Final Harbor

Chapter 19

“Send Eagle’s Feather Two up the enemy’s track, please,” the Professor’s voice was gentle but underneath the soft tones there was the assurance of command. “I want to know, exactly, how deep the enemy is running.” He took off his billed cap and rubbed his bald head and then smoothed the ruff of gray hair that fringed his head. He waited, his face serene.

“Eagle Feather Two reports enemy is steady on a course of zero zero zero, sir and he is at depth seven hundred feet, seven zero zero feet, sir,” the radio operator on Eagle’s bridge said.

“Seven hundred!” the professor’s eyebrows went upward a fraction of an inch. “We set our charges too shallowly!”

“Our experience, sir, has been that American submarines do not operate below four hundred feet sir,” the destroyer captain’s face was stricken. “That is why I ordered the depth charges set at five hundred feet.”

“All life is an experience, one new experience after another,” the Professor said kindly. “So now we have learned something. The submarine is relatively safe from attacks at seven hundred feet. We can do him no structural damage of any consequence. If he makes a mistake, comes up from that depth for any reason, then we can get him but,” he paused. “Will you please call your gunnery officer to the bridge, Isoruku?” He used the younger man’s given name deliberately, to soften the rebuff he had just given.

The Gunnery Officer, a young Lieutenant, hastily buttoned his uniform jacket and set his hat straight on his head as he went toward the ladder that led to the bridge.

Why does he want to see me? he said to himself. One depth charge did not explode, that fool of a gunner forgot to pull out the safely key, but that old man couldn’t know that, he couldn’t count each explosion in the middle of an attack. Or could he? He walked out on the bridge and stood rigidly at attention.

“Oh, stand at ease, sir,” the Professor said. “I have a technical question to ask you. What is the very deepest, the absolute maximum you can set our depth charges to explode?”

The Lieutenant let his breath out slowly and carefully, he didn’t want his apprehension to show.

“With the new exploder mechanisms, sir, seven hundred feet. But the instruction manuals all say that six hundred and seventy-five feet is the maximum for consistent performance. When the tension spring is screwed up to seven hundred feet the pressure on the diaphragm is excessive and there is a danger of diaphragm failure. That would mean no explosion, sir.”

“But you rechecked each diaphragm on my orders, did you not? And you replaced all diaphragms that were not seated properly or appeared to be old or defective?”

“Yes, sir. All the ships in the squadron did this.”

“So we have good diaphragms which means we have a certain explosion of the depth charge at six hundred and seventy-five feet but an uncertain explosion at seven hundred feet?”

The Lieutenant saw the trap yawning at his feet. “I would say that, sir, if we could be sure of every diaphragm. Even some of the replacements we unpacked had cracks in them.”

“I won’t hold you personally responsible for what some civilian has manufactured, young man,” the Professor smiled gently. “Tell me if I am correct if I say this: If all the diaphragms in the exploders are properly made, if they are all carefully seated, if we use care in exerting maximum spring pressure against the diaphragms then we could expect performance at seven hundred feet? The reason I ask is that the enemy submarine is now cruising at that depth.”

“At seven hundred feet?” the gunnery officer’s eyes opened in surprise.

“Precisely,” the Professor said. “Now please answer my questions.”

“We found over twenty percent of the diaphragms in the depth charges to be defective sir. Those were replaced.” The friendly air of the small man with the four circles of salt-stained gold on his rumpled jacket sleeve emboldened the young Lieutenant.

“I would say that we have a better than eight-to-one chance that all our depth charges will function at seven hundred feet, sir!”

“Good!” the Professor said. “I am always happy to see young officers who are sure of themselves, even at eight-to-one-odds! Set all depth charges on the racks at seven hundred feet. Do not change the settings on the Y-gun charges. If he decides to come up a little shallower I don’t want to waste time re-setting charges.” He turned to the destroyer’s Captain.

“Please order the other ships to follow suit.” He waited until the order had been given and then walked over to the chart table and studied the plot.

“His strategy is obvious, don’t you think, Isoruku?” the Professor’s thin finger touched the chart. “See, here; he heads for the open sea. He hopes to find salt layers out there so he can hide under them and evade us or at worst, he will try to string out his defensive tactics until after dark when we will have a problem in maneuvering for closely coordinated attacks.

