Final Harbor

Chapter 18

“Fire one!” Captain Mealey barked.

Ensign Botts pressed the firing key in the Conning Tower and repeated Mealey’s order into the telephone that hung around his neck. Ginty jammed two thick fingers down on the manual firing key a split second after the impulse firing air roared into the flooded torpedo tube at 600 pounds pressure to the square inch, kicking the torpedo forward, tripping the torpedo’s firing latch and starting the torpedo’s steam engine into screaming life.

“Number One fired electrically!” Ginty bellowed at his telephone talker. “Standing by Number Two!” He reached up and back with a long arm and yanked open the poppet valve lever for Number One tube. The sea water rushing into the empty torpedo tube pushed the impulse firing air backward and down through the poppet valve vent line into the bilge, thus avoiding any telltale bubble of air outside the ship that could betray its position.

“Fire two!” Captain Mealey was counting to himself, allowing six seconds between each shot.

“My God, he’s a big one!” Mealey said. “Stand by Three!”

“Number Two fired electrically!” Ginty yelled and moved out from between the torpedo tubes as Johnny Paul ducked in to take his place. A frenzied ballet of strength, agility and cooperation had begun in the Forward Torpedo Room.

Once a torpedo has been fired and the firing air has been gulped back into the ship through the poppet valves, those valves must be closed and the outer tube door closed. Then a series of drain valves must be opened, air pressure put on the tube and the sea water that filled the torpedo tube after firing blown down into a special holding tank called the WRT, the Water ‘Round Torpedo tank. Then the air has to be shut off, the valves closed, the tube vented of all pressure and the inner door opened so that the torpedo tube can be reloaded. The torpedo is pulled into the tube with a block and tackle (the “tagle”) positioned precisely in the tube, the inner door closed and locked and if the torpedo is to be made ready for firing again valves must be opened, air pressure put on the WRT tank and the tube vented and water blown up around the torpedo and the impulse air tank which fires the torpedo out of the tube charged. After which the outer door must be opened and the gyro spindle engaged through the side of the torpedo tube into the torpedo.

To do all of this precisely and swiftly requires long and arduous training. To do it under battle conditions, to fire all six torpedo tubes and start a reload before the last tube has been fired requires a degree of cooperation, exquisite timing and enormous physical strength from a group of men that is seldom seen anywhere outside of the submarine service.

“Number Three fired electrically!” Johnny Paul yelled.

The VAL dive bomber’s two bombs, released a fraction of a second too late, missed Mako’s periscope and landed just above the Forward Torpedo Room with a booming crash, driving Ginty to his knees and throwing the reload crew around the room like rag dolls. Ginty hauled himself upright, his big hand reaching for the poppet valve lever of Number Three tube.

Dusty Rhodes had wrestled the inner door open on Number One tube. He turned to yell at the reload crew.

“Unstrap that fish and get it moving, you bastards!”

“We’re being depth charged!” a man yelled. He turned and started for the closed water-tight door at the end of the Torpedo Room. Rhodes was on him in three long strides, catching the man’s shoulders in his powerful hands, his mouth close to the man’s ear.

“Don’t panic!” he half-whispered. “It’s all right! A little noise! The Old Man’s still shooting! He’s depending on us! Just keep your eyes open, your ears open, watch me, listen to me!” He released the man and spun back to his position, noticing that Ginty was closing the outer door to Number Two tube with one hand, spinning the big Y-wrench as if it were a toy. The torpedo was sliding into the Number One tube and as its screws passed the set of rollers on a heavy stand in back of the tube, Rhodes raised his hand to stop the reload crew heaving on the tagle. He took the tagle off the torpedo.

“Lay out that tagle for Number Two,” Rhodes barked. He turned and put his big hands carefully on the exhaust pipe of the torpedo, braced his back against the rollers and pushed the torpedo the rest of the way into the tube with sheer strength, moving it gently until he felt it come up against the stop bolt. He grabbed the brass propeller safety guard from the torpedo and stuck it in his pocket and closed the inner door. Automatically, he reached over and adjusted the tail bumper stop in the center of the inner door. Moving swiftly and surely, he blew water up around the torpedo from the WRT tank, closed the valves, vented off the tube, charged the impulse tank and opened the outer door and made way for Ginty, who was closing the outer door on Number Three.

