Somewhere West of Fiji

by Darrell Egbert

  Right, the War wasn’t over and he wasn’t an admiral. Just because of the stripes I took him to be one. But what did I know. I should have known better when he was flying alone in a two-seater. If he had been an admiral on his way to see Yamamoto, he would have had a pilot. How stupid of me. He was a pilot, an enlisted pilot, and a non-commissioned officer of high rank. I had heard of flying petty officers in the Japanese navy. I had even heard some of their best pilots were non-coms, some were even aces. That’s what he was, a flying chief petty officer. That’s why he knew so much about radios. Admirals didn’t go to tech schools, petty officers did. And he either deserted or he was sent out to do something important like spot our carriers headed for the Coral Sea and he didn’t do it. And then when he did make contact, he came back with wrong information. It had to be something like that. And his opinion when asked was wrong, and as a result one of their small carriers was sunk and the Shokaku and the Zuikaku, two of their large carriers, were put out of action and their objective of taking Port Moresby at New Guinea was thwarted. And besides that those two carriers were prevented from participating at Midway.

  A far-reaching mistake on his part if that’s what it was. But the bottom line: he was no longer my friend. He didn’t need me so he was no longer my friend–or was he? Now what could he do? It looked to me as though he might be shot himself.

  Actually, the reason for him wanting to become my friend was far from what I thought it was. Rather, he thought I was going to be the first taken by submarine not him. That’s why he drew the picture of a submarine, he meant ours not his. He was going to be my friend so I would take him. And better yet, he had a good shot at becoming a citizen if I took him to one of our ports and turned him over as a friend. Sure that was it if I vouched for him and told the authorities he had saved my life by sewing up my leg. But under no circumstances did he want to go back to Japan and be court-martialed and shot.

  I ran down the beach, picking up my three shoulder launched arrows from the sand as I passed them. I grabbed my launcher that was tied to one of them, and ran to the point where they were just starting to wade out in the lagoon. They had to walk about 30 yards to where the water was deep enough to float the raft with them in it. Plenty of time to get there and to run out about 10 yards toward them before I launched the first of my primitive lances, and then like Charles Martel’s Franks at the Battle of Poitiers, I followed with the second in rapid succession. There was a chance I would hit my friend but it was one I had to take. They both hit and two of the three standing sailors fell in the water, skewered as were the Muslims aligned against Martel.

  My friend pushed the third surprised and frightened sailor overboard, and then jumped in on the opposite side. It took me a minute to get to the raft where the third one was climbing back in. I ran him through with the third lance and killed him on the spot. War or no war, I had my Japanese in combat. Not one but three. And not in the sights of my Lightening but I got them just the same. And for the best of reasons: they were Japanese sailors, bent on harming my friend. Yes, I saw him again as my friend.

  I cut his bindings and handed him the lance. I turned my back as he stuck them again, each in turn, like disabled tuskers from the island. Then I nodded and he sank the raft. We retrieved my three lances and we walked back.

  But we had the sub to contend with. It was still anchored as though nothing had happened. I wondered if the captain or the exec was watching us through the periscope. Nobody appeared, so I guess we were too low and too close in for the scope to pick us up. There may be another reason but that’s how I had it figured. Of course, they were charging batteries. A full charge would take 24 hours. Right now it might have been keeping the crew’s mind on the business at hand.

  I wished I could have slept on the problem of how to disable the sub and finish-off the rest of the crew; it was ideal for pre-sleep thinking about the details. It was probably as interesting as any nighttime project ever was. But time wouldn’t oblige me. Instead I had to come up with a quick solution.

  I expected my friend to start objecting to the first idea I had. But it didn’t matter now that I ranked him. Now things were different, I was going to take the lead, and he was going to follow or I was going to drop the whole thing and give him back to his friends.

  I drew a submarine in the sand, complete with the anchor on the port side. Then I drew the aft section showing the propeller and the guard that housed it. I explained that the first thing we would do was to slip a piece of metal extrusion through the anchor chain where it entered the vessel. When they tried to turn into the anchor to release it with the engine, they couldn’t because the next step was to disable and maybe permanently damage at least one blade of the prop. I meant to do this by wedging a large piece of bamboo shaped to a point. It would act as a wedge between the blades and the guard housing. When the engine cranked and the clutch was thrown to propel the sub forward it would wedge in even tighter. And reversing it wouldn’t spit it out. I figured it would be in too far. Even so, just to be sure, I planned to wedge another one in at the bottom. Then the clutch would be forced to work against two set wedges. We had them. All they could do was send down a diver to investigate and we would be waiting for him. I figured we could collect a few more before they gave up and came after us in another raft. Then what were we going to do? We had two choices, fight or flight. If we chose flight we could hide in the jungle indefinitely but some one else would come for my friend. I guessed correctly, orders to bring him back came from the very top. He must have screwed up royally.

  If we could manage to bend at least one blade it would throw the propeller out of balance and maybe damage some of the driving gear. They wouldn’t be able to dive nor could they move without first straightening it, and they had no jigs or forge–nothing. They might remove it and take it to the beach. They could heat it with a home made forge and maybe straighten it enough to run slow but that’s the best they were going to do.

