Dust on the Sea

-10-

The United States Ship Eel lay to quietly off Tsingtao. Her diesels were silent, their customary mutter stilled. Less than a mile away to starboard, the bulky outline of land brooded over the placid water. There was no moon. Darkness was complete. The only sense that could really be said to be receiving stimulation was the sense of smell. Reaching across a small stretch of shallow water, permeating everything, was the sweet-sour odor of land. It was the same smell so frequently referred to as “the smell of the sea,” but the seaman knows it as the smell where sea and land join.

Below decks, the highly structured life of a submarine on war patrol in enemy-controlled waters was going on as usual, except for one important difference — an extreme, unnatural quietness. Only the absolutely necessary machinery was running: the ventilation blowers and the air-conditioning sets. In every compartment men went about their routine duties with a special softness about all their movements. Some had removed their shoes. All were walking about very quietly, avoiding all unnecessary noise, speaking to each other in low, somber tones. What work was necessary was performed slowly, carefully. Tools involved were carefully wrapped in rags, so that there would be no inadvertent noise of the striking of steel upon steel to be transmitted through the hull to the water and to unfriendly ears.

It would not be correct to infer that Eel’s crew was at battle stations, for no such signal had been given. In fact, it had been announced that the general alarm would not be rung. If needed, the call to action would be transmitted by telephone to all compartments. Everyone was enjoined to remain in the vicinity of his battle station — not a difficult order to comply with in view of the submarine custom of doing this without orders when action was believed imminent. Even those on watch, required by the ship’s organization to tend certain machinery or remain in certain areas, were, by Keith’s careful design, on their battle stations as well.

On the bridge the silence was oppressive. There was almost a crowd there, for in addition to the regular watch, consisting of Buck Williams, Scott, four lookouts, and Ensign Johnny Cargill, assistant OOD, there were also the executive officer, the captain, and the wolfpack commander. All kept their binoculars ceaselessly to their eyes, and each, had he been asked, would have confessed nervousness over the excruciatingly loud hum of the few pieces of machinery still running. Surely this could be heard many yards away, perhaps as far as several hundred yards! It could awake a trained ear to the fact that the unusual silhouette floating so quietly in the shallows was actually the upper part of a nearly submerged submarine, full of tense, foreign-looking men.

Eel had been trimmed so that her main deck was virtually at the water’s edge. Anyone approaching from a little distance would see only the submarine’s bridge, dominated by the closely spaced periscope supports and, lower down, apparently standing in the water, two bulky structures from each of which protruded a stubby, evil-looking gun barrel. The submarine’s main deck, 300 feet of it lying flat on the water, would not be visible until one came right upon it. The only evidence of its presence would be a strange continuity of flatness superimposed on the gently undulating, uneasy sea.

Two vitally important objects had been achieved by flooding down. First was a great reduction in silhouette, a change in the entire outward configuration of the ship. The second was that should Eel unexpectedly drift upon a mud flat, it would be a simple matter, by blowing tanks, to decrease her draft as much as six feet aft and ten feet forward, thus freeing her of the bottom and permitting her to be driven immediately into deeper water without even the necessity of starting engines. The instant power of her batteries, always available, was something no surface ship could match.

It was 1 o’clock in the morning of a moonless night, and the Yellow Sea was overcast with its customary haze. Eel had surfaced close in to shore and crammed a rapid charge into her batteries. Then, with every sense alert, the fathometer taking occasional “single ping” soundings of the bottom, she had slowly moved in to shallow water. Conversation on the bridge was desultory, in low voices clipped short, as though someone might hear them from the shore if they talked too loudly or too long.

“This is the third night in a row we’ve been here. I wonder what’s holding up those transports?”

“Maybe the Kwantung Army is slower embarking its troops than ComSubPac figures. They must be bringing a lot of equipment with them.”

“Maybe they know we’re here. Maybe they mean to wait till we have to leave station.”

“Then they’ll have a long wait, Commodore. The second message said to remain here until further orders, or until the ships come out. Before we left Pearl, Admiral Small told us this was the main reason for the wolfpack. It’s up to us to stop them, no matter how long we have to stay. If we need to, we can stretch our provisions for another month.”

Blunt, Leone, and Richardson had congregated by themselves around the starboard TBT, were leaning their elbows on the bridge bulwarks, holding their binoculars to their eyes, speaking softly so their voices would not carry to the others on the bridge. Williams and Scott, sensing their exclusion, had taken the other corner, near the port TBT. The lookouts, several feet above on their platforms, were likewise out of earshot.

“Dammit, Rich, I shouldn’t have let you shoot off all your fish the way you did. Those two you have left aft aren’t enough for this sort of a donnybrook!”

“When he briefed us, the admiral didn’t know when the Kwantung Army would move these divisions, or even if they would at all. This is the first word about them he’s sent us, and we’re the only U.S. forces within five hundred miles. There’s twelve torpedoes between us and the Whitefish, and he expects us to make good use of them.” Richardson’s reply was direct because the whole topic had already been covered in detail.

“A week ago the radio skeds had a message saying the Sawfish and Piper were en route to patrol stations off Iwo Jima,” said Keith, “and the Pike and Whale are off Okinawa. They’re the nearest boats.”

“That’s right, Commodore, and that makes four new patrol stations ComSubPac has to fill. That could be why he never sent a replacement for Chicolar.” It was perhaps unnecessary to bring up the lost submarine again, but Blunt must be headed off before he suddenly reversed his previous approval of Richardson’s scheme.

He wondered whether the latest message also might have been originated by Joan — most likely by the entire team of which Mrs. Elliott and Cordelia Wood were also a part. The essential data must have been translated from intercepted Japanese messages. He also puzzled why the transports intended to exit Tsingtao during darkness; this was directly contrary to the habit of years. Ordinarily Japanese convoys sortied from harbor during daylight, when any submarines blockading the port would have to be submerged and could be immobilized by aircraft and antisub craft. The only explanation must be that this particular convoy, because of its enormous value, intended to change the pattern. Obviously it wished to get well clear of the harbor before dawn, before a ubiquitous Chinese coast watcher could report it. At top speed, the Yellow Sea could be crossed in less than twenty-four hours, involving a single daylight period. A high-speed run, begun an hour before daybreak, would bring the ships to the sheltered coast of Korea shortly after nightfall. Only one day would be spent exposed to submarines submerged in the middle of the sea; with any luck at all, none would have been able to position themselves in their path.

Unfortunately, there had been no information as to which direction the ships would go once they left Tsingtao. Rich and Keith had theorized that they would turn sharply left and proceed to the northeast along the coast of the Shantung Peninsula. At dawn, they argued, the Japanese would turn east or even southeast. Remaining close to the shore line would render them immune to radar detection from any submarine patrolling off the harbor entrance and thus prevent, or reduce, the opportunity for such a sub to position itself along their daylight track later on.

But there was no assurance this was correct. The convoy might head directly east upon clearing the harbor — this was, after all, the quickest way across the Yellow Sea. If so, they would be detected by Whitey Everett’s surface search radar as soon as the ships were clear from land return. From his patrol station seven miles out, Whitey would have the option of making a night surface attack or following them from ahead to attack submerged after daybreak.

Eel’s inshore position had been chosen because she was virtually out of torpedoes. Unable directly to damage the enemy, she could at least track them, so stationing herself that the large troop ships, drawing twenty-five feet or more, would have to pass to seaward of her. With land only a mile away, no enemy radar could detect Eel against the clutter. The convoy’s escorts logically would patrol on its seaward side during this initial phase of the passage.

Eel’s presence very close to shore would be least anticipated by the enemy, and at the same time safest from detection. But Richardson could not help noticing his own quickened pulse, and he knew his must not be the only one. A submarine’s sole protection — her entire capability of surviving in enemy waters — was her ability to dive when detected or attacked. This he had given up. More, he had argued the wolfpack commander into reluctant acquiescence. Were his calculations to be wrong, were his estimate of enemy intentions and capabilities incorrect, Eel might be caught on the surface with no way out except a running gun battle while she dashed for deep water.

This was the reason for preparing the forty-millimeter guns for action, and for the warning given to the rest of the ship’s company. The bridge twenty-millimeters and fifty-caliber machine guns also had been rousted out of their stowages and mounted. Ammunition for all guns had been brought up and placed in readiness near each.

Below, ammunition for both five-inch guns had been taken out of the magazines and laid out on deck in the crew’s dinette and in the control room under the gun access trunk. The two men detailed to the fifty-caliber machine gun from the forward torpedo room hatch were standing by, probably sitting on a bunk immediately beneath the lower trunk hatch. A third man with a telephone plugged into a phone jack inside the trunk — its wire led upward past the lower hatch — would be waiting with them. On orders from the bridge, all three would enter the trunk, pull up the loop of the telephone wire, and shut the lower hatch. On further orders they would fling open the top hatch and open fire in any ordered direction except astern. They had, however, been rigorously briefed that they were not to open the hatch until direct orders had been received from the bridge, which would not be given if an immediate dash toward deeper water was contemplated. In Eel’s present condition, even with bow planes rigged out and given a slight upward inclination, there was still entirely too much chance that a burst of speed might drive the submarine’s bow under.

Time was passing extraordinarily slowly, thought Richardson, for the third day in a row and the tenth time this particular night. As 2 o’clock approached, another fruitless vigil was becoming increasingly probable. Blunt had gone below. He, at least, was now sleeping regularly. Strange; his hypertension had been replaced by the opposite: almost a lethargy. After a while Richardson had sent Keith down also to try to get some rest. Morning twilight would begin about 6 o’clock. It was approximately an hour’s run at high speed to seaward to reach water deep enough for diving. To allow a little margin, it had been decided to move out at 4:30, shortly after the change of the watch section.

If Japanese ships came out of harbor and turned up the coast line, as appeared their most likely course, it would be Eel’s duty to provide sufficient information to permit Whitefish to parallel the Japanese ships from off shore, in deep water. When they turned to the east or southeast, as ultimately they would have to do, Whitefish would have been positioned to the best possible advantage for a submerged attack at daylight.

