Dust on the Sea (22 page)

Rich was conscious that the battle lookouts, men specially designated to take lookout stations during surface action and who were also trained to operate the two bridge forty-millimeter guns and the twenty-millimeter pair, were coming up one after the other and taking their stations.

Al Dugan would be coming shortly, was there. “I'll keep the deck, Al,” he said. “You run the routine. If we can get close enough to open fire with all weapons, maybe we can take the heat off
Chicolar
and they can dive.”

“What are you going to do about the convoy, Rich? Are you going
to let them get away?” Blunt's voice. He had again come on the bridge without anyone being aware of it. “Rich,” he went on, “I have a report to make about your executive officer. I want you to relieve him of duty and confine him to his room. He was insolent to me just now, pushed me, even.”

Rich could feel his eyes narrowing. He answered rapidly, “Can we talk about that later, sir? We've got to see what we can do to help
Chicolar
!”

“That's what I mean,” said Blunt, shifting back to the first subject as though he had never mentioned the second. “We've got three ships now that are about to get away. They're unescorted, too. Those are our targets. That's what we came out here for. Leave the
Chicolar
. Go after them. That's an order, Richardson!”

“Commodore, the
Chicolar
is worth a dozen of those old ships! She's in trouble!”

“You heard me, Richardson! The
Chicolar
can take care of herself. You go after those three ships. Do I make myself clear?”

“Bridge”—this was Keith on the speaker—“
Chicolar
has dived.”

“Keith, what's the range and bearing of the convoy?”

“Convoy has reversed course, Bridge. They bear zero-zero-zero, thirteen thousand yards, course zero-nine-zero, speed twelve.” In one way Blunt was correct. Unescorted, the three freighters, or whatever they were, would be easy meat.

No doubt the three escort ships would depth charge the area where
Chicolar
had dived. They would be out of action for some time. Whatever
Eel
did had to be done immediately.

Raising his voice, Rich shouted into the bridge hatch, “Come right to zero-three-zero. . . . Keith,” he said into the hand mike, “give me a course to intercept the convoy.”

“Zero-three-zero looks good, Bridge!”

In the distance, far on the port beam, the flashes of gunfire had ceased. Richardson could hear the detonations of explosions. No doubt they were depth charges. Keith confirmed it. “We can hear distant depth charges below,” he reported.

Richardson's night vision was returning rapidly. At ten thousand yards he could see the dark blobs of three ships on his port bow. With her superior speed
Eel
drew abreast of them, maintaining her distance.

“Conn, bridge. Target course?”

“Steady on zero-nine-zero, Bridge,” Keith responded. “Convoy is not zigzagging. Three ships in column. Speed twelve.”

Obviously they were trying to make as much distance away from the scene of action as they could. Anticipating only a single submarine in
the area, they had ceased to zigzag, had probably gone to emergency speed. Rapidly
Eel
opened out on the convoy's starboard bow.

“We'll fire two fish at each ship,” Rich said to Keith. “Give me a course for a ninety track on the middle ship. We'll shoot all fish to hit, and take them in order from forward aft.”

“Aye aye, Captain. Looks pretty good right now, sir; come on around anytime. Recommend course north.”

All this time
Eel
had been plying along at nearly twenty knots through a calm, motionless, almost oily sea. Richardson felt again the curious sense of detachment he always felt at just this moment. “Stand by,” he ordered. “Left full rudder. Helm, make your new course zero-zero-zero! . . . All right, Keith,” he called into the bridge microphone, “we're making our approach now. Call out the ranges as we come in!”

The range closed swiftly. At seven thousand yards Rich ordered two-thirds speed ahead. He could see the large bulks of the three ships looming clearly, shadowy shapes in his staring binoculars. Swiftly he swept from one to the other. They were running in very close formation, hardly three ship-lengths apart. Two were relatively new ships, not large, perhaps three thousand tons each. Engines aft—probably the products of a war construction program. The third ship was a trifle larger and looked older, an old-type freighter with a tall stack and a small deck house amidships. Possibly four-thousand-ton size.

