Silent Sea

CHAPTER 8

There was a dead silence in the After Torpedo Room. Mike Brannon licked his lips and looked at the Chief of the Boat.

“You’re sure the warhead is armed?”

“I got to figure it that way,” Flanagan said. “That little propeller on the underside of the exploder, we call it an impeller, it spins when the torpedo goes through the water. It arms the exploder at about four hundred and fifty yards.

“That stream of water coming out of the tube was hitting the warhead full on the nose. I figure the stream of water would turn the impeller enough times to bring the fulminate of mercury cartridge up out of its safety chamber in the exploder. Once that happens, all you’ve got to do is to hit the warhead with a force of four pounds and she explodes.”

“Be fatal,” Fred Nelson chimed in, his eyes staring belligerently from either side of the big hawk nose that dominated his face. “If this baby goes off the warheads on the other fish in the room go off with a sympathetic explosion, they call it, Captain.”

“Don’t scare me,” Brannon said slowly. He looked at Flanagan. “I guess the only answer is to get the exploder out of the warhead?”

“That’s the only thing I can think of, sir,” Flanagan said. “But it ain’t gonna be easy to do, sir.”

“Why not?” Brannon said. “You’ve had enough experience taking exploders out of warheads to modify them and then to put them back the way they were if we didn’t fire them.”

“First place,” Flanagan said, “we’ll be working from the underside of the fish. Normally, we roll the fish over in the skid so the exploder is on the top side and we can work on it. When you roll a fish over it doesn’t come easy. You got to put a steel cable sling around it and use a slewing bar and sort of jolt the damned thing until it finally rolls over.

“Then we take out the studs and screw two lifting tools into the exploder base plate, there’s tapped holes for the lifting tools. And then, and this is the way it is every exploder we’ve taken out, damned near, it won’t come out of the warhead. You pull on the lifting tools and you hit the edge of the exploder with a rawhide maul and you work it out gradually.

“We can’t take a chance rolling this fish over because we might jolt it too hard. That means we got to take the exploder out from underneath and it means we can’t hit it with the maul and if the bastard sticks and won’t come out, I think I’ll put in for a transfer.”

Brannon chewed his lower lip, thinking. He shrugged his heavy shoulders.

“What’s got to be done has got to be done,” he said slowly. “I’m going to stay on the surface for a while. We’ve got to get some charge back in the battery. Once we’ve done that we’ll submerge, go down to about three hundred feet so we’ll have a nice steady platform to work with and we’ll get the exploder out.” He stooped and looked at the underside of the warhead. A steady stream of viscous drops was falling from a split in the nose of the warhead, the drops falling soundlessly into a pile of soft rags Nelson had put on the deck.

“We’ll have to do something about that warhead,” Brannon said. “If exudate is dangerous we can’t have it leaking into the room.”

“Once we get the exploder out we can roll the fish over,” Flanagan said. “Then we can seal it with something.”

“Okay,” Brannon said. “Don’t let anyone get near this torpedo, Nelson.” He turned to Bob Lee. “Let’s go up to the Wardroom, Bob. I want you to dictate everything you saw and know that happened back here to the yeoman. When he gets that typed up we can have Chief Flanagan and Nelson read it for accuracy and for additions.” He looked at Nelson and Flanagan.

“You’re damned good men,” he said slowly. He started to duck under the torpedo to go forward and then straightened up. “Chief, later I want you and Nelson to sit down with me and talk about how this happened. I don’t want to crucify anyone, I don’t think we have to do that, but I want to know everything so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. We’ve still got those Mark Fifteens in the other three tubes.” He ducked under the torpedo and went forward, followed by Bob Lee. Nelson turned to Flanagan.

“Got me a helluva mess back here, Chief. Ain’t hardly gonna be any room to live back here, let alone do our work. What do you want me to do about Dumont? He’s the dumb fuck who fired the damned fish in the tube. Said he saw a leak in a grease fitting above the gyro repeater and was going to look at it and a depth charge threw him off balance and he hit the firing key for Number Seven.”

“Don’t do anything,” Flanagan said. “I’ll handle it, I’ll do something if something has to be done. I want to talk to the Old Man about it first, and to John Olsen. Dumont’s a pretty good man.”

