by Jon Stafford
Harry thought: That’s the second time that gun has saved my life! The submarine, unseen beyond the surf, could see right into the lap of the enemy with the periscope extended.
With no more targets, the great gun ceased. The periscope could not see the enemy moving through the jungle. Harry figured the numbers were now halved: maybe there was a chance. As he examined the ground in front of them, he thought better and better of their chances. Osborne’s position was a commanding one, with a terrific field of fire.
He spoke to the boy. “Phoebe, get my glasses, go over here behind us, and look for the flare. Soon would be a nice time to get out of here.”
“Okay, sir.”
“Duke, have you looked at this setup?”
“Yeah, not bad.”
In front of them was a completely open area of about 250 yards that the Japanese would have to cross. It was a giant basalt formation, gray color rock, smooth. In some previous millennium, lava had spewed forth under the sea from an underwater volcano and formed the massive formation of pillow basalt. It domed slightly about fifty yards away from the Japanese side.
“How many you figure they still got, Harry?” the old chief asked.
“Forty, fifty.”
“Harry, those men will have to come across that open area to get to us, and they can’t do that.”
It was easy enough to agree. They had the submarine’s one heavy rifle. It had the gun power of a machine gun, but nearly the accuracy of a Springfield rifle. It could fire a twenty-shot clip in as little as five seconds. The chief pointed at the dome of the basalt.
“They can’t set up a machine gun against me in the jungle because it’s either too far away down the coast road, or that dome is in the way. They’ll have to come out in the open on that dome. I’ll shoot ’em before they can do that.”
“Yeah, unless they have a mortar,” Ketchel said.
Osborne shook his head. “My guess is they don’t have one. Or maybe Red just blew it up.”
Harry looked over at Phoebe. “You see anything?”
“No, I don’t see no rafts or flares, Harry.”
“You watch that real good. That’s our ticket out of here. We can’t get out of here until they reach the sub.”
“I know.”
God, Harry prayed silently, let us hold this place so that our crewmen can get away, not only the ones on the first raft, but us as well.
These were good men, like family to Harry. He had known of Chief Osborne by reputation for years. Red Phelps had tried hard to get Osborne to come over to Bluefin for many months. Finally, after several official attempts, Phelps had seen him at a bar near the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu. “If I buy you a couple of beers, will you come over to us?” Phelps had asked.
The Duke quickly retorted, “I thought you’d never ask!”
With amazing dispatch, only possible with thirty-five years of Navy connections, the transfer papers had come through in six days! Osborne had been worth it too. Any difficult-to-acquire supply item, whether important or trivial, left in his hands never failed to arrive in less than a week. His understanding of everything on a submarine, from keeping the vessel from broaching during silent running to the finer points of torpedo technology, went past that of anyone on board.
Harry knew Mike Ketchel too. He claimed to be a nephew of Stanley Ketchel, the Australian light heavyweight boxing champion of the early part of the century who had assembled one of the great records in boxing history. No one knew where he had grown up, or if he had any family. Never a letter or postcard came for him that anyone saw. When leave came, he just sort of disappeared, and no one had any idea where he went. But in a pinch like this, he was a good man to have on your side. He had handled the German well. Slender of build, perhaps 150 pounds, he had the reputation of being stronger than any man on board except Tony Polavita, who weighed about 200.
Then there was Phoebe Minton. He was an orphan from Bayonne, New Jersey. Every boy who passed through that particular orphanage wound up joining the Navy, because there was a priest there who loved the service. The boy talked about the priest daily, because he was the closest thing he had to a father. His real name was Peter Minton, but with his slight build he was usually called Petey growing up. That all changed the day he came on board Bluefin and was brought around to every part of the ship, as Red Phelps demanded of every new man. The After Engine Room was going through an overhaul and the old chief, a man named Porcel, could not understand the boy’s pronunciation of “Petey” with the engines at full blast and finally settled on “Phoebe.” It stuck, and the boy never seemed to mind. It was an appellation denoting the affection the crew had for him, and he had never had much of that before.
Phoebe didn’t write well, so Harry handled his finances every month. Five dollars went to the priest, fifteen to a savings and loan in Princeton, New Jersey, and the rest Harry gave to Phoebe. He never gave him all of the money at once, because Phoebe was a soft touch for every sad story by every moocher on board. Phoebe was a good little man, and Harry had no intention of letting him or any of the others down.
It was high tide now, the perfect time to get away. But with no rescue from the submarine, Harry’s men were stuck. There was no part of East Point more than six feet out of the water. Suddenly, a group of four Japanese soldiers appeared, climbing over the basalt formation and onto the dome with a Hotchkiss machine gun.
