Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 53

Suddenly I was no longer an entity, a constant you could think of as a single thing; it had disintegrated, almost in an instant, into eleven different ships. It was as though they were being driven by some inner compulsion. Dark form' s outlined against the slightly less dark sky seemed to be motivated by only one emotion, one heedless, reckless, awful necessity: to get away from the convoy center.

"Good God!" The outburst came without conscious volition.

A violent cone of flame, white-hot with fringes of yellow and orange, screamed into the heavens! It towered over the convoy, towered over us too, cast everything into pitiless relief, turned the night into broad daylight!

In the insane light of the explosion the leading tanker was visible, broken in half, bow and stern floating idiotically with nothing between them. The second tanker seemed all right; so did the third ship in that column. The one which had blown up must have been one of those in the middle column. As I watched, fascinated, the masts of the freighter, last in the near column of ships, grew shorter, his stack disappeared, and I was looking at his bottom.

Then the noise of it reached us, a horrible, sudden, all-gone crash, a detonation of a million pounds of TNT, a complete, unutterable holocaust It could only have been an ammunition ship. No wonder the ships of the convoy had been trying to get away!

"Captain! What is it!" Jim's voice on the bridge speaker.

"I'm OK, come on up here!" Jim arrived in time to see the second tanker burst into flames. His comment was identical to mine: "Good God! Did we do that?"

"Yes, Jim." I silently pointed out the tincan on our tail.

"He can't miss seeing us now, unless he's too interested in what's going on over there to tend to his business."

"We'll have to watch for our chance, now, old man." I said.

"Most of those ships have escaped the blast, though we can probably scratch four of them. Get back on the radar and give me a picture of how it looks."

Jim ran down the hatch. His voice came in a couple of seconds: "Convoy has scattered. We have only nine pips on the scope left. One seems to have fallen behind" that would be the capsized freighter, "they're really in a mess there, all right."

"What's the range to the tincan?"

"Near destroyer, one-seven-double-oh!"

He was closing to look us over. There was no doubt about it: we were in trouble. Normally we should dive. Only one other thing to do.

"Range to convoy?"

"Convoy-nearest ship one-five-double-oh. The rest on up to three-oh-double-oh!"

That settled it. The convoy had at least one fleeing ship nearer to us than the destroyer, coming in more or less on our beam. Presumably he would be jittery, scared, not, at all events, a ship-of-war.

"Right full rudder!" I ran back to the fore part of the bridge.

"All right, boys! Man those guns!" They jumped to them with alacrity. "When we go by this ship, put everything you have into his bridge! Never mind anything else, just his bridge!"

I took a bearing, gave Oregon a course so as to pass starboard to starboard at about a quarter of a-mile. This would put the Jap ship between us and the escort. As the rudder went over, Jim informed me that our torpedo reload had been completed.

We were ready for business again, with four fish forward and one aft.

The range closed swiftly at our combined speeds. Larger and larger loomed the blunt, black bow of the ship. I don't think they even saw us. At point-blank range-it was more like four hundred than five hundred yards when we got abeam- we opened up with everything we had, swept his bridge. It was grim work holding the 20'S on, especially for the two men forward who were half under water a good part of the time, but they kept to it. I could see the tracer bullets arching into the enemy's bridge area, disappearing into the square-windowed pilot-house, as we swept on.

I shot a quick glance across his stern. The pursuing destroyer had not changed course yet, was still heading more or less for the bow of the ship behind which we had disappeared. It was dark again, the flare of the explosion having gone, but the lights of two big fires in two of the convoy reflected from the hulls of both ships behind us. We, by contrast, must be in the shadow, unless unlucky enough to become silhouetted. The freighter we had raked wavered in his course. Perhaps we had gotten the steersman-he swung off to the left, toward the on- rushing tincan, his swing increasing rapidly. The destroyer saw it too, put his rudder hard over, barely avoided colliding.

This gave us an opening: "Range to destroyers I yelled into the mike. "Stand by aft!

Angle on the bow, starboard ninety!" It was greater, but he: would surely turn again. "Shift to after TBT!" I ran aft, plugged in the mike.

"Range eight hundred!" said the speaker.