“Yeah, he’s a good man,” Nelson said.

“Leave it there,” Flanagan said. He scrambled under the torpedo and went into the Maneuvering Room. Chief Morris looked at him from the padded bench seat where he was sitting, his foot propped negligently against the edge of the control panel.

“How’s your ears after all that pressure, Monk?”

“Didn’t notice any pressure,” Flanagan said. “I was worried about getting my ass wet. That damned water sure came in fast through that open tube. Thought I might have drowned before we got that inner door closed.”

“Nah,” Morris said. “The air pressure in the room would have stopped the water a good three feet from the overhead. You could have breathed in that bubble.”

“You’re a cheerful fuck,” Flanagan grunted. He went forward to change clothes.

Standing on the ship’s bridge, Mike Brannon filled John Olsen and Jerry Gold in on the condition of the exploder. Olsen’s eyes widened.

“My God, if we get depth charged again the jolts from the depth charges might set it off!”

“I don’t think so,” Brannon said. “We took some hard knocks when that fish was out of the tube, and it seemed to take it. The real danger is in someone getting careless and hitting the warhead itself.” He turned to Gold.

“How’s the battery charge coming?”

“Chief Morris says he’ll have a full can in another hour, sir. We can secure any time, but when we do he’d like twenty minutes, if we can give it to him, to ventilate the battery compartments. He’s been charging at a high amperage rate, and there’s hydrogen in the battery ventilation system.”

“Something in the water, bearing zero four five, Bridge,” the starboard lookout yelled.

Brannon and Olsen raised their binoculars. In the distance the water surface had a peculiar iridescent purple sheen broken by several white objects.

“Let’s get over there, Jerry,” Brannon said. Jerry Gold nodded and spoke quietly into the bridge transmitter, and the Eelfish turned to starboard and began to close on the odd purple sheen in the water.

“That looks like oil all over the water, Bridge,” the starboard lookout reported. “I can see some two, three life rings, and there’s a guy hanging on to some sort of wooden crate or something that’s floating and he’s waving at us.”

“Control,” Brannon said into the bridge transmitter. “Give me a radar sweep, air and horizon.”

“Radar reports all clear, Bridge.”

“Very well,” Brannon said. “Chief of the Boat to the bridge with a boathook, a life line, and two seamen. Gunner’s Mate to the bridge with a submachine gun.”

“We’ve got an oil slick up ahead, Chief,” Brannon said. “There’s some life rings in the slick. I want to get one of them, two if you can. There’s a man hanging on to a crate or something a little to starboard of the life rings. I want to get him, too, but these people often would rather die than be captured. So ignore the man. Maybe if he thinks we won’t pick him up he’ll come aboard.” He turned to John LaMark.

“Gunner, if we pick this swimmer up I want you to watch him like a hawk. If he shows a knife or a gun, shoot him.” He turned back to Flanagan.

“If you have to go down on the pressure hull remember it’s got some oil on it. We’re running through some oil now. Use a safety line.”

Down on deck Flanagan tied a double bowline in the end of a coil of 21-thread manila line one of the seamen was holding. He put his legs through the two loops of the knot and pulled the line up his legs to his crotch. He took the bitter end of the line, put it around his waist, and tied it to the standing part of the line. The seaman gathered up the slack.

“Don’t worry, Chief. I won’t lose you.”

“I’m not worried,” Flanagan growled. “But you’d better worry if you do.” He sat down on the deck and eased his way down on to the pressure hull, holding the boathook ready. As the ship slowed and eased by a life ring stained with oil, Flanagan reached out and snared the ring and lifted it up on deck. The man holding on to the crate was a scant ten yards distant.

“Left ten degrees rudder,” Brannon yelled out in a loud voice that carried over the water. “That’s good, Chief. We’ve got what we want.”

The bow of the submarine began to swing slowly away and the man holding the crate thrashed his legs in a violent dog paddle.

“Don’t leave me!” the swimmer’s voice was high-pitched with fear. “Please don’t leave me!”

“Son of a bitch speaks English,” Flanagan said. He looked at the submarine’s bridge.

