Final Harbor

Chapter 31

Captain Mike Brannon leaned over the chart in the Control Room of Eelfish and looked at the plot his Executive Officer had drawn in.

“I think we left him too damned soon John,” Brannon said. “Art Hinman always did have luck! How far are we from him?”

“Twenty-one miles, sir,” Lieutenant Olsen said. “An hour and five minutes if we push it.” He pointed at the chart. “We can cut across the corner, sir. Plenty of water out here. This is the edge of the Philippine Trench. There’s over fifty-five hundred fathoms of water in this area.”

“We’ll push it,” Brannon said. “Damn it, I don’t want to miss out on the fun! Let’s send the crew to General Quarters now.” Olsen pushed the General Quarters alarm button and Brannon waited until the gong had stopped ringing and the reports had come in that the crew was at Battle Stations. He picked up the telephone.

“This is the Captain speaking,” he said. “Our friends on the Mako waited until we’d left and then they picked up a convoy! They were good enough to tell us about it and we’re going over and join their party. It will be an hour or so before we get there so stand easy on Battle Stations. The galley can serve coffee in the next fifteen minutes and all hands cross their fingers and toes and hope that Captain Hinman doesn’t sink all the ships before we get there!” Brannon turned to John Olsen.

“Set the course and let’s get going,” he said. “Doggone that Art Hinman, he always was a lucky sucker! I’m going topside, John. When you’ve got the plotting party organized come on up. If I know Art Hinman he’s going to attack on the surface and we’ll do the same. I’ll need you on the After TBT. We might be able to knock off one or two of the convoy if they’re running from the attack.”

Captain Brannon climbed up to the bridge and repeated what he had said on the telephone to the bridge watch and the lookouts. As he went back to the cigaret deck he glanced upward and saw the SJ Radar turning above him.

“Fifty-five hundred fathoms, you said?” Brannon said to Olsen. “God, that’s deep! Wonder if you’d have any layers in water like that?”

“I doubt it,” Olsen said. “The chart shows a strong current running there.”

“I wonder what that convoy’s doing, running without escorts,” Brannon mused. “Seems odd.”

“They’re pretty close to our patrol area, Leyte Gulf,” Olsen said. “Maybe they felt safe this close to a major port.”

A half hour went by and then the port lookout spoke up. “Bridge! I can see a flickering red light bearing three five zero! Looks like a little fire, sort of!”

“Try and get a radar bearing!” Brannon said. He turned his head upward and saw the radar settle on the lookout’s bearing.

“No contact, Bridge,” the radar operator sang out. “Maybe the ship is below the horizon or maybe it’s too small to pick up at this range, sir.”

“Very well,” Brannon said. “Keep trying.” He walked back and forth across the small cigaret deck, waiting.

“Got me another little flickering light!” the port lookout called out. “Two flickering lights, Bridge!”

“Radar contact bearing three five zero!”

“All ahead flank!” Brannon ordered. He went to the bridge and bent his head to the bridge transmitter.

“All hands, this is the Captain. We’ve got two ships up ahead of us that appear to be on fire and we’ve got radar contact. Mako must have hit some targets. Now it’s our turn! We’re going to go in and get ‘em! All hands stand by for a surface attack with torpedoes! I’ll slow down to let you open the outer doors when the time comes.”

“Plot is running, Bridge,” the voice came up through the Bridge speaker. “We’re on an intercept course with the contacts.”

“Very well,” Brannon said. He turned to the Officer of the Deck. “Go below, Jim. I’ll take over now. Stand by to dive if we have to do that.”

“Bridge!” the radar operator’s voice was sharp. “I’ve got a lot of small blips up there and one pretty big blip! Bearing is zero zero one!”

“Keep the bearings coming,” Brannon said. He raised his binoculars. The flickering lights the lookout had reported were within his sight. He turned his face upward toward the lookouts. “Can you see what kind of ships are burning?”

“Looks like two kinda small ships, sir,” the port lookout answered. “I can see some other small ships now, little ships they look like. They bear from dead ahead to three four five degrees, sir.

An echoing boom rang across the water and then another and another.

