Dust on the Sea (17 page)

The periscope broke the surface, surged upward. With his right elbow crooked around one handle, holding it to his chest, his left hand pushing on the other, he quickly walked it around, inspecting first the horizon, then the air. Nothing in sight.

He walked around a third time with the periscope elevated at maximum elevation. Nothing.

Back to the horizon for a more leisurely search. Still nothing. He lowered the periscope.

“Control,” he ordered. “Five-eight feet. Prepare to surface.”

The radar periscope had better optics than the attack periscope
because of the larger diameter and greater simplicity of its lens system. His next search would be through it.

“Five-eight feet, aye aye. Prepare to surface, aye aye.”

Buck Williams had come one more step up the ladder from the control room. “Captain, how soon do you figure to surface?”

Williams, who had been up since 3:30 that morning, was really asking whether he would have to bundle up again and go back on the bridge, or whether he could turn that chore over to Al Dugan. Al, no doubt, had already been called and was probably having breakfast at that very moment.

“Sorry, Buck,” said Richardson. “You'll have to take her up yourself. The visibility is excellent. We can triple our area coverage on the surface, and I want to get back up there.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Buck.

Suddenly Williams stepped off the ladder to make room for someone to come up to the conning tower. Blunt. “Rich,” he said. “Why are you surfacing?”

“Your orders, Commodore. We're just finishing our trim dive. We're on station in the middle of the area, with no land nearer than a hundred fifty miles. Visibility is excellent, so we'll have no trouble seeing enemy aircraft before they see us.”

“I gave no such order, Rich. I said you should use your best judgment about running on the surface in the area. I also said I don't want to be detected.”

Rich was uneasily conscious that Scott and Cornelli, the other two persons in the conning tower, had expressions of irresolute surprise on their faces. “Let me show you on the chart, Commodore,” he said. Perhaps if he could get Blunt into a low-voiced conference in the back of the conning tower it would be possible to straighten things out with no further damage to morale.

A large-scale area chart was already laid out on the plotting table. “Your written orders say remain on the surface whenever possible, and last night you sent the wolfpack a message to conduct surface patrol on a north-south line,” said Rich. He indicated a lightly penciled dot with a small circle around it. “Here's our morning dead reckoning position. Saisho To, here, or Quelpart Island, is the nearest land. There are no airfields indicated, although I suppose there could be some. Here are the other two boats—
Whitefish
is twenty miles to the north of us and
Chicolar
is twenty miles to the south. We are in the middle of the area, right on the line between Shanghai and Sasebo. If anybody comes through here, one of the three of us should see him and be able to vector at least one other boat into position for a submerged attack.”

“I know,” growled Blunt, testily sucking his pipe. “But they don't know we are in the area yet. That's why we have to stay submerged. I don't want to be detected or have our presence known until we get our first big convoy.”

Richardson stared at him. Blunt's cheeks were sagging, his eyes streaked with tiny red veins. This was exactly the opposite of what he had said the previous night. “But Commodore,” Richardson protested, “we sent the ‘surface patrol procedure' signal to the other boats last night, along with the coordinates of the patrol line!”

“Well, countermand it, then. I want to patrol submerged! I can't stay up all night and all day, too!” Blunt turned away from the chart, stuffed his pipe in his mouth, and went below.

Dilemma: to send a message,
Eel
would have to surface; but if Rich was any judge of Blunt's state of mind, it would be necessary to gain his specific approval to surface even for a short time.

In the meantime
Whitefish
and
Chicolar
would be surfacing after their own trim dives. At this very moment, in obedience to orders, they would be setting a daylight surface patrol routine. Squatting on his heels to talk through the control room hatch to Williams, who, once the wolfpack commander had passed, again had partly mounted the ladder, Richardson explained that surfacing would be delayed slightly. Then he sent for Keith.

“Keith, how's your fix coming? Can you take over the conning tower for a while?”

“Sure. The computation is finished. Oregon can plot it. We can't be more than a mile off our dead-reckoning position anyway. What's up?”

“Fine. Make routine periscope observations and put this message in our wolfpack code while I go talk to the commodore.” He handed Keith a piece of paper.

“Captain Blunt won't let us surface?” guessed Keith.

“That's right. He's changed his mind from last night.”

“You know, Skipper,” said Keith as Richardson stepped on the ladder rungs preparatory to descending into the control room, “he must have been up all night. The chiefs say he just wandered back and forth, and sat up in the wardroom drinking coffee. He never even lay down. Maybe he's not feeling well.”

“Maybe so,” said Richardson as he ducked down the ladder. He had the feeling that Keith had not said all he might have liked to say, that his eyes were trying to convey something to him.

Ten minues later, when he returned to the conning tower, Keith handed him the completed message. “How are we going to get it out?” Keith asked.

“I'll take over again, Keith. The commodore has okayed our broaching long enough to get the message off. You take the message to the radio room, and as soon as your antennas will load up, send it out. Let me know on the bridge speaker when you get a receipt.”

“Will do,” said Keith.

Richardson crossed to the control room hatch, squatted on his heels again. “Buck,” he said, “are you ready to surface?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. We're not going to surface all the way; I just want to broach on high pressure air. We'll not cut in the main engines, but flood negative tank in case we have to make a quick dive.”

“Got it,” said Buck. “Do you want lookouts?”

“Yes, we'll need the lookouts, but nobody else. Send them up to the conning tower now. We'll shut the control room hatch before we come up, just in case she ducks under again.”

Rising to his feet, Richardson said to his exec, “Better get below, Keith. . . . Another thing . . .” as Keith stood poised in the control room hatch opening, “in case we have to dive suddenly, she might go down pretty fast, so you might find yourself in charge for a while. Don't worry about us up here. We'll get in the conning tower somehow.”

