U.S.S. Seawolf: Submarine Raider of the Pacific

CHAPTER VIII Jinxed

WE LEFT port and headed north. A few nights later we pulled into a secret advance base where we fueled to capacity and filled our fresh-water tanks.

We had a guest aboard, a lieutenant commander. As part of his indoctrination period before taking over his own submarine, he was assigned to the Seawolf as an observer. He was pleasant, about thirty-five, kept to the wardroom, and was in no one’s way. Yet a few of the old-timers grumbled. Some submarine men are convinced that strangers jinx a voyage.

This mission was clearly defined: unrestricted submarine warfare to destroy enemy shipping wherever encountered.

We caught our first target just below the port of Koepang, on the coast of Timor. We were heading up toward Dili, Timor, not far from the shore, when suddenly a night lookout spotted a coal-burning tramp steamer, a single-stacker, about 250 feet long, lumbering along at six knots. It was a perfect setup, so perfect we’d make a surface attack. There was a moon out, and the steamer was beautifully silhouetted against it. The sea was smooth. We were almost invisible, the Seawolf’s dark hulk blending into the background of beach, so that the small portion of her above water was almost impossible to detect.

I picked up the tramp’s screws on sound. Now, very carefully, Captain Warder inched the Wolf into a position to fire. The orders came… “Fire!”

I picked up their high whine. I watched the hand of my stopwatch tick away the seconds, waiting for the familiar ka-rumphf of the fish going home, or the muffled blast of the boilers exploding.

Nothing. We’d missed her. Slow and unhurried, the pulse of the tramp’s screws beat steadily on my phones.

“Hear anything on sound?” Captain Warder demanded. “Is she increasing speed?”

“No, Captain. No change at all,” I reported.

We maneuvered for a second attack. Suddenly the diving alarm sounded. “Clear the bridge! Stand by to dive! Take her down!”

The night lookouts scrambled down the conning tower, the hatch slammed shut, the bolts wheeled into place, and the Wolf knifed down into the sea at a terrific angle. I hung onto my seat.

What had gone wrong up there? Had we been strafed by planes?

We leveled off. Now I heard the screws of the tramp grow louder.

“She’s coming in closer, Captain, much clos—”

Captain Warder broke in. “Let’s go deep!” he shouted. The Wolf plunged down, down…

The first charge came. It was far to our port side, and the boat shook as if a chill were running down her spine. More followed, fifteen seconds apart. They were still far from the target. Paul took off his earphones and wiggled his finger in his ear.

“Looks like they’re arming all those tramps with charges,” he said, annoyed. “What the hell won’t they think of next!”

Gus Wright ducked into the shack for a minute. He had his apron on, and his hands were white with flour. “Think it’s a decoy?” he asked. “Get busy there, boys.” He grinned and vanished.

Several more charges went off. From her screws I knew she was zigzagging all over the place. Finally her screws died out.

She had vanished, most probably into Dili Harbor which the Japs were using. What had happened up there? What sent us down so fast? I left Paul on sound and stepped out into the control room to investigate. Gunner Bennett, who had the watch at the Christmas Tree, waved me over.

“Hear what happened?” he asked. “That sure was a close one.”

“Close one?” I didn’t get it. From the sound gear, she hadn’t sounded that dangerous. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “there we were up, on the bridge, watching this damn tramp, when all of a sudden there’s a big flash and something goes singing over my head.”

“You mean they were shooting at us?” I asked, astonished.

Gunner rubbed his knee and looked at me. “It wasn’t the ship’s cook throwing potatoes,” he said dryly. “The shrapnel pock-marked the conning tower.”

It was the first time Jap bullets ever hit the Wolf. When we thought of the Wolf being marked up like that—the finest sub in the Navy—we were burned up.

Whatever the case, we had to move fast now. That Jap tramp certainly must have sent out the alarm. The Japs knew we were around here now. Captain Warder pushed on. We were on the offensive now. We reached a point outside the harbor, and maneuvered in close to the beach, taking the utmost care in the mined entrance. The water was shallow. The crew waited tensely.

Captain Warder upped his periscope and gave us a running account.

“See several masts in the harbor—all sailing schooners. Here’s the town. White steeple, church… Wonder if the Dutch are still fighting. Here’s the airport. No activity. Seems to be a radio station here—I see the radio tower. I could shell this place at night… yet the Japs may have shore artillery.”

We set a new course. About halfway to our destination, Ensign Mercer, at the periscope, spoke up. “Here’s some smoke,” he said. “Zero one zero. Down periscope. Tell the Captain we’ve sighted smoke.”

From his stateroom Captain Warder sent word, “Keep your eye on the smoke, Jim.”

After two or three five-minute observations, Ensign Mercer upped the periscope again. “Mark the bearing… He’s coming this way. Call the Captain!”

Captain Warder hurried up into the conning tower and took over.

“I can’t make out any part of her yet, she’s too far away,” he said. Then there was a silence for nearly five minutes. “I can make out her mast… Bearing 008… Range 10,000. Set a course to intercept. Down periscope.” Three minutes later he stole another look. “Hmmmm, this is a beautiful ship,” he said slowly. “Looks like one of those silk carriers.”

You knew he was eager to get her. I had her screws in my phones.

“Battle stations!” he ordered. “Tell the boys we have a big ship up here all alone, unescorted. At least I don’t see any escorts. Sound, pick him up yet?”

