Run Silent, Run Deep

4

The week immediately following Jim's failure to qualify for submarine command was an extremely un- comfortable one for everybody in the S-16. He fell into a cold sullenness which included everyone in the ship, and he spoke to no one except when absolutely required to. When on watch his orders were given in loud, defiant tones as if daring anyone to question them. There was no more of the cheerful banter which had been his habit, and I don't think he addressed ten words to me during the whole time.

We were back at the refit pier to complete what we could of our interrupted repairs, hence both Saturday and Sunday, for the second time since our arrival in New London, were scheduled "alongside." Friday afternoon at the close of working hours, still saying not a word to anyone, Jim dressed in civilian clothes and disappeared. The customary "Permission to go ashore, sir" was conspicuously absent, and we did not see him again until Monday morning when he arrived precisely fifteen minutes prior to our scheduled time for getting under way.

Next week, amid the rain and sleet of the winter's first storm, was no better. He took his turn on the bridge without a word, did what was required of him, and no more. When it was his turn to get the ship under way or bring her in at night, I had to spend long, uncomfortable, silent periods on the bridge with him, and twice when, following our long- standing custom, I went up to relieve him for a few minutes during long stretches of watch, he refused me with a curt "No, thank you." Keith and Tom, of come, also felt the strain keenly, though we did not discuss it, and the rest of the crew's unwonted quietness showed they felt it too. Jim had been popular with them.

Miller and Kane had accepted my dictum regarding Jim without question or comment. Roy Savage, though he also said nothing, showed signs of irritation; but I made no explanation. There was really not much to say.

"The Squadron Commander's initial comment, delivered in the process of lighting his pipe, was generous. "You've got to do what your conscience tells you, Rich. I wouldn't want you to recommend someone you don't believe in." That much of it was easy. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn.

"Do you want to disqualify Bledsoe for submarine service?" he asked abruptly, palming the glowing pipe bowl and point- ing the stern at me. "If he's not qualified to take command, he has no right to be an Exec. He's supposed to step into your shoes, you know, if anything happens to you."

I suppose it should have been predictable. I could have foreseen this reaction, should have expected it. I could feel panic growing in me as he waited for my answer. After what I had already done to Jim, — now this. All I could think of was one of Blunt's own aphorisms to the effect that there are times for caution, and times to stand up and be counted. This was one of the latter. I drew a deep breath and shot the works: "Listen, Commodore. It was my fault for recommending Jim Bledsoe prematurely and for not having him ready, not his. There is nothing wrong with him that a little time won't fix. He is an excellent, fully qualified submarine officer, and he will be a credit to the submarine force and to the Navy. He should not be disqualified for submarine duty." I paused worriedly, searching for the clincher. "I'm satisfied with him. I would be willing to have him as my Exec anywhere,"

I ended uncomfortably.

Blunt remained silent for several seconds, tapping the desk with his finger and drawing on the pipe. "Well, you're Bledsoe's skipper and you ought to know, but it is damned near unprecedented for a man's C. O. to withdraw his qualification in the midst of his test. If he can't take responsibility when it comes his way, we don't want him around."

Blunt was known for his you're-on-the-spot way of looking at people and he bent such a gaze on me now. "You should not have recommended him if you did not think him ready for qualification, Richardson," he said slowly. My heart sank to my shoe tops. "Well look at it your way and give Bledsoe the benefit of the doubt, — but this is going to prevent you from getting the boat I promised you. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too, sir," I replied, but this I had been expecting and my heart was pounds lighter as I closed the door of his office behind me.

Life went on in its new groove for several weeks with no appreciable change. Our operations were routine. Jim was efficient, precise, thorough, and unapproachable. He went to New Haven every chance he got. Then the whirlwind hit us.

Captain Blunt was waiting on the dock with a group of three other Captains and three civilians as we pulled in one rainy, cold Thursday evening.

"We want to see you right away, Rich," he shouted as Tom Schultz, whose turn it happened to be, was nosing along- side our dock. "Turn your ship over to your Exec and hop ashore."

This was indeed unusual. I swung over the edge of the bridge and hurried down the ladder rungs, welded to its side, scissored across the wire lifeline on deck, clung to it for a second, measuring the slowly closing intervening dis- tance, then leaped to the dock.

"Lieutenant Commander Richardson, this is Captain Shonard of the Bureau of Ships," said Captain Blunt. I stared at the Commodore, my tarnished Lieutenant's bars only too evident on my shirt collar. "This is Captain Smyth, and Captain Weatherwax"-bringing forward the other two naval officers-"and this is Commander Radwanski, Lieutenant Sprawny, and Lieutenant Dombrowski." The Commodore struggled over the names of the civilians. I shook hands gravely, wondering what this was all about.

"We have to talk. Come up to my office." So saying, the Commodore strode toward the two cars waiting at the head of the dock and there was nothing to do but follow him. I shouted over to Jim, standing sullenly on deck, "Take over, Jim. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Once up in Captain Blunt's office, he as usual got right down to cases and confused me even more.

"Gentlemen," he said, addressing the civilians, "Lieutenant Commander Richardson is the skipper of your new ship."

I almost choked.

The tall civilian, Radwanski, now turned to me and spoke hesitatingly. "We-are-pleased-to-make-your-acquaintance."

He accented all syllables with equal emphasis. "We-hear-you- have-a-fine-sub-marine. We-shall-call-it-Light-ning-Swift." I still had not the vaguest idea what he was talking about.

One of the other civilians came forward, the one introduced as Sprawny. He could hardly speak English at all but man- aged to get out something sounding like, "I am Meckaneeshun of the Blinks-a-wink." Lieutenant Dombrowski merely grinned and nodded his head.

The Squadron Commander took pity on my evident confusion.

"Rich," he said, "these gentlemen are officers in the Free Polish Navy, the Navy Department has sent them up here with instructions to take over the S-16. Their crew will arrive by train in a couple of days. You'll probably get your orders by dispatch tomorrow, but you might as well start thinking about turning her over immediately."

I stared my consternation. Captain Blunt went on: They won't even need much training in your ship. This is the same crew which has been operating the S-17 since we turned her over to them six months ago. The Germans bombed her in dry dock in England and I understand there's little hope of getting her back in commission. They're going to take over your ship as replacement for her. Since the two boats are identical, the S-17-or what's left of her will be an excellent source of spare parts." Radwanski, Dombrowski, and Sprawny all nodded their heads vigorously.

I pulled myself together as well as I could. "How soon do you want us to turn over?" I asked. "There are quite a few outstanding repair and alteration items, and some modifications we've made in the ship."

"That's what we're here for, Richardson," said the Captain who had been introduced as Shonard. "I'm from BuShips, so is Smyth, — and Weatherwax here is from the Bureau of Ordnance. We're going to accomplish your complete list of outstanding repairs, as well as several items we have in mind on our own. This is what we've had in mind for the S-16 all along. You've done a nice job on her."

So this was to be the result of all our work! We had been getting S-16 ready for war, all right, — for somebody else to have the fruit of our labor!

"When is all of this supposed to happen?" I asked, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "What about my crew?"