“Engage the gyro on Number One!” Rhodes barked at Johnny Paul.

“Fire four!” Captain Mealey’s voice was vibrant with emotion. The target was visible again, the huge sheet of water thrown up by the exploding bombs had subsided. He saw two aircraft above the battleship, streaking toward him. He counted down slowly. Mako and Captain Mealey were committed. The firing would go on, one torpedo every six seconds until all the torpedoes had been fired or the target had sunk.

“First two fish running hot, straight and normal!” Cohen’s voice sang out. “Can’t hear Number Three running. Number Four is running hot, straight and normal!”

‘A hit!” Mealey yelled. “Just abaft his bow! There’s another hit! Farther aft! There’s smoke over his bow!”

“Fire five!..

“Fire six!.. There’s another hit! Lots of smoke over his bow! ‘All back emergency!

“Right full rudder!

“Give me all you’ve got, maneuvering!”

Mealey felt the Mako shudder under his feet as Chief Hendershot in the Maneuvering Room threw all the voltage and amperage in Mako’s two huge storage batteries across the buses of the electric propulsion motors, adjusting the immense, surging power with a delicate touch so as not to blow out the circuit breakers and leave Mako helpless, without propulsion. Mako began to go astern, gathering way, her bow swinging widely to port. A second VAL sighted on the periscope, stooped and shot downward. The two bombs missed well to the right side of Mako’s swinging bow.

“All stop!

“All ahead full!

“All ahead full! Stand by to shoot aft!” Mealey twisted the periscope around.

“Another hit! Right under her bridge! Here we go, Plot!”

“Mark!” Botts read the azimuth ring bearing and Edge cranked the bearing into the TDC.

“Range… six zero! Meet your helm right there! Meet it, damn it! Don’t take me off course!

“Angle on the bow… one four zero starboard!” He looked at the battleship, hearing the gears in the TDC whir.

“We’ve got a solution, sir,” Edge said.

“Fire seven!” Mealey counted down from six to one.

“Fire eight!”

The precision ballet began in the After Torpedo Room with Mike DeLucia as the ballet master and Lieut. Don Grilley assisting.

“Fire nine!

“Fire ten! Another hit! Under his after turrets! Lots of smoke from his bow! Now there are flames shooting way above his bow! There’s a big explosion, lots of flame! Another hit! Amidships! Six hits! Six hits!” He swung the periscope around, chanting the bearings of the ships racing toward him.

“Range to the nearest destroyer… three zero zero zero yards… I’m going to have to shoot at this one!”

“Torpedo Tubes One and Two reloaded forward,” Sirocco’s voice held a note of repressed excitement. “Outer doors open, gyro spindles engaged, depth set two feet. Number Seven aft is ready, outer door open, gyro spindle engaged, depth set two feet. Number Eight will be ready in five seconds, sir! You’ve got One and Two forward and Seven and Eight aft!”

“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. He steadied on the onrushing destroyer.

“Zero gyro angle! He’s coming too fast for a plot! Right down his throat!.. Stand by… Fire one!” He paused. “Close tube outer doors! Flood negative! Take me down! Fast, Control, damn it, fast! Left full rudder! Down periscope! Stand by for depth charge attack!”

The torpedo burst out of the Number One tube and flashed toward the destroyer that was rushing at Mako. It roared down the destroyer’s port side, missing by 10 yards, leaving behind a trail of bubbles that reduced the lookout on the destroyer’s port side to gibbering fright. The destroyer’s captain, recognizing the lookout’s stammering shriek for what it was, pressed the buzzer to alert the depth charge crews at the destroyer’s stern and at the two Y-guns that would hurl charges far out to each side. He picked up his VHF microphone.

