Silent Sea

CHAPTER 26

The war was over, but Eelfish had to wait outside the harbor for the submarine net to be dragged to one side so the submarine could enter the port. The traditional welcoming party that had always greeted a submarine returning from a patrol was absent. Only a Lieutenant with a large clipboard was waiting on the dock with the line-handling party when Eelfish pulled in. He came aboard and introduced himself to Captain Brannon and read from his clipboard.

“We still have a curfew at sundown,” he said. “There will be no R and R period at the hotel. All maintenance work necessary will be done by ship’s company. Needed stores and supplies can be obtained from the Yard in the usual manner. You are to report to the Operations Office in seven days, sir. The Operations Officer will expect your ship to be ready to go to sea at that time, sir.”

“Go to sea in seven days?” Brannon asked, his heart jumping wildly. “To where, Lieutenant?”

“I don’t know, Captain,” the Lieutenant said. “I’ve got seven more submarines coming in today and tomorrow, and I have to tell each one of them the same thing.”

A week later Brannon went up to the Operations Office, where a weary Staff officer waved him to a chair beside his desk.

“I’m told you’re ready for sea,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Brannon said. “We’re ready.”

“One last thing,” the Staff officer said. “You have to get clearance from the Materiel Office. They’ll be down to inspect you day after tomorrow. You’ll get your orders as soon as they give me your clearance.”

“Can you tell me where we’ll be going?” Brannon asked.

The Staff officer yawned and rubbed his face. “I suppose so, Captain, but don’t tell your crew or I’ll be in hack.” He shuffled through some papers.

“New London.”

Brannon fought to keep his face noncommittal. He stood up and left the Operations Office, trying not to skip with joy. New London was a short train ride from New York. His wife and daughter were with her parents in Brooklyn. He made a project out of walking slowly back to Eelfish and found Ralph Ulrich.

“We’ve got to get clearance from some outfit called the Materiel Office. Day after tomorrow. You did a lot of duty here. What’s that involve?”

“It involves what I’d call tough luck,” Ulrich said “Those are the people who go around checking up to see if you’ve got all your Title A gear. Your engines, periscopes, deck guns.” He looked up and down the deck. “The lifelines, which we don’t have, and an anchor and chain, which we don’t have.”

“And?”

“And if we don’t have those things they won’t clear us for departure from port. Where’s our anchor?”

“In New London,” Brannon said. “They took it and the anchor chain and the lifelines and posts off before we left for the Southwest Pacific, just as they do on every submarine going into the war zone. They shouldn’t want things like that.”

“They’ll want things like that,” Ulrich said in lugubrious tones. “That’s their mission in life, to want things like that.”

He paused, chewing his lower lip in an unconscious imitation of Mike Brannon.

“I know a guy who has a warehouse here, a Mustang Lieutenant, sir. Last time I was over there, before I came aboard, it was full of things like deck posts and anchor chain and bronze-wire lifelines. If I had a little bargaining power, like some whiskey, I might be able to big-deal a truck and come back here with what we need. But I know he doesn’t have any anchors.”

“What’s he do with that stuff, why’s he got it?”

“I don’t know why he’s got the warehouse or what’s in it, sir, but I’ve heard tell that every once in a while he finds a buyer for some of the stuff that belonged to submarines that didn’t come back from war patrol. Ghoulish business, but some people like to make a buck.”

“Use the ship’s recreation fund,” Brannon said, “Get whatever you think you need to bribe the son of a bitch.” He started to turn away and stopped as Ulrich cleared his throat.

“About an anchor, sir. I know he hasn’t got any anchors. But I think maybe the Chief of the Boat might have an idea or two about how to get an anchor. I don’t know, but you told me once that he was dependable.”

Chief Flanagan knocked politely at the bulkhead of the Wardroom and went through the green curtains and sat down at Brannon’s invitation. Brannon outlined the problem.

“I guess what we have to do, sir, is to steal us an anchor,” Flanagan said.

“Steal?” Brannon said. “How do you steal something that must weight a ton? If I gave permission — and I sure as hell can’t do that.”

“Twenty-two hundred pounds, to be exact,” Flanagan said. “I didn’t mean steal, sir. Borrow was the word I meant to use. Plus one hundred and five fathoms of chain.”