"Immediately," said Shonard, "that is, as soon as possible."

Messrs. Radwanski, Dombrowski, and Sprawny grinned and nodded.

Captain Blunt broke in: "I don't blame you for feeling a bit rushed, Rich, but we must cooperate to the best of our ability. Their crew will get here this week end. The three officers will go down to your ship tomorrow to look her over and start making plans. We will terminate your assign- ment to the submarine school as of now and your only duty will be to assist Commander Radwanski in whatever he needs.

You can understand they are anxious to get the S-16, I mean Lightning-Swift into action, and the Navy Department has agreed to turn her over all standing."

I nodded my comprehension, too miserable to do more.

Captain Blunt went on. "Commander Radwanski and his friends have an appointment with the Admiral. Rich, will you wait here for about three minutes-while I show them to his office-I've got one more thing I want to talk to you about."

He indicated the chair by his desk, led the three Poles to the door, and closed it behind him.

For twice three minutes I sat there, staring at the wall.

Events, or luck, had conspired against me. In my eagerness for a new ship I had put Jim Bledsoe up for his command qualification prematurely. As a direct result his reputation had been damaged, his marriage plans spoiled, and deservedly I had lost his regard. I had made my choice between Jim and the S-16, chosen the latter's welfare as the more important, and now she, too, was gone.

My despondency deepened as Blunt's footsteps came back down the hall and the door opened. He smiled.

You've probably been wondering why I addressed you as Lieutenant Commander. "Well, here it is. Your promotion arrived by AlNav this morning." He handed me a sheet of closely printed mimeograph paper which had the words Al- Nav #12 across the top. "You're listed there. About halfway down."

Then he smiled even more broadly, — an unusual look, for him. "That's not the best of it, either. You're getting the Walrus, — she's just been launched at Electric Boat. Furthermore, the Admiral has decided that the simplest way to put a crew aboard is to transfer the whole S-16 outfit to her with you."

My jaw hung open. My heart bounded as the import of it sank home. But old Blunt wasn't quite done yet: "You don't have to take them all, just those who want to go. Of course, those who don't," His smile, for the second time in my immediate recollection, took on a sardonic glitter.

I don't know how I found my way back to the S-16. Three body blows like these, all made known to me within an hour, were a little out of the ordinary at the very least I called Jim, Tom, and Keith together in the wardroom and they were as flabbergasted as I. The four of us went together to the control room, where I broke the news to the crew.

Turning S-16 over to the Poles was an unmitigated head- ache. Few of them understood English and explaining things was not merely difficult, it was a problem of extraordinary magnitude. Had not most of the Poles already been familiar with the S-17, it would have been impossible.

We glued strips of paper with Polish writing on all our gauges and dials, and we made dive after dive with each of our men instructing his Polish relief. When we turned the boat over to them for their first dive we thought them fairly well indoctrinated, but even so they made my hair literally stand on end.

There was apparently no preparatory command, no "Clear the Bridge" or its equivalent in Polish; merely two blasts on the diving alarm. Everyone dashed below; all vents were pulled wide open and the motors put ahead full speed. Some- how the bridge hatch was shut. No one paid any attention to the Christmas Tree or bothered to bleed air into the boat to test for tightness. The bow planes were not rigged out until she was thirty feet under and no one paid any attention to the bow and stern plane controls until we passed thirty-five feet on the way down. Our bow went down at an ever-in- creasing angle, steeper than I had ever experienced, and I began to have the sensation of going into an outside loop. We could never complete a loop, of course, but we might ram her nose into the bottom of Long Island Sound with enough force to break something.

Commander Radwanski shouted in Polish. Nobody moved.

Dombrowski, in charge of the dive, had yet to utter a word.

I could see Larto standing by the main power control beside his replacement in the Polish Navy. He looked at me beseechingly, imploring me with his large, expressive Italian eyes.

I was about to shout "All back emergency" when Radwanski yelled several more Polish words. We were by this time passing ninety feet and the S-16 had assumed a fifteen-degree down angle. The little bench which was the station of the Chief of the Watch began to skid on the slick linoleum deck; a couple of wrenches located by the trim manifold slid from their accustomed location and fell on the deck with a clatter; someone had parked an empty coffee mug in an unnoticed corner and now It burst forth making its presence known with a shattering of crockery.

The two Polish sailors detailed under the silent Dombrowski's supervision now ran both planes to "full rise." The Polish Chief Electrician's Mate impassively leaned over his rheostats and, to my amazement, increased the speed. Suddenly, alarm- ingly, S-16 swooped out of her dive, reversing her down angle and reaching ten degrees rise. We had climbed back to sixty- five feet before the sweating planesmen could level her off.

More shouted commands: The Polish Electrician's Mate reduced speed and S-16 settled out into some sort of sub- merged control. Radwanski, standing in the center of the control room and maintaining balance by holding on to one of the periscope hoist wires, leaned his sweaty, whisker-stub- bled jaw toward me and hissed into my ear with a nod toward Dombrowski, who so far as I could see had still not opened his mouth.

"That-is-al-ways-his-way. Beauti-ful-sub-mer-gence, not- so?" he said.

From that moment on the S-16 under Polish hands acquired an entirely new personality. I saw her for the first time in a detached, unemotional state of mind, and was even able, with- out a twinge, to watch them paint her new name, Blyskawica, meaning Lightning-Swift, on her stern and replace our numbers on the side of the bridge with a large white B. It was not until we all stood on her deck, seeing the United States ensign hauled down for the last time, that a pang of regret suddenly registered. She had been a good ship, we had made her into one, — and now she was going to war without us. We wished her luck.

Walrus was already in the water, much nearer to completion than we had had any idea, when we reported to Electric Boat. The yard workers were knocking themselves out, had been ever since Pearl Harbor, — and she would make her first dive within two months. Twenty-four hours a day a veritable army of overalled workmen were in her, on her, and about her.

The acrid smell of welding, the din of power tools, and the clatter of workmen never ceased. Every day we went down to her and looked her over, trying ineffectually to stay out of the way and yet get some idea of what was going on, and every day something new had been added, some new piece of equipment installed, some additional step taken toward getting her ready.

In our office on the second floor of a temporary wooden building erected at the head of the dock at which Walrus lay, Jim, Keith, and Tom wrestled with the problems of preparing the ship's organization and orders and making duty assignments for the crew.

Jim was doing his usual good work, but there had been one bad moment. Shortly before the final transfer ceremony of the S-16 he had come up to me with a sheet of official ship's stationery in his hand. I had been going over the spare-parts inventory in our tiny, soon-to-be-relinquished wardroom, preparatory to having a joint inventory with the S-16's Polish skipper, Radwanski. "Captain," Jim said, it was the first time he had thus addressed me since the qualification fiasco, "I have been thinking it over for a long time. I would like a transfer." The paper was an official request from Jim ad- dressed to the Chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel via the Commanding officer of S-16 and-the Commander, Sub- marine Squadron Two, requesting a change of duty from S-16 to "any other vessel of Squadron Two."

"What's this for, Jim?" I asked.

Some of Jim's sulky look had returned, and he fidgeted uncomfortably.