It had taken a great deal of persuasion to cause Captain Blunt to believe that he had given the final approval and the implementing order. Much effort had been expended in planting the idea and disposing of all others. The clinching argument, as it turned out, concerned the idea that Eel, with only two torpedoes remaining, both of them aft, might possibly be directed to return to base. In view of this, Richardson suggested, Blunt might consider shifting over to the Whitefish. As wolfpack commander, with primary responsibility for the blockade of Tsingtao, he would of course wish to remain on the scene. The idea agitated Blunt, as Rich knew it would, and he vehemently refused to consider it. He also refused to entertain the proposal which Buck Williams, by prearrangement, then put forward: that the two submarines rendezvous and transfer some of Whitefish’s torpedoes to Eel. The maneuver would of course require opening deck hatches, rigging booms, laboriously hoisting torpedoes out of Whitefish, dropping them in the water and then hoisting them aboard Eel. As Buck pointed out, the operation had been carried out innumerable times in peacetime exercises, and both Whitefish and Eel had the necessary equipment.

But it had never been done under wartime conditions, for a boat caught by aircraft with hatches open would be unable to submerge. Blunt had vetoed it on this ground, and also — Richardson had to admit this argument had some validity — that to deprive Whitey Everett of some of his ten torpedoes remaining would leave him also with empty torpedo tubes should he need to defend himself against antisubmarine craft.

The impasse had the effect of submerging the primary issue under two others of lesser substance. By the time the manner of Eel’s employment came under discussion, Blunt interposed little further objection. After that it was only a matter of preventing him from again dwelling on his flagship’s apparently vulnerable position.

“Permission to come on the bridge to relieve a lookout?” Every fifteen minutes one of the lookouts was relieved to go below to warm himself, drink a cup of coffee, and do a stint as a control-room messenger. This meant it must now be fifteen minutes after two.

For the past forty-five seconds Rich had been staring through his binoculars at the shadowy promontory which marked the entrance to the bay of Tsingtao. He opened his eyes wider, tried to will his pupils to expand even farther. Something had excited his interest in the shadows to the west. He tried all the tricks he had practiced since his first night watch, years ago, on the bridge of the Octopus: looking above the shadowy outline of the land, looking below it, swinging his glasses gently back and forth so as to notice any unusual discontinuity.

“Buck,” he said, “take a look over here on the starboard bow, just to the left of that point of land!” The point of land to which he referred was nearly invisible — it was the near side of the entrance to the bay — but for three days of periscope observation close in, and night surface operations closer yet, it had been one of their principal points of reference.

“I’m looking at it, Captain,” said Williams. “What do you see?”

“Don’t know. Nothing, maybe.”

“Me too. It’s awful dark over there.” Abruptly Williams thrust his head beneath the bridge overhang, extended it over the hatch to the conning tower. He spoke in a low, carrying tone, suited to the muted situation into which they had placed themselves. “Radar, take a real good check at the harbor entrance. Do you see anything moving?”

Close in to land, the shore return or “grass” on both radar scopes generally blotted out any pips on the land side, though not to seaward. It was this fact which alone made possible Eel’s otherwise untenable position, and indeed had caused that position to be selected. During three nights of experimentation, Rogers had discovered, however, that by beaming the radar parallel to the coast and greatly reducing his receiver gain it was possible he might get some impression of a large object once it cleared the shore. He was already operating in this mode, concentrating of course on the Tsingtao harbor entrance. But it was far from a precise thing, and it would be easy to miss something.

“Radar, aye aye,” came Rogers’ voice. A few moments later he sang out again, “I think I see something there. Might be a ship. Range about four thousand. Looks like two ships.”

“Do you see anything, Buck?”

“No, sir. What do you see?”

“I think I can see something. It’s all so dark. The point seemed a little bit longer all of a sudden. Now it’s shorter again — there it is again.”

“Yes, I see it too, now. It must be ships.”

“That makes three I’ve seen. Ask radar what they’re getting.”

Williams had no opportunity to ask the question, for suddenly Rogers’ voice came up through the conning tower hatch, “Bridge, radar has three big ships and two little ones. Looks like they’re moving out of harbor.”

“Shall I call the crew to battle stations, Skipper?”

“Affirmative, but don’t use the general alarm. Pass the word by telephone.” This had already been prescribed, but it would not hurt to reemphasize the instruction. “Gun crews stand by in the control room and crew’s dinette.” Williams leaned over the hatch and gave the orders.

“Tell radio to send the first of those messages to the Whitefish.” The first of a set of prearranged messages in Keith’s wolfpack code, only a single letter in length, would alert the other submarine to the fact that ships were leaving the harbor. Later, depending upon which way they went, one of the others would be sent. Whitefish’s radio operator would answer by exactly repeating the signal he had heard.

“Bridge!” Rogers’ voice, pitched higher, betraying some of his tension and excitement. “Bridge, radar has three ships and two escorts. Range is decreasing. I think they’ve started to head this way, sir!”

“What’s the range?” bellowed Buck, forgetting the injunction for quietness.

“Four thousand! But I’ve got a column of ships on the PPI ’scope now, and the range to the leading one is getting less!”

“I’m in the conning tower, Bridge.” Keith’s voice. “It looks like they’re coming out, all right. Whitey has the alert message. Three big ships in column. The lead one has turned to his left and is coming up the coast, just as we figured.”

“What are the escorts doing?”

“Can’t tell yet. One is out ahead, but it looks like he’s favoring the seaward side. The other one, we can’t tell at all. The convoy looks like three real big ships!”

The message had said two divisions of the Kwantung Army, and had specified three troop transports. Its information was right on the mark.

“Buck, get your gun crews up here on the bridge; I’ll take over the deck. Have them load and train out, but nobody is to open fire until I give the word.”

“Aye aye, sir — you don’t need a turn-over do you, Captain?”

“No. I have all the dope.”

Rich fixed his binoculars in the direction where he knew the ships should be. Nothing. The dark shadows of the blacked-out ships must be there, but the total absence of any light whatever, the lowering overcast so common to this area, the lack of any moon or star illumination, all combined to create a stygian emptiness that the human eye could not pierce. He had, as a matter of fact, figured on exactly this. It was part of his plan, for it would be even harder to see Eel’s much reduced silhouette, particularly since lookouts from any surface ship would be many feet higher above the water and would have to look down into the dark sea. The only danger lay in the possibility that one of the escorts might elect to run inshore of the convoy and thus, by mischance, blunder upon the flooded-down submarine. Indeed, the escort would probably draw much less water than Eel required in her nearly submerged condition. This, too, had been considered. Merchant ships would not dare move so close in to shore as to suck mud into their condensers and cooling-water lines. They would require probably a minimum of fifteen feet of water under their keels, whereas Eel, with all machinery stopped, ready to move on the battery, would need no large water intake and could afford to be in water so shallow that her keel nearly touched. The enemy convoy should pass by at least a mile to seaward.

The four lookouts on the bridge and the one who had just gone below had been selected for their night vision and steadiness under stress, and specially trained to handle the forty-millimeter cannon at either end of the bridge. Augmented by six more men who came up from below, they quietly busied themselves with getting the guns ready.

“If we have to shoot, it will be port side first, Buck.” If it came to a gun action, Richardson intended to begin it on opposite courses, so that the enemy would have to turn completely around in the shallows to pursue the submarine. In the meantime, Eel would have a start in the run to deep water.

“Bridge, range three thousand. Three ships in column on a northeasterly course. Passing up the coast. Our plot shows them two miles off the beach. Both escorts have taken station on their seaward flank. They’re real big ships, Bridge!”

That was Keith, standing under the conning tower hatch, speaking quietly up into the blackness above him. A dim red glow suffused his strained features as he stood framed in the hatch opening. Richardson had not remembered noticing strain on him before, although it was clear that the war had burned something out of him as it had of everyone. He wondered whether he also showed strain, surmised that he probably did.

There was virtually no wind. As usual, the sea was almost glassy smooth, its placidity accentuated by the shallow water effect. The land smell, once pungent, was now no longer noticeable. Eel’s position had not changed. Perhaps the wind had shifted. The most likely explanation, however, was simply that they had become accustomed to the odor. Besides, the heightened pulse and increased flow of adrenalin associated with the approach of danger would concentrate perceptions in a different direction.

Had Eel a salvo of torpedoes remaining in her tubes, her torpedomen would be making them ready at this very moment. This would have also required a totally different plan of action, for torpedoes almost invariably went deep before reaching their running depth. They would strike bottom if fired from Eel’s present position. The torpedo situation, in fact, had been the determining argument in getting Blunt’s approval to place Whitefish offshore, in deeper water, and Eel inshore in the shallows. Even so, Whitey Everett would be uneasy at the limited depth of water available to him.

Richardson had never approached this close to enemy ships without being able to see at least some outline of their shapes, no matter how dark it was. The absence of light this night, however, was profound. At range 3,000 yards, even though he was looking right at them, exactly on the bearings both sonar and radar were giving him, before his eyes was only fathomless blackness, a dull, porous, velvet curtain he could not pierce. Strange that he could make out the loom of land on the starboard quarter, extending forward to the starboard beam, and yet could not see the ships to seaward! Somehow he had got an indication of them as they passed out the harbor entrance, but up ahead, where the sea stretched black to join the black night and the black sky, there was not even a hint of shadowy discontinuity which might outline a ship less than a mile and a half away! Almost continuously, he tried his old trick, looking above and below where he judged the horizon to be.

Wait. There was something, something lighter than the darkness. It was bigger than he expected, and, surprisingly, elevated well above where he had thought the horizon was. Suddenly he could see it, a huge shadowy shape, dark gray sides looming a faint, ghostly white, moving ponderously and irresistibly across Eel’s bow from starboard to port.

“Bridge, range two thousand five hundred. Leading ship should be dead ahead. Whitefish has our second message.” That was Keith calling quietly up from the conning tower.

“I see them, Keith. Angle on the bow is about forty-five port.”

