Run Silent, Run Deep

by Edward L. Beach

  He grinned when I told him.

  "That's an old submarine trick, Rich," he said. "Every skip- per comes to it some time." He winked. "You know, things move pretty fast during war, and the tension of war patrol is just about the best test of a man's qualifications there is. I don't think there'll be any more Qualification for Command boards-at least, for the duration."

  "You mean, it's up to me entirely?" I asked him.

  "Yes. If you say your Exec is qualified for command of a submarine, well take your word for it and make the necessary notifications. All you have to do is write us a letter to make it official." He sucked his pipe.

  "I'd like to recommend Jim, then," I said without hesitation.

  "He's had the seasoning he needed, and he'll make an out- standing skipper."

  "Write a letter to ComSubPac and it's done!" Blunt stood beside me, watching Walrus move out past the tug berths and round the tip of ten-ten dock. She was making slow speed, staying under good control. Only the show-off goes racing around a crowded harbor with a big ship. If you have to cut loose the time and place is at sea, where it might make the difference between victory and defeat. Blunt nodded in appro- bation as Walrus went out of our sight, then swung to me.

  "Rich," he said, sucking on the inevitable unlighted pipe, "I suppose you're wondering why we changed your orders and had you come here for refit instead of Midway."

  "I thought perhaps it was the dry-docking," I suggested.

  "Partly, but that's not the main reason. I want to talk to you about that destroyer which depth-charged you. You stated in your dispatch and patrol report both that you got a close look at him before he worked you over. What was he like?"

  I moved to the edge of my chair. "I got only the most fleeting look at him, well-deck forward, two fat stacks close together, bridge rounded in front with portholes in it."

  "Not Momo class?"

  "All three had a section cut out of the forecastle to form a well-deck, I was pretty sure the first two were of the small Momo class, though we never were very close to either of them. This one was probably the stern-most escort, and he was somewhat different, bigger, I thought."

  Captain Blunt made notes with a pencil as I spoke. "What about his tactics? Anything odd or strange about them?"

  "Only that he was waiting for us when we came up. He must have silenced his machinery, because we couldn't hear anything until after he saw us."

  Blunt looked grave. "This is important, Rich. Are you sure he was not running machinery until after he sighted you?

  Could you have been below a temperature layer or some other unusual water stratum which could have prevented you. from hearing him?"

  "Nothing that we had any evidence of, Captain. Besides, we didn't hear him after we had practically reached periscope depth, either. And our sonarman swears he heard him start his engines."

  Blunt made more notes. "This is extremely significant. You should have mentioned this in your report. What else?"

  Slightly on the defensive because of the vague accusation of his last comment, I wracked my brains to find further details.

  "Well," I finally said, "there were at least fifty men on lookout watch with binoculars."

  "Wait a minute!" Old Blunt was writing rapidly. "Fifty men, all with binoculars? You did say something about there being an unusually large number of lookouts."

  "They were all over his decks. A dozen on the wings of the bridge, a large group on the forecastle, more clustered around his stacks on a sort of deckhouse amidships, and still more around a searchlight platform, or whatever it was, back aft."

  "All with glasses, you say?" still writing on the scratch pad.

  "It's most unusual for a ship that size to carry that many binoculars."

  "Yes, so far as I could see." I was still wondering what the cause was for the particular interest in our first depth-charging, although, granted, it had been a terrifying experience.

  "Anything else? You said you were close enough to see clearly on to the bridge. Did you get a look at anyone special on the bridge? Were there any white men there? Or any- where?"

  I stared at him. "No, sir. I got a quick-look at a lot of people, but they were all Japanese."

  "Rich, needless to say, you'll keep all this to yourself. It's probably no surprise to you that we and the British are carefully monitoring German broadcasts. Day before yesterday the British picked up one in which the German people were told that their great allies, in the Far East had just sunk the second American submarine in two weeks, south of the Bungo Suido and that this should be taken as evidence of the effectiveness of the cooperation already existing between the two countries.