“He won’t expect our depth charges to harm him at his present depth because his own Navy’s depth charges are useless below four hundred feet, as ours used to be until we modified them.”

“We have about eight hours of daylight left,” the destroyer’s Captain said. “If we press him, make him evade at high speed, he will use up his storage batteries and that will force him to the surface.” He rubbed his chin. “We might even be able to smash him at seven hundred feet!”

“If we make perfect attacks,” the Professor said. “But the perfect attack can only be made when the target acts as he is supposed to act and this is not a man down there who will do the obvious. He is a fox!” His finger traced a line on the chart.

“When he reaches this point please send a message to Small Birds to deploy thus,” his finger made a curve on the chart. “When we have them deployed we will begin dropping charges from the Small Birds to turn him. I mean to drive him in a circle, like the American cowboy movies show cattle being driven! If we can keep him in this area where there are no salt layers we will have him!

“It is going to be a long day. Please lay out the plots and issue the orders to the Small Birds. And if you will, sir, ask the galley to send some food and hot drink to the crew. They have been on station for many hours and face many more hours of work.”

“For you as well, sir?”

“After the men have eaten we will eat,” the Professor said.

Mako crept doggedly along the course Joe Sirocco had laid out on the chart. The steady ringing of the noise of the pinging from the destroyer had become a major irritant. Men flinched as the sonar tone rang through the ship. Captain Mealey, taking advantage of the lull in the depth charge attacks, had ordered the galley to serve hot coffee and doughnuts and sweet rolls. As soon as each compartment had been served the water-tight doors were closed behind the mess cook and dogged down tight. Joe Sirocco munched a doughnut and sipped at a cup of coffee and looked at Aaron, who shook his blond head.

“All isothermal, sir. No layers yet.”

Mealey sipped at his boiling hot coffee. “Got to be some layers somewhere, damn it!” he growled. “I don’t want to string this thing out until way after dark, we’ll be out of battery before midnight!”

“Here he comes, sir!” Cohen said suddenly. “Three ships, all on an attack run! All three coming at once!”

The telephone talkers in each compartment relayed Cohen’s words and those men who had got out of bunks to drink their coffee climbed back in, gripping the side rails of the bunks with both hands. Ginty braced himself between the torpedo tubes and stared at Dusty Rhodes, who was standing in the center of the Torpedo Room, his hands holding on to a torpedo skid.

The sound of the destroyer’s screws began to echo through Mako’s hull and then the three ships passed overhead, the thunder of their screws reverberating throughout the submarine’s hull.

“Brace yourselves!” Rhodes said in a low voice.

The thunderous explosions of more than thirty depth charges going off in a rolling attack shook Mako heavily. In the Control Room Sirocco saw the ladder that led to the Conning Tower bulge outward as Mako’s hull squeezed inward under the shock of the heavy explosions.

“Damage reports!” Captain Mealey snapped and Sirocco spoke softly into his telephone. Then he held up his thumb and forefinger, making a small circle with the fingers.

“Nothing serious, Captain. Some minor leaks, some bruises and bumps. No bones broken. Chief Barber reports that the welds around the exhaust lines have shattered and he’s taking some water in the engine rooms but nothing serious.”

“Very well,” Mealey said.

The next attack came with the three enemy destroyers running in a line. Mako reeled under the depth charges of the first ship and then bucked and staggered as the next two ships rained down depth charges. There was no longer any cork insulation to shatter and fall down. Those few lights that had survived the previous attacks were now shattered. Mako’s crew went about the job of checking for leaks and damage in the dim lights of the emergency battle lanterns. The lack of bright lights added an eerie atmosphere to the fetid smell of fear that pervaded the Mako’s hull.

The attacks came without pause as the hours wore on. Time after time Cohen reported that one or two or all three destroyers were moving to the attack. Time after time Mako’s crew shivered under the crashing thunder of the explosions. At mid-afternoon there was a sudden halt in the attacks and the mess cooks hurried to each compartment with fresh coffee and the last of the doughnuts.