“Mr. Ulrich said he might be able to find the anchor chain,” Brannon said. “Where are you going to borrow an anchor?”

“I can’t answer that, sir, because I honestly don’t know. But I’ll tell the Captain if I find out where I can borrow an anchor, sir.”

That afternoon a small truck pulled up on the pier. Ralph Ulrich got out and summoned a working party. The seamen from the Eelfish unloaded a tangled mass of bronze-wire lifelines and a pile of deck posts with eyes in the tops. Mike Brannon, summoned to the deck by Lieutenant Lee, watched the unloading from the bridge and then watched Chief Flanagan drive a crew of seamen and torpedomen to install the deck posts and string the lifelines.

“Cost me a case of whiskey,” Ulrich said as he climbed up the ladder from the Conning Tower. “Would have cost more, but I argued that I was showing that big-dealer a whole new field of operations, and he saw my reasoning.”

“Anchor chain?” Brannon asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Ulrich said. “He didn’t have a truck that could carry a hundred and five fathoms of chain.”

The chain arrived shortly after noon. Flanagan supervised the stowage of the chain in the chain locker and led one end of the chain through the fairlead and the chain stopper, around the wildcat gears, and down the hawsepipe. He turned to Steve Petreshock.

“I want a small punt by late this afternoon. The kind the Yard uses to paint waterlines. But big enough to hold several people. I want a heavy-duty block and tackle, a marlinspike, and some rags. I want all that gear ready before dark.

“Where the hell do I get a punt?” Petreshock asked.

“You want to make Chief, Petreshock? Use your initiative. I need a punt, the heavy-duty block and tackle, a marlinspike, and some rags. Before dark.” Petreshock shrugged his shoulders and went down the hatch into his torpedo room.

Two hours later he jumped out of the back end of a truck and signaled to Flanagan, who went up on the dock. A waterline-painting punt was in the back of the truck. The two men wrestled the small boat off the truck and laid it on the cement pier. Petreshock jumped up in the truck body and got a heavy block and tackle and a big marlinspike.

“I got plenty rags in my room,” he said. “What do you want to do with the punt?”

“Put it in the water,” Flanagan said. “Get your people and put it in the water and tie it up alongside. You get any oars?”

“You don’t need oars to paint a waterline,” Petreshock said. “You pull the punt along with lines.”

“Don’t tell me what I already know,” Flanagan said. “Oars.”

“Got some paddles in my bilge from those rubber boats we had,” Petreshock said. “They do?” Flanagan nodded his head.

At two in the morning Flanagan, Jim Rice, Steve Petreshock, and Fred Nelson climbed down onto the pressure hull and eased into the painting punt. They wore black turtleneck sweaters and dark blue watch caps, and their faces and hands were blackened with camouflage cream. Bob Lee came along the deck as the punt disappeared in the darkness. He turned to Chief Ed Morris, who was leaning against the side of the Conning Tower, smoking his pipe.

“What the hell is going on, Chief? Who were those people? What were they doing?”

“That’s the Chief of the Boat and friends,” Morris said. “They’re gonna go steal an anchor somewhere. Hell of an idea, stealing an anchor. If they get the damned thing in that little punt the whole rig will probably sink and with all that black stuff on their faces and hands they’ll be impossible to see in the water and they’ll drown.”

“Steal an anchor? Have you been drinking, Chief?”

“I haven’t been drinking, Lieutenant. I got the Chief’s duty below decks. Sure they’re gonna steal an anchor. The Chief of the Boat is queer for stealing anchors, didn’t you know that? Does it in every port we hit.”

“Wiseass,” Lee said. He turned his back and started to walk away, and then came back.

“Damn it, Chief, I’m the Officer of the Day, and I demand to know what in the hell is going on!”

“I thought you knew, that you were kidding with me, sir,” Morris said. “What’s going on is some clown on the Base is coming over here tomorrow, today really, it’s after midnight, and if we don’t have an anchor hanging up there on the billboard we ain’t gonna get any clearance to go where they’re going to send us, which I hear is New London.

“So this afternoon I did a little scouting for the Chief of the Boat and I found out that an LST carries the same sort of anchor we do and there’s four LSTs tied up in a nest across this arm of the harbor. The Chief of the Boat is gonna steal one of those anchors and bring it back.”

