Final Harbor

Chapter 26

Captain Hinman’s message detailing the results of the special mission arrived at a bad time in Brisbane. The Submarine Staff had just gone through a period of celebration over the successful landing of 11,000 U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal and the capture there of the new airport the Japanese had built and a landing on nearby Tulagi Island, where front line reports said heavy resistance to the Marines had developed but was being overcome.

Hard on the heels of the good news had come the reports on the Battle of Savo Island. A Japanese cruiser force, striking boldly from Rabaul, on New Britain Island, had routed an Allied cruiser fleet inflicting terrible losses. Four Allied heavy cruisers had been shot to bits and sunk; H.M.A.S. Canberra and the Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy of the United States Navy. The U.S.S. Chicago had been badly damaged by shell fire and its Captain a suicide. More than 1,500 officers and men of the Allied naval force were dead or missing.

The defeat, the worst in American naval history, hung over the Staff at Brisbane like a pall. It was all too clear that the Japanese admiral had out-maneuvered the American ships and the Japanese gunners had been far more accurate than the famed American gunners. Now, with Japan in control of the Solomon Sea, the U.S. Marines fighting for their lives on Guadalcanal would face even greater odds as the Japanese rushed reinforcements from Rabaul.

When Captain Hinman’s message was read at the staff meeting in the Submarine Command, Southwest Pacific, there was a silence. Lieut. Comdr. Gene Puser broke the silence.

“Well, that’s one piece of good news. Hinman got into the harbor and his people carried out the special mission successfully.”

“If you can believe him!” the Operations Officer said with a frown. He looked down at his copy of Hinman’s dispatch.

“I refuse to give him nine ships sunk! Not in a shallow harbor, not from ten-pound mines! Those ships can be repaired, will be repaired probably in a matter of days. I’ll give him credit for damaging nine ships, no more.

“As for this nonsense about having a staff artist design a stencil of a Japanese bath house, my God! What we should do is to have a stencil made for Mako’s Conning Tower that reads quote Obey your patrol orders unquote! His patrol orders didn’t call for him to tell his demolition squad to go frolicking about on the beach blowing up shower baths or whatever they said they blew up!”

Gene Puser looked up from his note pad.

“Mako has twenty-two fish left, sir. Hinman’s not far from the sea route between Rabaul and Guadalcanal and Tulagi. He might be able to shoot down some of the troop transports they will probably be running down there to reinforce Guadalcanal.”

“I’m aware of that,” his senior officer snapped. “Send him a priority message to cancel his present patrol orders and to patrol off the mouth of Rabaul Harbor until further notice.

“Specify that these orders do not call for beach parties or the ambush of Japanese officers going to the latrine!

“I suppose you had better send him some latitude and longitude coordinates; there are no charts of that area worth a damn. Hell, when Intelligence told us the Japs were building a new airfield on Guadalcanal we couldn’t even find the place on the charts we had!

“While you’re at it, tell Hinman we are giving him credit for possibly damaging nine ships. Those damned Pearl Harbor Captains are all alike; they’re very good at screaming about defective torpedoes and exploders and at claiming sinkings that never happened!”

The message, sent that night, stunned Captain Hinman. He sat in the Wardroom sipping coffee, reading the message over and over while Joe Sirocco worked at his charts to lay out a course for Rabaul Harbor. Major Struthers came in and added to the discomfiture in the Wardroom.

“Been listening to the Jap radio frequency, Captain, courtesy of your radio chappie. Bad news for our side.”

“What do you mean?” Hinman said.

“Our friend the Nip has kicked the shit out of our combined naval forces at a big battle not far from here in the Solomons,” the Major said. “Took place at a place called Savo Island. The stuff I heard was plain language Japanese, the chappie doing the talking was saying that the Jap Fleet had destroyed a major American and Australian cruiser fleet without the loss of a single Jap ship! He said at least five major allied ships had gone down!”

“I didn’t know you understood Japanese, Major,” Hinman said.

“I don’t read it or write it,” Struthers said. He took a cup of tea from the Officers’ Cook with a smile of thanks.

