Yashimoto's Last Dive

Nine

Shortly before three o’clock that morning Restless reached the position given in Fort Nebraska’s signal: twenty-two miles east-north-east of Porto do Ibo. In spite of bright moonlight and a glassy sea there was no sign of wreckage or oil slicks, nor did a five mile square search yield any results. Barratt was in the chartroom discussing the problem with the Navigating Officer. ‘How accurate is our position, Pilot?’

‘Depends on the current, sir. I allowed for a two knot southerly set.’ Dodds’s forehead creased into a huge frown. ‘If in fact there’s a counter-current, the position is not reliable.’ He looked at the chart before going on. ‘Wreckage and oil slicks could be north of us in that case. Trouble is, I’ve had to work on DR and a moon-sight with a dodgy horizon.’

‘Any W/T beacons within range?’

‘The two we might have used have shut down. So that U-boats can’t use them.’

‘What about soundings?’ Barratt looked up from under bushy eyebrows, the lined, hollow-cheeked face showing signs of strain.

‘Too deep and uniform round here, sir. All much the same — around the thousand fathom mark. If the sky remains clear I should get good star-sights at dawn. But that’s another two and a half hours away.’

Barratt turned, folded his arms, leant against the chart-table. ‘Pretty bloody useless really, isn’t it?’ he said gloomily. ‘But not hopeless. The light at Porto do Ibo has a ten mile range. We should be within twenty-five miles of it now. That means about fifteen miles from the range limit. Give me a course for Porto do Ibo. Once we’ve sighted the light we’ll know where we are and which way the current is setting. Then we’ll be in business again.’

‘Good idea, sir.’

‘I do have them occasionally, Pilot. Now give me that course.’

A more or less cheerful grin replaced Charlie Dodds’s frown as he bent over the chart-table. The Captain might be tired but his mood seemed better than it had been for some time.

In due course the light at Porto do Ibo was sighted broad on the port bow. Had the destroyer’s DR position at 0300 been correct the light should have been sighted dead ahead. As it was Restless was eight miles west-nor-west of the DR position. Successive bearings of the light indicated a northerly current of just under two knots. Applying this to Fort Nebraska's position at 2100, Dodds estimated that the wreckage would already have drifted thirteen miles to the north; that would be nineteen miles north-east of Restless's present position. He reported this by phone to the Captain who had returned to the bridge.

‘What we don’t know, Pilot,’ there was a note of scepticism in Barratt’s voice, ‘is how long the gun action lasted and how far Fort N may have travelled after her four S.’

‘Quite so, sir.’ Dodds was on the defensive. ‘But I had to make assumptions, and the position she gave seemed as good as any.’

‘Calm down, Pilot. I’m not getting at you. Simply thinking aloud.’ Barratt coughed. ‘Sorry. Give me a course and distance for your estimate of the wreckage position, work on a two knot northerly set. Double quick. I suspect the survivors would like to see us.’ He put down the phone, joined Geoffrey Lawson at the bridge screen. Lawson, Restless's Gunnery Officer, was officer-of-the-watch.

The watches changed at 0400 that morning. Soon afterwards the Navigating Officer reported that traces of the Fort Nebraska sinking should be sighted soon if the assumptions made were correct.

Conscious of the possibility of a U-boat in the vicinity, Barratt phoned the A/S and radar cabinets. ‘We’re in the sinking zone now,’ he warned. ‘May well be a U-boat sniffing around. Keep everything on the top line.’

But there was no sign of wreckage or oil slicks despite the good visibility which persisted with the moon now low in the western sky.

‘It seems the assumptions made were not correct,’ said Barratt tartly. ‘We’ll do another square search. Start the plot.’

The Navigating Officer said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He decided against adding that the plot had been running since a position had been established off the Porto do Ibo light. The Captain had enough to worry about without being reminded of things he’d forgotten.

The square search was not long in yielding results. Halfway through the second leg the First Lieutenant made the sighting. ‘Green — three — zero. Distant object, sir.’ He had taken over the watch from Lawson at four o’clock that morning.

Barratt and the starboard bridge lookout focused night glasses on the bearing.

