Run Silent, Run Deep

14

Keith wrote the message to ComSubPac for me. I couldn't bring myself to think about it. To get old Nakame, I had murdered three lifeboat loads of helpless Japanese.

We sent: FOR COMSUBPAC X, SPECIAL MISSION SUCCESSFUL X, SCRATCH BUNGO PERMANENTLY REPEAT PERMANENTLY X, ALL TORPEDOES EXPENDED X, EEL SENDS TO COMSUBPAC.

The answer which came in the next night was hardly the one we expected. Instead of sending us back to Pearl or Midway for a new load of torpedoes, or even requiring us to keep the Bungo Suido under close surveillance for a while until someone could be sent out to relieve us, we were directed to proceed immediately to Guam, there to stand by for lifeguard duty during a series of air strikes. And there was no comment about our success. It was absurd to think that somehow ComSubPac had heard what the Eel had done, but there it was.

The news was greeted with a chorus of dismay from the crew, who had been eagerly anticipating an early return from patrol.

Their reaction to the final combat, during which we had deliberately murdered a lot of unresisting shipwrecked Japanese, was curious. At first I sensed disbelief, disapproval. Eyes looked at me silently, thoughtfully. The men fell silent when I happened near. When I left I could hear conversation resumed, low-voiced, uneasy. They thought me a murderer, I knew.

They would obey me, do my bidding quickly-more quickly then ever-but they would never think of me as other than a man who had killed my fellow man in cold blood. War or not, I had gone beyond the permissible limit.

Some of the officers also seemed to be affected, the only exception being Keith, who had not changed. But nobody seemed in the least unwilling to take the maximum advantage out of it, now that the loathsome deed was done.

As for myself, the longer I thought about it, the more I dwelt on it, the lower I felt. There was no answering the arguments. I had done what I had set out to do; I had destroyed Bungo Pete, and he deserved destroying, by our lights, for he had destroyed many of our fellows. But to do it I had crossed the boundary dividing the decent from the indecent; the thin line between the moral and immoral. I was a pariah, despised, an outcast. I would never be able to look a decent, untarnished man in the face again.

All the way south to Guam the lifeboats haunted me. I couldn't sleep, tossed fitfully, always the tortured faces in front of me, screaming when we drove past them the last time. I dreamed that I could understand Japanese, or that they had shouted in English, and I strained to catch their last words.

Always they cast some foul curse upon me and the Eel, always prophesying doom, swearing ever-lasting revenge. I took to spending long solitary hours on the bridge, alone, standing at the after part of the cigarette deck, looking at the water rushing past, or sitting on my bunk staring at the green curtain closing off the entrance.

Keith tried unsuccessfully to snap me out of it. "Don't take it that way," he'd say. "We all did it together. I'd have done the same thing! We had to do it-Bungo would have been back there with all his crew of experts in a new tincan within a couple of weeks. Nobody's blaming you. The men are proud of you."

But it didn't do any good. I hardly glanced at the operation dispatches as they came in, made Keith do all the planning, see to all the preparations. Vaguely I knew that we were supposed to stay on the surface during the air strikes, and remain in a certain spot, where crippled planes could find us. The aviators would ditch their planes or parachute out as close to us as they could get, and it was up to us to get them aboard. We were to remain there three days, unless the objectives of the air strike were achieved sooner.

On the morning of the first day, flying our biggest American flag, we were on station. The dispatches had said that the Jap aircraft would have much too much to do to spend any time bothering about a little submarine wandering around on the surface thirty miles south of Guam, but it felt a bit risky at first.

Then several flights of U. S. carrier-based planes appeared to the south, flew overhead en route to make their attack. We were too far to see the actual bombing runs but some of the dog- fights took place within our sight. And as the dispatches had said, none of the Jap planes took a second look at us.

We got no business the first day. So far as Keith or I could see from the bridge, every U. S. plane returned safely to its carrier, in the big task force over the horizon to the south. There were no distress calls on the special aircraft frequency we were guarding, though we did hear the fliers talking to each other.

