Ghosts of Bungo Suido (11 page)

Gar finished his dinner at the Royal that night and asked for a Scotch and some coffee. Needless to say, he’d been thinking all day about what he’d said at the meeting with the chief of staff, and wondering if he’d really screwed up. Rising to command of a fleet submarine in wartime was more than likely going to be the pinnacle of his otherwise pretty undistinguished naval career, as he had explained to Sharon DeVeers.
Dragonfish
’s reason for being was to destroy the Japanese Empire’s ability to wage war, and that was as simple a proposition as he could imagine. Okay, some of his own tactics at sea were unconventional, but the results spoke for themselves. High-value hulls on the bottom. Destroyers blown to pieces, their crews going into the sea while their own depth charges rearranged their innards. A cruel game, but there it was. And every tin can Gar put down meant one less his boat and all the others had to fear.

The Japs had come to Pearl Harbor and started all this shit, not the other way around.
Remember Pearl Harbor
wasn’t just a bond-drive slogan to career naval officers. America was going to kick their asses all the way back to Tokyo, and then burn Tokyo and the rest of Japan to the ground. Old Bull Halsey had had it right from the get-go: Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill
more
Japs. He’d heard Japan was a very pretty country. It would be even prettier once all those bloodthirsty, death-worshiping, samurai-sword-toting bastards had joined their ancestors, preferably disguised as well-done chop suey.

The waiter brought him his Scotch and coffee as he forced himself to calm down. The chief of staff had been visibly upset today, and Gar had this sneaking suspicion that Forrester might be all too ready to relieve him. For some strange reason, though, he didn’t really expect to be relieved of command. He wondered how Uncle Charlie would have handled his outburst, or whether he’d have done such a thing in the presence of the three-star. Either way, he’d drawn one of those famous lines in the sand. The Dragon was supposed to sail at 1000 tomorrow. Unless somebody in authority came to see him to explain this crazy business before tomorrow morning, he’d shut down the engines, double up the lines, and tell the crew to stand down. If another three-striper with a big grin on his face showed up on the pier as his relief, then so be it. God knows there were enough prospective commanding officers hanging around, secretly hoping for someone like Gar to make a mistake.

He and West had walked back to the boat after Gar’s sudden declaration. Once back aboard, he asked the exec to join him up on the bow, away from the chain of sweating sailors who were busy passing boxes of stores aboard back aft.

“Okay,” Gar said. “Say something.”

“I think I’m not ready to be a CO,” Russ said. “I would not have had the balls to say what you did in there.”

“Sure you would, XO,” Gar said. “Especially if you were being asked to own this bizarre trip.”

Russ had stared down at the water under the pier for a long moment. “Thing is…”

“Yeah?”

“The thing is, we were always taught not to question the orders of our lawful superiors, because there would be times when they knew something we did not or could not know. I’m just wondering…”

He had him there, Gar realized. “Yeah, me, too, of course,” he said. “But the whole deal goes off the tracks when you realize your own bosses don’t know what the hell’s going on. I think Captain Forrester’s as much in the dark as we are, and that means Uncle Charlie is, too. Especially when it comes to putting all our asses on the line while we depend on some old Jap guy to act as some kind of Injun guide. Remember Custer?”

“As I remember,” the exec pointed out delicately, “Custer ignored what his Injun guides were telling him about the lebenty-million Sioux who were right over the next hill.”

“Details, XO,” Gar said with a snort. “I’m the CO, and if I have to trust them, then they have to trust me.”

“Yes, sir,” the exec had said, even as Gar began to realize that now it was the exec who was probably indulging him, the captain. What he was really saying was, since when did a three-star have to explain his orders to a three-striper? Yes, they knew the one objective, but Gar still had this niggling suspicion that there was a whole lot more to this business of putting an elderly Japanese man ashore in the Inland Sea. Forrester had shown him the pictures of this mysterious carrier, but then he’d ducked all of Gar’s questions about how they were even supposed to get at it.

That old refrain kept ringing in Gar’s ears: WTF, over?

He became aware of a small commotion in the dining room behind him, the sound of chairs moving and people standing up, and then a voice behind him asked, “Are you Commander Hammond?”

