The Commodore (13 page)

Considering further discussion pointless, he stood up, indicating that their meeting was over. The two skippers headed up one level to join their ops people in
King
's tiny CIC.

 

ELEVEN

Savo Island

A half hour after midnight the three destroyers were quietly steaming at fifteen knots on an east-west line across the most likely approach route for the Japanese formation. They were just east of Savo Island, cutting the line between the Slot and the Japanese army sector east of Cape Esperance. The night was dark and steaming hot with not the slightest hint of a cooling breeze. Every time they turned around, the sulfurous gas from their smokestacks hung over each ship like some kind of evil miasma until they steadied back up.
J. B. King
was in the lead, then
Carter,
then
Evans,
all spaced at a distance of half a mile. There was a low overcast and the occasional rainsquall line, but for some reason that seemed to make the talk-between-ships radio circuit even clearer. Sluff had used it sparingly, depending mostly on red-cloaked flashing-light signals to maneuver the formation.

He'd spent the last half hour down in the CIC room. The radar picture was just about perfect. The fringes of Savo Island were visible to the south, and his three-ship formation was clear as a bell. He'd begun to wonder if he shouldn't take station down here in CIC instead of on the bridge. It was traditional for the captain to be on the bridge to maneuver the ship, especially once an action started and the possibility of collision increased. But now he was, technically, at least, a unit commander. He needed to see the entire picture, not just what was appearing right out in front of the ship. Because he was still the skipper of
J. B. King,
he'd reluctantly returned to the bridge. He would just have to depend on his exec to translate the radar picture.

He was also aware of the fact that he was disobeying the standard destroyer rule about
where
the exec manned up for his battle station. Traditionally, and also by the regulations, the exec was supposed to be stationed at what was called secondary conn, a small and totally exposed GQ station back aft, behind the ship's second stack. It had a steering console and an engine order telegraph, plus access to all the major sound-powered phone circuits. That way, if the forward half of the ship was disabled and the captain killed, the exec should be able to take command. The advent of radar and the Combat Information Center, however small, had forced COs equipped with the new surface-search radar to make a choice: the second senior officer standing out in the wind and the dark, not to mention exposed to the effects of near misses, shrapnel, or actual hits, or one deck below the bridge overseeing the tracing table and the radar scopes. As far as Sluff was concerned, the technology had clearly outpaced the regulations.

“Bridge, Combat, radar contact, bearing zero one zero, range thirty thousand yards, composition four to six. Initiating track.”

Sluff reached forward for the bitch-box talk switch. “Bridge, aye, and alert the other ships by TBS. Keep it short.”

“Combat, aye.”

“Officer of the deck,” Sluff called softly. “Alert all GQ stations that the enemy has arrived.”

The ship had gone to GQ at 2200. Sluff had previously put out the word that everyone was to stand easy on station until contact was made. That meant that even though the entire crew was at their GQ stations, the ones manning guns and torpedo stations or damage-control parties could open hatches, untie their kapok life jackets, lean back against a bulkhead, and nod off until something actually happened. This did not apply, of course, to the engineers down in the four main spaces or the CIC and bridge teams. The hammers could doze off, but the power and the eyes had to stay awake. Sluff could hear hatches closing and power amplidynes lighting off all over the ship as the five gun mounts came to life. Three minutes later, Combat had developed a radar track.

“Bridge, Combat, enemy formation appears to be on course one seven zero, speed three-five.”

Wow, Sluff thought. Those Jap destroyers could move out when they wanted to. He did the math in his head: they'd be in range of American torpedoes pretty damned quick. He acknowledged the information from CIC and then listened to Bob Frey down in Combat going out over the TBS radio circuit with position, course, and speed data for the enemy formation. The other two destroyers might actually hold the Japs on radar, but they had been ordered to maintain radio silence. Then he heard the torpedo mounts training out to starboard. The American column was driving west on its ambush line. He wondered if he should increase speed, but for launching torpedoes, fifteen knots put much less strain on the weapons when they hit the water sideways than thirty knots would.

