Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 20

Another half-minute. "Steady on one-seven-oh!" Oregon's nasal twang.

It was what I had been waiting for. "Up periscope!" I swung it to the bearing. "Bearing-Mark!"

"Zero-eight-two!" There was hardly a pause between my "Mark" and Rubinoffski's reading of the azimuth circle, "Range-Mark!'

"Eight-four-double-oh!"

"Down scope! All ahead full-control, one hundred feet!"

I turned to Jim and Keith. "No zig yet. Angle on the bow about forty-five port."

Crossing to the hatch leading below, I looked down on the top of Tom Schultz' balding head. "We'll try her this way for another minute, Tom," I told him. "He's got to zig sometime!"

Tom looked up and nodded. "One hundred feet, aye, aye!"

We could sense the increased throb of Walrus' propellers, and her deck inclined down by the bow.

Walrus could make nearly nine knots at full speed-though not for long, of course, because even her huge battery could only last about an hour at the high discharge rate required.

The question was how long to run before taking another look; and every look required slowing down, planing back up to periscope depth.

At nine knots the periscope would throw up a spray visible for miles. If we slowed down to make a periscope observation we would lose ground in our race to catch the Vixen. If we didn't look, a big zig might leave us in an even worse position.

I leaned over Keith's shoulder, watched the dials going around on the face of the TDC. One of the two biggest dials indicated our own ship's course, the other that of the target.

The six-inch line between their centers represented the line of sight down which I looked every time we used the periscope.

Other smaller dials placed symmetrically, showed target speed, our own speed, gyro angles, time elapsed, and various other bits of pertinent information. Beneath the face of the instrument were two rows, of cranks by which data could be inserted or changed.

One minute since the last observation. Perhaps a zig toward will have taken place since we last looked.

"Control, six-oh feet!"

"All ahead one third!" Almost a minute to wait, while Tom planed up and the ship slowed down. Finally…

"Up periscope!" The handles gently rose into my waiting hands. "Bearing-Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!"

"He's zigged, all right!" I spoke with feeling. "Zigged away, that's what. Angle on the bow is port seventy!"

Keith spun the new data into the TDC. Jim, with a single twist, of his right hand, reoriented the Is-Was.

"Control! One hundred feet! All ahead full!" We felt the ship dip once again, and the communicated throb of our screws Jim stood behind me, studying the face of the TDC and occasionally glancing at his Is-Was. Captain Blunt, in deference to the crowded conditions in the conning tower, was making himself as small as possible in a comer of space between the two periscope hoist motors. Crowded in behind us, Hugh Adams bent over the track chart he had started on a tiny table top nestled into the after part of the conning tower.

Time moved with lead shoes while I looked at the slowly creeping "own ship" and 'target' dials, and the speedometer- type distance counter ticking off the reduction in range as target and submarine ran for the same imaginary point.

"Dammit!" I muttered, under my breath. "Where does he think he's going anyway!"

The timer on the TDC indicated two minutes since I had last looked through the periscope. We could hear a throbbing, almost a musical note, as Walrus tore through the water. A lifeline perhaps, or some excessive vibration in a stanchion or hand rail. I made a mental note to look into it and see if we could stop the noise. Jap sonar, so the first reports had commented, was better than we had anticipated, and it would be well not to make any avoidable noise.

Two and a half minutes. Jim broke the silence. "Captain, do you think he knows where we are? He never got a chance to shine the light on us…"

It was true, and I had been thinking along the same lines.

The procedure for practice approaches specified that the target's initial base course should be the direction of the sub- marine from the target at the time the searchlight was extinguished. If Vixen had not happened to see us dive or had failed to make note of our true bearing during the moments just before we dived, it was quite possible that her skipper was actually in doubt as to what his base course ought to be.

"Dammit, anyway!" I said again. Three minutes came up.

We could not wait any longer. "All ahead one third!" I ordered the helmsman.

Answered "One third, sir" from Oregon after the annunciators clinked.

Quin was watching me gravely.

"Control-six-two feet," I told him.

