Dust on the Sea (3 page)

After three years of wartime command, broken by his wound and convalescence, Richardson had, by his own estimation, changed the least of the three. The net effect on himself, the few times he tried to define it, was merely increased self-confidence. Daily inspection in his polished steel shaving mirror prevented him from noting the gradual accumulation of seams around his mouth and in his face, the progressive leanness of his jaw which revealed its musculature, the combination of weather-callus and wind-burn which ended dramatically at the line of his open-necked shirt. The most subtle change of all was not visible: a mellowing of his attitude toward the enemy, even while, simultaneously, his capacity to damage them increased.

Perhaps it could better be described as improved understanding. On the personal level, this was to a large degree because of Nakame; but more important, it was the product of a growing appreciation of the differing national drives which had impelled Japan to initiate the war.

The greatest mistake Japan could have made was the attack on Pearl Harbor: a despicable onslaught while negotiations aimed at resolving the differences between Japan and the United States were at their height. Its sneaky, underhanded execution justified any horror the resulting war might visit upon its perpetrator. It blocked any possible resolution other than calamity to Japan. It eliminated any conceivable terms except unconditional surrender. It would cost Japan her entire way of life before that account was closed.

Yet, in spite of the hatred, Richardson had begun to feel growing
compassion for the people of Japan. They were the ones who would have to suffer the sure retribution for what their leaders had unleashed. Which he was helping to bring upon them.

When
Eel
entered the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, her first war patrol at an end, a coxcomb of eight tiny Japanese flags, four of them radially striped naval ensigns, the others the standard meatballs denoting merchant ships, would fly from her radar mast. Richardson had not wanted them, but he had permitted the crew's enthusiasm, as rendered by Keith, to control the decision. The prospect of entering port was, as usual, conjuring up the anticipation of mail, fruit, respectful admiration by the crews of other submarines who were already in port and had already had their moment of attention. Except for Rich. This was part of the bleakness. The patrol had had as its express purpose the destruction of Bungo Pete. He had been extraordinarily successful against U.S. submarines. Early in the war, before anyone had known who he was or what his real name was, Nakame had earned the sobriquet of “Bungo Pete” from those who had experienced his depth charges. He had sunk seven subs off the Bungo Suido, one of the entrances to the Inland Sea of Japan. The last two were the
Nerka
, commanded by Richardson's close friend, Stocker Kane, and the
Walrus
.

It had been a difficult, emotion-wracked voyage. But he would have to relive it yet one additional time for the admiral and his staff, principally his chief of staff, Captain Joe Blunt, and then again, in greater detail, for the debriefing team. It had all been laboriously written into a two-part patrol report—one part labeled “Confidential,” the other “Top Secret,” but the debriefers would insist on getting it all verbally, too.

From his hospital bed, Rich had used his influence with the chief of staff to give the
Walrus
to her executive officer, Jim Bledsoe. Jim had promptly taken off on three supremely successful patrols to Australia and back. But instead of sending
Walrus
back to the States for a badly needed overhaul upon her return, Blunt had reluctantly ordered Jim to make one last patrol. Admiral Nimitz had directed the Bungo Suido be kept under surveillance.
Walrus
had been the only submarine available.

Nakame had claimed sinking
Walrus
in a Japanese propaganda broadcast on the same day Richardson's new ship, the
Eel
, completed her training prior to departure on patrol. The news came on the heels of the Navy's official announcement that
Nerka
was overdue and presumed lost. Joe Blunt, his first submarine skipper, later his squadron commander in New London, and now chief of staff to the Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet—Vice Admiral Small—had been the
emissary of both bits of bad news. The cumulative wound had been deep.

Walrus
, Blunt explained, had been reporting weather every three days. Three days previously, Jim had added to the routine report the further information that he had only four torpedoes remaining, all of them aft. The next message, due that morning, had not arrived. Instead, there was a propaganda broadcast detailing the claim that the
USS Walrus
had been sunk by Nakame's forces.

