Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 33

Walrus rode sluggishly on the nearly smooth sea. Her decks were almost awash and little ripples of water splashed in her superstructure above her pressure hull. Now as the turbo blow commenced to force large quantities of air into the ballast tanks, at just sufficient pressure to expel the water, thus saving our precious high-pressure air, Walrus slowly began to lift herself to a more seaworthy altitude. To bring the ship to the fully surfaced condition would require approximately fifteen minutes. Five minutes would get her high enough for the slow patrolling we proposed.

"Permission to come on the bridge." This was Jim. Keith had not yet relieved me so I still had the deck.

"Come on up," I said. Jim moved aft to our bulwarkless cigarette deck, joined Rubinoffski in whispered consultation.

The latter pointed skyward in several directions, and in a moment Jim was shooting the stars with the sextant he had brought with him.

"Permission to start a battery charge." This was relayed up the conning tower hatch by the messenger stationed there.

"Permission granted," I called back. This also was part of our surfacing routine. A main engine snorted and then another, and I could hear them loaded down as the life-giving amperes began to be forced back from their generators into our battery.

"Permission to dump garbage?"

"Granted," I said again. Up came Russo and two mess cooks, lugging three large gunny sacks containing the days accumulation of trash and garbage, each one of them weighted with crushed tin cans, broken or discarded tools, even a stone or two from the supply Russo had brought aboard. The sacks were unceremoniously pitched over into the water, floated aft as they slowly became waterlogged.

"Well proceed in toward the coast at slow speed, Keith," I said, "until Jim gets his fix. Be alert for aircraft or Jap vessels."

Keith nodded. "I relieve you, sir," he said. I moved back to the after part of the cigarette deck, leaned thoughtfully against the wire cable which had replaced our bulwarks. We had achieved our destination. We had come over eight thou- sand miles to war and a few miles ahead of us lay one of the main islands of Japan, southernmost Kyushu.

Kyushu is separated from the islands to the north and east, Honshu and Shikoku, by the Japanese Inland Sea. From the Pacific side there are two entrances to this confined body of water: the Bungo Suido between Kyushu and Shikoku and the Kii Suido between Shikoku and Honshu. Since the earliest times Japan's Inland Sea has been one of the island empire's main traffic arteries between the home islands and, of course, during the war it constituted a huge sheltered harbor in which their whole battle fleet could hold maneuvers if desired.

AREA SEVEN included the eastern coast of Kyushu, beginning with the Bungo Suido on the north and extending down, almost to the southern tip of the island. Our instructions were to examine the area; determine what, if anything, were the Japanese traffic patterns; estimate how often the Bungo Suido was used, whether naval units were in the habit of using that entrance. And our mission was also to sink any and all Japanese vessels we might encounter, and avoid being detected, attacked, or sunk ourselves.

We were still headed west. Up ahead, no longer in sight, was Kyushu. I stared unseeingly in that direction, then took my binoculars and made a slow sweep all the way around the horizon. It felt good to be topside, to draw in clean, whole- some air instead of the torpid atmosphere we had been breathing. My greedy senses drank in the freedom of the ocean.

There was a musty tinge to the air, an odor of wet, burned sandalwood, of unwashed foreign bodies. A seaman, near shore, can always smell the shore-it is the smell landsmen identify as the "smell of the sea." But it is not noticeable at sea, only close to shore, and it pervaded my consciousness this night. All night long we cruised, aimlessly about, seeing nothing, never losing the smell of Japan. By morning we had approached close enough to Kyushu to take up a patrol station about ten miles offshore where we hoped some unwary vessel might blunder into our path, and where the first of a series of observation posts on the Bungo Suido could logically be set up.

Jim and I had studied the chart. Inshore lay a bank of mod- erately shallow water, hardly deep enough to shelter us in the event of a counterattack. Jim had argued for going in closer, saying that coastwise Japanese shipping would rim in as shallow water as possible. I demurred, pointing out that we had the dual responsibility of watching the Bungo as well, and that we could always go closer inshore after a merchant vessel if necessary. The spot we finally selected was intended to satisfy both objectives, though Jim never did express final satisfaction.