‘For object read objects,’ said the Captain. ‘I see several bits and pieces and various things which look like sacks. I wonder what cargo she was carrying.’ He put down his glasses. ‘Starboard fifteen, Number One. Revolutions for ten knots. Steady her when the wreckage is ahead. Must be the best part of a mile away.’

The First Lieutenant passed the orders to the wheelhouse by voice-pipe, the distant hum of the turbines dropped to a lower key, and the destroyer’s bows swung to starboard.

‘Yes. I suppose so, sir. I’ve told the Bosun’s Mate to get his party to standby the scrambling nets.’

‘Don’t think we’re going to need them. Don’t see any lifeboats,’ said Barratt. ‘They probably set out for the coast six or seven hours ago. It’s within thirty miles. There’s no wind. In these conditions they could row at a couple of knots I suppose.’

The First Lieutenant checked with night glasses. ‘Yes. They’d make for the land. No point in hanging around.’ He added, ‘Those aren’t sacks, sir. I think they’re bodies. I can see survivors’ lights. A few. Just visible.’

Barratt wiped the sweat and heat mist from the eye-pieces before raising the binoculars. ‘Yes. There are red lights. Funny shapes if they are bodies. Can’t really make out what they are.’ He added, ‘But those are definitely survivors’ lights. I can see the edge of the oil slick now. We’ll be into it soon.’ He lowered his glasses. ‘Revolutions for three knots, Number One.’

The First Lieutenant passed the order to the wheelhouse. ‘These chaps were probably hit in the gun action,’ suggested Barratt. ‘We’ll have to check if some are alive. There don’t seem to be many.’ Aware of the risk of presenting a sitting target to a submarine his senses were keyed to pings from the bridge’s loudspeaker. Subconsciously he was waiting for the ping to change to the deeper, more sonorous pong of an underwater contact.

As if reading the Captain’s thoughts the First Lieutenant said, ‘I expect the U-boat’s on its way, sir. Looking for another target.’

‘I dare say, Number One.’

Standing together at the bridge screen they spoke quietly, rarely lowering the night glasses.

Restless had almost reached the beginning of the oil slick when Barratt exclaimed, ‘Good God! There’s somebody sitting in the water waving at us.’ He spoke into the wheel-house voice-pipe. ‘Stop engines. Coxswain on the wheel.’

Over his shoulder he called, ‘Scrambling net over the port side, Number One. Double quick.’ The First Lieutenant went to a voice-pipe. Barratt kept his glasses trained on the waving arms. Very odd, he said to himself. How on earth does he do that Christ on the water act?

‘Coxswain on the wheel, sir.’ The report from the wheel-house was repeated by the First Lieutenant. With engines stopped the only sounds on the bridge now were the whirring undertones of fans and auxiliary machinery, the pings from the bridge-speaker, and the lap and murmur of the water along the sides. Into this comparative silence there came suddenly a new sound, one that drowned all others: the high pitched scream of escaping steam from Restless's squat funnel. The engineroom was getting rid of excess boiler pressure.

Pale opalescent light began to appear on the eastern horizon as Restless drifted slowly towards the man in the water.

It looked like the beach at Sandport, but somehow it wasn’t. But one thing was for sure — the guy in the motor cruiser was shooting at him. He’d best be careful, or he’ll hit me. Guess I must get out of this. Swim over to that girl on the diving float. He tried to swim but couldn’t, his legs were tied together, wouldn’t move. The girl in the red costume was waving like crazy. What did she want? She was standing up on the float. Didn’t look in any trouble. But they did that sometimes. He was wondering about her when the water splashed in his face.

He came to with a start. Where the hell? What’s going on? The rope-bin had listed over to one side so that the water was lapping his face, his head and shoulders against the submerged staves. He felt around him, touched the staves on the high side, threw his weight that way and corrected the list. Now he was sitting upright again. So it had been a dream. Pity. The girl looked cute.