In a few moments the four lookouts, in full foul-weather gear with binoculars slung around their necks and inflatable belts around their waists, were in the conning tower. A jacket and belt had been handed up to Richardson also. “Scott,” said the skipper, “I want you to remain in the conning tower and stand by the bridge hatch. Shut it if water comes in. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shut the lower hatch!” Williams pulled the control room hatch lanyard from below. It slammed down. Scott stepped on it, held it down with his weight on one foot as he kicked its two dogs home with the other.

Richardson made a final sweep with the periscope, pressed the toggle on the intercom. ‘Control, this is conn. When ready, broach the ship.”

The whistle of high pressure air. A springlike lifting effect. The depth gauge needle began to revolve counterclockwise. Richardson swung the periscope around rapidly several times, stopped momentarily, looking dead ahead. “Bow's out,” he said. He swung aft. “Stern's coming up.”

Williams had already stopped blowing. Now came the noise of negative tank taking on the water which, when ballast tanks were again flooded, would give
Eel
thirteen tons negative buoyancy.

“Stern's up,” said Rich, still looking aft the periscope. He swung it around forward. “Bow's going under . . . good!” The noise of high pressure air again could be heard from the control room. Watching his depth gauges and bubble inclinometers, Buck was giving another shot of air to the forward ballast tanks to compensate for the water taken into negative tank.

Rich snapped up the handles on the periscope. “Down periscope,” he said. One of the lookouts pushed the hydraulic control lever. “Crack the hatch!” Scott, already standing on the rungs of the ladder, quickly spun the handle. There was a slight hiss of escaping air as the small volume of air in the conning tower quickly equalized to the atmosphere. “Open the hatch,” ordered Rich. Scott released the latch, shoved the hatch upward, stepped back. In three quick leaps up the ladder rungs, Richardson was on the bridge.

A swift look around with his binoculars: all clear. “Lookouts!” The four men clambered up the ladder, climbed to their places. One of them ran to the after part of the periscope shears, tugged briefly on the rope knotted there, released the whip antenna. A spring swung it upward into a vertical position.

The skipper and lookouts surveyed the horizon and the air. There was nothing in sight.
Eel
rode easily on a quiescent mud-brown sea, her main deck at the water's edge, her main structure, except for bridge and periscope shears and the two five-inch guns, visible only from directly overhead.

From the bridge one could see tiny little rivulets of water sloshing among the slats of her wooden deck, or swirling alongside as the submarine moved sluggishly ahead under the leisurely thrust of her motors.

The bow planes were still rigged out. They would be kept on rise for their planing effect. The sky was gray, not overcast. Simply gray and dank. There was a musty odor to the atmosphere. The sun could not be seen, but visibility, Richardson judged, was at least fifteen miles, maybe more.

Water still dripped from the bridge structure as a multitude of tiny pockets slowly drained away. With unaccustomed clarity of sound, because there was no engine murmur from aft to preempt the ears, the water streams could be heard dropping directly on the sea which half-covered the conning tower beneath Richardson's feet.

The Yellow Sea is far from the coldest body of water in the world, but Richardson was beginning to feel the December chill. He hunched his shoulders inside his jacket, put on the mittens which he customarily kept ready in its pockets, checked his rubber lifebelt for the carbon
dioxide cartridges which should be there to inflate it on need. What could be holding up the message, he wondered.

“Bridge!” Keith's voice. “
Chicolar
has the message. We can't raise
Whitefish
.”

He might have guessed. Whitey Everett was taking his own time about surfacing. No doubt he would greet the instruction to patrol submerged with pleasure, maybe relief, but in the meantime his being submerged and out of communication was keeping
Eel
on the surface and in a very uncomfortable cruising situation.

Rich had argued strenuously with the wolfpack commander for a normal surfacing operation, pointing out that the ship was customarily able to dive to periscope depth in about forty-five seconds, even with a start at slow speed. But Blunt, already climbing into his bunk, had refused to permit it, had finally agreed to broaching as the only compromise he would accept. Well, he, as well as the rest of them, would simply have to wait.

There was one thing which had not been discussed, however, and it could therefore be accomplished without disobeying any order. Rich pressed the bridge speaker button. “Control, this is bridge. Equalize pressure through the main induction.”

“Control aye aye,” from Buck Williams.

The quiet on the bridge was eerie. Richardson could clearly hear the remote operating gear engage the inboard induction flapper in the forward engineroom. Then came a whoosh of air under the cigarette deck, in the midst of which, barely distinguishable, was the clank of the thirty-six-inch-diameter main induction valve. There had been a lot of air inside the submarine, what with negative tank twice having been vented into the hull. The noise lasted about three seconds, was followed by the clank of the main induction shutting and the further noise when the engineroom flapper snapped shut on its spring.

After half an hour Richardson, inadequately prepared for cold weather with only his jacket, guessed that Whitey Everett must be having breakfast submerged. Nearly an hour after
Eel
broached, by which time he had decided Whitey had added a nap to his breakfast schedule, the welcome news came from Keith in the radio room that
Whitefish
had received the message.

“Clear the bridge,” he said. The lookouts went below. He took a last look around with the binoculars. This would be a good drill, he thought. “Take her down!” he shouted, a spurious alarm in his voice. He hit the diving alarm twice, jumped for the hatch. Scott slammed it shut behind him, dogged it. He could feel the bow planes reversed to full dive, digging in, the increased drive of the propellers as the motors
suddenly went to full speed. The main vents were open, but there was understandably little noise of air vented and water entering, since the ballast tanks had been only partly emptied.