Run Silent, Run Deep

11

The wheels were still spinning when I opened my eyes.

I was lying in my own bunk, and there was the smell of medicine all around. Cecil Throop's bunk springs and mattress, which had been slung above mine, were gone. Jim and Keith were standing beside my bunk, smiling at me, bracing themselves, against the gentle heave of the ship.

"What happened?" I managed to say. "What about Bungo…?"

I gripped the sides of the bunk, tried to raise myself.

My whole right side shot excruciating pain through my body.

"Take it easy, skipper, everything's fine. We're through the Nanpo Shoto, and we're on our way back to Pearl Harbor. Right now it's broad daylight and we're riding on the surface on three engines, making excellent time. Now that you're feeling better, everything's Jake." Jim's face was wreathed in a happy grin.

"What happened?" I asked again.

"Nothing much. You just stopped a Jap four-inch shell all by yourself and have been out for three days, that's all. And your right leg's broken, so don't try to get up." I fumbled for it.

The cast felt as if it occupied half the bunk.

"How did I get down here?"

"We heard the shell hit, you were talking on the mike, remember? And you were still holding the button down after you were knocked out. Rubinoffski and I found you lying there, out cold. We hauled you down below and dived, and we've been running ever since. We had to lay you out on the wardroom table to set your leg and sew you up."

"How badly hurt am I?" I knew part of the answer without asking. The strain of what little talking I had already done was telling, and it was an effort to keep my voice from dropping to a whisper. Jim and Keith began to edge for the door.

"The Pharmacist's Mate says you'll be fine, skipper," said Keith. "You had a bad concussion and a couple of bad cuts besides the break, but nothing that won't mend in time."

A wave of pain hit me as the two lifted the green curtain and passed out into the passageway. I tried to call out, but couldn't. The bulkheads receded, wobbled, blended into a dull ivory from their original white and gray. Someone came through the curtain-I hardly noticed the jab of the needle.

Despite Jim's and Keith's assurances, and the number of smiling well-wishers who came to see me during the latter stages of our trip, I was far from being in good shape when we put in to Pearl. I don't remember much of the first part of the trip, or whether anything out of the ordinary happened during it. Once in a while, it seemed to me, we dived-whether for drill or for real I could not tell, and cared less. Later on there was a discussion of having a plane meet us near Midway to take me off.

I remember becoming violently upset at the idea, as well as the following suggestion, in a few days, that Walrus put in there to leave me. I became more lucid rapidly then and was able to think of some of the things lying ahead for all of us. One thing was obvious, though everyone avoided the subject until I brought it up. I was through as skipper of Walrus.

Two nice things happened before we got in to Pearl: A dispatch from ComSubPac, which Jim brought in with a smile shortly after I had regained my senses for the first time, and an AlNav a few days before our arrival.

The dispatch said: FOR WALRUS, X, PASS TO YOUR FINE SKIPPER OUR HEARTFELT WISHES FOR HIS SPEEDY RECOVERY AND CONGRATULATIONS ON AN OUTSTANDING PATROL, X, COMSUBPAC SENDS, X.

The AlNav was a promotion announcement. Jim was made Lieutenant Commander. Hugh and Dave became Lieutenants, and Jerry Cohen a Lieutenant, junior Grade.

There was another AlNav, which Jim showed me also. This one gave commanding officers of certain types of vessels, of which submarines were one, authority to promote deserving members of their crews. As a consequence, Jim prepared and I signed promotions for Quin, Oregon, Rubinoffski, Russo, and O'Brien. Kohler, Larto, and one or two others, already Chief Petty Officers, were at the top of the ladder and could not be promoted higher; so we did the next-best thing and sent papers recommending them for promotion to Warrant rank to the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Once I was safely ensconced in the hospital at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, the events of the past few months seemed almost like a dream, and it took an effort to bring myself back to reality. To begin with, it was my shinbone or tibia, as the doctors called it, which had been broken, and it was decided that it was not healing properly. So the doctors broke it again and set some silver pegs into it, a most painful and inconvenient arrangement. It was hot in the hospital, and the Navy Yard noises were neither close enough to make out anything of interest from them, nor far enough away to be unbothersome.

