It was the waiting, however, that was the hardest. Waiting while Stafford reported occasionally, hopefully, “Shifted to long scale”—which might indicate uncertainty as to the exact location of the submarine—and then with something like a note of despair, “Shifted to short-scale pinging.” Most difficult of all was when Stafford would announce, “She’s starting a run!” Then there would be the waiting while Richardson and Stafford, both wearing earphones at the sonar receiver console, tried to determine whether the enemy was most likely to miss ahead or astern, so that Richardson could give the order to the rudder at the best moment to increase the amount of the error. Then the escort would move off a few hundred yards and listen for betraying noises while the reverberations of her depth charges died away. Finally she would resume echo-ranging, sometimes with the successive pings in quick succession on short scale, sometimes, perhaps only for the sake of variety, more widely spaced on the long-range scale.
Late in the afternoon, following a particularly accurate attack in which a depth charge had exploded close aboard on either side, filling the interior of the submarine with dust only just settled, shaking her insides as if the various structural components were made of some flexible plastic material, Blunt climbed heavily into the conning tower.
“We can’t go on like this much longer, Rich. Lichtmann has just reported to Dugan that the last depth charging has wrecked one of the air compressors. Maybe we should just stop all machinery and lie doggo on the bottom for a while.” Blunt’s face was pale, covered with perspiration, smudged with dirt and oil. His khaki shirt was soaked through, with hardly a dry spot on it. His trousers were the same. He had thrown a towel around his neck, mopped his face and the top of his head ceaselessly as he talked. The towel, too, was dirty and wringing wet. Most noticeable about him, however, were his eyes. They were streaked with red, and they darted ceaselessly this way and that as he spoke. His face worked, his jaws and lips hung slack. His head wobbled on his neck as he spoke.
Removing his earphone, wiping the perspiration off his ears and both sides of his head with his own towel, Richardson turned two deep red coals instead of eyes—one set in a puffy black swelling—upon his superior. “No!” he said. “Once we set her on the bottom, we’ll never get her off! As soon as they find out . . .” He let the sentence trail off. Blunt would know as well as anyone what would happen once the enemy knew the submarine had stopped moving, must therefore be lying on the bottom. “All hands not actively employed have been ordered to their bunks to conserve oxygen, Commodore,” he said after a moment. “You should try to lie down and get some rest, too.” His own system had long since ceased crying for sleep. It was numb; but the near horizons of his view, the brittleness of his thought processes, presented their own warnings. Regardless of his will, his body—or parts of it—was sleeping anyway.
“You’re the one who needs some rest,” said Blunt.
It was an unrealistic comment to be addressed to a submarine skipper in the midst of a depth charging. No doubt Blunt meant it only in the complimentary sense.
Rich waved a hand in deprecation. “Where’s Keith?”
“I meant to tell you. He was in the after engineroom when the depth charges went off. He was knocked out somehow. Yancy is back with him.”
This was a blow. Keith Leone was not only his right-hand man, upon whom he had come to depend more than anyone else, he had also become his closest friend. “How bad is he hurt?”
“Don’t know yet. Several others were shaken up too, and somebody in the after room must have flipped, because he began running forward shouting to surface the boat and let the married men out. They stopped him with a wrench on the head. He and Keith are laid out together in the engineroom.”
“Shifted to short scale! She’s starting a run!” As Richardson swung around to the sonar receiving console and adjusted his earphones, he noticed that Stafford’s hands were shaking. So, nearly, were his own. He could see the pulse jumping in his wrists. Through the earphones Rich could hear the malevolent propeller beats coming closer. The rapid pings of the Japanese sonar sounded triumphant. They were exactly like those of a U.S. destroyer. He could pay no further attention to Blunt, who was standing irresolutely on the top rung of the ladder leading to the control room. The hatch was normally closed upon rigging for depth charge. Blunt had opened it to mount to the conning tower.
“She’s coming in on our port bow,” whispered Stafford tensely. The pointer indicator for the sound heads indicated the same. “No bearing drift at all! She’s coming right in on top of us!”
