Dust on the Sea (19 page)

In the crew's dinette, one of the mess tables now held a large oval tray with a mound of sandwiches covered with a dampened cloth. Several were already being eaten, Rich noticed, and he filched one from under the cloth as he went by. In the galley two more loaded trays had been put aside for use later. They would be needed.

The watertight door to the control room was closed to protect its darkened condition. Rich lifted the latch, stepped over the coaming, relatched it. Through the goggles he was instantly aware of the red lights glowing about, but at first could see very little else. In a moment, however, thanks to the protection given by his goggles, he was able to distinguish the familiar objects.

Since the ship was on the surface, the diving station was secured. The bow planes were rigged in, the stern planes locked on zero. Al Dugan was loitering about on the diving station in desultory conversation with the battle stations bow and stern planesmen, who were sitting on the toolboxes which doubled as seats when they were operating the planes. Al gave a thumbs-up signal as Rich started up the ladder into the conning tower.

It too was dimly lighted, had been “rigged for red” since surfacing. The roar of the engines came more clearly here through the open hatch in its forward starboard corner. Also could be heard the rush of the sea through which
Eel
was cleaving, the muttered monosyllabic words of the watch on the bridge deck above, the occasional response from the helmsmen or the quartermaster in the forward part of the conning tower.

The speed indicator, mounted on the forward bulkhead just above the helmsmen's head, stood at just a shade below twenty knots. Its needle indicator, in reflective paint, stood out sharply in the soft glow of the instrument lighting.

Eel
pitched softly, rolled gently, but there was a purposefulness to
her motion. The very steel fabric of the submarine exuded a determination to go about her deadly business.

In the after port corner of the conning tower, the Torpedo Data Computer—the TDC—purred softly, its instrument panel lights glowing. It had been turned on for hours, and the automatic inputs from ship's own course and speed had been checked and rechecked. Buck Williams had long ago reported the TDC in readiness to receive the observed inputs of target course and range, plus the all-important item of exact target bearing from radar, sonar, the TBTs on the bridge, or the periscope. With this information it could help determine target speed and automatically make the necessary computations to set the correct gyro angles on the torpedoes. Then, when the firing key was pressed, the selected torpedoes would be sent on their deadly mission aimed with the most accurate information the human mind and the mechanical computer together could devise.

On the starboard side of the conning tower, opposite the TDC and a little forward of it, was the radar control console, glowing with suppressed green, orange and red lights. Faint flashes shone through crevices in the light shrouding covering it. A figure stood bent over the console, his face pressed into a conical rubber hood shaped to fit a man's forehead and the bridge of his nose. The man, his two hands on the face of the instrument, fingering its dials, was relaxed but simultaneously all attention. In the darkness above the bridge, at the top of the periscope shears, the rotating electronic antenna was searching the area, probing the night, bringing in the information down to this vitally important instrument.

Rich recognized the slight figure peering into the radar receiver as he stood beside him. “Quin,” he said, putting his hand on the yeoman's shoulder, “how is the watch going? See anything yet?”

“No, sir,” said Quin, keeping his face against the hood. “I've been up here since midnight, and all I've got is Quelpart Island, off on our starboard beam about forty miles away. Also, there's radar sweeps coming in on our starboard and port quarter.”

“Our friends, right?” said Rich.

“Yessir. They've got rotating radars just like ours, and they're on the same frequency. I can see them sweep across, so I figure it must be them.”

“Let me see, Quin.”

Quin stood up, stretched gratefully. Rich pulled the red goggles from his eyes, let them hang on their elastic thong around his neck, leaned into the hood. He was looking at a large circular dial, perhaps twelve inches in diameter, from the center of which a white shaft of
light the thickness of a pencil line rotated ceaselessly in a clockwise direction. Faint concentric circles—the range markers—were visible as the moving pencil line illuminated them in passing.

At the 2 o'clock position, out near the periphery of the dial, the jagged outline of land appeared clearly every time the rotating wand passed it, slowly faded as the wand continued around the circle, was regenerated when it passed over it again. Rich watched as the radiant wand made several passes, noticed when from slightly below the 5 o'clock position there appeared the faint evidence of another wand, also sweeping. When it intersected
Eel
's wand, a series of dashes was produced. The 8 o'clock position had a similar, fainter wand rotating from it which could occasionally be seen.

“That's
Chicolar
over on our starboard quarter and
Whitefish
on our port quarter, Quin,” said Rich. “That's where they should be. It looks as though we're out ahead of both of them.”

“The one to port seems to be dropping behind,” volunteered Quin. “But the one to starboard—it's been there all the time I've been up here.”

Theoretically,
Whitefish
should be a shade faster than either
Eel
or
Chicolar
, or so Whitey Everett had argued. Perhaps her battery had been more depleted and he had not yet been able to put all four main engines on propulsion.

Richardson mentally projected himself out into the space covered by his moving radar beam. To starboard, silent and massive, the bulk of Quelpart Island, a mountain rising out of the water, divided the Yellow Sea into two parts. The ships he sought were coming toward him north of the island. Ahead, not yet near enough to be picked up on the radar, the rocky coast of Korea formed a corner projecting into the sea, its long side extending nearly due north, the short side stretching eastward to create a funnel through which the convoy passing to the north of Quelpart must come. Strewn about the Korean coast, extending northward and eastward, many small islands, rocky and inhospitable, stood like protective sentinels guarding the mainland. Soon one or more of them would become a jagged blob on the radar.
Eel
, scenting game, was racing toward them. In a little while a group of tiny symmetrical pips would appear among the jagged blobs. They would be arranged in some man-designed, coherent way, and they would move, whereas the islets would only grow nearer. Then would the prey be flushed, and the wolf of the sea gather her pack together. They had already been called to follow. They would pursue it, fall upon it like the ravening wolves they were, rend it to pieces. Man would eat man. It was as though Richardson stood omnipotent in the
heavens, searching the sea below and seeing both the past and the future.