As the second day wore on, it appeared likely that we'd have no business either. Our forces greatly outnumbered the enemy, and they were having a picnic. Mid-afternoon they started back, some of them flying low over us and waggling their wings. As I looked up at them, I wondered how it felt to fly in combat over the ocean, with no succor nearby in case of trouble, and thought I could sense, in some measure, the moral support given by our presence.

"Guess it's about over for today, too," said Keith. "Wonder if we can try to stay on the surface instead of diving like yester- day?" The day previous we had dived as soon as the last planes had gone back, in accordance with our instructions, but the air had seemed so empty and peaceful that after a time we wondered why we had bothered.

It was about this time that the bridge speaker blared forth: "Bridge! Radio thinks they can hear a distress message!"

"I'll go down and see, skipper!" With that, Keith slipped down the hatch. In a few minutes his voice came up the speaker: "It's a little business for us after all, sir. I'm telling the rescue party to stand by!"

Six men had been selected for their general stamina and ability to swim, to help bring wounded or helpless airmen aboard.

Buck Williams was in charge, and they were outfitted with heaving lines, knives, Mae West life preservers, and other pieces of paraphernalia.

Keith on the speaker again: "There are three men in the plane, all wounded. They're going to try to ditch near us. They say they have us in sight!"

Low to the water, just appearing over the northeast horizon, a plane appeared, flying one wing low. It approached, circled us once. I could see holes in the fuselage and wing. The plane went off in the distance, turned, began to drop slowly, tail down.

The pilot had evidently picked his heading so as to finish- fairly near to us, and he did a nice job of letting his craft down into the water. It came in pretty fast, however, struck with a tremendous splash, bounced into the air, belly-flopped back in, and skidded to a stop.

Before it stopped moving we were under way heading for it, and several short minutes later we drew up alongside the two yellow life rafts that had miraculously appeared before the plane sank. Our rescue party was down on deck, looking very businesslike as they waited for the ship to approach closer to the rafts. One of them, Scott, held a heaving line coiled loosely in his hand, as though he were going to heave it to shore.

There was about fifteen yards' distance to the rafts when our headway petered out. We were anxious, of course, not to come up too fast and take a chance of upsetting them with our wash.

Scott took two or three tentative swings with the heaving line, wound up, and let fly. The heave was a beauty-which was why he had been picked for this job-and the weighted end landed just beyond the nearest raft, trailing the line across it.

Through my binoculars I could see the single flier in the smaller of the two rubber boats grasp the line and painfully haul upon it. It was evident that it hurt him to move. I cupped my hands, yelled at him: "Make it fast! We'll pull you in!"

He made no acknowledgment, but I could see him pass the end of the line through one of the flaps of the boat and take a quick turn.

"OK, Scott. Pull them in easy," I called. Three or four sailors on deck grabbed the rope, pulled slowly and gently, and in a few seconds the first life raft was alongside, the other following at the end of a short line. Several men reached down to help the fliers aboard, but it was evident that they were badly hurt, not to say exhausted, and beyond doing anything more to help themselves. Feebly, the man in the nearest life raft reached up, finally lay back, and shook his head with a helpless grimace.

"Pull them up forward to the sea ladder," Keith called to Williams. Buckley and Scott ran forward, pulling the heaving line with them, lined the rubber boats up with the foot holes cut in the side of our superstructure, knotted the line around one of the forward cleats. Then they ran back to where Oregon, also in the party, was preparing to lower himself over the side.

His feet had already reached the first rung when one of the look- outs on the platform above me shouted a frantic warning.

"PLANE! PLANE!"

Keith and I looked over our shoulders instinctively. It was there, all right, a big four-engine patrol boat. It was coming right at us, the four big propellers glinting in the sun, the straight-across Japanese wing a thin, horizontal line bisecting them.