“Eagle’s Feather One to Eagle,” he said calmly. “We have the enemy in sight and have commenced an attack run. Enemy fired one torpedo, missing down our port side.” He nodded to his gunnery officer and the two Y-guns boomed and the depth charges began to roll off the squat stern of the destroyer.

“Drop is made, sir,” the gunnery officer reported. “Depth charge exploders were set for one hundred feet.” The destroyer captain nodded. Back of his ship there was a low rumble and the ocean began to erupt in great gouts of water.

On the bridge of the Fubuki destroyer leader designated as Eagle, Fleet Captain Akihito Hideki of the Imperial Japanese Navy, lately the commander of the Japanese Navy’s Advanced School for Anti-Submarine Warfare, rubbed his small gray goatee. Captain Hideki was a small man, physically, with delicate bones and a scholarly manner. That manner and his standing as the ranking expert in the Japanese Navy’s anti-submarine warfare department had led to his nickname, the “Professor.”

He rubbed his goatee again and then smoothed it and turned to the Eagle’s commander.

“Please tell all the Small Birds to deploy in a half circle from here to here….” His narrow forefinger traced a line on the chart that lay on the table beside the Eagle Captain’s position at the starboard wing of the bridge.

“Small Birds are to form a sonar listening line and report to us. Eagle’s Feathers One and Three form up port and starboard of Eagle’s Feather Two. Ask our friends in the Air Force on the atoll to please put some observation planes in the air at once. The water is very clear. They should be able to see the submarine down as far as two hundred feet.”

“The battleship, sir?” Eagle’s Captain’s face was stricken. The safety of the battleship had been the responsibility of the destroyer squadron and he was second in command only to the Professor.

“We can do nothing for her now,” the Professor said calmly. He steadied his binoculars and looked at the burning ship.

“She still has some way on her. I presume her commander is trying to beach her on the reef. The fires appear to be out of control.”

A junior officer approached, saluting smartly.

“Your message sent and acknowledged, sir.” The Professor nodded and looked down at the chart. Then he raised his head and looked at the battleship, flames soaring high above its forward turret area.

“A skilled, daring attack!” he said slowly. “Does the battleship commander know how many torpedoes were fired at him? How many hits he took?”

“He reported seeing the wakes of nine torpedoes, sir. He took seven hits, all down near the keel. The second torpedo set fire to his ammunition storage for the forward turrets, sir.” The junior officer was standing at ramrod attention, his moon face impassive.

“Lucky shooting!” Eagle’s commander said.

“No!” the Professor said. He touched the chart with his forefinger. “Eagle’s Feather One attacked here. The submarine got under us undetected and closed to point-blank range! That is not luck! That is skill and daring! Seven hits out of nine torpedoes is remarkable shooting! And getting his hits below the armor plating! We’d better make a note to inform Intelligence that the Americans have apparently solved their torpedo problems.” He looked at the chart again.

“He fired nine at the battleship and saved one if he were attacked. He fired that one at Eagle’s Feather Two and missed. So now his fangs are drawn! He can’t risk a reload, reloading torpedoes is a noisy and slow business.” He rubbed his hands together and the skin made a dry, rasping sound.

“You know, I’d like to meet with this man below us, talk to him! But that is impossible because we are going to kill him! So we must now put ourselves in his place, think as he will think.” He turned to Eagle’s Captain.

“When I had you as a student you were very good at putting yourself in the place of a commander of a Japanese submarine. Now let me see how you will put yourself in the place of an American submarine commander! What will he do, do you think?”

The destroyer Captain looked at the plot drawn in on the chart by one of the junior officers.

“If I were he? I’d head straight for the target!” he said calmly. “He’d like us to believe that he might go into the atoll itself but he knows we won’t believe that. It would be too easy to put the cork in that bottle and keep him inside. But he should head for the battleship. Before he gets there he will turn to starboard and head down the reef. We would have trouble following him with sonar if he did that, the reef would interfere.”