“I savvy the lingo. Wasn’t always a bloody-handed commando, you know. Was a time, it seems years and years ago, when I taught the Romance languages at the university in Sydney. Studied Japanese as a sort of hobby. Chinese, too. Bloody army wallahs figured if I could speak, read and write a half-dozen European languages that I would be an ideal commando type!

“Must say that knowing Japanese did me some good. When our lot got captured on New Guinea a silly cow of a sentry, thinking no one could understand his language but another Jap, told his buddy to cover for him while he went off to take a shit. With him gone and his pants down, so to speak, no trick at all to strangle the other sentry and climb the fence with my Skipper on my back. Poor bastard had the dysentery so bad he couldn’t walk. Would have died if he’d been left behind.”

“That report you heard might have been propaganda to fool our intelligence people who monitor their radio,” Hinman said.

“If so, pretty complicated propaganda, sir,” the Major said. “The bloke on the ratio was addressing a message from Admiral Mikawa to the Emperor himself, telling of the victory.

“That’s about as official as you can get. If he was polishing his brass, as we’d say, and he was found with the lie in his teeth he’d have to say his prayers and open his belly. No, I’d say it was the straight goods.”

“What the hell is there in this area to fight a major sea battle over?” Hinman said. “Nothing out here!”

“Might be this place Guadalcanal,” the Major said.

“Never heard of it,” Hinman said. “Where’s it at?”

“Nor did I hear of it before,” Struthers said. “But I was talking to some of your intelligence types when this mission we did was being planned. They told me the Jap had built a big airfield on Guadalcanal, down at the southeast end of the Solomon Islands, east of where we’re going now. Caused no end of a dust-up with your people and ours. An airfield there would control the sea lanes from the U.S. and Hawaii, I was told, as well as flank the east end of New Guinea. With New Guinea flanked it would fall and that would give the Jap a port of entry to Northern Australia.”

Captain Hinman and the Mako’s officers listened to the heavy-set Australian, their faces intent.

“Your intelligence people said your Navy was launching a top-hole amphibious landing job, going to put thousands and thousands of your Marines ashore at Guadalcanal. Reckon the Ghurka and the American Marine are the two finest fighting men in the world, bar none, not even our own chaps. This battle the Nips are boasting about may have been the result of trying to stop the amphibious assault or it could have been an effort to throw the Marines off the island if they’d already landed.”

“They never tell us anything like that in these damned messages they send,” Hinman growled. “They’re quick as hell, though, to tell us that those ships you put on the bottom in that harbor aren’t sunk, that we quote and unquote may have damaged them!”

“To be expected!” the Major said cheerfully. “If the bloody rear echelon bastards don’t do it themselves they can’t see how others can do it. When I brought my Skipper out to Port Moresby, had to carry the poor fucker most of the way on my back and him shittin’ all down me all the while, the intelligence brain down in Sydney decided my report that I’d killed thirteen of the Japs on the way out was an error. He credited me with five, I think. Bastard sits there in a cushy office with beer and American cigs at hand and tells me what I did! You’d think there was a bounty on the head of the Jap and they didn’t want to pay the money!”

“Did you really kill thirteen of the Jap bastards, Major?” Pete Simms’ eyes were shining, his tongue flicking out to lick his lips. Struthers looked at Simms for a long moment.

“I stopped counting at thirteen, sonny,” he said. “I think it was probably double that. Really doesn’t make any difference, does it? You have to put down something so the fat-asses in the rear know it wasn’t all steak and eggs. Bloody war is a bloody war, right? If you don’t kill them they kill you. That’s progress, you know. Sign of an advanced state of civilization when you can kill your fellow man before he kills you. Look at this lovely ship of yours; beautiful piece of machinery! Bloody useless except for legalized murder.

“Look at me! Bloody professor, I am. Spent my years trying to teach students the mysteries of grammar and pronunciation. For what purpose? What I should have been doing is studying the habits and ambitions of my natural enemy, the Jap.

“If I kill enough of them and if I live and if we win this bloody war and those are all great fucking items.” He drew the word out, his sweeping mustache bobbing.

