Yashimoto's Last Dive

Fourteen

By sunset I-357’s crew were ready for another night of hard work. Rested and refreshed, most of them having slept through the afternoon, there was much chattering and laughter as they made ready their equipment before going ashore. There was now an addition to their ranks. Kasuki, the man who’d received a headwound from a shell splinter, had been passed fit by the Coxswain. With a bandage round his head the young able seaman was questioned by the Navigating Officer to whom he had expressed his keenness to join the shore party. T feel good,’ he told Sato who, with the First Lieutenant’s permission, then detailed him to work with the carrying party.

In accordance with Yashimoto’s orders the forenoon had been devoted to cleaning up the submarine below decks; the results were remarkable. The litter had gone from compartments which had been washed down and made ship-shape enough for an admiral’s inspection; the foul smells of rotting food and hot unwashed bodies had given way to those of disinfectant, tinged with the ever-present odour of diesel oil. The foliage spread over I-357 made conditions on board more tolerable than they would otherwise have been. Open hatches and sea breezes from the creek blowing through the different compartments did much to check the high temperatures of the Tropics. The excellence of the crew’s morale was in part due to this, but in the main it came from the knowledge that a dangerous situation had been averted: the Captain had found a safe hiding place, the repairs to the conning-tower were going ahead, and enemy aircraft had failed to spot the submarine. In a few days they would be putting to sea again, bound for Penang with all the pleasures and comforts that promised. For this they had to thank their Captain, a man for whom they had the greatest respect. He was, they knew, a highly efficient naval officer; calm under all conditions, however difficult and dangerous; they saw him as someone who always acted decisively, always made the right decisions.

They knew they were lucky to have a man like Commander Togo Yashimoto as their Captain. It increased the chances of survival in a service in which few survived.

Throughout the day the sounds of hammering and the whine of high speed drills came from the conning-tower where the repair party under Hayeto Shimada, the Chief Engine Room Artificer, worked with unremitting effort. Lack of space restricted the number of men who could be in the conning-tower at any one time. To offset the heat in that confined space they were relieved at intervals by men who had been resting. The work having begun soon after I-357 arrived in the creek, the initial task of dismantling was well advanced.

The aircraft alarm signal was sounded twice during the afternoon. In mid-afternoon the first Catalina came in from the south; the second came from the north an hour or so later. But on this occasion it had been noted by a sentry that the Catalinas had different identification letters. The presence of two aircraft over the islands was to Yashimoto evidence of unusual air activity. Was this because the British suspected that I-357 was hiding somewhere on the coast? Or was it for some other reason such as searching for survivors? He inclined towards the latter.

The southbound Catalina which arrived in late afternoon flew low over the creek, skimming the trees on the summits of the surrounding hills. It had climbed away, its engines screaming, turned steeply and then flown back along the length of the creek, after which it continued its journey to the south. Worried as he was by its apparent interest in Creek Island, Yashimoto congratulated himself on the steps he had taken to conceal the submarine. He acknowledged to himself, however, that the configuration of the creek also helped: less than seven hundred yards long, most of it little more than a hundred wide, much of it shadowed by the steep slopes of the surrounding hills, it was no easy target for observation from an aircraft which could be over it for no more than fractions of a minute.

After the working parties had gone ashore, Yashimoto and the Engineer Officer met in the wardroom to discuss the progress of repairs. They sat together at the wardroom table, drawings of the conning-tower and its casing before them. To smoke was a luxury not permitted below decks under normal conditions, but with fresh air now passing freely through the boat they were enjoying cheroots which had been bought by the Captain in Penang.