“I agree with you up to there,” the Professor said. “But if he follows the reef line he is restricted; he can only go in two directions, forward and to his starboard. He knows by now that we have a number of ships after him. We could wall him off if he went along the reef.”

“But he might make his turn in that direction, follow the reef for a short distance to fool us and then make his move to go to the open sea, hope to find a layer out there and lose us.”

“I think that is what he will do, Isoruku,” the Professor used his former student’s given name easily. “There are no layers in this area where we are now but there are some farther out.”

“You anticipated an attack close to the entrance?” The destroyer Captain’s eyes widened slightly.

“No, I did not,” the Professor said. “I anticipated an attack, one always does that. But the logical place for the attack would have been farther out to sea and with more than one submarine. I ordered the layer check so I could know conditions.”

“Contact!” the radio operator on the bridge sang out. “Eagle’s Feather Two reports it has the target on sonar and is pinging. Bearing three five five, sir. Target is at two five zero feet and moving slowly.”

The Professor bent over the chart. “He’s on a course to the target! He is doing what you had anticipated he would do! As I anticipated he would do! Which means that he is intelligent!

“Order Eagle’s Feather Two to maintain the contact. Eagle’s Feather One and Three will form up behind and to each side of the sonar ship. I suggest that we take position astern and see what this fellow does.”

Captain Mealey looked down at the plot Joe Sirocco had drawn of the attack, noting the positions of the enemy ships.

“We’re going to have to make a turn very soon,” he said. “What’s that son of a bitch thinking about up there, what are all those sons of bitches thinking about?” He touched his white mustache gently. He put his finger on the chart.

“We have several courses of action. We could run for the entrance and go inside and he won’t believe we’d do that because we won’t, it would be suicide.

“We could turn to starboard and run down the edge of the reef but if we did that we’d be restricted, no maneuverability. But we could do that and make the bastard think that’s what we’re going to do and then turn to sea.

“The problem is that we have no chance for deception. He’s got us on sonar and he’s going to know what we’re up to as soon as we start anything. So we’ll keep it simple, we’ll come left and go out to sea, or try to do that.” He looked at Nate Cohen.

“Do you have anything on the battleship?”

“The target is still under way,” Cohen said. “He’s going very slowly, I can only hear one screw. He bears zero zero five.”

“We crippled the son of a bitch,” Mealey growled. “Why the hell doesn’t he sink with six fish hitting him?”

“He might be sinking now,” Sirocco said. “He’s close to the reef, getting closer each bearing. He might be taking a lot of water and trying to get his bow up on the reef before he sinks.”

“Two ships bearing one zero six and two zero zero and making slow turns,” Cohen said.

“They’re waiting for us to make our move,” Mealey said. He studied the plot closely.

“Okay, let’s start the performance, gentlemen. Left full rudder and steady on course zero zero zero. Make turns for two knots. I’m not going to waste the battery any more than I have to.”

“Another set of screws crossing astern, sir,” Cohen said. The sound of the searching ship’s sonar beam hitting Mako was making a ringing sound throughout the ship. In the Forward Torpedo Room Ginty looked at Rhodes.

“Bastard has got us nailed! Why in fuck don’t he start droppin’ his shit?”

“He will,” Rhodes said. He went down the room touching each member of the reload crew and the room’s torpedomen lightly on the shoulders or arms.

“Let’s keep it very quiet, fellows. Very quiet! It’s going to get awful noisy in a little while!”

“Four hundred feet,” Captain Mealey said to Pete Simms. He turned to Sirocco. “We’ll let him get a half dozen good pings on us, enough to show him that his triangulation indicates we’re down deeper than before. That will mean he’ll have to reset his depth charger exploders and that will give us some time.”

“Steady on course zero zero zero, sir,” the helmsman said.

“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. “As soon as he starts his run — let me know, Nate, when he does that — as soon as he does we’ll go down to six hundred feet. Throw the bastard off!”

On the bridge of the destroyer designated as Eagle the radio operator sang out.