"How do you think I'd feel going on the Walrus and knowing that I can never get any place in submarines?" he asked petulantly, all in a rush, as though in a hurry to get it out.

"I've got feelings and ambitions, too. I want to make some- thing out of myself. After what you did to me, putting me up for qualification for command and then bilging me, can't you see I'm all through, shot? With another ship maybe I can qualify to be skipper."

I had expected that Jim might feel this way, and had my answer ready, or thought I did. Quixotically my mind spun sixty miles to the westward and I found myself wondering what he had told Laura. I had not seen her since that day.

"Listen, Jim, you've got this all wrong. I've no prejudice against you. I want you in Walrus because I like you and because you're a good Exec. Someday you will be skipper of your own boat.."

There was a plaintive note in Jim's voice. "That's what I want, too, but I'll never get it with you.

"That's exactly where you're wrong, Jim. There's a lot more to submarining than running a boat up and down the Thames River. The future of the submarine force is in boats like the Walrus, not in old antiquated ones like this one."

"But don't you see? I don't want to go with you. I want to stay where I can do some good. Where people respect me."

"What can you do here that you can't in a fleet sub?"

"I might be able to take over one of the school boats, if I can get with a skipper who'll recommend me."

"What about the war. Don't you propose to get in that?"

Jim looked away. His voice was strained, as though it might he a struggle for him to speak.

"I'm looking out for Number One, from here on. Nobody else will, not you! To bell with the Walrus and to hell with the war, too!"

I couldn't tell Jim of my conversation of a few weeks ago with Captain Blunt, but there was another way. Heretofore I had used the friendly approach, had stood for his silence and sullen bad temper. Maybe this was the time to change, though it would give Jim cause to hate me all the more. I stood up from the wardroom table in S-16, picked up his neatly typed request, and held it in my hand. I made my voice emotionless.

"Listen, Bledsoe, what you've just said is disloyal and disrespectful. The Bureau of Naval Personnel has ordered this whole ship's company to the Walrus. That was your chance to register an objection, but you didn't. I was asked if I wanted you for my Exec, and I said I did. You have already received official orders to that effect. It's too late to change your mind now. Furthermore, I've stood for your bad temper long enough. It's time you stopped acting like a spoiled child. If you deserve command, you'll get it."

Navy regulations specifically forbade my doing so, but as I finished I ripped the paper in half twice and threw it back on the table. Jim had half-opened his mouth to speak, closed it uncertainly as I tore up his request. For a moment he stood, irresolute, and then, muttering something under his breath, he turned and stalked away.

Jim knew the regulations as well as I did but the bluff worked nevertheless. There grew a new wariness about him and we concentrated on our job: organizing Walrus. There was a lot to do, and the burden, of course, fell primarily on Jim. We ate, slept, and breathed the Walrus. We lived in a little world of our own, sometimes not even recognizing the fact that other submarines, some more nearly completed than Walrus and others not so far along, also were going through the same processes alongside us.

And then one day I realized that Jim's sulkiness had been gone for some time. He was not the same as before, of course, and there was this new contemplative awareness. He did his job as usual, organizing not only the official watch sections and administering responsibilities of the ship but also the extracurricular activities such as baseball teams, bowling leagues, and the like. It was not a complete about-face, but distinctly an improvement. At times I thought he might have finally understood. They were followed by moments when it seemed more probable that he was only submerging what feelings he might have, perhaps awaiting more appropriate expression. Whatever it was, I was too grateful for the improvement in our relations to want to question it even had I been able to do so.

And I realized another thing, too. When I finally saw Laura, there was no longer the warm friendliness I had once felt so strongly. We got up a ship's party as a parting gesture for the S-16. It was almost a command performance for all of us, enlisted and officers, to attend. I wondered whether Jim would bring Laura, and when he was late, for a few uneasy moments it looked as though he might have decided to ignore the party after all.

When the door to our hall opened and he and Laura stood there, I had the sudden feeling of cold ice on my backbone.

She was as beautiful as ever, and they made a pleasing picture as Jim, with a solicitous, possessive air, led her through the crowd to the table set aside for us.

"Here comes Mr. Bledsoe!" Kohler spoke in a loud, carry- ing voice. "Now the party can begin!" Jim turned and waved to him, then acknowledged with a grin Larto's violently gesticulated, white-toothed greeting.

Somebody let out a low-pitched whistle from the middle of the crowd, and the irrepressible Russo stood up on a chair to get a better look. "When you going to let me bake you that cake, Mr Bledsoe?" he yelled at him. Jim grinned and shook his head slightly.

Laura's cheeks were flushed and her eyes were dancing as she sat down. She nodded hello to Tom and Cynthia Schultz, greeted Keith warmly, and tossed me a curt, cool hello.

Throughout the evening she avoided my glance, applied her- self assiduously to gay repartee with the other members of our party, answered my attempts at conversation in monosyllables. I couldn't avoid asking her to dance, and it was as I had feared, like holding a faultless dummy in my arms. Jim claimed her as soon as he decently could.

The party, as far as I was concerned, was a flop. I had expected some such reaction from Laura, especially after realizing the store she and Jim had set by Jim's qualification for submarine command. Someday, perhaps, after Jim had become a skipper, she might understand why I had had to do it. But it was hopeless to try to explain. The hurt was deep, and I had to let it go in silence.

The Poles stayed in New London for several weeks after we turned S-16 over to them and then one day, as I was sit- ting in our second-floor office poring over Walrus' fire-control setup, I saw her beading downriver on her final departure from New London. The Blyskawica, or Blinks-a-Wink as we called her, was low in the water and down by the stern, loaded with fuel in her after main ballast tank for the long voyage.

She looked tiny and bold and a little forlorn, standing bravely down the Thames River with the white ensign of Poland fluttering from her flagstaff. Her crew was at quarters on deck as she passed under the bridges, and as she came by the dock where the Walrus lay I saw them stiffen to attention. The notes of a bugle wafted across the muddy waters of the river.

I had not known the Poles carried a bugler and I don't think anyone else saw her, but I stood up and returned the salute, bare-headed and indoors at that, feeling all choked up inside and just a little ashamed at the sentimental feelings suddenly evoked. I knew I would never see her again.

Walrus was half again as long as S-16, and she was at twice as much submarine. She had four huge diesel engines of the latest type, the same as in our latest diesel railroad tractors, in two engine compartments. There were ten torpedo tubes-six in the bow and four in the stern-and of course two torpedo rooms. Her battery was more than twice as large as S-16's, also located in two compartments, one just forward and the other just aft of the control room. Her control room was commodious compared with that of the S-16, and crammed with new equipment. Best of all was the conning tower, consisting of an eight-foot-diameter horizontal cylinder above the control room, — in Walrus a real fire-control station, from which the periscopes could be operated, the ship maneuvered, and torpedoes fired.

In the after end of the conning tower, curved to fit against its shell, was installed the computing machine by which we would solve for enemy course and speed and automatically send the proper torpedo gyro angles to the torpedoes. Its official, designation was "Torpedo Data Computer," and it was known by its initials as the TDC. I had become acquainted with an earlier version of it in the Octopus and therefore, fortunately, had some understanding of how it could be used.