"Clear the decks!" I yelled. I reached down, pulled the toggle handle-our air-operated foghorn blasted its warning. Then, "Clear the bridge!" Keith and the lookouts dashed below. The men down on deck came racing up. Oregon almost flew up from his barely over-the-side perch. When Williams, the last man off the deck, had almost reached the bridge level, I sounded the diving alarm.

"They'll be all right in the rafts, I told them we'd come right back up for them," Buck said, as he ran past me.

"You bet!" I thought, "and we'll surface under the plane and smash it to bits if it lands to capture them I"

Our vents were open, air whistling out of them, as I gave a last look around. The plane was a fair distance away; we'd get down in time. But as I looked forward my heart froze like a stone in my chest. The heaving line Scott had used was still fast to the starboard forward cleat, and our bow was already dipping toward the sea!

Instantaneously my mind encompassed the inevitables.

Within seconds we would be submerged, dragging the line, and instantaneously my mind encompassed the inevitable Within seconds we would be submerged, dragging the line, and the two rubber boats, with us. The three fliers would be dumped into the water. In their condition their survival for even a few minutes was a foregone impossibility. Even if we did come back for them, all we would find would be bodies, half-chewed by fishes attracted by the blood.

It could not have taken me more than a third of a second to assess the grim results of our carelessness. My carelessness in allowing the line to be made fast to the ship, Buck's in not cutting it free during the half a dozen seconds he had waited for Oregon, down on deck. All of ours, for not having anticipated the possibility of this very situation days ago.

Keith's head was framed in the hatch. "Skipper!" he shouted.

"Take charge, Keith!" I yelled the words at him while running to the after part of the bridge where the rail was cut for access to the deck.

I leaped down, raced forward. The bow had just begun to dip when I got there, water barely sliding over the deck.

Furiously I ripped at the heaving line. It was made fast in a Hitch; no loop to pull to release it. I cursed aloud! No knife in my pocket! How could I have been so improvident? The cleat was well under now, my hands buried inches, a foot-under.

The water rose rapidly to my face, the current due to our increase in speed on diving tugging at my arms. Frantically I pulled. My feet slipped, and I plunged into the cool water, sitting down facing aft, legs on either side of the cleat. This kept me from slipping further, and I concentrated on the now, soaked knot while I held my breath and tried to hold myself against the rising panic. "Take it easy, take your time; take it mV, take your time!" I said it over and over to myself, as the rush of the water bent me over the cleat. My ears began to hurt. We must be pretty deep now. I pulled again, got my fingers under some part of it, yanked with both hands and what must have been superhuman force, felt the line come free and slip swiftly from my hands.

Painfully I braced back against the rush of water. I got both hands against the end of the cleat around which my legs were spread-eagled, pushed with everything I had. There was a terrific pain in my groin, paralyzing, digging deep into my insides. I doubled over, clutching my abdomen, felt the pain and me and the suffocating roaring in my ears chasing each other around and around and around.

I must have been out for a moment, for the next thing I Remember was bright sunlight and the most exquisite, excruciating pain I have ever felt. I was floating in the water, one arm hooked in one of the life rafts, my head pillowed on the rubber inflated edge. Something was holding my arm, and a voice was saying something I couldn't understand. I shook my head, looked up. A deep gash of agony made me double up again.

The spasm passed, leaving a quick, throbbing ache, and I managed to raise my head. "Hang on!" the voice said. It was the flier who had caught the heaving line. He was holding on to my arm like grim death itself, his face contorted, bloodless.

It was obviously he who had pulled me, somehow, half into the rubber raft and held me there while I regained my senses. It, too, in his condition, must have called for a nearly superhuman effort.

"I'm all right now," I managed to say, and made as if to struggle aboard. Waves of acute ache pervaded my entire abdominal section, and I had to stop. Resting for a moment and gasping with the pain, I tried it again, this time tumbled head first into the soft rubber bottom of the raft.

"Easy, fella, that's mah busted leg!" the flier said. I twisted around carefully. "Are you the skipper?" he asked in a different, tone. I nodded, clutching my knees to my chest to ease the pain, cradling it.