We were finishing an austere lunch when the control room messenger appeared. "Captain," he said, "you're wanted in the conning tower. Mr. Adams says there's smoke." I dashed down the passageway, hearing the last words of his hastily muttered message over my shoulder as I ran. In a moment Hugh turned over the periscope to me. Sure enough, a thin column of smoke could be seen close inshore northwestward.

I watched it carefully to see which way it was going, finally accepted the fact that it was heading away. The smoke gradually became less distinct, faded out in the distance.

Twice more we sighted smoke that day, once more to the northwest and once to the southwest. In all three cases the ships were going away, not toward; and it would have been fruitless to have pursued them.

"Do you think they are slipping by us close inshore?" Jim asked me. I shrugged. There was no way of telling. "Maybe if we went in closer, close enough to see the coast distinctly.

"Too shallow," I said, but the eagerness I had noted during, the fruitless attempt on the Jap submarine was now dancing in Jim's eyes, showing through the considered awareness I had become accustomed to.

"Look, skipper, why don't we go in here?" He indicated a spot on the coast where the extent of shallow water was much less than elsewhere. "They couldn't get by without our seeing them if we went in here."

To fall in with his suggestion would have meant giving up our watch position on the Bungo Suido. The position we had chosen permitted us to cover one segment of the probable traffic lines from there. Several days in this position and several days in each of three others would, we had figured, give us some idea of traffic patterns.

"Jim, we've, only been here one day. Keep your shirt on," I said in small exasperation. "We've got twenty-nine days more in the area." But Jim persisted, pointing out eagerly the con- figuration of the coastline and the depths of water here and there to bolster his argument. On our area chart he had drawn the approximate location of the three ships we had sighted.

"Look, Captain," he said, "we already know they are going here," indicating with his finger. "We know they are running close, inshore. Our main mission is to sink them. After we knock off a couple." We might have argued longer had not the musical notes of the general alarm interrupted us.

Startled, I jerked up, caught Jim's eye and then with one move we raced to the conning tower.

"Bong bong bong bong bong," the doorbell chimes were still pealing out as, breathlessly, I confronted Dave Freeman.

Already the reduction of oxygen was becoming noticeable.

"A ship, sir, coming this way, a big ship." The periscope was down, evidently having just been lowered. I grasped the pickle, squeezed it as Dave spoke, started it up again. In a moment I was looking through it. There in the distance, exact- ly like our practice approaches in New London, were the masts, stack, and bridge structure of a large vessel. I could hear the warming-up notes of the TDC. Keith was ready for business.

"Bearing-Mark!" Down periscope!"

"Three-two-eight," read Dave from the azimuth ring.

Keith furiously spun one of the handles. "Angle on the bow?"

"Starboard ten."

"Estimated range?" I had not tried to get a range."

The ship was still well hull down, only her upper works showing. "Give it fifteen thousand yards," I said.

Jim had extracted the Is-Was from its stowage, was rotating the dials. Rubinoffski, garbed in his underwear with hastily thrown-on shoes and carrying his trousers, came clat- tering up the ladder. Off watch, he had been caught in his bunk by the call to quarters. Freeman relinquished the pickle to him, dashed below, bound for his own station. The Quarter- master hastily thrust his bony legs into his dungarees, managed to get them hooked at the top in time to grasp the periscope control button and raise it at my order. I spun the periscope around quickly, lowered it. "Nothing else in sight," I said, motioning for it to come up again. Another look, this time carefully at the sky. Clear, a few clouds, not much cover for aircraft, no airplanes in sight. Down went the periscope again.

I looked around, looked at Jim. He nodded briefly.

"Conning tower manned, sir." Quin was hastening on his headset, nodded also. The periscope started up with my thumb motion.

"Observation," I snapped "Ship is at battle stations, rapidly called out Quin.

I rose with the periscope. "Bearing-Mark!"

"Three-three-nine and a half!"

"Use forty feet. Range-Mark!"

Rubinoffski fumbled with the range dial lining up the pointers.

"One-four-oh-double-oh!" The scope dropped away.

"Angle on the how still the same. Starboard ten." Keith was spinning his TDC cranks with both hands.