"Give him twenty knots!" I waited an age, it seemed to me. It could not have been more than ten seconds.

"Set!"

"Shoot!" I shouted. There was only one torpedo left aft, but it might do some good, if we had luck. I reached for the mike, tugged at it to unplug it, when the whole side of the destroyer blossomed in red and orange. Heedless, I ran forward as the tearing crack of several shells passed close overhead. There was a screaming of machine-gun bullets and several dull thuds, followed by the characteristic wavering whines of a ricochet or two. In the midst of this came the twin chatter of the after mount; Pat Donnelly and the two men detailed to the after 20- millimeter were holding it steady into the black hull of the destroyer.

And then, cataclysmically, a mushroom of white water burst in the middle of the other ship, hoisted him up amidships, his back broken, bow and stern sagging deep into the water. His guns stopped, except for one small one on the bridge which kept going for several seconds longer until the black ocean closed over it.

Up ahead, chaos. Two ships on fire, one black hull still not under, but bottom up, showing red in the flame. Other ships one minus a stack, probably as a result of the explosion of the ammunition ship close aboard, cutting madly in all directions.

Too close, now, to change course again. Keep going. Have to keep going. We aimed our course to go between the two burning ships. just beyond we found another, all alone, making off to the west. We drew up alongside, less than a mile away, keeping out of the light of the fires. We turned toward.

Angle on the bow, port eighty, range fifteen hundred-Fire!

Two fish. Two left. We put our rudder right, ran past him on the opposite course, saw both torpedoes hit, saw the splash as the air flasks of both blew up. I raved with impotent fury at the sight, forgetting that we should instead be thankful that the single torpedo we had fired aft, less than three minutes before, had functioned properly.

Nothing to do but come around again. We left the rudder full right, turned madly in a full circle, lined him up again-Fire!

That did it. One torpedo hit and exploded and he sagged down by the bow. Maybe he'd sink, maybe not, but we had no more fish to make sure.

Another tearing, ripping noise overhead. Then another, and a third and fourth. Two ships shooting: Bungo, racing up from his position astern to join the fight, and someone else, either the starboard flanker or the lead escort. We were trapped-we'd have to dive. They were too far away for effective reply with our automatic small-caliber weapons, and there was no question of our trying our own four-inch gun in reply, even if we could stand on deck to use it.

"All hands below!" I yelled. Hugh wavered as the lookouts and Pat dashed past us. I motioned impatiently to the hatch.

He dropped below.

"Rudder amidships-all ahead emergency!" I yelled to Oregon.

I aimed for the narrow space between the two flaming ships again. If we could get between them once more, I knew there was no escort vessel on that side, that would force the two destroyers to slow down and maneuver to avoid their own ships. That might be our chance.

I pushed the bridge speaker button for the general announcing system: "Maneuvering, give it everything you've got!"

They did, too. Clouds of blue-white smoke poured out of our exhaust. Our speed picked up perceptibly. Walrus arrowed for the hole, slipped through it, headed eastward at full speed leaving the wrecked ships behind and a cloud of diesel smoke to obscure our passage. The two destroyers, shadowy figures at fairly long range, were cut off, had to shoot over them. Both were firing continuously, the one from the convoy's rear particularly well. From his position that must be Bungo, and he was using salvo fire with methodical precision. The shells were still tearing overhead, closer, if anything, than before, despite the obstruction in the range. One or two dropped close alongside, kicked up great spouts of water. No question about it. Old Bungo was a good naval officer and ran a taut, tough ship. His destroyer-Akikaze class, all right-was shooting at least two to the other's one, and accurately, despite the weather.

I picked up the mike. "They're going to have to slow down because what's left of their convoy is in the way," I said. "Take a sweep around with the radar Another salvo from Bungo. I could see all four flashes from his guns. He would have to hold back on the next salvo or two, now, because of the ships in the way.

There was a blinding flash. The whole world turned kaleido- scopic. Stars and pinwheels and fireballs whirled about me, all emanating from a round, sunlike face emitting rays of white-hot fire-the face of Bungo Pete. He looked benign, friendly, despite the fireballs… surprisingly like Sammy Sams.