“That’s the way it looks on plot, Bridge. Three ships in column. We’re tracking them at nine knots, and their closest point of approach to us will be about a mile, broad on our port bow.”

Now Rich could see the second ship in column, following in the wake of the first — and in a moment, the third. Having started up the coast, no doubt they would continue following the line of the Shantung Peninsula, in the shallowest water possible, until daybreak. Then they would turn directly across the Yellow Sea in a high speed zigzag run to gain the shelter of the shallow water on the Korean side. Once the convoy had passed, Eel would follow from astern and radio to Whitefish the vital particulars of enemy position, course, and speed, which would permit her sister submarine to submerge ahead of the convoy’s daylight track.

Already two such messages, consisting of only a single letter each, had been sent. The chance of their interception by the enemy ships was remote. But it would be necessary to be sparing of messages, even extremely short ones.

“Leading ship at closest point of approach, Bridge. Range at CPA, two-one-double-oh, beginning to open.”

The three ships were now clearly visible. Great, silent, crowded giants, grinding forward on the silent sea. In a moment more he could hear them as well as see them, for in the quiet on Eel’s bridge the calm water carried their machinery noise distinctly to his ears. Big ships, but single-screw, he thought. He could hear their propellers thunking steadily, their machinery clanking, an air blower shrieking with a dry bearing. In the second ship, someone was beating on something with a hammer. The sound of metal on metal must be projected directly through the ship’s structure into the sea surrounding it. The steady, systematic pounding was occasionally interrupted for brief intervals as the man first plied his hammer, then paused, probably to inspect his work, then resumed hammering again. Perhaps the ship had a blacksmith’s shop, but more likely, mused Richardson, someone was repairing something by the time-honored sledgehammer method.

“Second ship at CPA, Bridge,” from Keith. “Formation is still the same, but the rear escort is moving over a little, and dropping aft.”

“Bridge, aye,” said Richardson in a low, carrying tone. Probably he could have used a normal tone of voice — no doubt the Japanese crews a mile away were doing so — but the stillness of night and the quietness that enveloped the Eel held their own requirements, even if only psychological. “Keep a careful watch on him. We’re manned and ready for surface action up here if he becomes suspicious.” He need have said nothing, of course. Keith did not need to be told to do or not to do anything about that astern escort. Rich had merely accommodated a compulsive requirement of his own. It was indicative of his own nervousness. He must take a grip on himself, not permit his own inner tension to show through.

The need to lie to quietly was an onerous one. Everyone in the ship would rather be underway, even on the surface — best of all, submerged clear of the shallow water. Lying still, partly submerged on the mud flats, hiding in the sea and yet so horribly exposed, produced a feeling of helplessness, of vulnerability. Yet it had all been argued out, thought through, explained carefully to the entire ship’s company. Clearly it made sense, in this instance, to behave contrary to the normal submarine pattern. Eel was taking maximum advantage of all passive alertness equipment. Her sound heads were rigged out (with instructions for instant raising if any orders were given to the motors); her radar detector was continuously manned; all her radio receivers (except the one tuned to the wolfpack frequency) were being constantly tuned throughout their ranges to pick up any nearby transmissions. Her search radar, which normally did emit a signal, was being operated intermittently, its transmitter keyed only at sporadic intervals for quick sweeps, its receiver continuously watched for signs of any other radar interference.

Were danger to threaten, Eel could get underway instantly, silently, on her main motors and battery. At the maximum discharge rate, once her main ballast tanks were blown fully dry, she could reach a speed of eighteen knots, though only for a very short time. But the ship would be running in eerie quiet, with no plume of diesel exhaust to assist pursuit, no thunder of main engines drifting over the quiet waters, which, by their sudden cessation, might betray the moment of dive. A dive would be ridiculously simple once adequate depth of water was reached, for there would be no engines to stop, no main induction to shut, no switching from generators to battery. All that was necessary was to open the main vents, shut the bridge hatch, and drive her bodily under.

She could even make a respectable speed in the flooded-down condition. Nothing like eighteen knots, of course. But it would be necessary to keep bow planes and stern planes manned, and Al Dugan would have to give careful attention to the diving station; for in this condition Eel had practically no buoyancy at all and would submerge without warning upon the slightest wrong movement of the planes.

“Third ship is nearing CPA, Bridge. Still twenty-one hundred yards. Leading two ships are opening out. Range to leading ship three thousand. The rear escort has moved over and is now dead astern of the third ship.”

This could spell trouble. Eel’s purpose was to trail the convoy from astern. Detection by one of the escorts would of course ruin this scheme. Far worse, detection would subject Eel to a surface attack in a spot where she could not submerge. Enemy gunfire would spell disaster. Or one of the escorts, lighter and far more maneuverable than the half-submerged submarine, might try to ram. Its sharp bow would easily cut through superstructure, ballast tank, and pressure hull to transform Eel forever into a sunken, rusting, mud-filled hulk, slowly disappearing into the aeons-old estuarial flats of an ageless shore.

Richardson was searching for the escort astern of the last ship, finally saw her gliding along, ghostlike, suspended in the darkness. The destroyer, or destroyer escort, was broadside-to, low in the water, a tiny superstructure forward, the barest suggestion of something aft. Strange how small she looked! The ComSubPac message had said the escorts were Mikuras. This tincan did not by any means look as big as the escorts Eel had already encountered. The blackness of the sea and the sky, the total absence of illumination or any indication of a horizon, the dwarfing comparison with the high-sided troop transports, must have robbed him of his ability to judge size. She was much smaller, indubitably, than the ships which had preceded her. In one way, the smaller she was the more dangerous; for a shallow-draft ship would have less hesitancy in entering shoal water. If she did not fear mud in her engine cooling system, she could nimbly run well inshore of Eel. Such a vessel could attack from any direction she wished, whereas the deep-lying submarine had only one choice open to her: an emergency burst of speed toward the deep sea. On the plus side, it was probable that a small escort would not carry heavy armament.

“I see him,” said Rich. He waited. Apparently no one else could. He kept his binoculars trained on the enemy ship. If her silhouette shortened, it would probably mean that she was changing position again, most probably moving over to the inshore side of the convoy. Were she to do this, her chances of detecting Eel’s disembodied bridge, floating with such agonized quiet, would be greatly increased.

There! The silhouette had shortened. The escort was now presenting a port angle of approximately forty-five degrees. If she turned all the way, to an end-on situation, it must be assumed that she had seen something suspicious and was coming to investigate. Considering the difficulty Richardson had had himself in seeing the escort after the radar told him she was there, he could hardly believe this was possible. She might be pursuing merely a routine zigzag plan, or be crossing over to the other side for some other reason.… A long, careful look convinced Rich that the escort was not turning all the way, had settled on a new course, which, at the moment, gave her somewhere between a thirty-and a forty-five-degree port angle on the bow. She would pass about a thousand yards away.

For the first time Rich spoke loudly. “Men, remember your instructions. No gun is to shoot until I give the order. He’s heading over this way, but he’s not coming right at us, and I don’t think he’s suspicious. If he does see us, I’ll give the word to start shooting as soon as we can see him clearly. Do not shoot until I tell you. And remember, every shot is to go into his bridge!” Rich sensed rather than heard the murmur of agreement from the gun crews.

“I see him!” said one of the men standing forward of the bridge overhang on the platform serving the forward forty-millimeter cannon. He was one of the regular battle lookouts. Now that the gun was completely ready, he was using his binoculars again.

“Good. Keep your eye on him. Everyone else let me know when you see the target.… Buck, tell them down below what’s going on.”

As Buck Williams leaned under the bridge overhang to call the information down the hatch, the other forward lookout spoke up. “I see him too, sir.”

“Follow him with your gun. Do not shoot!” Subconsciously, Rich realized that the possibility of some overly tense sailor opening fire prematurely must constantly be guarded against. He had decided in his own mind not to open fire until there was no longer any doubt Eel had been detected. Initial detection would be followed by a period of curiosity, during which the enemy would continue to approach. Eel had an inestimable advantage, to be exploited to the limit. Not until the range had closed to the point where every shot could virtually be counted on to hit the target would Eel open fire. Once the enemy’s initial attack had been blunted, her bridge knocked out, the rapid-fire guns would be freed to rake the entire hull. Enough holes, even small-sized ones, at the waterline would sink her. Roughly half the rounds loaded in the fifty-caliber belts, the twenty-millimeter cans, and the forty-millimeter racks were armor-piercing. They could be depended upon to penetrate anything a tincan would be likely to carry.

“Range to escort,” one thousand.” Keith’s voice from the conning tower hatch. The escort was now clearly in view just forward of Eel’s port beam. For a few minutes Rich had been wondering whether she might indeed be one of the Mikura-class frigates. In this case, he would again have to revise his estimates as to her size, armament, and draft — upward this time. He could see her clearly now. Her silhouette had broadened. She was nearly broadside-to again. She was a twin of the first escort Eel had sunk, might well be one of the two survivors of that attack. All three had been identical.

The ASW ship was not quite as long as Eel and probably was smaller in displacement. No doubt she was designed to outrun the submarine in a fair chase. She was big enough to carry a heavy gun of some sort, at least one four-inch (the briefing had specified such a gun), plus various rapid-fire weapons of her own. Eel would have to fire first, and effectively, immediately following the moment of surprised recognition to knock her out before she got her own guns going.

It had been about five minutes since the escort had come into view. She still gave no indication she had seen the ungainly silhouette off to her port side. Freed of the hurried pace of the periscope observations, Richardson could look her over carefully. She was a handsome ship, low to the water, her long clean side unbroken by any hint of portholes or other penetrations. Her forecastle was sharply raked, with a rather large square bridge set at least a third of the way aft from the bow. Amidships a single fat smokestack squatted incongruously, its height not quite equal to that of the bridge structure. There was some kind of a gun forward on the forecastle, but it was trained fore and aft, with no sign of anyone preparing it for combat. Abaft the bridge, around the stack and all the way to the square flat stern, was an indistinguishable jumble of top hamper and deck gear. He thought he could distinguish depth charge racks on the very stern, but of this he could not be sure.