This was going to be a good run. The pings seemed to come right through the machine, and right through Eel’s pressure hull as well. Richardson could hear them without the earphones.
Perhaps a slight change in tactics would be in order. The tincan must be within a thousand yards. The cone of its sonar beam must have a limiting angle of depression, like American sonars. There would be a conical space beneath it where it was deaf. “Left full rudder,” he ordered.
Cornelli, at the steering wheel where he had been for twelve hours, spelled occasionally by Scott, began cranking the large steel wheel. Like all the other hydraulically controlled mechanisms, it had been shifted to hand power and now operated as a pump by which oil could slowly be pushed through the hydraulic lines and gradually move the heavy rudder rams. Cornelli had stripped to the waist. His muscular torso gleamed with sweat under the light of the emergency battle lantern above him. The wheel was four feet in diameter, with a handle which could be snapped out against a spring on its im. With both hands on the handle, Cornelli was jackknifing himself at the waist rapidly. Drops of sweat flew off his arms and shoulders as he furiously pumped the heavy steel wheel. The rudder angle indicator moved left with agonizing slowness.
“That’s well, Cornelli,” said Richardson. The rudder had not quite reached full left, but it was far enough. Cornelli was panting heavily. The oxygen content in Eel’s atmosphere was low. He was heaving deep breaths, alternately inflating and contracting his chest and stomach muscles.
“Rudder is twenty left. Thanks, sir,” he puffed.
Through the gyro repeater built into the sonar dials Richardson could see Eel slowly move left, bringing the pinging escort more nearly dead ahead. “All right, Cornelli, start bringing the rudder back to zero. Scott, you help him.” The air inside the submarine had become considerably more foul than was normal for an all-day submergence. The exertions of the crew, despite the enforced inactivity of some of them, resulted in greatly increased oxygen consumption. Cornelli was still heaving great, nearly sobbing, pants. Richardson felt that he himself was ready to do the same even without physical exertion. Blunt had been panting merely from having climbed up the ladder from the control room. After a few turns of the wheel Cornelli gratefully turned it over to Scott. “Just bring it back slow and stop on zero,” said Richardson. “We’ve got her swinging now.”
He turned, called past Blunt to Al Dugan at the diving station, “Al, we’re going to speed up. When we do, bring her up to a hundred fifty feet.”
Al Dugan also had a towel wrapped around his neck. Perspiration glinted on the ends of his close-cropped hair. He leaned back, looked up the hatch. “One-five-oh feet,” he said.
“All ahead full,” ordered Richardson. The rudder was nearing zero as he gave the command. “Commodore,” he continued, “she’s about to drop again! Please go below and shut the hatch!”
“I figure we’ve just entered the cone,” said Stafford. “We’re going to pass right under her on the opposite course.”
“I know,” said Richardson. He might have gone on to explain his reasoning, which was that once inside the cone of silence there was less chance the enemy ship would hear the sudden increase in speed of Eel’s propellers, and also a fairly good chance that she would not be able to react quickly enough to change the settings on her depth charges. Additionally, there was the factor that with the two ships proceeding on opposite courses, once Eel had passed
beneath her adversary her propeller wash would thrust an increased amount of water directly toward the other ship. There might be an appreciable delay before the frigate could regain contact, since her sonar would also have to contend with her own propeller wash, as well as the water turbulence from her depth charges. Richardson said nothing, however, for suddenly it would have been too great an effort. A huge yawn racked his being. Almost with a sigh, really a deep pant by which his system subconsciously strove for more oxygen to keep it going, he asked, “Scott, when is sunset?”
“Half an hour ago,” said Scott.
“How about evening twilight?”
“About an hour altogether. It will be dark in half an hour more.”
“She’s dropped!” screamed Stafford in Richardson’s ear. Stafford was an oldtime submariner, a sonar man from way back, with many years of experience. He had been invaluable on the patrol thus far, as on the previous one. But even good men had their limits. Perhaps this was the last patrol Stafford should have to make—that is, if this were not to be the last one for other reasons.
