Final Harbor

Chapter 5

Mako surfaced in the first full dark of the night and wallowed sluggishly on a course southward down the coast of Borneo, her bull nose pointed in the direction of the harbor in Balikpapan. Lieut. Nathan Cohen leaned his elbows on the teak rail of the bridge and stared through his binoculars at the mountainous bulk of the island.

“I never noticed before,” he said to the quartermaster on watch. “At night. The mountain over there looks as if it’s only about five hundred yards away! I’d swear we were going to run aground if I didn’t know better!”

“Yes, sir,” the quartermaster said. “But the chart shows that we’re almost three miles off the beach. But it does look awful close, yes sir.”

“Those little spots of light on the beach,” Cohen said. “They must be fires, probably cooking fires. I wonder what kind of people they are? What food are they cooking?” He heard Captain Hinman’s footsteps as he moved from the cigaret deck into the bridge and stood beside him.

“I find it strange, Captain; there are people over there around those fires who have no knowledge of our presence here, our mission. People who probably don’t even know there’s a war going on and who don’t care at all about who wins or loses.”

“I know, Nate,” Hinman said quietly. “I stand up here at night and I wonder about the same things. It’s a very strange world. Those people around those little fires probably have their own enemies, fight their own wars, live and die and we don’t know anything about that, either.

“I have to go below and write up a contact report and the action report for the Staff at Pearl. I’ll call you to encode when I’m ready. Keep a sharp lookout.” He went down the hatch and Cohen turned and began to study the horizon through his glasses. An hour went by and he jumped as the bridge speaker rasped tinnily.

“Bridge. Executive Officer requests permission to come up.”

“Permission granted, sir,” Cohen answered. Mike Brannon hauled himself up through the hatch and took a deep breath of the night air.

“Skipper wants you in the Wardroom, Nate. I’ll take the deck. You don’t have to hurry; stop and get some coffee when you’re through if you want.”

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Cohen said. “We’re on course one seven five, speed… but you know all that, you’re the navigator.”

He turned to go below but Brannon’s hand stopped him.

“Always go through the whole routine, Nate,” Brannon said gently. “Course, engines on propulsion or battery charge, state of the battery charge, what fuel oil tanks are on the line, state of the diving trim, conditions of the ship, any changes of course in the night order book, the whole thing.”

Cohen felt the hot rush of blood to his face and hoped Brannon wouldn’t notice in the dark. He obediently rattled off the ritual demanded of all officers who turn over the OOD watch to another officer and went below to the Wardroom.

“Sit down, Nate,” Captain Hinman said. He shoved two pieces of paper across the felt-topped table.

“Two messages. The first is a report of all the shipping we saw in the harbor at Balikpapan. Send that message in the usual code for reporting on shipping.

“I want the second message sent in plain language. I want every submarine skipper on station who hears us to know what we did and exactly how we did it!”

Cohen studied the second message.

Lieut. Cohen looked up from the message. “Sir, you want this sent in plain English? I mean, many of the enemy read English, Sir.”

“Mr. Cohen,” Captain Hinman said, “the enemy knows precisely what ships it lost. It knows how the attack was made. The enemy knows by now that we have had trouble with our torpedoes, too many enemy ships, have been hit by torpedoes that didn’t explode. So what do we have to hide from them? Now they’ll think we have our torpedo problem licked and the knowledge that we made that attack alone will probably shake them up and make them re-evaluate their defense measures. It should make them uncertain of what they are doing now and that will help us.” He took a sip from his coffee cup, eyeing the lean, swarthy man sitting across the table.

“I have other reasons, personal reasons, for sending this second message in plain language,” he continued.

“I want the other submarine captains on station to know how we made this attack. I want that damned hidebound Staff at Pearl to know they know! And I want to bring this exploder problem out in the open where the Staff at Pearl can’t hide it anymore!”

“I don’t quite understand, sir,” Cohen’s face was troubled.

“I keep forgetting you’re a Reserve, that you don’t know all the background on the torpedo exploders,” Hinman said. “You do know we had a lot of trouble the first patrol. Hell, nothing but trouble!