“I got him, Captain,” I reported. “Sounds like a Diesel job.”

“Looks like Diesel, Eckberg,” he said. “Modern ship… four-goal poster. Looks like a fast freighter. Length about 450 feet. Two masts. Raked funnel. Two passenger decks. Number on stack, can’t make it out. Speed, about twelve knots. Straight course. Probably bound for Dili. Loaded, probably. Down periscope. Normal approach course.”

Before he fired, Captain Warder made sure of everything. His commands were crisp and precise. He was determined to get this ship, and he and Ensign Mercer checked and double checked every figure.

Finally, “Fire!”

His eyes on their wake, Captain Warder followed the progress of the torpedoes through the water. I heard them run to the target.

Suddenly, an angry exclamation: “What the hell is this?”

Captain Warder’s voice echoed through the boat. “They missed the target. Dammit to hell, what is wrong? One fish climbed right up her side. What’s wrong here? Here she comes heading for us. Let’s get out of here!”

We went down. Captain Warder took his favorite seat outside the radio room. The depth charges came. Luckily, they were mild. Captain Warder sat there resting his chin in the palm of one hand, the perspiration dripping from him, impervious to the crash and trembling of the Wolf as the charges exploded.

He sent word down for Langford, and Squeaky hurried up, looking miserable. With him came Lieutenant Syverson, equally unhappy.

“When did we service those torpedoes?” Captain Warder asked quietly.

“Only last night, sir,” said Langford. Lieutenant Syverson added, “I checked them myself last night, Captain. Those fish were perfect.”

“I don’t understand it,” said the Skipper. “Two perfect attacks, and two complete misses. This must stop.”

He rose. He was the picture of dejection as he went forward to his room.

All of us felt the same. The supreme disappointment for a submarine crew is to line up a perfect target, aim the fish correctly, and have them miss—and then be followed by your target, all full of vim and vigor and dropping depth charges all around you.

In the control room half a dozen fellows were sitting around the conning-tower ladder. Nobody said anything for a moment. Squeaky leaned against the ladder and growled.

“Jinx, that’s what it is—a damn no-good son-of-a-bitch of a jinx.”

No one contradicted him. We weren’t too superstitious, but this wasn’t funny anymore.

We reversed our course and overhauled the ship. We kept her in position that night. The Skipper was determined to get her.

We surfaced in late afternoon. There was no sleeping now. Every man was alert. We stalked our prey all night. We wanted to attack at dawn. The Skipper upped his periscope at 4 a.m. and studied the sea for a long time.

“Well, now… I should have expected something like this. That’s a blinker light off there on the portside. The alarm’s out for us, all right. Down periscope.”

At 4:10 a.m., I caught the beat of screws. We were in for it. Every Jap ship within a hundred miles was on the alert for us. And, one ship or ten, at false dawn we attacked.

The Wolf practically tiptoed in for this one. Not a sound in the ship as we waited the order to fire. Overhead the Jap was calmly steaming along. Finally the order came:

“Stand by to fire… Fire!”

I could picture the excitement in the torpedo room. Be jerk, his blue eyes alight, his face flushed, slamming the firing knob, slapping the first torpedo-tube door, and yelling as the fish left the Wolf: “Go get him, baby! Head for that bastard’s belly.”

I caught the whine of the fish as they tore through the water.

Squeaky Langford must be nearly berserk now, screaming, cautioning, everywhere at once: “Watch this… Take it easy, dammit. Get going, you guys… Move that son-of-a-bitch, will you!”

If ever a sub wanted to sink an enemy ship, this was it. But nothing helped. The Captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“All missed aft.” Then, a moment later, “Missed completely. Take her down.”

His words silenced the entire ship.

I could sit at sound no longer. “I’m going to grab some coffee, Paul,” I told Maley.

In the control room some of the crew were talking to Dishman, who was leaning on the sternplanes control. He looked like a mad bull.

Hershey was telling Dishman: “That’s the whole answer to it—that observer. That dodo bird we got on board. Hell, nine torpedoes and not a hit! The Seawolf never missed that many in her life!”

There was silence. Zerk said dryly: “What the hell, he didn’t push the target away, did he?”

“He wasn’t here last time, was he?” demanded Hershey. “No. So what happened? We didn’t have any misses. We made a score. This run is different. There’s a stranger aboard, and the Wolf doesn’t like it.”

I went through to the galley and drew some coffee. Gus Wright was leaning on a shelf of the tiny alcove, working on the menu for the next day.

“Tough luck,” I said.

“Plenty tough,” he said. “I don’t know why the hell I’m worrying about food. I’m not hungry now.”

I swallowed the scalding black coffee and went back to my vigil on sound.

Word from the conning tower the next morning was that we were heading for the north. We moved on. For days we recharged at night and dove at dawn. Then near the Celebes, a message came through:

“Patrol for convoy headed toward position Y.”

No use crying over spilled milk now. We raced on and took a patrol position at the northeast entrance of Macassar Straits.

Now we found ourselves in a strange and dangerous company. The area was crowded with sampans, some of them carrying big 20-mm. guns. Every time the Skipper upped his periscope he ran into a group of them. We were under constant strain. A sampan with a radio could easily give away our position to corvettes or planes. We scared hell out of some of them when our long black periscope popped up in front of them. They scattered like a flock of wild ducks and headed for shore. We didn’t like that either. It might rouse the Jap command.