“Depth charges!” Lieutenant Olsen called out from his post at the Aft TBT. “Those sound like depth charges, Captain!”

Fleet Captain Akihito Hideki of the Imperial Japanese Navy put a bathrobe on over his pajamas with a word of thanks to the seaman who had brought him the robe. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and turned to the commanding officer of the Fubuki destroyer-leader that was designated Eagle.

The Fubuki’s commanding officer pointed out to the port side where the flames from two ships were clearly visible.

“The two lead ships, loaded with lumber as you know, were attacked by a submarine on the surface. Both were hit. The fires are now under control. The submarine then attacked the inboard ship of the next two. They were in formation side by side. The torpedo missed and the submarine then ran down between our two ships. The captain of the outboard ship reports that he opened fire on the submarine with all his machine guns and that he scored a great many hits on the submarine’s bridge.”

“They always say they hit the target,” the Professor said.

“The range was only about forty-five meters, sir.”

“Hm, in that case maybe they did hit what they shot at. When they opened fire did the submarine return the fire?”

“No, sir. It dove immediately.”

“Not because of any damage, I’d bet,” the Professor said. “The vulnerable part of a submarine is not its bridge, you can wipe that off the ship and not hurt it greatly. They should fire at the pressure hull!”

“Contact!” the telephone talker on Eagle’s bridge raised his voice. “We have a contact… zero five zero… range two zero zero zero yards.”

“Depth charge settings?” the Professor asked quietly.

“As you ordered sir; the Y-guns are set for four hundred feet. The charges on the racks are staggered from two hundred to six hundred feet, sir.”

“Signal Eagle’s Feather One to make an attack down the target’s track. We’ll follow to the starboard of the track.” The Eagle’s commanding officer said a few words to his telephone talker and then raised his arm. He dropped it and a signalman on the wing of the bridge aimed his light at Eagle Feather One.

The first attack on Mako went awry. Eagle’s Feather One dropped its charges too quickly and Eagle, following to starboard, dropped its charges too late. Even so the heavy charges, many of them exploding at depths greater than Mako was cruising, shook the submarine heavily. In the Forward Torpedo Room Johnny Paul turned to Chief Ginty.

“God damn it,” he said in a half-whisper, “we got a feather merchant playing Captain and we’re gonna get the shit kicked out of us!” He winced as Ginty’s massive hand closed on his upper arm.

“Shut your fuckin’ trap, sailor!” Ginty rasped in Paul’s ear. “You’re in charge this fuckin’ room! The people here look up to you so don’t go bad-mouthin’ Grilley! Do your fuckin’ job, man!” He turned and started for the after end of the room. A member of the reload crew stopped him.

“Captain’s dead, Chief?”

“Either dead or swimmin’,” Ginty answered.

“Looks pretty bad, hey? No Captain?”

“What’s bad?” Ginty grunted. “You’re makin’ your first war patrol and you sit here bellyaching! Them topside people is either dead or they’re being picked up by the Jap ships or they’re swimmin’ and the beach is fuckin’ miles away! Which is worse off, them or you?

“You heard Captain Grilley, Eelfish and Captain Mike Brannon is on the way. Fuckin’ Jap is gonna get a big surprise!” He reached for a dog on the water-tight door and swiveled it around and reached for a second dog. A series of pings echoed through Mako’s hull. Ginty dogged the door down tight and went back to the forward end of the torpedo room. He turned and faced the people in the room.

“Alla you people with nothin’ to do and that means all of you, you get in bunks and hold on and don’t make no noise! Ol’ Jap has got a bearin’ on us and he’s gonna drop some shit on us! For you people ain’t heard no depth charges, don’t shit your skivvies! What you hear ain’t gonna hurt you!”

In the Maneuvering Room just forward of the After Torpedo Room, Chief Hendershot cocked his head upward as he heard the sound of the Japanese sonar.

“Told me when I shipped in this Navy,” he said to the man sitting beside him in front of the control console, “told me that joining the Navy was like getting married. It was for better or for worse and son of a bitch if this isn’t one of the worse parts comin’ along now!”