“Well, basically, the problem is this. The torpedo exploders have a magnetic detecting device built into them. The detector is supposed to pick up the disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field that occurs when a metal-hulled ship is moving through the water. When the disturbance is picked up the exploder fires the explosive charge in the warhead. The firing of the warhead can be delayed so that the torpedo, again theoretically, is under the target ship’s hull when the warhead goes off.

“This should be the perfect weapon for a submarine. Water cannot be compressed to any measurable degree — you should remember that from your physics courses in college. So if you set the torpedo to run at a depth that will take it beneath the hull of the target and the torpedo warhead explodes under that hull then the entire explosive force of the warhead would divert up through the air-filled hull of the ship and break its back. Theoretically, only one torpedo should be needed for each target ship. Our orders say we should fire only one torpedo at a ship unless it is a very large ship or a major warship.

“You know that on our first patrol we fired at ships and you heard the torpedoes running right through the bearings of the target ships.” Cohen nodded.

“Then I set the depth of the torpedoes at two feet so the fish would hit the ship. That’s the old-fashioned way of firing a torpedo, fire it to hit the ship and explode. And the torpedoes didn’t explode! The damned exploders are defective! They won’t work! Chief Rhodes and Ginty disconnected the magnetic circuits in the exploders and did some minor modifying to the contact part of the exploder and they work!” He sat back in his chair.

“But why doesn’t the Staff at Pearl order the exploders fixed, modified, so they will work?” Cohen’s face was puzzled.

“Because they won’t believe their perfect weapon isn’t perfect!” Hinman snapped. “They tell us that we’re not hitting our targets! Now, by God, they’ll know who’s wrong!

“And there’s one other reason I want that message sent in plain language. I want those skippers who get it to know that if you want to win this war you’ve got to be aggressive, to attack the enemy, not run from him!” He squeezed his hard hands around his coffee cup.

“Nate, we’ve got submarine skippers out here who are just plain afraid to attack Japanese ships if there’s an escort around! The tactics book they wrote before the war says that a submarine shouldn’t attack if there are two or more enemy escorts nearby. That’s all some of our peacetime submarine captains need to know! The tactics book says that all torpedo attacks should be made from a submerged position, even at night! Hell, the Germans have been shooting our convoys to ribbons in the Atlantic, attacking in wolf packs on the surface, running right in among the convoy ships!

“Some of these older commanders who have their sights set on four gold stripes and then an Admiral’s billet won’t deviate one inch from that book. They sight a convoy at night and go through the motions of trying to get far ahead enough of the convoy to submerge and God knows, in most cases it can’t be done! The convoys are faster than the submarines! They run away from them! Which suits some of our cowardly lions very well!

“Well, by God, they gave me a defective weapon and I made it effective! They gave me pussy-footing tactics and I changed them! We’re out here to kill Japs, to win a war! By Heaven, that’s what I’m going to do!” He relaxed suddenly.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I shouldn’t flare up at you. You’re not Navy, you’re a Reserve. And your people, no offense meant, Mr. Cohen, your people don’t know much about war.”

Cohen stood up, the two messages in his hand.

“With all due respect, Captain, war is war. The Jew knows about war.

“Masada, sir, seventy-three A.D. Nine hundred and sixty Jews, half of them women and children, stood off the famed Tenth Legion of the Roman Army. The Jews were outnumbered by at least twelve to one. Yet they fought for a very long time and when defeat was inevitable the surviving Jewish soldiers killed their women and children and then each man was killed by another until there was only one Jew left. He fell on his sword! They chose death and honor rather than slavery!”

Captain Hinman’s nostrils flared, his face white. He drew a long breath.

“I stand rebuked, Mr. Cohen! I should have known better. I apologize, sir.”

“I intended no rebuke, sir, and I cannot accept an apology for something that was not offensive.” He picked up the curtain at the door and left the Wardroom. Captain Hinman stared for a long time at the green curtain.

Copies of Captain Hinman’s two messages were laid in front of each place at a long polished table in the submarine Staff headquarters in Pearl Harbor. The Staff members filed in and stacked their uniform caps on a small table and then moved to the coffee sideboard and drew cups of coffee and took their places at the table. There was a dead silence as each member of the Staff read the two messages.

“Well?” Capt. John F. Severn’s harsh voice rasped down the table. “Well? Anyone got anything to say? That damned practical joker has gone too far this time! If this is one of his jokes I will personally run him out of this Navy! You know him better than any of us, Rudd, he was your Executive Officer. Is this one of his jokes?”