“You want me to get this sucker, sir?”

“Might as well,” Brannon said, his voice loud. “Gunner, stand by to shoot that swimmer if he makes one wrong move.” He turned to Olsen and said in a low voice, “He spoke English, so he must understand it.”

“He doesn’t have to understand,” Olsen said. “Look at LaMark!”

Brannon looked at the deck where LaMark was elaborately going through the process of pulling the cocking knob on the .45 caliber submachine gun back and letting it snap forward. He raised the machine gun to his shoulder and aimed it at the swimmer, his finger on the trigger.

In response to Jerry Gold’s delicate maneuvering the Eelfish slid through the oily water, closing on the swimmer. As the submarine eased toward the swimmer Flanagan held out the boathook and the man abandoned his wooden crate and swam desperately toward the boathook and grabbed it with both hands. Flanagan, his feet braced against the pressure hull, pulled the man to the side of the ship.

“You savvy English?”

“Yes, sir,” the swimmer’s teeth were chattering with fear.

“Okay,” Flanagan said. “I’m going to give the end of this boathook to that sailor and he’ll pull you aboard. You make one wrong move and that man with the machine gun is going to cut you into two pieces. You understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the swimmer said. He reached out with one hand, his fingers scraping the pressure hull. Flanagan passed the boathook to a seaman on deck and the swimmer, hanging desperately to the end of the boathook, scrambled up on the pressure hull and then to the deck, where he huddled on his knees, his hands clasped in prayer.

“On your feet,” Flanagan ordered as he climbed up on deck and took off his safety line. “I’m going to search you. Gunner, blast this man if he makes a move.” Flanagan ran his hands around the pair of white shorts the man was wearing.

“No weapons on him, sir,” Flanagan called to the bridge.

“Bring the prisoner to the cigaret deck,” Brannon ordered. “Secure the deck party.” The two seamen herded the prisoner down the deck and up to the cigaret deck, where he raised his hands.

“Take the prisoner below,” Brannon said. “Gunner, you guard him. Get Doc to look him over and give him some food and water. I’ll be down later.”

“Jerry,” Brannon said. “Tell Maneuvering I want to secure the battery charge. As soon as the battery is ventilated we’ll go back down. I want a radar sweep every five minutes. Some of the friends of that prisoner might come back to look for him.”

Thirty minutes later the Eelfish slid very gently beneath the sea, sinking almost vertically to 300 feet. Mike Brannon went to the Forward Torpedo Room where LaMark was guarding the prisoner. Doc Wharton was closing up his first-aid kit as Brannon came through the watertight door opening.

“He’s pretty good, sir,” Wharton said. “He’s got some small burns from the fuel oil but nothing to bother with. This oil must not burn as much as the oil did at Pearl. I was in the hospital there, at Aiea, and I saw guys who had been in oil in the harbor who were burned a hell of a lot worse than this guy.”

Brannon nodded his head. He looked at the prisoner, who was standing with his back against a bunk, watching John LaMark, who was fondling his submachine gun.

“You spoke English when you were in the water,” Brannon said to the prisoner. “Will you tell us your name?”

“Yes, sir,” the prisoner said. “My name is John Yamati. I graduated with a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford in nineteen thirty-seven, sir.”

“And went right home to Japan,” Brannon said.

“No, sir. I went home in nineteen forty-one, early in forty-one, sir. My mother had died, and I stayed there to help my father. He’s quite old. I was there when the war broke out. I was put in the Merchant Marine. I was the chief engineer of the ship you sank, sir.”

“What ship was that?” Brannon asked.

“You have a life ring so there is no point in refusing to answer your questions, sir. I was serving on the oil tanker Taka raki, ten thousand tons. You hit our ship with two torpedoes. One did not explode. The other hit us aft, in the boiler rooms. The ship exploded and sank.”

“Where were you?” Brannon asked.

“I was on the bridge, getting some air,” the prisoner said. “I am grateful, very grateful to you for saving me.” He bowed from the waist.

“Well,” Brannon said. “We’ll extend the courtesies of the Geneva Convention to you and probably a lot more. Which is more than your people do for ours.”