The second attack on Mako was coordinated precisely. The two destroyers under the command of the Fubuki destroyer-leader called Eagle wheeled and formed up and ran down Mako’s track, one on each side. The Y-guns roared, sending their charges far out to each side, the depth charges tumbling awkwardly through the air before hitting the water with a great splash and sinking downward. On the narrow sterns the depth charges rolled off the racks and plunged straight downward. Mako shook and rolled, groaning under the heavy pounding of the explosions. Don Grilley, holding on to the chart table for support, looked at Aaron at the bathythermograph. Aaron’s wide blue eyes narrowed slightly and then he shook his head. No layers.

“He twists and turns oddly,” the Professor said to the Fubuki’s commander as the two men studied the neatly drawn plot of Mako’s movements. The Professor looked up at the taller, younger officer. He tapped the plotting paper with a bony forefinger.

“I see what you mean, sir,” the Fubuki commander said as he looked at the plot. “The target is behaving as our targets used to act in your school. He’s predictable. He turned toward the attacking ship’s track to avoid the spread from the Y-guns and continued his turn full circle to get away from the charges dropped in the attacking ship’s wake.” He shrugged.

“Maybe he is not very experienced,” he said slowly.

“Would an inexperienced submarine captain carry out such a bold attack on the surface? I find that hard to believe.” The professor shook his bald head.

“A number of American submarines have attacked on the surface in recent weeks,” the Fubuki commander said. “Our intelligence reports show that. Perhaps it is now one of their new techniques.”

“We’ll see,” the Professor said. He picked up a pencil and drew three lines on the plot.

“There: Eagle’s Feather One will come down here, on this side of the target. The target, if he acts as he has done, will follow this line and we will be here. We will not fire the Y-guns but we will drop two charges and then slow to listen. If he turns into the first attacking ship’s track and continues his turn, as he has done before, then we will come,” his finger snapped down against the paper. “We will come here, turning with him and intercept him!” He grinned at the younger man.

“Now, let’s get a solid bearing on this fellow and we’ll see if this tactic works!”

Nate Cohen pushed his left earphone pad up on his temple and listened as Mako’s hull rang under a barrage of sonar searching beams. He leaned toward the Control Room hatch.

“Two ships doing all that pinging, Captain. I’d bet a bagel with lots of lox and cream cheese that we’re going to catch a good one!”

“Very well,” Grilley said. He turned to DeLucia.

“When Nate gives us the word the attack run has started take me down to five hundred feet. They know by now that we’ve been steady at four hundred, so now we’ll mess up their depth charge settings.” He stood at the chart table, looking at the plot, wishing that Captain Mealey — or Captain Hinman — were there.

“Here they come!” Cohen’s voice carried from the Conning Tower.

“Five hundred feet! Ten degree down bubble!” DeLucia said.

“First ship is coming up our starboard side!” Cohen said. “Coming fast! Second ship is astern of the first one and oft to our starboard.”

“Right full rudder!” Grilley ordered. Mako banked slightly as she turned and drove deeper under the sea. A depth charge exploded with a shattering roar, breaking light bulbs and showering the interior of the ship with shattered cork insulation. Another depth charge crashed and Mako shook violently.

“Six hundred feet!” Grilley ordered. He held on to the chart table with both hands as Mako shuddered under a string of heavy explosions that seemed to be all around the ship. He looked down at the plot and then let go with one hand to sweep the bits of cork from the paper.

“Left full rudder!” Grilley said suddenly. “We turned full circle the first time. This time we’ll only go half way. Steer course one seven zero, helm.”

“Second ship is starting its run, Control! Coming like a bat out of hell!” Grilley looked upward as the distant drum of the Fubuki’s twin screws cut through the turbulence left by the depth charges.

“He’s dropping!” Cohen said. “I think he’s off the track, Control, he’s out to starboard!” A series of explosions shook Mako but not as violently as the others had done. Grilley swiftly drew in the lines on the plot.

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

“Very well,” Grilley said. He smiled inwardly. How easy the jargon of command came to his lips! If only the ability to outwit a destroyer commander would come as easily. He sighed and stared down at the plot.

“He fooled us!” the Professor said. “He did not complete his turn as he had done before!”

