Dust on the Sea (38 page)

“Set depth four feet!”

“It's already set, Captain,” said Keith.

“Open outer doors forward,” said Rich.

“Number one outer door is open,” screamed Quin, his voice pitched much higher than normal, his tenseness betraying itself in the steaming, sweating, densely packed conning tower.

“Stand by forward,” said Richardson. Suddenly he felt calm. This was the time to be deliberate. This one shot must be a good one. He would leave the periscope up and aim the torpedo deliberately.

“Number two tube is loaded, Captain. Depth set four feet. You have two fish ready forward.” Keith's voice.

“Bearing, mark! He's still turning. Angle on the bow, port forty-five.”

“Zero-one-zero!”

“Set,” said Buck. “I'm following him around.”

“Short-scale pinging, bearing three-four-oh!” Stafford.

“Check fire!” roared Keith. “Correct solution light has gone out!”

“Down 'scope,” said Richardson, almost wearily. The chance was gone. Obviously, with the destroyer swinging toward, the distance the torpedo would run before hitting would be too short to arm it. “Shut the outer doors,” he ordered.

“He's starting a run! Shifted to short-scale pinging!” This was Stafford, repeating himself at the sound gear. His voice also was elevated a notch.

“Rig for depth charge,” said Richardson, knowing well that the ship was already fully rigged for depth charge except that the control room hatch had not been closed. Torpedoes in the forward and after torpedo rooms, however, were in the process of being reloaded. “Quin,” he said swiftly, “forward and after rooms! Secure for depth charging immediately.”

Wide-eyed, Quin repeated his orders into the telephone.

“Shut the lower hatch,” he ordered. Someone in the control room, probably Al Dugan, pulled the oblong hatch down on its lanyard. Scott leaped on it, kicked the handles shut. Unlike the hatch to the bridge, it was not fitted with a hand wheel.

Blunt's voice from the forward part of the conning tower, “Aren't we going deep, Rich?”

He had forgotten the wolfpack commander. During the entire time Blunt had stood holding on to the hatch lanyard under the bridge hatch. It was too late now to permit him to go below, even had he been willing to do so, or had Richardson been willing to spend the effort to convince him to do so.

“We'll take this one at periscope depth,” announced Richardson. “He'll figure we've gone deep and will set his depth charges deep. Maybe after he passes we'll get a chance for another shot.” He crowded over alongside of Stafford, just forward of number one periscope. Silently, Stafford indicated a section of the dial to which his sound head arrow was oriented.

“There he is, sir. Short-scale pinging. He's speeded up!”

“He may not have seen the periscope, but if he did, he'll figure we've gone deep now. As soon as he goes by, we'll try to line him up for a stern shot!” Richardson spoke in answer to the thought wave he felt hurled at him from everyone in the conning tower. If
Eel
could survive this first quick attack at periscope depth he might be able to get a shot off while the destroyer was getting ready for a second. All depended upon being able to get that periscope up for an observation, upon the likelihood that the tincan might have to wait a few moments for the disturbance of her depth charges to die away before she could regain contact. There might also be the necessity to do some reloading of depth charges in her launchers. He did not mention the airplane. It could not see beneath the surface. Not in the Yellow Sea. The only danger from it was a few additional bombs or depth charges dropped in the wake of the escort's barrage. Of course, if it sighted his periscope at the crucial moment when he had it up to aim the torpedo . . . He left the thought unfinished.

The sonar dial was calibrated in relative bearing, but through a connection with the submarine's gyro compass a second dial, concentric with the first, gave true bearing as well.

“True bearings!” he snapped to Stafford.

“Three-three-five, steady on three-three-five,” repeated Stafford. Rich's instinctive selection of course 330 for a minimum gyro had been a good one.

“Make your course three-three-five!” ordered Richardson. “All ahead full!”

“What are you going to do, Rich?” Blunt again. His voice was almost squeaky.

“I'm going to run right under him at full speed! At this short range and with depth charges going off, he'll lose contact anyway. Maybe we can catch him by surprise and get through the barrage before he's able to drop them all,” answered Rich, forcing himself to speak normally instead of in the clipped tones he had almost used. He must not betray his own inner tension. If only Blunt would keep quiet! “Quin!” he said, “Tubes aft, report on condition of their reload.”

In a moment the report came back. “All tubes secured aft,” relayed Quin. “Tube ten was not fired. Tube seven has been reloaded, but is not ready yet. All the other fish are secured in their racks.”

“Very well,” said Richardson. “Tell tubes aft to turn to on that fish and get it ready. We'll need it as soon as the depth charge barrage is over. Set depth on both, four feet.” He looked up at Scott. “Speed through water?” he asked.

“Four knots, increasing. We're steady on three-three-five.”

Rich picked up a spare set of earphones, adjusted them to his head. The penetrating, high-pitched echo-ranging was clearly audible even before he put them on. Stafford was moving the sound head dome ceaselessly back and forth over a small arc concentrated right around
Eel
's bow. He said something which Richardson could not hear. Rich moved his left-hand earphone over to his cheek, freed the ear. “Bearing three-three-five,” said Stafford. “Steady bearing. He's close aboard now. He'll be dropping any second.”

Richardson could hear the whir of the screws. One of them must be bent slightly askew, for the thrashing sound of the damaged blade could plainly be distinguished. He could almost hear the rush of water past the enemy hull, visualize the concentration on her bridge as they calculated the optimum time for dropping the depth charges. Hopefully, his maneuver of turning toward and speeding up would take them unawares. Suddenly he found himself remembering the nearly identical situation years ago off New London, when, by miscalculation of one of the student officers out for a day's training, the old U.S. destroyer
Semmes
with her knifelike bow and the two huge propellers extending below her keel had come near to knocking Richardson's first command, the
S-16
, into oblivion on the bottom of Long Island Sound.
Semmes
also had had a nick in one propeller.
S-16
's periscopes were not, however, as long as
Eel
's. There was now a full eighteen feet of water between the surface and the highest point of
Eel
's structure. The
Mikura
could not draw more than ten. Fifteen at the outside. As soon as he passed overhead,
Eel
would slow down again and try to catch him with a stern tube.