“What do you think they’re doing up there?” Sirocco asked.

“They’re probably emptying out their depth charges lockers for some more attacks,” Mealey grunted. He wiped his dripping face with a towel he had hung around his neck.

The atmosphere in Mako was now oppressive. The air conditioning and all ventilation had been shut down since the attack on the battleship. The temperature stood at 110 degrees with 100 percent humidity. The long hours submerged, the heavy work of reloading torpedoes with men straining and hauling and using huge quantities of oxygen had depleted the oxygen level of the air to the point where a match that was struck would fizzle and then go out.

Mako crept through the sea at two knots, depth 700 feet. Just past 1500 hours, three in the afternoon in land time, Cohen raised his dripping face.

“Screws bearing zero one five and three five zero, sir. Single screw ships, sir.” His eyes widened suddenly.

“They’re dropping charges out ahead of us! They’re quite a way out in front and they’re depth charging!”

The distant thunder of the depth charges could be heard in Mako. Captain Mealey looked down at the chart.

“Single screw ships,” he said to Sirocco. “Those are the rest of the escort, the ships Cohen lost earlier today. What the hell are they doing dropping charges way out ahead?” He rocked back on his heels, his face grim.

“Is that son of a bitch up there trying to fence me in? Is he trying to make me turn? I’ll bet that’s what he’s up to! The bastard!” He turned to Cohen.

“Give me bearings on the ships that have been attacking us, Nate. If you can, give me an estimated range.”

Cohen nodded his head. His deep-sunk eyes stared at the Control Room, not seeing the sweating, straining men on the bow and stern planes, not seeing Lieut. Pete Simms clinging to the Conning Tower ladder, gasping for air. Cohen’s whole being was concentrated on the welter of sounds in his earphones.

“The ship that has been pinging on us and is still pinging bears one seven zero, sir. There are three others up there, all bearing from one seven zero or two one zero sir, moving slowly. I don’t know about range, I don’t know how good my ears are after all this noise but from the decibel level I’d say under two thousand yards, sir.” He stopped, listening.

“Here they come, sir!”

The three destroyers moved to the attack once more, running just fast enough to get away from the depth charges rolling off their sterns. Mako shook and shuddered under the impact of the roaring explosions, its hull twisting in the torque of the explosive force of the depth charges. Ginty, braced solidly between the torpedo tubes in the Forward Room, watched a stream of sweat running down his chest fly off in a spray of drops as the depth charges shook the ship.

“How about that?” he said. “That son of a bitch is gonna save me using my sweat rag!”

The attacking now was continual. One ship would make a run and then wheel out to one side as its sailors wrestled depth charges into position for the next run as the ship fell in behind the other attacking ships moving to the attack. The thunder of the explosions was continual, Mako’s only respite coming when the searching destroyer’s sonar was unable to find Mako in the explosive-wracked water. With the first “ping!” of re-established contact the attack would begin again.

Captain Mealey was braced, legs spread, hands gripping the edges of the gyro table, his eyes studying the plot sheet. A steady drip of perspiration fell from his chin into a crumpled towel Sirocco had placed on the gyro table. Periodically, Aaron would change the smoked card in the bathythermograph. As he did so Mealey’s eyes would look at the stylus as it traced its even curve. Then, seeing no evidence of a salt layer, Mealey’s head would drop down and his eyes would return to the plot.

At 1700 hours, three full hours from dark, Captain Mealey raised his head.

“I think I’ve had enough of this!” he said coldly. “By now he expects us to be the patsy, to take everything he hands out without hitting back! Well, I’m going to hit back!” He clutched the gyro table as a half-dozen depth charges shook Mako, the ship’s steel hull creaking and groaning in the turmoil.

“Right after those bastards make the next run I’m going up to periscope depth and get one of them! Give me the phone!”

“Now hear this, you telephone talkers. This is the Captain speaking.

“We’ve been taking it on the chin long enough! In three hours it will be dark. In three hours we might not have any battery left. So right after this next attack we’re going up to periscope depth and we’re going to sink one of those bastards who’ve been hitting us! And then we’ll come back down to this depth and continue our escape. I want all hands alert! We’ll open outer tube doors at one hundred feet! Everyone sharpen up!” He stopped as Cohen turned his head toward him.