The whole ship, for that matter, reminded me greatly of an improved Octopus, and I was soon grateful for my three years service in that vessel.

We had only a short time, two months, to get the Walrus ready to go to sea, and only four weeks after that to prepare for our voyage to the war. The emergency of the war had affected the shipyard workers, planners, and supervisors alike; they did their jobs with certitude and speed as though every welding bead they ran, every bolt they tightened down, were a personal attack on the enemy. We had our hands full keeping up with them, so that we would be ready for our new ship when it was delivered to us. All the new boats at Electric Boat had the same problem.

Most of the crew of S-16 had volunteered to come along to the Walrus. Kohler, Chief of the Boat and now additionally in charge of two torpedo rooms instead of only one, was in his element. He had long envied the fortunate submariners serving in the new "gold-platers," as he termed the fleet boats, and his pleasure in ours was good to behold. Larto, First Class Electrician's Mate in S-16, was notified of his appointment to Chief at the same time he was assigned to the electrical control station or "Maneuvering room" of Walrus. Quin happily took charge of a "really commodious"-as he termed it, little office all his own about four feet by three feet by five and a half feet high. It was, indeed, much bigger than the part-time corner he had been assigned before. Rubinoffski took over the conning tower, the bridge above, and a whole series of chart drawers located in the wardroom. Our cook on S-16, Russo, couldn't spend enough time in his new galley.

He had never seen anything so beautiful, he said, watching with delight as two new electric stoves were lowered into his new domain.

Jim, Keith, and Tom as a matter of course kept their original assignments as Exec, Gunnery-and-Torpedo, and Engineer. In addition we were informed that two more officers, junior to Keith, might be expected before the ship went into commission. They would become our Communications Officer and Assistant Engineer, we decided.

Getting a new ship organized and supervising her construction is in many respects a time-consuming and seemingly thankless chore. The prospective skipper and crew never quite see eye to eye with the, builder regarding just how the ship is to be built, just where each incidental piece of equipment is to be installed. Likewise, personnel requirements regarding the assignment of the crew and officers are bound to create problems needing solution. There is plenty to do from the beginning, especially when you start with only two months to go; and then gradually, as the commissioning date nears, you find that those, were the easy days. Long hours become ordinary, late nights the rule rather than the exception.

A Watch Quarter and Station Bill has to be worked up. The men have to be given battle stations, cleaning stations, watch stations. The crew must be divided into three sections, approximately equally spaced as to ranks and abilities, and given such training ashore as is possible. Certain men had to be sent away to school to acquire basic knowledge about some of our new equipment. We all, at Tom's insistence, attended diving drill on the diving trainer at the submarine school-with the equipment set up to simulate fleet-boat conditions, and Jim arranged for special time in the Attack Teacher's crowded schedule so that our embryonic fire-control party would have a few opportunities to work together as a team before we went to sea.

It was late in March, during this preparatory phase prior to getting Walrus to sea, that Jim sought me out. Something was bothering him and he hemmed and hawed before beginning.

"Skipper," he finally said, "the others thought I should bring this to you right away It's bad news."

"What?" I asked.

"It's about the Octopus. She's gone."

I stood up, feeling a peculiar distress in the front of my head. "Gone?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yes, sir, the announcement came in by dispatch about an hour ago. We just got it."

"Let me see it."

Jim silently handed me a pink sheet of tissue paper.

THE NAVY DEPARTMENT REGRETS TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE USS OCTOPUS IS OVERDUE FROM PATROL STATION AND PRESUMED LOST DUE TO ENEMY ACTION. X THE OCTOPUS ASSIGNED TO THE PACIFIC FLEET WAS FIRST COMMISSIONED AT NEW LONDON IN 1936. X HER COMMANDING OFFICER WAS COMMANDER GERALD M WATSON OF CHICAGO. X THERE ARE NO OTHER DETAILS AVAILABLE. X It had had to come, of course; losses in war had to be expected, but who could have foretold that when I departed to take command of S-16, then in the back channel at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, I was saying good-by to my ship- mates for the last time; that my orders to that "old, broken- down tub" would spell the difference between life and death between me and my old friends. I read the dispatch over several times. When I looked up Jim was gone.

Getting Walrus ready now took on a new meaning. The war had come home in a particularly personal way. I fretted under the delays and redoubled our efforts at training and preparation. March drew to a close; April came and went and our commissioning date grew nearer. I was wrapped up all day long with Walrus, all night studying her plans and specifications and the way we had to fit ourselves into them.

The weeks passed on winged feet.

Jim still made his week-end pilgrimages to New Haven, and once in a while probably had Laura with him at the Club at the submarine base or elsewhere in New London.

With the ship under construction there were no watches to stand or to prevent his having every week end to himself if he could arrange his work and responsibilities accordingly.

Hugh Adams and Dave Freeman reported fresh out of the submarine school the first week in April. Adams was tall and gangling, nearly as tall as Jim, with an unruly thatch of red- dish hair and a heavy crop of freckles. He could have passed for a high-school senior anywhere. Freeman, a small, intense youth, contrasted violently with Adams in appearance and personality. It was bard to conceive of these two having been roommates and best friends in Quarters "D" at the submarine school or even having anything at all in common. I felt immediately drawn to Hugh Adams. Freeman, with his reserved, less colorful personality, would take more developing, but seemed to have a certain seriousness of purpose about him.

The meticulously careful handling required for codes, ciphers, and classified documents would be his dish, I thought, as I made the assignments designating him Communications Officer. Adams could be understudy to Daddy Schultz as Assistant Engineer.

We got Walrus to sea for the first time the last week in April, or rather Electric Boat did. By the terms of their contract the boat company's trial crew had to take all newly constructed submarines out in the Sound for proof dives and operation of equipment before turning them over to the Navy.

It felt odd to be a guest in my own ship, and stranger yet to see a submarine being expertly operated by a bunch of Yard workmen clad in various assorted pieces of civilian work clothes.

The ship was mechanically complete, though hardly a thing of beauty. Yellow chromate paint was everywhere in- side. Her steel decks were covered with heavy cardboard rather than the prescribed linoleum. Discarded pieces of cable were lying about and large chunks of cork, rags, dirt of all kinds were in the corners and underfoot. She presented an unkempt appearance, but I had to admire the way the trial crew went about their business. There were only fifteen of them, just enough to operate the ship-no more.

Half our crew had to remain ashore to make room for official observers, and the resulting ship's company, if you could term it that for this first trip-was a strange one, with divergent interests all over the place. The Trial Captain, Captain Morgan, rode serenely above it all. He was at least sixty years old, had been with submarines, all his life, and his handling of Walrus was finesse itself. Disdaining the proffered assistance of two tugs standing by off the end of the pier, he backed her smartly out into the Thames River, turned her on her keel with one propeller going ahead, the other backing, and headed her swiftly downstream. The unused tugs followed to act as safety observers when we submerged.