At one point the Captain, at the periscope, spoke up: “Here’s something coming along… A converted raider… Well, well! She has a plane aft. Let’s get her.”

He maneuvered the Wolf like a wizard in an attempt to get into proper firing position. If we sank one ship—just one—it would make new men of us. Once or twice it looked as if we were slipping into position, but dammit, no. She was just too fast, and there wasn’t anything in the world that a submarine can do against a fast ship out of position.

It was no use. She disappeared over the horizon.

Slowly we moved north. We poked our nose into every cove and inlet, but they were deserted. Finally one night we entered a narrow, shallow channel and surfaced. Suddenly one of the lookouts sang out: “Object on port bow.”

We crash dived. My sound gear picked up the flutter of screws—a destroyer, I thought. Now, thinking over that night, a cold sweat still breaks out on me.

The men sat on their stools; they lay in their bunks waiting. I could trace the enemy’s course. He was taking his time, searching every inch of that passage. My heart was in my throat. Both Maley and I had our earphones pressed to our ears.

We really were in a very bad spot. Now the Jap was overhead, his screws beating like a train clattering over a bridge. We knew he was using his sound gear, and that, coupled with the knowledge that we were practically trapped in this shallow, narrow channel, gave us one of the worst moments of our lives. We were afraid. We were damn afraid. We waited. His screws came nearer, then they were above us, right above our heads, thundering like doom—and then the thunder and clatter grew less and less, and he was on his way to parts unknown. Not until hours later, when we were certain he was well on his way south, did we straighten out and head north again.

We surfaced at midnight, cruised slowly, and dove before dawn the next morning.

Captain Warder upped his periscope. He gave a low whistle. “This place is heavy with guns,” he said. “Let’s see… yes, batteries over here… over here… over here… Big shore batteries on three sides of us. Well,” he said, “I’d hate to be a surface ship right now… Wait a minute, wait a minute! Here’s something. Jap freighter… He’s a little baby… riding high and dry. Probably empty. He’s probably heading for the Indies to pick up loot. We have a nice chop up here. Oh, oh! I can see two men on the bridge. They’re looking this way, too. Can they see this little bit of stick I’ve raised? I’d sure like to catch the fellow who said the Nips can’t see well. Those babies have been picking us up right along.” Pause. “Oh, well, there she goes. We couldn’t have attacked her anyway. Well, let’s take a look around this way. We won’t go too far in—just far enough to see if there’s anything worth our trouble.”

We poked around inside the bay entrance. We found nothing. After an hour of almost constant observation, we headed out again and kept going until we reached the spot we wanted.

The place was literally swarming with Jap airplanes, and we dove long before dawn. We had a bad time of it, submerged. The sea was rough, we had trouble with our depth control, and we were constantly afraid that at any moment something might go wrong and we’d pop out on the surface. After darkness came, we surfaced. We began to charge batteries. The Captain was on the bridge with his usual deck crew.

Snyder, on sound, suddenly spoke up. “I’ve got a set of screws here on the port bow,” he said.

I jumped. The alarm went like fire to the bridge. It was pitch black up there. We shouted the word up. Still we didn’t dive. I took over sound. There were screws! A destroyer! Why weren’t we diving? I was about to shout, “Captain, he’s damn close—” when there was a shout from the bridge. The diving alarm jangled.

There was a scramble and rush of feet, bodies virtually tumbling down the ladder, a bang as the conning tower hatch slammed shut, and we crash dived. The air hissed through the ship like something alive. The depth-gauge needle twisted in a frenzy. Our incline was so sharp I had to cling to my desk. We plummeted downward.

The Jap ship came beating over us, dropping her depth charges. We expected her back, but she went on past us. Perhaps she was afraid, too.

Not until everything quieted down and the beat of her screws had faded away did we head out from the beach. Then I turned the sound gear back to Snyder and looked up Franz, who’d been on the bridge. I wanted to find out what had happened up there. Why had we dived so late?

Franz was huddled over a hot cup of coffee in the mess hall. He looked as though he’d been through a battle.

“You can say that again,” he said. “We had ourselves one hell of a time up there. Those goddamn seas were as high as your neck, that wind was whistling around your ears, I tell you, it was so damn noisy we didn’t get the word fast enough. They were yelling to us from the conning tower about this Jap, but we didn’t hear them. There we are minding our own business, and suddenly up comes the Captain and starts really looking. I guess he had the word from below. He couldn’t have been up on the bridge more than a minute when, bingo! we find ourselves looking at each other. Jesus Christ, that Jap had got his searchlights trained square on us, and we were pinned there like flies on a wall.

“Well,” went on Franz, shaking his head, “we sure scrammed for the hatch. I rode Loaiza’s shoulders down. But get this, Eck—the Captain is still up there worrying whether everybody is down O.K. We suddenly see he’s alone, and then—did he travel! This Jap had us lit like day, and the old man didn’t wait for nothing. He smacked the diving alarm as he came down the hatch. After the boat was down and leveled out, I noticed the Skipper leaning against the control-room ladder and laughing until he almost bawled.

“‘It’s very funny,’ he says. ‘Here I am on the bridge, wondering if all hands have made the hatch, when it dawns on me that I’m standing there all alone. I’m standing there like a nitwit in that searchlight. My boys are fast, but even if I am older than most of them, I’d surely have passed them getting to that hatch tonight…’” Franz chuckled.