Most of the time I lay in a foggy stupor, hardly aware of what was going on around me. The only times I felt at all normal were when one of my shipmates of the Walrus or some other old friend dropped in-a courtesy difficult to find the time for in their busy lives.

There were, of course, a few items of urgent business to clear up. The most important was brought up by Captain Blunt within a few days. "Rich," he said, "you know we've got to find; a new skipper for the Walrus." I had been expecting this one.

"Yes, sir." I had my own idea ready to spring when he gave me the opening.

"We've got two or three in mind. Since she's your ship I thought you might like to have something to say about it, unofficially, of course."

"Have you thought of giving her to Jim Bledsoe?"

"Why, no-he's pretty junior-um-" He sucked on the pipe. "Isn't Bledsoe the chap you weren't willing to turn the S-16 over to?"

"He sure is, Captain, and you know why I couldn't do it. But listen to this." I told Captain Blunt how Jim had made an approach all by himself, swinging to shoot the stern tubes on his own initiative so as to equalize our expenditure of torpedoes and I told him what a great fighting heart he had. I made quite a little speech out of it, winding up with the clincher that he, already was skipper of Walrus in fact, having assumed command upon my incapacity, and that the morale of the ship would inevitably suffer if someone were put over him who did not have equal or greater experience in submarine combat.

Old Joe Blunt was impressed, I could see that. He pulled the pipe out of his mouth, palmed the bowl lovingly, slid it into pocket. "We'll see what can be done about it, Rich," he said as he rose to go, and I knew I had won. At the door he paused.

"We'll have to give Bledsoe a new Exec," he said. "Leone is good, but he's pretty junior too. Besides, the next patrol will be his fifth, and he ought to be coming off pretty soon for rotation."

One victory was all I could legitimately hope for, and I had to let that one drop. Keith was not at all disappointed, however, when I told him about it. He'd be tickled pink to be Jim's Number Three, he told me. Knowing him, I knew he would.

I had several long conversations with Jim before he took the Walrus to sea, and told him, among other things, everything I knew or guessed about Bungo Pete. In the process I described my fears that there might be some kind of security leak in our submarine command headquarters here in Pearl Harbor.

Despite my good relations with Captain Blunt, I had not yet quite felt up to bringing that matter up with him, I told Jim, but would do so at the first opportunity.

Jim and Keith were the most faithful about coming to see me, though the rest of the crew and officers made honest efforts to come also. Shortly after they had returned from the Royal Hawaiian rest period, Kohler, Larto, and a group of others touched me deeply by bringing in a small metal model of Walrus which they had all had a hand in making. "She's made out of a CRS bolt," explained Kohler, CRS being the Navy equivalent of stainless steel and valuable for ships because of its noncorrosive properties. "Yah," grinned Larto, his magnificent teeth flashing, "they still wonder what happened to that main induction gag bolt."

"You guys ought to be in jail," I growled in an attempt to register anger I did not feel. "You'd steal your own grand- mother blind!"

Russo had the answer for that one. "This ain't stealing, Captain. You're still in the Navy, ain't ya?"

Quin, more thoughtful, said, "We thought you'd like some- thing to remember the Walrus by, Captain, and this seemed to be the best idea-it came off the ship, and we made it on a shaper in the sub base machine shop."

When they had trooped noisily out, a few minutes later, they had left not only the model of the Walrus but also a gaudy commercial "get well soon" card and a round-robin testimonial signed by every member of the crew to the same effect. And Russo, with considerable smirking and bashful hemming and hawing, hauled out his own personal offering which had been temporarily left in the hall: a huge cake covered with thick varicolored frosting and surmounted by a frosted submarine.

The day before their departure for patrol, all the wardroom came to see me, and I bade them good-by with a lump in my throat. As they filed out, Jim hung back. "Skipper," he began.

"Call me 'Rich,'" I said.

"OK, Rich then. I thought you'd be interested to know-we won't be coming back here for a while. We're going to Australia on this trip. Our patrol area is off Truk, the big Jap base down in the Carolines, and after we're relieved we'll head for Brisbane.

We'll do the same thing in reverse on the way back." Jim grinned faintly.

"Why, you lucky dog, you," I said. "That's all you've been thinking of ever since the war started. How did you manage it?"