Our first dive was in great contrast to the first dive of the Poles in S-16. Captain Morgan's objective was to test Walrus for the tightness of her welded seams. First came a thorough air pressure test; satisfied, he eased her down gently, testing her balance as he did so and letting water into her variable water tanks a little at a time until finally he had both sub- merged and obtained a perfect initial trim. "None of these slide-rule calculations for me!" he told us. Then two more dives, a few rapid surface tests including hard-over rudder with the ship going full speed astern, and he was satisfied for the first day.

"We used to try a boat for a week before turning her over to the Navy," he told me, "but they are rolling so many off the lines these days, all exactly alike, that all we need to do now is test the hull for tightness and the systems to see if they work. You've got a good ship here, boy."

I could not object to his calling me "boy," for he had retired from the Navy before I had even entered the First Grade. Most of his crew likewise were retired Navy personnel, nearly all Chief Petty Officers, each an expert in his-own line or trade.

Twice more the trial crew took Walrus out in the Sound, until the inspectors and supervisors were satisfied. A few more days of cleaning her up, laying the linoleum, scraping off excess paint, and then Captain Morgan delivered her to one of the piers at the submarine base, upriver. I read my orders to the assembled crew in the presence of a small group of visitors and we all stood rigidly at salute as the United States flag was hoisted on her stern. Walrus was ours, the newest unit of the fleet.

Our work had just started. Now it was drilling the crew aboard ship, over and over again going through the myriads of details necessary to the effective operation of a fleet-type submarine. We were assigned an area in Long Island Sound and every day, Sunday included, we took Walrus out and went through our paces. The only days we stayed in port were when we had to provision ship, take on fuel, or make some small repair.

At first there was simply the matter of being able to dive.

Time after time we went through the motions. Time after time we dived, got the boat trimmed to a hair of submerged balance, made a few simple submerged maneuvers, and surfaced again. Each of the three sections into which the crew was divided was required to be able to dive, get a trim, and operate the ship independently. Each of the officers, Hugh Adams and Dave Freeman as Well as the rest, had to take his turn handling a dive, handling the main engines, working out on the levers in the maneuvering room, firing torpedoes, getting under way, and making landings.

There was no denying that it was a tough grind, and it gradually became tougher as the tempo of our days' operations speeded up. We were not weighted With a class of trainees from the submarine school, required to do the same thing with a different group time after time, and we progressed steadily to high-speed maneuvers, quick dives, in which the diving alarm is sounded without warning of any kind, and simulated casualties of all sorts. The section on watch got so they could man their posts with instant alertness, ready at any second to send Walrus below into the sheltering depths, or to handle any emergency, submerged or on the surface.

A lot of our work was on attack procedures. First we went to Newport, Rhode Island, took on a load of exercise fish, and-fired them in Narragansett Bay, one after the other, to determine that the torpedo tubes were properly bore-sighted and that the torpedoes would go where aimed. Then we began to carry out approaches using the Falcon, Vixen, or some- times another submarine, — anything that came handy. Every time we could get more than two targets at once we pretended some were escort vessels. Torpedo after torpedo we shot in the safe waters of Long Island Sound, learning the fundamentals of our new fire-control equipment.

Keith, the TDC operator, was a very real help during an approach. He had never seen a TDC before but its functions were obvious and well laid out, and he showed himself, as usual, quick to learn.

Jim, so burdened with work that he seemed by this time to have forgotten his original bad feeling, was also a tower of strength as Assistant Approach Officer.

Tom Schultz, of course, was back at his old stand, either in the engine rooms or handling the dive during battle stations submerged.

After a month of practice we were ready for our final operational inspection at the hands of Captain Blunt. We were assigned the deepest area in Long Island Sound, not very deep at that for a boat like Walrus. To the westward the Falcon, Vixen, and Semmes formed the "convoy" we were to attack. Blunt, Jim, and I, and Hugh Adams as Officer of the Deck, were on the bridge; above us on the upper level of the periscope supports stood four lookouts with binoculars; on the "cigarette deck" Rubinoffski, Quar- termaster of the Watch, also simulated aircraft watch with binoculars.

The Vixen, playing the part of a Jap troop transport, had not yet turned around to head for us. I was watching her idly, my binoculars scanning the horizon, when suddenly I heard a stentorian bellow: "Plane on the starboard quarter!" Captain Blunt was shouting at the top of his lungs and pointing off our stern.

Involuntarily I swung my binoculars to see it. The Squadron Commander shouted again, pointed violently. "Plane coming in on our starboard quarter!" He pointed again.

Hugh looked back uncertainly, then made up his mind and reached for the diving alarm. "Clear the bridge!" he shouted as he pressed the, diving alarm twice. There was a pop from forward as Number One main ballast tank vent went open. Then another pop as Number Two did likewise. Three and Five had fuel in them, but within less than a second, Four, Six, and Seven popped in their turn and little geysers of spray blew up through our slotted deck. The lookouts came tumbling down from their upper platform, protecting their binoculars with their arms across their chests, diving for the hatch. Back aft I could see the wake of water thrown astern by the suddenly speeded-up propellers, and up forward the bow commenced to settle in the water. Captain Blunt was grinning at me and he had a stop watch in his hand. It had already traveled a quarter of the way around the dial.

"Didn't you see the plane, Rich?" he chuckled.

There was no time to engage in conversation, even if Captain Blunt would, have liked to, for Walrus was already on her way down. Jim, the Squadron Commander, and I ran to the hatch. I motioned Jim down ahead of me and then Blunt. Hugh Adams was right behind us, as Officer of the Deck he would be last man below on a dive. I jumped down the hatch, stood clear for Hugh. He came down, slammed the hatch shut, and leaned back on the wire toggle holding it in place. Rubinoffski, having preceded us, was standing by, the helmsman; now he jumped up on the ladder rungs, grasped the hatch wheel and locked it firmly. Adams released the wire lanyard and dashed below.

Walrus' deck tilted forward a little more, and I could hear water gurgling up the sides of the conning tower. The needle on the conning-tower depth gauge wavered off its peg, commenced to climb.

"Depth, Captain?" came floating up the hatch from Hugh.

"One hundred feet," I called in return. I turned to Captain Blunt. "If it were a plane we should go deeper but we'd better not here; the sound is too shallow for a big boat like this."

He nodded.

"Sixty feet," said Rubinoffski, as the depth gauge reached that point.

The Squadron Commander looked at his stop watch. "Sixty- one seconds. That's only fair. Won't she dive any faster?"

"I think you caught Adams a little by surprise, sir."

"Walrus has got to stay on her toes, Rich. You'd be Surprised how many boats don't even think of diving out from under attacking planes until they get to Pearl Harbor and talk to some of their buddies."

We could hear the bustle below, the slamming of water tight doors, the securing of ventilation pipe bulkhead valves.

The conning tower commenced to warm up rapidly with the air supply cut off.

"One hundred feet, Captain! The ship is rigged for depth charge!" Hugh Adams' voice came easily up the open hatch- way from the control room below.

"Very well," I answered. I leaned over the hatch, raised my voice to, make sure of being heard: "Secure from depth charge! Sixty feet!" Walrus inclined upward. Again the banging of bulkhead doors and ventilation valves as they were opened. The depth gauge at my elbow slowly recorded the decrease in depth. When it touched seventy feet I started the periscope on its way up. Rubinoffski leaped forward and relieved me of the pickle control button.