“Here they come again, sir, all of them!”

“Here they come!” Mealey said into the telephone. “And then we’ll send one of them to hell!”

The attack was a murderous barrage of depth charges that tossed Mako from one side to the other. As the explosions roared through the ship Mealey grabbed the Conning Tower ladder.

“Blow Negative!

“Bring me to periscope depth! Plot, give me the picture, give me bearings!” He climbed into the Conning Tower where Bob Edge and Botts had been for hours, suffering the horrendous noise of the depth charges which made the Conning Tower vibrate and ring like the inside of a drum.

“Get on the TDC!” Mealey snapped. “Stand by the periscope!”

Mako planed upward, rolling violently in the after wash of the explosions. In the Forward and After Torpedo rooms weary men wrestled the tube outer doors open and the talkers reported that tubes Two and Three, Seven and Eight were ready. Sirocco repeated the information to the Conning Tower.

“Up periscope!!” Mealey snapped as the depth gauge showed 75 feet. “Give me sixty-five feet!”

He swung the periscope around, blinking as the lens broke water.

“Mark!”

“Bearing one eight zero!” Botts rapped out and Edge set the bearing into the TDC.

Mealey’s hand found the range knob and spun it.

“Range to the target one zero zero zero! Angle on the bow is zero nine zero port! Oh, I’ve got you, you bastard! Stand by aft! Stand by Seven!”

“Fire seven!

“Right full rudder… flood negative… close the outer tube doors… my god this bastard’s coming right after us! Take me down! Hard dive! Hard dive!”

“Torpedo is running hot, straight and normal!” Cohen yelled. “Screws bearing one five zero speeding up and coming fast!”

The starboard bridge wing lookout on Eagle saw Mako’s periscope break water and his screaming warning brought the Professor and Eagle’s Captain rushing to the bridge wing. They both saw the long finger of bubbles reaching toward Eagle’s Feather Two.

“Eagle’s Feather Two turn hard right!” The destroyer Captain’s voice was a scream and the bridge radioman hesitated slightly before relaying the order.

“Set depth charges at one hundred feet!” the Professor said to the bridge talker, an older man and poised. “Quickly!” On Eagle’s fantail two gunners began to frantically reduce the tension on the diaphragm springs of the two depth charges at the end of the release rack.

Eagle was under the full drive of her engines, turning to where Mako’s periscope had shown briefly. A shattering roar filled the air and the Professor saw a huge gout of water rise beside Eagle’s Feather Two and then as the water subsided he saw the ship, broken in two, its bow rising high, the dull red anti-fouling paint showing in the clear air, its stern twisted off to one side and then the bow began to slide downward.

“Don’t lose him!” the Professor said softly and the destroyer’s Captain nodded grimly, his lips set. Eagle raced toward where Mako had shown. The Captain raised his hand and then brought it down in a sharp chopping motion. On Eagle’s stern the gunners pulled back on their release levers and two big depth charges set to explode at 100 feet rolled off the stern.

The booming roar of Mako’s torpedo hitting the enemy ship shook Mako and Joe Sirocco clicked his stop-watch and looked at it.

“That was a hit!” He yelled up at the Conning Tower. He spun and looked at the depth gauge needle as the roar of an enemy ship’s screws filled Mako. The needle showed 110 feet, moving steadily.

As the roar of the Fubuki’s screws filled the ship the crew looked at each other with naked fear in their eyes, turning instinctively toward the telephone talker to find out what was being said in the Control Room.

“Sound says he’s dropped!” the talkers said. The crew waited, some lying tensely in bunks, others braced defiantly, holding on to torpedo racks and rails in the engine rooms. They waited.

The two depth charges exploded as Mako passed 125 feet. The noise, the racking shock of the two explosions, were greater than anything Mako had experienced before.

“Agggh!” Ginty cried as his grip on the handle of Number One torpedo tube door was broken and he was thrown violently to the deck. Farther back in the compartment the man who had kidded with Dusty Rhodes about not having enough lead in his ass began to scream, a long ululating sound that went higher and higher in pitch until it seemed impossible that the human throat could make such a sound. Rhodes, spitting out the fragments of two broken teeth, fought his way down Mako’s bucking deck to the bunk and yanked the man out of the bunk and on to his feet.

