Run Silent, Run Deep - Страница 69

Obviously they were playing the cat-and-mouse game, hoping Keith would swallow the bait and try to rescue us. Eel, in the meantime, was cruising around with only the minimum of periscope showing, keeping it alternately fixed on us and the flying boat, with occasional looks all around the horizon just in case. When the plane came, close, Keith would dunk the scope and we would not see it again until after the plane had started back on another leg.

The flying boat was well on its way now. I motioned to Keith to come alongside, to cruise as close to us as he, could The periscope went up and down several times, and slowly it began to approach.

He was a little too cautious, no doubt for fear of hitting-the. rafts and dumping us all, but I was ready for that eventuality.

Carrying the noose end of the heaving line, I slipped over the side and struggled through the water into his path. The scope, came at me surprisingly fast, three knots or so is mighty fast to a man in the water, but I managed to grab hold and slip the loop over the end of it As the, Periscope took it away I slid down the tautening line until I reached the raft again and remained there in the water, my arm looped over the thin, tight cord.

The other periscope came up, turned around, studied the first one, rising and, descending slowly to inspect the line where I had made it fast, then steadied on us. I made a staying motion with my hand, looked to the plane. It was approaching the horizon, not there yet. I watched it going over, waited a deliberate twenty seconds, made a violent upward motion.

Beneath us I could see the long hull of the Eel-black on top, gray on the sides. Because of the refraction of the water, I could see the gray sides as well, made a mental note to carry the black just a little farther down the next time we painted her. We were dragging along somewhere over the five-inch gun.

Nothing happened for a long time. I knew Keith would not delay, wondered what was taking so long, finally realized the deck was nearer. Suddenly the periscope with the fine around its neck disappeared. Keith had lowered it. The other, now higher out of water, commenced to show the bright cylindrical section which went down inside the hearings, began also to lean back toward us.

"Here they come!" I said. Eel came with a rush. Water cascaded from her periscope supports and from the bridge, poured in torrents from her main decks. It was a good thing Keith had had the foresight to lower the periscope to which I had tied the heaving line; otherwise its length would have been insufficient to Teach the deck, and we should have taken a nasty tumble. Hanging on to it as I was, I was able to touch the deck first with my feet and, gritting my teeth against the hurt of it, to some small degree guide the landing of the two rafts.

The second one almost landed on top of the gun, avoided it by inches as I strained in the tumultuous rush of water to pull them forward toward me. And then there was the bang of the hatch on the bridge, and Keith's voice yelling. Men raced from the cigarette deck, dived over the raft, jumped down recklessly.

Eager hands grabbed all four of us, hustled us to the bridge, pitched us unceremoniously down into the conning tower, feet first or head first, whichever end got there first. It didn't matter, for there were plenty of people inside to help out.

Through it all I was conscious of great haste. Finally the last injured man was passed down the hatch, followed by Keith and Buck Williams, and the hatch was slammed shut. Instantly the vents went open, I heard no two blasts or anything else on the diving alarm-and Eel began to slip beneath the waves.

"Buck," Keith said urgently, "did you get the line cut?"

"You bet I did, this time, and I punctured both rafts, too!"

Williams looked a bit shamefaced.

"All Take her right on down! They're coming in as fast as they can! Rig for depth charge!"

I had to admire Keith's command of the situation. He had thought of cutting the two rafts free so that they would not trail behind on the line to betray us, and he had certainly organized the rescue party in jig time. Now he held firm command of the ship in what amounted to a serious emergency.

He paid no attention to me or anyone of the raft party, was strictly business, at the moment anxiously watching the conning tower depth gauge.

"Seventy-five feet," he finally said. "I guess we're clear!"

WHAM! Good and close, too. The Eel's tough hide rang for several seconds, and dust raised here and there. Keith crossed to the phone, picked it up.

"All compartments report," he said. He listened for a moment, bung it up. "No damage, skipper," he said.

Then he faced me squarely, his eyes two deep wells of concern. "God, skipper! What a helluv an experience! How do you feel? Are you OK? Do you. need anything?"