The illuminated dial of his watch showed thirty minutes after four. The moon was low in the sky, but still giving light up-moon. Not that there was anything to see there. Four-thirty. He’d been in the water for more than seven hours. How much longer? Could be days, he supposed. Maybe for ever. Better to have been machine-gunned perhaps? For Chrissake, why had he ended up in a ship like old Fort Nebraska? Without an escort you never had a chance going it alone against a submarine. He’d joined the naval reserve to get into a fighting ship, not a Liberty ship. ‘You take what we give you, buddy,’ the Chief Gunner’s Mate at the training base had retorted when he complained. He wondered if he’d ever see Sandport again? What was Mary Lou doing right now? With some other guy perhaps? And Dad and Mom? What would the time be now in Massachusetts? Five hours west of Greenwich, UK, wasn’t it? But what’s the longitude around here? Must be well east of Greenwich. So what. I don’t know. There’s worse problems, anyway. Goddam thirst. Surrounded by water and thirsty. That’s plain stupid. Why can’t the rain come like it did before? This stinking fuel oil. Burns my skin. Smarts my eyes. Must have a pee. No problem. No point in opening the flies. Just pee — like that. Yeh, that way feels kinda good. I needed that.

The sound of splashing water? Goddam sharks still at it. Can’t see them, they’re way down-moon. It’s dark there. Guess they won’t trouble me so long as there’s enough dead guys to eat.

Jesus! What’s that noise? Coming from the dark side? That high-pitched hissing. Hurts the eardrums. Not too far away. Jesus! It’s a ship. It’s a goddam ship.

He began to wave his arms and shout. ‘Hey, ship ahoy, ship ahoy! Hey you guys, I’m here.’

When he realized there was no way he could be heard above the noise of escaping steam he stopped shouting. But he didn’t stop waving.

Barratt looked aft from the wing of the bridge, saw the man climb the scrambling net on to the iron deck. Splattered with fuel oil and without a lifejacket he ignored the hands which reached down to help him inboard though he must have been in the water since nine o’clock of the previous night. Powerful looking chap, pretty tough customer, decided Barratt. He went to the wheelhouse voice-pipe. ‘Revolutions for five knots, port ten,’ he ordered. Turning to the Yeoman he said, ‘Standby the starboard ten-inch. We’d better take a close look at what’s left in the water.’ He went to the starboard wing of the bridge, called out, ‘Expose now.’ A powerful beam leapt from the signal lamp, the long finger of light probing the sea to starboard. It settled on one corpse, moved at Barratt’s request to another, and another, and another. There was little left to see: tatters of mutilated flesh, torn lifejackets and broken white bones. In all about a score of corpses were examined. Feeling physically sick, Barratt said, ‘That’ll do, Yeoman.’

The rapid clatter of feet on the rungs of the bridge ladder told of someone coming up in a hurry. It was the First Lieutenant. ‘We’ve got him on board, sir. His name’s Corrigan. He says he’s the sole survivor. One of the stern-gun’s crew. He’s a US naval reservist. Haven’t had time to interrogate him properly.’ He took a deep, noisy breath. ‘He says it was a Jap submarine, not a German U-boat. Claims that his gun scored a direct hit at the foot of the Jap’s conning-tower. The submarine then rammed the two lifeboats and machine-gunned the survivors. It apparently made several runs after that, using a searchlight and machine-gunning the wreckage and anything else showing in the water. It did this for about ten minutes.’

‘My God, how typical.’ Barratt’s voice rose in sudden anger. ‘How did this chap get away with it?’

‘Haven’t got round to that yet, sir. He’s in the sick-bay, they’re cleaning him. Getting rid of the fuel oil. The doctor wants to examine him.’

‘He looked pretty fit to me as he came over the side. Did he say what the submarine did after the machine-gunning?’ ‘Yes, sir. He saw it heading away down-moon, running on the surface. It was soon lost to sight. He thinks it can’t dive.’

Barratt was silent, thinking. ‘Down-moon at say 2130 last night,’ he said. ‘Down-moon at that time would have been west. Towards the coast. Funny.’

‘That might have been the submarine’s initial course, sir. It could have altered later. For all that Corrigan says, it may have dived.’

Barratt shrugged, lost himself in another silence. At last he said, ‘I’m going to the chartroom, Number One. I’ll make a signal to Captain (D). In the meantime steer 010°. Revolutions for sixteen knots.’ With a final, ‘Over to you,’ he left the bridge.