  We were wondering whether you might have seen any Ger- man officers on Pete's bridge."

  "Pete's bridge?"

  "Bungo Pete's. That's who you ran into for your first brush with the enemy, Rich. You're luckier than you have any idea of. Exactly a week before you entered AREA SEVEN, the Needle- fish was due out of there. We never heard from her."

  The Needlefish! Roy Savage's boat, the one to which he had received orders immediately after Jim's qualification fiasco!

  "It's a tough war, Rich, Savage was a fine skipper, and the Needlefish was a fine submarine. She was, one of the new Mare Island boats, and her first two patrols were outstanding.

  "You don't know what happened to Roy?"

  "Not a thing, until this dispatch from Washington relaying the dope from the German broadcast monitors. Bits of wood and other debris came to the surface in both cases, and in the second case the submarine attempted to surface and surrender. but couldn't make it." Blunt looked quizzically at me, and suddenly I realized what I had been slow to catch on about.

  "You mean, we're the other boat!"

  "Right, Rich. Not only that, they know it was the Walrus.

  Bungo always seems to know the name of his victims. He knew he had sunk the Needlefish, too." He chewed reflectively on his pipe. "It's of course vital to us to find out whether or not the Germans are actively helping the Japs with their anti- submarine campaign. God knows they've had their chance to learn which techniques of ours are the most damaging."

  I nodded with dawning comprehension. "Who's in AREA SEVEN right now?"

  "Your old side-kick, Stocker Kane!"

  "Is he all right?" I couldn't help the question; it slipped out without conscious volition.

  "So far as we know he is. He got a ship the first week he was in there, and one other since, I think. We're going to pull him out in a couple of days and shift him to Australia."'

  Mentally I crossed my fingers. "Will we be going back to AREA SEVEN again after he leaves?"

  "Nope. If Bungo Pete is that good, it's time we let him waste some energy just looking for a while. We haven't enough submarines to cover all the areas yet anyhow."

  Some time later a jeep swung me into the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. It was some little distance, around an arm of the bay, and on down to the far end of the yard to where Walrus presumably was already settled down on the dry-dock keel blocks. We could see the Enterprise, also in dry dock, in the one next to ours. I looked her over with interest as we ap- proached. This was the only carrier left in commission in the U. S. Navy, not counting Saratoga, laid up in the Bremerton Navy Yard with a hole in her side, and Ranger, still, for some reason, held back from the fighting zone. New carriers were coming, true, but none of them had yet hit the Pacific.

  Enterprise, Yorktown, and the new Hornet had won the Battle of Midway against startling odds, and Enterprise was now the only one left.

  "The Japs would give a lot to know your whereabouts, old girl," I thought as I looked her over. "You're supposed to be in the South Pacific." The situation down there, according to the newspapers and radio broadcasts, was just about a stand- off, with two big Jap carriers to our one, neither side anxious to risk an all-out fight. Little did they know the true facts! We dared not risk a fight, for we certainly could not afford to lose the Big E, as she was affectionately know
n. The enemy, on the other hand, had already felt her sting, and knew that she could easily take care of both of theirs if they took their fingers off them.

  But Enterprise needed replenishment and repairs, just like any other ship. Hence, no doubt, her presence here in Pearl.

  Equally certain, she would depart unannounced, at full speed, probably in the dead of night so that concealed watchers from the hills of Hawaii or skulking Japanese submarines would not see her.

  My mind drifted thus, watching her bulk grow as the jeep approached. There must have been a thousand men crowded all over her topsides, probably an equal number below decks, all engaged in different tasks, all working like men possessed.

  Every man of her crew and every man in the Navy Yard must realize what this ship meant to the, United States at this particular instant of time. I was daydreaming, looking at her long gray side, when I saw a large puff of smoke spew up from the dry dock amidships.

  Everything stood still for a second. I failed to comprehend the significance of it until another puff of smoke joined the first, and then a black cloud commenced to boil out of the dock around the carrier's underbody, racing up, partly obscuring her side and reaching high, in a few seconds, into the heavens.