“Then, when it’s all over I’ll be de-mobbed and will go, hat in hand, and ask if I can have back my old school desk. And in twenty years some student will point me out as I go hobbling across the quad and tell his girl that I fought in the war. And she’ll say what war? And he’ll say the war against Japan. And she’ll say war against Japan, against our great friend and trading partner? So what’s the sense of it all?”

“There’s sense to it if you’re attacked!” Simms said.

“I grant you that,” the Major said. “The attack against your Pearl Harbor made no sense. The Jap should have invaded! If he did I Warrant he’d won that battle and where would you be now?”

“Where would Australia be?” Sirocco asked.

“Down the bloody toilet, mate, that’s where! Down the bloody head, as you call it!

“Make no mistake, we know we owe our existence to date to you chaps. Without you we’d long since been in Jap prison camps. Poor bloody Pommies can’t help us, they’ve got their hands full with Adolf. But none of that changes the fact that all war is for naught, as some old Greek once said. Forgot who said it.”

“How far are we from the new patrol area, Joe?” Hinman said pointedly, anxious to end the conversation and the direction it was moving. Sirocco pricked off the distance with his dividers.

“Less than two hundred miles, sir. We should be on station before midnight tomorrow.”

“I wonder why Rabaul?” Hinman said. “The message doesn’t tell us what to expect there.”

Another message came from Brisbane just before Mako dove on its patrol station off the harbor of Rabaul. The message said that Naval Intelligence believed the Japanese would make a strong effort to reinforce their garrisons at Guadalcanal and Tulagi, that Mako might encounter various types of small ships pressed into service as troop carriers. Mako should also expect these troop ships to be escorted. The message concluded, “Attacks will be made on troop-carrying ships rather than escorting warships unless necessary for survival.”

“Different commands, different orders,” Hinman said to Joe Sirocco in the Control Room. “In Pearl it’s ‘get the escort ships first and then go after the merchant ships or tankers.’ In this command it’s get the escort vessels last, if you can.”

“Probably the special circumstances,” Sirocco suggested gently. “The Marines must be hanging on by their toenails in Guadalcanal and Tulagi and if that message the Major heard was the real thing, and I’m inclined to think it was, the only thing that stands between an unopposed reinforcement of the Japanese garrisons on both those places is the submarine navy. Flying Fish is to the southeast of us and they’re moving others in, according to the messages, but we’re the first boy in the line.”

“I thought sure we’d see something coming out of that harbor last night,” Hinman said. “Place was black as pitch all night long, not a light anywhere. That would mean to me that the Marines still hold the airfield at Guadalcanal and Rabaul is afraid of air raids.” He yawned hugely. “I’m going to sack out. If we don’t see anything moving today I want to patrol closer in to the harbor tonight. Make the patrol courses two miles from the harbor mouth.”

Mako surfaced after full dark and began running back and forth across the harbor lanes. It was Grabnas’ sharp eyes that picked up the sudden blacking out of a star by a ship’s masts. Captain Hinman scrambled up into the lookout stand beside the gangling seaman.

“Nice going, Grabby,” he said softly as he leveled his binoculars. He stared for a long moment, moving the binoculars back and forth.

“I see four of them, do you?” he said to Grabnas.

“Yes, sir, three small ships and what looks like a tin can way out ahead there. It was his mast I saw cut through the starlight.”

Hinman dropped back down to the Bridge. “Control!” he said into the speaker. “Get the Executive Officer to the Conning Tower!” Sirocco’s voice came up through the hatch.

“I’m here, Bridge. What’s cooking?”

“Run the search scope up, Joe,” Hinman called down the hatch. “Bearing two seven zero and sweep aft about twenty degrees. Tell me if you see something. We’ve got ships out there!”

He watched the thick-necked search periscope ascend and begin its search. Then Sirocco’s voice came up the hatch, an edge of excitement in his tones.

“I’ve got four of them, sir! Looks like a destroyer escort out in front and then three small ships behind in a line.”

“Sound General Quarters!” Hinman snapped. As the gong began to sound throughout Mako Hinman clapped Nate Cohen on the shoulder. “I’ll take the deck, Nate.” He leaned over the hatch to the Conning Tower.