“I can give you my word as an officer, sir, that I will obey your orders.” The prisoner bowed again.

“Uh huh,” Brannon said mildly. “I’ll figure out how we’re going to handle you later. Petreshock, we’ll keep the prisoner up here. The Gunner’s Mate has some handcuffs. If the prisoner wants to sleep, let him, but cuff one of his hands to a bunk rail. If he wants to sit up, same thing. I don’t want him made uncomfortable, just safe. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Petreshock said. Brannon nodded and went aft, followed by Olsen and Bob Lee. Brannon stopped in the Control Room where Flanagan was standing.

“Let’s get this thing over with, Chief.”

Fred Nelson had the tools needed to remove the exploder from the torpedo’s warhead laid out on a clean towel on deck in front of the torpedo tubes.

“Been thinkin’ on this, Chief,” Nelson said to Flanagan. “Important thing is to not shear off any of them studs that hold the exploder in the warhead. We’ll have to make damn sure the wrench is square on the stud and solid and take a slow strain to get the stud started out.

“If we can do that we can take out all the studs except those on two corners, diagonal corners. After that we’ll sweat gettin’ the exploder outa the warhead.”

Flanagan nodded his approval. “I’ll take the first half of the studs. You get down under the warhead with me and make sure the wrench is solid on the stud, hold it there while I take a strain.” He turned to Brannon.

“We’ll go ahead now, Captain. Cross your fingers, sir.” He crouched under the warhead. Nelson got down on his knees beside him and carefully fitted the socket head of the wrench into a recessed stud hole in the exploder base plate. Flanagan began to exert a little pressure and then a bit more pressure, and with a sudden, sharp noise, the stud turned.

“Next one,” Flanagan grunted. The two men worked in almost total silence, stopping only when Nelson stopped to mop his sweating face. Nelson fitted the wrench on to one stud after the other, Flanagan’s powerful forearms bulging with the strain of exerting maximum power with a delicate touch. At the halfway point Flanagan paused.

“You want to take the rest of them, Fred?”

“Keep on goin’,” Nelson muttered. “You’ve got the touch now. I might shear off a stud.” Flanagan nodded, wiped his hands on a towel, and began on another stud. After almost forty minutes of concentrated effort he crawled out from under the warhead.

“Only two studs left, Captain. One on each corner, diagonally. Both of them are a little bit loose. We’re ready to try and drop the exploder, sir, soon’s I get my breath.”

“Take all the time you want,” Brannon said. “When you take those last two studs out, how are you going to handle the exploder?”

“One of us will have to get under the warhead and push up against the exploder while the last studs are coming out. Then I’ll screw in the two lifting tools and try to wiggle it free.”

“If you don’t object,” Brannon said, “I’ll get under the warhead and hold the exploder.”

“That thing is heavy, Captain,” Flanagan said. “Must weigh forty, fifty pounds. Maybe more.”

“I know,” Brannon said. He wiped his hands on his shorts.

“Okay, sir,” Flanagan said. “You get down here, on your knees. Put both your hands up against the exploder. Fred, you guide the wrench for me.”

Brannon got onto his knees under the warhead, his head craned upward, his two hands on the exploder.

“No,” Nelson said. “No, sir. Let me place your hands for you. I want you to spread them out so if this thing happens to come free it won’t drop cockeyed and jam. We can’t let it sag at either end.” He positioned Mike Brannon’s hands. Flanagan began to back out one of the two remaining brass studs. He finished and Nelson moved the wrench to the last stud. Brannon heard Flanagan mutter.

“Dear God, make this son of a bitchin’ thing come out nice and easy.”

The wrench turned slowly and then more slowly and Brannon felt the sudden weight of the exploder on his hands.

“Stud’s free,” Flanagan said. “Hold everything just so until I put the lifting tools in.”

“Never mind,” Brannon gasped. “It’s coming out!” His neck swelled with effort as he slowly lowered his arms and the exploder slid out of the warhead. Nelson, on his knees beside Brannon, leaned over and gently put his hands under the edges of the exploder and took its weight. He swiveled sideways and let the exploder down onto his thighs and drew a deep breath.