“You sound almost pleased!” the Fubuki commander said.

“Not pleased, but maybe a little gratified. We are true professionals. It does us no honor to defeat an amateur!”

“Contact!” The telephone talker on Eagle’s bridge sang out. “Eagle’s Feather One has the target bearing two four five, depth six hundred feet, sir.”

The Professor bent over the plot, his pencil darting. “This and then this, do you see? Form our ships up so, and so, and then…”

The sound of the depth charging was clearly heard on the bridge of the Eelfish as she raced toward the action.

“Secure the radar,” Brannon ordered. “I don’t want one of their radio operators to pick it up.” He braced his elbows on the bridge rail and held his binoculars to his eyes. Up above him the port lookout spoke.

“Bridge! I’ve got two ships, dead ahead! I can see a lot of white water shooting up, too!” The sullen roar of exploding depth charges rolled across the black water.

“Plot!” Brannon barked. “Give me a set-up on those two ships dead ahead. Conning Tower, give me a range!”

“Range is five zero zero zero yards to the nearest of the two ships, Captain.”

“Clear the bridge!” Brannon shouted. He stood to one side as the lookouts and then his Executive Officer plunged down through the hatch. He took one last look at the two ships ahead of him, dark shapes against the rising moon. He punched the diving alarm twice and dropped through the hatch. Eelfish slanted downward.

“I want to run right in on them, John,” he called down the hatch to Olsen. “They’re busy as hell giving Mako a working over. I’ll give them something to think about!” He stepped over to the periscope and waited until Eelfish had leveled off at periscope depth. He caught the handles of the periscope as it rose and snapped them outward.

“Sixty-five feet,” he called down the hatch. He steadied the cross hairs in the periscope on the two ships.

“Mark!”

“Bearing three five zero,” the assistant TDC officer said.

“Range is four zero zero zero yards,” Brannon said. He looked toward the hatch.

“Give me a course to the target bearing,” he said calmly. “Open all torpedo tube outer doors. Set depth on all torpedoes at two feet. Repeat: two feet.” He put his eye to the lens again.

“All tube doors open. Depth set at two feet on all fish, sir.”

“Very well. Let’s start the shooting run, Plot. Stand by… Mark! Range is three five zero zero. How does it look?”

“What range do you want to shoot, sir?” the TDC officer looked at him.

“One thousand yards,” Brannon said. “I want to be sure of hitting the bastards!”

“If the targets don’t move away we’ll be in shooting position in twenty-two minutes, sir.”

“They’ll move,” Brannon said dryly. “They’re maneuvering all over the damned ocean out there. Stand easy, they’re about to start another run on Mako. Plot, let’s go to full speed for a few minutes, I want to close the range and be ready for them when they form up for the next run on Mako.” He felt the deck vibrate under him as the screws bit into the water.

The young officer at the TDC was deadly serious. “At this speed now, sir, you should be able to shoot in thirteen minutes.”

“Don’t solve the problems before we know what the other guy is going to do,” Brannon said softly. “Just stand easy.” He ordered the periscope run down and stood patiently, looking at his watch from time to time. He signaled to the assistant TDC officer to raise the periscope.

“We can slow down now, Plot,” he called out. He put his eye to the periscope and the people in the Conning Tower saw the muscles under his shirt bunch.

“Stand by… Mark! Range to the nearest target is… two zero zero zero! Angle on the bow is zero six zero starboard! Start the problem! As soon as this guy commits himself to his run I’m going to give him three from the forward tubes and then try for a set-up on the other target. The second target is out beyond our first target.”

“Surface ships are speeding up, sir,” the sonar man said.

“Stand by… stand by… Mark! Range is one two zero zero yards… angle on the bow is zero five zero… “

“You can shoot, sir! We have a solution!”

“Fire one!” Brannon began counting down from six to one.

“Fire two!

“Fire three!” Brannon turned the periscope to the second target.

“Mark! This is on the second target! Mark!.. Range is one eight zero zero… angle on the bow is zero nine zero starboard… no… Hold everything! He’s turning away and speeding up. Keep me on this course, Plot. We’ll catch him in a minute!”