Eel
was now as committed as
Chicolar
had been, with three basic differences: she knew a lot more about the enemy, having tracked them for a considerably longer time, she was coming in for attack on their beam, and there were no escorts.

“Range four thousand yards”—from Keith on the bridge speaker.
Eel
's speed had been reduced to about ten knots. At three thousand yards range, with the leading ship just on her port bow, Richardson ordered the outer doors to the forward torpedo tubes opened. He could almost hear the six consecutive thumps as the hydraulic mechanism banged them open.

“All ahead one-third! Stand by forward!” he ordered.

“Range twenty-five hundred yards!”

“Why don't you go ahead and shoot, Rich?” Blunt. He had not spoken for more than a quarter of an hour. Richardson had completely forgotten his presence on the bridge.

From the high plane of the objective professionalism which somehow possessed him, Richardson heard himself say, “I seem to remember an old skipper of mine saying once you get in there to take your time and do it right. They can't see us.”

“Range to leading ship sixteen hundred. Gyros six right. Torpedo run one-six-zero-zero!”

“Conn, bridge, we'll shoot with the port TBT,” continued Richardson into the bridge mike, setting his left shoulder into the bulge built in the port side of the bridge. “Bearing, mark!”

“Port TBT, aye aye. Range sixteen hundred. Torpedo run one-five-two-five. Gyros ten right. Ready number one!”

“Stand by, forward,” said Rich once more. He looked through the TBT binoculars, thumbed the button buzzer with his right thumb. “Shoot!” he said into the microphone hanging on its wire looped over the top of the pressure-proof binoculars.

“One's away”—Keith from the conning tower. He could hear someone counting seconds. “Two's away.”

“Shift targets,” said Rich. He swung the TBT to the second target. “Bearing, mark!” He pushed the button.

Keith answered as before, “Ready with number three!”

“Shoot!” he said again.

“Three's away! Four's away!”

“Shift targets! Bearing, mark!” He thumbed the button a third time.

“Ready number five!”

“Shoot!” said Richardson for the third time.

“Five's away! Six away! All torpedoes fired forward!”

Richardson had felt the mild lurch as each torpedo was ejected.
Eel
was firing electric torpedoes and therefore there was no wake, no sign that anything had happened in the water, but he knew that six times three thousand pounds of highly complicated mechanism, carrying a total of twenty-four hundred pounds of TNT, was running in the dark water.

“Aren't you going to maneuver, Rich?” asked Blunt.

“No, sir,” said Richardson. He felt perverse detachment. Standard tactics called for maneuvering to avoid, but he would not do it. He had dealt death again, and now he must watch it happen. “These ships have had it,” he growled in justification. “Besides, they're unescorted. There's nobody there who can hurt us.”

There was a flash of light at the water line of the first freighter. The ocean was riven as a huge plume of water and air suddenly obscured the doomed ship's midsection. Seconds later another similar plume covered the after portion. Then the noise of explosions came in—three times; three loud booms.

“What happened, Rich? I distinctly saw you fire only two torpedoes at the first ship.”

“We heard them through air and water both, Commodore,” rapidly responded Rich. “The middle two probably overlapped each other and reached us around the same time.” He shifted his attention to the second ship just in time to catch the two explosions enveloping her.
He shifted the TBT to the third ship. Nothing. The torpedoes could not have missed!

Then, as he watched it, the ship seemed to divide into two parts. Her midship section disappeared. Bow and stern rose toward the sky, closed together, swiftly shrank. Both sections were already half under water when the thunderous explosion of the torpedoes beating in the old freighter's ancient bottom reached them.

“Six hits for six torpedoes! Bully good shooting, Rich!” shouted Blunt ecstatically, slapping him across the shoulders and slamming his eyes unexpectedly into the rigid rubber-protected eyepieces of the heavy TBT binoculars. “Great work!” Blunt was almost babbling with excitement and pleasure. Curiously, Richardson felt totally let down. This had been ridiculously easy. The ships had had no defense whatever.
Chicolar
had taken the escorts out. His attack had been made without warning, and he had had all the advantage of modern technological science. It had been nothing but murder.