I was looking through the periscope when it broke the surface, spun it around three times swiftly.

"Down scope!" The sheaves creaked and the periscope bottom disappeared. "Three ships in sight, Commodore.

Looks like our target group with a large angle on the bow."

"Ya don't say!"

I waited. Old Blunt was giving me that shaggy-eyebrow look and suddenly the light dawned. "Enemy in sight!" I rapped out. "Sound the general alarm!"

Walrus' general alarm sounded like a musical doorbell, except that it kept going for eleven seconds after you let go the knob. The musical "Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong" reverberated through the ship, and I heard men dashing about below. Jim, Keith, Hugh Adams, Quin, and several others climbed swiftly up the nearly vertical ladder and joined us in the conning tower.

"Conning tower manned and ready, skipper!" reported Jim.

Within a few moments, — less than a minute-Quin had received the telephone reports: "The ship is at battle stations, sir," he said.

Keith was spinning the dials of his TDC. It gave forth a low-pitched siren-like whine as the motors came up to speed.

"Initial bearing of target?" he said to me.

Rubinoffski sang out the answer: "Two-six-six!"

"Angle on the bow?"

This was mine. "About port forty." Keith gave a low whistle.

"Give them an initial range of ten thousand, — that puts us nearly seven thousands yards off the track!"

This meant that unless the target group zigged toward us we would have to go three and a half miles to reach a firing position, and during the time this would take a submarine the target would have to travel only about a mile farther.

Barring unusually slow enemy speed or a radical zig toward, this meant there could be no hope whatsoever of our catching up.

"Up periscope," I ordered. Maybe another look would give us more specific information, show the situation less unfavorable. The scope slithered up. Rubinoffski swung it to the bearing on which I had seen the targets.

In Walrus we had decided that Rubinoffski, instead of Jim, would be "periscope jockey," thus leaving Jim free to ride herd on Keith and the other conning-tower personnel insure that things progressed as they ought, and back me up as Assistant Approach Officer.

"Bearing-Mark!" as I laid the vertical cross hair on Vixen's mast. "Range-" my right hand fell to the range crank. I only saw the tops of Vixen, — the ends of her masts and a broad structure that was probably her bridge. Two other masts, other ships-one to left and one to right. They would be Falcon and Semmes. Vixen had two masts about equal in height; that was how I knew it was she.

"Use masthead height thirty feet," I snapped, then repeated, "Range-Mark." At the word "Mark" I had cranked the range knob around so that the target divided itself in two, and I laid the tip of the mast in one image alongside the squat structure which I took to be Vixen's bridge in the other. The total height from the tip of the mast to the water- line would be about sixty feet. Thirty feet would be a good guess for the height of the mast above the bridge.

Rubinoffski was studying the range dial on his side of the periscope. As I gave the — Mark' he swiftly read off the range opposite the thirty-foot masthead height marker.

"Eight-eight-double-oh," he said.

"Down periscope." I turned to the rear of the conning tower where Keith was still twisting dials on the TDC, inserting the latest bearing and range information.

Jim, on the other side of the compartment, somewhat closer to me, was setting up the Is-Was.

"Angle on the bow port forty," I said.

Jim twisted the Is-Was dials. Keith gave one last turn lo the range knob of the TDC, adjusted the "Target Course knob, leaned back a few inches. Jim and I crowded in to look at it.

"Not so good, skipper," said Jim. "We'll have to run like a rabbit to get over there."

Keith nodded. "Distance to the track is five thousand yards."

"What's the normal approach course?" I asked. The normal approach courser steers the submarine toward an imaginary point ahead of the target such that the submarine will have the shortest possible distance to run-and the target the longest.

Jim spun the dials of the Is-Was, looked at it searchingly.

"One-seven-zero, " he said.

"One-seven-zero, sir!" Keith corroborated from the TDC.

"Left to one-seven-zero," I called to the helmsman at the other end Of the conning tower. "All ahead full."

The clink of the annunciators. "Left to one-seven-zero.

Answered all ahead full, sir!" The battle-stations helmsman was a new man, a Quartermaster third by the name of Oregon who had been added to the old S-16 complement to build Walrus up to the seventy men required for her crew.

I waited half a minute, until the ship was swinging nicely.

"All ahead one third!" I ordered. We should not get too much way on the ship quite yet.

Another half-minute. "Steady on one-seven-oh!" Oregon's nasal twang.

It was what I had been waiting for. "Up periscope!" I swung it to the bearing. "Bearing-Mark!"

"Zero-eight-two!" There was hardly a pause between my "Mark" and Rubinoffski's reading of the azimuth circle, "Range-Mark!'

"Eight-four-double-oh!"

"Down scope! All ahead full-control, one hundred feet!"

I turned to Jim and Keith. "No zig yet. Angle on the bow about forty-five port."

Crossing to the hatch leading below, I looked down on the top of Tom Schultz' balding head. "We'll try her this way for another minute, Tom," I told him. "He's got to zig sometime!"

Tom looked up and nodded. "One hundred feet, aye, aye!"

We could sense the increased throb of Walrus' propellers, and her deck inclined down by the bow.

Walrus could make nearly nine knots at full speed-though not for long, of course, because even her huge battery could only last about an hour at the high discharge rate required.

The question was how long to run before taking another look; and every look required slowing down, planing back up to periscope depth.

At nine knots the periscope would throw up a spray visible for miles. If we slowed down to make a periscope observation we would lose ground in our race to catch the Vixen. If we didn't look, a big zig might leave us in an even worse position.

I leaned over Keith's shoulder, watched the dials going around on the face of the TDC. One of the two biggest dials indicated our own ship's course, the other that of the target.

The six-inch line between their centers represented the line of sight down which I looked every time we used the periscope.

Other smaller dials placed symmetrically, showed target speed, our own speed, gyro angles, time elapsed, and various other bits of pertinent information. Beneath the face of the instrument were two rows, of cranks by which data could be inserted or changed.

One minute since the last observation. Perhaps a zig toward will have taken place since we last looked.

"Control, six-oh feet!"

"All ahead one third!" Almost a minute to wait, while Tom planed up and the ship slowed down. Finally…

"Up periscope!" The handles gently rose into my waiting hands. "Bearing-Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!"

"He's zigged, all right!" I spoke with feeling. "Zigged away, that's what. Angle on the bow is port seventy!"

Keith spun the new data into the TDC. Jim, with a single twist, of his right hand, reoriented the Is-Was.

"Control! One hundred feet! All ahead full!" We felt the ship dip once again, and the communicated throb of our screws Jim stood behind me, studying the face of the TDC and occasionally glancing at his Is-Was. Captain Blunt, in deference to the crowded conditions in the conning tower, was making himself as small as possible in a comer of space between the two periscope hoist motors. Crowded in behind us, Hugh Adams bent over the track chart he had started on a tiny table top nestled into the after part of the conning tower.