“Plotting Party will work in the Conning Tower,” he called down. “Joe, I want a course to close on the last ship in the line. Then put me on a parallel course to the convoy, make the course seven hundred yards to the convoy’s starboard side. I’m going to run along beside these ships for a while, I don’t think they can make too much speed, they look too small. We’ll see what the escort up ahead does. If he doesn’t pick us up we’ll set up to shoot at the last ship in the line. Set torpedo depth two feet. Repeat two feet.” He waited while Sirocco worked out the plot and then grabbed at the bridge rail as Mako went into a sharp turn that would bring it parallel to the line of ships.

“Moon’s coming up,” he called down the hatch. “In our favor! The targets are between us and the moon! Another five minutes and you should be able to get a real good look through the periscope.”

“Bearing… Mark!” Sirocco’s voice came up through the hatch to the Bridge clearly in the quiet of the night.

“Target bears three three zero, Bridge. That’s the last ship in the line, the one closest to us. Destroyer up ahead bears zero five zero. Range to the last ship is estimated at nine hundred yards. Target has very stubby mast, hard to figure height. Range to the destroyer is seven thousand yards. Convoy speed estimated to be eight knots. Parallel course to the convoy is one three eight, sir. We can come right to one three eight now and we’ll be seven hundred yards away.”

“Very well” Hinman said. “Steer course one three eight. Make turns for nine knots. We’ll overhaul and see what the escort does. Keep an eye on him, Joe.”

Mako moved silently through the calm sea, pacing her speed to the speed of the convoy that was ahead of her and off her port bow. The moon crept higher in the sky and Hinman could see the outlines of the three ships clearly and the destroyer escort out ahead of its flock.

“Destroyer has started a turn to starboard, Bridge! Joe Sirocco’s voice was urgent. Hinman leaned his elbows on the teak bridge rail and studied the destroyer. It was turning, showing a small feather of white at its bow.

“Range to the destroyer is six thousand yards, Bridge. Angle on the bow now nine zero starboard. He’s in a definite turn! Sound reports twin screws picking up speed, Nate thinks it must be the destroyer, sir!”

“Open tube outer doors,” Hinman sang out. “If he comes for us we’ll give him four down the throat! Start the plot on the destroyer! I want to swing my bow five degrees to starboard if he comes at us head on and take him with a spread of four fish running across his track!” He felt light-headed. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through him like a big surge of power, the same sense of elation he had felt in his first and only surface engagement with the enemy in Makassar Strait. As he shivered in anticipation he realized that what he was feeling now he had felt when he made love to Joan. He shook his head.

“Let me have some information, damn it, Plot! Keep feeding me!”

“Range to the destroyer is four zero zero zero yards, sir. Angle on the bow is zero! He’s coming right at us. All torpedo tube outer doors are open, depth set two feet, spindles disengaged. Target speed is sixteen knots and increasing slowly… Range to the target is three five zero zero… speed seventeen knots.”

“Give me a solution for shooting at twelve hundred yards range to the target,” Hinman said. “We’ll shoot a spread of four from the forward tubes and then swing ship to bring the after tubes to bear in case we need them.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Sirocco said. “Angle on the bow of the target is still zero zero zero. Range is two five zero zero yards. Speed is eighteen knots. He is shooting!”

Hinman saw the flash of a gun on the dark bulk of the destroyer’s foredeck as Sirocco shouted. The shell screamed by, far overhead. There was another flash and the shell passed by above them and to one side.

“He’s trying to drive us down,” Hinman shouted. “How do we look, Plot!”

“Coming up to a solution, sir. Recommend we swing five degrees to starboard now… range one five zero zero yards!”

“Stand by Forward!” Hinman shouted. “Give me a solution!”

“You can shoot!” Sirocco called out.

“Fire one!” Hinman counted down from six to zero.

“Fire two!

“Fire three!

“Fire four!

“Right full rudder! All ahead flank! Stand by aft!”

Mako’s first torpedo ran ahead of the target. The second slammed into the destroyer’s bow and the third, six seconds behind, exploded with a huge roar at the destroyers’ engine rooms.

“Joe!” Hinman screamed. “Get up here! Confirm this!”

Sirocco scrambled up the ladder to the bridge and saw the bow of the destroyer, torn apart by the first torpedo, sticking out of the water. The stern reared high out of the water, seemed to reach higher and then began to slide under the sea.