The first two torpedoes fired by Eelfish missed astern. The third torpedo slammed into the stern of Eagle’s Feather One and the combined explosive force of the torpedo and the score of depth charges on the stern rack erased all of Eagle’s Feather One from the stern to the bridge. The Eagle, trailing its sister ship and to its port, shook violently in the huge explosion.

“Eagle’s Feather One!” The Fubuki’s commander stood, shocked. “Her depth charges exploded! Come right, helm, head for her!”

“Alter your course to her course and proceed with the attack!” The Professor’s voice was cold, distant. “We can do nothing for her or her people. Attack the target!”

In Mako, six hundred feet below the surface, Nate Cohen’s keen ears picked up the high whine of the torpedo screws. His eyes widened as he heard the thrashing scream of the high-speed torpedo screws and then he shook his head in pain as the explosion that blew Eagle’s Feather One to bits blasted through Mako’s sound heads.

“I heard torpedo screws, two or three of them!” Cohen yelled down the hatch to the control room. “I heard the screws just before that big explosion! I know that was a torpedo hit, sir, I know it! The torpedo screws went right in the bearing of the ship I was tracking!”

“Left full rudder,” Grilley ordered. He looked at Chief DeLucia. “If Mr. Cohen is right, and he is almost always right, that means that Mike Brannon is close by! Nate, where did the torpedo screws come from, did you get a bearing?”

“Came from starboard and aft, sir. The ship I was tracking had just started to speed up. It bore one nine zero, sir.” He waited, knowing that Don Grilley would be making the bearings in on the plot.

“I heard the torpedoes running from starboard to port, well aft. The submarine that fired them has to be somewhere out there on our starboard quarter!”

“Rudder amidships,” Grilley ordered. “Meet her right about there!” He looked from the gyro compass repeater to his plot. If he could maneuver Mako a little farther in this direction then the remaining Japanese destroyer would be between Mako and Eelfish. He chewed his lip reflectively. Should he go up to periscope depth and join in the attack on the enemy destroyer or should he stay down at this depth and let Eelfish deal with the destroyer? If he went up would he interfere with Mike Brannon’s attack strategy? What would Mike Brannon expect Captain Hinman to do? Brannon and Hinman had talked for hours in the Wardroom on the first two war patrols about the advantages of two submarines attacking a target. Captain Hinman would go up and join the fight. He turned to DeLucia.

“You’re the Diving Officer, Chief. Take me up to sixty-five feet!” He reached for the telephone.

“This is Captain Grilley. Eelfish has arrived! The last big explosion we heard was a torpedo from Eelfish hitting one of the destroyers that have been attacking us! Mr. Cohen heard the torpedo running, he heard two or three torpedoes running and he tracked one of them right into the enemy bearing! We’re going up and get into the fight and get that other bastard up there! All hands stand by, we’ll open the torpedo tube outer doors at sixty-five feet… correction… make that open the torpedo tube doors as we pass ninety feet on the way up.” He reached over to hang up the telephone and was thrown to his knees by two tremendous explosions. Dimly he heard Cohen shouting that the second destroyer had begun its attack. Two more gigantic explosions shook Mako, rolling the ship to starboard forty-five degrees. As Mako rolled back another depth charge exploded close aboard and Chief DeLucia’s grip on the Conning Tower ladder was broken and he hurtled across the Control Room. He scrambled to his feet and collapsed on the deck. As Grilley watched, DeLucia crawled back to the Conning Tower ladder, his right leg beneath the knee sticking out at a sickening angle.

“I think my flicking leg is broke!” DeLucia grated as he hauled himself upright against the ladder. “Watch your God damned bubble, Smalley!”

“Damage reports,” Grilley said to the telephone talker.

“Oil! Big bubbles of oil bearing two nine zero!” The port lookout on Eagle’s bridge raised his voice in a triumphant yell. The Professor and the Fubuki’s commander rushed to the wing of the bridge, their eyes following the lookout’s pointing arm. The oil was clearly visible in the moonlight.

“We’ve hurt him!” the Professor said. He smoothed his goatee. “A very nicely executed attack, sir.” He walked back to the plotting board. “Let’s get a bearing on him as quickly as we can. Then we’ll finish him off!”