“That’s impossible!” Lee said.

“Mr. Lee,” Morris said, “there is no such word as impossible to a Chief of the United States Navy. Some things might take longer than others, but nothing is impossible. Not to a Chief Petty Officer. Flanagan will steal an anchor. And he’ll bring it back here. If he doesn’t sink and drown.”

An hour later Lee heard a gentle splashing, and the punt, barely afloat, eased up beside the pressure hull amidships. Chief Morris came around the Conning Tower and went down on the pressure hull, his arm holding on to one of the newly installed deck posts, and helped Petreshock and Fred Nelson get out of the punt. The two men ran forward on the deck, and Petreshock went down the hatch to the Torpedo Room. Lee heard the clank of the anchor gear, and a fathom or so of cable rattled out of the hawsepipe. The two men still in the punt paddled it forward. A few minutes later Lee heard Flanagan’s low order to walk the anchor in, and there was a muted clanking noise. Jim Rice got out of the punt, went down the hatch, and appeared a few minutes later with a gallon can of paint and two brushes. He dropped down into the punt, and Lee could hear the slap of the paint brushes.

“Might be a good idea, Lieutenant,” Morris’s voice sounded at Lee’s shoulder, “to come with me and take a look at the moon from the other end of the deck.”

The Materiel Officer appeared the next morning with his clipboard and a small staff. The inspection took hours, and when it was finished the officer turned to Ralph Ulrich.

“Everything is in order. I’ll sign your clearance and send it to the Operations Officer. I understand you’re getting underway at zero seven hundred tomorrow.”

“Fuel,” Ulrich said.

“Oh, yes,” the Materiel Officer said. “Here it is. A destroyer coming in from Okinawa will be alongside on the other side of the pier late this afternoon. No room for her at the destroyer docks, and she’s leaving tomorrow afternoon for Mare Island. The Fuel King man will be down here after the destroyer docks to unlock the lines under the pier. You’ll fuel first. You’re down for fifty thousand gallons. That will get you to Panama if you run at two-thirds speed on two engines. The destroyer will fuel after you do.”

“That’s the last thing I want to do, run to Panama on two engines at two-thirds speed!” Brannon snapped when Ulrich told him the news. He turned to Lieutenant Jerry Gold.

“That guy from Materiel said this tin can was coming in from Okinawa?” He looked at Ulrich, who nodded. “Okay, I’ll bet they give liberty to two-thirds of the crew. They’re over here, alongside our pier, away from their own command. I know tin-can sailors. They’re a lot like us.

“The people with the watch will be bitching. Jerry, I want you to get up to the O-Club. Take some money from the recreation fund. Ulrich, you get the money, go with him. Bring back some beer and some hard liquor. Enough to get about two dozen people drunk.

“Get hold of Morris and Booth. Those two Chiefs are the biggest con artists in the submarine navy. Tell them what we want to do and have the engine room people standing by to take on fuel when the Fuel King man gets here and unlocks the valves.” Ulrich looked at him and grinned.

“You’re getting right into the swing of being a Navy Yard man, sir,” he said. He went off with Gold, chuckling.

Chiefs Booth and Morris wandered across the pier while the Eelfish Engine Room people were hooking up the fuel hoses. A few minutes later Morris came walking back, and looking carefully up and down the dark pier, opened one of the Conning Tower ammunition storage lockers and took out a case of beer. An eager destroyer sailor rushed across the pier and grabbed the case, followed by another destroyer man, who grabbed the case of whiskey that Morris pulled out of the ammunition locker.

At a little after twenty-two hundred hours Jerry Gold walked into the Wardroom where Mike Brannon was playing solitaire with a worn deck of cards.

“All fuel tanks topped off, sir. One hundred and eleven thousand gallons of fuel aboard. Destroyer is fueling now, sir.”

“Everything okay?” Brannon asked, putting a red jack on a black queen.

“There’s two or three people in their Black Gang sober enough to shut off the valves when their tanks are full, sir.”

“Good,” Brannon said. “Tell the Chief of the Watch below decks that I want a zero five hundred reveille. Serve breakfast at zero five thirty. We get under way at zero seven hundred.”