"Just kept talking it up. I guess they needed a volunteer about the time I got there, and so we got the nod."

"They say it's wonderful country and has wonderful people "Especially the wonderful people," Jim agreed. The grin was a bit self-conscious as he said it.

Walrus had hardly been gone a day when Joe Blunt showed up suddenly, unannounced as before. I had already started to sink back into lethargy, hadn't even shaved that morning, and looked like hell in general, which is not the way for any junior to receive a senior, even if he is sick in bed. I pulled myself together.

"Rich, did you or Jim write this patrol report?"

"I did, most of it. I was keeping it up as we went along."

"Good. You mentioned that Tokyo Rose called the Walrus by name, did you hear her?"

"Yes, I sure did!"

"Well, as you know, we've been wondering where they got their dope. One other boat, before you, also heard Tokyo Rose call them by name, and of course old Bungo Pete apparently makes a point of showing us that he knows the names of all the boats which operate in AREA SEVEN. But this time something strange has happened. It's the first time he's missed like this, too. Another one of those intelligence reports I told you about arrived this morning, and it mentions the Japs as knowing Walrus had been in the area, but goes on to say that the old Octopus also made an attack on a convoy, and was sunk by shellfire from the destroyer Akikaze. Can you account for that? — What's so Goddamned funny!"

For I was laughing helplessly, pounding the bed in my mirth and relief, rolling my head from side to side with tears coming to my eyes: Gasping, I finally recovered myself sufficiently to tell him of my suspicions and of the garbage stunt. Old Blunt's eyes narrowed as I told him of my deductions regarding the security of ComSubPac, but 'when I told him about the Octopus and the garbage, he burst into a roar of laughter.

"Well, I'll be switched So that's how Bungo gets his dope.

The old son-of-a-bitch paws over our garbage! Why, he probably makes a business of picking it up!" Blunt joined in my renewed guffaws. "Wait until I tell the Admiral about this. This will relieve his mind greatly, and we'll pass it on to the boats.

That wily old bastard doesn't miss a trick, does he?"

"Old bastard," I repeated. "Do you know who he is?"

"Sure, we know who he is! His name is Tateo Nakame, and he's a Captain in the Japanese Navy. He was a submariner and was known for being a mean old cookie, too. I guess they had to be pretty hard-boiled in those days, but anyway, not many people liked him." So my deduction had been right! "The Akikaze, is that his ship, is that the one which landed me here? Why did he quit chasing us, then?"

Blunt chuckled. "You guess. I've been guessing three hours trying to figure out this Octopus brainstorm of yours." He waited. "How many destroyers were there in that convoy?" he asked.

"Four, counting Bungo."

"Right, and you sank one of them. Then there were three."

"Yes."

"And how many submarines were there?"

"Only us."

"Guess again. There were two, the Walrus and the Octopus.

From the hell you raised in that convoy he was certain there must have been two subs attacking. When he saw the shell explode on your bridge he figured he had done for one of them especially when Walrus dived immediately afterward. All the rest of the night, and next day too, I think, he collected what was left of his outfit and waited for the other submarine to show up again." Old Blunt's grin threatened to split his face right in two. "This makes twice you've outsmarted him, Rich.

He knows the Walrus by now, and unless I miss my guess by a mile he knows you also by name. He'd like nothing quite so much as to have your scalp to hang on his belt. He was a mean one in the Jap Navy, remember, and that was during peace- time."

"I'll remember," I promised. But a sickbed and a traction splint in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard Hospital seemed a million miles away from Tateo Nakame and His Imperial Japanese Majesty's ship Akikaze.

Lying in the hospital, I lost all track of time. The hot days came and went. So did the nights. I got a few letters, finally got up the energy to answer them. Hurry Kane wrote me a nice long letter, wishing me quick recovery. She had heard from Stocker in Australia, and expected to get another series of letters any time now. Laura had written her from New Haven and was fine.

A couple of newsy letters from Mother every month or so about finished it.