Detail after detail stood out. Strange that he could see clearly, and yet there was no indication Eel had been seen. Doubtless the much smaller size of Eel’s silhouette, the fact that it was obscured by the dark hills behind it, that the enemy escort was outlined against the nothingness of the sea and the heavy sky, must be the determining factors. That and the matter of initiative. The Japanese had had no indication there was an enemy submarine waiting outside their harbor, no doubt were still settling down to their sea routine. Eel, on the other hand, had been primed for desperate action for three days, her every sensing capability at maximum alertness. Clearly audible was the gentle slap of waves splashing under the wooden slats of Eel’s main deck. Eel’s ventilation sets had never seemed louder. Her air-conditioning machinery sounded as if all its gears were stripped, and he could hear the rhythmic beat of the compressors. Likewise, he could hear the enemy escort’s engines, diesels from the sound of them, their loud stutter borne in over the water, intensified by the acuteness of his senses.

“Bridge,” said Keith through the hatch, “target is at new CPA, range nine-five-oh, steady course.”

There was still a very real danger that Eel would be seen as the destroyer swept past. Perhaps an after lookout would be more alert than those forward. Nevertheless, the likelihood from now on would diminish. Richardson had been holding his breath for nearly a minute. Three fifty-caliber, two twenty-millimeter and two forty-millimeter guns were still trained on her, were silently following her. They would continue to do so for a few minutes longer, but already the extraordinarily black night was beginning to close around the little ship. In a few minutes she would be swallowed by darkness again. Her outlines were growing hazy. He expelled a second long-held breath. Now she was gone.

“Range to escort one-four-five-oh, Bridge, opening. No change in course.”

Richardson again twice clicked the bearing buzzer built into the handle of the port TBT. This would let Keith know that he had heard and acknowledged the report. He would, however, keep his gun crews on the alert for a few minutes longer, for insurance.…

“Range to leading ship four-six-five-oh, Bridge. Plot still shows him on the same course. The near escort is now at two thousand yards, still going away. He’s drawn up abeam of the last ship in column.”

The danger had not materialized. Suddenly, unaccountably, Richardson almost wished it had. Nothing could have withstood the surprise fusillade of automatic fire Eel had been ready to lay upon her — he caught himself up short. Was this after all so very different from the fate he had dealt Bungo Pete? Or was it the old death wish in another guise? There was an ebbing of feeling within him, a wearying. The adrenalin flow was dissipating, and with it his sense of mission and combat. A deep yawn forced his jaws agape. Sleep would be delicious.

But there was work yet to be done. He moved to the bridge microphone, pressed the button. “Keith,” he said, “give me a course and speed to trail. I’d like to stay about seven thousand yards astern of the last ship, but close enough to have a good radar return on all of them.”

Dawn was breaking. About an hour previously, Eel had slowed nearly to a halt to permit the convoy to gain distance. Two more messages had been sent to Whitey Everett in the Whitefish. Now it was approaching the time for the critically important message. Everyone expected the convoy would make a radical course change at dawn and head at maximum speed on a southeasterly course, but it was still possible that the ships would instead continue along the coast of the Shantung Peninsula to its farthest extremity or even around it, ultimately to turn left into the Gulf of Po Hai. Eel must inform Whitefish just as soon as the evidence was clear.

Two special messages had been made up in anticipation of the two possible situations. One, a single long dash, would indicate that the convoy was continuing to hug the coast. The second consisted of a short dash followed by the wolfpack letter code for course and speed.

Richardson had been on the bridge all night and had begun to realize how cold it could be in the northern reaches of the Yellow Sea in early winter. He had taken the precaution of once again ordering Keith to get some sleep. It would be important for Keith to be well rested for the daylight pursuit anticipated. Blunt, of course, he could not control, but Blunt was not concerned with Eel’s proper functioning. Since the attack on the freighter north of the Maikotsu Suido, Blunt had changed. He made no further reference to sabotage of the hydraulic system and was no longer taciturn. He had become, if anything, at times loquacious. He slept frequently. Except for sporadic interest, as in the discussion preliminary to the present operation, he took no further part in what went on about him. With occasional exceptions which had to be anticipated and handled carefully, for the past several days he had acquiesced in whatever instructions were given, in his name, to the other submarine under his command.

Eel had dropped so far astern that, with growing daylight, the only thing visible of the convoy was a faint cloud of smoke beyond the horizon. She had at the same time moved off the track to starboard in order to gain distance away from the land. The Japanese as well as the Chinese might be employing coast watchers, and it would be well to have sufficient water for diving in case of attack from the air.

Now, within a few minutes, would be time for the convoy to change course, if it was intending to. The blackness of night had long since turned to a gray haze, and this, too, was burning off. The sun, not yet over the horizon, would burst in full splendor upon the scene in about half an hour. Richardson was mentally prepared for the report, when it came: “Bridge, radar reports convoy has changed course to the right.”

“Very well, Conn,” responded Richardson, pushing the bridge microphone button. “Can you give me a course? Is there any indication of increased speed?”

“Not yet, sir. Plot and TDC are working on it.” He wished Keith were coordinating radar, TDC, and plot, but determined that he would not call him. The others surely should be able to operate the various components satisfactorily. But Richardson need not have worried. The next report from the conning tower was in Keith’s voice. He had evidently left word to be called when the situation changed.

“Bridge, conn. Target has increased speed. Plot and TDC are tracking him on course one-three-oh, speed thirteen. All three ships have changed course to the right in a column movement. The last one is just completing her turn now.”

“Good work, Keith,” said Richardson on the speaker. “Are you sure enough of your information to send the message to Whitefish?”

“Affirmative, Skipper. Got it ready to go.”

“Send it as soon as you can. Let me know when you get a receipt.”

The bridge speaker blared again with Keith’s voice in a slightly different timbre. He was speaking from the radio room. “Message sent and receipted for by Whitefish, Bridge,” he said.

A moment later Keith stood beside him on the bridge. “That’s about it, Skipper,” he said. “The last radar fix we had on Whitey shows him dead ahead of the convoy about twelve miles out. There should be some action over there in less than an hour.”

“Do we still have radar contact on them?”

“Yes, sure. Why?”

“Because… I don’t think we ought to dive yet. We’d better stay up as long as we can and see what happens.”

“We might get spotted and driven down by a plane. Besides, you’ve been up all night, and all day before that. You rate some rest, Skipper.”

“Sleep can wait. If a plane spots us, that might help Whitefish by drawing those two escorts in our direction. What I’m really thinking about, though, is that we’ve got to keep those three transports from getting to Okinawa. After Whitey attacks, they’ll scatter — and it will be up to us to put him back in contact for a second attack.”

“That is, if he’ll try a surface end-around with planes up there,” observed Keith, uneasily.

The sun, driving up over the horizon, transmitted little warmth to the frigid group bundled up on Eel’s bridge, but it did have the effect of burning off the night’s overcast and producing a clear blue sky. The visibility in all directions was phenomenal, totally the reverse of the situation of only a few hours before. Fully surfaced, Eel now plowed along easily in the moderate sea associated with deeper water. With enough depth for diving beneath her keel, the more familiar circumstances induced a feeling of comfort among her entire complement, only slightly lessened by the fact that any aircraft patrol worthy of the name could pick her up by sight alone at a distance of many miles. But unless the plane were flying extremely close to the water, Eel would sight it also in plenty of time to dive. She would not again be caught by any tricks with the plane’s radar transmitter power.

If aircraft came out to escort the convoy, which was inevitable because of its importance, they would concentrate ahead of it, where a submarine in attack position would be. On the other hand, if they could be induced to attack the wrong submarine, every depth bomb dropped on Eel was one less that could be used on Whitefish, one less that could be effective in protecting the convoy.

“Convoy’s been on this course one-half hour, Bridge.”

“Did you get a fix on Whitefish when she dived? When should she be getting in?”

“We figure the convoy will be running over the Whitefish in about fifteen more minutes.”

One of the after lookouts was screaming. Richardson did not need to hear the words clearly to understand what he was saying. “Plane! Starboard quarter!” the man was shouting.

“Clear the bridge!” shouted Richardson. He swung a quick look aft through his binoculars. The plane was still some distance away, but obviously coming directly toward the Eel. There would be plenty of time to get her down. He stood aside, allowed the lookouts, the quartermaster, and Keith to precede him, and then Al Dugan, whose watch it now was. Two blasts on the diving alarm. “Take her down!” He straightened up, put his binoculars back to his eyes. The plane, a two-engine bomber, was still coming, still four to five miles away. The main vents were popping. The air was whistling out of them. Eel’s bow was already settling toward the sea. Richardson stooped under the bridge overhang, felt for the hand rail over the hatch, swung down into the hole, grabbed the lanyard, and pulled the hatch to. It gave a satisfying click as the latch snapped home, and Cornelli leaped past him to dog it tightly.

“One-five-oh feet,” Rich said. “How does that check with the chart, Keith?”

Leone was in the after part of the conning tower, bent over the chart of the area spread upon the table in the far corner. “One-five-oh looks okay, Captain,” he said. “Not much deeper than that, though, or we’ll drive her nose into the mud.”

A deep feeling of weariness pervaded Richardson’s body. The cold air on the bridge had been bracing, but inside the submarine the warmth of the interior was instantly stupefying. “Control, make your depth one-five-oh feet,” he repeated. “Ease your angle when you pass one hundred feet.”

He yawned hugely as he spoke. Suddenly it was all he could do to concentrate on giving the necessary orders. The boat was under, her bow was tilted down at a satisfactory angle, and there should be no trace of her left on the surface except the wake of her passage.

“Left full rudder,” he ordered. He would not, at least, blunder blindly into a bomb or depth charge dropped ahead of the diving point.