Gar looked up, then hurriedly pushed back his own chair and stood up at rigid attention. “Admiral
Nimitz
?”

“May I join you, sir?”

“Yes, sir, uh, yes, of course, sir.”

Nimitz sat down, waited one beat, and then indicated that he wanted Gar to sit down as well. Gar pulled his chair back under himself and sat down at semiattention. Nimitz’s face looked like it had been carved out of stone. Gar had seen pictures and thought them posed. Not so. Nimitz fixed those famous ice blue eyes on Gar for a long moment.

“I am told,” he said finally, “that you want to know why we want you to go into Bungo Suido with the help of a Japanese POW.”

Gar took a deep breath. It was one thing to posture in front of the SubPac chief of staff. It was an entirely different proposition to defy Admiral Chester Nimitz, face-to-face, but—what the hell, he thought. “Yes, sir, I do. To go into Bungo Suido is to step across the bones of five submarines. So, yes, sir, I do want to know why.”

Nimitz nodded. “Because I say so,” he said quietly.

Gar blinked. That was clear enough. “Yes, sir.”

“I am responsible for the execution of our entire war effort in the Pacific Ocean area. Our objective remains the total and utter destruction of the Japanese war machine, and the total and utter destruction of the Japanese nation’s will to conduct this war.”

Gar sat back in his chair. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I understand that. But Bungo Suido—”

Nimitz held up his hand. “Bungo Suido is a technical problem, Captain,” he said. “If you truly think it’s beyond your capabilities, I will get someone else. There is no lack of submariners waiting for command, as I’m sure you know. That would, however, be quite disruptive a day before your scheduled departure.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have a fine boat and crew, and you personally have done very well in damaging the Japanese war effort. But above and beyond that, you need to understand that there are forces at work in this war that
dwarf
the
Dragonfish
and all its efforts. You may, in time, understand what I’m talking about,
if
you survive this mission. But for now, this is all I’m going to tell you: Your orders are not the result of whimsy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want you to sail tomorrow morning. Take the Japanese Hashimoto with you. He will get you through Bungo Suido and, more importantly, to your objective. What happens after that will be up to you and your crew. Am I making myself clear, Captain?”

Gar knew when he’d been outmatched. “We’ll do our best, Admiral.”

“We’re counting on that, Captain. More than you could ever imagine.” He paused for a moment and gave Gar another dose of that icy stare. “Do not ever challenge me again, young man.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Gar became aware that Admiral Lockwood and Captain Forrester were watching from across the dining room. Everyone else in the dining room had sat back down and was pretending not to watch. Nimitz stood up, wished Gar good luck, and then left to rejoin Admiral Lockwood, who gave Gar a wry smile and a sympathetic shake of his head over his shoulder as he followed his boss out of the hotel.

Well, I showed him, didn’t I, Gar thought as he tried to avoid the puzzled looks from the rest of the diners. Six yes-sirs and an aye-aye. He took some small comfort in the fact that he wasn’t the first naval officer to be steamrollered by Chester W. Nimitz. The Japs didn’t stand a chance.

We don’t, either, he thought.

His coffee had gone cold, much like the pit in his stomach. He wondered if Sharon DeVeers would have been impressed.

Probably not, he thought, but then she’d just order another Scotch and make bogeymen like Chester Nimitz go away. He saw the waiter and raised a finger for a refill. As the waiter approached, he changed his mind. Recalling the previous evening, he decided to at least pretend he was still in control of his fate, but as he remembered the image of Sharon poised above him on the bed he had to smile. His life was becoming one interesting ride after another.

SEVEN

The northern Philippine Sea

Gar studied the sharp, bare pinnacle of granite shimmering in his periscope. “Lot’s Wife, bearing two niner five,” he reported. “Down scope.”

“That’s a pretty good match with our estimated position, Captain. A range would help.”

Gar told the exec he could calibrate the surface-search radar on Lot’s Wife, a 300-foot-high volcanic crag sticking up out of the ocean, using the attack periscope. They knew its precise height above the sea, and thus could focus the radar’s range gate using the periscope’s stadimeter. The pinnacle’s Japanese name was Sofu Gan, and it lay 400 miles south of Tokyo, at the very northern extremes of the Philippine Sea. American subs entering empire patrol areas always used it as a navigational reference point, as did, apparently, Japanese warships headed south into their ever-shrinking Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Or at least they used to, before SubPac saturated the area with submarines. “When finished, make your depth two hundred fifty feet, then put us on a course to our rendezvous point at five knots. We’ll surface after dark to get back on planned track.”