  I had changed my mind about them winning the War. Now my next best guess was airplanes and destroyers with racks of depth charges were hunting for them. A slow moving sub was going no place but the bottom. Likewise if one of our ships found them on the surface, they were goners.

  It would take a day or two to fix their prop; in the meantime they were going to be sunk by the deck guns of one of our ships. But that was a lot of ifs. Maybe we could help things along if we could place a mirror high up in the hills. We might be able to catch the eye of a passing lookout. It was grasping at straws but that’s all we had.

  But there is one thing for sure. The War was winding down to where surface vessels had time to hunt Japanese vessels hiding at sea. And they were looking for submarines. They were not looking helter-skelter, haphazardly here and there. They had a plan. They were being directed from a headquarters with the latest information about sightings. They were bracketing every sub known to still be at sea. The contest was still on. There was still life in the Japanese navy and we were still looking for them–that’s good. That’s our only hope of being rescued.

  One of the advantages we had against their submarines and carriers at Midway was our ability to understand their messages. Our code breakers were able to decipher about one third of their language. But it was the most important one third. The rest of the message could be interpolated. Since the commodore in charge of code breaking at Pearl was fluent in Japanese, we had a distinct advantage.

  I understand he was a workaholic, he and his second, maybe all of them, worked around the clock seven days a week. They kept cots in their basement offices where key officers racked out for a few hours when they became completely exhausted. But their hard work and a lot of smarts paid off.

  Japanese submarines sent coded messages to their headquarters when they surfaced to recharge batteries. The message always contained their present position. Knowing where they were and that we had 24 hours before they submerged again, allowed us to destroy most of their fleet soon after Midway.

  In t
he case of this boat, they had probably triangulated on him. His position message was picked up in Hawaii, New Zealand, and in Australia. They didn’t need his stated position, they knew it, they had obviously been tracking him; at least one destroyer must be headed our way from somewhere close by. Whether they will have enough time to sink it is anybody’s guess. One thing for sure, if we could delay it for another 24 hours they would have a much better chance.

  But that’s no guarantee our navy will pick us up. They don’t know I’m here and they can’t see my airplane in the lagoon. Somehow if the navy appears on the horizon and begins to lob shells at the sub, we have to be able to signal them. Moving a mirror around from the hill might do it. It would be even better if we could send and SOS or something. But this way there is also a good chance they will lob a shell at us. But of course this is mostly speculation on my part.

  Right now, though, I have to get my friend and go after the sub. We have to delay it, either by disabling its propeller or by something else–a long shot and very dangerous. For sure my Japanese friend is game for anything; the last thing he wants is to go home and face a firing squad.

  I think the best way to go about this is to check out the prop just before the sun goes down. It is only about 10 feet under and should be no problem. We will be better able to tell how big our wedge should be if we can first get a look. Early in the morning, when the sun is in the lookouts eyes, we will come back and wedge it in according to plan.

  They should start engines about 0900. They are going to come after my friend before that. While they are looking for him he will be with me, a few feet away under the water.

  I am getting real curious about what his admiral did that was so upsetting. But it was something, because it had the attention of several very senior officers. Whatever it was had something to do with our breaking of their codes, and he got the blame for our sinking of one of their small carriers and, as I said, for keeping two of their large ones away from the Battle of Midway a month later. I was guessing but I figured it was an educated guess.

  About 10 feet out from the reef is a stretch of sand that runs another 50 yards or so before it drops off into deep water. The sub is resting on this sandy shelf. We entered the lagoon about a half-mile north of where it sits, and walked in water up to our shoulders most of the way, until we came within few yards of her stern. We had two bamboo wedges and a narrow metal extrusion to jam the anchor. We also carried his homemade axe. The lookouts were no problem. One was looking into the sun towards the beach; the other was looking out to sea. They probably couldn’t have seen our heads, even if they had been looking in our direction.

  The job took about 15 minutes, much easier than I expected. We set the wedges in place and then hammered them home with the axe. We both agreed that the clutch was going to slip and burn out before the prop came close to extracting either one. Good idea if I do say so.

  Our problem now was to evade the hunting party. At least that’s what I wanted to do. He wanted to ambush them. I wanted them to return to the sub and report that we had taken off to the other side of the island.

  Their captain wasn’t going to stay in the same place while his shore party continued their search. He was going to move and then come back in a couple of days and surprise us. He would leave this small detachment on the beach, and maybe they would hide from us in my friend’s camp. This is all guesswork, though, and is not really important right now. His starting the engine in a few minutes is what I’m waiting for. But if the captain is unable to move until he fixes the bent prop, he is asking to be sunk.

  We waited at my place in the jungle. We kept watching for something to happen. It never did.

  I estimated it was two hours later when the forward torpedo room hatch opened and two sailors emerged. They walked to the fantail and jumped into the water. They were there about ten minutes and then re-entered the same way they came leaving the hatch open. I guess they figure on coming back out.