“‘Lucky I had a clear hatch when I hit it,’ the old man says. ‘Did I feel like a hero standing up there all alone in the limelight!’”

We remained down. Hours passed. Her screws were gone.

We surfaced carefully and completed our battery charge.

Toward noon the next day Captain Warder sighted a ship well in toward the beach. “This is definitely a patrol vessel,” he announced. “About three hundred feet long. Looks like a converted yacht. She has the longest depth-charge racks I have ever seen. They extend from the break of the bridge down to the stern. Looks as if she might be loaded with oil drums. I’m going to plunk her if I can.”

Our approach continued with frequent observations. The weather was all against us. The waves were monstrous. We were constantly in fear of broaching. Suddenly Captain Warder, at the periscope, his voice surprised:

“What’s this? Down periscope! Secure battle stations. Come to course zero… zero… zero. She has a plane working with her. It came so close her pontoons splashed water on the periscope. We’ll be having company in a few minutes.”

We did. A pattern of depth bombs dropped all around us, but they didn’t come too close.

Now, of course, we knew our value here was nullified. We had been detected twice, and the Japs were on the alert.

We headed for a new location and arrived before very long.

It was the hottest area we had ever been in. Jap planes, anti-sub vessels, and corvettes patrolled incessantly, guarding their supply lines. One slip meant death, and we knew it. The next four and a half days were to be the most exhausting and nerve-wracking any of us had ever undergone. We were at battle stations continually. We grabbed sleep when we could. We ate with one ear cocked to hear the alarm. Captain Warder virtually lived in the conning tower. He scanned the sea without rest. At dawn of the third day he reported: “Masts and ships on the horizon.”

Then he added: “I’m not going to try to mark all these ships; the traffic is exceptionally heavy… their air coverage is exceptionally heavy. They have a lot of ships… going in empty and coming out full… Those babies coming out are loaded right down to the waterline. Probably bound for Tokyo. They’re really making hay while the sun shines. Let’s go to work, now. Mark… three five eight… leading ship, destroyer… three ships in line. No estimate on the range. Down periscope.” He conferred with Deragon and Mercer. He studied his charts. He upped the periscope and looked again. “I have a new type destroyer here,” he said. “Stubby mainmast; two turrets forward; lot of anti-aircraft guns; one turret aft. She’s leading three big Maru’s. They’re probably coming out here to a rendezvous point. Down periscope.”

He spoke to Mercer: “Now, Jim, what I want to do is to fire at that destroyer and at the leading Maru. We’ve got good conditions. The water is a little flat, but I think we can get in.”

He called down to me: “Eckberg, is this man using his sound gear?”

I’d heard no pinging. “No, sir,” I said.

“They probably think this place is invulnerable to submarines,” said Captain Warder.

We maneuvered into position and fired. We waited. Captain Warder’s forehead was pressed against the periscope. Just then a terrific ka-boom! hit my ears through the phones.

“There’s a Jap officer in shorts walking up and down the fo’c’stle,” came Captain Warder’s voice. “They see the wakes… He’s not walking now! He’s galloping for the bridge! There go our fish… missed her! Hell, they missed her!”

“Captain, there was an explosion,” I sang out. This was quite unnecessary because everybody in the ship heard it.

“Yes, she went off just the other side of her.” He sounded disgusted. “Water shot up higher than her stacks.” He watched. “They’re panicky,” he said. “The destroyer’s picking up speed. He’s leaning this way… Down periscope!” Then: “Take her deep.” And then: “Rig for depth charge.”

We went down and waited. I sat on my little stool, working the sound gear, earphones on my head. Maley was sitting at my left elbow, as busy as I. I could picture Sousa, walking back and forth throughout the ship, saying, “Now, boys, you all set in here? Goddammit, we missed… I wonder what was wrong?”

Dishman would be grunting as he maneuvered the bowplanes, wearing his cut-off shorts and sandals, his big hammy arms and chest glistening with sweat. At his right Gunner Bennett, intent on his bowplane wheel, glancing now and then at Holden to see if the latter wanted any change. Holden standing one arm behind his back, his legs astride, biting the nails of his right hand, his head turning from right to left as he watched the depth gauges.

Squeaky Langford sitting down in the forward torpedo room, elbow on knee, chin on hand, worried about why the torpedoes missed, expecting to be bawled out. Be jerk standing, hands on hips, head down, watching the sound shafts to see that nothing went wrong. Gus Wright, walking about in the after-battery room testing valves above his head to see they were tight. Swede Enslin, legs apart, standing at hydraulic manifold, hands on two levers, looking at his Christmas Tree, then at Holden, his head swinging from one to another. At the air manifold, Red Jenkins, holding the big spin bar in his hands, looking at the air gauges, very calm. And, his head through the after-battery hatch, peering into the control room, Doc Loaiza, rubbing his face, muttering: “Dios, Dios, Dios!”…

Lieutenant Deragon would be at the fire-control unit, absolutely absorbed in the picture created before him; he’d probably not even heard “Rig for depth charge,” because he’d missed; standing there as if to say, “What went wrong here? It looked perfectly good to me.” Captain Warder, directly behind him, leaning against the control-room ladder, deep in thought, his right elbow cradled in his left palm, his right hand fingering his beard, thinking, thinking, thinking hard!… The mess cooks washing the morning dishes, one man wiping; depth charges coming or no, dishes had to be taken care of. Sully putting on his battle telephones, wondering where his mess boys were, and if they’d closed all valves. Our observer sitting in the Captain’s stateroom, reading a magazine, very bored, depth charges or not….