The sailor’s face was blank, his eyes closed, his mouth wide open, his wailing scream exploding into the torpedo room. Rhodes carefully jabbed the man’s chin with his left hand, closing the man’s mouth and then crossed the right in a short, chopping blow. The man spun sideways into the arms of one of the reload crew.

“Stow the son of a bitch in a bunk and if he yells again smother him with a towel!” Rhodes growled.

“Damage report! Control wants a damage report, Chief!” The talker’s voice was trembling.

“No leaks that I can see,” Rhodes snapped. “Report just that! Tell ‘em I’ll give them a full report in one minute!”

Mako twisted downward, seeking the safety of the depths. Sirocco turned his face toward the Conning Tower hatch.

“Mr. Grilley reports that After Trim tank may be ruptured,” he said. “The grease fittings on the bulkhead back between the tubes have blown out. DeLucia is plugging them now.”

“Very well,” Mealey said. “Mr. Simms, take note of that; you may have to compensate with a flooded After Trim.” He dropped down the ladder to the Control Room.

“Seven hundred feet,” he said to Simms. “Get back on course zero zero zero. Now we’ll see what that bastard will do!”

In the After Torpedo Room DeLucia had dragged a bright orange canvas sack filled with tapered wooden plugs of varying sizes to the torpedo tubes. He stood to one side, gauging the course of the two streams of water that were jetting into the room. Then he edged in between the banks of the torpedo tubes with his bag, a short-handled sledge tucked under one arm.

“We’re at four hundred feet and going down,” Grilley warned, his eyes on the pressure gauge. “Don’t get a hand in front of those streams of water! At this depth that water will cut like a knife!” DeLucia nodded and squatted under the two streams of water. He pulled a tapered oak plug from the bag.

Carefully, moving very slowly, he moved the point of the plug up the bulkhead until it was just below a jetting stream. Then in one smooth motion, grunting with the exertion, he pushed the point of a plug into the hole and held it there with one hand while he grabbed the sledge from between his knees. He rapped the plug hard with the sledge and hit it again, two solid blows. He got another plug out of the bag and Grilley heard him curse and saw the sledge moving in short arcs.

DeLucia backed out from between the torpedo tubes, the sledge tucked under one arm, the orange bag dragging behind him. As he moved a bright stream of arterial blood splashed on the deck plates.

“Let me see that!” Grilley said, and DeLucia held out his left hand. Blood was pouring from a hole in the palm of his hand, a hole that went completely through the hand.

“I slipped a little,” he said ruefully. “Son of a bitchin’ water is strong at that pressure!”

“We’ll get the Pharmacist Mate back here,” Grilley said. “That has to be taken care of.”

“Nah!” DeLucia said. “The Old Man ain’t gonna let anyone open and close all them water-tight doors for a scratch like this!” He wrapped a handkerchief around his hand and made a fist, closing the fingers tightly. “This will be all right for a while. That last charge musts busted the After Trim tank. You’d better tell the Old Man that it was sea pressure comin’ in through them blown grease fittings.”

Bob Edge leaned over the hatch to the Control Room, his face worried.

“The periscope is stuck, Captain. Won’t come down!”

“What do you mean, won’t come down?” Mealey snapped. “Didn’t you lower it when we started deep?”

“No, sir,” Edge said. “That is, Botts didn’t lower it, sir.”

“Try again,” Mealey said. He turned to Simms. “Allow for the drag of the periscope on your dive angle.”

“Ain’t no drag, Captain,” Dick Smalley said as he grunted and strained at the big brass wheel that controlled the bow planes. “Feels natural, just as if the ‘scope were housed, sir.”

“Try it again,” Mealey ordered. He waited, listening to the two men in the Conning Tower talking in low voices.

“Won’t budge, sir,” Edge called down.

“Get an electrician and an auxiliaryman to look at it,” Mealey said to Sirocco. “The depth charges must have jammed something. Nate, what do you hear?”

