War Beneath the Waves (16 page)

Never mind that Rush had been on far more war patrols than Lucas had. That he had been blessed with “Moke” Millican’s on-the-job training.

But just then, as if on cue, the awkward silence in the conning tower was broken by the watery
ping! ping! ping!
of close-by Japanese sonar.

Dangerously close-by sonar.

—Author and adventurer Robyn Davidson

Charlie Rush was still surprised that Captain Lucas had not relieved him from his watch and had him taken into custody. Instead, the captain simply stood there, his hands still on the grips of the periscope, with an odd, puzzled look on his face.

“Well, Mr. Rush, what should I do?” he finally asked.

Rush was so shocked at the question that he almost forgot to answer it, but the pinging was growing louder, their stalker even closer.

Captains never ask junior officers on a ship what they should do. And certainly never in front of any other crew members.

“Shoot him or go deep!” Rush told him. “Shoot him or go deep, Captain.”

“I can’t shoot him. He’s too shallow and his angle is too small. We would never hit him.”

“Then I’m going deep,” Rush said.

“Well, Mr. Rush, you are the diving officer . . .” Lucas began, but Rush was already giving the order to take them deeper as he dropped down the ladder from the conning tower to the control room. “. . . but do not make any noise doing so.”

That statement alone indicated Lucas’s inexperience. When the enemy was using echo-ranging sonar, noise was no factor. Fleeing or ducking were the only maneuvers, damn any noise it might make.

Lucas remained in the conning tower.

“I have the dive,” Rush announced to the men in the control room. “Full dive on the bow planes. Five degrees down bubble. Take her down! Take her down!”

They could feel the bow of the boat ease downward slightly. The depth gauge ticked off the submersion slowly, slowly, one foot at a time. All the while, the pinging was building and they could even hear the warship’s engines above the rush of air from
Billfish
’s ballast tanks and the inrush of seawater to replace it.

The Japanese warship would soon be right on top of them—less than a hundred feet above them.

“Flood negative! All ahead two-thirds!” Rush barked. “Rig for depth-charge attack. Rig for silent running when we reach four hundred feet.”

The captain should have already given the command to full speed but he had failed to do so. He was probably still worried about the noise it would create. Still operating under the mistaken impression that the enemy did not yet know they were down there.

Now Rush knew he had to use the boat’s propellers to drive them deeper, to go down faster than they would if he simply flooded the tanks. Yes, it would be noisy. Anybody on the surface with listening capability would easily hear them.

He called for maximum submerged power to drive them down more quickly.

However, the enemy knew they were down there already. Rush was certain of that. If the Japanese captain dropped depth charges now, with them so shallow, some of them would easily get beneath their hull. No submarine could withstand a nearby, upward-vented explosion. They would be gutted. The only way to hope to survive the inevitable attack was to get deep in a hurry.

At last they were finally nose-down and passing two hundred feet as the bow and stern planesmen fought to keep their plunging dive under some reasonable control. As the submarine went deep, the center of gravity and center of buoyancy changed rapidly. It was a constant fight to keep them from going down too fast. At the same time, juggling seawater ballast between the various trim tanks as they went down was another delicate but essential operation.

“Mr. Rush, they just went to short scale on their sonar,” the sonarman reported. The pings were closer together, less than two seconds between each. The gunboat was homing in, confident it had located its victim.

Rush pursed his lips. That was dire news.

“He has us in his sights,” Rush said quietly, but every man in the control room heard him. Every man knew what that meant.

Then they could all clearly hear the
clack-clack-clack-clack-clack
of the torpedo boat’s screws—the distinguishing whine between the clacks further confirming it was a patrol craft—as its path slowly ambled across theirs, first just ahead of them, and then almost straight above them.

“Charges in the water,” the sonarman said, his young voice amazingly calm, but they did not need his report to know. Every man in the control room heard the
ker-chug
of the depth charges for himself.

For many aboard, it was the first time. For those who had heard them before, it was no less frightening.

Throughout the boat, men who were on watch were at their usual positions for a dive. Those off duty were standing by to assist as needed. A few, those most recently off watch, had been trying to sleep, but now they merely lay there, doing their part to conserve oxygen but ready to jump and help if needed.

The ship’s executive officer, Gordon Matheson, was up in the conning tower with the captain. Rush assumed he was giving orders to the sailors who were steering the boat, backing up his young diving officer in the control room below.

“I count six charges in the water,” the sonarman suddenly announced.

The first blast came to their starboard. It was sooner than expected, awfully close, shaking the boat violently. Everyone, including those working in the control room, grabbed something solid for support. Some did not have time to brace themselves and were sent sprawling.

Emmett Carpenter, the chief of the boat (the top enlisted man aboard), was knocked down hard by the concussion. He was a boxer and remained on his hands and knees—temporarily winded from the punch—then, shaking his head, he bounced right back up off the mat, again manning his station.

The second explosion, seconds later, was even closer and a magnitude more brutal. It rocked them before everyone had regained their equilibrium from the first one. They clearly heard the
click!
of the arming device a short moment before it detonated.

Electric bulbs burst. A thick fog of dust and bits of cork insulation filtered down from overhead. Leaks spewed and hissed from behind pipes and equipment. Meters in gauges swung wildly and then settled back down, but several of their glass covers were crisscrossed with spidery cracks.