Time moved with lead shoes while I looked at the slowly creeping "own ship" and 'target' dials, and the speedometer- type distance counter ticking off the reduction in range as target and submarine ran for the same imaginary point.

"Dammit!" I muttered, under my breath. "Where does he think he's going anyway!"

The timer on the TDC indicated two minutes since I had last looked through the periscope. We could hear a throbbing, almost a musical note, as Walrus tore through the water. A lifeline perhaps, or some excessive vibration in a stanchion or hand rail. I made a mental note to look into it and see if we could stop the noise. Jap sonar, so the first reports had commented, was better than we had anticipated, and it would be well not to make any avoidable noise.

Two and a half minutes. Jim broke the silence. "Captain, do you think he knows where we are? He never got a chance to shine the light on us…"

It was true, and I had been thinking along the same lines.

The procedure for practice approaches specified that the target's initial base course should be the direction of the sub- marine from the target at the time the searchlight was extinguished. If Vixen had not happened to see us dive or had failed to make note of our true bearing during the moments just before we dived, it was quite possible that her skipper was actually in doubt as to what his base course ought to be.

"Dammit, anyway!" I said again. Three minutes came up.

We could not wait any longer. "All ahead one third!" I ordered the helmsman.

Answered "One third, sir" from Oregon after the annunciators clinked.

Quin was watching me gravely.

"Control-six-two feet," I told him.

Quin relayed the word and in a moment I heard Tom acknowledge by calling up through the open batch.

It would take us a minute to slow down and there was nothing to do but chew our fingernails until Tom got us near enough to the surface and our speed had reduced that we could use the periscope.

Captain Blunt was looking at me as if about to say some- thing. "Anything wrong up there, Rich?" The drawl in his voice was out of character for him.

"Yes, there is, sir," I snapped, somehow irritated by his lack of concern. "I don't know where this fool is going. Maybe he is running target for another submarine somewhere else."

Blunt's drawl was even deeper. "What d'ya expect? Are the Japs going to run right at you and make it easy?" Suddenly the familiar incisive note was back in his voice. "Listen, Richardson, that is one of the things wrong around here. The big problem is to get in front of the target. Anybody ought to be able to hit him with a torpedo after that. Getting into attack position is ninety per cent of the job. Too many of our people seem to think the Japs are going to shine a search- light at them and zigzag happily down to where the submarine has been waiting." Again that sardonic glitter.

"Nuts!" he said.

There was no contesting his point.

The ship's speed indicator located on the bulkhead near Oregon's steering wheel showed three and a fraction knots; giving me an opportunity to break away gracefully from Captain Blunt. The depth gauge showed sixty-two feet keel depth.

"Up periscope," I ordered. A quick one this time: "Bearing- Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope!" I turned back to the TDC where Keith was inserting the information as relayed by Rubinoffski.

"Target's angle on the bow, port ninety," I said sarcastically.

"He zigged away again."

Keith changed the target course by the requisite amount.

Jim did likewise with the Is-Was, then both turned to me.

"This is no good, skipper," Jim said. "He's not playing the same game we are."

I wavered in indecision. Maybe we ought to abandon the approach and surface, signaling Vixen to start over again. It had been done before…

"Don't forget this fellow's a Jap," I found myself saying.

Then to Oregon at the other end of the conning tower, "All ahead, flank!" and to Tom, "One hundred feet!"

At flank speed the Electrician's Mates poured everything the battery could give into the motors and the whole frame of the ship trembled with the added power. You could feel her accelerate like a living thing as she drove forward. She couldn't last long, not over a half-hour more at this speed.

This was all we could do-our maximum effort. But in- decision still gripped me. What if Vixen zigged. even farther away? What if we used up the whole battery in a fruitless chase? We might very well do this, all to no purpose. The dials on the TDC gave no comfort, either, for they now showed Walrus and Vixen running on parallel courses about five thou- sand yards apart. This could go on indefinitely, or until our battery gave out. If we turned toward the "enemy," Vixen would swiftly pass ahead, never once having come close to torpedo range, and we would be left with a hopeless stern chase. The only thing to do was to keep going and hope the next zig of the target would be in our direction.

The timer ticked off another minute and I bent over Hugh Adams' plotting sheet, shooting a fleeting look at old Blunt is I did so, hardly hoping for a suggestion and finding none in his customarily grim visage. Hugh's chart contained a paucity of information; merely the location of the two ships and lines showing their respective movements. I studied it carefully.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a forgotten idea was stirring.

I tried to wrest it from Hugh's plot without success. A look at the TDC, nearly blocked by Jim and Keith's shoulders.

Nothing unusual there. Back to the chart.

"What was the initial bearing of the target when we dived?"

I asked Hugh.

He silently indicated a lightly penciled line near the right- hand edge of the paper. "This is about what it was, sir. I had to work backward a little after we figured out which way he was going "Is this north?" I indicated the head of the paper.

Adams nodded.

Still the idea wouldn't come, and then suddenly it there, full grown. I looked for the Squadron Commander;- he was studying the dials and instruments alongside Oregon; our helmsman.

"Rubinoffski," I muttered under my breath, "where's the area chart?"

The Quartermaster reached under Adams' desk and pulled out a rolled up navigational chart of Long Island Sound.

"Didn't I see something about net-testing operations?" I asked him.

"Yes sir." Rubinoffski's tapering forefinger indicated a freshly inked line about one inch long on the chart.

Another observation was due. "All ahead, one third." The singing note changed as the boat began to slow down.

"Hugh!" I said, pointing to the net-testing area on Rubinoffski's chart, "transfer this line to your plotting sheet.

Also draw in the location of Little Gull Island, the mid-channel Whistle buoy, and that danger buoy we received notice of last week."

I went back to the TDC and drew Jim aside to give him a few last-minute instructions. Jim was, among other things, in charge of our firing check-off list pasted in the overhead of the conning tower. We had so far accomplished only two of the half-dozen or so items listed thereon.

Walrus slowed and at the same time neared the newly ordered depth for the next periscope look. I had told Tom to bring her only to sixty-three feet-a foot deeper than the previous observation. This meant that with the periscope fully extended, only three and a half feet of it would project above the surface of the water. It was desirable to have less and less periscope visible, of course, during the latter stages of an approach.

The speed was just on three knots as the periscope came up.

I grasped the handles, started going around with it before it had stopped its upward motion, completed a full circle before it was fully raised.

"Down scope," and the periscope dropped away. I turned to the TDC. "Angle on the bow, point one hundred. Stand by for an observation.'

Keith pursed his lips, turned the target course knob slightly.

Jim, fiddling with the Is-Was, looked unhappy.

Hugh Adams in his corner was still busy, and Captain Blunt was watching gravely.

I motioned with my thumbs for the periscope. It slithered up into my hands.

"Bearing-Mark! Range-Mark! Down scope.

Jim held up a stop watch with a sidelong approving look for me to see as I turned toward him. It indicated seven and a half seconds-the time the periscope had been out of water.

As soon as Keith had finished setting in Rubinoffski's readings I gave him the angle on the bow. "No change," I said.

Adams stepped back from his table and I crowded over be- side him.