“All ahead, flank! Left full rudder!” he ordered.

“Where are you going now, Rich?” said Blunt.

“Back to the
Chicolar
. Maybe we can help her a little.” He spoke into his command microphone. “Conn, bridge, what have you got on the
Whitefish?
And where are the three tincans working over
Chicolar
?”

“Nothing on the
Whitefish
, Captain. We've not seen her radar for quite a while. Maybe she's dived. Morning twilight will be in half an hour. The three tincans are where they were before, still in a group fifteen miles bearing two-six-five true.”

“Make your course two-six-five, helm,” said Rich.

“Rich, they're fifteen miles away. Day will be breaking before we get there.”

“Then we'll dive and make a submerged approach. They won't be expecting a second submarine.”

“After what you did to that convoy? By the time we get there they'll know what happened to it, and that another submarine was responsible!” Blunt seemed totally oblivious to the fact that four lookouts, a quartermaster and Al Dugan were all crowded together on
Eel
's tiny chariot bridge and could not avoid hearing every word that was said.

“Commodore,” muttered Rich, trying to give his voice an urgent piercing quality while at the same time lowering his tone so that only Blunt could hear, “Commodore, they won't have any idea what has happened to their convoy! Besides, the
Chicolar
is in trouble! She may have been hit before she dived! We're still recording sporadic depth charging over there, and the radar shows the three Jap escorts still
clustered around the same spot. We'll be able to dive outside visual range and make a dawn attack. . . .”

“Absolutely not, Rich, I forbid it! That's an order!” Blunt spoke as loudly as before. “Our mission here is to sink Japanese ships, not to go off shooting at windmills on some wild goose chase!
Chicolar
can take care of herself. Les Hartly is an experienced skipper. I want this ship to remain undetected.
Whitefish
is already submerged, and you are to do the same. I want you to head southwest and return to your patrol position. This was a good night's work. I won't let you spoil it now!”

Night was beginning to give way to the gray haze of the approaching dawn. Blunt's face was seamed, its once craggy lines now only sagging gray flesh. His eyes had a strange intensity, a hint of fervid determination. Rich had never seen him this way before. Abruptly Blunt turned. He stooped for the grab rail above the hatch to the conning tower, swung himself below.

After the commodore disappeared there was silence on the bridge. Dugan, not a loquacious individual anyway, wisely was using his binoculars and paying no apparent attention to the exchange between his skipper and the wolfpack commander. Obviously the strain of the war patrol, Blunt's self-isolation on board the submarine, and his background in prewar submarine tactics might contribute to a sort of bewilderment which could be responsible for his present attitude. It was also possible, Richardson had honestly to admit to himself, that he had deeper information, better knowledge, than possessed by the submarine skippers. One thing sure, he was the senior officer present. The three submarines in effect were his fleet. His orders must be obeyed.

“All ahead two-thirds. Come left to course two-two-five,” Rich ordered down the hatch. In the stillness on the bridge, the clink of the annunciators answered him before the acknowledging call came from the helmsman. “Al,” he said to Dugan, “take over the deck. Check with the forward torpedo room to be sure that no torpedoes are loose in the room. When you're satisfied that everything is secure, go ahead and dive. Take a quick sounding first. We should have at least forty fathoms under our keel.”

Richardson fought down a feeling of bitterness as he descended the ladder into the conning tower. He waited there, withdrawn and uncommunicative, as Dugan gave the necessary orders, received the correct responses, and supervised the operation of submerging. Instead of the wild exultation of successful combat, the satisfaction over destruction of three enemy cargo ships without having received a shot or a depth charge in return, gloom enveloped him. The three ships sunk had been far less offensive than Bungo Pete. They had not shot
at him, had not even known he was there. Their only offense was that they happened to be on the other side of a war.