“Three sets of twin screws well aft of us, sir, milling around.” He paused as a series of rumbling explosions shook Mako slightly.

“Those are the single screw ships up ahead of us, sir. They’re dropping charges out there.”

“Let ‘em drop!” Mealey grunted.

The minutes wore on. The air in Mako’s hull grew more fetid. Men gasped for breath after the slightest exertion. Then the pinging started again, slowly.

“I think you sank his best sound man,” Cohen said to Captain Mealey. “This one doesn’t get on us nearly as quickly and he doesn’t fasten to us like they were doing early. But the gonif has got us now!” The pinging increased in rapidity and Cohen raised his voice slightly.

“Here they come again, sir!”

The explosions battered at Mako, thundering through the thin hull. Men flinched at each crashing sound. Captain Mealey stood at the gyro table, where he had stood during most of the depth charging attacks, his face set and grim, his eyes studying the chart.

“We’re going to keep on taking it!” he said to Sirocco. “It’s what, three hours to full dark? We’ve got about four hours left in the batteries so there’s nothing else to do!”

An hour went by and the tension in Mako, long since near the point of being unendurable, rose even further. In the Forward Engine Room a sweating machinist mate, his eyes blank with utter terror, reached into a tool box and grabbed a ball peen hammer and began to beat on the deck.

“Come and get us, God damn you!” he screamed. The hammer drummed on the steel deck. “Come and get us! Come and get us!”

John Barber whipped a 12-inch crescent wrench out of his hip pocket and swung it. The man went down, blood pouring out of his nose and one ear.

“Drag him up forward by the evaporators,” Barber said. “Any more you clowns want to tell those people topside to come and get us, tell me first.”

Watching the stylus on the bathythermograph scratch gently against the smoked card, Aaron saw the needle move sharply to one side.

“Layer!” be breathed and then louder, “Layer! Sir!”

Captain Mealey pushed against Sirocco in his eagerness to get to the bathythermograph. He watched the needle.

“Thank God!” he breathed. Aaron’s broad face brightened and he smiled gently.

Another hour went by with no sound from the enemy. Twice during the hour the needle of the bathythermograph began to move back toward its previous even curve and twice Captain Mealey changed course and depth to keep Mako within and beneath the layer of colder, saltier, water.

Another two hours slipped by. Cohen had long ago lost contact with the enemy ships. Captain Mealey stood at the gyro table, the sweat dripping from his chin. Mako continued to plod through the sea, her crew near physical collapse.

“What time is it?” Captain Mealey asked.

“Twenty-one hundred, Captain,” Sirocco said.

“How long since we lost contact, Nate?”

“Almost three hours sir. No, sorry, almost four hours.”

“How much have we got left in the battery?” Mealey said to Sirocco. He waited while Sirocco talked to Chief Hendershot, his eyes taking in the scene in the Control Room.

Sirocco, standing waiting for the answer to his question, looked to be physically ill. His big frame sagged and his craggy face seemed to have acquired deeply graven lines.

Lieut. Peter Simms was in a state of near collapse, hanging on to the Conning Tower ladder for support. His eyes were closed and his chest was heaving spasmodically as his lungs fought for air in the fetid heat. Under foot the deck was greasy with sweat and there were puddles of condensation that seemed to reappear magically as soon as they were wiped up. Mealey looked at the thermometer. It read 115 degrees. Alongside it the humidity indicator read 100 percent.

“The Chief in Maneuvering reports that at this speed we’ve got maybe an hour, probably less, before we run out of power,” Sirocco said slowly. Captain Mealey nodded and his right hand went up and his forefinger brushed his mustache.

“If we go, we go fighting!” he said. He nodded at Sirocco.

“Pass the word to open the water-tight doors. Open the tube outer doors at one hundred feet. Stand by for Battle Surface action! Stand by to surface!”

The telephone talkers repeated the order and Mako’s crew began to stir, to come alive, moving slowly, fighting for breath in the oxygen-depleted air. The deck gun crews crowded into the Control Room with the machine gunners. Captain Mealey climbed into the Conning Tower.

“Surface! Surface! Surface!”