“Torpedo! Torpedo!” The wailing cry came from the starboard lookout. “Torpedo passing ahead!”

“From that side?” The Professor stared down at the plot. “Impossible!”

“Contact!” The telephone talker’s voice was high, excited. “Sound Room reports submarine contacts bearing two nine five and zero four zero!”

“Fifteen degrees right rudder, all ahead flank speed!” The Fubuki’s commander snapped out the order and the Eagle’s bow reared and then settled as her powerful screws roared to full speed.

“Two submarines!” The Professor looked at the Fubuki’s commander. Then he bent over the plot, his small bony fingers holding a pencil swiftly traced the Eagle’s change of course and marked in the bearing of both submarines. He laid the pencil down and belted his bathrobe tightly about his waist.

“I will take charge, Isoruku,” he said quietly. “Left full rudder. Drop two charges from the stern racks as we are well into the turn.” He looked down at the plot and then at his former student.

“The second submarine will expect us to attack him so he will go deep, too deep to fire torpedoes. We will not follow his expectations!” He cocked his head as the explosions of the two depth charges roared in the night. “Reduce speed to one-third, please. Get me a bearing on the target, the first target! We will finish him off with this attack and then we will have a second submarine for an encore!”

“First target bears zero one zero, sir,” The telephone talker on Eagle’s bridge spoke up.

“All ahead full,” the Professor said calmly. “Captain, you will signal the dropping pattern, please.” The Fubuki’s commander nodded and raised his right arm. Then he brought it down with a swift motion. The big Y-guns roared and sent their charges tumbling through the air and on the stern of the Fubuki the gunnery ratings began to release the depth charges.

Eelfish was passing 150 feet when the young sonar man reported the attack run had begun on Mako. The sailor’s eyes widened as he listened.

“Explosions all around out there, sir. Worst noise I ever heard, sir!”

“The son of a bitch is a professional,” Mike Brannon said. “He wants his first target! Blow Safety! Blow Negative! Open the outer tube doors at one hundred feet! Stand by to flood Negative, John, I want to show my bridge to that son of a bitch! Maybe that will draw him off of Mako. Come on, get me up! He can’t hear anything out there with all that noise! I want that son of a bitch to see us! Then I’ll take him!”

Mako twisted in the wracking explosions, her hull groaning and creaking. In the After Torpedo Room the lights blew out and the one-inch thick steel holding pins on a torpedo rack holding a 3,000-pound torpedo sheared off and the rack slammed across the room and crushed a reload team member.

The Control Room telephone talker turned to Captain Grilley.

“Maneuvering Room, Chief Hendershot, reports that the starboard propeller shaft started to run wild and he’s shut down that screw, sir! The Chief says we might have lost the wheel, sir!”

DeLucia leaned over from his position at the ladder and tapped the stern planesman on the shoulder.

“You still got stern planes?” The man nodded.

“If we lost a wheel, sir,” DeLucia said, “we’d probably lose the stern planes too. Must have been the shaft, is all.”

“Very well,” Grilley said. “Helm, we’ve only got one screw turning, port side. Compensate for that.” He turned his head toward the Conning Tower hatch as Cohen spoke.

“He’s turned and he’s coming back, Control! He’s coming fast!”

A series of heavy explosions shook Mako. DeLucia fought back the desire to yell with pain as he was knocked to the deck. He held on to the ladder, his right leg sticking out at an odd angle.

“Two hundred feet, sir, five degree up bubble!”

“Keep her coming,” Grilley said.

“After Torpedo Room is flooding!” The telephone talker’s face was white in the light of the emergency lanterns. “After Room reports they’ve got a split in the After Trim bulkhead between the tubes an inch wide! Room is flooding, sir!”

“Order the Maneuvering Room to open the salvage air valves to the After Room,” Grilley snapped.

“Hard to keep her ass up, sir!” The stern planesman had his planes on full rise. Grilley felt the deck under his feet tilt as Mako’s stern sank.

