March Anson and Scoot Bailey of the U.S. Navy

by Marshall McClintock

  CHAPTER TEN

  THROUGH THE CANAL

  It had been a bad anticlimax! Everybody in the crew felt badly letdown. Corvin and March forgot all about telling McFee, up on thebridge, who was mentally trying to decide between the Marshall Islandsand the Black Sea as probable destinations. Finally he phoned down andangrily asked why someone didn’t let the bridge know where they weresupposed to be going.

  “How do you expect anybody to steer the ship in this big ocean,” hedemanded, “if he doesn’t know where he’s going?”

  When he heard the words “San Francisco,” he groaned.

  “What’s the matter with San Francisco?” Stan asked. “I’ve always wantedto see it.”

  “Oh—San Francisco’s wonderful,” Ray Corvin said “As a matter of fact Ilive not far from there, and maybe I’ll get a chance to see my familyfor a day or two, so I’m very happy in some ways. It’s just that we gotso keyed up expecting to head right into a pitched battle.”

  “I’m not too surprised,” Gray said. “I felt sure we were going to thePacific and I thought we might go direct to our base there. But if wehit Frisco on the way—that’s only natural. Of course, we’ll get moreorders there and then we’ll surely head for some action.”

  March felt just as well about the news. He would have a chance to learneverything about the submarine from one end to the other. He wouldactually navigate the ship a few thousand miles, but without having toworry too much about enemy ships or mines or planes while doing it. Bythe time they left San Francisco he’d feel like a veteran submariner.He would be able to handle his regular tasks without thinking aboutthem, and he’d be able to take actual fighting with vigor andenthusiasm.

  During the daytime they ran submerged a good deal of the time, taking alook through the periscope occasionally. Once the Skipper saw a U.S.Navy blimp right above them and they headed for two hundred feet depthin a hurry. But nothing happened.

  At night they ran on the surface, and they were lucky enough to havegood weather most of the time, with plenty of stars for March to shooton the sextant so that he could check his course. He was pleased to seethat his instrument navigation, carried out when they were submerged,was checked by his celestial observations.

  There came a day that was cloudy and overcast, so the Skipper decidedto travel on the surface.

  “There won’t be any planes out today,” he said. “And we can make muchbetter time on top. But keep a sharp lookout for other surface craft.Can’t see very far in this fog.”

  March took over his regular watch that afternoon on the bridge. He hadon a heavy sweater and waterproof hood and jacket, for the moisture inthe air, even if it were not rain, soaked everything inside of fifteenminutes. Two crew members were on lookout, in addition to the man atthe controls. March listened to their regular calls of “All clear” andstared ahead into the blanket of fog.

  Then, suddenly, he saw it—just as the lookout shouted.

  “Freighter on port bow!”

  March shouted the alarming news into the interphone, ordered the man atthe controls to reverse engines full-speed and put her over hardstarboard. The big freighter loomed so large out of the mist that Marchknew they might crash. The freighter had just sighted them and hadn’teven slowed down. So, without another thought he shouted the order,“Rig for crash dive!”

  The klaxon blared through the boat below and March knew that men wereleaping to their posts, that Gray was struggling out from his bunk orfrom behind the wardroom table. Would he come up to the bridge? Marchknew there might not be any bridge—or any conning tower—by the time hecould get there, no matter how fast he moved.

  He glanced at the deck hatches and breathed a sigh of relief when hesaw they were already closed, for the rolling seas were washing overthe decks and none of the crew men had wanted to come up for fresh airon a day like this. In a few seconds only the word came back to him,“Boat rigged for crash dive!”

  He had already motioned the lookouts down into the hatch, and thecontrol man was securing his gear on the bridge.

  “Take her down!” he ordered, as the control man slid down the hatch. Heheard the bubbling hiss of air from the main ballast vents, the roar ofwater as it rushed into the tanks through the huge Kingston valves.With a last glance, he saw in a flash many details on the freighter.Most of all, he saw that it looked tremendous, that it seemed almost ontop of him, although he realized that its size in comparison with thehalf-submerged sub made it look closer than it really was. He sawofficers on the bridge shouting orders, and men rushing to man athree-inch gun on the forward deck. Then he slipped below, swung thehatch shut after him and dogged it down before slipping on down intothe control room.

