he spun open the dogging wheel and shoved the dished steel lid back onto its latch. Tearing off his red goggles, Perry was the second man up the ladder to the bridge deck.
Even now there was that one instant’s appreciation of the clean salt air after the congested fug of the submarine’s interior. Behind him more men flowed up through the bridge hatch, some dropping down to the twenty-millimeter platforms at the front and rear of the conning tower. Others lifted machine guns out of their pressure-proof canisters or passed up small arms and cans of ammunition. All moved with a submariner’s instinctive silence.
Hatches were swinging open on the main deck as well, and the six-incher crews swarmed around their mounts, pulling the muzzle plugs and casting off the tie-downs.
Time. God grant them just a little time to make ready.
The moon had edged up beyond the horizon, milk white and dazzling to a night-adapted eye. The Akitsushima was outlined by it, but Niobe, riding low to the water and down moon might still be blending in with the night.
No alarm swept the decks of the tender. Maybe all hands were focusing on preparing their aircraft charges for flight? Maybe her lookouts had been blinded by the work lights?
Crash Dive Page 2