Comdr. Robert Rudd raised his eyes from the messages and looked at Captain Severn.

“No, sir. I don’t think this is any joke. I’ve heard through the grapevine that he hasn’t been in a joking mood since Marie bought it at Hickam. I admit he used to be a happy-go-lucky man but I hear that isn’t so these days.”

“I don’t believe it,” Captain Severn snapped. “Once a clown always a clown! I should never have endorsed your recommendation to give him command!”

“He’d earned my endorsement, sir, and yours,” Rudd said stubbornly. “He’s an efficient, loyal officer.”

A slim, dapper Commander sitting down near the end of the table smiled wolfishly.

“Since he was your Exec I presume you taught him to be efficient and loyal, Bob. Did you also teach him to disobey Captain Severn’s orders?”

“Go looking for your Brownie points in some other barnyard, Andrews,” Rudd growled. “I don’t need your comments!”

A frosty smile touched Captain Severn’s lips. He enjoyed seeing his staff quarrel among themselves. He believed that anger brought out a man’s hidden weaknesses and that he could take advantage of those weaknesses. He rapped on the table with a bony knuckle and winced as an arthritic pain shot through the finger. “Andrews is right,” he said flatly. “Hinman has disobeyed my orders, disobeyed every order he could! He attacked a convoy guarded by four destroyers! He attacked on the surface at night! He tampered with the exploders!” His words were dropping like stones into a pond.

“We’ve lost too many submarines too early in this war! We’ll lose more now that this idiot has broadcast his disobedience to the entire Fleet!” He raised his shoulders slightly to ease the tightness he felt in his chest.

“Commander Rudd, order the Mako to return to Pearl at once! Notify all submarines in Mako’s path to stand well clear and let her go through. I want Hinman back here!”

“Splendid idea!” The voice from the far end of the table belonged to Lieut. Comdr. Ben Butler, USNR. Butler was new to the Staff. A Reserve, he had volunteered for service and left his editor’s chair at a Chicago newspaper. Unsure of where to place a slightly paunchy, irascible newspaper editor, a personnel specialist in Washington had suddenly had what he thought to be a brilliant idea. His job classification manual indicated that there was a vague relationship between newspaper employees and public relations. The Navy badly needed public relations after the disaster at Pearl Harbor. He assigned Butler to the Submarine Staff, Pacific Command, where Captain Severn suffered his presence as part of the price a professional Navy man had to pay to fight a war.

“Splendid idea!” Butler repeated. “The country needs a Navy hero; we haven’t had any since Pearl Harbor. And now we have a man who charged right into the middle of an enemy fleet, sank ships right and left and got a Japanese warship as well!

“What a story! Every newspaper in the country will banner it on the front page! Think what a lift it will give all those people who work in the factories making war materials! Brilliant idea, Captain!”

Captain Severn’s face went blank as he marshaled his thoughts. He put his hands in his lap and began to massage his arthritic knuckle. He looked down the table at Butler.

“Go on, Butler. Tell me why you think Captain Hinman is a hero. And what it means.”

“I think it’s quite simple, sir. Do we have another submarine captain who took his submarine, on the surface as I read this message, took his ship right in among the enemy and killed them right and left and got away scot-free?”

“Using the jawbone of an ass?” Comdr. Andrews said softly.

“No.” Butler grinned broadly. “Using the torpedoes he was intelligent enough to modify so they would work! I don’t know Captain Hinman, sir, but I understand he is not a Samson in size so the jawbone of an ass with which Samson slew a thousand Philistines is hardly apropos. But a David with his sling and his pebbles, in this case torpedoes, that is fitting! Americans will take their heroes any size at all, sir. And I submit, as a newspaper editor of long experience, that America needs heroes!” He smiled broadly.

Captain Severn cleared his throat. “Mr. Butler, there are things you don’t understand. You are not a Navy man.”

“I know that, sir,” Butler replied. “But there are some things that I do understand, things that perhaps with the press of your duties you have not had time to study.

“I know how the average American responds to news. I know what excites his interest, what rouses his disapproval. We have a hero. We can use him. I suggest, sir, that Captain Hinman could be sent on a tour around the country and sell more War Bonds than any movie star. And we need money as well as heroes. I am sure that’s what you had in mind, sir.”