  I got another idea. That hatch was not secure. We could climb on the deck and jam it. If they could somehow fix the prop they would head for sea and dive about a hundred yards out. If we could wedge it open, the forward torpedo room would flood before they discovered what happened. They would be under with an open hatch. A sure disaster for any submarine; if the captain couldn’t surface; he was headed for the bottom. Even if he finally got it closed, which is a big if; he wasn’t coming back to the island for any reason–not for my friend or for the small beach party he left behind. My guess is he would try to surface, pump it out and repair the hatch, close down his radio and slowly slip back to Japan, hoping the war would be over by that time. That’s what I would do anyway.

  My Japanese didn’t waste any time. I had no sooner drawn another sub in the sand than he looked at me, said something, grunted and headed for the forward torpedo room. I figured if he did anything he would go for some balsa wood to lay on top of the hatch seal. But he didn’t. A few minutes later he was on deck standing by the hatch. He removed about six inches of the seal with his knife and then closed it. When it was dogged down it was going to leak big time. The sea pouring in under pressure could not be stopped before they would have to abandon the torpedo room. With a compartment full and a bent prop the sub was in big trouble.

  They cranked engines and attempted to turn to sea and slowly move out. The engine briefly started and then stopped, and the bow swung toward the beach. He was dragging anchor and would until he cleared the sand bar he was resting on or he figured out a way to hoist the anchor. And clearly his propeller was damaged; you could hear the clutch before the bow went under followed by the deck awash. But that’s as far as he got. Why were they diving with an open hatch? Many sub commanders dive with red showing on their “Christmas Tree.” A sharp crew is expected to secure any open hatch at the command, “prepare to dive.” It saves time in an emergency–in a crash dive. This is part of their routine, so as to be ready if the time ever comes. I know because an instructor back in Australia discussed it when he was talking about how fast a sub can get under when he crash dives.

  But none of it happened the way we expected, except for the most important part. But I was right the prop was tightly jammed. But that didn’t mean anything either, not when you consider what did happen.

  We were sitting up on the side of the hill watching and waiting when the first shell hit. You could hear it whining seconds before it crashed into the water about 50 yards short of the sub. The next one was over and the third, fired from what I suspect was the first battery forward, struck just short amidships. Shrapnel from the shell and steel from part of the conning tower flew in all directions. Two or three large pieces flew over our heads whining like shells. I didn’t know a destroyer’s guns could do that kind of damage–a cruiser, yes but not a small destroyer. Then I got to thinking. If it had hit amidships, wouldn’t it have taken out the forward torpedoes? And then wouldn’t the explosion have been even more violent? I think we were lucky we weren’t hurt. But the conning tower was damaged, and I could see the periscopes were gone and maybe the hatch was jammed. If it was, and his aft torpedo room was also flooded, he was going to be stuck there for a long time.

  But the destroyer never came in any closer. It turned around and headed back to sea. Maybe back on station waiting for more instructions when he saw he had destroyed the conning tower. I’m sure he thought he had sunk the sub on the sand bar or permanently damaged it. Anyway, he had a reason for turning, the least of which was the subs aft torpedoes. At close quarters, the sub was still very dangerous.

  What about this imaginary beach party? What if this Japanese captain had left one, which he might have done? We assumed he would and we planned to take care of it–all of it, one sailor right after the other.

  And what about the destroyer? While it was pointed in our direction we tried to signal it with his mirror. He had removed it from his airplane and was trying to train it on the ship’s bridge. But there was no indication the watch saw us. Yet the des
troyer captain must have had his eye on the submarine. Maybe that’s why he didn’t see the flash. Maybe he did and he figured it was some of the Japanese crew that wanted to be captured and taken aboard. Maybe a lot of things, but he kept turning and didn’t indicate he saw anything.

  We dug some pits to trap the landing party, and covered them over with palm fronds but nothing happened. We watched closely night and day for a week and still nothing. We believed the sub was going to sea and wait and then sneak back in under cover of darkness but nothing. It sat there, down by the bow.

  I was alone again, as ever was Ben Gunn or Robinson Crusoe with his friend Friday, who couldn’t understand English either.

  But one thing for sure, I wasn’t going to beat Crusoe’s record. Of course it was fiction but like all good fiction it was based on fact. In his case, Daniel Defoe, the author, patterned Crusoe after the castaway Alexander Selkirk. It was another classic in English literature. Selkirk was marooned some 26 years. I guarantee I’m not going to stay here anywhere near that long. I’m going to make a boat with the help of my Japanese. I’m going to strike out for the Solomon’s in a dugout with an outrigger. I figure if I can figure out a way to carry enough water, we can make it. But what do I need with him, when I plan to make a sail with my parachute. But I never could leave him. He has to be affected by the lonesome the same as I was before I found her letters.

  I began wondering if the sub crew could open the watertight door to the torpedo room and let the water out into the rest of the boat. I couldn’t quit worrying, so I took my Japanese with me out to look for our selves. He might have been thinking the same thing. He nodded his head, meaning they couldn’t get out that way. With all hatches under water, they were stymied. They might blow their ballast and pump the water out if they could start engines. But they wouldn’t be able to move for some time; I think the wedges are holding. Tomorrow we will go and find out.