My hunch had been correct. The danger buoy, the whistle buoy, the net emplacement, and Little Gull Island all lay approximately in a row athwart our target's course. He had to come toward us. He could not go through them, and there was no other way for him to turn.

"We'll be shooting in a few minutes. Make the tubes ready forward, Jim," I said.

Jim motioned to Quin. "Tubes forward, flood tubes. Set depth thirty feet. Speed high." He reached up with the pencil marked off an item on big check-off list.

"Right full rudder," I told Oregon.

I could see the Squadron Commander lean forward taking it all in with a confused frown. This time he was going to get some of big own medicine.

Keith looked up at me puzzled. "Did you say angle on the bow was port one hundred?"

"A little more if anything. Give him one-oh-five, port."

With a look of disbelief Keith made the adjustment.

"What's the course to head for him?" I asked.

Keith reached up with his finger to aid in measuring the angle. Jim beat him to it from the Is-Wag. "Two-two-six!"

"Two-two-eight." Keith's answer differed slightly from Jim's.

I raised my voice for Oregon to hear. "Steady on course one-nine-zero!" This would lead the target by a few degrees as he came toward us.

Nearly a minute passed. I was aware of a worried frown on the Commodore's face from where he stood between the periscope hoist motors.

"Steady on one-nine-zero, sir!" from Oregon.

I motioned for the periscope, took another look. Range and bearing were fed into the TDC. "No change on angle on the bow," I said. I caught Captain Blunt's increasingly puzzled expression; Keith also glanced at me uneasily. I would have informed Jim and Keith but could not; catching old Joe Blunt by surprise just once was too good to risk losing. I could see him itching to question me, and finally it was too much for hint to stand.

"Good God, Rich! What in hell are you trying to do?"

"Nothing special, sir." A look of bland innocence. "We are getting near the firing point and I'm getting ready to fire our salvo."

"Tubes forward flooded. Depth set thirty feet. Speed high," from Quin.

Jim made another check on the overhead, as I nodded to him.

"Open the outer doors forward," he said.

Quin repeated the command over the telephone.

Captain Blunt seemed about to leap out from between the periscope motors.

"What did you say the angle on the bow was?" he growled.

"Port one-one-five, sir."

"Range?"

"About four thousand."

"Richardson, if you're playing games with me."

"No, sir," I said as blandly as I could, "we will probably be shooting in around three minutes on this course."

The puzzled look increased on Blunt's face. He was famed for his uncanny ability to retain the picture of a submarine approach and do practically all the calculations in his head without mechanical assistance. He had, of course, missed my low-voiced interchange with Hugh.

"Observation!" I rapped out, motioning with my thumbs to Rubinoffski to start the scope up as I squatted before it.

"Be ready to stop it short," I told him. He nodded. The periscope handles hit my outstretched hands. I snapped them down. Rubinoffski put the scope on the target bearing, different now because of our course change.

"… Mark!"

"Zero-five-eight!"

"Range-Mark!"

"Three-oh-five-oh!"

I spun the periscope in a complete circle before letting it dart back into its well, lingered for barely an instant on the other two ships. We were well clear of both, and neither, so far as I could see, had seen us.

"Angle on the how, port thirty."

Keith leaped at the handles of the TDC, commenced cranking them energetically with both hands.

Jim was hurriedly twisting the dials of his Is-Was. I Waited, shot the periscope up and down once more. "Zero-two- five… one-eight-five-oh!" said Rubinoffski.

"Port sixty… stand by forward," I barked.

Jim followed me up. "Stand by forward."

Quin picked up the phone. "Stand by forward."

"This is a shooting observation." I tried to make my voice dry and unemotional. "We will shoot three exercise torpedoes, set to pass beneath the target's keel. We are inside the screen.

Semmes will pass astern of us immediately after we shoot.

Falcon is on the far side and will be no trouble. Up scope!"

I had studiously avoided the use of the word "Fire." The handles of the periscope came into my palms. I went up with it, setting it on the target.

"Rubinoffski was watching the azimuth just as Keith had done for Jim several months earlier. The situation, in many respects, was very similar. A lot depended on Walrus being found ready.

"Mark!"

"Zero-one-two!"

"Set!"

This was Keith, indicating that the bearing from the periscope had been set into the TDC.

"Shoot!" I said.

Jim was watching the angle-solver part of the TDC where a red "F" was plainly to be seen.

"Fire!" he shouted.

Quin had turned around, was now facing the firing panel, an elongated metal box with a series of glass windows in its cover through three of which red lights glowed, and below the lights a group of switches. Beneath the firing panel was the firing key, a plunger topped with a round brass plate curved to fit the palm of one's hand. At the word "Fire" Quin reached up to the firing panel, turned the first of the line of switches with his left hand, pressed the firing key with his right.

"Fire One!" he said into the phone. He held the firing key down for a perceptible instant, then released it, flipped the first switch upright, and turned the second switch to the hori- zontal position. He waited another instant and then pressed the firing key once more.

"Fire Two!" he announced into the phone. "Fire Three!"

The same process was repeated.

We could feel three solid jolts as our three torpedoes went their way.

I motioned for the periscope, swung it around. Semmes was still clear. Three torpedo tracks diverging slightly were fanning out toward Vixen's bow. It looked as though they would pass ahead.

"Down scope!" I turned to Jim. "Have we fired the flare?"

"Yessir!" Tom Schultz shot the flare as soon as Quin fired the first torpedo.

Our instructions were to fire a submarine flare from the signal ejector in the control room at the instant of firing torpedoes. This would aid in marking the original point of release and assist in their recovery.

I kept Captain Blunt in his niche a little longer by motioning for the periscope again and taking another sweep around.

I had Rubinoffski stop a bit short of full extension and because of my bent-over position Blunt had to suck in his breath to allow my posterior to pass clear. I swung around twice an then fixed on the Vixen just in time to see our torpedo spread intersect her hull.

"A hit," I announced calmly, collecting myself in time to avoid shouting. "I think all three torpedoes passed under the target…. Range-Mark!"

"One-three-five-oh!" from Rubinoffski.

"That checks TDC!" from Keith.

I felt myself rudely shouldered aside. "Let me see, damn you!"

Captain Blunt had pushed his cap on the back of his head so that its bill would not get in the way of the periscope eye- piece. He planted himself firmly in front of it, stared through it.

"This is the first time I have ever seen this kind of an approach, but there he is all right. Did you pull this one out of your hat?" His eyes remained at the scope.

"It was nothing at all, Commodore," I said at his side. "I just did what you said a while ago, pretended we were patrolling off the coast of Japan."

Blunt gave forth with an unintelligible grunt.

"And of course," I went on, "I naturally took a good look at the chart of the Jap coast."

The Squadron Commander jerked away from the periscope, glaring.

I pulled Hugh Adams aside to show his track chart. "Here's the convoy's track and here's the coast," pointing to the line made up of Little Cull Island, the buoys, and the nets. "I knew they'd have to come around this way, so we just waited for them."

Blunt stomped over to the chart to get a closer look, and as he moved his cap fell off. Clumsily, I nearly stepped on it.

"Rich, you're a bastard," he said.