Eel had been submerged just ten minutes and had already returned to periscope depth. There was nothing in sight. The plane must have had orders not to waste its time over a submarine diving where it could not possibly attack the all-important convoy. Its instructions would be to proceed ahead of the troopships, against the possibility of a submarine in attack position — against Whitefish, in fact. How long had it been since Whitefish had dived, anyway? And if successful, when might Whitey’s torpedo explosions be heard?

“Any time now,” said Keith.

Richardson was spinning the periscope around. Nothing in sight. Several quick, careful looks, then up a little higher. Still nothing. No plane, no ships, no smoke, just brilliant blue sky and a yellow-brown, mud-colored sea with a small chop: waves about two feet high. Around again, more slowly, several times, dropping the periscope occasionally just beneath the surface in order to break up the continuity of exposure. Still nothing in sight. How long now?

It was only five minutes since he had asked the question, reassured Keith. According to Larry Lasche’s plot, something could be happening any minute, but on the other hand, a delay of even ten or fifteen minutes ought not to be surprising. Buck had roused himself — he could not have had more than an hour or so in his bunk — and had taken over the TDC. It was not running, for he had no information to set into the instrument. Stafford, searching carefully all around on the sonar, concentrating in the estimated direction of the convoy, could hear nothing. The ships were much too far away to hear screws. Blunt also was in the conning tower; nearly the whole of Eel’s battle stations control party was there. Something must happen. Whitefish simply must not fail now.

A distant boom filled the confined space.

“Torpedo explosion,” reported Stafford, unnecessarily.

Ten seconds later there should be another. He looked at his watch. His eyes, accustomed by the periscope to the brilliant sunlight on the surface, had difficulty in focusing on the tiny second hand. Ten seconds must have passed — fifteen seconds at least, now. Thirty seconds. Only a single hit. Perhaps Whitey Everett had conservatively fired only at the leading troopship. Undoubtedly there would be depth charges, if only to keep him submerged below periscope depth while the uninjured ships made their getaway.

Whitefish was one of the thin-skinned submarines, as Walrus had been. There was no definite proof that the “heavy hull” submarines were better able to stand depth charging than the “thin-skinners,” but this was nevertheless generally believed to be the case. So far, Everett had retreated to an inactive portion of the area to inspect for damages after every depth charge attack. A heavy barrage at this point, which the escorts might very likely drop simply as a face-saving measure, whether or not they had any idea of Whitefish’s location, might have the same effect again.

“Stand by to surface,” croaked Richardson. “Up periscope.” As he swiftly spun the instrument around, he felt the querying glances of the conning tower crew. He went around carefully three times. Nothing in sight. He clicked up the handles of the periscope. It dropped away.

“Ready to surface,” said Keith. Here at least was someone who understood that targets of this importance, so laboriously set up, must not be abandoned.

“Surface the boat!” The sound of air blowing in the ballast tanks, the sudden lifting effect as they expelled water from the flooding holes at their bottoms, were almost like personal reflexes of his own.

“Four main engines on propulsion,” Richardson said.

The bridge was still cascading water from all of its parts. The main induction banged open behind him. Eel drove ahead on her battery, thrusting her nearly submerged bulk through the seas and into the teeth of a strong cold breeze, while back aft four mufflers spit white water and groaned as the engines rolled over.

“Lookouts to the bridge!” They came piling up in their foul-weather gear, well protected against the cold and the wet. Rich had not been so provident. His already rumpled khakis had been heavily splattered across the back as he came up the hatch, and the chilled wind was already biting into him.

“Here, Captain,” said Cornelli coming up the hatch, handing him a foul-weather jacket. “Mr. Keith… I mean, Mr. Leone, said to give you this.” Gratefully Richardson put it on while Cornelli moved aft to take up his watch station.

Williams and Leone were beside him. “We’re running down the bearing of the convoy,” said Richardson. “I’ll keep the deck. Buck, you handle the routine. Allow no extra people on the bridge. Keith, you stand by in the conning tower. Pass the word to all hands to look alive. We may have to dive suddenly. Keep a continuous high periscope and radar watch on. The convoy may have split up. It sounds like one ship was hit, and if so, the other two will be getting away from the attack position as fast as they can.”

“Bridge, conn.” This was Stafford’s voice. “Sonar has distant depth charging dead ahead.”

“One more thing, Keith,” as his second-in-command swung on to the ladder leading to the conning tower. “I may hold up the dive for a bit, even if we do see a plane.” The puzzled look on Keith’s face gave way to comprehension as Richardson went on. “If we weren’t down to only two torpedoes, we could end-around ourselves. As it is, the best we can do is try to take some of the heat off of Whitefish.”

Dormant in his brain was the thought that if Eel should be sighted reasonably near the torpedoed ship before a firm sonar contact had been obtained on Whitefish, surface and air escorts, now feverishly looking for the submarine responsible, might assume that Eel was the culprit. If, in the meantime, the direction in which the remainder of the convoy had fled could be determined, there might be a chance to put Whitefish back into contact for a second attack.

“Bridge, radar contact! A little on the port bow!”

Eel had been fully surfaced for some minutes, was now pounding along at nearly full speed, throwing spray from under her bows as she plunged into the freshening sea, spattering a continuous pattern of salt droplets on her main deck. The wind, already strong and very cold, was now screeching over the top of the windscreen with the added component of the submarine’s velocity in the opposite direction. Several minutes ago the lookouts had been called down from their exposed perches on the sides of the periscope shears and directed to huddle together behind the chariot bridge bulwarks. There they still maintained vigil over the same arc of sky and sea, each to his own quadrant. Their function, of course, was to guard against approach of an aircraft. It was upon the elevated periscope, nearly nineteen feet above the uppermost tip of the periscope shears, that Richardson was depending for the first sight of the enemy.

“We have two big ships and two little ships on the PPI ’scope. Looks like they’re on course about southwest. Range is twelve miles. They’re on our starboard bow, Bridge. A couple of miles astern of this outfit and a little nearer — about eleven miles — there’s another ship. It looks like it’s alone. Plot is showing it as stopped, but we can’t be sure yet.” Keith from the conning tower.

“Anything in sight through the periscope?”

“Negative, Bridge — we’re checking the bearing carefully.… Correction! The periscope sees masts a little on the port bow. That’s the single ship!”

Richardson debated the advisability of using one of his last torpedoes to finish off the injured ship, but as Eel approached, she was already being abandoned, her listing sides covered with tiny antlike creatures climbing down the steel plates, sliding down ropes into the water. The sea was black around her with round black dots, each one the head of a man struggling for his life. Only three lifeboats could be seen. Perhaps there were a few more life rafts — not many. The periscope could count only five, overloaded, teeming with people, surrounded by more hanging to their sides. The boats were in little better shape. He fought down the revulsion. This was what he had come for. He could not, would not, help. The men were doomed. The winter sea would be pitiless. Another torpedo was not needed.

Richardson decided to drive between the damaged ship and the convoy, abandoning the damaged one in order to track the fleeing convoy remnant from the east. It was a near certainty that after having put sufficient distance between themselves and the scene of the torpedoing they would again change course to the east. Later, he or Whitey might return to give the coup de grace to the damaged transport, if it had not sunk.

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.

Time passed. The Whitefish had surfaced at last, was a number of miles astern. The convoy was changing course every half hour, Richardson decided. Plot now gave their course as 140, and Eel had altered her course accordingly, putting the ships well on her starboard quarter. One more similar change to the left would bring them within ten degrees of the predicted course, and they might well choose to come all the way around. Whitefish, in the meantime, diverging from Eel’s track, would be in a position to attack again if they reversed course to the west.

Richardson had been on the bridge for hours, sustained by sandwiches handed up from below and countless mugs of black coffee. There was a rising need within him which could no longer be kept below the level of severe, if not disabling, distraction, bordering on growing torment. A quick trip below ordinarily would take care of the business, and had several times already. But this was no longer possible. He could not leave the bridge now, even for the two or three minutes the mission would require. Not with the prospect of imminent air attack. The lookouts, all of them new members of the crew, youngsters whose only submarine experience was in Eel, would be caught by surprise. They might even be a bit shocked, but it didn’t matter what they thought. The old submarine solution would have to do. The old N-boats and O-boats had only a covered bucket for use submerged, which the most junior member of the crew would have to carry topside and dump at appropriate times. In their ability to dive, submarines possessed one tremendous asset other ships did not have: when you dived, you flushed the whole outside surface of the ship.

Of course, you always did it to leeward. Thought of doing it made the need imperative, the torture unbearable. A wad of lens paper. A muttered excuse to Buck Williams, now OOD again. The starboard side, just abaft the fifty-caliber stowage. Half a dozen quick steps aft to the cigarette deck. His hands fumbled ridiculously, cold-stiffened fingers tearing at the zipper of his parka trousers, then at his belt and the oversize buttons in the fly of his woolen pants. A deep sigh of relief. He could not have stood it much longer. A long moment of slowly ebbing pain.

“APR contact, strength one and a half!” The plane was coming closer.

“APR contact! Strength two!” The question: to be detected or not detected.

Blunt was on the bridge. “What are you planning to do, Rich?”

“Get below, Commodore,” Richardson said testily. “There’s a plane coming in. We’ve got to be clear to dive in a hurry. I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can!”

The look under Blunt’s shaggy brows seemed less sure of itself than it had in previous years or even during the early stages of the current war patrol. There was almost a respectful note in his voice, along with the recently acquired querulousness, as he replied, “Okay, Rich, I’ll be in the conning tower.”

Richardson punched the bridge microphone. “Plot, any sign of a convoy change to the left?”

“Negative, Bridge. Convoy course one-four-zero base course, zigzagging.”

“Bridge, control. APR contact strength three!” It was at this signal strength that ComSubPac had advised all submarines should dive. And it was adherence to this directive that had placed Eel under severe risk not long ago. Almost without volition, he voiced his concern.

“Lookouts, there’s a plane coming in on us. We don’t know what direction, most likely from aft. Keep a sharp lookout!” If the convoy would only make its last change of course now, Eel could submerge on its track, undetected, and might have a chance for an attack with her last precious torpedoes. If he waited too long, detection by the aircraft might cause an unpremeditated radical change in the convoy course and thus throw away all the day’s work in reaching position.