“Son of a bitch, that’s the first time I ever seen one of those bastards come out like that!” He rested the weight of the exploder on his legs and then slid it downward and lifted it gently to the deck. He peered into the exploder.

“The son of a bitch is armed, all the way!” he said in an awed voice.

“Hold it steady,” Flanagan said. Very cautiously he put his hand into the interior of the exploder and began to turn the gear that extended the fulminate of mercury cartridge out of its safety chamber. Working slowly and patiently he turned the worm gear backward until the dangerous explosive charge was safely housed in its safety chamber. He sat back on his heels and took a deep breath as Nelson quickly unscrewed the safety chamber from its base and took it out of the exploder. He gave the small, heavy safety chamber to Lieutenant Lee.

“I think this would be safer in the magazine, sir,” he said. “Safe enough the way it is but we’ve got no stowage for it back here.”

Brannon looked at Flanagan and smiled. “We make a hell of a good team, the three of us, Chief.”

“We had one thing going for us, Captain, the luck of the Irish. Like Fred said, that’s the first exploder I ever saw that came out easy.” He reached upward and grabbed the handle on the inner door of a torpedo tube and hauled himself to his feet. He turned to Nelson.

“You’d better unstrap that fish and roll it over so the exudate will stop dripping. Might try sealing the split with some Tacki-wax. If that stuff will seal exhaust valves in the fish against sea pressure it should seal a crack in the warhead. Then get this damned room in some sort of shape.”

In the Wardroom Mike Brannon relaxed over a cup of coffee. He looked at John Olsen.

“Hairy experience, John.”

“Wasn’t any fun watching you,” Olsen said. “I kept telling myself that I might as well be back there as up forward. If that thing blew, the whole ship was going to blow.”

“Yup,” Brannon said. “Now let’s figure out what we’re going to do with this prisoner, how we’re going to handle him.”

“He seems like a fairly decent sort of guy,” Olsen said. “Doc said his English is very good.”

“It’d have to be good if he got a masters in engineering from Stanford,” Brannon said. He paused and chewed at his lower lip. “I know that the Geneva Convention says we aren’t suppose to ask him any questions, other than his name and that sort of thing. But if he’d volunteer some information, that might be a help to Fremantle.” He motioned to Mahaffey in the galley.

“Please go forward and tell Petreshock that I’d like to see the prisoner.”

Petreshock brought the prisoner into the Wardroom. Brannon noted with approval that someone had given the man a pair of dungaree trousers and a shirt and that his feet were shod in submarine sandals. The prisoner stepped inside the Wardroom and bowed deeply from the waist.

“Sit down, Mr. Yamati,” Brannon said. Pete Mahaffey slid a cup of coffee in front of the Japanese, who looked upward and then started to get out of his chair. Petreshock pushed him back down.

“This is for me?” the Japanese asked. “I thank you for your kindness.”

“Until we get back to port you’ll eat the same food we all eat,” Brannon said. “On a submarine in our Navy the officers and men eat the same food. You may have all you want. You may have coffee whenever you want it if there is someone to bring it to you. You can take a shower twice a week, as we all do. You will not be physically mistreated. You will be handcuffed, one hand, to a bunk rail when you sleep or to a torpedo skid when you are sitting. I don’t think that is unreasonable.”

“It is most generous of you.” The prisoner took a long drink of the coffee. “The coffee is excellent, sir.”

“Do you smoke?” Olsen asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Olsen slid a packet of cigarets across the Wardroom table. The prisoner took a cigaret and lit it from a box of small wooden matches given to him by Petreshock.

“I’d like to talk to you a bit, Mr. Yamati,” Brannon said. “Your ship, as the life ring showed, was the Takasaki, an oil tanker. You said she displaced ten thousand tons.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were bound where?”

“Tokyo, sir.”

“Going a little bit out of your way, weren’t you?” Olsen said. He slid the cigarets back to the Japanese. “Keep them, I have more. You could have saved a lot of sea miles going up the west coast of the Philippines.”

“Your submarines, sir,” the prisoner said. “The west coast of the Philippines is not too dangerous for us, but farther north it is very dangerous.”