Captain Severn nodded. The ex-newspaper editor had him boxed in. The man cared nothing about how the Navy had to be governed. The man knew little or nothing about the necessity for strict discipline. If he brought Captain Hinman in and court-martialed him, as he had every intention of doing, and this Reservist with his talk of heroes should tell the story to his newspaper friends — Captain Severn shuddered inwardly. He could see his chances of wearing the broad gold sleeve stripe of an Admiral disappearing. He cleared his throat loudly and pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his lips.

“We still face a problem, gentlemen,” he said smoothly. “Captain Hinman did disobey orders. But without doubt he did also conduct himself and maneuver his ship in a most heroic manner. We cannot afford to ignore that fact. This is a war, not a tactical exercise.

“However, we cannot afford to relax discipline, we cannot open the door for other submarine captains who may not be as skilled as Captain Hinman,” his voice dropped a tone, “or as lucky, to depart from orders that have been most carefully thought out before they were issued.

“I am fully aware, as Commander Butler has noted, that the nation desperately needs a hero. I am vigilant in the effort to provide a Navy hero, although as a career officer I must say that I resist the thought that civilians need to know everything we are doing to defend their liberty.”

He looked down the table. Commander Rudd was looking away from him, trying to suppress a smile. He’d have to put Rudd in his place and soon. The man obviously approved of what Hinman had done. Andrews was scowling. Well, he knew Andrews was on his side. He could be useful even if he did kiss-ass too openly. Butler was sitting, impassive as a Buddha. The best thing he could do, about Butler was to get rid of him as swiftly as possible. God only knows what the man wrote to his newspaper friends. Most officers who censored letters never looked at a fellow officer’s mail as a courtesy. He reached for his handkerchief and cleared his throat, hawking into the white cloth. He studied the blob of sputum. Clear and white, white as the cloth. No sign of blood or heavy phlegm. The humidity of the Islands irritated his lungs.

“Very well, gentlemen. Mr. Rudd, take care of the order to Hinman to proceed here at once. Andrews, please notify the exploder experts on the Base of Captain Hinman’s actions, with my direct order that what you tell them must not be repeated to anyone else.

“Butler, since this is your area of, ah, expertise, you will arrange for Mako’s reception in Pearl. The welcome will be restrained. We are fighting men, not idolaters. You will also make the arrangements for Captain Hinman to embark on a tour to sell War Bonds. Hinman will be available for that detached duty forty-eight hours after Mako’s arrival. Rudd will cut his orders. Anything else?”

“One item, not small, sir,” Commander Rudd said. “Mako will need a new skipper.”

“I have someone in mind,” Captain Severn said. “Comdr. Arvin Mealey. He’s a disciplinarian and without doubt the Mako needs some old-fashioned Navy discipline.”

“He’s awfully close to the top of the list for Captain, sir,” Rudd protested. “Not more than four or five, I think.”

“All the better,” Captain Severn smiled. “One or two good patrols should cinch it for him. His father, Admiral Mealey, he’s retired now, was my skipper when I was a youngster. Very strict man, old Admiral Mealey. He made a man of me! There’s good blood in the Mealey line, good blood.

“While we’re at it we’ll give Mako a new Executive Officer. I’ll leave that to you, Rudd. Pick a man who will appreciate Commander Mealey’s devotion to rules and regulations. Check with me before you cut any orders.” He rose as a sign of dismissal and the Staff rose a second later and retrieved hats and put their coffee cups on the sideboard. Outside of the Staff headquarters building Rudd fell into step beside Ben Butler.

“Nice thinking, Ben,” Rudd said. “Damned quick thinking!”

“I figured that white-headed old rascal was going to crucify this Captain Hinman, whoever he is,” Butler said. “But I didn’t stretch anything, Bob. We do need a hero, a real honest-to-God hero! Americans have always been suckers for heroes. Tell me something, did this Hinman do such an awful thing?”

“He broke every rule in the book!” Rudd said with a slow smile. “And the book was written by Captain Severn!

