Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 19

Jim, so burdened with work that he seemed by this time to have forgotten his original bad feeling, was also a tower of strength as Assistant Approach Officer.

Tom Schultz, of course, was back at his old stand, either in the engine rooms or handling the dive during battle stations submerged.

After a month of practice we were ready for our final operational inspection at the hands of Captain Blunt. We were assigned the deepest area in Long Island Sound, not very deep at that for a boat like Walrus. To the westward the Falcon, Vixen, and Semmes formed the "convoy" we were to attack. Blunt, Jim, and I, and Hugh Adams as Officer of the Deck, were on the bridge; above us on the upper level of the periscope supports stood four lookouts with binoculars; on the "cigarette deck" Rubinoffski, Quar- termaster of the Watch, also simulated aircraft watch with binoculars.

The Vixen, playing the part of a Jap troop transport, had not yet turned around to head for us. I was watching her idly, my binoculars scanning the horizon, when suddenly I heard a stentorian bellow: "Plane on the starboard quarter!" Captain Blunt was shouting at the top of his lungs and pointing off our stern.

Involuntarily I swung my binoculars to see it. The Squadron Commander shouted again, pointed violently. "Plane coming in on our starboard quarter!" He pointed again.

Hugh looked back uncertainly, then made up his mind and reached for the diving alarm. "Clear the bridge!" he shouted as he pressed the, diving alarm twice. There was a pop from forward as Number One main ballast tank vent went open. Then another pop as Number Two did likewise. Three and Five had fuel in them, but within less than a second, Four, Six, and Seven popped in their turn and little geysers of spray blew up through our slotted deck. The lookouts came tumbling down from their upper platform, protecting their binoculars with their arms across their chests, diving for the hatch. Back aft I could see the wake of water thrown astern by the suddenly speeded-up propellers, and up forward the bow commenced to settle in the water. Captain Blunt was grinning at me and he had a stop watch in his hand. It had already traveled a quarter of the way around the dial.

"Didn't you see the plane, Rich?" he chuckled.

There was no time to engage in conversation, even if Captain Blunt would, have liked to, for Walrus was already on her way down. Jim, the Squadron Commander, and I ran to the hatch. I motioned Jim down ahead of me and then Blunt. Hugh Adams was right behind us, as Officer of the Deck he would be last man below on a dive. I jumped down the hatch, stood clear for Hugh. He came down, slammed the hatch shut, and leaned back on the wire toggle holding it in place. Rubinoffski, having preceded us, was standing by, the helmsman; now he jumped up on the ladder rungs, grasped the hatch wheel and locked it firmly. Adams released the wire lanyard and dashed below.

Walrus' deck tilted forward a little more, and I could hear water gurgling up the sides of the conning tower. The needle on the conning-tower depth gauge wavered off its peg, commenced to climb.

"Depth, Captain?" came floating up the hatch from Hugh.

"One hundred feet," I called in return. I turned to Captain Blunt. "If it were a plane we should go deeper but we'd better not here; the sound is too shallow for a big boat like this."

He nodded.

"Sixty feet," said Rubinoffski, as the depth gauge reached that point.

The Squadron Commander looked at his stop watch. "Sixty- one seconds. That's only fair. Won't she dive any faster?"

"I think you caught Adams a little by surprise, sir."

"Walrus has got to stay on her toes, Rich. You'd be Surprised how many boats don't even think of diving out from under attacking planes until they get to Pearl Harbor and talk to some of their buddies."

We could hear the bustle below, the slamming of water tight doors, the securing of ventilation pipe bulkhead valves.

The conning tower commenced to warm up rapidly with the air supply cut off.

"One hundred feet, Captain! The ship is rigged for depth charge!" Hugh Adams' voice came easily up the open hatch- way from the control room below.

"Very well," I answered. I leaned over the hatch, raised my voice to, make sure of being heard: "Secure from depth charge! Sixty feet!" Walrus inclined upward. Again the banging of bulkhead doors and ventilation valves as they were opened. The depth gauge at my elbow slowly recorded the decrease in depth. When it touched seventy feet I started the periscope on its way up. Rubinoffski leaped forward and relieved me of the pickle control button.

I was looking through the periscope when it broke the surface, spun it around three times swiftly.