“One down!” Hinman yelled. “Now we’ll take those other three! It’s going to be like shooting fish in a barrel! I want a torpedo track of seven hundred yards, Joe. Bring me up so I can run head on to the targets and shoot. One fish for each one should be enough!” Sirocco nodded and dropped down the hatch.

Mako raced after the ship closest to it, a long, lean shark coursing after its prey. The range closed and Mako turned to deliver the death blow to the target.

“You can shoot, Bridge!”

“Fire five!”

Captain Hinman felt the slight jolt under his feet as the fist of compressed air hurled the torpedo out of the tube. At 700 yards the torpedo run to the target would be less than 30 seconds.

“Torpedo is running hot, straight and normal,” Nate Cohen’s voice floated up to the bridge. “Torpedo has run through the target bearing! It’s still running!”

“You’ve got a solution, Bridge!”

“Fire six!”

Hinman watched, counting down slowly. The target was trying to zigzag but it had insufficient speed to make the maneuver effective.

“Torpedo is running through the target bearing!” Cohen called out. “It’s still running!”

“Bridge!” Sirocco’s voice was loud in the night. “Suggest the fish are running underneath the target!”

“Bring me around for a set-up on the after tubes!” Hinman yelled down the hatch. “Set torpedoes at zero depth! Repeat, zero feet depth!”

Mako heeled over as the rudder was put hard right and Hinman waited for Sirocco to tell him the torpedo problem was solved. “You can shoot, Bridge!”

“Fire seven!”

He watched from the side of the bridge, straining to see the torpedo as it ran. There was no sign.

“Torpedo is running through the target bearing,” Cohen’s voice was faint. “It’s still running!”

“Close the outer tube doors!” Hinman snapped into the bridge microphone. “Plot! Bring me around so my port side is parallel to the target. I want six hundred yards range. Stand by to go to Battle Surface as soon as the outer doors are closed!” He heard Sirocco’s rapid orders to Bob Edge on the TDC and to the helmsman and the rush of feet passed the word to stand by for a battle surface action. Mako swung in a wide arc and began racing up a course parallel to the ship he had fired three torpedoes at and failed to hit.

“Battle Stations Surface!” Hinman yelled and stood to one side in the small bridge as the gun crews climbed out of the hatch and climbed down the side of the Conning Tower, racing to the two big deck guns.

“Range is now six zero zero yards, sir,” Sirocco called out “Deck guns manned! Breeches open! Standing by to load, Bridge!” Dusty Rhodes’ voice was loud from the deck. “Fifty calibers manned and loaded and locked!”

“Load deck guns!” Hinman shouted. “Pointers, set sights for range of six zero zero yards! I want to hull this bastard, gunners!”

“Ready fore and aft on deck, Bridge!”

“Commence firing!”

The forward 5.25-inch deck gun roared first and Hinman saw a gout of water soar skyward, short of the target. The after gun bellowed and another spurt of water went up, also short of the target. The second round from each gun would reach farther as the gun barrels heated up and the powder in the shells burned faster. The forward gun roared again and Hinman saw a bright red burst on the side of the target ship.

“Now pound that bastard!” he yelled as the after gun roared.

“Bridge!” Grabnas’ voice from the port lookout stand was almost lost in the roar of the deck guns. “Bridge! I can see a lot of people and looks like trucks on the deck of the ship!”

“Machine gunners open fire! Sweep the ship’s decks!”

Behind him on the cigaret deck the twin 20-mm guns began to pound viciously and Hinman watched the tracers reach out across the water, arcing lazily, tiny balls of fire that found the target ship and then probed upward on the hull and began to sweep across the target’s deck, a molten scythe of death. Below him on the deck the 50-caliber machine guns, mounted on special stanchions, were pounding the target’s bridge structure. There was a sudden burst of bright fire from the target’s main deck as the 20-mm shells found the gas tank on a truck and blew it up. There was a cheer from the forward deck gun as a sudden gout of white steam rose in the moonlight and the bright red flames of an explosion within the ship’s midsection.