  "Driver! She's on fire!" I was sitting in the front seat, along- side the sailor-driver loaned to me by the ComSubPac motor pool, but I shouted nevertheless. He didn't answer, merely pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  "Forget the Walrus! Take me over there!" I yelled.

  This time he answered. "Aye aye, sir." We stared, with horror in our faces, at the impending catastrophe.

  The road along which we were gunning the jeep did not permit us to approach the dry dock directly. We had to run until we were dead ahead of the carrier, her bow pointed right at us, zero angle on the bow, in submarine parlance, before we could turn in, bumping and swaying on the unpaved road, hanging on to the car for all we were worth. Once I nearly flew out of it, clutched the windshield and roof bar grimly to save myself.

  The Enterprise had gone to fire quarters. Streaming all over her topsides like thousands of ants, uncoiling hoses, bringing fire buckets, carrying fire extinguishers, her crew had gone into action like the veterans they were. A veritable army raced across the gangway and plunged down into the smoke and gloom now shrouding her bottom.

  "Other side!" I snapped. The jeep driver had made as if to head for the gangway. There were ample men there to do what could be done. On the other side, however, the starboard side, there was no gangway, and so far as I could see, no one fighting the fire.

  We had approached close enough to see fairly well into the dry dock. I saw a tongue of flame shoot out through the smoke, licking the smoothly rounded side of the ship. Swiftly it scorched its way upward. The black paint of her bottom peeled, hung in shreds, and vanished as the fire hit it.

  Within seconds the flame had reached gray paint and was mounting the side, up above e waterline.

  Hanging over the how of the flight deck in a boatswain's chair was a man with what looked like a pot of paint hooked to the side of the seat. The fire had developed so swiftly that he still held the paint brush in his hand, and as I looked a section of the fire seemed to leap through the air and seize the rope on which the chair hung. The speeding jeep's motor was loud, the roar of the fire and the shrill cries of the fire fighters louder still, yet I almost could hear the poor fellows scream of terror.

  On the flight deck someone began to haul up the line. The ridiculous, dumpy, gesticulating figure advanced by short jerks, a few feet at a time. The tongue of flame had disappeared, but a thin wisp of smoke issued from the rope near where it divided into two strands to form a bridle for the boat- swain's chair. The paint brush was now gone, the paint pot wobbled spasmodically with the successive heaves from the man on the flight deck. I could visualize the latter's yells for assistance, his desperate single-handed try to beat the insidious corrosion of the smoldering hemp.

  The helpless figure in the chair at the end of the line waved his arms more rapidly, more frantically, and suddenly the jerky motion of the line ceased, and he rose smoothly, quickly, speedily. Evidently three or four other men had tailed on to the line and had run away with it. Eager hands stretched forth over the edge of the flight deck, but first the damaged section of the line would have to run across the deck edge…

  The jeep had straightened out, was proceeding down the starboard side of the ship by this time, but I turned half- around, craned my neck to see the finish of the drama: "Stop!"

  I shouted. "Stop! You can't make it! Pass him the good part of the line to grab, hold of!"

  Startled, the driver of the jeep slammed the brakes, skidded to a stop, and killed the engine. I lurched against the dash, leaped out of it. He followed, and the hasty indrawn breath over my shoulder told me that he too had taken in the danger.

  Even as we watched, the action reached its climax. The still- smoking section of rope passed over the deck edge, still under heavy strain from the sailors sprinting down the deck with it, and parted. The man in the sling had just reached the edge of the flight deck, I could have sworn at least one of the several pairs of hands reaching for him through the lifelines touched his own outstretched ones and, clutching, clawed empty air.