Satugawa was explaining the problems involved in carrying out the work. ‘Nothing has been easy,’ he said. ‘The armour piercing shell — it was probably a 5.5 inch — having passed through the outer casing, penetrated the wall of the conning-tower at its junction with the main pressure hull before bursting. That has left a large jagged hole at the point where the two surfaces meet at an acute angle. It also destroyed most of the starboard side of the lower hatch coaming. This makes the repairs very difficult. We have to restore the integrity of the main pressure hull and rebuild the lower hatch. Damaged air pressure pipes and electric circuits have also to be repaired. We’ve cut away most of the broken steel. Next we have to make a start on patching the pressure hull and conning-tower and rebuilding the lower hatch. To do this we have to cannibalize other parts of the boat without weakening the structure. It is a long, slow business. Finally there is the damaged hatch lid itself. Removing it has taken longer than expected.’ The Engineer Officer’s tone became apologetic. ‘It is a heavy steel fitting, designed to withstand great pressure. The explosion put exceptional stresses on the lugs to the hinges. This distorted them and also the hinge pins. To remove them we have had to drill and chisel before getting the lid out for straightening and repair of the hinges.

Soon we will make a start on cutting and bending three-eighth steel plating to fit over the shell holes, then bolt them into place. Reconstruction of the tower hatch and hatch lid, and shaping the steel plating will require very high temperatures. We do not have a furnace on board but we can set up something ashore. Build it with stones, fuel it with dry timber and diesel oil, and use compressed air cylinders to blow it since we haven’t got bellows. That was the Chief ERA’S idea. All this will take time. Many hours will be required to achieve the temperatures necessary. The steel must be worked while it’s white hot. This will involve constant reheating and measurement controls. Since we do not have the equipment of a foundry, there will have to be a lot of improvisation. A process of trial and error. Learning as we go, so to speak.’

The line of Yashimoto’s mouth hardened. ‘I cannot accept failure,’ he said decisively. T must have your assurance that the work can be done.’

Satugawa avoided the Captain’s penetrating stare. Tt can be done,’ he said. ‘But it is difficult to estimate how long it will take.’

Yashimoto pursed his lips, exhaled, his eyes on the smoke ring climbing to the deckhead. ‘Today is the twenty-first of November.’ He spoke slowly, very deliberately, as if each word was being weighed. ‘We have been ordered to take up station outside Mombasa not later than midnight on the twenty-fifth. The carrier and its escorts are due on the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh. The journey to Mombasa will take two days. To be on station in time we must leave here by midnight on the twenty-third. Can you get the work done by then, Chief?’ Yashimoto’s pouched eyes bore into the Engineer Officer, who held up his hands as if fending off an attack.

‘If we fail,’ Satugawa lifted his shoulders in a gesture of doubt, ‘it can only be because we have attempted the impossible.’ Aware of the ambiguity, he quickly added, ‘I do not believe we are attempting the impossible.’

Yashimoto took the cheroot from his mouth, examined its burning end before tipping the ash into a saucer. ‘The fitting of outboard engines to the catamarans. Any problems there?’

Satugawa at once relaxed, the change of subject appeared to please him. ‘There is no problem, Captain. The work will be completed before daylight, of that you need have no doubt.’

Yashimoto nodded approval, his eyes on a picture of the Emperor hanging on the wardroom bulkhead. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘The catamarans will be less likely to attract attention from the air than inflatables.’

As daylight took over from night Restless left her patrol line to steam towards the coast between Tambuzi Island and the Nameguo Shoal. Barratt was anxious to get on with the search of a cluster of small islands between the shoal and Cape Ulu, about ten miles south of Mocimboa da Praia. That the chart gave no names to many of them suggested they were likely to be uninhabited but for small communities of African fishermen.

The day promised to be like its immediate predecessors, hot with a cirrus-laced sky, the blue sea smooth, its only movement the undulations of a swell which came in from the Mozambique Channel to break on the reefs guarding the coast and islands.

The motorboat and skimmer were lowered and the routine of the previous day was soon in full swing. Barratt sat in his seat on the compass platform, a tennis hat on his head, face and arms brown against his tropical uniform, his binoculars constantly in use. On the bridge with him were Taylor and O’Brien the watch-keepers, with the Yeoman, a signalman and the lookouts, while the Navigating Officer made periodic dashes between the chartroom and bridge, alarm written large on his face. With Restless steaming at slow speed, Barratt kept to the deep water channels, occasionally venturing too far from them for the comfort of Charlie Dodds who would make agitated reports about shoaling water, the state of the tides and currents.