I was dripping wet and I ached all-over, and the pain in my groin was still a dull throbbing knife in my guts, but I had not felt so good in a week. There was nothing more I needed, I told him.

15

So that's about the whole story. We made three more patrols in the Eel and sank several more Japanese ships in the first two-during the last one we didn't because there were none left to sink, and then the war ended and I had to fly here to Washington for a round of ceremonies I had never expected would happen to me. Keith is still with the ship in Pearl, and Admiral Small expects me back next week when he pins the Navy Cross on him. Everybody seems to have gone wild over our rescue of the three fliers. I've sat through half a dozen speeches about it, all embarrassingly overdone, and there's a stack of mail piling up on the ship and at home in the same vein. Personally, I could tell about one thing that was an awful lot tougher, but that's all in the past and best forgotten now.

I only had an hour in San Francisco waiting for my plane, so I had to call Hurry up instead of going to see her. Twice there was a busy signal, and I was beginning to fear I'd not get to talk to her at all, but I got a connection just as they announced the plane.

"Rich!" she breathed when I told her who it was. "Where are, you? Can you come over?"

"Wish I could," I told her. "But my plane is supposed to take of right away. I'll see you on the way back from Washington."

"I'm so proud of you, Rich. I think it's just wonderful about your getting the Medal of Honor, I mean!"

"I've got to go to New London for a little while."

"Good!" she exclaimed. "Maybe you can stop over in New Haven and see Laura. You know, she was out here for a whole month just a little while ago-just left, in fact. She's a dear.

What a dreadful shame about Jim!"

It was typical of Hurry to think about Laura instead of about, her own loss. Maybe she instinctively knew that was what I wanted to talk about. "How is she?" I asked.

"Oh, she's fine. She's been working too hard and is a little thin, but I think she's more beautiful than ever. She took it pretty hard about Jim, though, especially right after he was reported missing and some of those stories started to drift back He should have written more often to her."

"I don't think anybody was able to write as often as he would have liked," I began, but Hurry interrupted me a She was talking rapidly, as though racing against time to all in.

"No, Rich. Listen to me. Jim's been gone a year, now, know it's dreadful to speak ill of the dead, but Laura was miserable. His letters kept getting fewer and shorter and distant. She wrote him long letters, several times a week, the measly little notes she got back were downright inconsiderate. And then there were those rumors about Jim playing around. Rich, why don't you go and see her while you're in New London?"

I kept leading, because I had to find out. "You know how she feels about me, Hurry," I said.

Hurry's voice took on a tinge of friendly exasperation. "Rich, what do you think I'm trying to tell you? Jim wrote her one time that he had finally understood how right you were about that qualification business. Then when she stayed with me had plenty of time to talk, that's when I found out most this, though I suspected some of it already. I told Laura a lot of things that I had learned from Stocker, about how it was to be a skipper of a Navy ship, especially skipper of a submarine with the lives of all those men depending on you. I told her that Stocker had had to disqualify his Engineer Officer once, on the R-12, and the Squadron Commander spun him out. of New London so fast that nobody knew he was gone until he had been transferred for several days."

The loud-speaker near the phone booth blared the second warning for my plane. Hurry must have heard it too, for she practically stuttered out the last words in her rush to get them an In.

"Promise me you won't tell her, Rich. At least not until after.

But go and see her. I've always wished she had met you before Jim. You're more her type. She was fascinated by Jim, who Wouldn't be? but you're the man she needs. And she's always liked you, Rich. Even when she seemed not to, she really did."

"Well, I." I started to say, but the warning call came again.

"Go on! Please! Don't just stand there and argue. You've got to go and at least see her." Hurry hung up.

I had to run to catch the plane, but the call was, worth it.

Now I've got just an hour and a half to get my suitcase and climb aboard the train for New Haven. There'll be plenty of time for New London later. Right now I want to see Laura, just as soon as I can. The war is over. She needs me and I her.