Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 35

Whrangg.

Our hull resounded like a tuning fork. The sensation could be likened to being inside a wash boiler and having a giant, beat on the outside with a sledge hammer. My ears rang.

Jim was shouting. "We've hit him! It's a hit!" He slapped me on the back. "You did it, skipper. You sunk the son-of-a-bitch!" Then he turned to Keith, pounded him on the back also.

"How about the other two fish?" I asked him.

Jim looked at his stop watch, shook his head regretfully.

"No luck there…" As he spoke, there came clearly a tinny, high-pitched Pwhyunng. I glanced, startled.

"That was timed for the third torpedo," Jim said, punching the winding stem of his watch, showing me its face.

Walrus' deck was tilted down even farther by now and she was clawing for the depths.

"What do you think that noise could have been?" I asked.

Keith answered: "Gosh, I don't know. Maybe an air flash, have you ever heard an air flash explode, Captain?" Jim and I both shook our heads. I would have discussed it more but a shout from O'Brien started a whole new train of thought.

"He's starting a run on us!" I leaped to his side, grabbed the extra pair of earphones. The enemy destroyer's 'pings' could clearly be heard, sounding just like our own destroyers.

They were coming in rapidly, too, and I could hear the "thum, thum, thum," of his propeller beats. The sonarman put his left hand on the gain control, ready to tune down the volume when the depth charges went off. I could see it shaking as he touched the knob.

WHAM… WHAM… The giant alongside us cut loose with three violent blows from his sledge hammer.

Walrus quivered and shook. Dust rose from the equipment and the deck. A piece of cork bounced from nowhere, made a peculiar "plop' as it landed on Adams' chart table.

I became aware of a new sound, a click which seemed to precede each depth charge. "CLICK, WHAM… CLICK, WHAM…" two more depth charges. Then there was a pro- longed swishing of water as though someone were hosing our side with a fire hose. The propeller beat, reduced in volume because of our having lowered the gain, suddenly dropped in frequency. O'Brien glanced up briefly. "He's passed overhead. That's 'Down Doppler.'" It was similar to the drop in pitch of a train going by at high speed.

'Maybe they'll go away now." This was Jim's voice. It did seem possible, for the destroyer's beat kept on without slack- ening or other change, toward the general direction of south- east.

"Search all around," I directed O'Brien. Obediently, he did so, holding the control handle over and causing the sound- head pointer to travel a complete circle. I, still had the ear- phones on and something, a discontinuity in the sound as he went by it some impulse-caused me to ask him to turn back to the northwest sector.

There it was again. A slight increase in noise level.

Nothing specific, no propeller beat, just an increased sound From that bearing. Walrus reached her maximum designed depth and now we slowed to minimum speed in accordance with our silent-running routine. We should be difficult for some- one else to hear, and, conversely, could hear better ourselves.

But the noise, if such it really was, could not be resolved into identifiable components. I motioned with my finger all around the dial. Obediently O'Brien set his equipment in motion. The propeller beats of the Momo-class destroyer which had depth- charged us were still to be heard, more faintly than before but on the same general bearing. He was-going away. There was no question of it. I could see O'Brien listen intently in its direction. Finally he looked up, uncovered one ear. "Captain," he said, "there are at least two ships over there. Two sets of high-speed propellers. Maybe more."

Jim had approached unnoticed. "Good," he said, "they've gone off."

"I'm not so sure," I muttered, half to myself. "This noise level…" I motioned to O'Brien, who went past the new sector again. When the sound head moved past the bearing rapidly there was no question about the increase in noise level, but when we turned directly on the bearing it was impossible to make anything out, or even to distinguish any difference.

Jim listened with me for some minutes. "What do you think it is?" he finally whispered.

"Don't know. Never heard anything like this before."

"Could it be the ship we sank?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe we should come up and take a look through the periscope."

For several more minutes we waited. Nothing more could be heard from the direction in which our Momo-class destroyer had disappeared. Nothing more could be heard in any direction, in fact, but the feeling of uneasiness persisted, the noise, if such it could be called, had not changed. If anything, it, was a bit weaker. Walrus stealthily slipped through the depths, every nerve taut, unable to see, not sure of what she heard. I ordered a course change, to put the area of high-sound level nearly astern, not exactly, so as not to mask it with the quiet swishing of our own propellers.