But the depth charges never came.

About 10 a.m. Captain Warder said, “Well, I guess they’re not going to give us the rock and roll. Maybe we did hurt him. Maybe he can’t depth charge us. I think I’ll go up and take a look.”

As he was about to order, “Up periscope,” I picked up enemy activity.

“Captain, they’re looking for us,” I warned.

Captain Warder demanded, “What does he seem to be doing?”

I said, “He’s pinging; I can’t pick up his screws. He must be quite a ways off.”

We came up cautiously. The Skipper took a fast look. “Here’s a little launch over here; he’s just floating around; that’s probably the fellow who’s looking for us. My, he’s a little thing!”

We started up the hydraulic pump, and the Jap heard us and came toward us like a flash.

“That won’t do. Down periscope,” snapped the Skipper. “This fellow seems pretty intent on what he’s doing. He probably knows we’re around here. Let’s take it easy for a while and see if we can’t shake him.”

That launch was a pest. He had sound equipment, and his sound man was an expert. Maley and I were both astounded by the methodical type of searching he employed. The afternoon wore on. We couldn’t shake him. He may not have been equipped to depth-charge us, but he could easily have called his friends, and there were plenty of them around. Six o’clock. Seven o’clock. It was dark upstairs now, but we still dared not surface.

This Jap was too good. We stayed down.

Every little while Captain Warder was at the door of the radio shack. “What do you hear?”

My report was always the same. “Captain, we just aren’t shaking this guy.”

“Persistent cuss,” the Captain said. “Let me know if there’s any change.”

We stripped our running machinery to a minimum. The only motors kept operating were those necessary to keep the ship maneuverable, and the sound-gear apparatus. Maley and I never underestimated a Jap sound man again.

Finally, about 1 a.m., with our batteries dangerously low, Captain Warder decided we’d surface and if necessary make a run for it. The Jap was now behind us, not too far away. We made ready for anything. Captain Warder was the first man on the bridge, and his eyes must have been glued to his night glasses a second after he hit the bridge. I was worried about aircraft. We were fresh meat for any plane that spotted us. It was a bad spot to be caught in. But we maneuvered and changed course to get rid of him, and finally lost him in the night.

We dove again before dawn and came in from a different angle than before. We wanted to sink Jap shipping, and we wanted it bad. In the first hours of daylight a large convoy passed us. A minute’s study, and we knew they knew we were there. They sailed by. Shortly after noon we sighted a large cargo ship, escorted by a bristling Japanese destroyer. It was an easy approach. We fired our fish. One hit with an ear-splitting blast that nearly shook our teeth loose. The destroyer came charging down at us, heaving depth charges right and left, but between the charges I heard the death rattle of the cargo ship over my earphones.

I told the Captain: “She’s sunk, Captain. I heard her go.”

Everyone cheered. There was no end of back-slapping and congratulations. The morale of the entire ship soared. We’d broken the jinx.

Gus Wright celebrated by producing a platter of Spam sandwiches and mugs of steaming black coffee. But we didn’t have much chance to enjoy them. The depth charges came. How they rained them down! They depth-charged to the right, to the left, ahead of us, and behind. The ocean churned with the explosions. We were rocked and shaken, but no damage was done. Maley and I sat through the attack with the phones on. Some of the blasts were so near our ears were paralyzed. We couldn’t speak to each other, but at times I would look over at Maley and catch him with a big grin on his face. Both of us were as pleased as hell.

The depth-charging continued intermittently. We steered a straight course out to sea, but the destroyer followed us out part of the way and pounded our tail.

After a while, Captain Warder said over the intercom, “All right, Eck, take a good listen all around.”

I made a very careful search, for this was a dangerous place. I knew Captain Warder was preparing to surface the Wolf. I listened intently, investigating every little sound, as I covered the dial, a fraction of a degree at a time.

The Captain upped his periscope, looked about, and exclaimed: “Here’s something!… By God, it is a ship!

“I think he heard us. Down periscope!” said the Captain slowly, deliberating each word. It looked as if we were to undergo another exhausting night session.

Captain Warder was talking it over with Mercer. “Well, they probably know we’re here, all right, but that fellow didn’t look as though he could give me too much of a fight on the surface. We’ll surface and run away from him. The crew’s tired, I’m tired, and I want some fresh air in this ship. Stand by to surface.”

We held our breath as the Wolf climbed to the surface. If we came up within range of the enemy, he would blow us to bits.

We broke the water. “Open the hatch!”

A gust of fresh air swept through the ship. The lookouts rushed to the bridge. We heard the cry: “Ship on the port bow!”

By a miracle we hadn’t come up directly alongside of her.

Then, listening intently, I heard the stealthy turning over of her screws. She had seen us.

“She’s coming after us, Captain,” I warned.

“I can see her, Eckberg,” came his unperturbed voice from the bridge, “but she’ll never catch us. We have too much of a head start.”

We raced through the darkness and lost her.