Yet, if the escorts cooperated, detection of Eel might possibly work to Whitey Everett’s advantage. Richardson had to hope both escorts, supported by the plane, would attack, not knowing there were two subs to contend with, thinking that by working together they might eliminate the single submarine pursuing them. Once Eel was located and under attack, the troopships would make another radical swing away from the vicinity. Doubtless they would run southwest again, possibly even nearly due west. All depended on Eel being detected at the right time, and Whitefish not; so that Whitey could submerge undisturbed in the path of the transports, now hopefully denuded of escorts or air coverage.

“APR contact! Strength three and a half!”

“Convoy course one-four-zero, no change.” Al and Keith were anticipating his requirements for information.

“Aircraft dead astern!” Cornelli shouting from the after part of the bridge. He swung aft quickly. The aircraft was well above the horizon, still at a great distance, flying relatively high. Perhaps they had already been detected. Richardson felt almost a sense of relief. This part, at least, was now out of his hands. “All right, I have him in sight,” he said.

The plane seemed hung in the heavens, almost stationary. It was approaching directly toward them. Well, if the convoy would not change course toward him, he would at least try to get on its path. The maneuver would drive the transports more to the west, make things that much easier for Whitefish.

“Right full rudder,” he bawled down the hatch. “Come right to two-three-zero!” This would put Eel on a course perpendicular to the estimated convoy course, and it would permit her most quickly to gain position dead ahead. When the plane saw this maneuver it would evaluate it as meaning but one thing: that Eel was running in for an attack position on the convoy. Only a few minutes would be needed. The convoy should reverse course. But how would the plane signal to the convoy? Perhaps there was a common radio frequency, but most likely, to give Eel’s position accurately, specifically to give it to the escorts, the plane would have to drop at least a smoke float, and probably a bomb as well.

Well, so be it. There was no doubt the plane had seen them now. It had turned slightly to compensate for Eel’s own course change. It was the same plane which had flushed Eel that morning, or one exactly like it. He could see the glint of the whirling blades in the early afternoon sun and the two engine nacelles under the wings. It might be able to increase speed to four miles a minute on a run in. He estimated the range right now to be about six miles, but it would not do to run this one too close.

“Clear the bridge!” he called. Might as well get the lookouts and Cornelli below ahead of time. Thirty seconds. Yes, the plane was probably now about four miles away. With a fast dive Eel could get completely submerged in thirty seconds, probably even faster at the speed with which she was still racing ahead. The wind was now coming over the port bow and was considerably less unpleasant, since he could keep his back to it as he watched the airplane.

Fifteen seconds more. It would be touch and go, but this was the way it had to be. “Clear the bridge!” he shouted. “Take her down!” There was no one on the bridge but himself, but all dives should be done as nearly as possible with the customary routine. He fumbled for the diving alarm, placed his mittened hand on it, pressed twice. The vents popped. One more quick look at the airplane. It was beginning its dive, coming in at a shallow angle. Estimated range three to four miles. This would be good. Eel was due to catch a bomb, but except by the greatest of misfortune she would survive it unscathed. The important point was that it would give at least one of the convoy escorts a point of aim, a datum point to investigate. The involved scheme which Richardson had laboriously composed while conducting the end-around run depended upon separating the convoy from the escorts. His gloved hands fumbled for the hand rail. He dropped down the hatch, grabbed the lanyard toggle, heard the hatch click shut.

Eel was already perceptibly angling downward in a swift, surefooted dive. “Hatch secured,” shouted Cornelli, too loudly, thought Richardson.

“Depth of water is two-five-oh feet, Skipper,” said Al from below. “I’ll start taking the angle off after we pass one-hundred-seventy-five feet.”

The conning tower annunciators, both of which should have been at the “ahead flank” position, had been moved over to “ahead emergency.” Obviously Al’s doing. With the full voltage of the battery discharging current almost as if there were a short circuit, the propellers for a few minutes would be turning even faster than under the drive of Eel’s four diesels. Eel’s deck tilted down even more. He heard Al speak imperatively to the planesmen. “Full dive on bow planes. Stern planes keep the angle at fifteen degrees. Yes, I said fifteen degrees!” Eel leaned even more steeply into the dive.

“Mark! Four-six feet,” said Cornelli. But he held out his hand to show that he had no stop watch. In the back of the conning tower Keith was grinning, exhibited the stopwatch with his thumb on the winding stem. “Twenty-three seconds,” he said, consulting it. “Fastest dive in the books. I almost didn’t get the periscope down. When the water hit it, I thought we were going to break it right off!”

Rich nodded, crossed to the control room hatch, squatted on his heels to talk to Dugan. “We’ve stopped our watch up here, Al,” he said. “Did you get a watch started on the dive?”

“You bet, Skipper.” Al had one in his hand, the short white lanyard looped around his thumb. “We’re passing seventy feet now. It’s forty-five seconds since the diving alarm, and we’re just reaching fifteen degrees down bubble.”

“What’s your speed through water?”

“Still showing twelve knots. It dropped fast as soon as we opened the vents, but it’s dropping a lot slower now.” There was indeed a furious rush of water around the conning tower, perceptibly shaking it, vibrating all topside equipment.

“Passing one hundred feet, Skipper,” said Al. “Do you want to change course?”

“Good. Left full rudder,” he ordered, raising his voice to the helmsman standing with his back to him alongside Cornelli. “Come left to one-four-zero.” The plane would be approaching the diving point now, would be adjusting for time late, computing the lead angle. Probably it had already dropped, since the release point for the speed and altitude would no doubt be passed long before the airplane arrived over the diving point.

“Taking the angle off now,” said Al. “The rudder helps.”

Richardson could feel the submarine’s attitude returning to the normal horizontal.

“Steady on one-four-zero,” said the helmsman. Just as he said the words they were swallowed up by the roar of a tremendous explosion in the water near at hand. Eel’s tough frame shook like a tuning fork, its component members vibrating in their own discordant cacophony, as the shock wave was converted into the innumerable frequency ranges to which the parts of it resonated.

“That was good and close,” Keith started to say, when his words likewise were engulfed in a second explosion, a ringing, high-pitched metallic WHAM, as though some giant outside Eel’s hull were striking her side with a tremendous sledgehammer.

“All compartments report,” said Cornelli, grabbing a hand telephone set from its rack. He held the phone to his ear for several minutes, nodding his head briefly from time to time. “I figured they’d all be on the line, sir,” he said. “All compartments report no damage.”

“Al,” said Richardson, “you still have speed control. Get us up to periscope depth as soon as you can.”

“Periscope depth, aye aye. All ahead one-third,” called out Dugan. The annunciators clicked as the helmsman carried out the order, and Eel began to climb back to sixty-foot keel depth in a much less dramatic fashion than she had initially gone the other way.

Richardson had forgotten Blunt in the conning tower. Now the latter spoke. “What are you up to, Rich?” he said.

“We’ve got two torpedoes left, Commodore, and I want to try to turn the convoy around to give Whitefish a chance to get into action one more time.”

“How are you going to do that with only two fish? And even if you do get one of the ships, the escorts will keep you from surfacing.…”

“Yes, sir, but what if we knock off the escorts?” Richardson stared hard at Blunt. He did not want to reveal his entire scheme, for the discussion which would inevitably follow would arouse concern in the well-knit submarine crew which could only be to its disadvantage. Again Blunt looked unsure of himself. He almost replied, then evidently changed his mind, said nothing.

Several minutes later, through Eel’s periscope, barely projecting above the tops of the waves, splashed over by some of them, Richardson had two things in view: the Japanese patrol bomber, now minus two of its limited supply of bombs, orbiting over the general area and obviously looking for his periscope; and a single escort which had appeared over the western horizon. Upon seeing it, he had directed that a white smoke candle be broken out and made ready near the submerged signal ejector. If the bomber was not thoughtful enough to fire a smoke float for the tincan, it might be necessary for Eel to do it. It was a disappointment, however, that only a single escort had taken the bait.

The frigate’s lookouts must all be blind, thought Richardson, as for the fourth time in three hours he elevated Eel’s periscope well above the wave tops to give them every possible opportunity to see it. Sonar conditions must be abominable. The tincan swept on heedlessly, pinging loudly, surely getting a good return echo, but giving no sign of having any contact whatsoever. His intention to be discovered only while Eel’s stern with its two loaded torpedoes was directed toward the enemy had caused him to forgo an equal number of other opportunities, when a depth charge attack might have developed from a disadvantageous bearing. Also, he had been forced to keep a close eye on the patrol bomber, which was swinging in wide circles around the general vicinty. The plane had never, however, given Eel an opportunity to use the smoke float; for this, it must approach close enough to the submarine’s position to have plausibly dropped it. At some point the plane would turn low on fuel, having been in the air since before dawn.

It was now late afternoon. The convoy must have headed west again, and, with a four-hour head start, it was lengthening its distance every moment. Probably it had soon changed to the south once more, and would again follow the same pattern as previously, giving the latest area of contact a wide berth before finally settling down to an easterly course toward the coast of Korea.

The patrol bomber was coming in low, the first time it had come in so low. Eel’s stern pointed nearly toward the destroyer. Distance, perhaps five miles away. He had the periscope low again, so low that every other wave either blocked his view entirely or covered the periscope with yellow water. The plane was passing fairly close, though not overhead. Its pilot could not have seen the periscope. Since it would be sunset in an hour, perhaps this was to be the aircraft’s last pass through the area before heading for base.

‘Stand by with the smoke candle!”