More time passed. It was over an hour since we had fired our torpedoes. Gradually our guard relaxed. To relieve the op- pressive heat and humidity I permitted the ventilation system and air-conditioning machinery to be started. It was quiet all around the sonar dial, except for our port quarter, where the faint noise level persisted.

"If there's anything up there, it's the ship we just sank!

Maybe that's the sinking ship we're hearing!" Jim's sustained excitement was infectious. I could sense the approval of every- one in the conning tower. Every eye turned upon me.

Jim spoke again, eagerness flashing from every facial ex- pression. "God, skipper! If we hurry we might be able to see him sink! We don't have to surface, just get up to periscope depth!"

The moment, after our moments of tension, was one of anticlimax. We had fired our torpedoes, heard what we had assumed was an explosion of one of them, plus another peculiar low-order explosion, and had withstood our first depth- charging. Besides, we had heard the screw noises of several ships departing from the scene of the attack, among them at least one positively identified as a destroyer. I was eager also to see the results of our first encounter with the enemy-and so I allowed myself to be convinced.

Control! Six-four feet! Bring her up flat!" I leaned over the control-room hatch, called the order down to Tom, whose head I could see just below.

"Six-four feet, aye, aye!" Tom acknowledged, looking up.

"Request more speed!"

"Nothing doing, old man," I responded, squatting on my haunches to speak to him more easily. "Bring her up easy.

We've plenty of time." If Jim's evaluation was correct, there was nothing to worry about up above; there would be no reason why we should not, come up with normal procedure, letting Tom have a bit more speed for better control. But more speed would mean more noise also, and more disturbance in the water. Some subconscious caution held me back, caused me to direct that the remaining torpedoes loaded forward be made ready for instant firing, though later examination of the events of the next few moments could furnish no clue as to why.

Gently Walrus inclined gently upward. With no more than minimum speed, it would take her a long time to plane up to periscope depth. After several minutes had passed we had only covered half the distance, and I could feel the impatience around me. As we passed the hundred-foot-depth mark the angle of inclination decreased still more; Tom was obey- ing my dictum to "bring her up flat." Two more minutes passed. The ship was at seventy feet, with zero inclination.

Having no speed for control submerged, Tom was afraid to come right up to sixty-four feet for fear that some unexpected variation in water density or temperature might cause us to broach.

Slowly, Walrus swam up the few remaining feet. I now regretted not having authorized more speed, for at sixty-nine feet we were still totally blind, the periscopes still four feet short of reaching the surface. I nevertheless ordered one of our two scopes raised.

When it was "two-blocked" all the way up, we were passing sixty-seven feet, and through it I could see, just over- head as though it were actually only a couple of feet above, the ripply surface of the ocean. Only two feet-as good as two hundred. As I waited, the wavy surface, which looked exactly as I had seen it many times, looking down from above, grew nearer, then farther, then nearer, as the Pacific swells passed over.

"What's the bearing of the noise now?" I spoke without talking my eyes from the periscope.

"It's shifted to the port bow, Captain!" Jim's voice.

"Put me on it!" I felt someone's hands laid on mine, felt the pressure. The periscope was twisted some considerable distance to the left, and I followed docilely.

Suddenly I was conscious of a flash of brilliant light; then it was gone, and the light through the periscope was darker than it had been before. In the split-second interval I had seen blue sky and clouds. I realized I had tamed the elevation control to full elevation, was looking nearly straight up, had missed the precious chance to garner a quick look on the port bow. Hastily I turned it down to the horizontal, determined not to miss the next chance.

The periscope popped out again, for a longer interval, in the hollow of a long swell. It was possible to see only a few feet, and only for a moment at that, until the wave in front of me engulfed the periscope eye-piece. Then we were out again, in the trough of the next wave. I caught a glimpse of masts above the crest of the wave in the direction in which I was looking, but nothing more. They seemed fairly close, but the momentary impression was too fleeting to make much out about them.