Osborne watched as the men hurried out onto the basalt in plain view two hundred or so yards away. One was carrying the weapon, one the tripod, one a twenty-five-shot aluminum tray, and the last a box of ammo. Before they could even sit down, Osborne began to shoot.
The gun, with its distinctive deep-throated BUP, BUP, BUP, BUP, BUP, BUP, sounded and the men fell. As if in a strange dance, four more took their places, pushing their comrades out of the way, and sitting down at the weapon. The gun sounded again, BUP, BUP, BUP, BUP, BUP, and again the gunners were lying motionless on the rock.
Four more men ran out, Duke fired, and again the enemy tumbled over like bowling pins. Osborne then targeted the gun itself. He must have damaged it in some way, because the enemy gave up on it. There it sat, bodies all around it.
“How many they got left now, Harry?”
“Good stuff, Duke, thirty to forty.”
“Look,” said Ketchel, “they’re trying to swim over here!”
Looking back up the coast, Harry’s men saw four or five soldiers running from the jungle, across the coast road toward the surf. At 250 yards, Ketchel, with his Springfield propped up perfectly on a boulder, shot the first man just as he reached the water. In the crystal clear water, the others made easier targets. One by one, Ketchel took care of them too.
“Well, Harry, we ought to be down to maybe thirty-five tops, ’eh?” he said.
“Sir, it’s the flare!”
Everyone turned at Minton’s call. Sure enough, the submarine’s flare was arching through the sky.
Harry smiled. “So we pulled it off. Now we need to get out of here!”
“Yeah, but look at that surf,” the chief said in a low, depressing tone. “It’s higher than before, the wind’s up more. We are not getting through there in
that raft.”
The sullen look came back on Harry’s face. It was the truth, and it didn’t take long for him to come to a conclusion.
“You’re right, Duke. The raft isn’t going through there. I’m going to have to swim out to the sub and bring a rope back.”
“I wish I was twenty years younger, I’d try it,” Osborne said. “But I don’t think you can make it, Harry.”
“Do we have any choice?”
“No.” The chief shook his head. “At least you have plenty of time. The tide crested an hour or so ago and is still pretty full. We got a stalemate here. The enemy’s hung up just as we are. Unless they get reinforced, with the thirty or so men left they won’t try to swim around the left side anymore, and sure as hell won’t try coming across the rock face. And now we can have Phoebe watch the starboard side. They can’t get to us, at least until dark. Then they’ll rush us and kill us.”
“So how long you figure I have, Chief ?” Harry asked, looking at his watch.
“Six to eight hours.”
Harry nodded, the other three looking on.
“Look, if I don’t get back, take the raft and head out before dark. I doubt they could see you pushing off from where they are. By the time they rushed in maybe you would be to the breakers, a long shot with a rifle. Don’t wait too long. Who knows, maybe the wind will be down by then and you can paddle right out.”
“Harry, you take care.”
“Sure,” he said, noting their respectful faces.
The Duke came over and stood by him. “Harry, get the three-eighths-inch Philippine hemp. Have Chief Dougherty get it. It’s the only rope that I think will work. We have two thousand yards of it stowed in the Forward Torpedo Room. Dougherty will know. That stuff will almost float and won’t rip against that rock goin’ around those bends.”
“Okay.” Harry picked up the Morse lamp, aimed it out to sea again, and sent:
AM SWIMMING OUT.
He watched for two minutes, then repeated the message, but didn’t see any response. It wasn’t surprising. If anything, the wind was still stronger. Shedding the .45, he decided to keep on all of his clothes, even shoes, in case he was thrown against the rocks. Then he waded into the water he had come out of almost twenty-four hours before.
Even a hundred yards out, he was still on his feet. Soon, he began to swim through almost three hundred yards of nearly placid water, a sort of lagoon. He kept aiming toward the surf beyond, directly toward the two pinnacle rocks, each jutting up thirty feet, directly toward the forty-foot passage that went between the two. He decided to swim like Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic champion. Weissmuller swam freestyle with his head up out of the water, rather than the traditional method of the head down and breathing with every other stroke. With the tempestuous water he was to face, using that style was Harry’s only chance.
After many minutes of easy swimming, the water began to swirl. In another twenty or so more minutes, Harry entered the surf and began to be buffeted by undercurrents.
Then, he was in the Cauldron, encountering violent waves. Angry currents swept him almost instantly many yards in one direction, and then, seemingly without logic, in another. Rip currents pulled him under without notice and then tossed him up above the waves as though he were a blade of grass. Gulping air, half seeing, swimming as hard as he could, he made it to the two great rocks. First, the tide drew him out and the swell pushed him back in, then again and then still another time, in and out he went.