“Cease fire!” Hinman yelled. “I think we got his boiler rooms! He’s sinking, he’s sinking! Plot! Put me on the next target!”

“Bridge!” Rhodes’ voice from the deck was sharp. “Bridge, we need more ammunition on deck. Request below-decks ammunition party begin supply.”

“Very well, Chief,” Hinman passed the order down to the Conning Tower. “Damned good shooting, gunners, damped good!” Mako was turning, picking up speed, running down the second ship.

“Same setup!” Hinman yelled down the hatch. “Six hundred yards is a good range!” He looked at the target ship, now off his port bow. Down below him on the forward gun he heard the angry voice of Officers’ Cook, Thomas T. Thompson.

“Chief, I’m the first loader on this damned gun and ain’t no one else gonna be the first loader so leave me alone!” He listened, wondering what Thompson could be arguing about with Dusty Rhodes. The two men were good friends and Rhodes was not one to tolerate an argument in a Battle Stations situation or any other situation. He started to lean over the bridge rail and stopped as he heard Sirocco’s voice.

“On range now, sir!”

“Commence firing!” Hinman yelled. Both deck guns roared in unison. Hinman could feel the excitement mounting in him, the crazy feeling that time had run backward and that he was on the deck of a frigate with all sails set and the guns roaring out in broadsides and then crashing back against their restraining tackle. He could hear, somewhere in his mind, the yells of the sailors and the cries of the gunners as they sponged out their gun barrels, the yells of the gun captains as they pulled the guns back into position in the ports and then the long, rolling broadsides. This was the traditional way of warfare on the high seas, with guns roaring and the smell of cordite sharp in the nose, the yells of the gunners as they served their weapons.

“Good shot!” He screamed as he saw bright orange burst at the target’s water line. He saw the lazy tracers of the machine guns reaching for the target, searching out the windows of the ship’s bridge, sweeping across the decks. And then he saw other tracers arcing toward him, heard the clang of bullets striking metal around him and he realized that the target, hopelessly out gunned, was shooting back at him.

“Get that machine gun on that ship!” he yelled at Dick Smalley on the 20-mm guns. He watched as Smalley’s tracers walked in at the source of the other tracers and then steadied and hammered on the other gun station.

“Target is down by the bow!” Dusty Rhodes’ bellow could be easily heard above the roar of the deck guns.

“Cease fire!” Hinman yelled. “A case of beer to the gun that puts him under. Commence slow fire!” The forward gun barked and Hinman saw a burst of fire near the water line of the target’s bow. The after deck gun bellowed and there was a burst of flame at the target’s exposed hull aft and then a muffled explosion and the ship jerked sideways and broke in two.

“After gun gets the beer!” Hinman yelled. “Plot, where in the hell has that third ship gone to?” He turned to climb up in the periscope shears and stopped as he saw the dark rivulets running down the mottled camouflage paint of the periscope shears. His eyes followed the dark streams upward and he saw Grabnas hanging like a limp rag doll over the pipe railing of his lookout stand.

“Doc to the bridge!” Hinman yelled. He scrambled upward to Grabnas, lifting the man’s limp upper body, and as Grabnas started to slide out of the lookout stand, Hinman heard Major Struthers’ voice below him.

“I’ve got him, Skipper. Let him go. I’ve got him.” Hinman eased Grabnas’ sagging head by the rail of the lookout stand and felt the man being taken from him. He scrambled down to the bridge.

“No need for your medico,” Struthers said slowly. “The man’s had it. You want me to hand him down to someone?”

“Where’s he hit?” Hinman said, his breath coming in huge gasps. “How do you know he’s had it, damn it!”

“Captain!” The Australian’s voice was hard, flat. “The man’s been cut near in half!” He put his hands under Grabnas’ armpits and with one foot kicked Grabnas’ limp legs into the hatch opening.

“Below there, mates! Take this chap!” Joe Sirocco reached upward and let the limp legs fall against his chest and took the burden. He turned to the Control Room hatch.

“Below, there! Take Grabnas, will you, Pete?”

“I’ve got him, sir!” John Barber’s voice was steady. Sirocco released the body and spun back to the periscope and began a search for the third ship. He swung the periscope around in a complete circle once, then twice.