The next day we again started our penetration. We worked against stiff odds. The Japs knew we were there, and they were employing every device they had to keep us from attacking. We were still out a way when Captain Warder picked up a ship. We raced to battle stations. We were pepped up. “It’s a man-of-war,” announced the Skipper, and we were really on our toes, then. Captain Warder went after him. We were about 6,000 yards away when he upped periscope for another look. He peered intently for a few seconds, then a loud, explosive “Dammit!” We knew that the target had zigged radically, or something new had entered the picture. We didn’t have long to wait, though. We all heard Captain Warder clearly.

“This isn’t a destroyer. It’s a damned anti-sub ship, something like a corvette. Secure battle stations. Come left to zero eight zero and let’s head out of here.”

Listening to the Jap, I knew he was not wasting his energies wandering about. His course was straight, and the sudden thought that he might have a plane working with him—a plane that had already spotted us—flashed through my mind. I heard the growl of his screws. They were coming closer, fast and powerful. It was time to warn the Captain.

“He’s heading right for us, Captain,” I sang out.

The Skipper said, “Are you sure, Eckberg? I don’t think he saw our periscope.”

I said, “Positive, Captain.”

Maley, at my side, nodded agreement.

“I’ll have a look around and see what he’s doing,” said the Skipper.

The sound of the Jap’s screws grew more intense. They bored into my brain. He was coming in for the kill. We were no longer the hunter but the hunted. I screamed, “Captain, he’s dead astern… He’s coming over us… He’s ready…”

Captain Warder didn’t give me a chance to finish. “Right full rudder! All ahead full!”

That last command saved our lives. A second later a thunderclap split my eardrums, and a knifelike pain slashed through my head. The photographs bounced off my arm. Dust from a million hidden crevices clouded the sound shack. Maley flew off his chair and landed with a crash on the deck. I was swept off my stool and landed next to him. Bits of cork mixed with the dust. Our heavy sound gear rocked and swayed.

I kept tearing at my earphones, trying to get them off before another thunderbolt should split my head. From far off I heard Captain Warder’s shout, “Take her deep!”

He didn’t have to give that command. The depth charge was so close it smashed us down into the sea. It was the closest call the Wolf had ever had. Again and again the Jap dropped his charges. Each one rocked the Wolf. Every plate, every rivet must have been put in her with a prayer, for somehow they held. Water roared through the superstructure, sounding as if it were traveling a hundred miles an hour. Through my mind flashed, Now the shack is getting a real cleaning! I saw Maley fighting to get to his feet. With each charge he slammed against the bulkhead and was forced to his knees like a punch-drunk fighter. He was wearing a pair of faded shorts, and he looked like a man in a ring. Bits of cork stuck to the stubble on his face. He looked dazed. Then he glanced at me, shook his head, and laughed. He couldn’t control himself. He was depth-charge happy.

I began to laugh, too. We sat there in the midst of hell, laughing until the tears rolled down our cheeks and we were gasping for breath.

“What are we laughing for?” Maley managed to get out, and, laughing, I tried to say, “We’re so goddamn silly-looking, sitting here…”

Then silence. Painfully I got to my feet and back at the sound gear. I heard the retreating screws, fainter and fainter. Had we scared him away?

Captain Warder plopped down into his chair outside the sound shack. “Where’s he now?” he asked. “What’s he up to now?”

For the next hour there wasn’t a sound in the boat except the Captain’s voice asking for bearings. Finally I could report, “He’s gone, sir.”

Captain Warder rose heavily from his chair. “Good!” he said, and walked slowly away. We never knew why he fled.

“I’m going to hit the sack, Eck,” Maley said. I buried my face in my hands and fought to keep awake.

It was many days now since we had tasted fresh air and felt the sun. When I finally got to my own bunk, I was so keyed up I couldn’t fall asleep. We were working near a bad mine field. Anti-sub patrol boats were all over the place. We’d never know when we might surface in the night and have a battery of Jap guns blow us out of the water. We were absolutely alone.

We had attacked and attacked—and failed.

I couldn’t keep Marjorie out of my mind now. I lay in my bunk and looked up at the photographs. Something told me she needed me. When I did fall asleep, I slept badly.

Call it telepathy or what you want. That night, nearly halfway around the world, Marjorie did need me. She was near death with pneumonia. The physicians had nearly given up hope. They told her mother so. That night Marjorie repeated over and over again: “I must live for Spike. I must live for Spike.” And one time, in the early hours of the morning, she sat up in bed and called in a clear, loud voice: “Mel, Mel, come in here! What are you standing out there for? Mother, go over and tell him to come in here!” She stared into the darkness and then lay back and fell asleep.

When we checked the date, it was the same day, almost to the hour, that the Jap ship was dropping the pattern of depth charges that nearly finished the Wolf. Marjorie always said she could have sworn I was standing outside her room that morning, staring in at her with a strange, helpless smile.

The next day I felt better. A load seemed lifted from my shoulders. Word came through that we were ending this patrol soon. We’d be heading for Australia again. The crew became light-hearted. Zerk, Eddie Sousa, and Swede came into the control room in the afternoon and began shooting the breeze. Zerk had his pipe under full draft and said he would fight the first man that tried to put it out.

“That damn thing kills a bug at ten feet, Zerk,” Swede told him. “Someday it’ll kill all of us.”

Zerk just looked at him.

Someone brought up the last depth-charge attack.

“It’s that jinx, that’s what it is,” Swede said, pounding his big fist on his knee.