“Are you married?” Brannon said. “I’m not prying into your personal business, sir. But if you’re married we can ask the Red Cross or the Swiss to notify your wife that you are a prisoner of war and safe.”

“I am married, sir,” the Japanese said. He bowed his head and then raised it. “My wife lives in San Francisco. She is an American girl I met in college. I have a son, sir. I have never seen him. If it is possible to inform her I would do anything I can for you.”

Olsen slid a piece of paper and a pencil across the table. “Write her full name and address,” he said. “She’ll know you’re well and safe within seventy-two hours.” The Japanese unashamedly wiped moisture from his eyes.

“She has not heard from me since the war began,” he said. “I had one letter telling me of the birth of our son. Nothing else. I do not know how to thank you, sir.”

“Just behave yourself until we get back to Australia,” Olsen said. The prisoner rose and bowed to Mike Brannon and to John Olsen. Petreshock took him back to the Forward Torpedo Room and sat him in a canvas chair. The prisoner extended his left arm along a torpedo skid and Petreshock handcuffed him to the skid. He reached upward and opened a small locker and took out several packs of cigarets.

“I’m trying to quit smoking,” the torpedoman said. “You can have these. More if you need them. Can’t give you any matches, but the man on watch will give you a light.” The prisoner got to his feet and bowed and sat down.

Brannon’s contact report was transmitted that night. It included the conversation with the prisoner. When the report reached Admiral Christie he called a staff meeting.

“I just don’t believe what that Jap prisoner said.” Sam Rivers, the Operations Officer, thumped the table with his thick index finger. “We know those tankers are heading for Truk. The ship watchers on Borneo and on Celebes have told us so!”

“That’s what we think we know,” Christie said slowly. “We should know about those tankers. There’s two of them still going in that convoy with three destroyers. We should know about them in a few days. We know from Brannon’s report the base course they were on approaching the eastern end of Celebes. We know what course they’d take to Truk. And we have seven submarines between the Islands and Truk, waiting for them. One of those submarines should pick them up in a couple of days.”

“I still don’t know why this guy would volunteer that sort of information,” Captain Rivers said. “Damn it, he’s a college graduate. Masters degree. Smart. He knows he doesn’t have to say anything like that. I think he’s trying to help his own side, not us.”

“You make a good point,” Admiral Christie said. “The only thing we can do is wait. Meanwhile you’d better get a message off to Eelfish. Tell them to come home. Route them so they’ll run into as little as possible. I don’t want that damned ship to tangle with any Jap destroyers with an outer door gone from a tube, and Mike Brannon is the type to tangle with anything and everything he sees.”

Two days later, as the Staff sat around the big table in the conference room at the Bend of the Road, a Marine sentry rapped on the door. He handed Admiral Christie an envelope marked “Urgent.” The Admiral waited until the sentry had closed the door behind him and slit the envelope open with a pocket knife. He read the message and looked down the table.

“This just came in from Cy Austin in the Redfin,” he said. “A tanker convoy, two tankers escorted by three destroyers came right down Cy’s track off the east coast of Samar. The convoy was moving north at twelve knots. Cy went in on the surface at night and got three hits in a tanker that was listing to starboard. The other tanker and the three destroyers went over the hill. North over the hill. Cy tried to chase but he was driven down by planes. He thinks the planes came out of Tacloban.” Admiral Christie looked around the table.

“That prisoner Brannon’s got was telling the truth. Brannon reported getting a hit in one tanker that got away, listing to starboard. His report said the hit he got in that tanker was a low-order explosion. This is without any doubt the same damned convoy and it sure as hell isn’t headed for Truk!” He pushed his chair back and stood up.

“If we’ve been wrong about where those tankers out of Balikpapan are going we’ve got seven submarines out there on the route to Truk and the only thing they’re going to be doing is to send weather reports.” He stopped, his face grim.

“We’ll do some talking about this after dinner. Meet me here at nineteen hundred. Sam, get Austin’s contact report off to Pearl with an urgent on it for the Ultra people. Something is awfully screwy in Denmark.”

“Or in Borneo,” Sam Rivers muttered.