“Eagle’s Feather Two reports target is on course zero zero zero and is now at four zero zero feet, sir.”

“To all captains,” the destroyer’s Captain snapped. “Reset depth charge exploders for five hundred feet!”

The professor smiled to himself as he walked a few steps away from the younger officer. His face was glowing, this submarine captain was an expert! Few if any of his own Navy’s submarine captains had shown as much imagination as this American down below when they were acting as targets for his anti-submarine warfare school destroyers. A worthy opponent, this man down below him, a worthy opponent for a man recognized as knowing more about killing a submarine than any other Naval officer in the world!

“The target is steady on his course and depth, sir,” the destroyer’s Captain said. “Would you do me the honor of taking command of this depth charge run?”

“No,” the Professor said. “You are doing very well, sir. I leave that honor to you.” He stood at the bridge wing as Eagle took position to begin the first depth charge attack.

In Mako’s Control Room all eyes were on Nate Cohen’s lean back. Cohen raised his head lightly and Sirocco tensed, ready to pencil in the bearing he knew Cohen was about to give.

“Very slow twin screws bearing one eight zero, sir,” Cohen said. “That’s the ship that has been pinging on us. One ship bearing one six five, one ship bearing one nine zero. One set of twin screws had circled those three ships and is coming to a bearing, now he’s steady on one eight zero and he’s picking up speed! This is an attack run, sir!”

Captain Mealey picked up a telephone and pressed the talk button.

“This is the Captain speaking. All telephone talkers pass this word. The dance is about to begin. All men not needed to man stations get into bunks and stay there. Report any damage to the Control Room at once.” He turned to Nate Cohen.

“He’s coming fast, now, Captain. He’s committed!”

“Six hundred feet!” Mealey said to Simms. The Engineering Officer’s eyes widened in protest. Mako was built to operate at a maximum depth of 400 feet with a 50 percent safety factor. Six hundred feet was her theoretical maximum depth, one to be risked only if circumstances made the depth unavoidable. He turned to the men on the bow and stern planes.

“Five degree down bubble. Six hundred feet.”

“Here he comes!” Mike DeLucia said to Lieut. Don Grilley in the After Torpedo Room. The sound of the destroyer’s screws began to fill Mako’s hull as the ship up above raced down Mako’s invisible wake.

In the Control Room Captain Mealey unconsciously rose to the balls of his feet and stood, quietly, beside the gyro table. As the sound of the destroyer’s screws built to a roar within Mako’s hull he said,

“Right full rudder! All ahead flank! He can’t hear us now, he’s making too much noise! How’s the depth?”

“Five hundred and fifty feet, sir,” Simms reported, his voice rising in an effort to be heard over the sound that was filling Mako’s hull.

“He’s dropped charges!” Cohen yelled. “Two other sets of screws back there are picking up speed, sir!”

Cohen half-turned on his stool to see if Captain Mealey had heard him and the first depth charges exploded with a gigantic roar that hurled Mako sideways and downward. Cohen was thrown from his stool. Sirocco, who was standing at the chart table gripping its edge with both hands, felt himself lifted and then flung bodily into Captain Mealey, who crumpled under Sirocco’s weight and went sliding across the deck into the legs of the machinist mate who was stationed at the high pressure air manifold, bringing that man down in a heap. The lights went out, leaving only the feeble glow of the emergency lanterns. The helmsman, who had been thrown backward into Lieutenant Simms, picked himself up and got back to the helm.

“No power!” he said. “We’ve lost power to the helm, sir!”

“Shift to manual power on the bow and stern planes and the helm,” Mealey croaked from the other side of the Control Room where he was trying to untangle himself from the machinist’s mate. Cohen, flat on his back, but still wearing his earphones, rolled over.

“Two more sets of screws coming fast, sir! This is an attack run!” He got to his knees and reached for his stool and then thought better of it and sat on the deck, his stool cradled between his legs, his eyes on his dials.