"I don't know how you did it," the flier said. "When your boat started diving I saw the rope tied up yonder, and I just naturally figured we'd had it after all. Then you came flying out to untie it, and then you-all went under, and the rope started to pull us over to it and we were about going under ourselves before you got it loose."

A shadow flitted across us. I looked up. "There's the son-of- a-bitch that brought us all the trouble," the flier said. It was the Jap flying boat, all right, flying low over the water to take a good look. It passed not far off, made a circle, passed again, then roared off to the north.

My ache subsided a little, and I straightened up gratefully. the sub will stick around to get us," I told him "They'll surface as soon as the plane goes out of sight for good."

"Hope that's pretty soon. My men are bad hit." He shifted to give me a little more room, winced with the silent hurt Of it. The bottom of the rubber boat had a puddle of diluted blood in it.

I looked at the other boat. The two men were still, lying quietly within it, only their heads showing. Their boat bobbed helplessly in the vast lonely expanse of the ocean. The water, which had seemed virtually flat calm from Eel's bridge, see-sawed the rafts uneasily.

"Are they unconscious?" I asked him.

"They weren't when they got in it. Maybe now they are."

In the distance the flying boat went out of sight. I tried to sit up straighter, to disregard the discomfort it brought. "Can you see the periscope of my sub?"

"Nope. Never seen one. What does it look like?"

"Like a broom handle, floating straight up and down," I said. "It ought to be around here somewhere."

Presently he nudged me. "There's a broom handle." I looked where he indicated, saw the Eel's periscope approaching. I waved violently, involuntarily rocking the boat, to show Keith that I was all right. The periscope began to rise higher. Keith was surfacing, or about to surface.

The flier nudged me again. "There's that Jap bastard again!" To the north, sure enough, the now-familiar outlines were all too evident, coming back. Heedless of my companion's protests, steeling myself against the waves of pain, I stood up, braced myself on his shoulders, pointed determinedly down. I made several violent hand signals, shook my head from one extreme to the other, pointed to the north. A bubble of white burst astern of the periscope, and its length began to decrease. I saw the quick glint of the eye-piece as it turned in the direction I had pointed, and sat down again, relieved.

Keith would have the word now.

For about an hour Eel's periscope slowly cruised warily about, and for an hour the Jap flying boat flew-back and forth, flying over the horizon, coming back almost overhead, then flying out of sight again. Each time it disappeared I thought it might stay away, and each time my hopes were dashed by its reappearance.

"How long can this kind of a plane stay in the air?" I asked of my companion.

"I sure don't know. A mighty long time, but it depends on when they took off." He grinned a pain-filled grin. "Now let me ask you a foolish one. How soon do you figure you can come up and get us aboard? I'm getting worried about those two fellas over in the other boat."

I shook my head dolefully. "I'm beginning to think those Japs know what's happened down here, and they're expecting the sub to come back. That's why they're flying back and forth." An idea struck me.

"Let's time the flights. Have you got a watch? Mine's stopped."

Silently he produced one and at my instruction timed the flights of the plane from just before it went out of sight until it arrived back in our vicinity. While he did so, I busied my- self hauling in the heaving line and inspecting it carefully. It seemed in fair shape. Carefully I fashioned a slipknot in the unweighted end, tested the security of the knot — by which it-, was fastened to our raft. Likewise, I checked the line leading. to the other raft and shortened it as much as I could, bringing the other rubber boat tight up against ours.

The preparations, in our cramped situation, took quite a while. It hurt like hades to move, too. "How long?" I finally, asked as the flying boat swung, around at the completion of its second circuit.

"Ten minutes this last time, eight the time before. Takes, three minutes to go out of sight."

"Good. Maybe eight minutes will be long enough." I didn't want to rise in the rubber raft yet, for fear the Jap aviators would see that something out of the ordinary was going on.

Obviously they were playing the cat-and-mouse game, hoping Keith would swallow the bait and try to rescue us. Eel, in the meantime, was cruising around with only the minimum of periscope showing, keeping it alternately fixed on us and the flying boat, with occasional looks all around the horizon just in case. When the plane came, close, Keith would dunk the scope and we would not see it again until after the plane had started back on another leg.