The weary days dragged on. It was a month before they would even let me sit in bed, another month before I could get out of it for any reason whatsoever. When I finally got so I could hobble around, life took on a little more interest. The big news was from Jim, or rather about him. He had entered Brisbane harbor flying a cockscomb of eight Jap flags, signifying eight ships sunk. The Admiral had finally allowed him six positives with two which had to be counted as only damaged, but that had not altered the impact of his arrival. He and every member of the Walrus crew had been lionized by the submariners and Brisbaners alike. Apparently all eight ships had been in a single convoy which he had chased halfway across the ocean and attacked repeatedly until he had wiped it out.

Jim, so the letter from Keith read, had been like a wild man, driving Walrus and himself relentlessly until all the enemy ships had been sunk. The more sedate official endorsement to his report of Walrus' fifth patrol said virtually the same thing in naval jargon: "This patrol must go down in submarine history as one of the most daringly conducted and persistently fought submarine actions of the war."

Jim, I knew, could now have anything in Australia for the asking.

The time finally came, nearly five months after my injury, when I was able to limp with a cane into Captain Blunt's office and ask for a job. I'd go crazy if he couldn't find some- thing for me to do, I told him. He looked at me thoughtfully.

"You can't go to sea for a long time yet, Rich."

"I'll be ready sooner than you think!"

"Maybe so. But while you're waiting-um." He drummed the table. "Rich, there is one way you could be very useful in- deed, though it might turn out to be pretty strenuous. But we need someone with your experience and interest."

"Try me," I begged. "What is it?"

"It's the torpedoes. What do you know about them?"

"They're lousy. Everyone knows that."

"You're not the only one who thinks so. Look at this!" Captain Blunt rose and opened a file-cabinet drawer. It was filled with papers. "This is only part of the file. Every paper here is someone's complaint or suggestion regarding our torpedoes."

"What are we doing about them, sir?"

"That's exactly it! Nothing! The Admiral has sent letter after letter to Washington about it. He's even made three trips back there to try to get some action. They say they're making a new exploder which will solve all the problems-and you know when they say we'll get it?" Blunt didn't wait for an answer.

"Next year, maybe! Ha!" He pointed the stem of the pipe at me like a pistol. "They don't even know what's wrong with the fish!"

"Then why don't we tell them?"

"That's exactly what we're fixing to do. Admiral Small is about ready to blow his stack, but he wants the clincher first. He wants to take on the project of finding out what the matter is right here in the submarine base, where it can be done under his direct supervision. And he wants a Project Officer who feels the way he does. That is, mad as hell I"

I had never seen Blunt worked up like this. It must have been an extremely sore subject among the whole staff. "I'm your man," I said quickly. "Let me try the job. As a matter of fact, I've had some ideas." I really hadn't, not recently, at any rate, though there had been some at one time. "Look," I said, laying down, the cane and getting to my feet. I wobbled across the room, turned and wobbled back. The weak leg throbbed. "See?

I'll be giving back the cane in a couple of weeks!"

"You're a liar, Rich!" Blunt was grinning at me. "I've already asked the doctors about you and they say you won't be rid of it for a month. But if you want the job, I'll see if I can talk the Admiral into letting you have it."

I could have whooped for the sheer pleasure of it.

The very same day I sat down to read through the pile of stuff written about the torpedoes. It was immediately evident that someone had already done a pretty good job of sorting and classifying. In general the complaints which occurred most often could be classified as three: Dud hits, that is, torpedoes known to have hit the target but which failed to explode; under- runs: torpedoes seen to pass harmlessly under the target; and prematures: explosions taking place before the fish reached the target.

The firing mechanism of the torpedo warhead contained a device-highly secret before the war-which was designed to cause detonation when passing into the magnetic field of a ship.

Torpedoes passing under a target's keel should therefore explode somewhere beneath, with devastating results. Some of them did. Perhaps the port-flanking escort, which had chased us and had been broken in two with our last torpedo aft, had been a casualty of this type. of explosion. And that also, of course, was why our circular torpedo during the patrol off Palau had gone off while passing overhead; and I remembered that it had actually made three passes at us before finally detonating.

Clearly there was something highly erratic about the manner in Which this part of the mechanism functioned. It could be blamed for nonexplosion of the underruns and the premature explosion of others.

Another section of the exploding mechanism was intended to cause the torpedo to go off upon hitting the side of a ship.