By eight o’clock in the morning when the watches changed, the motorboat had visited most of the islands off Cape Ulu without success; in that time the skimmer had questioned the occupants of catamarans fishing off the shoals and reefs in the channels. The skimmer, like the motorboat, drew nothing but blanks, but the search went on.

In early afternoon the skimmer was sighted coming in from the direction of Tambuzi Island with something in tow. When nearer the tow could be seen to be a catamaran. ‘What on earth’s that all about?’ exclaimed Barratt who was watching through binoculars. The skimmer and its tow drew closer until a solitary African could be seen sitting in the catamaran’s sternsheets steering with a paddle. The sizeable bow-wave made by the makeshift craft and its outrigger suggested that it was travelling a lot faster than usual. The crew of the inflatable, clad only in shorts, their tanned bodies almost as brown as the African’s, grinned happily as the skimmer and its tow turned in a wide circle before edging in towards the destroyer. A painter was made fast and with the skimmer and catamaran safely alongside, Peter Morrow came up a rope ladder on to the deck where the hoisting party was standing by. ‘Keep this lot towing alongside, Chief, while I report to the bridge,’ he called over his shoulder to the Bosun’s Mate as he made for the fo’c’sle ladder. Moments later he arrived breathless on the bridge.

‘What’s that catamaran doing alongside?’ Barratt shot at him.

Side-stepping the Captain’s question, Morrow said, ‘Permission to hoist the skimmer and catamaran, sir.’

‘The catamaran, why?’

‘I’ve made a deal with Katu, its owner, sir. The African sitting in it.’

‘What sort of deal?’

‘Clothing, tobacco, food. That sort of thing, sir. All barter, no cash. He’s agreed to spend the afternoon with us if we’ll hoist his catamaran on board and return him with it to these fishing grounds this evening.’

‘May I ask why he should spend the afternoon with us?’

Looking rather pleased with himself, Morrow said, ‘I think he may know something about the submarine, sir. It’s a long story. He can’t be rushed. I’m afraid this is the only way to handle it. Can I bring him on board and get on with the hoisting?’

With sudden decision Barratt said, ‘Yes. In double quick time. When that’s done, bring him to the chartroom.’

With its owner in attendance, fussing lest it be damaged, the catamaran was hoisted and stowed forward of the afterscreen, the mast and outrigger unshipped and placed alongside it.

In Kiswahili, Peter Morrow spoke to the African. ‘Come with me now, Katu. We go to the Bwana M’Kubwa. First we talk with him, then I give you the clothes, the food in the tins, and the tobacco.’

Katu looked about him uncertainly before following the Sub-Lieutenant along the iron deck, the African’s lean muscular body, naked but for a loincloth, shining like oiled mahogany.

They went up to the chartroom where the Navigating Officer was watching the echo-sounder, a pencil between his teeth and a frown on his forehead.

Morrow said, ‘You wait here one minute, Katu. I go fetch Bwana M’Kubwa.’

The shore parties had returned on board well before sunrise on 22 November, the beginning of the submarine’s second day in the creek. With five more hours of darkness available than on the first night, the frenzied work rate of that occasion was no longer necessary. The cutting of foliage and brushwood had been more selective, more deliberate, and by two o’clock in the morning all that was needed had been cut and carried down to the submarine. Bright moonlight through most of the night helped to get the work done in good time.

Some two hours after cutting had ceased the men working on the casing under the Engineer Officer had finished laying and placing new material to camouflage the submarine. Among other things they had replaced the trees on the conning-tower and over the gun-platform with fresh ones.