“Blow Number Seven Main Ballast!” Grilley ordered. His mind was sorting out the factors. The After Torpedo Room held almost 140 tons of sea water if it were flooded completely. The Number Seven Main Ballast tank held 39 tons of sea water. If they could get enough air pressure into the After Torpedo Room to hold the water in check before the tonnage of flood water outweighed the water he had blown out of the ballast tank, there was a chance Mako could be kept on an even keel.

“Number Seven is blown dry, sir,” the auxiliaryman said. Mako sagged, her stern down, her bow rising.

“Blow Main Ballast Six Able and Six Baker!” Grilley said. He waited as the high pressure air roared through the manifolds, blowing dry two of the four tanks in the Number Six Main Ballast group. Mako’s stern began to rise slightly.

“We’re gonna broach!” DeLucia yelled. “Forty feet and going up fast! We’re gonna surface, sir!”

The lookout stationed on the port wing of the Eagle saw Mako’s bow burst through the surface of the dark sea. His yell brought a calm response from the Fubuki’s commander.

“Right ten degrees rudder! Gunnery officers — your target is submarine bow! Commence firing!” He watched, not bothering to use his night binoculars, as the shell splashes neared Mako’s bow.

“Submarine! Submarine bearing zero nine zero!” the starboard lookout yelled.

“Blow Main Ballast Six Charlie and Dog!” Grilley ordered. “Let’s see if that won’t get this damned up angle off her! He whirled as a giant hammer blow rang through Mako’s hull.

“What the hell was that? Get me a report!”

Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Arnold Samuel “Ginch” Ginty died as he had lived for the better part of the past sixteen years, standing in front of his torpedo tubes as a five-inch shell from the destroyer burst through the Mako’s hull just aft of the tubes. Four of the reload crew escaped the hail of shrapnel that riddled the Torpedo Room and drowned as the last of Number Six Ballast Tank blew dry and Mako’s bow came down to an almost even keel. The flooded Forward Torpedo Room dragged Mako’s bow downward and the ship began a long slide back down into the sea from which it just burst.

“Can’t raise the Forward Room, sir!” The Control Room talker clutched at the chart table as Mako began her descent.

“Blow Bow Buoyancy!” Grilley snapped.

“Blowing bow buoyancy tank, sir!”

“I don’t have a reading on bow buoyancy vent, sir!” The auxiliary electrician who had taken over Chief DeLucia’s Battle Station at the hydraulic vent manifold rapped his knuckles against the indicator panel that showed with lights whether the vents and flood valves were open or closed.

“I got no light at all, no red and no green on bow buoyance!”

“Keep blowing!” Grilley ordered. “Telephone, try the Forward Battery, see if Thomas can tell us what’s wrong up there!”

The telephone talker hunched over his mouthpiece. Then he raised stricken eyes to Don Grilley.

“Tom says he looked through the bull’s-eye glass in the water-tight door. He says all he can see is water.”

“Passing one hundred feet Captain,” DeLucia said from the deck beside the ladder.

“Blow all tanks! Blow everything!” Grilley snapped.

“Stand by forward!” Mike Brannon ordered. “He’s shooting at our bridge! Son of a bitch has seen us! Turn, you bastard, turn! Mark! Range is one three zero five!.. angle on the bow is thirty port!.. stand by…

“Fire five!..

“Fire six!.. Left full rudder… stand by aft!”

“Torpedoes running hot straight and normal, sir!” The sonar man’s voice was low but intense, charged with the excitement he felt.

Mike Brannon’s eye was glued to the periscope lens as he twisted the periscope around. He saw the Fubuki’s high, knife-like bow plainly in the bright moonlight and then he saw a dull orange flower at the destroyer’s midsection that changed to bright red.

“Hit!” Brannon yelled. “Hit!”

Another bright flash enveloped the side of the Fubuki just below its bridge and Brannon saw the entire bridge rise up in the air as the ship’s boilers exploded.

“Got you, you bastard!” Brannon yelled. “We’ve got him! Now where the hell is Mako?” He swung the periscope savagely, searching the sea.

“Start a sonar search!” He said to the sonar operator.