One report in this part of the file was circled in red crayon and bore evidence of considerable handling. It detailed the experience of one skipper who happened to cripple and stop a large tanker on the open sea. There were no escorts, and no air cover, but he couldn't surface because the tanker had manned its guns. Conditions otherwise were ideal-weather sunny and calm. And he had sat there, firing torpedo after torpedo in single shots, as though he were shooting torpedo proving shots in Newport Harbor. And not one of them had gone off. He had fired fifteen all together, eight under the most ideal setup imaginable, and except for the initial salvo there was not the slightest question but that every torpedo hit the target. Yet the only detonation out of the whole bunch was one of the initial salvo which just happened to strike in the vicinity of the propellers.

And of the underruns themselves: why did torpedoes set to, run at a depth of ten feet beneath the surface sometimes pass under ships which must draw twenty feet or more? One or two submarine skippers had theorized, early in the war, that Japanese vessels must have extraordinarily shallow draft, but this could not be the answer. I came upon reports of some experimental firings in Brisbane in which practice torpedoes were fired through nets. When the nets were hauled in it was found that the holes made by the torpedoes were considerably deeper than expected. A full report had been sent in to Washington, of course, but as yet nothing remedial had been done about it.

My interview with Admiral Small was nearly a repetition of the talk with his Chief of Staff. This was going to be his personal project, he told me. What he wanted me for was to be Project Officer, to follow through for him and render reports as to what had been discovered. One comment he made was to the effect that he was tired of sending torpedoes all the way to Japan to find out that they wouldn't work. "We'll try them out right here, with regulation warheads on them!" he said.

That was why, within a few days, I found myself poring over large-scale charts of the Hawaiian Islands, trying to select a spot for what the Admiral had in mind. With the topography the Islands, the place was not difficult to find: a sheer rock cliff, with deep water right up to the rock. Plenty of room for submarine to approach and fire into the rock, and for a torpedo to make a normal run without danger of hitting the bottom. A sandy bottom, to make later recovery of the torpedoes practicable.

And not long after about two weeks, and I still needed the Cane, I stood on the bridge of the Skipjack as she fired a deliberate salvo of warshots into the cliff. One out of four went off. The other three were duds. Then the divers went to work, and for the next several days there was the tedious job of looking over each fish to find out what had happened.

Similarly, we fired numbers of torpedoes down a torpedo range through a series of nets, marking and calibrating exactly at what depth each fish was actually running for each net position.

We built up great experience tabulations, based on the net shots and the explosion tests. To get more data for our tables, the sub base strung guy wire's to a building, slid torpedo war- heads down them-loaded with a mixture of sand and sawdust to the right weight, however, instead of TNT to collide with a section of steel plate on the ground. We used several guy wires so as to simulate various angles of impact, and the heights were carefully calibrated to produce the proper speeds.

The results of all our tests, when Admiral Small finally gave them his approval, were conclusive. The magnetic feature was so delicate and intricate-a marvel of design and ingenuity but totally undependable in service-that it might as well be for- gotten. The mechanical part of the exploder, which should in- variably go off upon impact, was also too delicate and at the same time too heavily constructed. Its inertia was so great that upon impact the firing pin, key to the whole thing, would be deformed or bent before it had a chance to do its job. And the torpedoes habitually ran as much as twenty feet deeper than they were supposed to. Like everything else about them, how- ever, the depth was erratic; they wobbled down the course like a sine wave, alternately deep and shallow. It was just luck what part of the curve the target happened to be on.

The more we got into the problem, the madder everyone got.

Everything we had discovered should have been found out on the proof ranges long ago, before the war in most cases. The design failures should have been discovered by proper tests be. fore the torpedoes ever got to the proof ranges. And there was no excuse for our not receiving the correct depth-running data, no more than for the refusal of the torpedo designers to accept, or at least investigate, our earlier findings that the torpedoes ran deeper than set. When the Admiral took off for Washington this time, he was loaded.

When he returned, not many days later, there was a glint of cold fury in his eyes. Captain Blunt and I met him at the air- field. By this time I had given back the cane, though the leg still bothered me. "They believe us at last," he growled, "but they're not doing a thing about it. The new exploder will be the answer to everything, when it's ready." He snorted. "Ready! Hell!