“Left full rudder!” Mealey snapped as he got to his feet. “Come back to zero zero zero!”

“Both ships have dropped charges, sir!” Cohen said.

Mako bucked and rolled under the impact of a dozen or more depth charges dropped by Eagle’s Feathers One and Three. A spray of water jetted across the Forward Engine Room and Chief John Barber scrambled to the fitting with a wrench in his hand and brought the stream down to a trickle.

“Damage reports!” Captain Mealey snapped. Sirocco spoke softly into his telephone set.

“Nothing major, Captain. Electrical power is being restored, circuit breakers jumped out for the lights and auxiliary systems. Some minor leaks, nothing serious. Few bruises and bumps but no broken bones.”

“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. “What do you hear, Nate?”

“Hard to hear anything right at the moment because of all the disturbance from the depth charges, sir,” Cohen said. “That’s why he isn’t pinging on us. But he’ll be back in a minute.”

Mealey touched Dick Smalley, the Gunner’s Mate who was manning the bow planes, on the shoulder.

“Our depth charge exploder mechanisms have a limit of what, four hundred feet, Gunner?”

“Yessir,” Smalley said. “But the book says if you screw the spring down to more than three seventy-five you might rupture the diaphragm and get a dud. Chief I know on a tin can told me that they had orders never to set charges for deeper than three fifty, sir and that they had failures even then.”

“Let’s hope their depth charges have the same limitation,” Mealey said, “but from the sound of that last barrage they seem to be deeper than that. If we can stay below his depth charges we can get out of here with nothing worse than a bad shaking up!”

The destroyer designated as Eagle swung back in a long curve, heading for the place where the bulk of the depth charges had been dropped.

“All lookouts keep their eyes open,” the destroyer Captain said. “Look for an oil slick, debris of any kind or large air bubbles.”

“I hope with you,” the Professor said softly to the younger man. “But I don’t think we got him! A beautiful attack! But I am sure this man down there is a thinker. It is easy only in the classroom, eh? Do we still have contact with him?”

The radio operator overheard the question and answered without being asked.

“Eagle’s Feather Two has resumed sonar search, sir.” A junior officer trotted on to the bridge with a message flimsy in his hand, saluted and handed over the message and then retreated.

“This is an intercepted message, sir,” the destroyer’s Captain said to the Professor. “The Captain of the battleship is reporting to the command at Truk that he has grounded his ship on the reef. Fires are still out of control. A list of casualties will follow later. At present he is estimating three hundred or more dead.”

“If this were an American movie we’d all be going through the ceremony of Hara-kari,” the Professor said with a small smile. “And then who would be left to catch this man underneath our keels, eh?”

“The ceremony is an honorable one!” The destroyer’s Captain spoke in stiff, formal tones.

“Oh, I grant you that!” the Professor said “But so wasteful when there is so much work to be done. Arte purire sua, the old Romans were fond of saying. ‘One perishes by one’s own cunning.’ This is a cunning fox we fight. We must help him perish by his own cunning!”

“Contact!” the radio operator’s voice was loud. “Eagle’s Feather Two has contact with the enemy, sir!” The destroyer’s Captain looked at his superior officer.

“Again, sir, would you like the honor of conducting this attack?”

“And again, no thank you. But I appreciate your courtesy.”

“Sir, this man below us is clever! I would feel better if you were in charge.”

“Very well,” the Professor said. “We will enjoy a joint effort, the two of us pitted against the one man below. I have one suggestion; we know that he turns to one side or the other as soon as one ship begins its high speed run to drop charges. Then he comes back to his original course to foil the other two who are attacking and staying well outside the first ship’s run.

“Eagle’s Feather Two has done all the sonar work so far and her commander must be impatient. So I suggest that you issue him orders to make a delayed attack up the middle of the attack plot and see if we can catch this fellow after he sneaks back on his original course, eh?”