Funny he should think of it. That was the day Jim Bledsoe had introduced him to Laura.

Stafford had been rapidly increasing the width of the arc covered by his sound head. The pings were coming in with undiminished strength no matter in what direction it was trained. Richardson could almost hear the echo bounce off
Eel
's steel hull, even imagined he could hear a second echo reflected off the hull of the attacking destroyer. Here it comes, he thought. Idiotically, he remembered a line from one of his favorite books about sea fights in the days of sail. “For what we are about to receive,” one of the characters used to say, “O Lord, we give thanks.”

Stafford ran the sound head all the way around the dial. “He's overhead,” he said. Richardson did not need this information, for suddenly the entire interior of
Eel
's conning tower reverberated with the roaring of machinery, the sibilant rush of water past a fast-moving hull, the spitting thum, thum, thum of propeller blades whirling pitilessly in the water, one of them carrying a scar which made a sort of crackling sound as it went around. There was a vibration communicated to the structure of the conning tower. Richardson could feel the submarine shudder, move bodily in the water, as the enemy ship drove by.

“He's dropped,” shouted Stafford. The sonar man reached up to his receiver controls, abruptly turned down the volume. The next second or two would determine whether
Eel
sank or survived. If the depth charges were set shallow, a thunderous explosion and tremendously increased air pressure coincident with the sudden roaring influx of water—or equally serious, a sudden extraordinary heaviness as water poured in through a hole in a more remote portion of the submarine—would signal the end for everyone.

Five seconds, ten seconds. . . .
Click
,
WHAM!
Click
,
WHAM
!
Click
,
WHAM
! The depth charges sounded right alongside, tremendously loud in the tense stillness inside the submarine. A slight pause, then a crashing cacophony of brutal, ear-smashing noise as a whole barrage went off almost simultaneously. A cloud of dust was thrown up in the conning tower. The deck plates under their feet were shivering. The entire submarine hull resounded, reverberated, intensified the concussions. The long thin hoist rods of the periscopes vibrated madly, almost passing out of sight. Richardson could have sworn the periscopes themselves sprang out of shape and then returned. He was shaken so violently that for a second he must have become hallucinatory. He thought he saw the steering wheel knocked loose from the forward bulkhead of the conning tower, where Cornelli stood holding it, arms rigid and muscles bulging under his sweaty dungarees. Then, just as swiftly, Rich realized the wheel was still intact, in place where it should have been.

WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM! Six more depth charges going off almost together! Again the shivering of the steel, the bewildering effect of heavy equipment apparently disoriented, which, if it were true, would signal the destruction of the submarine. Pieces of cork flew off the sides of the conning tower. Dust rose throughout. Miraculously, the lights stayed on, dancing on their short wire pigtails. Quin, standing just forward of the opening of the deck which led to the now closed control room hatch, was knocked to his knees, fell into the cavity.

“All compartments report,” said Richardson. “All stop!”

Quin painfully picked up his telephone mouthpiece, spoke into it.

Cornelli clicked the annunciators to stop. The follower pointers, actuated from the maneuvering room, clicked over also to stop. Good, thought Richardson. At least they're okay back there.

“All back two-thirds! Speed through water!”

Scott, who had been recording with a pencil on one of the pages of his quartermaster's notebook, read the dial for him. “Five knots,” he said. “Twenty depth charges.”

“Let me know when speed reaches three knots,” said Richardson. “Tubes aft, bear a hand with number seven tube.”

“All compartments report no damage,” said Quin. There was relief in his voice. “Tubes aft will be ready with number seven in a minute.”

“Three knots,” said Scott.

“All stop,” said Richardson. “All ahead one-third! Number two periscope!”

He grabbed the handles as they came out of the periscope well, savagely spun the periscope all the way around until it faced aft, put his eye to it. “There he is!” he said. “Bearing, mark!”

“One-eight-one,” from Keith.

“Angle on the bow one-eight-oh,” said Richardson. Range, mark!” He turned the range dial.

“Two hundred,” said Keith.

“Open outer doors aft,” ordered Rich. “As soon as he turns one way or the other, we'll shoot. Buck,” he went on, “give him a one-seven-nine-degree port angle on the bow, speed nineteen!”

Once more, for a few seconds,
Eel
had the initiative. He spun the periscope around rapidly, flipping it to low power in order to get a larger field of view. As before, heightened with the perceptions of imminent danger and immediate combat, his mind took in everything almost photographically. His first target had sunk perceptibly lower in the water and had rolled over even farther, so that, although not quite turned turtle, it might well be on the way to doing so. Its stern had sunk beneath the water, but the bow, probably held up by an air pocket,
remained partly above the surface. Crowds of men were standing on the curved plates where her side joined her bottom, and crowds of black dots, the heads of men, were in the water around her. The second freighter was straight up and down, her bow silhouetted against the western horizon. Deck equipment, displaced from its normal position, was falling from a height of a hundred feet on both sides. Most of it fell into the area where her now submerged smokestack and deckhouse lay, and where most of the survivors also must be. One of the objects moved as it fell. Perhaps he had jumped.

The third ship, still more or less on an even keel, was sinking too, but more slowly. Her stern had sunk to the water's edge, and around the bow Rich could see ten feet or more of red underwater paint. She had had time to get lifeboats out, and Rich could see two of them already in the water, apparently picking up other crew members.