If he could be sure the patrol plane had no more depth bombs, he might risk letting him see the periscope and drop a smoke candle of his own. But of this he could not be sure. Eel would be forced to go deep when evidence of a real attack run developed. Once forced deep by the plane and under persistent depth charge attack from the Mikura, there might never be a chance to return to periscope depth. Eel’s own smoke candle would simulate one from the plane, but the pilot would know he had not dropped it and — just possibly — might be able to communicate the fact to the escort skipper. The thing to do was to fire it just after the plane had passed, but without the pilot being able to see it. Richardson cursed his indecision. Twice he had run through the same debate and passed up a possible opportunity, fearing it would be too obvious. Again he watched the plane pass by, low to the water, a mile and a half or two miles away. This was the closest it had come yet. Then, gradually gaining in altitude, it flew off to the west. He waited a few seconds. This might be the moment, but there would still be time for the plane to reverse course and return to the scene if he acted prematurely. When it had diminished to a relatively small silhouette in the cloudless sky, he ordered the smoke float loaded into the ejector and fired. A feeling of almost detached curiosity as to what the results would be took possession of him.

It was almost a minute before the smoke functioned. Richardson was about to write it off as a dud, when suddenly there was a tiny cloud of white smoke blossoming on the water some distance astern.

“Sixty feet,” he ordered. This would give nearly seven feet of periscope for the destroyer to look at. He would need it, for the lengthening shadows of growing twilight were drawing near.

Signs of incipient activity on the escort. He had seen the smoke. Slowly, almost leisurely, he approached it. No doubt the destroyer’s skipper was puzzled how it came to be there. He would think the plane had dropped it after all, and that perhaps it was merely delayed in going off. It would be hard to imagine it deliberately being placed there by the submarine he was looking for. Richardson could feel the tenseness of his own state of mind, his own fatigue (which he must not show), the dependence which he was placing upon this stratagem. Carefully he maneuvered so that Eel’s stern pointed directly at the tincan’s bow.

“Destroyer screws have speeded up,” said Stafford. “He’s shifted to short-scale pinging! Starting a run!” Stafford’s voice, as usual, betrayed his rising excitement. Veteran though he was, he would never — nor would Richardson — be able to discount the potential lethality of a well-delivered depth charge salvo.

“Make your depth six-five feet, Control.” He could hear the whine of the TDC behind him as Buck Williams set in the information, relayed from Stafford, from Keith, from himself, at the periscope.

“Gyros are three left,” said Keith. “Torpedo run is nine hundred yards. We still have to flood the tubes and open the outer doors — what’s the matter, Captain?”

“We can’t shoot,” said Richardson in a weary, exasperated tone. “He’s zigzagging.” With only two torpedoes left, Eel must fire only when there was certainty of hitting. This meant a “down-the-throat” shot with all data static: bow to bow or, as in this case, stern to bow. A sinuating, weaving course, such as the escort was now using, made the chance of missing too great. Rich motioned with his thumbs for the periscope to be dropped a foot. He squatted down with it, continuing to look through it from a stooped position. “He thinks we’ve gone deep,” he said. “He’s coming in so slow he can’t have set his charges shallow. They’d blow his own stern off. So we’ll cross him up by staying at periscope depth. Range, mark!” He turned the range knob on the side of the periscope.

“Range nine-two-oh yards,” said Keith. “Torpedo run seven-five-oh.”

“Shut all watertight doors,” said Richardson. “Here he comes!” He had in the meantime directed Al Dugan to run one foot lower in the water, at sixty-six-foot keel depth instead of sixty-five. This permitted Richardson to stand with less of a stoop as he kept the periscope at the lowest possible height from which, between toppling waves, he could still see his adversary. “He’s going to pass astern close aboard, but a clean miss if I ever saw one — there he goes! He’s dropping now!” It was unprecedented for a submarine captain to observe his own depth charging, although it had been done (at much greater range) during depth charge indoctrination drills at Pearl Harbor. The thought did not at all occur to Richardson until much later. “This chap must be an absolute amateur. He’s attacking our wake instead of a solid contact. He’s made a clean miss by at least fifty yards!”

The periscope was under more than it was out of water. Richardson’s view of the enemy ship was a series of fleeting glimpses rather than a steady inspection. At this close range, better perspective was provided by the periscope in low power. The tincan was new-looking — war-construction obviously — painted overall a dull gray. Her most outstanding feature was the characteristically Japanese undulating deck line — extra design and construction effort with no apparent operational payoff. The deck curved sharply upward at the bow, which was widely flared for seakeeping ability, and upon the forecastle was mounted a large, long-barreled, destroyer-type deck gun. Her hull was metal — the welding seams and characteristic “oil-canning” of the thin steel were clear to be seen — but the heavy, squat bridge structure and mast appeared to be of wood. Between waves rolling over the periscope, Richardson could see the bridge personnel, all staring aft, some with binoculars. Men on deck and around the now empty depth charge racks were also staring over the stern into the water, obviously waiting for the depth charges to detonate. Abaft the mast was a single, exaggeratedly fat, stubby stack projecting from a low deckhouse, but no smoke or exhaust gases could be seen issuing from it. On the contrary, an exhaust of some kind was coming out from a large black opening in the side of the ship under the after portion of the main deck.

There was a sudden appearance of instantaneous immobility in the sea, and almost simultaneously a crashing roar filled the submarine. Several tremendous shocks in succession were transmitted to Eel’s stout hide. The giant outside was wielding his sledgehammer with gusto. The periscope quivered, vibrated strongly against his eyes. Fortunately, the eyepiece was surrounded with a heavy rubber buffer, shaped partly to protect the user’s eyes from stray light and partly to give him a firm ridge against which to press the soft flesh between his eyes and their bony sockets. The story would later be told how Richardson had stood at his periscope in the midst of a depth charge attack which had Eel resounding throughout like a tremendous steel drum, her sturdy body whipped and tortured, her machinery damaged from the heavy shocks. The fact was he had the advantage, possessed by no one else in the submarine, of seeing the depth charges dropped and knowing they were clear astern. Noisy they might be, but dangerous they were not — at least not much. And once they began to explode, the ice broken, as it were, they were only an annoyance.

But there must be some way to bring this sea dance to an end. Those depth charge racks would take some time to refill. Maybe now was the time. The tincan skipper would try to ram if he saw the submarine. Perhaps he should have a point of aim.

“All ahead two-thirds! Left full rudder — ease your rudder — amidships — meet her — steady as you go!”

“Steady on two-six-eight-a-half,” from Cornelli at the helm.

“Steer two-seven-zero.” That would make it easier on the plot and everyone concerned.

Eel and the escort were now on nearly opposite courses. Soon the escort would turn, come back to the scene of the depth charge attack, try to regain sonar contact, look hopefully for signs of success. Range by periscope stadimeter was 1,000 yards… 1,400 yards. She must turn soon, was turning, with rudder hard over, listing to starboard. Increased exhaust smoke was coming out of her sides; her engines had speeded up. She came all the way around. Eel was making five knots; her periscope must be throwing up a perceptible feather.

“Angle on the bow, starboard ten.” The periscope was leaking. Perhaps the vibration during the depth charging had loosened the seal rings through which it passed at the top of the conning tower. A rivulet of water trickled down on Richardson’s forehead, between his eyes. Another splatted on the top of his head and down the back of his neck. “Range — mark!” he said. “Down ’scope. Get me a rain hat!”

“One-seven-five-oh.” Someone handed him a towel. Blunt. He had been standing silently in the conning tower for minutes, perhaps hours. Not a word was said. Scott passed over one of the baseball hats which a number of the crew had been wearing. It had a long broad bill — just right. He put it on backward.

The TDC was whining. “Need an observation,” said Buck Williams.

“Up ’scope — angle on the bow, port five.”

“Range one-six-five-oh,” said Keith.

“Set,” said Buck. “He must still be zigzagging. That changed the gyro from right four and a half to left three.”

Not good enough. The escort had to be on a steady course to ensure the torpedo would hit. Mush Morton in the Wahoo had once faced such a situation, although with more torpedoes. So had Roy Benson in an early patrol in Trigger. Both reported that the destroyer needed a point of aim to steady on, and they had held their periscopes up to provide one with the result that the destroyer had rushed directly at them, and was met by a salvo of torpedoes. The “down-the-throat” shot had not been at all popular with submarine skippers, however. It was undeniably risky, downright hairy. Only one of Wahoo’s torpedoes had hit out of six fired. Trigger’s had exploded prematurely. But torpedo performance was now vastly improved.

“We have to get this over with,” said Richardson. “This periscope has been up for a long time, and we must be making a big feather, but he doesn’t act as if he sees it.… Control, make your depth four-two feet!” He felt water running off the cap and down the sides of his face, salt trickling into his mouth. Eel’s deck tilted upward slightly, and he had to rotate the hand grip in his left hand to stay on the escort. He had not looked around recently. This would be the time to do it. The pressure of water against the periscope at five knots, which made it more difficult to turn, would be eliminated with the top of the shears five feet above the surface. The little rivulet of water running down the side of the periscope seemed diabolically to follow him no matter on what bearing he looked. He made two swift circles, settled back on the escort. The exercise of walking it around had brought an added dividend, a tiny modicum of relief from the overpowering weariness.

“Four-two feet, Conn,” said Al Dugan.

He felt high out of water. His eye — the tip of the periscope — was now nearly twenty-five feet above the water. Five feet of the conical periscope shears would also be exposed. The escort would see this, would assume the submarine had been damaged, had perhaps lost control, broached, and was either trying to surface or struggling to get back down again.

“Bearing, mark!” he snapped. “What’s the course for a zero gyro angle, zero angle on the bow?”

“Bearing zero-nine-three. Recommend course two-seven-three, Skipper.” Keith.

“Come right to course two-seven-three!”

“Right to course two-seven-three — steady on two-seven-three.” Cornelli spoke loudly from the forward part of the conning tower.

Shadows were lengthening. There was a flash — orange mixed with red — from the forecastle of the escort. A gun. There was another flash. They must be shooting at the periscope. Hastily Richardson swung the periscope all the way around, searching for splashes, saw none. “They’ve seen us now,” he said. “Control, make your depth six-oh feet. Down periscope!” In a moment he would raise the periscope again, but it was a relief to wipe his streaming face. The conning tower had been darkened, all white lights extinguished. His right eye, accustomed to the much brighter, though waning, light topside, was virtually blind. The pupil of his left eye had no doubt narrowed sympathetically, for he found himself fumbling among the familiar objects and people.