Maybe next year, it might be ready! They haven't even built one yet!"

Blunt turned to me. "Tell him your idea, Rich," he commanded.

The idea was simply stated. "I've been looking over the exploder," I said, "and of course if we could make it work the way it ought to, that would be the best answer of all. It occurred to me that perhaps if we could rebuild the mechanical firing gadget with lighter parts and completely disconnect the magnetic part of the exploder, we might get acceptable results. far as the depth settings on the torpedoes are concerned, which is an entirely separate problem, at least we know what's wrong and can make allowances for it."

Admiral Small's reaction was characteristic. "Hop to it, Rich!" was all he said, but I found doors opening for me wherever went. More weeks of work followed, and I had the heady feeling that we were at last getting somewhere. Our research, if it could be called that, now had a definite goal: a firing-pin mechanism strong enough and light enough to complete the necessary motion upon impact with the target before the crushing force of the impact itself bent it all out of shape. We were working with split seconds, and the answer, when it was finally found, was unbelievably simple. Airplane propellers had to be very light and very strong. We collected all the damaged propellers we could find and cut the required parts from the hard, light metal.

"Better use for a busted prop," the Army Major at Hickam Field told me, "could not be found anywhere!"

From then on the problem became one of production, for the Admiral insisted that he would hold a submarine back from patrol, if necessary, before letting her go without previously having seen to it that every exploder she carried in her torpedoes had the modification. Every available machine shop in the submarine base was pressed into service to make the new parts.

A rigid inspection system was set up, too, for Admiral Small was adamant on this score.

The reports from the first few boats which took the modified exploiters to sea were jubilant. Where previously torpedoes had been fired with the hope they would function properly if they hit, they were now fired with the certainty that they would. The only problem remaining was the only one we should have had to worry about from the beginning: hitting the target.

My duties were changed also, for with the final solution of the torpedo problem and the setting up of the production and inspection lines, there was nothing left for me to do. Blunt refused to give me another submarine; I would have to wait a while longer, he said, and I found myself detailed, instead, as Officer in Charge of the Attack Teacher.

This was virtually the same gadget which Walrus' crew had trained on during our precommissioning days in New London, with one difference: the trainees here would within weeks be doing it for real. Some days we were extra busy, and for weeks at a time I would have to allot appointments just as a doctor might, trying to give most to those who needed it most. And there were slack periods when nobody seemed to want our synthetic attack training. During those times, to keep the small crew of the Attack Teacher from growing stale and at the same time to keep my own hand in, I used to run off attacks on my- own, sometimes taking the part of the submarine skipper, some- times for variety that of the tar get. On these occasions it be- came a sort of no-holds-barred competition and our favorite cast of characters was to pit the destroyer against the submarine, one of each, with the destroyer, to make it even, aware of the sub's presence, though perhaps not exactly where. The Attack Teacher included a sonar-attack section also, so this was integrated into the game.

The men loved it; especially whenever one of them got me, as make-believe submarine skipper, into a box from which, try as I might, I could not escape. More than once my theoretical submarine was rammed by the destroyer; and much more frequently I was driven below periscope depth, after which the whole group would repair to the sonar rooms and with high. hilarity try to knock me out with depth charges. Part of the time the submarine won the fight, too, and when it was my turn to shoot torpedoes at the destroyer, I always pretended, in my own mind at least, that I was shooting them at Bungo Pete.

Stocker Kane showed up with the Nerka shortly after had taken over the Attack Teacher, and many pleasant hours of visiting with him in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel ensued before he set out for his next patrol. He had loved Australia. was as he imagined America must have been a hundred years ago, he said.

He talked a lot about Hurry, too, and a little, not much, about Laura. "You know how you'll take a liking to someone," said. "Laura and Hurry seemed to hit it off especially well, and they've been corresponding with each other ever since you all left New London. Hurry doesn't think she's happy, though.

She's been trying to get Laura to come out and stay with her in San Francisco, so that she'll be there when they send the Walrus back for overhaul." He chuckled. "She says Jim doesn't write enough. Hurry's always looking around for someone to mother a little, not having any youngsters to keep her busy." The faintest suggestion of a shadow crossed his face.