The same scene was being duplicated in the conning towers of
Chicolar
and
Whitefish
. Perhaps both skippers were standing in their conning towers, their stations for most of the battle to come, also peering at their radar scopes, also waiting, possibly also seeing in their own allegorical conception what it was they were about to do. The call of the wild wolf had been heard. The pack was gathering.

Richardson straightened up, indicated to Quin that he should take over the radar again, replaced his goggles. He stood silently as his eyes once again began their acclimation to the dark. Momentarily he had been blinded by the considerably brighter lights of the radarscope, his mind distracted by contemplation of the hell he was about to unleash.

The PPI 'scope, as the dial he had been watching was called, had been designed with a view to use at night. Its predominant color was red. Beside it was another hooded dial, the A 'scope, which gave precise ranges but had a profusion of green lighting guaranteed to produce instant night blindness lasting many minutes. Richardson had avoided looking at the A 'scope, but even so it would be some minutes before his night vision was fully restored. He readjusted the red goggles more comfortably, returned to the forward part of the conning tower, stopped with one foot on the ladder leading upward. “Scott,” he said to the quartermaster, “I'm going up on the bridge. We'll be getting some kind of a radar contact before long. We'll be picking up some islands up ahead, too, but I'm expecting ships. We might be shooting torpedoes before daybreak.”

The radar operators had all been thoroughly briefed as to the prospect of getting a return on land or small islands which would resemble ships. The whole submarine was already keyed up. His prediction about imminent combat, confirming the knowledgeable guesses already rife, would be known throughout the ship within seconds. Tension would increase, but so would alertness and readiness.

Eel
's speed might even increase a fraction of a knot as the electricians once more sought carefully to balance the loads on her four generators and, if possible, slightly increase the output of the four big diesels.

Already he could see better. One last look around the conning tower. It was businesslike, calm, efficient. This was the way a submarine should be. He climbed the few steps to the bridge, ducked under the overhang. “Permission to come on the bridge,” he called.

“Permission granted, Skipper.” Buck Williams, Officer of the Deck, had his elbows on the overhang, binoculars to his eyes, peering over
the front of the metal windscreen. Richardson stood beside him, the goggles dangling again around his neck, binoculars also to his eyes.

“We should get contact pretty soon, Buck,” he said, sweeping the murk with his glasses. “We've got Quelpart on the radar. I guess you know that. And there's a flock of little islands that will show up dead ahead pretty soon now. What we're watching for is a formation of ships moving between the land formations.”

“How long before we're in radar range of the first island?” asked Williams.

“Not sure. Maybe half an hour. Time to get my night vision settled down, I hope.”

Eel
's bow, lowered nearer to the water's edge by the powerful thrust of her propellers, steadily, almost hypnotically, drove apart the quiet sea. Two white streamers of roiled water, several feet abaft the bullnose and on either side, formed an inverted V. In the center of the V, her bow forming its point, lay the submarine. Little else could be seen of the sea. The hollow of the bow wave formed just forward of
Eel
's bridge. Aft, the returning bulge of seawater tended to sweep up the submarine's rounded sides and occasionally lap into the base of her free-flooding superstructure. Farther aft yet, four exhaust pipes, two on each side, spewed forth a thunder of spray and steam. Occasionally a wave gurgled toward one of the yawning openings of the pipes, to be hurled backward in white confusion under the force of the exhaust gases. All the way aft, abaft the stern mooring line chock, there was a white-ribbed disturbance in the sea, a burbling from below. Immediately beyond, coming in from the sides, the dark waters hurled themselves into the cleavage behind the submarine. The only note of her passage was the straight white wake stretching out astern, growing less in the distance as quiet returned to the Yellow Sea.

The air as usual was dank, still, and cold. Richardson's night vision was returning, but he still found it difficult to distinguish the horizon, where the sky and the water met. All was the same dark grayness. Overhead, no stars to be seen. As before, he had the impression that visibility was not unduly restricted, but that somehow there was a salt content to the air, a thin concentration which gradually brought haze of sky and haze of sea together in a unity that defied piercing.

He had no feeling at all. It was as though he were watching from somewhere else. His second self, the buried one of which he was so keenly aware, was about to take charge. This was his profession, his metier. This was what he was a master at: the relentless power of
Eel
's four big diesel engines, her spinning propellers, the unimaginable potential for destruction in the ten torpedo tubes she was about to use;
himself, the controller of it all—the controller, and yet as much as any one of them, controlled.

From whence had come the intelligence sending
Eel
on this deadly errand? Admiral Small, of course, but where did he get it? The admiral had mentioned Fort Shafter as being a special source of information. This must be what he was referring to. This must be why Mrs. Elliott, Cordy Wood, and Joan had such high security clearances. They all worked there. One of the peculiar things about Joan's job was the strange hours. Frequently she would spend several days in a row inside the Shafter compound, never leaving, sleeping at odd times in the room assigned to her. Then she would be off for several days. Joan had once lived in Japan, and she could both read and speak Japanese. Her father had been in the diplomatic service. She said she thought he was dead, but she never talked about him. There was more to his story. Could he have been in intelligence? Could he still be? Could that be the reason for Joan's reticence? Was she, also, in intelligence work?

It must be so. She had known about the lifeboats even before Rich had told about them. She had known about the
Walrus
, and what had happened to her. Submarines had been benefitting from special information about convoy movements since nearly the beginning of the war. Joan's knowledge of Japanese would be needed to translate the messages into English. There must be a large group involved with just this part of the work, and it would be very highly classified. No wonder Joan had been so reluctant to talk about herself!