  _The Big Freighter Came Head On_]

  The Diesels had stopped their roar, and the electric motors werewhining a high-pitched song as they drove the boat with all theirpower. He glanced at the “Christmas Tree” and smiled to see nothing butgreen lights. Every opening, every vent, was closed and the boat wastight. The inclinometer showed them close to a fifteen degree angle ofdive, the maximum that was safe before the acid in the batteries wouldspill out.

  Only then did he notice Larry Gray and Ray Corvin and McFee standingmotionless, tense, in the middle of the control room. They werelistening, waiting. And March listened and waited too, expecting anymoment the rending, tearing sound of a steel bow crashing through theirsuperstructure, through their outer hull, through the inner pressurehull—and then, the deluge as the ocean poured in upon them.

  One second—two seconds—three seconds—four seconds passed, and thenMarch relaxed.

  “All right now,” he said. “She’d have hit now if she were going to. Shewas that close.”

  He saw a few of the men relax a bit and begin to breathe again. Butmost of them remained silent and tense. They did not share hisconfidence, or have confidence in his judgment. He glanced at the depthgauge and saw it at fifty-five feet. Well—it all depended on how muchwater that freighter was drawing. Maybe it would still knock a fewpieces off the conning tower, at least.

  But then he heard the soundman say, “Propellers passing over.”

  “How close?” Gray asked sharply.

  “Just about kissing us,” came the answer. “But passing over—past now.”

  Then everyone _did_ relax. The crewmen began to talk a bit amongthemselves. Scotty looked at March and grinned, wiping a hand over hisbrow as if to brush away the sweat of fear, and then clasped both handsin a congratulatory signal. March just nodded.

  “Nice work, Anson,” Gray said quietly. “That was a close one. Let’shave a cup of coffee. You probably need it.”

  They turned toward the wardroom together, and March felt the eyes ofall crewmen on him.

  “Steady at a hundred feet,” the Skipper ordered before leaving thecontrol room, “and keep on course.”

  “Steady at one hundred,” came back the order. “Yes, sir.”

  Then the officers went into the wardroom and sat down just as Stanappeared at the door.

  “What in blazes happened?” he asked.

  “We just about got run down, that’s all,” the Skipper smiled. “Not anuncommon occurrence in submarining, Bigelow. Your friend Anson heretook us down in a big hurry.”

  “Were _you_ on the bridge, March?” Stan asked.

  “Yes, if you’d known that,” March laughed, “you would have been twiceas scared, wouldn’t you?”

  “Wow, we went down in a big hurry, all right,” Stan said. “Did you haveto—to miss it?”

  “Guess so,” March said. “Anyway, they were unlimbering a gun the lastthing I saw and would’ve been shooting at us if we’d still been insight.”

  “Yes, you did the right thing, all right,” Gray said. “And without muchtime to think about it.”

  “But the crew was marvelous,” March said. “I got the call back that theship was rigged almost before I got the order out of my mouth. It’s agood feeling to know a
crew can act like that, isn’t it, Gray?Especially when a third of it is brand new.”

  “Yes, mighty satisfying,” Larry agreed. “And just as satisfying to knowthe same thing about your new officers. I’m going to feel prettyconfident when we suddenly have six Jap destroyers pouncing on us allof a sudden.”

  “Say, I just thought of something,” Corvin said. “Those poor guys inthat freighter are probably still looking frantically for signs of aperiscope and sitting there biting their nails waiting for a torpedo toblast them to kingdom come.”

  Gray looked at his watch. “They’re just about getting over that bynow,” he said. “They’re just concluding that we _are_ an American suband not a German. And they’re thanking their lucky stars.”

  “Just like us,” McFee added.

  In a few minutes the Skipper went out and ordered the sub up toperiscope depth, had the ’scope run up and took a look around.