He pushed off some boulders, and was thankful he had his shoes. The hurrying tide and the depth of the water saved him from hundreds of submerged objects that would have shredded his body or torn out the bottom of a boat at low tide.
As he cleared the Cauldron, Harry knew he had made the wrong decision. It had taken only ten minutes to get out, and it had not been nearly as bad as he thought it would be. It was something he could never admit to anyone else, but he knew it as he swam on, that if they’d taken off just then in the raft, they would have made it. He also knew he couldn’t go back and get the men and the raft. The wind was getting stronger each minute. By the time he’d get back in, it might no longer be possible to get out. The only way to have a good chance to get out was Duke’s rope.
Harry swam on. The swimming gradually became easier, and he navigated passages he had carefully noted the day before. He slowed his pace and swam down one narrow corridor, about fifty feet wide, where the pillow basalt sides went up ten to fifteen feet on each side. He knew that the next passage led out to the south and would take him to the open sea.
After nearly forty minutes in the water, he emerged. To his great relief, the sea was not as rough as he’d thought it would be. He couldn’t see the sub, but the wind was just right and he heard voices.
“Harry!” he heard, far off. He treaded water for a minute, looking around.
“Harry!” he heard again. “Harry, over here. Harry!”
Between the swells, about a hundred yards off was a raft with men on it. He swam in that direction. In a few anxious minutes, he was on board! In another fifteen minutes, they came aside Bluefin.
Red Phelps came down onto the ballast tank and pulled him on board. “Harry, I’m glad to see you,” he said. “I want to hear about the situation on shore.”
As they made their way below, Phelps anticipated Harry’s first question and answered it. “Howie’s fine. We got the German.”
“You know he lied.”
“Yes, we know all about that. Fleet still thinks he can tell our people the best passageway through the outer islands and into the big lagoon, which is about six miles across.”
“What about him shooting Howie?”
“Well, Arnie Blackmon knows his lingo. He says Vandelmann said it was all a mistake, that Howie rushed him. You know as well as I that it all depends on what he knows.”
They went to Red’s tiny cabin, along with Rocky Fordyce, who had debriefed the patrol. The Filipino steward came in with sandwiches. Harry ate and explained the shore situation. Phelps looked at him. Recalling a conversation with Rocky a few minutes before, he knew Harry would have to swim back in.
“I want Harry to lie down and rest for twelve hours,” Phelps had said.
“Red, Harry is going to have to go back!” Rocky insisted.
“No, he’s bound to be exhausted.”
“Red, we can have him rest for two hours before he goes back in. He’ll have three hours to get in and start out with the guys before dark and the enemy closes in.”
“No, I’m not going to do that to him. We need someone else to do it.”
“Red, according to Polavita and the others, it’s a maze in there; Harry knows that maze. Besides, I was a year behind him at the Academy and saw him swim. One time half our team was down with the flu and we had a meet with Rutgers. He stood pretty much the whole Rutgers team, swimming four events for us and winning three. He has the body for it, and he recovers quickly. Red, we don’t have anyone who can match Harry. We had Pelston, but he transferred. And he wouldn’t know the passageways in anyhow. If Harry goes in and fails, that’s one thing. But if you send someone else in there and none of those guys come back, Harry won’t be able to liv
e with himself.”
Red sighed heavily. “Rocky, I appreciate you telling me this. I’m sorry to have to tell him to do it, but I suppose I have to.”
Red was getting ready to say something to Harry as he finished the second sandwich, his clothes dripping a few cups’ worth of seawater on the floor. But Harry knew what was going on the captain’s mind and spoke first.
“Red,” he said, “I have to go back. I have to try it. Yes, I’m tired. How long ‘til the tide changes?”
“A few minutes.”
“How long till dark?”
“About five hours.”
“I’ll have to try it at fairly low tide, which isn’t good, but at least it will be going in. Did Polavita tell you the setup on the island?”
“Yeah, the gun. We heard the thing firing some.”
“In the last two hours?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not good. When I left, I thought Duke had them in a standoff that would probably be good till dark. There’s this rock face the Japanese have to come across.”
“Tony said something about that.”
“Unless they were reinforced, they couldn’t have come across it against Osborne. Any reinforcements with equipment to overpower that gun would have to come up that coast road, and you would blast the hell out of them. By the way, thanks for blasting them with the five-incher.”
“Sure. We’re watching the road real good. Luckily, no planes have come along. I can’t think that will last. We have that new forty-millimeter Bofors antiaircraft gun, so we won’t submerge unless they attack with several planes. Harry, I just hate that you have to do this.”
“I’m not looking forward to it myself, but there’s no other way.”