“Can’t see the other target, sir. He must have hauled his ass out of here while you were taking care of the other two!”

“Lots of Japs in the water, Captain,” Major Struthers was unsnapping the flap on his pistol holster. “Mind if I pot a few of the bloody bastards? I’ve got a lot of good chums dead at the hands of the Jap! Wouldn’t do for this lot to get picked up or to swim to one of those bloody islands and live to fight another day!”

Hinman stood, his eyes closed tightly. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Struthers and up at the dark traces of blood on the periscope shears.

“Deck guns, secure and get below. Fifty-caliber machine guns switch stations to the bridge stanchions. Smalley, begin firing at the targets in the water! Major, pick your own targets!”

Mako moved slowly through the flotsam of the two sunken ships, the machine guns hammering steadily at the men in the water. A flash off the port bow caught Major Struthers’ eye.

“Ah, you bastard!” the Major said genially. “Shoot back at us, would you? Poke your bloody head up for another look-see!” He steadied his heavy pistol on the bridge rail and aimed carefully. The pistol roared and bucked upward. “Got you! Just like shooting ‘roos in the outback!”

“Aircraft!” Smalley’s scream cut through the noise of the guns. Hinman looked aft and saw Smalley swing his twin 20-mm guns upward and begin firing a long burst out to the starboard side. Then he saw the plane, a black bulk against the starlit sky, saw it suddenly soar upward as the tracers reached toward it, saw two bulky black objects fall from the plane and tumble toward the water. The bombs hit well out to starboard and exploded with a huge roar squarely in the middle of a huge cluster of swimmers.

“Clear the bridge! Down periscope! Dive! Dive!” Hinman’s voice was a roar. “Major, damn you, get down the hatch!” He shoved Struthers toward the hatch and waited until the lookouts and the machine gunners had hurled themselves down through the hatch, not bothering to use the ladder, depending on the big hands of Joe Sirocco to catch them and spin them toward the hatch to the Control Room. Hinman slammed the diving alarm twice with his hand and dropped through the hatch.

“One hundred feet!” he snapped as he slid down the ladder to the Control Room. “Get some down angle on her, damn it! There’s a plane up there!” Mako knifed downward. Far off to one side they heard the crash of two more explosions.

“Mako it one hundred and fifty feet,” Hinman said. He stood, panting, watching the long black needles of the depth gauges move around the dials of the gauges in front of the bow and stern planes.

“That’ll do it. Level her off.” He turned round to Aaron, who was standing quietly by the gyro table.

“Where’s Grabnas?”

“In the Forward Torpedo Room, sir,” Aaron replied. Hinman nodded and ran forward. Ginty was standing by the torpedo tubes.

“He’s in Number One tube, sir,” Ginty said, his voice a low growl. “Doc made sure nothing could be done for him. I thought the tube was the best place for him, until you give some orders.”

“Very well,” Hinman said. He stood, staring at the shiny brass face of the torpedo tube door, tasting the bile that had risen into his throat. Then he turned and went back to the Control Room.

“Stand easy on Battle Stations,” he said to Sirocco. “Tell the galley to serve coffee to all hands and ask Tom to bring me a cup, please.”

“He can’t, sir,” Dusty Rhodes said. “Tom took a bullet through the neck from that first ship. He wouldn’t go down below when I told him to go. He’s in the Crew’s Mess, Doc is working on him.”

“Oh my God!” Hinman said. He ran aft to the Crew’s Mess. Thompson was laid out on a mess table surrounded by crew members.

“How is he, Doc?” Hinman demanded.

“I think he’s gonna be okay, sir,” the Pharmacist’s Mate said. “He took one right through his neck. Good thing he’s got such a big neck! Lots of room in there for something to go through. There isn’t any arterial bleeding so I figure the bullet didn’t hit anything serious. What I’m worried about is infection. I heard the Japs rub garlic on their bullets. That would cause infection.”

Hinman looked down at his cook. Thompson’s normally coal black, smiling face was ashy in color.

“How you feeling, old friend?” Hinman said.

Thompson opened his eyes. “Fine, sir. Doc’s gonna fix me up just fine.”