Zerk nodded in a cloud of smoke. “That damn observer we’re carrying,” he said. “Without him, we’d have knocked off every one of those bastards.”

We tuned in on the radio to see what our old friend, Tokyo Rose, had to say. She was in her usual good form. She put an old Rudy Vallee record on this time, and we listened to that. Somewhere she found a Benny Goodman record, and we thought that was a nice touch.

“American submarines have been detected and have been vigorously dealt with by the Imperial Fleet,” she announced triumphantly. “Several of the large undersea raiders are known to have been sunk.”

We laughed. Out at Christmas Island we’d been a “nest of Allied submarines.” We were doing all right, we decided.

The auxiliary crew spent some time now going over the Wolf with a fine-tooth comb. Zerk summed up the damage. “Just a couple of pipes sprung a leak,” he said. “She’s not hurt bad. I understand that one of Gus’s Silex coffeepots was smashed, though.”

We all groaned. One less coffeepot was a major calamity.

Gus later broke the news to us that from now on our menu would consist of dehydrated potatoes, rice, and bread. There’d be canned meat, but no butter. What we had left had turned bad. Most of the meat we took on at Australian ports was mutton and Australian hare, both of which were too gamey for us. We were beef and pork eaters, and we didn’t like Australian meat. I found that I was eating less than usual. My throat was beginning to hurt. For two or three days at a time, it hurt every time I swallowed. Doc Loaiza fixed up a gargle, but it didn’t help much.

The new diet wasn’t anything to write home about, bad throat or no bad throat. The potatoes tasted like balls of cotton. The meat was Spam, which is fine if you like it. Most of us lost our appetites. If it hadn’t been for Gus Wright’s fresh bread, I don’t know what we would have done. It was delicious, soft, with a nice even brown crust that melted in your mouth.

Our washing machine was going full blast now with most of the boys getting ready for liberty, pushing each other aside trying to monopolize the mirror in the washroom. Sousa battled with the black gang in the engine room about messing Baby up with their oil-drenched clothes.

“All they do,” he complained to me, “is throw their stuff in the machine and don’t give a damn how she looks when they leave her. I’ll knock the bastards’ heads off if I catch them.”

Swede was the only man who refused to use Baby. “The hell with her,” he said. “I’ll never wash my own clothes. It ain’t American.”

It was a nightly joke to see Swede pull out his “locker stick”—a long piece of wood used to pick soiled clothes out of a locker—and look through soiled shorts, shirts, and dungarees for a clean change. His locker was bursting, and yet he’d invariably dig out a new pair of shorts or a clean shirt.

“What did I tell you?” he’d chuckle. “Always one more.”

Captain Warder read and relaxed in his room. His desk was piled high with magazines and best sellers. Behind the green monk’s-cloth curtain his little stateroom was a model of neatness and efficiency, with a picture of his family—his wife and four youngsters—on the desk, his logs and papers neatly piled in place. He was finishing Van Loon’s Geography, reading the Naval Institute Proceedings, a navy magazine popular among officers, and The Army and Navy Register. He also had a copy of Wuthering Heights in his room. At night he’d join his officers—Deragon, Mercer, Syverson, and Holden—in a game of hearts in the wardroom. We always knew when he slipped the queen to one of his men. His booming, ringing laugh—he laughed infrequently, but it was loud and contagious when he did—would fill the tiny wardroom and echo in the passageway.

This routine, easy, without strain, went on for a week. We were sticking our nose into every cove, and inlet, and bay. The Captain was still ship-hungry. He wanted to come back with something. We’d just had too much bad luck so far.

On the fifth day we were proceeding submerged when the conning-tower officer spotted a patch of smoke. He called the Skipper, and both agreed it would be a race between the Wolf and darkness if we wanted to plunk her. Captain Warder had to be very cautious now. We were near the lower Philippines and had to watch for possible aircraft attack. He upped periscope now and then. Once he said:

“Damn it, there’s two of them. They’re both coal-burning tramps, merchantmen, high masts, high stacks, probably jumping from one island to another. They are not zigzagging. Both are old Marus… Battle stations!”

After a pause: “We’ll fire from the forward tubes. It’s getting dark here. Can you hear them yet?”

I searched. “Not yet, Captain.”

The approach party set to work. I had the heartbeat of the Jap screws. They were coal-burners, all right. Maley joined me. We wanted one of these babies badly. I began to call out bearings.

“Make ready the forward tubes,” came the Skipper’s voice. “Open the outer doors. Willie, I don’t know if I can fire on these or not, it’s so dark up here now. Has sound got them?”

Lieutenant Deragon said, “Bearings coming along satisfactory, sir.”

“Okay, Willie,” said the Skipper. “Take her from here.”

The Jap was close now. He was lumbering along at ten knots or so. It was only a matter of seconds before Lieutenant Deragon snapped:

“Fire one!”

Immediately we caught the high whine of the fish traveling hot and straight. I looked at my stopwatch to time them. I saw the seconds ticking away. Maley and I watched the fine thin hand slowly crawl around the face of the watch.

Captain Warder climbed down from the conning tower. He passed the sound room. One glance at his face, and we knew that, bad as we felt, he must feel worse.

“I’m going back to see Deragon, Paul,” I said. I found him sitting in the control room, toying with a pencil in his shirt and looking miserable.

