Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 24

"Take in Two and Three!" Hugh was shouting to the men forward and aft of the bridge. "Stand by to answer bells," he said to the conning tower. A moment later, "Take in Four!"

Number Four line came snaking in. "Starboard back two thirds! Left full rudder!"

We slowly began to gather sternway. Hugh stood on the side of the bridge looking carefully at the dock and our motion alongside of it and at the Number One line taut to the cleat at its head.

"Slack One," Hugh said to Quin, standing with the ubiquitous telephone headset under the overhang of the bridge.

Quin spoke into the mouthpiece. Number One line sagged.

"Take in One," said Hugh. Quin spoke again. Number One line came aboard.

Adams reached for a toggle handle nearby, tugged on it A piercing foghorn blast roared out from beneath the bridge.

He held the toggle for several seconds then released it; the foghorn stopped abruptly.

A shrill whistle. Rubinoffski standing in the after part of the cigarette deck had a policeman's whistle clenched in his teeth. The colors, which had been flying from the flagstaff on our stern, were taken down by one of our men who had been standing there waiting for the signal. Likewise, up forward the Union Jack was taken down and furled.

Simultaneously, Rubinoffski reached down beside him, grasped a short flagstaff with a flag rolled around it, jammed, it into a socket at the end of the cigarette deck bulwark, unrolled it to the breeze.

Walrus backed nicely out into the Thames River, twisted to align herself with the channel, and started downstream. We were on our way to war at last; down the familiar, often traveled river; through the railroad bridge and the highway bridge which, side by side, had to open simultaneously for us; past the Electric Boat Company where Walrus had been con- ceived and born, and where the hulls of her sisters were taking shape; past the baroque old Griswold Hotel with its green-stained shutters and Victorian facade; past Southwest Ledge and New London Light; through the Race-that narrow channel between the eastern and western parts of Long Island Sound; past Cerebus Shoal buoy. Finally, late in the afternoon, with Montauk Point abeam to starboard, we set our course due south.

The manner in which we would make the southward passage from New London had been a matter of considerable thought and discussion. For the sake of a fast passage we would run all the way on the surface, except for occasional short dives for drills and once a day to check our computed trim. The big worry was the Possibility of encountering a German submarine on patrol off our East Coast. We were a new ship, in transit, more vulnerable than any surface vessel.

A submarine has so little buoyancy reserve on the surface- none at all submerged, of course-that it can never hope to survive a torpedo hit. But the main thing was that we were new, untried, and inexperienced; true, we had trained faith- fully, but any German we might meet would have the inestimable advantage of weeks of constant alertness off a hostile shore, perhaps the knowledge that he had already been tried in the crucible of war, certainly the superior position of being at leisure on a station through which we would have to pass hurriedly.

For maximum concealment at night the ship was kept completely blacked out topside. Our running lights had not only been turned out but entirely disconnected, their glass lenses removed. The exterior of the ship was a dull black all over, including the once-bright brass capstans and other stray bits of shiny metal which, by the slightest reflection from moon or stars, might betray us. The only light permitted top- side was a tiny red one in the gyro compass repeater for the Officer of the Deck, and the dim glow, also red, which came out of the open hatch at his feet.

Our topside watch consisted of four lookouts, one assigned to each of four sectors around the ship; the Quartermaster of the Watch, who normally stood on the after part of the bridge; and, of course, the Officer of the Deck. An six bridge watchers were equipped with binoculars. Instructions to all six were to use them constantly and to maintain the utmost vigilance for low-lying, dark hulls and suspicious streaks in the water which might be made by torpedoes. Of course we zigzagged, and, knowing that the best defense of a lone ship on the high seas is speed, we held our four sixteen- cylinder Winton diesel engines at maximum sustained power.

Only a few hours away from the safety and comfort of New London, everything now seemed entirely unreal. It was hard to believe that we had progressed so quickly from safety into mortal danger.

The first Might out was uneventful, but I could not sleep.