Quin relayed the word and in a moment I heard Tom acknowledge by calling up through the open batch.

It would take us a minute to slow down and there was nothing to do but chew our fingernails until Tom got us near enough to the surface and our speed had reduced that we could use the periscope.

Captain Blunt was looking at me as if about to say some- thing. "Anything wrong up there, Rich?" The drawl in his voice was out of character for him.

"Yes, there is, sir," I snapped, somehow irritated by his lack of concern. "I don't know where this fool is going. Maybe he is running target for another submarine somewhere else."

Blunt's drawl was even deeper. "What d'ya expect? Are the Japs going to run right at you and make it easy?" Suddenly the familiar incisive note was back in his voice. "Listen, Richardson, that is one of the things wrong around here. The big problem is to get in front of the target. Anybody ought to be able to hit him with a torpedo after that. Getting into attack position is ninety per cent of the job. Too many of our people seem to think the Japs are going to shine a search- light at them and zigzag happily down to where the submarine has been waiting." Again that sardonic glitter.

"Nuts!" he said.

There was no contesting his point.

The ship's speed indicator located on the bulkhead near Oregon's steering wheel showed three and a fraction knots; giving me an opportunity to break away gracefully from Captain Blunt. The depth gauge showed sixty-two feet keel depth.

"Up periscope," I ordered. A quick one this time: "Bearing- Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!" I turned back to the TDC where Keith was inserting the information as relayed by Rubinoffski.

"Target's angle on the bow, port ninety," I said sarcastically.

"He zigged away again."

Keith changed the target course by the requisite amount.

Jim did likewise with the Is-Was, then both turned to me.

"This is no good, skipper," Jim said. "He's not playing the same game we are."

I wavered in indecision. Maybe we ought to abandon the approach and surface, signaling Vixen to start over again. It had been done before…

"Don't forget this fellow's a Jap," I found myself saying.

Then to Oregon at the other end of the conning tower, "All ahead, flank!" and to Tom, "One hundred feet!"

At flank speed the Electrician's Mates poured everything the battery could give into the motors and the whole frame of the ship trembled with the added power. You could feel her accelerate like a living thing as she drove forward. She couldn't last long, not over a half-hour more at this speed.

This was all we could do-our maximum effort. But in- decision still gripped me. What if Vixen zigged. even farther away? What if we used up the whole battery in a fruitless chase? We might very well do this, all to no purpose. The dials on the TDC gave no comfort, either, for they now showed Walrus and Vixen running on parallel courses about five thou- sand yards apart. This could go on indefinitely, or until our battery gave out. If we turned toward the "enemy," Vixen would swiftly pass ahead, never once having come close to torpedo range, and we would be left with a hopeless stern chase. The only thing to do was to keep going and hope the next zig of the target would be in our direction.

The timer ticked off another minute and I bent over Hugh Adams' plotting sheet, shooting a fleeting look at old Blunt is I did so, hardly hoping for a suggestion and finding none in his customarily grim visage. Hugh's chart contained a paucity of information; merely the location of the two ships and lines showing their respective movements. I studied it carefully.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a forgotten idea was stirring.

I tried to wrest it from Hugh's plot without success. A look at the TDC, nearly blocked by Jim and Keith's shoulders.

Nothing unusual there. Back to the chart.

"What was the initial bearing of the target when we dived?"

I asked Hugh.

He silently indicated a lightly penciled line near the right- hand edge of the paper. "This is about what it was, sir. I had to work backward a little after we figured out which way he was going "Is this north?" I indicated the head of the paper.

Adams nodded.

Still the idea wouldn't come, and then suddenly it there, full grown. I looked for the Squadron Commander;- he was studying the dials and instruments alongside Oregon; our helmsman.

"Rubinoffski," I muttered under my breath, "where's the area chart?"

The Quartermaster reached under Adams' desk and pulled out a rolled up navigational chart of Long Island Sound.

"Didn't I see something about net-testing operations?" I asked him.

"Yes sir." Rubinoffski's tapering forefinger indicated a freshly inked line about one inch long on the chart.