Dust on the Sea (54 page)

The damaged transport was well in sight through the naked eye from
Eel
's bridge, well inside the horizon, the angle of its masts increasing perceptibly from the vertical as the doomed ship listed, when suddenly a column of water sprang up alongside. The leaning masts, jolted by the torpedo hit (for this it must be), slowly straightened up, then continued on past the vertical, to list in the other direction. As he watched, they leaned farther and farther, until they disappeared from sight, to be replaced by the dark red wedge of the underpart of a ship's bows.

Damn Whitey anyway! The ship was already sinking! Even a single additional torpedo in her was a waste! Not only would that torpedo far better have been saved for one of the other two transports, he was also wasting valuable time remaining submerged in the vicinity. The proper thing for
Whitefish
to do was to get up on the surface and join
Eel
in pursuing the two undamaged troopships. Two subs on the surface, widely separated, would make air cover all the more difficult. Working in coordination, they could cover all possible routes the enemy might take. Together, they could make it impossible for them to get away. Soldiers still in the States, soon to land upon Iwo Jima and Okinawa, would die if those two troopships, with their efficient, trained soldiers, were not sent to the bottom!

In the meantime, no aircraft had been sighted in the cloudless sky. Perhaps the plane which had forced
Eel
to dive early in the morning had reached the limits of its endurance and headed back to base. More likely, it was flying in autisubmarine patrol orbit around the surviving transports. In that event, the second torpedo attack on the damaged ship might cause it to swing in that direction for a closer look, with consequent greater chances of sighting
Eel
.

“Keep a sharp lookout for aircraft,” growled Richardson. “They'll come from any direction, but most likely from the starboard bow.” Perhaps it would have been better to have said nothing, for the lookouts were already sufficiently keyed up. Not more than five minutes had passed before the forward starboard lookout suddenly yelled, “Plane!” pointing with his arm at the horizon.

In the distance a tiny silhouette floated in the sky, wings motionless. The lookout, a new man, very young, on his first patrol, held his binoculars a tiny distance from his face so that he could swivel his eyes nervously at Richardson. Obviously he expected a moment later to be climbing down the ladder into the conning tower.

Without taking his binoculars down from his eyes, Richardson spoke in a loud tone, endeavoring at the same time to project a note of calmness. “Where's the plane?” he said. “I don't see any.”

“There, sir! Coming right at us! . . . Oh.” The lookout, pointing, became visibly deflated as the bird, now obviously much nearer than the horizon, turned lazily and gave a single lusty flap with its wings.

An encouraging word was necessary for sake of the boy's self-esteem. In a kindly voice Richardson said, “That's all right. We'd far rather have you call one wrong once in a while than miss one you should see. With visibility like today, we'll have plenty of time to look it over before diving.” As he spoke, he recognized an unusual pedantic quality to his expression. He had forced the words out almost with a sigh. They had taken an inexpressible effort. He must guard against this.
He had been up all night, true, but that was no excuse. The men trusted him, must think him infallible. He was the best surety they had for their own safety.

Far in the distance, well to starboard now and out of sight, was the remainder of the convoy, with two-thirds of the soldiers who had left Tsingtao. Somewhere off to port, now resting on the bottom of the Yellow Sea, her position marked in a general way by a tiny cluster of white lifeboats on the horizon, and an already reduced mass of black dots representing humanity around them, lay the ship just sunk by the
Whitefish
. Somewhere in that vicinity also must be
Whitefish
herself, probably still at periscope depth because of the lack of aircraft or surface escorts, possibly close enough to recognize her sister submarine plowing along at flank speed through the gathering sea and the freshening wind. She should be able to hear
Eel
by sonar even if she could not see her through the periscope, and just possibly her sonar operator would be sufficiently experienced to recognize the high-speed propeller beat and the two-cycle high-speed diesels characteristic of an American submarine. If
Whitefish
were aware of her wolfpack mate's urgent passage, she should surface, if for no other reason than emulation.

Whitey Everett was obligated to continue to pursue the convoy as soon as countermeasures against him had ceased. But he, too, had probably been up most of the night, and so, no doubt, had most of his crew. The mental strain required to return to periscope depth shortly after a depth charging and in the face of possibly waiting countermeasures must have been great. It was all to his credit that he had done so, even though by Rich's estimate a second torpedo was wasted on the already sinking troopship. Following this effort, by normal standards Whitey could be excused if he had decided to return to the sheltering depths to rest himself and his crew. Possibly, if
Eel
were to head in that direction, calling
Whitefish
on the sonar, contact could be made with him. But if so, contact with the fleeing convoy would be lost.

Richardson was not aware of weighing the alternatives. Perhaps his mind was already too clouded to consider them properly. Stafford was directed to call
Whitefish
continuously on the sonar, sending the code signal for surface chase. But
Eel
pounded on without slowing through the rising sea, throwing an ever-increasing cloud of spray on deck, periodically changing course in obedience to Keith's recommendations as the tracking party combined periscope sightings of masts with radar information. Sooner or later the troopships must change course to the east, and
Eel
would then be directly ahead of them. But what could
Eel
do with only two torpedoes against two escorts and two huge transports? Richardson now regretted, with the intensity borne of inability to remedy the situation, that he had not insisted upon taking some of
Whitefish
's torpedoes. The thing could have been done in a few hours of intense work, even if it had never been done before in the war zone. If Blunt had ordered Whitey Everett to do it, he would have had to comply.

But where was Blunt? Richardson had been on the bridge for hours now and had heard not a word from him. He had not asked for him, for there was nothing in the way of combined operations that could be done, now that
Whitefish
had successfully attacked and was out of communication. As soon as
Whitefish
surfaced and checked in by radio, Blunt would of course be informed, even though it would be Richardson's proposals that would be sent to her as directives in Blunt's name.