Jerry Gold went to his stateroom smiling gently. “Hot damn,” he said to himself. “If I can steal sixty thousand gallons of diesel oil I might be able to slip an old gold crown or two into my pocket. Have to make sure my white jackets have pockets.”

Eelfish reached Panama four days ahead of schedule. A three-stripe Commander came aboard, a smile creasing his red-veined cheeks.

“Been kind of a naughty fellow, haven’t you, Captain?” he said genially. “You’re way ahead of schedule. Can’t let you through the Ditch until your scheduled time, four days from now.” He looked at the bright blaze of Japanese battle flags on the Conning Tower. “There is an alternative, unless you want to fight with Pearl Harbor, and that’s pretty hard to do because it takes seven days for them to acknowledge anything we send to them.

“You can go through our Ditch tomorrow morning at zero six hundred. But if you do that you’ll have to act as a target for a division of destroyers on the other side that hasn’t had a live submarine to work with for over a year. What’s your decision sir?”

“We’ll be happy to act as a target for the destroyers,” Brannon said solemnly.

“It’s wait here four days or work with them four days, so it’s all the same,” the Commander said. “Zero six hundred. Tugs will be here at zero five hundred to get you into position.”

The Eelfish cleared the Canal at dusk, pointed her bullnose north, and began running on four main engines. Down in the radio shack Ralph Ulrich stood with Jim Michaels as Rafferty listened to the signals coming over the air.

“They keep asking us where we are,” Rafferty said.

“They’re supposed to be submarine killers,” Ralph Ulrich said “Let them find us. We’re going home!”

Ulrich went into the Wardroom and reported to Mike Brannon that the destroyer division commander was asking for Eelfish and what he had decided to do.

“You’re getting to be a damned good Exec, Ralph.” Brannon grinned. “Soon as we come within the command area of Key West, the skipper there is a guy I served under in 0-boats in New London before the war, I’ll throw us on his mercy, let him sweat over what to do with us.”

An hour after Eelfish had transmitted Brannon’s message to the Commanding Officer, Key West, the answer came back.

“Sorry, your transmitter must be out of order. Can’t read you. Suggest you proceed original orders if your receiver will pick up this message and Godspeed.”

Brannon grinned, and Eelfish raced toward home, past Cape Hatteras, up the long reach of the East Coast, and then, at last, the turn around the eastern end of Long Island and into the waters of Block Island Sound, through the Race, and up the Thames River, where a huge crowd was waiting on the pier. Brannon put his binoculars to his eyes as Ulrich delicately maneuvered the Eelfish in midstream, turning her to point in to the dock, gauging the run of the tide.

“By God, she’s there! Gloria! And my daughter! I think it’s little Gloria, she looks so big!” Lieutenant Lee, standing down on the main deck, smiled, thinking of his own wife in Australia.

The first two weeks in New London passed swiftly. The Reservists in the crew added up their points and were sent to Great Lakes Naval Base for discharge. When the last Reservist had left Mike Brannon walked up to the Submarine Personnel Office.

“I’m short thirty-six enlisted men and I have no officers in my Wardroom except my Exec,” he said. He put a roster on the Personnel Officer’s desk.

“I think we fought this war with nothing but Reserves,” the Personnel Officer said.

“We’d have been in a hell of a mess if we hadn’t,” Brannon growled. The Personnel Officer looked at him and then down at his desk.

“You’re going to be stationed here for some time, sir. You’ll be used as a training ship for a while, but before that starts the people who built Eelfish want to put her in dry dock and go over her from stem to stern. You’re the first New London boat to come back here that’s suffered extensive depth charging.

“So, if I may suggest it sir, you could grant leave to your crew, what’s left of it, and yourself, and your, ah, one other officer. Thirty days minimum. The engineers will be busy with your ship for at least six weeks.” He looked up.

“The Command at the Submarine School has given strict orders, sir. The battle flags on your Conning Tower are not to be painted over when they paint your ship. We, everyone here, is very proud of Eelfish, sir, and you and your crew. You must have noticed the people here who come down to the pier and just stand and stare at the ship. They’re proud, sir.”

“Thank you,” Brannon said. He turned and went out the door, and walked back to the Eelfish.