The flying boat was well on its way now. I motioned to Keith to come alongside, to cruise as close to us as he, could The periscope went up and down several times, and slowly it began to approach.

He was a little too cautious, no doubt for fear of hitting-the. rafts and dumping us all, but I was ready for that eventuality.

Carrying the noose end of the heaving line, I slipped over the side and struggled through the water into his path. The scope, came at me surprisingly fast, three knots or so is mighty fast to a man in the water, but I managed to grab hold and slip the loop over the end of it As the, Periscope took it away I slid down the tautening line until I reached the raft again and remained there in the water, my arm looped over the thin, tight cord.

The other periscope came up, turned around, studied the first one, rising and, descending slowly to inspect the line where I had made it fast, then steadied on us. I made a staying motion with my hand, looked to the plane. It was approaching the horizon, not there yet. I watched it going over, waited a deliberate twenty seconds, made a violent upward motion.

Beneath us I could see the long hull of the Eel-black on top, gray on the sides. Because of the refraction of the water, I could see the gray sides as well, made a mental note to carry the black just a little farther down the next time we painted her. We were dragging along somewhere over the five-inch gun.

Nothing happened for a long time. I knew Keith would not delay, wondered what was taking so long, finally realized the deck was nearer. Suddenly the periscope with the fine around its neck disappeared. Keith had lowered it. The other, now higher out of water, commenced to show the bright cylindrical section which went down inside the hearings, began also to lean back toward us.

"Here they come!" I said. Eel came with a rush. Water cascaded from her periscope supports and from the bridge, poured in torrents from her main decks. It was a good thing Keith had had the foresight to lower the periscope to which I had tied the heaving line; otherwise its length would have been insufficient to Teach the deck, and we should have taken a nasty tumble. Hanging on to it as I was, I was able to touch the deck first with my feet and, gritting my teeth against the hurt of it, to some small degree guide the landing of the two rafts.

The second one almost landed on top of the gun, avoided it by inches as I strained in the tumultuous rush of water to pull them forward toward me. And then there was the bang of the hatch on the bridge, and Keith's voice yelling. Men raced from the cigarette deck, dived over the raft, jumped down recklessly.

Eager hands grabbed all four of us, hustled us to the bridge, pitched us unceremoniously down into the conning tower, feet first or head first, whichever end got there first. It didn't matter, for there were plenty of people inside to help out.

Through it all I was conscious of great haste. Finally the last injured man was passed down the hatch, followed by Keith and Buck Williams, and the hatch was slammed shut. Instantly the vents went open, I heard no two blasts or anything else on the diving alarm-and Eel began to slip beneath the waves.

"Buck," Keith said urgently, "did you get the line cut?"

"You bet I did, this time, and I punctured both rafts, too!"

Williams looked a bit shamefaced.

"All Take her right on down! They're coming in as fast as they can! Rig for depth charge!"

I had to admire Keith's command of the situation. He had thought of cutting the two rafts free so that they would not trail behind on the line to betray us, and he had certainly organized the rescue party in jig time. Now he held firm command of the ship in what amounted to a serious emergency.

He paid no attention to me or anyone of the raft party, was strictly business, at the moment anxiously watching the conning tower depth gauge.

"Seventy-five feet," he finally said. "I guess we're clear!"

WHAM! Good and close, too. The Eel's tough hide rang for several seconds, and dust raised here and there. Keith crossed to the phone, picked it up.

"All compartments report," he said. He listened for a moment, bung it up. "No damage, skipper," he said.

Then he faced me squarely, his eyes two deep wells of concern. "God, skipper! What a helluv an experience! How do you feel? Are you OK? Do you. need anything?"

I was dripping wet and I ached all-over, and the pain in my groin was still a dull throbbing knife in my guts, but I had not felt so good in a week. There was nothing more I needed, I told him.