“Three three five looks good.”

“Okay. I want all department heads in the wardroom once you’re confident in the track. We’ll need the Bungo Suido charts and Hashimoto-san’s chart.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Gar went down the ladder into the control room and then forward to his cabin. It was two hours until full dark. They were twelve hours behind their projected track due to some bad weather out of Guam. Gar wanted to make up some of that time to avoid spending an entire day submerged at the entrance to Bungo Suido. He planned to surface an hour after dark if the area was clear and run on the diesels toward their objective.

He flopped down on his rack, automatically checked the course and depth indicators by his feet, and then closed his eyes. So far, so good. They’d left Pearl on time with everyone on board, including the elderly Japanese gentleman. That novelty had made for some interesting reactions among the crew, but the exec had done a good job of prebriefing everybody, emphasizing that Hashimoto-san hated the Japanese military for seizing his livelihood and drawing Japan into a war with the Americans. Lieutenant Commander Tanaka had come down to the pier to say good-bye to the old man. Standing there in his navy uniform, he’d lent some credence to what the exec had been telling them. He’d brought a departure gift for the old man, a cylindrical box wrapped tightly in tissue paper. Hashimoto-san was berthed in the chiefs’ quarters, and, after three weeks of transit across the North Pacific, he seemed to have been accepted pretty well by the denizens of the goat locker.

He’d proved his worth when No. 2 main engine tripped off the line. The motor mechs had been climbing over the Fairbanks Morse engine, trying to find the problem, when Hashimoto-san showed up. He’d watched the snipes for a few minutes and then, with a combination of Hawaiian pidgin and sign language, asked if they needed help. It turned out that the old man was a wizard with diesel engines, and in no time flat he was tearing into the fuel pump assembly, finally identifying a broken linkage as the root of the problem. After that, he was welcomed in both engine rooms and kept himself busy tweaking and peaking all sorts of machinery. He’d taught the boat’s mechanics some lessons about the Japanese way with machinery, which took “fastidious” to extreme limits. Every nut, washer, bolt, and gasket—anything that came out of or off a machine—was carefully cleaned, oiled, measured, and then reinstalled with a calibrated torque wrench, as opposed to the old-navy “give it a two-fart twist and send it home” technique. Some of the pumps ran so smoothly once Hashimoto-san got hold of them that the chief engineer had to put his hand on them to make sure they
were
running.

Dragonfish
had been escorted all the way to Guam by a destroyer, which allowed them to run on the surface the entire time except for daily training dives. The threat from Pearl to Guam hadn’t been Japanese but trigger-happy American planes, which tended to bomb any submarine on the surface and then ask questions later. One army air force B-29 had made a low pass two days out from Guam, but they’d been mostly rubbernecking. The tin can had fired off some flares as the lumbering bomber approached, just in case. They’d also got some valuable training with their captive destroyer, making submerged approaches from all angles. The destroyer’s sonarmen had kept themselves up to date by using
Dragonfish
for some sonar training in return. They’d refueled in Guam, detached their escort, and headed for empire waters, a mere 1,600 miles distant.

Gar had opened the sealed orders pouch upon departure from Guam as instructed. Inside he found three things: another sealed envelope; a two-page operations order, signed by Admiral Rennsalear, the deputy chief of staff for operations at the Pacific Fleet headquarters; and a single black-and-white picture of the mysterious supercarrier. Unlike many operations orders, this one was quite succinct:

Open the second envelope once inside the Inland Sea, but not before. Otherwise,
Dragonfish
is to penetrate the straits of Bungo Suido, proceed submerged to the vicinity of the Kure Arsenal, and attack an unnamed aircraft carrier. Attack no other shipping en route to or once within the Inland Sea. Your sole objective is the aircraft carrier, either fitting out at the Kure naval arsenal, or wherever encountered. Upon completion of the attack, escape back to sea and report, but otherwise, maintain radio silence until clear of the Inland Sea.