The younger man nodded, a small grin touching his lips. The Professor was a tricky man, he had sent many a destroyer commander almost weeping in rage and frustration to his quarters at his anti-submarine school. He issued the necessary orders in a harsh, chopped voice and the destroyers under his command began to form up for the attack. As his own ship heeled in a tight turn and took position he nodded at the signal officer and a bright flag at the foremast yardarm snapped open as its binding cord was pulled and Eagle moved to the attack, its screws biting the water, the depth charge crews standing ready. The second assault on Mako was under way.

The first attack had done little real damage to the submarine. The electricians had quickly replaced the few light bulbs that had broken. The cork insulation that had rained down in the first burst of charges and the broken glass from gauge faces had been tidied up.

Ginty was swearing softly in the Forward Room as he massaged a purpling bruise on his massive thigh, suffered when he had been thrown from his feet against the face of one of the torpedo tubes. Dusty Rhodes wore a large bump on his forehead from hitting a torpedo tube rack. Johnny Paul, his face white, managed a smile.

“God! I’m glad that’s over!”

“Shit!” Ginty rumbled. “This is on’y the beginnin’! They’s twelve fucking tin cans up there and that means they got a lotta depth charges!” He looked at the small clock near the torpedo tube doors.

“It’s only zero nine hundred, means we got about nine, ten hours of daylight up there! Them fuckers got plenty of time to throw everything they got at us and time to run more charges out from that base they got inside the reef!”

In the After Torpedo Room Mike DeLucia looked at Grilley. “It ain’t fun, sir!”

Grilley nodded and squinted at a pressure gauge on the board next to the tubes. He did the mathematics in his head; 310 pounds of sea pressure divided by 44.4 pounds for each 100 feet. He blinked his eyes in surprise: 700 feet?

“My God,” he said in a wondering tone. “We’re at seven hundred feet!” In a bunk up near the overhead on the port side a man began to sob uncontrollably. Grilley moved to the bunk and stood on tiptoe so his head was just above the bunk rail. He saw the man’s contorted face, the tears staining his cheeks.

“We’re gonna die!” the man sobbed, spittle spraying from his bitten, bloody lips.

Grilley felt suddenly helpless. He reached out hesitantly and put his hand on the man’s shoulder and felt his body shaking violently. He patted the bare shoulder.

“You’re not going to die, none of us is going to die! Look at that pressure gauge over there! We’re down at seven hundred feet! Depth charges can’t hurt us down that deep, they just make a lot of noise! The Captain knows what he’s doing. It’s going to be noisy for a few more hours but we’ll be all right!”

The man’s head turned toward him and Grilley saw the naked fear in the man’s eyes. The man’s mouth opened and then shut and Grilley saw his teeth clamp together on his lower lip and bite in and a fresh stream of blood ran down the man’s chin. He patted the shaking shoulder again.

“Now get yourself under control, fella! We’re going to need you for another reload in a little while, okay?”

He turned away, a sick feeling in his stomach. How did you deal with that kind of terrible fear? DeLucia saw the indecision on Grilley’s face and, with the wisdom of years of submarine service, spoke up.

“You heard the Lieutenant! Were under any depth charges that go off so they ain’t gonna do any harm! The Old Man knows what he’s doing! Got right under twelve Jap destroyers and punched that Jap battleship fulla holes, didn’t he? So he knows what he’s doin’! All you guys button your fucking lips and listen to me. And to the Lieutenant. All we got to do is wait it out!”

“That’s what I don’t like,” one of the reload crew said. “While we’re waitin’ the Jap is figurin’ things out. Japs are good at figurin’ things out, Mike, real good! They’ll figure what we’re doin’ and they’ll stay after us!”

“They can figure all they want but they won’t know,” Grilley said. “Now let’s knock off the talking and noise.”

In the Control Room Captain Mealey was studying Sirocco’s plotting board. He reached for an eraser hanging from the edge of the gyro table by a cord and erased a long pencil mark left by the pencil Sirocco was holding when he was thrown across the gyro table.

“We’ve got five ships on the plot, Joe. Where are the other eight destroyers?”