The men on the bow and stern planes threw their weight against the heavy brass wheels, sobbing with their effort. In the Maneuvering Room a haggard, sweat-drenched Chief Hendershot husbanded the fading storage batteries as Mako slanted upward through the sea. The bridge broke water and Captain Mealey opened the hatch and fought his way to the bridge through a rush of water. Three lookouts followed him and climbed up into the periscope shears. They began to report almost immediately, all clear to port, starboard, astern and forward.

Captain Mealey looked around. The night was pitch black and a very light rain was falling.

“Secure Battle Surface stations,” he said. “All main engines all ahead full. Shift to hydraulic power on the helm. Executive Officer to the bridge!”

Sirocco climbed wearily up to the bridge, relishing the gush of fresh night air that was whipping down the hatch as the four big diesels roared into life and began to pull a suction through the after end of the ship.

“That’s why we couldn’t raise or lower the periscope,” Captain Mealey said. He pointed and Sirocco saw the long, slim, attack periscope bent over in an almost 180 degree angle, its lens face down near the main deck on the starboard side.

“Bridge!” The after lookout’s voice was high, excited. “Bridge, we ain’t got an after deck gun!”

Mealey edged back on to the cigaret deck and went to the rail and looked down. Where the squat 5.25 gun had stood was a gaping hole in the wooden deck. He dropped down on the deck, followed by Sirocco and the two men knelt at the edge of the hole. They could see the heavy steel bracing that had supported the gun. The braces were torn and bent.

“My God!” Sirocco said. He hoisted himself back up on the cigaret deck and Mealey followed him.

“Captain!” Don Grilley’s voice was strangled, almost unintelligible. Mealey rushed to the small bridge. Grilley was pointing down at the forward deck, his arm and body shaking violently.

There, sitting squarely on one of its flat ends near the forward deck gun, was a Japanese depth charge.

It was Dusty Rhodes who finally figured out what to do with the depth charge. After following Cohen’s suggestion that a careful copy be made for Naval Intelligence of the characters on the face of the depth charge exploder plate, Rhodes got a small rubber boat that was stowed in the after end of the Forward Torpedo Room bilge. The boat was unrolled and laid beside the depth charge and then Rhodes and Ginty lifted the heavy charge and placed it carefully on its side in the fabric and rubber folds of the boat and inflated the boat. They lashed a dozen turns of heaving line around the boat and depth charge and, standing knee-deep in water as Captain Mealey flooded down forward, they gently pushed the rubber boat and its deadly load off the ship after Rhodes had carefully made two small holes in the boat’s fabric.

As the boat drifted away, the air hissing slowly out of the two small holes, Mako raced away from the area.

Later that night Mako’s message to the submarine command at Pearl Harbor caused a duty officer to begin making telephone calls and a hastily arranged-for Staff breakfast meeting was held. On those submarines at sea on patrol where the message was intercepted and decoded there was joy and, inevitably, some envy. It read:

Two nights later as Mako plowed steadily toward Pearl Harbor at a steady 18 knots Lieut. Nathan Cohen came to the bridge and handed Captain Mealey a message. Mealey held the message up in the bright moonlight so he could read it.

Captain Mealey handed the message to Joe Sirocco, who had followed Nate Cohen to the bridge. Sirocco read the message and then stuck out his big hand.

“Congratulations, sir, on your promotion. You’ve earned it.”

“Thank you, Joe, but damn it, she didn’t sink! They beached her on the reef. With seven fish in her she should have sunk!”

“She’s out of commission for two years, Skipper. We had our cake and paid for it and you can eat it with a good appetite. Hitting a battleship guarded by twelve destroyers, hitting it seven times and putting it out of commission and sinking a Fubuki, that’s a whole plateful of cake!”

“I suppose you’re right,” Mealey said slowly. “But this means that I go ashore! They don’t put four-stripe captains in command of a submarine.”

“There’s that,” Sirocco agreed. “But at least you can be in a position to tell others how to do what they’re supposed to do. And I’m glad that you decided to say the cause of Richard’s death was due to battle action, sir.”

“Against my better wishes, Mister,” Mealey said shortly. “I shouldn’t have let you and Grilley change my mind!”