“Six-oh feet, Conn.”

“Up ’scope.” He would leave it up, provide a point of aim which would irresistibly draw the escort directly for it in an attempt to ram. If the escort would stop zigzagging, the result would be a perfect down-the-throat shot. He would have to take a chance with his periscope, pray that a lucky shot would not strike it.

“We’re ready aft,” said Keith. “Torpedo run is one thousand yards. Gyro is exactly one-eight-oh. Are you on the bearing?”

The periscope vertical cross hair was bisecting the escort’s bridge, lay exactly in line with her stem and stick-mast. She looked disproportionately — ridiculously — broad. There was another orange flash on the forecastle, hidden partially by the high raked bow, now that Richardson’s periscope-eye view had returned to a more normal six feet. She had not wavered for several seconds, no doubt had ceased zigzagging, probably had increased speed.

“Make her speed fifteen knots,” he said. “Bearing, mark!”

“One-eight-oh-a-half.”

“Cornelli”—he raised his voice so the helmsman could hear clearly—“steer two-seven-three-a-half.” He watched as his periscope cross hair drifted slowly to the right, until it was just clear of the escort’s port side. He brought it back until it lined up once again with stem and mast.

“Bearing, mark!” he said again. He could feel the pressure mounting, the taut stillness in the conning tower, the unblinking eyes staring at him, the dry throats and nervous lips which must go with their alacrity in carrying out his orders. The electric torpedoes would show no wakes. Not knowing it had been shot at, the escort would not try to avoid. If they missed, she would come relentlessly on and pass directly overhead in her attempt to ram. In any case, recognizing that the sub must be at or very near periscope depth, she would know exactly what depth setting to use on the inevitable barrage of depth charges. There had not been time for an entire salvo of charges to be made ready, but undoubtedly several of them had already been wrestled into the racks for an immediate re-attack.

“Torpedo run, seven-fifty yards!” Buck Williams’ clipped voice was not that of the irreverent youth who had disobeyed him when the Kona wave had been about to strike.

“Shoot!”

“Fire nine!” shouted Keith, Buck, and Quin almost simultaneously, the last into his telephone mouthpiece. He barely felt the jolt as a burst of high pressure air ejected the torpedo. With any speed on, ejection aft was always facilitated. He must leave the periscope up for another few seconds to keep the escort running true, headed for it, not zigzagging.

“Can’t hear the torpedo aft in the screws,” said Stafford.

“Torpedo fired electrically,” said Quin.

“Running time thirty-three seconds,” said Lasche.

“Steady on two-seven-three-a-half,” said Cornelli.

“That looked like a beautiful shot, Skipper,” said Keith quietly. “Fifteen seconds to go.”

Someone was counting the seconds in a loud voice. Larry. The escort had grown perceptibly larger. There was another flash from the forecastle. This time Rich saw the splash as the periscope went through it, a vertical column of water high enough to hide the frigate momentarily from his view. The shell must have missed the periscope barrel by only a few inches. It was fortunate that on a moving ship the gunner’s aim was probably being thrown off just a little.

“Twenty-five,” said Larry, counting from his plotting table.

Richardson could feel the perspiration on his forehead, around his eyes, on the palms of his hands. Eel was still making two-thirds speed, and the periscope vibrated gently against his right eye. Surprisingly, it was painful.

The escort was now filling the entire field of the periscope in high power, the slope of its sides barely discernible on either side. It looked curiously flat. The single eyepiece of the periscope gave no depth. Seemingly a very short distance behind its bow, although he knew it to be a full third of the tincan’s length, the square-windowed bridge of the little ship filled what was left of the field of view.

“Thirty-three,” said Lasche. “Thirty-four.”

“It must have missed,” said Keith. How could he speak so calmly!

Nothing else to do. Richardson had not intended to use both of his remaining torpedoes on a single ordinary escort. He had hoped to occupy both of the antisubmarine craft, but had failed in that as well. Now he had no choice. It was even unlikely Eel could go deep enough in the short time remaining to clear the escort’s sharp bow. No doubt it had been specially strengthened for ramming, as had the bows of American escorts. “Stand by number ten!”

Richardson lined the periscope exactly on the target’s bow. “One-eight-oh,” said Keith.

“Shoot!” He uttered the word with finality. It carried with it a sense of being the last cast of the die. Eel had nothing left to fight with. If this torpedo missed, it was a certainty that in a few more seconds her periscopes would be knocked over, the shears bent or broken off, perhaps even the conning tower ruptured.

“… Fired electrically,” said Quin.

“Run, four-five-oh yards.” Keith. “Running time, twenty-three seconds.”

He should start to go deep, but it would do no good. No matter what, the stern would remain near the surface for a while. Better take the blow on the periscope shears than the rudder and propellers. Ten seconds more to go. Five seconds.

Something was happening to the tincan’s bow. It shook perceptibly. The bridge structure, which had seemed so close behind the stem, had been replaced by a solid column of white water, stained by a vertical streak of blackness in its center. Simultaneously, the shock of the explosion slammed into the submarine’s conning tower, and an instant later the noise — a bellowing cataclysmic thunderclap — came in.

The escort’s stem shivered again, more slowly, then began to twist to the left and at the same time sag deeper in the water. Before Richardson’s eyes it leaned to starboard and quickly slid under water. The last thing he saw was a relatively large unbroken expense of forecastle deck, on which some kind of capstan and anchor equipment was clearly visible, as the shattered bow, torn completely loose from the remainder of the ship by the force of the explosion, swiftly disappeared.

He flipped the periscope to low power. The explosion must have taken place under the keel and just forward of the bridge, for the bridge structure could still be seen, horribly shattered, all its windows smashed, the neat square outline now buckled and twisted. The rest of the ship, too, was sinking fast. He could see her stern elevated above the top of the bridge structure, and the base of the bridge itself was already well under water. He swung the periscope around twice, swiftly. Nothing else in sight. “Surface!” he ordered. “Four engines! Here, Keith, you take the periscope!”

Men were cheering in the conning tower and below in the control room. Someone thrust a towel at him to wipe his face. Several of the conning tower crew, completely forgetting naval protocol, were pounding him on the back, shouting words in his face, grasping at him to touch him, almost caress him. Dimly he was aware of air blasts from the control room, the lifting strain of the ballast tanks. Scott handed him a foul-weather jacket, followed it with his binoculars.

“Thirty feet,” someone called. “Twenty-six feet and holding.”

“Bow’s out! Stern’s out. All clear all around,” shouted Keith.

“Open the hatch!”

Scott spun the hand wheel. It banged open with a crash. A torrent of air blasted out of it, lifting him. Richardson leaped to the bridge, ignoring the cascade of water still pouring from the periscope shears and bridge overhang. Swiftly he scanned the skies with his binoculars. Nothing in sight. “Lookouts!” he shouted. “Open the induction!” Clank of the induction valve. Gouts of black exhaust mixed with water from four main engine mufflers.

“I’ll take the deck, Captain,” said Al Dugan. “Keith gave me the course. He’s laying out the search for the convoy right now. You need some rest, sir; why don’t you go below and sack out for a while?”

Gratefully Richardson turned over the details of the bridge watch to Dugan. Perhaps he would take his advice, but for the moment he could not feel weary. His binoculars settled for a long lingering minute on the destroyed escort. She was now vertical in the water, almost fully submerged except for a small section of the stern. Men were bobbing in the water around her. Someone was standing on top of the stern itself, and as Richardson watched, made a headlong dive into the sea. Among the debris that floated around the swiftly submerging hulk were two life rafts and what looked like an overturned lifeboat. On her new course, Eel would pass within half a mile of the spot. There was nothing he could do to help. He must pursue the remaining ships, endeavor to turn them back somehow, somehow bring Whitefish back into contact.

The stern of the escort had disappeared. A plume of white water burst from the spot where she had sunk. A great white mushroom boiled up, covered the entire area. The crash of the exploding depth charges stunned his ears. When the white, watery mushroom, fifty feet in height and a hundred feet in diameter, had disappeared, there was not even debris left in sight. No doubt much would rise to the surface to mark the grave of the little ship, but there could not possibly be any survivors.

All the lookouts, Scott, and even Al Dugan were mesmerized, awestricken at what they had seen.

“Mind your business, all of you,” shouted Richardson. “You lookouts get on your sectors! If there’s a plane around, he’ll be coming over to see what happened!” His own guilt at having overlong inspected the result of his handiwork was expressing itself in unnecessary railing at his crew for the all-too-human fault of doing the same thing. Guiltily, they all swung back into their proper search arcs.

“Sorry, Skipper,” muttered Dugan, with his binoculars to his eyes ostentatiously surveying another portion of the horizon. Richardson as swiftly felt remorse at his outburst. He could not bring himself to talk, squeezed Dugan’s arm by way of acknowledgment.

Al Dugan dared to put down his binoculars, turned squarely to face Richardson. “Skipper,” he said, “you’re beat to a frazzle. You’ve got to get some rest. Besides, you ought to look at yourself in a mirror. Do you realize you have a black eye?”

This too would be added to the legend. The vibration of the periscope against his eye during the depth charging, even though it had been protected by a rubber buffer, had been sufficiently strong and prolonged to bruise the tender skin. The result was a perfect black eye, a regulation “shiner” in all respects save the manner in which it was acquired. Little he could do about it, he reflected, as he washed his face at last at the fold-up wash basin beneath his medicine cabinet. He plunged his face deep into the dripping washcloth, bathed it first with hot water and then with cold, rubbed it vigorously. The fatigue lines stood out clearly. His bunk beckoned. It would be so restful to lie there, if only for half an hour! But he dared not. Another cup of coffee, a hasty sandwich, and Richardson was back in the conning tower. He must be alert the moment a message arrived from Whitefish, must supervise the search for the fleeing convoy, must show Blunt where to station Whitefish for one final effort.