“I lost contact with Gamma, the single-screw ships we had earlier, Captain,” Cohen said. “All I have now is the Delta group, four fast ships with twin screws, the ones who have been attacking.” He rattled off four sets of bearings and Sirocco plotted them in on his chart.

“They’re sitting up there waiting to see what we’re going to do,” Captain Mealey said. “Aaron, what do you have on that bathythermograph?”

The bathythermograph, a crude instrument, measured the temperature of the water and the submarine’s depth in a line scrawled by a tiny stylus on a piece of smoked paper. Some years earlier oceanographers had discovered that there were random areas in the oceans that were saltier than the surrounding waters. The saltier areas were colder by a few degrees than the water around them and dense enough to cause a sonar beam to deflect, or bounce off them and continue without bouncing back to the transmitting ship’s receiver. The effect was that the searching ship would believe its sonar beam had hit nothing and therefore there was no ship in the area.

If a submarine could locate one of those saltier areas, or “layers” as they were called, and could stay under it, the chances of being detected by searching ships was very small. The hunters could not hear the submarine. Nor could the submarine hear the hunters but that drawback was acceptable to a submarine under attack.

“All isothermal, sir,” Aaron said. “No layers.”

A ringing ping! hit the ship and then another and another.

“Here they come!” Cohen said. “One, two, no, three ships coming very fast!”

The growing thunder of the destroyers moving to the attack shook Mako’s hull. Within Mako the crew could hear the sharp “crack!” of the depth charge exploder mechanisms going off and then the massive, shattering, thundering explosions began, shaking Mako like a rat in the teeth of a terrier. Lights shattered and cork insulation rained down, gauge glasses shattered, the glass shards scattering across the deck. Ginty shook his head, as a prize fighter will when he is badly hurt, his teeth clamping tightly together as he fought the terrible impulse to scream aloud. Dusty Rhodes reached for a towel on a bunk and fought his way aft, clutching at the torpedo skids, grabbing at handholds to keep his feet as Mako bucked and shook under the violent attack. He reached an after bunk and used the towel to stanch the flow of blood from the face of a vacant-eyed man who had been thrown upward out of the bunk he was lying into the springs of the bunk above him. Rhodes wiped the blood from the man’s face and slapped him lightly on the cheek, slapped him again very lightly and the man’s eyes came into focus.

“You’re not hurt, just a couple of scratches,” he said. “Trouble with you, sailor, is you haven’t got any lead in your ass! You went flying right up in the air when those charges went off!”

The man managed a wry grin. “Last time we had reload drill you told me to get the lead outa my ass, Chief! Now you’re saying I got it outa my ass and they’s why I went flyin’ up inna air!” Rhodes looked at him narrowly, knowing that the line between jocularity and a screaming loss of control was very narrow. He punched the man on the shoulder lightly.

“Won’t ever tell you that you’ve got lead in your ass again,” he said solemnly. He went back forward to where Ginty stood.

“Keep an eye on him,” he said to Ginty, “he’s near the edge.”

“Makes three I got to watch,” Ginty growled. “That kid, the seaman we took aboard last time in, up there in the top bunk. He’s passed out and he’s shit himself if you ain’t smelled it yet! And this fuck head wearin’ the telephones is like an old lady, so fuckin’ scared I don’t think he can talk!”

“I can so!” the man said, his chin chattering up and down. “I can do my fuckin’ job!”

“Do it then and stop slobberin’ spit all over the fuckin’ telephone mouthpiece!” Ginty said.

Captain Mealey studied the faces of the depth gauges in front of the bow and stern planesmen. The long black needles read 690 feet.

“Seven hundred feet,” he said in a low voice. “Keep us at seven hundred feet!” He turned to Sirocco.

“I’m going to stay this deep, she seems to be taking it, and go right out of here! I think we can take anything they throw at us. God knows it couldn’t be any worse than that last attack!” He looked over at the bathythermograph.

“Maybe if we can keep going we can find a layer.”

“Here they come again!” Cohen said.