Ceaselessly I roamed the ship from forward torpedo room to after torpedo room, telling people off watch to be sure to get plenty of rest against the time when they would be needed, assuring myself that all was well with those who actually were on watch. Jim, I saw, was doing likewise. Evidently he could not sleep either, and by the time morning came we had succeeded in exhausting ourselves. It was a good thing the German submarine happened not to choose our first night at sea, or the day following, to make his attempt upon us.

Having had access to some of the reports of German — sub- marine exploits m the Atlantic, we were well aware of the danger they presented. They had been built for service in the narrower ocean, had a shorter cruising-range requirement, and were consequently smaller than our boats, lay lower in the water, and were harder to see. The German Type-7 boat, apparently their favorite for the transocean patrols, was hard- ly half the size of Walrus. But it had nearly equal speed and packed an equally lethal wallop, torpedo for torpedo-though, of course, less than half the total war load we could carry.

It was no doubt one of these which attacked us in the early morning of our third night out of New London. We were still running south, zigzagging and making full speed.

Tom Schultz had the watch on the bridge and I had just stepped below for a few minutes. It wag a dark night, without a moon. We were in the Gulf Stream and the weather was clear, still, warm, and muggy, with myriads of stars studding a pitch-black sky. A moderately heavy sea was running from astern and what wind there was also from the north.

The four exhaust plumes, two from either side, appeared to rise almost straight up, and the moist, incenselike odor of diesel fumes pervaded the bridge. The motion of the ship was gentle, a slight pitch and an occasional deep roll as a quartering sea came in.

My nightly peregrinations had taken the form of periodic inspections below decks, with the rest of the time on the bridge ready for whatever action circumstances might bring forth. I had already made two such inspections and had barely reached the control room on my third descent when suddenly that sort of sixth sense which somehow grows within all ship captains twanged a warning note to my brain. Perhaps 'it was that the rudder went to full right and remained there, not easing off shortly as the zigzag plan would normally have required. It might have been the change from 'full' speed to "flank," although it was my later impression that Tom had not yet called for more speed. At any rate, I had leaped to the conning tower and was halfway through it when the collision alarm sounded.

There is nothing more eerie at sea on a black, unfriendly night than to have the collision alarm sound unexpectedly.

Somewhere out in the dark someone is trying to put the finger on you. He has seen you first-may already have killed you, only you don't know it yet. The collision alarm, in a vessel at war, is like a ship screaming in fright.

I don't consciously remember pulling myself up to the bridge, but I was there beside Tom before the alarm had stopped ringing, just before the hatch to the bridge went closed. Below decks the watertight doors were banging shut and everyone below knew this time it was no drill. It was like one fairly drawn-out simultaneous bang. The collision alarm could not have been silent for more than fifteen seconds be- fore a rapid voice on the bridge speaker announced, "Ship rigged for collision!"

Tom pointed off on our port beam. "There he is," he whispered. "He was broad on the bow when I saw him!"

I raised my binoculars still hung around, my neck, looked long and hard in the direction Tom pointed-nothing. Even though the control room had been "redded" out, that is, darkened, with only dim red lights for visibility-I had reduced my night vision by going there, even if for only a second.

"I can't see him, Tom." For no particular reason I also whispered.

"I can all right! Can't see much of him though. We are fine on his bow."

I was subconsciously swinging my binoculars aft, trying to keep in the same line of vision as Walrus turned under us.

"Put our stern right on him, Tom," I said.

"Aye aye, sir!"

I kept trying to see and suddenly there he was, surprisingly near, and surprisingly small. A little gray boat plunging deep in the sea; a square shadowy conning tower rising amidships.

About the size of the S-16, I would have guessed, although it was hard to compare.

"Wonder if he's seen us?" I muttered. "N6 telling that "God!" Tom grasped my arm so hard it hurt. He pointed to, the water alongside and to starboard. Not fifty feet away a white streak suddenly appeared on the surface of the water parallel to our course. Swiftly it came alongside and passed ahead. I leaped to the other side of the bridge, leaped back again.

"Do you see any more?"

Tom did not answer.