Chief John Barber came into the Crew’s Mess carrying a pair of long-nosed pliers, an alcohol torch and a piece of stiff wire 18 inches long. He put the torch on a mess bench and, using the pliers, he bent one end of the wire back to form a smooth, blunt end. Then he formed a larger loop at the other end. He stuck the pliers in his pocket and lit the alcohol torch and passed the flame up and down the wire several times. He handed the torch to one of his machinist’s mates and held the pliers in the flame.

“That ought to sterilize it,” Barber grunted. He held the wire in the pliers, the larger loop toward the Pharmacist’s Mate.

“Okay, now thread your gauze through that loop and then I’ll crimp it closed so it won’t slip out.” The Pharmacist’s Mate put a half-dozen six-inch long pieces of cotton gauze into the loop of wire and Barber carefully squeezed the loop tightly closed. He handed the wire to the other man, who dipped the gauze into a bottle of iodine.

“This is gonna sting you some, Tom, so hang on.” The man on the table rolled his eyes and then closed them and his big hands clamped down on the edge of the mess table.

“Someone hold his head steady.” Doc Whitten said. Chief Rhodes moved around to the end of the table and put his big hands on either side of Thompson’s face.

Doc Whitten crouched down until his eyes were on a level with Thompson’s neck. He pushed gently, feeding the stiff wire into and through the man’s neck until Barber, standing on the other side of the table, grunted and reached down and got a grip on the end of the wire with his pliers.

“Pull it through very slowly,” Whitten said. “I want that iodine to touch everything in there.” Barber nodded and began pulling on the wire. The iodine-soaked gauze disappeared into the hole in Thompson’s neck and the big man on the table gasped and Rhodes clamped his hands tightly on Thompson’s face. Barber began to pull on the wire and a low moan came through Thompson’s teeth.

“My fucking oath!” Major Struthers said.

Johnny Johnson, the ship’s cook, handed Whitten a coffee cup. “I mixed as much sulfa powder in that vaseline as it would take,” he said. Whitten nodded his head and picked up a wooden spatula and began packing the sulfa-loaded vaseline into the holes in each side of Thompson’s neck. When he had finished he put a square of gauze over each hole and strapped the squares down with tape. Thomas opened his eyes.

“You’re one hell of a surgeon, Doc,” Thompson said. “Next time I have to cut my toenails I’m gonna have you do it. Now lemme get up from here because I have to feed my people.”

“No you don’t!” Captain Hinman said. “You’re going to get in your bunk and stay there!”

“Captain,” Thompson said, sitting up on the mess table. “Ain’t no itty-bitty Jap bullet make me flake out in my sack!” He swung his legs off the table and stood up, moving his head from side to side gingerly.

“Don’t hurt hardly none at all,” he said. “This old Doc has fixed me up just fine!” He smiled and started to walk and then suddenly collapsed in a heap on the deck.

“Shock,” Doc Whitten said professionally. “Had to hit him sooner or later. Nothing to worry about. After we get him in his sack I’ll give him a shot to knock him out and he’ll sleep for about twelve hours. After that he should be okay if there’s no infection inside there.”

Hinman walked back to the Control Room and stood beside Joe Sirocco. “I’ve got to come to a decision on Grabnas,” he said. “Barber just told me the temperature of the injection water, the temperature of the sea water outside, is ninety-six degrees! We can’t keep Grabnas’ body in that torpedo tube very long; it’s too hot. I can’t put him in the freezer locker, no one would want to eat any of the food.”

“Burial at sea, sir?” Sirocco said gently. “It’s been done for centuries.”

Hinman nodded.

The following midnight John A. Aaron, Radioman Second Class, USNR, preached a short sermon over the ship’s communication system. The body of Andrew F. Grabnas, Seaman First Class, USNR, aged twenty-two, was carried topside encased in the heavy plastic cover from his bunk with a bar of lead lashed to his feet.

As the officers and Chief Petty Officers of the U.S.S. Mako stood at attention on the main deck Captain Hinman read the traditional words that have been used to bury seamen far from home. When he had finished with a soft “Amen” Ginty and DeLucia slid the body over the side as Lieut. Nathan Cohen, standing on the cigaret deck, softly chanted the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning.