Final Harbor

Chapter 17

Lieutenant Nathan Cohen’s lean body was slumped on his stool in front of his sonar dials. His long, hairy legs stuck out at right angles from his rumpled khaki shorts. His eyes were half-closed as he listened to the clutter of sounds coming from the two rotating JP sound heads below Mako’s keel. Joe Sirocco came over to him and Cohen pushed one earphone up on his temple.

“I’m going to start the preliminary plot,” Sirocco said. “Can you give me any identification of the ships up there for the plot? So I know which ship is which?”

“I’ve got more ships up there than I’ve heard ever before at one time,” Cohen said. “The target ship is easy to pick up. It has a definite, slow beat. Four screws. He’s been on the same course since I picked him up. Doesn’t change course, doesn’t change speed.

“There are four other ships between his sound and our position. These are fast ships, twin-screw, very fast propellers. One of them has a nicked blade or a bent blade, he’s got a funny sound.

“There are some other ships out there but I can’t tell how many. Single-screw stuff making about the same speed as the target. I’ve heard three or four of those, maybe more.”

“The ships running between the target and our position are the van,” Sirocco said. “The Skipper figured they’d be there. They’re sweeping, looking for submarines. The other ships must be the rest of the escort. How about giving me some names for the ships?”

“I wouldn’t want to try that with each ship,” Cohen said slowly. “I could get fooled too easily. The main target is easy to identify, we could give him a name. Why not just give a name to the other groups, the four ships running fast and the other ones?”

“Fine,” Sirocco said. “What do you want to call the target?”

“Call it ‘Aleph,’ that’s the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It means ‘ox.’ ”

“That’s ‘Alpha’ in Greek, isn’t it?” Sirocco asked. Cohen nodded, smiling.

“Okay,” Sirocco said. “Give me a name for the van, for those ships running ahead of the target, the fast-screw ships.”

“They remind me of a folding door someone is opening and closing all the time,” Cohen said. “In Hebrew ‘Deft’ means folding door. In Greek that’s ‘Delta,’ okay?

“The others, well I don’t know. Let’s stick to the Middle East since we started there. Call them the camels. ‘Gamet’ in Hebrew, ‘Gamma’ in Greek. How about the aircraft the Captain said would be overhead? If I pick them up on the sound heads you want me to give them a name?” His lean face was solemn but his brown eyes were twinkling merrily.

“Nate, you’re a character!” Sirocco said. He got up from his squatting position and heard his knee joints creak. “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.”

He walked over to the gyro table where Don Grilley had laid out the plotting charts. Grilley had spent hours drawing in the details of the atoll, the Northeast Entrance and the water depths shown on the chart on sheets of transparent paper. Then he had affixed each sheet of transparent paper to a plotting sheet so that by flipping the transparent sheet over the plot the position of the target, its escorts and Mako in relation to the reef could be seen at once.

In the Conning Tower Captain Mealey turned to Lieut. Bob Edge, who was at his station at the TDC, the Torpedo Data Computer.

“Pass the Is-Was down to the Executive Officer,” Mealey said. “I don’t want to clutter up the TDC with the preliminary sonar plots.” Edge nodded and took the celluloid “banjo” from a knob where it hung by a loop of cord. Before the development of the TDC the Is-Was had been the only fire control tool a submarine captain had at his disposal to work out the complicated mathematical problem in order to fire a torpedo at a target. Edge bent down and dangled the Is-Was by its cord and Sirocco took it and hung it around his neck.

“Let’s begin the preliminary shooting plot, Joe,” Captain Mealey called down from the Conning Tower. “Let me have your first plot as soon as you have it.”

Cohen nodded at Sirocco and watched his dials and made notes and then he began to feed a steady stream of information to Sirocco and Grilley, who worked rapidly over a plotting sheet. Sirocco reached for the Is-Was and began to work out the problem on the plotting sheet. He looked upward at the Conning Towel- hatch.

“We have the target steady on a course of two three zero, sir. That jibes with the course we assumed it would take to make its entrance to the atoll.

“Our planned point of intercept is eight hundred yards from the target’s course into the mouth of the atoll with an intersect angle of ninety degrees.

“We have been on our intercept course to that point for some time, now. We should be at our shooting point in thirty-seven minutes, assuming a torpedo run of eight hundred yards, sir.

“If we assume the target was one mile astern of his van when we sighted the masts of the van, that is, the target was seventeen miles distant when we dove and that he was making fifteen knots, as the intelligence report said he would probably make, the target should be at the point of intercept in thirty-seven minutes, sir. With all due respect, sir, our timing is too tight. We have no allowance for planing up for a periscope observation, no allowance if the target decides to change course or speed. Mr. Cohen says we have a good fix on the target so you wouldn’t have to waste any time if you went up for a look, sir.” The hint in his words was just a trifle stronger than it should have been and the people in the Control Room and Conning Tower recognized that Sirocco was telling Captain Mealey what to do. Don Grilley raised his head from the plot and looked at Sirocco, his eyes widening, and then he bent his head to the plotting sheets.

“Very well, Mr. Sirocco,” Mealey’s voice was edged. “I plan to make two observations before we begin to shoot. Mr. Cohen, give me a bearing on the battleship.” Asking Cohen for the bearing rather than asking Sirocco to get it from Cohen was an implied rebuke to Sirocco, and the people listening recognized that, too. Cohen let his head drop on his chest, concentrating on sorting out the clutter of sounds filling his earphones. He spoke softly into the telephone microphone he had hung around his neck.

“Main target, designated as Alpha, bears three three seven, sir. Repeat: three three seven.”

“Make turns for four knots,” Captain Mealey called. The helmsman moved his annunciators and Mealey heard the click of the response from the Maneuvering Room as Hendershot moved his pointer to match up with the order.

“Making turns for four knots,” the helmsman said.

“Very well,” Mealey said. “Bring me up to sixty-five feet, Control. I will take no more than seven seconds for this look. Begin planing back down to two hundred fifty feet after I’ve been up for seven seconds.”

“Six five feet, sir,” Simms said from his post in the Control Room. “Return to two five zero feet seven seconds after we reach six five feet, aye, aye, sir.”

At 65 feet Mako’s periscope would be 18 inches out of the water. From that height the horizon would be only a little more than a mile and a quarter away. But the battleship, with its lofty superstructure and towering masts, would be visible from a distance of more than 10 miles.

If the target had been traveling at the speed the intelligence report said it would travel; if Mako was not detected as it rose to make the periscope observation; if Captain Mealey could get an accurate range on the target and get the “angle on the bow” so the target’s course could be determined as a check on the sonar bearings; if Mako could get back down to 250 feet, then Captain Mealey and Joe Sirocco would have a set of accurate data on which to base the solution of the torpedo problem.

The telephone talkers passed the word in whispers throughout the ship that the Captain was going up to take a look and there was a dead silence in Mako as the ship planed upward through the water. This was the first of what could be a number of crucial moments. If a patrolling aircraft saw Mako’s long, dark shadow beneath the surface of the clear water, if the white feather of the periscope’s wake attracted the eye of a lookout on a destroyer, the long run to get into position would be wasted and Mako would be the target of a dozen destroyers and no one knew how many aircraft as the target, the battleship, alerted, sped for the safety of Truk Atoll.

“Make turns for two knots,” Captain Mealey said as the depth gauge showed 110 feet. “I’m going to raise the scope at eighty-five feet, Control, watch your angle when I do.” Raising the periscope would create a drag that would tend to tip Mako’s bow upward more than desired.

Mealey squatted down by the periscope well and raised his left palm upward as a signal to Paul Botts to raise the periscope. Botts pushed the button that raised the periscope and stopped it as the periscope handles cleared the deck. Mealey snapped the handles outward and rotated the periscope until the lenses were in line with the last bearing given by Cohen.

“Seven zero feet and holding a half-degree up bubble,” Simms reported from the Control Room.

“Very well,” Mealey said. “Up periscope!” He clung to the handles, his face pressed against the heavy rubber eyepiece, his forehead tight against the rubber bumper above the eyepiece, clinging to the periscope handles as it rose upward.

“Six eight feet! six seven feet!” Simms chanted. “Six five feet, sir, and holding!”

“Mark!” Mealey snapped.

“Bearing — three three eight!” Botts sang out. Captain Mealey was rotating the range finder knob below the right handle of the periscope.

“Range! One three zero zero zero yards! Angle on the bow one five starboard! Down ‘scope! Take me down, Control! Fast! Aircraft on our starboard beam! Two destroyers bearing zero two five! Hard Dive! Hard Dive!”

“Six seconds!” Grilley said, looking up from the stop-watch that hung around his neck on a cord. “That is one damned fast periscope observation!”

“You’re not kidding,” Sirocco grunted. He plotted the position of the target and fiddled with the Is-Was.

“Everything is on the nose, Captain,” he reported. “The target has to run twelve thousand yards to the point of intercept. The target will reach that point in twenty-five minutes!”

“Two five zero feet, Captain,” Simms interrupted. “Making turns for four knots, sir.”

“Give me your recommended speeds, Joe,” Mealey asked.

“We will be at the shooting point in fifteen minutes at this speed, sir,” Sirocco answered. “We’ll have too much time to stooge around. Recommend we run at four knots for eight minutes and then slow to two knots. We should be able to come up at our shooting range of eight hundred yards at that point.”

“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. He turned to Edge.

“Work that out on the TDC.” Sirocco heard the order and his craggy face flushed slightly.

“Reduce speed to two knots at seven minutes and fifty-five seconds from the time of observation,” Mealey ordered. Grilley looked at Sirocco and grinned. The difference of five seconds was meaningless but it was a continuing rebuke to Sirocco’s suggestion to the Commanding Officer that he go up for a look.

“Mr. Cohen,” Mealey’s voice was crisp. “Try to keep one ear on the target. Advise me at once if he changes his speed or course and continue to give me all you have on the other ships.”

“The ships out ahead of the target are doing what they have been doing, sir,” Cohen said. “Running back and forth across the target’s course. The decibel level is rising steadily, they’re getting closer to us. Main target’s screws are steady.”

Sirocco took a plotting sheet and climbed half way up the Conning Tower ladder, resting his broad back against the rim of the hatch. Mealey turned and squatted to look at the plot.

“Captain,” Sirocco said, “if the ships sweeping ahead of the target peel off and go back toward the target’s stern to sweep there they should be passing over us when we are less than three minutes from our shooting point.”

“We’ll go up then,” Mealey said. His forefinger traced the track on the plotting sheet. “They’ll be making so much noise they won’t be able to hear us coming up or hear the outer tube doors being opened.” He touched the plotting sheet again.

“I don’t think any of the four destroyers out front will go into the atoll. This is the sticky part of the voyage for them. I think they’ll all peel off and circle backward, that’s what I’d order if I were in command of them.” Sirocco looked at the stop-watch that hung around his neck.

“Suggest we reduce speed to two knots, sir. We’re within a thousand yards of our shooting point. We have fourteen minutes to go before we shoot!”

“Make turns for two knots,” Captain Mealey said.

“Two sets of twin screws, one behind the other and coming this way!” Cohen’s voice floated up through the hatch. “This seems to be consistent with the previous maneuvering but now they’re a lot closer to us!”

In the Forward Torpedo Room Ginty cocked his head suddenly and listened.

“Ship movin’ fast out there on the port bow,” he said slowly. “Got to be one of the tin cans guardin’ the wagon. Son of a bitch ain’t too far away, either! Listen, they’s another one!” He moved down the length of the room, his restless hands plucking at the block and tackle that would be used to haul the reload torpedoes into the tubes.

“If those bastards pick us up and start droppin’ shit on us don’t grab at the fuckin’ fish!” he growled at a young sailor from the Engine Rooms who had been picked for the reload crew because he was as strong as a horse. “You got to grab somethin’,” Ginty continued, “grab your cock!”

“You think we’ll get depth charged, Ginch?”

“Fucking ay!” Ginty snorted. “That Old Man back there in the Connin’ Tower ain’t got no blood in his veins! He’s fulla ice water! Ain’t no skipper in this whole fuckin’ Navy got the guts to make an approach like this, bust right underneath twelve tin cans! When he sticks that fuckin’ ‘scope up he’s gonna start shootin’ at that fuckin’ wagon and them destroyer captains is gonna go nuts and they’ll hit us with more shit than you ever heard!”

As the enemy’s screws thudded louder and louder Cohen began to draw his skinny legs together and to sit straight up on his stool. Sirocco noticed that Cohen’s knees were now almost touching and he wondered if the change in Cohen’s position was unconscious, that as danger grew nearer the move to close his legs had been a defensive reflex to protect his genital area. Sirocco shook himself, he had more to think about than wondering about Cohen’s legs. He bent over his plot. Cohen was sending him a stream of bearings now and Sirocco and Grilley plotted rapidly.

“Give me the time to shooting, Plot,” Mealey’s voice seemed detached, without emotion. He stood in the Conning Tower, looking at Bob Edge and Paul Botts and seeing neither man. In his mind’s eye he was seeing the deployment of the ships above and ahead of him, sorting them out from the profusion of bearings that Cohen was feeding to the Plotting party. He was preparing himself for the critical moments that are the acid test of a submarine commander in war, the ability to make accurate judgments of critical distances, speeds and angles. The Executive Officer with his Is-Was and the officer on the TDC would work out the firing problem but it was the information he fed to them as he looked through the periscope that would determine a successful attack or a failure. It was his judgment of the maneuvers the destroyer captains would go through that would determine if Mako carried out the full attack and got away or whether Mako went down, a victim of the destroyers’ attacks.

“Four minutes, Captain,” Sirocco said. “We can begin to come to periscope depth in one minute if the escort ships leave.”

“Very well,” Mealey said. “I’m going to shoot all six tubes forward as he goes by us and then swing ship and give him the after tubes.”

“He’s just over six hundred feet long, sir.” Sirocco said. “At fifteen knots he’ll pass the first firing point in about twenty-five seconds, sir.”

“Understood,” Captain Mealey said. He cocked his head upward as the thunder of ship’s screws overhead filled Mako’s hull with sound, shaking the ship.

“Three ships have turned this way and are coming over us,” Cohen’s voice was cracking slightly. “Target ship is steady on course, no change in speed, sir.”

Mealey touched the right side of his mustache with his forefinger. He had hoped only two ships would turn toward Mako, leaving the other two destroyers of the van on the far side of the target and temporarily out of the fight.

“Sixty-five feet,” he ordered. “We’ll open the torpedo tube outer doors at one hundred feet! Torpedo Officer to the After Room. Chief of the Boat to the Forward Room!”

Sirocco looked at the depth gauge in front of the bow planesman. It read 175 feet, the long black needle moving. The needle passed 150 feet and then 120, 110.

“Open outer doors on all torpedo tubes!” Captain Mealey ordered, his voice crisp. He looked down into the Control Room from his squatting position beside the periscope well.

In the Forward Torpedo Room, which had no depth gauge, Ginty had been watching a gauge that showed the water pressure outside of Mako’s hull. As the needle of that gauge crept downward Ginty placed the socket of a big Y-wrench over a stud on the end of a shaft that would turn a worm gear and open the outer torpedo tube door and slide back the hull shutter for Number One tube. He nodded at Johnny Paul, who put his own Y-wrench in position on the stud beside Number Two tube.

The pressure needle touched 44.4 pounds and Ginty heaved mightily on the Y-wrench as the telephone talker cried, “Open all outer torpedo tube doors!” Ginty’s broad back seemed to widen as he spun the wrench viciously, felt the door come up against the stops and then he whipped the wrench off and started on the tube below Number One, the Number Three tube. He finished opening that door and dropped down into the bilge in front of Number Five tube and wrestled the big wrench around in a flashing circle. The reload crew listened in awe to Ginty’s mighty gasps for air in the humid heat of the Torpedo Room. Ginty felt Number Five door come up against the stop and glanced upward. Paul was still working on his second outer door, to Number Four tube.

“Shit!” Ginty grunted. He slammed his wrench onto the stud on the bottom tube of Paul’s bank, Number Six.

“Watcha fuckin’ legs,” he snapped as he spun the last tube door open.

“Tell ‘em, fuckhead!” he gasped at the telephone talker. As the talker reported, Ginty hoisted himself up to the deck, his big chest heaving as he fought for air, hearing the talker finish his report with “Green board. Forward, Bridge!”

“After Room?” Ginty gasped.

“Reporting now, we beat ‘em!”

“Fuckin’ ay we beat ‘em! Six tubes to four and we beat ‘em!” He took up a position between the two vertical banks of torpedo tubes, his meaty hand resting lightly on the brass metal guard over the manual firing key of Number One tube.

“Eighty feet!” the telephone talkers whispered. “The periscope’s going up!”

As the periscope rose out of its well Captain Mealey grabbed the handles and rode it upward until he was standing, crouched slightly, staring through the lens as it cut through the water below the surface.

“Watch your depth!” he snapped. “Lens is breaking water! Bring me up to sixty-five feet!” Sirocco heard Captain Mealey’s breath go out in a mighty whoosh.

“Mark!” Mealey snapped.

“Bearing — three five zero!” Botts said to Edge, who cranked the information in to the TDC.

“Range…” Mealey’s finger found the range knob. “Range to the target is seven zero zero! Angle on the bow is zero nine zero!”

“You can begin shooting in ten seconds, sir,” Edge said.

“My God!” Captain Mealey’s voice held a note of awe. “He fills the whole field of vision! There are men on the foc’sle, anchor detail, I think!”

“Stand by, Forward!” Sirocco said quietly into his telephone.

Two thousand feet above the water the pilot of a VAL dive bomber banked his aircraft slightly to get a better look at the battleship. His eyes widened as he saw the dark shape of Mako ahead of him. He tipped his plane over in a shallow dive and then he saw the tiny feather of white foam midway down the dark shape and identified it for what it was, the periscope of a submarine. He yelled into his throat microphone and tipped his VAL over in a nearly vertical dive, centering the cross hairs on the plastic windshield on the tiny feather of foam beneath him.