And what about that airplane that had caused the
Eel
to dive? It must have been assigned to the protection of this convoy. Perhaps there were other ships traversing the Yellow Sea also, and it was no doubt true that both aircraft fuel and aircraft themselves were in short supply to Japan. But where was it? That plane, or another one, could not be far away.
Eel
must not be sighted once she got ahead of the convoy.

Al Dugan had relieved Buck Williams as OOD. “I got a couple of hours' sleep, Skipper—was out like a light, too—so I feel pretty good. Keith says he wishes you could get some rest.” He had brought with him a mug of black coffee and three huge sandwiches, which Richardson gulped gratefully. Obviously, despite their words, no one expected him to go below.

“Where's the commodore?” he asked.

“He's been asleep. Turned in after we surfaced, and just woke up for lunch. He's probably in the conning tower now, or will be as soon as he finishes eating. I hurried up so Buck could eat.” Dugan paused, then spoke again with a different note in his voice. “Captain, I've got to tell you, we have trouble again with the hydraulic system. It's really going to need a total overhaul to find out what the matter is. Something isn't acting right.”

Richardson put his binoculars down from his eyes, looked around seriously. The cold wind had burned a deep redness into his face. The collar of his foul-weather jacket was turned up and buttoned, so that the artificial fur protected the back of his neck and caressed his cheeks, and he had procured a blue knit sailor's watch cap from the conning tower, which he had jammed on over his head as far as it would go,
covering his ears. The face which looked at Dugan was puffy, a mottled mahogany covered with a stubble of whiskers. Above it the skin around his eyes and across the bridge of his nose was white where the binoculars had protected it, but the eyes themselves, seemingly deeper set than usual in their sockets, were red with strain and fatigue. “What's the trouble now?” he said, his numb lips and tongue having difficulty with the words.

“She's recycling again too fast. I've got Lichtmann down there in the pump room watching it. He'll stay there, and if we need to relieve him, I'll send Starberg or Sargent down. Bow planes, stern planes, and steering are set for hand operation, and so is the main induction. The cooks are checked out on the induction, and there's extra people in the enginerooms to handle the exhaust valves by hand. The main vents are all shifted over to hand power again, too, with telephones and people standing by.”

Richardson nodded. “What's Lichtmann doing?”

“He's got the main plant turned off, with the rams full and the bypass valve shut. The accumulator is full, with air pressure on top. He'll turn the plant on when we need it, and then secure it again. You know we can refill the accumulator by bleeding off the air on top and then using the hand pump. So that's all rigged and ready to go. We've been testing it, and Lichtmann can give us another full accumulator, after the first one is discharged, in a couple minutes of hard pumping. So we can handle everything, although we can't do all the things all at once, the way we used to. That's why I put everything we can in hand power. . . . That fellow Lichtmann is sure a jewel. Where in the world did you find him?”

“He's a legacy from Stocker Kane,” said Richardson, quietly, and Dugan knew that the slight hesitation in Richardson's words was not entirely from the cold weather on the bridge.

“Bridge, conn. Convoy has changed course to the left again. New course one-eight-oh. Recommend we come left to one-eight-oh.” This was the third course change the convoy had made in the past hour and a half. The ships were now well abaft
Eel
's starboard beam, running on parallel course. To head for what had been estimated to be their original destination point on the coast of Korea, they would have to come around left at least fifty degrees more.

“Bridge, control. APR contact. Strength two.” The first indication of the presence of an aircraft.

“Look sharp, lookouts! There's an aircraft around here somewhere!” With the beautiful visibility, there should be no trouble in seeing the aircraft. The seas themselves were still small, although perceptibly
building up, and the plane would be sighted the moment it came over the horizon should it try the same gambit that had so nearly caught the
Eel
a week or so before. For hours Richardson had been pondering his tactic in the event of an airplane contact. To dive on APR contact, which had been his latest determination, would eliminate any further chance of catching the convoy, but to be detected by the airplane would have almost the same effect. In that case . . . Suddenly it was clear what he must do.

“Al,” he said, “I'll take over the entire deck. You go down and stand by the dive in the control room. If this plane shows up, I want to go down fast, even if we are in hand power. We've got to avoid detection, but we can't dive until the last minute. I want to go deep so as to get clear, and if we have to, we'll change course on the way. But then I'll want to come back to periscope depth immediately and surface as soon as we can. We mustn't lose any more time submerged than we can possibly help.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Al. But still he looked puzzled. “What are we going to do with the convoy, Skipper?” he began. But then he stopped. There was something in Richardson's face, some look of fixed purpose mounted on the thin edge of exhaustion, which dissuaded him from adding the additional requirement of an explanation. With a final “Going below!” he ducked under the bridge overhang and stepped on the ladder rungs.

“Tell Keith on your way down, Al,” said Richardson, as Dugan's head passed below the level of the bridge deck, “and keep me fully informed about that APR contact. That's going to be the key to the whole thing!”

The convoy had swung around another twenty degrees, to course 160 degrees true, and the APR contact had remained steady. The plane was probably circling in front of the convoy and would inevitably soon detect
Eel
, particularly when further course changes would put the submarine more nearly ahead also. Richardson was about to issue another cautionary warning to the lookouts, but refrained. They were already as alert as they could be. Nervousness might only cause another mistaken identification of a bird as an aircraft.

“APR contact fading slightly. Strength one.” Al was making the reports himself from the control room. The radar signal was steady, not rising and falling as had been the case previously, and having reached its closest point of approach, the plane was now getting farther away. Soon it would turn back.