In despair at the news of the loss of his old ship, following so closely on the loss of Stocker Kane in the
Nerka
, Richardson pleaded for assignment to the Bungo Suido. The upshot was that
Eel
's orders were changed: instead of
AREA TWELVE
, the East China and Yellow Sea, she was sent to
AREA SEVEN
, with particular instructions to destroy Tateo Nakame and his Special Antisubmarine Warfare Group.

Richardson soaped himself all over for the second time. Now,
Eel
was returning. He had carried out his mission. Bungo Pete was dead, sliced to bits by
Eel
's propellers. Sunk, during a storm, were all three ships of Nakame's little squadron: the
Akikaze
-type destroyer, a disguised “Q-ship” (an old freighter with big guns, filled with flotation material), and a submerged submarine behind the pseudo merchantman.
Eel
had expended her last torpedoes on them. Three lifeboats remained, launched, as their destroyer sank, by Nakame and his professional crew.

Of course, the lifeboats. Nakame would weather the storm in them. Less than fifty miles from shore—he'd be back in business in a week: A little boat with oars tossed against the sky. A row of faces staring, suddenly knowing what was to come
. Eel'
s huge bow raised high on a wave, smashing down. Guillotine
.

A brief search for the second boat. The bullnose rising, striking it on the way up, smashing it in, rolling it over. Still rising, grinding the bodies and the pieces of kindling down beneath
Eel'
s pitiless keel
.

One more lifeboat. Nakame's. Black water driving in solid sheets over
Eel'
s bridge. Somebody in the stern of the boat, heroically fighting back. Rifle bullets striking the armored side of
Eel'
s bridge, shattering the forward Target Bearing Transmitter
. Eel'
s bow alongside, sideswiping, slashing past. Shift the rudder! The boat bumping alongside, dropping on the curve of the ballast tanks, its side bellied in, its ribs crushed. Tateo Nakame: a short fellow with an impassive face; deadpan. A first-class naval officer. A professional. Dedicated. Tough
.

Around in a full circle. No avoiding this time. Bungo still fighting back. More rifle shots. The lifeboat in halves. The rifle flying out into the water. Nakame somehow managing to reach
Eel'
s side, get his hands on the slick tank tops—clutching, gripping, clawing to hang
on. Grimacing with the effort, and with anguish at finally losing. Washed off by the sea as
Eel
hurtled past. Sucked under by the screw current. Doubtless instantly killed by the thrashing, sharp, spinning blades rising under him as
Eel
pitched downward into the hollow of an oncoming sea. . .
.

It was a glorious Hawaiian morning on
Eel
's bridge as the submarine, coming up from the southwest, rounded Barber's Point and straightened out for the Pearl Harbor channel entrance. The approach from sea was simple; straight in, perpendicular to the shore, past the sea buoy to the two entrance buoys and the black and red channel buoys marking both sides. A straight shot, with only a few easy bends after passing inside the shoreline. Always there was someone patrolling off the entrance, an old destroyer or one of the smaller PC-boats, and Richardson could not recall a day since the start of the war that there had not been aircraft overhead and a minesweeper chugging up and down the channel length.

Today, however, the minesweeper was missing. As
Eel
approached the sea buoy—the farthest marker to seaward—it was noticeable that the heavy swells which the submarine had been feeling since the turn off Barber's Point were considerably intensified near the shore. There was also a perceptible rise in the temperature of the air, a sultry warmth emanating from the shore. Richardson caught Keith's eyes upon him.

“Kona weather,” Richardson said. He had once been familiar enough with the moist winds, sweeping from the south, which could pick up the surf and on occasion batter the low-lying parts of the island. Keith had heard of it too, though probably he had never seen a real Kona blow. Keith nodded shortly.