"Down scope!" The sheaves creaked and the periscope bottom disappeared. "Three ships in sight, Commodore.

Looks like our target group with a large angle on the bow."

"Ya don't say!"

I waited. Old Blunt was giving me that shaggy-eyebrow look and suddenly the light dawned. "Enemy in sight!" I rapped out. "Sound the general alarm!"

Walrus' general alarm sounded like a musical doorbell, except that it kept going for eleven seconds after you let go the knob. The musical "Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong" reverberated through the ship, and I heard men dashing about below. Jim, Keith, Hugh Adams, Quin, and several others climbed swiftly up the nearly vertical ladder and joined us in the conning tower.

"Conning tower manned and ready, skipper!" reported Jim.

Within a few moments, — less than a minute-Quin had received the telephone reports: "The ship is at battle stations, sir," he said.

Keith was spinning the dials of his TDC. It gave forth a low-pitched siren-like whine as the motors came up to speed.

"Initial bearing of target?" he said to me.

Rubinoffski sang out the answer: "Two-six-six!"

"Angle on the bow?"

This was mine. "About port forty." Keith gave a low whistle.

"Give them an initial range of ten thousand, — that puts us nearly seven thousands yards off the track!"

This meant that unless the target group zigged toward us we would have to go three and a half miles to reach a firing position, and during the time this would take a submarine the target would have to travel only about a mile farther.

Barring unusually slow enemy speed or a radical zig toward, this meant there could be no hope whatsoever of our catching up.

"Up periscope," I ordered. Maybe another look would give us more specific information, show the situation less unfavorable. The scope slithered up. Rubinoffski swung it to the bearing on which I had seen the targets.

In Walrus we had decided that Rubinoffski, instead of Jim, would be "periscope jockey," thus leaving Jim free to ride herd on Keith and the other conning-tower personnel insure that things progressed as they ought, and back me up as Assistant Approach Officer.

"Bearing-Mark!" as I laid the vertical cross hair on Vixen's mast. "Range-" my right hand fell to the range crank. I only saw the tops of Vixen, — the ends of her masts and a broad structure that was probably her bridge. Two other masts, other ships-one to left and one to right. They would be Falcon and Semmes. Vixen had two masts about equal in height; that was how I knew it was she.

"Use masthead height thirty feet," I snapped, then repeated, "Range-Mark." At the word "Mark" I had cranked the range knob around so that the target divided itself in two, and I laid the tip of the mast in one image alongside the squat structure which I took to be Vixen's bridge in the other. The total height from the tip of the mast to the water- line would be about sixty feet. Thirty feet would be a good guess for the height of the mast above the bridge.

Rubinoffski was studying the range dial on his side of the periscope. As I gave the — Mark' he swiftly read off the range opposite the thirty-foot masthead height marker.

"Eight-eight-double-oh," he said.

"Down periscope." I turned to the rear of the conning tower where Keith was still twisting dials on the TDC, inserting the latest bearing and range information.

Jim, on the other side of the compartment, somewhat closer to me, was setting up the Is-Was.

"Angle on the bow port forty," I said.

Jim twisted the Is-Was dials. Keith gave one last turn lo the range knob of the TDC, adjusted the "Target Course knob, leaned back a few inches. Jim and I crowded in to look at it.

"Not so good, skipper," said Jim. "We'll have to run like a rabbit to get over there."

Keith nodded. "Distance to the track is five thousand yards."

"What's the normal approach course?" I asked. The normal approach courser steers the submarine toward an imaginary point ahead of the target such that the submarine will have the shortest possible distance to run-and the target the longest.

Jim spun the dials of the Is-Was, looked at it searchingly.

"One-seven-zero, " he said.

"One-seven-zero, sir!" Keith corroborated from the TDC.

"Left to one-seven-zero," I called to the helmsman at the other end Of the conning tower. "All ahead full."

The clink of the annunciators. "Left to one-seven-zero.

Answered all ahead full, sir!" The battle-stations helmsman was a new man, a Quartermaster third by the name of Oregon who had been added to the old S-16 complement to build Walrus up to the seventy men required for her crew.

I waited half a minute, until the ship was swinging nicely.

"All ahead one third!" I ordered. We should not get too much way on the ship quite yet.