  For a long moment the tableau remained static; the man in the sling, the broken end of the line to it flipped into the air, the unseen men reaching for him. Then, swiftly, with terrible certitude, the doomed figure plunged downward. The arms and legs remained rigid, fixed in the pattern they had last assumed. There was no point in struggling more, and he knew it, but there wasn't time, nor awareness, to assume a more dignified posture. There was time only to scream, to expend all his breath in a last hopeless denial of what was happening to him, to scream a piercing, shrieking terror all the way down until his slowly revolving body, still tangled in the boatswain's chair which had trapped him, vanished into the smoke which mercifully shrouded the concrete floor of the dry dock.

  This time I heard it, all the way, including the sloppy splash which put a period to it.

  Shaken, I turned away and nearly stumbled over my jeep driver. He was doubled over, retching.

  A quick look at the carrier, just in time to see a flash of flame under her bottom. There was no one anywhere around on this side. Enterprise was concentrating her fire fighting on the other, the port side. No doubt the fire was worse there, but it was bad here, too. Down at the bay end of the dock was a small structure, perhaps a fire house of some kind. "Come on!" I yelled, smacking the vomiting sailor on the rump.

  Without really thinking about it, I hoped the unceremonious salutation would help him get over his sickness. It did.

  Wiping his lips with his white jumper, sleeve, he jumped back into the jeep while I duplicated the move on the other side.

  We covered the three hundred yards to the little building in nothing flat. We were in luck; it was not a fire house, but an emergency dock pumping station, nearly as good. The door was locked, but the jeep's bumper took care of that. Madly we began to unreel hose. It was a monumental task for two men to get the equipment laid out, let alone start the pumping engine, and I had not really made any thoughtful plan of action.

  All I was conscious of was that the cloud of smoke was reaching ever higher into the sky, and that I could not only see fire but also feel the heat of it along the side of the threatened ship.

  One end of the hose, the suction end, would have to go into the water of the harbor, just beyond the dry-dock gate would be the closest place. But the pumper had been made to Pump the dock dry in emergency, not take a suction from outside it, and the suction hose was too short. It reached no closer than five feet of the water. I stood there wondering what to do next, when I felt an authoritative hand take it from me, and a familiar voice say, "Here, Captain, let's hook this to it!"

  The voice was Kohler's, and I was never so glad to see any- one in my life. He carried another section of hose over his shoulder and several odd-shaped
metal fittings in his hands.

  One of them spanned the joint between the two dissimilar hoses, and in about two minutes we had a suction line of beautifully scrubbed white hose drinking thirstily of the filthy, oily waters of the harbor.

  "I hadn't given thought, either, as to how the suction got started, but it was explained when we arrived back at the pumping station, for there stood Tom Schultz with Wilson, his leading Motor Machinist's Mate. The pump was churning up at a great rate, and more familiar faces were manning the nozzle, jumping down into the smoke of the dry dock, carry- ing tools, axes, carbon dioxide, fire extinguishers, and seeming- ly dozens of other pieces of paraphernalia. I lost myself in the mad swirl of events. Things happened in a kaleidoscopic sequence, and there is only one firm recollection of the remainder of that afternoon, the moment we could find no more fire to fight.

  Jim was a sight, when I finally got a chance to talk calmly with him. He was splattered with black oil and completely soaked with dirty water. His trousers up to his knees were covered with black ooze from the bottom of the dock, and his shoes were filthy. I was not much better off. The fresh khakis we had put on only a few hours ago, in preparation for our return from patrol, how long ago that now seemed! — were com- pletely ruined.

  "Some day, eh Jim? Thank God you were able to get off the ship when you did!"

  Jim grinned. "We had a hell of a time. The crane operator was going to leave us right then and there, with our big gang- way in mid-air when the fire broke out. It took some quick talking to make him take the time to set it in place for us.

  "How did you do it?"

  "I let myself down into the dock with a rope, once Walrus was down solid on the blocks, and swam ashore." The light was dancing again in Jim's eyes, and he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. I noticed the knuckles were bruised.

  Following my look, Jim chuckled again. "He did take a little persuasion, but it was worth it. First time I've ever poked a guy that high in the air!"

  "Good Lord, Jim! You didn't climb up into his cab?" I let the sentence die. Jim grinned again by way of answer.