“Bridge, Combat, coming up on time to fire,” Combat said over the bitch-box.

“XO, you take control of the torpedo mounts,” Sluff ordered. “I'll keep control of the guns unless I lose the picture. Make sure the other ships are ready to launch when we do.”

Combat acknowledged. Sluff felt a shiver of concern, now that he'd given control of the torpedo attack to the CIC. Then he rationalized it: A torpedo firing solution was a simple math problem, but it depended on knowing where the target was and where he was headed at the moment of launch. Up here on the darkened bridge, he was relatively blind; CIC was not. The gun director's radar was being cued onto the oncoming targets by the ship's search radar until
King
's fire-control radar picked them up. Those cues came from CIC. Once the little white spikes of video danced in the range gate of an oscilloscope down in gun plot, the gunnery officer would know when to open fire long before Sluff would. The only rule binding them was that the torpedoes had to start hitting before the Americans revealed themselves to the enemy by opening fire with fifteen guns. He'd still have fifteen torpedoes in reserve if another attack opportunity presented itself.

The night seemed to get even darker as the heavy, humid air pressed in on all the topside watch standers. Steel helmets, a lumpy hot kapok life jacket wrapped around everyone's torso, shirts buttoned up to the neck, trouser cuffs stuffed into their socks, the officers wearing gun belts with a heavy .45, extra clips of ammo, a medical kit with the morphine syringes, a flashlight, and a big knife. Sluff thought about increasing speed just to generate a breeze, but then the torpedoes began to launch into the black waters around them. A whoosh, a big splash, and then silence. Five fish went off the ship in quick succession, burrowing down into the sea and then rising to the preset depth, then screaming away at the onrushing Japanese ships at nearly thirty miles an hour. The Mark XV fish could go forty-five knots, but at the slower speed its range increased to almost seven miles. Sluff wanted the torpedoes to hit them way out there to give his little band time to then shoot them up with five-inch. Five away, five left.

The Japs were coming straight at them at thirty-five knots. Combined with the speed of twenty-six knots for his own torpedoes, Sluff calculated a closing speed of almost seventy miles an hour. “Time on target?” Sluff asked Combat.

“Eighty seconds,” the exec answered.

“Officer of the deck, inform the snipes to stand by for thirty knots.”

His plan was to stay at fifteen knots so that the gun computers would have a stable speed input for the initial minute of firing. Then they were going to kick her in the ass and run like hell northwest to get on the enemy's starboard bow before the next round of gunfire.

“Main Control says they're ready-teddy,” the OOD announced. Sluff grinned. Apparently his chief engineer was sensitive about having to be
told
to be ready for a sudden high-speed dash. And yet he knew that, down in four main holes, two boiler rooms and two engine rooms, the snipes would be dumping their coffee cups into the bilge and getting up close to their giant steam machines, making sure that all the critical temperatures and pressures were in range, the steam leaks reduced to a bare minimum, and the boilers ready for a huge temperature transient.

“Twenty seconds,” Combat called. Everyone on the bridge held his breath. Sluff was tempted to go out on the bridge wing to see what happened, but in a few seconds he'd be ordering the whole formation to open fire, and then the noise of the guns would overwhelm conscious thought if he went outside.

“Mark intercept,” Combat called. “They didn't change course, so—”

At that moment flares of red and white explosions lit up the horizon to the north. Sluff picked up the TBS handset and ordered the other two ships to open fire with guns. Then he looked at his watch, as the two five-inch on the bow opened up with a satisfying pair of ear-squeezing blams. He could feel the other three guns aft doing the same as the ship performed its full-salvo wiggle from bow to stern. Then another salvo. Then a third. When the fourth salvo let go he ordered the division to increase speed to thirty knots.