“Lots of noise out there, sir, have to wait a minute…”

“To hell with the damned noise! Start the sonar search! That destroyer was firing its guns at something on the far side from us. Had to be the Mako! Stand by to Battle Surface! He jammed his hand down on the klaxon horn button three times and the Eelfish surged upward, its gun crews fighting for balance as they raced to the Control Room and up the ladder to the Conning Tower.

Mike Brannon opened the bridge hatch before the bridge had drained itself of water, fighting his way upward through the solid wall of water that came pouring through the hatch onto him.

“Left ten degrees rudder!” he called down as the gun crews went over the bridge rail and down to the deck. He raised his glasses and began to search the sea beyond the flotsam of the blasted Fubuki.

“Meet you helm right there, all ahead one third, Mr. Olsen, get up here!” He pointed out to port as Olsen stood beside him.

“That’s where the destroyer was when we hit her,” he said. “She was heading, oh, her bow was pointed right at about where we are now and she was firing to port. So Mako must have been out there, somewhere. She must have come up to help us and then went back down when the destroyer opened fire.”

“Contact!”

“Give me a bearing, Sonar!”

“Contact bears zero one zero, sir.”

“Get on the sending key!” Brannon yelled. “Tell Mako to come on up, the party’s over!”

The pulsing beam of the sonar from Eelfish rang against Mako’s hull. Aaron, standing at the bathythermograph, listened intently.

“Code, sir,” he said to Don Grilley. He listened to the long and short sounds hitting Mako’s hull.

“He says to come up, the party is over. Signed Eelfish.” Grilley looked at the depth gauge. It read 150 feet. Mako was slowly, inexorably, sinking.

“Aaron,” Grilley said, “Get up there beside Mr. Cohen and get on the sending key. Tell Eelfish we have both torpedo rooms flooded, one screw out of commission and sign my name.”

“Tell him to blow everything! Blow every damned thing he’s got!” Brannon called down the hatch after Eelfish had received Mako’s message. Brannon waited.

“He says he’s tried that, sir,” the sonar man called up. “He can’t blow his fuel oil tanks, the vents must be wide open and he can’t close them. He’s at two hundred feet and sinking slowly!”

“Oh Jesus!” Brannon said. “Tell him I want to talk to Captain Hinman, son.”

Brannon and Olsen heard the sonar man as he repeated the Mako’s message to the quartermaster of the watch in the Conning Tower. “Captain Hinman and Pete Simms and all topside party lost in deck gun fire from freighter…. Lieutenant Grilley has assumed command… Mako is at four hundred feet.”

“Oh, God!” Brannon said. “What the hell can we do?”

“Not much,” his Executive Officer said slowly. “Not much except pray!”

There was a strange, eerie calm within Mako as the ship slowly sank downward. Chief Mike DeLucia looked at his twisted leg and half-smiled. “You won’t hurt for very damned long,” he said softly. “That’s for damned sure!”

In the Forward Battery Compartment Chief Officers’ Cook Thomas T. Thompson drew a cup of coffee from the urn in his tiny serving galley and took it into the Wardroom and sat down and began to-sip slowly from the cup.

In the Conning Tower Aaron, sitting beside Nate Cohen, prayed, his voice soft in the quiet Conning Tower. When he had finished his prayer Nat Cohen began to chant softly in Yiddish.

Mako continued to sink.

“She’s at five hundred feet, sir!” the sonar man reported to Captain Brannon. “Five hundred feet and sinking slowly!”

Mike Brannon wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Tell them,” his voice broke, “tell them we are praying for them. Tell them that!” He turned away, sobbing.

He waited, the tears streaming down his cheeks, listening to the measured pulses of Mako’s response. The sonar man in the Conning Tower called out each word to the quartermaster and on the bridge, Captain Mike Brannon and John Olsen heard each word:

“The Lord is my Shepherd… I shall not want… He maketh me to lie down in green pastures … He leadeth me beside the still waters…”

There was silence.

“Sir,” the sonar man’s voice was small, hardly audible. “Sir, transmission stopped and I heard a big crunching noise!”

Brannon looked at his Executive Officer, his eyes streaming. “My God, John, the water is six miles deep here!”

John Olsen nodded and in a soft voice finished the words of the Twenty-Third Psalm.