Ghostboat (32 page)

“Holy shit!” he heard one of the auxiliarymen mutter, and looked around to see other instruments and dials acting independently of any control. Roybell pointed at the Christmas tree as red lights became green, one after another—

Dorriss yelled up the bridge well: “Captain—we’re submerging!”

On the bridge, Hardy wasted no more time waiting for Frank. “Lookouts below! Clear the bridge!” As the bows went under, he grabbed Ed Frank and shoved him to the hatch.

Frank stumbled and looked up at Hardy in the moonlight. Everything was going wrong. He was supposed to be in control. Instead, he felt a desperate uncertainty.

Frank dropped below and Hardy followed, pulling the lanyard after him. He reached up to dog the hatch—the wheel spun itself.

The lookouts jumped off the control room ladder and relieved Stigwood and Roybell, who were trying to hold the diving planes. One of the lookouts stared in surprise: “Hey! Let it go—don’t you want to go down?”

“Hell no!” yelled Stigwood. “Who hit the diving alarm?”

Roybell looked up at the Christmas tree and called out, “Green board!”

“Jesus!” muttered Stigwood as he saw the main induction valves close.

Frank and Hardy ducked out of the way as the attack scope slid up unassisted. The scope made a slow sweep around the conning tower. Frank moved with it, not knowing whether to grab and take over or just let it... He jumped. Behind him the TDC motors were starting to grind away in the little compartment. The scope had settled on a target. An unheard voice was relaying information to an invisible TDC operator—and the machine was responding.

Frank suddenly found himself clutching the handles of the scope. He was conscious only of the sensation, not sure what he would do next. A voice called- from below, “Periscope depth, Captain. Shit, she’s leveling off. Would you believe it?”

Frank put his eyes to the scope and peered at the infrared image. It was up to 1500x power. The black smoke he had seen before had become a group of
Maru
tankers—maybe a dozen of them—and now he could see the destroyer escorts coming up on the flanks, plowing through heavy swells.

“It’s the convoy,” he muttered quietly.

Hardy watched him grimly. His eyes moved around the conning tower, waiting for word from the loudspeaker. It came. Vogel’s voice, quivering with fright:

“Captain, this is forward torpedo. We’re all loaded, tubes one through six. Do you want me to—” He couldn’t finish. He choked aloud. And down in the forward torpedo room, Clampett stood hot and sweaty by tube number one, his ear almost on top of the massive brass door. That was how he happened to hear the small click of the arming device switching on. He imagined he heard the gyro and depth mechanisms setting themselves on cue from the Torpedo Data Computer. He hoped he imagined it.

From the side bays a pair of restraining chains rattled irritably. A torpedo stored in the aft end of the center bays dropped onto the skid, freed itself of the chains, and slid all the way down to the loading rack.

Vogel grabbed the battle telephone and buzzed the winning tower.

“What the hell is going on here!” he screamed.

Frank ignored him. He was staring into the scope glass and admiring the perfect lineup on the lead tanker when he heard Hardy’s urgent voice in his ear, whispering, “Steady...”

Clampett slipped and fell into the below-deck loading platform and landed with his head up against the door of tube number six. He saw Vogel race toward the torpedo tubes from the battle phone and stare at the dials and gauges. Then there was the unmistakable whoosh of compressed air as four impulse tanks charged up simultaneously. Another set of snaps as the safety interlocks were tripped.

Frank pressed his forehead grimly into the rubber facepiece of the scope and mouthed the words without uttering a sound.
Stand by forward tubes. Fire one and two!

Clampett thought he heard a voice echoing down the forward torpedo room,
Fire one and two!
He did hear the
pfush
of escaping air and water and the thump as the two fish left their tubes. The boat shuddered unmistakably. Vogel stumbled back and yelled a protest.

Frank kept his face glued to the periscope, his mouth working silently, urging the torpedoes on. The twin white trails snaked out from the bow and inclined on the correction angle toward the distant targets. The scope jerked around, and his hands went with it. It reset itself, his fingers turning unwillingly on the handles as they deepened the magnification. He glanced at Hardy. The Professor was watching the TDC, following the new information cranking into it.

There were two more loud thumps! The boat shook again.

Another pair of white trails—two more fish off toward the convoy.

The scope handles folded without warning. Frank jumped back. The scope slid down into the well.

The helmsman grunted and then complained, “She’s going left full rudder, sir!”

Frank stared at the greased tube of the periscope shaft. Hardy moved behind him and leaned over the hatchwell.

“Turn up the listening gear!”
 

“Aye, aye.”

In the sonar cubicle, Nadel twisted up the level knob and pressed his headset tighter. His eyes worked rapidly back and forth as he listened to the rush of faraway screws, the high-speed propellers of the four torpedoes. Nadel was a veteran of twelve years aboard submarines, twelve years as a qualified sonar operator. He let the words come out, shattering the stillness: “Torpedoes running hot, straight, and normal, Skipper.”

No one answered. Not even Frank. Hardy shifted position to be closer to the overhead speaker. Frank stood by the periscope, his eyes closing, concentrating. In the forward engine room, Cassidy strained to hear over the sound of the motors.

A pair of distant
thunks!
Nadel looked up. Then everyone reacted to the rumble of twin explosions—followed by an eruption of hissing that drowned out the first blast completely.

The tanker must have gone up in a single burst of volcanic ferocity.

Nadel strained to hear the second set of torpedoes. After an eternity, there was another twin pair of
thunks,
followed by a frenzied detonation, a savage underwater turbulence.

Nadel ripped off his headset and stared at the officers. “Christ Almighty—four fucking hits!”

In the conning tower, Frank turned a dazed look on Jack Hardy and asked, “What next?”

“Go deep. Find a thermal layer. You’re about to be depth-charged.”

The sub had already changed course, ninety degrees to port, so Frank ordered a hard dive to two hundred feet and all ahead full.

The boat responded to the crew.

The helmsman clutched his wheel tightly and refused Frank’s offer to have him relieved. “I’ve got her back, sir. It’s okay now, I’ve got her back.”

Nadel called up to the conning tower, “High-speed screws approaching, starboard ninety degrees relative. Possible... hell, definite destroyer!”

Hardy suggested silent running.

Frank rebutted, “Let’s make speed for a few minutes. We can always—”

Hardy grabbed him fiercely. “Do it my way, damn-it!”

They heard Nadel calling: “She’s coming fast! I make her about twenty-eight knots!”

Frank pulled free and ordered, “All engines stop! Rig for silent running!”

The talker, Colby, passed the word on the battle telephone. In a moment the sub was shut down and holding at 250 feet.

“Picking up splashes,” muttered Nadel. Frank came down the ladder quickly and stood by him. “Depth charges coming down, sir.”

They heard the first explosion over the speaker. First the destroyer’s propellers approaching, then a click as the charge armed, then a body-jarring concussion as the blast wave reached the sub and rolled her to starboard, then the rush of water filling the empty space where the burst had gone off.

There was no damage on the first charge.

On the second blast the sounds came closer together. Some of the older hands looked up anxiously; they knew the destroyer was closing in.

In the control room, Frank clutched the plotting table and stared straight ahead. Hardy came tumbling down the ladder as the third blast went off somewhere south of them—closer yet. Light bulbs shattered; a big chunk of paint popped off the after bulkhead. One of pie auxiliarymen let out a yell and grabbed his neck.

“You okay?” barked Stigwood.

“Yeah. Whiplash.”

“So get the license number,” growled Roybell.

A car smackup—that was precisely the feeling of the fourth blast It was so close that all the sounds blended into one horrible bang that seemed to lift the boat vertically by the stern.

Hardy jumped to the battle, telephone and called: “Aft torpedo—report damage!”

“No damage here, sir. All sec—”

The fifth blast was just off the starboard beam. They felt it hardest in the control room. Frank was thrown against Roybell. The planesmen fell on their instruments, and the submarine began to lose depth control. Stigwood jumped to take their place, but one of the planesmen got to his feet and said quietly, “Lemme at it, sir.”

His powerful arms moved in and eased the lever back into place. The only complaint came from the cook, who announced that dinner had just been served—to the deck.

“It’s a lucky thing I swabbed it, then!” bellowed Dankworth over the line from his battle station.

The laughter that shook the boat was drowned out by the sixth blast, the worst of all. Off the port quarter, it rumbled through the forward torpedo room. Vogel thought he heard a chain snap. He pulled all his men to the tubes and ordered the watertight door shut. Then he explored for damage.

The next blast lifted the main induction valve and knocked out the lights in the control room. Nadel screeched something about water in his shoes. When they switched on the emergency lights, Hardy saw several bolts loose on the deck, but couldn’t see where the water was coming from. Frank ordered the hatches shut, the compartment secured. Hardy stood up straight and concentrated until it came to him: “The flood valve!”

Stigwood checked it and found the leak. Within two minutes it was fixed.
 

The crew thought they were safe now; the destroyer had made its pass, and that should have been the end of it. They were sweltering in the heat building up from the lack of air conditioning, and everyone wanted to get back to normal.

Frank stood by the periscope well and hung on to the plotting table, saying nothing. Waiting, because he knew there was more to come, just as Jack Hardy did.

It came within three minutes. The destroyer had swung around for a second pass, just to be sure. The depth-charging started all over again. One blast after another—relentless, teeth-rattling horrors.

In the forward engine room, Cassidy looked at his men. In the lull before each explosion, they were looking up and muttering curses.

“Sneaking rats... dropping rice balls, the fuckers... Pack of yellow pigs...”

Googles was right by Cassidy’s shoulder when he muttered, “I’d say they’re straining diplomatic relations. Wouldn’t you?”

One of the motor machinist’s mates clasped his hands in prayer and spoke to the heavens. “Bless us, oh Lord, for that which we hope we don’t receive.”

In the control room, Hardy got up from the deck where Stigwood and the auxiliarymen were finishing the repairs. Hardy’s trousers were soaked, his beard sticky with sweat. He gazed at Ed Frank, who had an arm wrapped around the periscope well and was muttering angrily to himself. Hardy felt sorry for him; he believed the man was blaming himself for getting them into this situation.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. Under his breath, Ed Frank was spewing curses at the Japanese, inflamed to a pledge of vengeance.

The deadly splashes stopped around 2320, but they maintained silence and sat dead in the water for another forty minutes. Nadel’s sweat was starting to eat through the foam in his headset, he was clutching it so tightly. Over the loudspeaker they heard the screws of the destroyer slipping away, but still no one said anything; there was always the chance it would stop engines and lie in wait for the
Candlefish
to start engines and attempt a run.

Hardy knew it wouldn’t happen. God, how he remembered this night thirty years ago. And he remembered that then too they had waited until exactly midnight before relaxing. He checked the big Navy chronometer on the bulkhead over Roybell’s hot, sweaty face. 2400 hours. He eased himself away from his perch and faced Frank.

“That’s all, Captain,” he said.

Frank slowly turned a measuring eye on Hardy, then swiveled back to Nadel. “How about it, Sound?”

Nadel listened one more intense second, then yanked off the headset and grinned. “They’ve lost us.”

Stigwood breathed an audible sigh of relief and turned to the ladder, calling up to the conning tower, “All clear.”

Hardy picked up the battle telephone on the scope well over the plotting table. He opened all circuits, and his voice echoed through the boat. “Secure from silent running. Secure from battle stations. Secure from depth charge attack. All ahead one-third. Light the smoking lamp. Gentlemen, you can take a break. The Captain just sank two Japanese tankers.”