"Maybe she's working on me, too," I said. I told him of the two letters she had written me.

"She told me she was going to. She thinks you ought to get married, Rich. Leave it to Hurry! She probably thinks you ought to have been the one to marry Laura, instead of Jim."

I managed to smooth my startled look into a grin.

This would be Nerka's sixth patrol, probably Stocker's last for a while. The rotation policy rarely permitted a skipper more than five patrols in succession. But Nerka would most probably be heading for Mare Island or Hunter's Point for a much- needed overhaul after her sixth, and no doubt ComSubPac was willing for Stocker to have the privilege of bringing her back.

Three weeks later I was, of course, on the dock when Walrus came in, having completed her seventh patrol on the way back from Australia. She was something to see as she came bravely around the point of ten-ten dock. From her bullnose to the top of the periscope supports was a perfect clothesline of small Japanese flags, each one representative of a ship she had sunk.

She looked weather-beaten, tired, patches of rust showing here and there, though with no visible damage, but there was no denying a certain elan about her and about the sure manner in which Jim put her alongside the dock.

His fame had preceded him. He had made three patrols in and out of Australia instead of two. His second run had been better than the first, and on his third he had entered an enemy harbor, sunk two ships there and shelled a fortified island, ex- changing fire for half an hour and escaping unscathed. He had sunk a Japanese cruiser near Palau, and he had put three torpedoes into one of the huge Jap battlewagons, a sixty-thousand- ton monster. A Japanese submarine had fired a torpedo at him; personally seeing it first himself, he had swung away to avoid the torpedo track, then fired two torpedoes out of his stern tubes back at the submerged Jap. A great explosion had announced his success, and all sorts of debris had come to the surface by way of proof. With only nine torpedoes left, three forward and six aft, he had engaged in a melee with a six-ship convoy during which he had actually backed into action at one point, and sank three more ships. Finally, with no torpedoes remaining, he had attacked one of the surviving freighters with the four-inch deck gun and every automatic weapon the ship possessed, silencing her defensive battery and sinking her, and still without receiving a scratch in return.

To cap it all, he picked up four prisoners and brought them back with him. The crowd which awaited Walrus was the biggest I had ever seen for any submarine. Jim looked wonderful; bronzed, alert, brimming with self-confidence.

I shook hands with him right after the Admiral and Captain Blunt.

"Hi, Rich!" he said. "How's the leg?" Still holding my hand, he turned to Admiral Small. "Here's the man who's responsible for all I know about submarining, Admiral." He winked at me as the congratulations engulfed him.

Keith also looked tan and fit, as did Hugh, Dave and the rest, though I did not see Jerry Cohen. Leone's grip was hard and firm. "Hi, Captain! Glad to see you back on your feet! Guess I'll be joining you here for a while!"

"You being rotated?"

"Yep! They tried to make me get off in Australia, but I said nix to that. So this is my last trip in the old Walrus. Dave took leave in Brisbane during the sixth run, so now he will finally get his chance at the TDC."

"Good! You rate a rest, after seven runs-where's Jerry Cohen?"

"Oh!" Keith chuckled. "We've been calling him Cobber in- stead of the skipper. He stayed in Australia-liked it better than anybody, but by this time he's probably out on a patrol with one of the boats regularly based there."

Jim's Exec, a Lieutenant named Knobby Robertson whom I had met when he reported aboard the Walrus after my injury, now approached. "Will we see you at the Royal tonight, Commander Richardson?"

"Oh, no," I demurred. "You fellows have a lot to talk over your first night in. I'll drop over later."

"No, sir. The Captain said he might not get a chance to ask you himself, and for me to make sure that you come!"

That night I realized finally that I had lost Walrus completely.

There was a difference about my old comrades, a difference hard to put into words. They looked the same-they were the same-but the songs they sang, the stories they told, and the general tough, devil-may-care attitude about them were all new. Perhaps I was subconsciously disappointed to find such a radically complete change. I had almost forgotten that nearly a year had elapsed in the interim, that Walrus had made three more patrols, three hard-hitting, supremely successful patrols, since I had last seen them. They had gone on, had continued to pursue their destiny. It was I who had grown slack and soft.