“Were our bearings correct, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“You men were correct, Eck,” he said wearily. “We checked your bearings. I don’t know what could have gone wrong.”

I felt a little better. At least sound hadn’t been at fault.

That night the crew talked about the jinx. They had joked about it before, but now they didn’t know what to believe. Before I hit the sack I turned on the radio and heard that the Swordfish had taken a large toll of tankers and transports.

Three days out of port, I went topside. It was the first time for many days and nights. I climbed out on deck. The glare was blinding. It was like staring into a brilliant searchlight. I should have known better from my last experience, but I wanted to be up there. I buried my face in my hands. Pain stabbed at my eyeballs. I held onto the rail. I gulped the fresh air. For the first time I knew how exhausted I was.

Late that day I went up again. This time the glare wasn’t so bad. My eyes were becoming used to it. When the other men came up, I realized that the crew of the Wolf looked like men in a nightmare. These long patrols didn’t do us any good. Our faces were gray. Our lips were so dry that a few days later a plague of fever sores broke out among us. Our faces peeled. As before, ordinary daylight sunburned us.

Captain Warder, who had temporarily halted his setting-up exercises, was up on deck now, starting them all over again. I took a look at the bridge. The Wolf was as bedraggled as her crew. A blanket of slimy moss covered the deck. The chains were rusted and looked as though they hadn’t been used in years. The hawsers were soggy. They lay curled and decomposing under the deck. Where paint had chipped off, leaving the dull steel bare, the Wolf looked like a mangy dog. There were signs of where the garbage gang had tossed their nightly swill overboard. There were several places where the acid contents of the stuff had etched into the paint.

At one spot the aft portside was stove in—testimony to our nearly fatal depth charge. The memory of that moment was still vivid in my mind. Again I heard the awful thunderclap that seemed to tear my head apart; again I choked and gagged with the dust and cork.

As port grew closer, we went over the Wolf with cloth and polish. We wanted to bring her in spick and span. Magically she began to gleam again, though she still bore her scars. It would take more than polish to hide that wound in her side.

At the entrance to the mine field outside the Australian port, we were met by the U.S.S. Isabel. She brought us in alongside a tanker, and we fueled up. Mail came aboard, and for the next few minutes there wasn’t a sound throughout the boat.

Marjorie’s letters, answering those I’d written the last time I was here, awaited me. Everything was all right. She and Spike were O.K. She’d had pneumonia, she said, but she was all over it now. Not until later, much later, did I learn of the strange coincidence—the strange awareness we both had of each other that night she nearly died.

The following morning we were all called together, and the Skipper made a little speech.

“I don’t want any of you to feel that you have neglected your jobs or that you have let me down in any way on this patrol,” he said. “We made a tough cruise, and we had our share of tough luck. But don’t let that get you down. Remember, you’re the crew of the Seawolf. You can hold up your heads with anyone. I hope to be with you when we set out to sea again.”

We looked at each other. Was Captain Warder leaving us?

That, it appears, was his first inkling that he would soon be given another command—perhaps a more important command—in the future.

He continued: “And I want to say, ‘Well done and congratulations.’ Now go ashore and have a good time. That’s what I’m going to do.”

He turned to Lieutenant Deragon. “Anything else, Willie?”

Lieutenant Deragon cautioned us about talking ashore. And that was all.

We worried a little about what Captain Warder’s future plans were. Swede said it for all of us. “This is the way I feel about it. I hate like hell shipping out if we lose Freddy.” We had come to depend on him so much we couldn’t bear the thought of shipping out to sea under a new skipper.

The first night in port I met an old friend, Chief Torpedoman Francis Morales. He was having a beer with Sousa in Sousa’s room. The last time I’d seen Morales he was a husky man, pushing a big paunch in front of him. Now he looked almost haggard. He must have lost forty pounds. His hands shook when he lit a cigarette. He had been on the Rock, he said, almost to the end.

The Japs, he said, were devilishly clever. They worked on you every which way. “They wear you down physically,” he said, “and then they start on your minds. Before the end, those sons-of-bitches set up big loud-speakers on the Mariveles side of the shore, and they’d play American records at us—one song over and over again.”

“What records?” I said.

“They played ‘I’m Waiting for Ships That Never Come In,’” he said. “Then they’d play a weepy Christmas song sung by Bing Crosby. It would break your heart. Over and over again, blaring out over the water, like that. I tell you, it was horrible there at night. The boys were half-starved, they were sick and shaking with malaria, the wounded were crowding the Rock’s tunnels, and those bastards were playing Christmas songs.”

Months later I learned Morales’ true story. He was one of the most daring men on the Rock. He’d learn the location of Jap military stores, beg half a dozen sticks of dynamite, wrap them in waterproof paper, and get a PT boat to take him out to sea. Then, the dynamite tied to him, he would swim through the shark-infested waters to the beach, sneak through the Jap guards, plant the dynamite, set the fuse, and sneak back to the boat. He did this many times. After that he volunteered to sneak through the jungle to gather information on Jap positions. He never got caught. He was a good and a brave man.

That first night, when I got back, I had troubles of my own. My throat began to pain terribly. The next day it was worse. The pain was intense when I swallowed. I went to the doctor on the tender. He looked me over.

“You’ve got bad tonsils, chief,” he said. “Very bad. It’s the hospital for you.”

At the hospital I was told they’d have to take them out.