“How many?”
“Don’t know. Two at least! Maybe more this time!”
WHAM! A tremendous, all-encompassing explosion . . . WHAM! Another, equally loud. There was a sound of rushing water. WHAM! WHAM! Two more, even louder, almost simultaneous. Something struck the side of the submarine, skidded or scraped for a moment, fell clear. Richardson felt momentarily disoriented. Stafford had been knocked off his stool in front of the sonar equipment. Richardson saved himself from falling by gripping the handrail alongside the control room hatch. Blunt, however, still standing in the hatch, had been knocked backward off the ladder and had disappeared below into the control room just as the hatch itself, sprung loose from its latch, slammed shut with a resounding clap and then bounced open again.
Quin was prone on the floor, under Scott, who had fallen upon him. Unaccountably, the light in the conning tower was suddenly dim. The main lighting circuit had gone out. Only the emergency battle lights were still burning. The cloud of dust was so great that Richardson could hardly see to the after end of the cylindrical compartment, to the TDC and plotting table, normally the battle stations of Buck Williams and Larry Lasche. In the control room, through the reopened hatch, there was a haze of dust through the likewise dimmed light. There was confusion down there too. Blunt, in falling, must have landed upon Dugan, although Richardson could not see the situation clearly enough to discern who was who in the scramble. Relief flooded through him when Dugan’s bulky figure arose from the tangle, the top of his head assumed something like its normal position. There was blood smeared on it, Richardson noted. Whether Dugan’s or someone else’s was not clear, but at least he was back on his feet.
“All compartments report!” Rich shouted down the hatch.
Quin, with his earphones, would have been the normal channel for the order, but he was still temporarily out of commission. He could see him trying to listen, however.
Suddenly Dugan leaned back. “After engineroom reports damage!” he said, speaking swiftly.
“Are they taking water?”
It could not be serious. Al Dugan had yet to feel the weight in his diving controls. There was, however, that sound of rushing water, which he could still hear. It sounded like something changed in the superstructure. There was a quality to the noise which Richardson had never heard before.
He grabbed the telephone handset. Through it Richardson could hear compartments still reporting, as they had been trained, from forward aft.
“Silence on the line!” he bellowed into the telephone mouthpiece. “After engineroom report!”
The voice at the other end of the line seemed extremely distant, weak. It stated its message of horror, baldly, matter-of-factly, without embellishment or inflection of voice. It was almost as though the speaker were too tired, or too much under shock, to place any personal feeling into what he had to say: “After engineroom is flooding!”
Richardson had been expecting something like this. Neither strong steel hull nor human flesh and blood could continue to stand up under the crushing pounding so deliberately delivered for the past several hours. Nor could vital internal machinery. This was the end. This the solution to the problems. Now he could abandon himself to the inevitable. He was so tired—so tired, WHAM! WHAM! Two more depth charges. God, would they never stop? The last two depth charges, however, seemed not quite so close as the previous ones. The destroyer had finished its pass and was now dead astern. Had not Eel speeded up, the two middle depth charges in the pattern would have fallen neatly around the conning tower instead of farther aft. Now the frigate would be turning around, beaming its sonar where its plot would indicate Eel should be. But the escort would be pinging straight up Eel’s wake, through the disturbed water of her thrashing screws, the inline disturbance of six closely spaced depth charges. Richardson could increase its difficulty by maneuvering to keep the disturbance between them. Even with full speed, however, the rapidly accumulating weight of water in Eel’s after engineroom would soon be too much to carry. He could hasten the end by ordering “all stop” and letting her sink quietly to the bottom. The men in the after engineroom could prolong their lives a little by evacuating the compartment, dogging it down tightly after them. Then everyone could rest.