The whisky flowed, more and more bottles were opened, and I felt myself drifting away from them, a little farther with each story retold. This was their party, their right to relax from tension, their given privilege-not mine. I wondered if Jim's request for my presence had only been politeness after all. He had become reeling drunk.

Finally I heaved myself to my feet, declined the proffered additional drink, made the excuse that I had work to do the next day.

"No, you don't! Not yet, skipper-I mean Rich!" Jim grabbed me around the neck, nearly fell, then steadied himself. "Listen.

I got something I want to tell you. Been meaning to for a long time." He turned me half-around, fumbled on a nearby table, grasped a bottle by the neck, waved it at the others.

"See you all later, fellows! Here's the best skipper the old Walrus ever had, my old pal Rich, and we're going away to have a talk!" With that he pushed open the door into the adjoining", room, kicked it shut behind us, sat, or rather flopped, on the bed. He held out the bottle.

"Pour a drink!"

"No, thanks. Don't you want to save this for later, Jim? I've got to go."

"Pour a drink, I said!" The bottle wavered in his hand. I took it, poured some in a glass in the bathroom, pretended to sip it.

"That's better. Lissen." Jim's eyes were bloodshot, bleary.

His voice was loose, his face puffy. "I've been meaning to tell you this for a long time-took too much whisky so I could.

Lissen. I'm a bastard."

"No. you're not, Jim. Quit it. We can talk tomorrow." I rose.

"Siddown! Gawdamit, Rich, the Captain of the Walrus, the best gawdam submarine in the Navy, wants to talk to ya."

I sat. There seemed nothing else to do.

"I've been doing some thinking. All during these last patrols.

Not just last three. Before that. 'Member when you stopped my qualification on the old S-i6? I swore then I would get even with you. I swore I'd make you regret the day you did that to me.

I was gonna sabotage everything you tried to do. I was gonna mess you up so bad you'd wish you'd never seen me. Laura told me not to. Said she'd never marry me if I did that. Said the war would find you out for what you were. Said I should stick it with you for crew's sake."

I sat staring, embarrassed to hear him. I had realized that Jim must have told Laura something of our contretemps, but naturally I could not have supposed it had gone this far. Nor had I suspected that Jim's apparent friendliness had all been a sham. But I couldn't see what he was driving at now.

Jim upended the bottle, took a deep swig. "Siddown. I'm not finished yet. I pretended to like you, and went along with you and the Walrus, and all the time I hated your guts. I thought you were yellow for not tangling with that first Jap sub we saw, and I hated your guts all the way out to Japan. Then when ole Bungo Pete got after us I saw a real submarine skipper in action, and I realized it was you that saved us all. And gradually I came to know that you were a prince of a fellow and that I didn't know the first thing about being a skipper. When you gave me Walrus I found out."

"You're drunk, Jim. You don't have to tell me all this "Down, I said. I'm still not through yet. Gotta get this thing off my chest. This is war, tough racket, maybe I'll get sunk next time, maybe you will. May never get another chance to talk."

He took another swig, wiped his mouth.

"So now I'm skipper of the Walrus. You gave her to me. I'd never have gotten her if you hadn't talked ole man Blunt into it. And I've had three patrols to learn what it's like to be all alone. There's nobody out there for the skipper to look to, tell him what to do… You know that? You're all alone. You got no buddies. You got friends-sure, everybody on the ship's your friend-but you got no buddies. Nobody to tell you what to do.

You got to figure it all out yourself, cause you're all alone on your own. That's what you been trying to teach me, Rich, ole man. I want you to know that I think you're a great man.

You're my best friend, an' you're wunnerful, an' I'm sorry I was such a bastard-an'-an' I already wrote to Laura and tole her so…. Tell her again too…"

The bottle slipped from his hands. He was swaying where he sat on the bed. His voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble. I laid him back, pulled off his shoes, trousers, and shirt, threw a blanket over him. He wasn't quite gone yet. "Laura," he muttered, "Laura, she's a sweetheart. I'm a bastard, always was.

Never should… never should…"

I quietly went out the door into the hall, turned out the light, and softly closed the door behind me. I felt sorry for him, and oddly at peace.