Aft, the force of the blast tore one of the main motors right off its supports, sending it askew. The concussion also split a weld loose in one of the fuel tanks that wrapped around the submarine’s hull like giant saddlebags. A small but steady trickle of oily diesel fuel began bubbling up toward the surface.

Packing around a stern torpedo tube shaft blew loose with the force of the blast, allowing more seawater to force its way inside the boat.

“Depth?” Rush asked.

“Two-seven-zero.”

The third blast, then two more almost simultaneously, punctuated the report. It was directly above the maneuvering room, between the after torpedo room and the engine rooms. The force of that horrendous explosion distorted the steel skin of the boat, pulling it apart at a seam, splitting a weld joint just enough that cold seawater sprayed into the compartment. It drenched the men who stood there beneath it as well as the sensitive electrical equipment, the circuit breakers inside the cubicle. It held the switches that changed the boat from diesel to electrical power and controlled the flow of electricity to the motors. Then, helped by the increasing pressure of the seawater that surrounded it, the tiny tear in their skin closed right back up again.

It was as if God turned off the spigot in answer to the men’s silent prayers.

Almost immediately after, yet another powerful charge detonated not far from the stern. It forced water into one of the torpedo tubes with enough pressure that it blew out the seal around the tube door. Water flooded in, even as those on watch in the torpedo room did all they could to try to stop it. Within moments, the men were ankle-deep—then knee-deep—in surprisingly chilly seawater.

That was all six charges, as near as the sonarman could count. The Japanese captain would pause now, looking for signs that they had crushed their target beneath them. With no evidence to show it, though, they would launch another batch over them.

Back in the control room, Charlie Rush tried to concentrate on what was going on, what he should be doing to keep them afloat until they could elude the warship. He mentally calculated how long they had been down. How long it had been since the last time they were on the surface, charged the batteries, and sucked in fresh air.

This could be life-or-death math.

They’d begun their submerged run through the strait when the appearance of the destroyer or torpedo boat chased them down. That happened just after nine o’clock that morning. It was now a few minutes after three.

They had been down almost six hours already, running on battery power, using air, with no idea of how long it would be before they could safely surface. If those guys up there were persistent and
Billfish
could not find a way out from underneath them—and if the Japanese did not blow them to pieces in the meantime—it would not be long before they would have battery and air problems with which to contend, along with everything else.

Battery power would wane and they could not go, their motors starved for juice. Lights would flicker and then go out. They could use flashlights for a while, but other vital equipment that needed electricity would inevitably go down.

Air would go bad by degrees, breathed up by men working hard, then becoming mixed with acid from the batteries.

There would come a time when it would not be breathable.

Then they would have to surface or die. Still, they had a good while before things got that bad.

They could get away from these guys. Stealth was on their side. The enemy had no idea which direction they were headed or how deep they were.

So long as the bastard did not make a lucky guess with the placement of the next round of charges, they would be out of this mess soon.

Billfish
was finally at four hundred feet and her crew attempted to level her off there. But she was heavy at the tail and they struggled to find trim. The ballast tanks and pumps were doing their jobs so far, despite the pounding they were taking. Then they realized what the problem was.

The flood of water through the damaged torpedo tube was dragging them down from the rear. If they did not get the flooding stopped back there, they could sink to the bottom of the strait.

“All ahead two-thirds,” Charlie Rush ordered. He hoped somebody would tell him what was happening elsewhere in the boat or that the captain would communicate from the conning tower. So far, the undamaged motor was responding and they were able to continue moving forward at a good pace. They could not maintain that speed for long, though, or they would use up the batteries.

He knew the XO was up there with Lucas. But where were the other officers? He hoped everything else was under control up and down the length of the boat.

Chief Rendernick communicated that he was running the damage control party, which was working on some problems, but they seemed to be fixable.

Then several more blasts rang out farther away from them. Farther away but they were still potent enough to shake the hull and give them a decided sideways shove.

But then a much closer one sent the submarine swaying, skewing, as if a giant hand had slapped it. The deck beneath their feet was already littered with glass, cans, coffee cups, and big, ragged blocks of cork that had been shaken loose from overhead. They kicked stuff out of the way to keep it from tripping men as they ran back and forth through the control room.

Just then, the third officer—the third in command on
Billfish
after the captain and executive officer—stumbled through the doorway into the compartment. He came from somewhere back toward the stern. Rush thought at first, from the way he was stumbling and wild-eyed, that he might be injured. Then he saw that was not the case at all.

The man’s face was twisted, distorted by terror, his eyes were wide, and he was sobbing, moaning, pounding his thighs with his balled-up fists. The front of his trousers was wet where he had obviously lost control of his bladder.

“We’re going to die!” he screamed pitifully, looking from face to face of the men in the room. “The next one . . . the next one is going to kill us all!”

Rush had hardly had the opportunity to get to know this particular officer yet. He had seemed a likable enough fellow, quietly competent in his job, though Rush knew little of his previous submarine experience.

Now it was clear that the man had lost control of himself. He was terrified, in full, raging panic.

The other men in the control room stared at him for a moment. Then a couple of them grabbed him and pulled him aside, out of the way of the crew members who were rushing back and forth through the compartment on the way to do a job in another part of the boat. The pharmacist’s mate was already close by, in a makeshift first-aid station set up in the galley, where he bandaged contusions and put salve on a few burns. He stepped into the control room when someone called and immediately gave the officer an injection of a powerful sedative.