“I had Art Hinman as my Exec on my last command here at Pearl. Hell of a good man. Great sense of humor. He saw fun and games in everything. Go to any length to play a practical joke. But a hell of a fine officer, the kind of man who could lead a crew to hell and back with all hands laughing all the way. I fought like hell to have him recommended for command. Severn, who hates Hinman’s guts, finally gave in and sent him to new construction, just to get him out of his hair. That was a couple of years ago.

“I almost pissed my pants when you turned Severn’s rudder around against him! But I’ll give old Iron-Ass credit, he’s cute. He could see he was looking right down the muzzle of a loaded gun! And you’d better watch it, my friend. He’ll find some way of getting rid of you and then who in the hell would I have to talk to?”

“Maybe he’ll send me on the bond tour with Hinman,” Butler said. “There’s a cooking editor on my newspaper, hell of a good-looking woman. I never could get into her pants when I was her editor. Maybe if I go back in uniform with a hero in my hip pocket she’ll give.”

“If you have that sort of problem there’s always the Navy nurses,” Rudd said.

“Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk about that,” Butler said. Rudd shook his head.

“Later. Right now I have to write a dispatch to Hinman telling him to come home and I’ve got to make it sound like it isn’t a reprimand and at the same time make it read so that all the other skippers out there who will read the message really get the message — which is don’t cross Captain Severn unless you sink a whole damned convoy!”

“Have fun,” Butler said.

Lieut. Cohen finished decoding the message addressed to Captain Hinman, U.S.S. Mako from Staff, SubPac and stared at the words. He shook his head and folded the paper carefully and put it in his shirt pocket and went in search of Mike Brannon. He found him in his tiny stateroom, wiping a smear of shaving cream from his chin. He held out the message.

Brannon’s eyes narrowed as he read the words. “Damn it! He never should have told them what he did!”

“It means trouble for him, doesn’t it?” Cohen asked.

“I don’t know, I think so,” Brannon said. “Old Severn, that’s Captain Severn, Chief of Staff, Submarines, Pacific Fleet, Nate, he’s got to be pulling his white hair out! The Old Man broke all the rules that Severn laid down for combat. But there’s something funny here. You can read this message two ways. They could be saying ‘Come home and let’s sit down and find out how you did this so we can tell others how to do it’ or they could be saying ‘Come home and get your ass reamed out!’

“I don’t know, I just don’t know but I think it’s the latter, they’re gonna ream him out! And maybe me as well!”

“Should I give it to him or do you want to do that?”

“You’ll have to give it to him,” Brannon said. “He’d have your ass in shreds if he knew you showed it to me. Put it in an envelope and carry it up to the bridge. There’s enough moon up there tonight to read by. And then stay out of his way for an hour or so. If he gets the idea they’re bringing us home so they can ream him out let him take it out on me. That’s what Executive Officers are for, Nate, to take the shit the Captain hands out. Remember that when you get to be an Executive Officer.” He put on a clean shirt and went into the Wardroom and poured himself a cup of coffee and waited.

Captain Hinman came in and filled a coffee cup and laid the message in front of Brannon. Brannon read it and looked at Captain Hinman.

“Do you want to lay out the course, sir?”

“Well, first I’d like to see a little enthusiasm, Mike! It’s no fun being ordered back to port with eighteen fish still aboard but I think we’ve done something for the cause. We’ve broken the dam, Mike! We modified the exploders and they worked! We attacked on the surface and it worked! Now they won’t have any choice but to write a new book of tactics, that’s the way I read it, don’t you? Show by doing, that’s the Navy way!”

“I guess so,” Brannon said slowly. “We sure as hell showed them,” he looked down at the message slip. “Departure route to Pearl is Seven George, Four X-Ray Zebra. I better get on that right away, sir.” He left the Wardroom and headed for the Control Room and his charts. Hinman watched the green curtain swing back into place after Brannon had passed through it.

He knows, he thought to himself. We’re being called home with eighteen fish aboard for only one reason, to be made an example of for disobeying orders. Well, let them do their damnedest! If I never fired another torpedo at an enemy ship I’ve made a down payment on evening the score for Marie’s death. He sat at the Wardroom table, thinking.

This would be the third time since the war started that he had returned to Pearl Harbor and for the third time there would be no long, lean, wonderful woman waiting for him. No one would ever wait for him again. He was alone, now.

But I remember, he said to himself, I remember the other times when she was waiting for me after we’d been apart.