The sun which had been overhead for so many hours during the preceding day had dried most of the foliage, the leaves curling and fading under its heat. Yashimoto had insisted that the old foliage should not be removed. Tut the freshly cut stuff on top of it,’ he said. ‘Build irregular mounds and leave gaps where the colour of the withered leaves will break up the uniformity. That way you create a camouflage which looks even more natural.’

Daylight proved the Captain’s point. The long, foliage-covered mound, lumpy and irregular with trees ‘growing’ upon it, now merged with the wooded banks of the creek more convincingly than before.

On his return from a visit to the Africans’ huts, the First Lieutenant had reported that the camouflage was particularly good when seen from the opposite bank.

Kagumi had gone over to the settlement at eight o’clock that morning to see the Headman, and to return the African he had brought back the day before in the hope that he and Hasumu might understand each other. That hope had not materialized. ‘He speaks a language he calls Fanaglo,’ Hasumu had reported to the First Lieutenant. ‘At least the word sounds like that. From his attempts to explain by mimicry, I think it may be the language of the mine labourers and their white overseers. It is definitely not English. Though mine is poor I know enough to be sure of that.’

The main purpose of Kagumi’s visit had, however, been to talk to the Headman about an incident which had occurred during the previous night: Lieutenant Matsuhito, the officer responsible for sentries had, in the course of his rounds at midnight, checked on the men detailed to patrol the boundaries of the little settlement and guard the catamarans drawn up on the beach near the huts. He had found one of the men asleep in a drunken stupor. Having formally arrested the man, Matsuhito replaced him with one of the catamaran’s crew. The offender was brought back to I-357 and placed in his bunk, his wrists handcuffed to its rail.

Within the limitations of sign language, in which he was becoming increasingly proficient, Kagumi had discussed the incident with the Headman. What he had gleaned from the grey-haired old African would be given in evidence later in the morning when the Captain dealt with members of the crew brought before him as defaulters. That weekly disciplinary ritual was two days late, having been deferred by the pressure of events.

With the use of a photograph from an illustrated Japanese periodical, Hasumu had learnt from the African who had spent the night on board that there were no sharks in the creek; presumably the currents, the sandbars outside the entrance, and the rich harvest of fish off the shoals and reefs were responsible for that. It was evident that he was right, because a number of African children had been seen swimming from the beach in front of the huts that morning.

After a discussion with Yashimoto about the prisoner who would be appearing at Captain’s Defaulters later that morning, Kagumi raised the question of swimming; might it not be possible, he asked, to permit a limited number of men to swim at certain times under controlled conditions?

Without hesitation Yashimoto had turned down the suggestion. ‘Under no circumstances,’ he said, his tone and expression indicating displeasure. ‘By day it is out of the question. We could not risk having men in the water anywhere near the boat. At night the same applies. The beach where the Africans bathe is in front of the huts. Even if we wished to, how many men could we ferry over there? How soon could we get them back in an emergency? Catalinas patrol at night. We know that from our experience in the Mozambique Channel. An aircraft might drop a flare over the creek.’ Yashimoto shook his head vigorously. ‘I cannot permit swimming. A supply of fresh water was brought on board last night. Each man can now have a bucketful a day. That is luxury enough, Kagumi. We are at war.’

The bearded face of the First Lieutenant, his short erect figure rigidly at attention, reflected discomfort. ‘Quite so, sir,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I should not have made such a suggestion.’

Yashimoto’s manner softened. ‘You must not hesitate to make suggestions which you believe to be in the interests of the crew. That is your duty. In this case you overlooked the reality of our situation. The men must wait for Penang. There they can swim as much as they like.’ A burst of hammering from the conning-tower made Yashimoto pause. ‘I will be happy when that is done with.’ Frowning, he inclined his head in the direction of the noise. ‘Satugawa’s men make good progress. He tells me the forge is almost ready. All that’s needed now is a bellows. He hasn’t got one, but he intends to use an air pressure cylinder with a nozzle on the end of a flexible steel hose. It should work well. An ingenious man, our Engineer Officer.’

‘He is indeed, sir,’ agreed Kagumi, anxious to make amends.