Lieutenant Buckley Williams, wiry and slender, finishing his fourth patrol, was Officer of the Deck and would have the privilege of bringing the travel-stained sub in to her berth. He, Keith, and Richardson stood together at the forepart of the bridge, the two younger officers on either side pressing against the overhang of the windscreen, Richardson in the middle leaning back against the periscope support foundation. Above them, standing on two little platforms built on to the periscope shears, protected from falling by guard rails, four lookouts zealously followed the orders that prohibited them from taking their binoculars down from their eyes. Their postures showed their discomfort as they held the heavy glasses. During the patrol, lookouts had tired rapidly. Perhaps something could be done for them during the refit period. Aft on the bridge deck, on that section still known as the “cigarette deck” from oldtime submarine tradition, when it was the only place where smoking was permitted, Ensign Larry Lasche,
finishing his first war patrol, and Quartermaster Jack Oregon, a veteran of
Walrus
, were likewise obeying the ship's standing order which required them, when not otherwise gainfully employed, to maintain a careful, sweeping binocular watch on the sea and the horizon. The order, strictly speaking, said “air” as well, but except for that terrible day when the war began, the air over Hawaii belonged to the United States.

Buck Williams and Keith Leone were also using their binoculars in careful sweeps of the water where an enemy submarine periscope might suddenly and disastrously appear; only Richardson could be considered a passenger, in all the meaning of the word. A feeling of lassitude, of nonparticipation, possessed him. His had been the adamant insistence on the binocular order; now his own pair hung uselessly from their strap around his neck, not once having been used, their focus as yet unchecked from the setting Oregon habitually put on them.

The waterproof bridge speaker, protected under the wind deflector in front of Williams, suddenly blared. “Bridge, this is control. Request permission to open hatches and send line handlers on deck!”

“Permission granted!” bellowed Williams, reaching a thin, muscular arm to the starboard side of the bridge, where the “press-to-talk” button of the bridge speaker was located.

Richardson afterward was never able to explain what it was that pierced through to his consciousness at this precise moment. Perhaps it was some long-submerged recollection of his training under Joe Blunt in the
Octopus
, his first submarine, now, like
Walrus
, a casualty of the war. Perhaps it was just that things simply did not seem right, that some sixth sense was in rebellion. He jerked upright from his indolent pose of a moment ago. “Belay that!” he shouted.

Buck Williams' reaction was characteristically quick. “As you were! Belay my last! Do
not
open hatches!” he shouted into the speaker. Then he straightened up, looked at Richardson. “Sorry, Captain,” he said. “What's the matter?”

Keith was also looking at him inquiringly, the widespread gray eyes in his sensitive face—no longer boyish after eight war patrols—showing startled surprise.

All Richardson's senses were suddenly alert. Something was dreadfully wrong. The empty channel must somehow be involved, but his rational senses gave no clue to what it was. “Make sure that all hatches stay shut!” he said. Then he raised his binoculars and for the first time swept deliberately around the area.
Eel
was passing the sea buoy, had passed it. Less than a mile ahead, the red and black entrance buoys
beckoned. Deliberately, as though in the grip of some greater comprehension than his own, he stepped to the side of the bridge and peered astern.

Lasche and Oregon were also staring uneasily astern. No one could have said what it was that was bothering him—and then, suddenly, clearly, there it was! He swung around.

“Buck!” he said savagely, “Get everybody off the bridge! Put Oregon in the hatch, ready to shut it on order!” Keith waited to hear no more, dived wordlessly below to his station in the conning tower.

“Clear the bridge!” bellowed Williams, the timbre of his voice showing his wonder. “Oregon!”—as the quartermaster raced past him—“You wait till last, then stand on the ladder and be ready to shut the hatch on orders!” Wide-eyed, Oregon stepped aside, let the lookouts precede him, looked questioningly at Williams and his skipper.

“I'm staying up here, Oregon,” said Richardson. “I just want you to be ready to shut the hatch if necessary!” The quartermaster scuttled down the ladder.

“In the space of twelve seconds the bridge had been abandoned, except for the Officer of the Deck and skipper. “What is it, Captain?” said Williams.