  “Not a thing in sight,” he announced. “Down ’scope.”

  As the big shaft slid down into its well in the deck, the Skipperordered the ship to surface once again, and up she came. Gray was thefirst man up on the bridge, and the other officers quickly followedhim. Lookouts and controlmen took their posts, and the _Kamongo_ wentsteadily ahead on her course.

  Corvin took over the watch on the bridge and in a little while theothers went below. The crew had settled down and once more everythingwas serene and quiet.

  More days went by, but without the excitement of even a sight of shipor plane. After they had passed into the Caribbean Sea, the Skipperordered them to hold up for two hours before proceeding.

  “We’re a bit ahead of schedule,” he explained, “because of the extraspeed we made on the surface. Coming into Panama, we’ve got to surfaceand run exactly on schedule and on course. Patrol craft and planes areexpecting us and they’ll bomb us out of sight if we’re five minutes offschedule or two degrees off course.”

  When they resumed speed, on the surface, March checked the boat’sposition regularly to make sure of their course. The first time a bigMartin PBM-1 shot out of a cloud ahead of them, March felt his throatgrow dry. If they were _not_ exactly where they should be at thatmoment, he knew what would happen to a beautiful new sub and aboutsixty-four good men of Uncle Sam’s Navy.

  But the patrol plane just circled low overhead, gunned its motors andflew away. He knew that its radio reported the sub’s position to otherpatrol craft, and that they would be checked up on regularly.

  Two other planes came over for a look on their way in toward the Canal,and for the last twenty-five miles they were sighted by half a dozensurface ships.

  “Are we to go right on through without stopping?” March asked theSkipper.

  “Stop long enough to take on the Canal pilot,” he replied. “Nothingelse.”

  The Skipper was on the bridge, along with Corvin, as they ran alongsidethe jetty leading to the first locks. As they tied up at the dock belowthe locks, Corvin stepped ashore. He came back shortly with agray-haired man who would pilot them through the Canal. The weather wasclear and the sun beat down warmly, so half the crew were lined up onthe deck, and all hatches were open. All officers were on the bridge,except McFee, who stayed below in charge. Even Stan left his Dieselslong enough to come up for a look at the Canal, for all the submarine’sengines were off as they were pulled through the locks by the littledonkey engines running on tracks alongside.

  The Canal pilot came aboard and climbed to the bridge. Lines were cast,cables attached fore and aft to the donkey engines on both sides, andthey began to move forward on the pilot’s orders. Ahead March saw thehuge steel doors into the first lock. Slowly and steadily the pigboatmoved into the chamber, and the great doors swung silently shut behindthem.

  Then water rushed into the lock and the boat gently moved upward as thesurface of the water rose. Soon they were level with the water in thenext lock and the gates ahead of them swung back against the walls.They saw, in the lock next to them, a battered destroyer heading theother direction.

  “She’s been through something, all right,” Gray commented. “Going homefor repairs.”

  The crew on the destroyer waved to the men on _Kamongo_ and for a timethere were shouts back and forth. Then they had moved out of the secondlock into Gatun Lake, as the destroyer sank down in its lock toward thelevel of the ocean.

  Sailing through the lake was like a pleasant excursion trip on a lakesteamer. The thick jungles were unlike anything most of the men hadseen before and they looked about them with curiosity.

  Through the locks at Pedro Miguel and then at little Lake Miraflores,and they were once more at sea level—this time at the level of thePacific.

  They dropped the pilot at the edge of the long breakwater and thenheaded out to sea, looking back at the lights of the city of Panamawhich were beginning to twinkle in the growing darkness.

  “Not much time for sightseeing when you’re on submarines,” Stan said,as he and March climbed down to the control room.

  “Not when there’s a war going on, anyway,” March said. “We’re in thePacific now, Stan. How does it feel?”

  “Just like the Atlantic,” Stan said.

  “Not to me,” March mused. “This is the ocean we’re going to do ourfighting in. This is the ocean where I’ve already done a fair amount ofbattling Japs. But this time, I think I’m going to do a lot better.”

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