The alternative was to fight it. Eel must have gained some distance on her attacker. There would be a period of some peace, some opportunity to see if it might not yet be possible to salvage the situation. What was it that old Joe Blunt used to say so many years ago when he was still the much-admired skipper of the Octopus? “When you get into firing position, take your time and do it right.” That was one of them. The other was something to the effect that no matter what happened, there would be time to do what had to be done. Only the coward gave up and let circumstances rule him.
Richardson was aware of Quin staring at him with great wide-open eyes. Al Dugan in the control room below was taking a step up the ladder to bring Richardson into clearer view.
“All compartments, this is the captain. Stand firm to your stations! I’m going aft!” Deliberately he forced himself calmly to replace the handset in its cradle. “Buck,” he called, “I’m going to the after engineroom. You’re in charge up here. You can reach me by telephone. Keep the speed on, and keep that tincan astern. I’ll be back in three minutes!”
He stepped into the hatch, placed his heels on the ladder leading to the control room. It would do the control room gang good to see him coming down in his accustomed way, back to the ladder, hands on the skirt below the hatch rim opposite. “Gangway, Al,” he said. The diving officer, standing on the bottom rung of the ladder, swung clear. “Is she getting heavy aft?” he asked Dugan in a low tone.
“A little, but we’re still holding her at this speed. I don’t think we can if we slow down, though.”
The steps he must take had almost instantaneously become clear in Richardson’s mind. First, at all costs keep off the bottom. Second, stop or reduce the flooding. Third, get Keith and all other injured persons to a place of comparative safety, leaving only able-bodied men to do what could be done in the after engineroom. “Al,” he said, speaking swiftly, “line up your air manifold for blowing number seven main ballast tank alone. If you find yourself getting out of trim, or if we have to slow down, put a bubble in it big enough to balance the weight of the water in the after engineroom. Be careful and don’t put too much air in the tank.” Dugan nodded.
“Line up the drain pump on the drain line and be ready to start it. If we can still reach the after engineroom bilge suction, I’ll open it and give you the word to start pumping. And remember, if you get too much air in number seven tank, the only way to get rid of it will be through the vent valve, and it will go right to the surface for them to see!”
As Richardson swiftly made his way through the successive compartments, opening the watertight doors, seeing they were redogged behind him, he was acutely conscious of the haggard looks
with which everyone regarded him. His was the responsibility for the situation, and it was to him alone they had to look for survival.
There were two or three men peering through the heavy glass viewing port in the closed watertight door between the forward and after enginerooms. One of them had his hand on the compartment air-salvage valve above the door. They moved quickly aside for him. No water was yet visible in the compartment.
“Open the door,” he ordered. Instantly the dogging mechanism handle was spun, the door swung open. He stepped through. “Dog it and keep a watch on me,” he said crisply. “Stand by to put pressure on the compartment, but don’t do it unless I signal, or unless you see water.” Air pressure in the engineroom, a last resort to reduce intake of water, would thereafter prevent opening either door to the compartment until an airlock system was devised.
Water was coming in from somewhere. He could hear the hydrant-like spurt of it beneath the deck plates. The upper level was deserted except for Yancy, the pharmacist’s mate.
“Where’s Leone?” asked Richardson.
“He’s down below with Mr. Cargill and Chief Frank. He’s okay, sir. The other man is all right, too. He just couldn’t take any more. So I gave him a sedative, and I think he’ll be okay when he wakes up. He’s over there lying on the generator flat.” Yancy indicated the area aft of the starboard main engine.
“Good. Get some help and get him through the door forward right away, and roll him into a bunk.” He indicated the watertight door through which he had just entered, then swiftly dropped through the open hatch in the deck plates, climbed down the thin steel rungs in the ladder. He was nearly to his knees in water in an incredibly confined space between the two huge engines.
Keith, a large abrasion on the side of his head, sloshed toward him. “Looks like the sea line to this freshwater cooler is ruptured right at the hull valve,” he said. “We’ve got the hull valve shut, but it’s the valve body itself that’s broken. There’s no way of stopping the water coming in unless we can take the sea pressure off.”
Dust on the Sea Page 43