J. B. King
palpably jumped when the snipes opened the throttles and hit the turbines with a bolus of steam for fifty thousand horsepower. The forced-draft blowers screamed as they spooled up to feed the boiler furnaces with enough air to atomize the sudden gouts of fuel oil going into the fireboxes.
King
was the lead ship, so if the other two didn't get the message, there was no danger of
King
driving over the top of a destroyer still loafing along at fifteen knots. They'd better be paying attention, he thought. If we don't all move out now, the Japs will soon be sending us a lethal message.

As the ship accelerated, a welcome breeze blew through the pilothouse, which happily pushed the gunsmoke out of everyone's eyes and noses. The guns stopped firing on command from CIC. He went out to the bridge wing to see if the other two had also stopped shooting. He saw one last full salvo come off the third ship in line, but then they, too, went dark. He went back to the bitch-box.

“Combat, Captain, turn in two minutes or whatever it takes to keep the range at about eight thousand yards. Once all three ships have steadied up, open fire again for one minute.
You
give the commence-firing order and keep passing our range and bearing data to the other two ships.”

“Combat, aye,” the exec said. Sluff trained his glasses out on the dull glow of several fires four to five miles away. It would take Combat a few minutes to sort out how many ships had been hit or at least stopped, and if there were still any of them pressing on toward Guadalcanal. If nothing else, he thought, we sure as hell achieved surprise.

He got back up into his chair and waited. It was so dark that his eyes were having trouble readjusting after the flashes of the forward gun mounts. He swiveled the chair around to the right, where he could still see the dull glow of fires on what looked like the horizon. Suddenly there was a massive explosion, bright enough to reveal three Jap destroyers in silhouette. They appeared to be milling about in the vicinity of the torpedo intercept point. The TBS transmissions were just about constant now, as the exec's team in CIC fed the other two ships range and bearing data. Then he heard the words he'd been waiting for, the order to turn the column to the north. The ship heeled smartly at thirty knots, tilting enough to make the bridge team grab something to stay upright. The relative wind changed suddenly and a blast of air ruffled all the charts on the chart table behind him, sending the quartermaster scrambling after them. Ninety seconds later, the command went out: Commence firing.

Sluff remained in his chair as the two forward guns spat fire and steel into the night. On the third salvo, he heard something else: incoming. The Japs, fully alerted now, had opened fire on their tormentors. They were off in range, judging by the shell splashes and explosions in the water around
King,
but they were right on in bearing. That meant they had guessed correctly that the American column was running fast. If they think they know our course and speed, Sluff thought, they'll get a torpedo solution. Four large waterspouts rose close enough to the ship that everyone could hear metal splinters humming through the night air. Then the guns fell silent.

“Combat, Bridge, immediate execute over TBS: Speed fifteen.”

“Combat, aye, speed fifteen.”

The Americans might have stopped shooting, but the Japs were now in full cry. He could no longer see the ships themselves, but their gun flashes were rapid, disciplined, whole-ship salvos. Damn, he thought, admiringly: they're good. They're really good. But as his column slowed down to half the previous speed, the incoming shells began to walk ahead, still all over the place in range, but definitely still being computed as if the Americans were still blasting through the night at thirty-something knots, just as the Japanese would have been. Sluff hoped they wouldn't fire star shell, because then the plan would have to change.

“Combat, Captain. Immediate execute: speed ten.”

“Combat, aye,” the exec said, but his voice sounded doubtful.

“Based on their shell splashes, they still think we're going thirty knots,” Sluff said. “I want their torpedoes ahead of us, not amongst us.”

“Combat, aye,” the exec replied, as the ship began slowing even more. Ten knots in a running gunfight was unheard of, but as long as the Japs didn't have radar, Sluff thought, this ought to work.

“Bridge, Combat, sonar detecting high-speed screws, up Doppler.”

And? Sluff thought.

“Passing ahead,” the exec called. “Multiple screws. Good call, Captain.”

This time, Sluff thought, but now we have to finish this somehow. “Combat, Captain. First, alert the division: Stand by for second torpedo attack. Second: Order up thirty-three knots, and turn us to the northeast, to whatever it takes to get back into torpedo range. We'll run for four minutes, slow down, and let loose.”