Battle Stations: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 3) Page 15

  “Forward, set gyros by hand. Two-oh and two-four degrees.”

  “Gyros set,” the telephone talker confirmed. “Torpedoes ready to fire.”

  “FIRE ONE!”

  Sandtiger bumped as she released her first torpedo.

  After eight seconds: “FIRE TWO! Down scope!”

  “Forward confirms both fish are in the water,” the telephone talker reported.

  “About a minute to impact,” Liebold said.

  The soundman turned his sound head control wheel to acquire the torpedoes moving through the water. “Both fish are running hot, straight, and normal.”

  “Very well,” Charlie said, his heart booming against his ribs. “Forward, reload tubes one and two. We may need those torpedoes.”

  Liebold counted the seconds. “Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight—”

  “Up scope!” Charlie centered the periscope’s view on the destroyer.

  “Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven—”

  He broke out in a fresh sweat. The first fish should have hit by now.

  A blinding incandescent flash, followed by a roar that shook the boat.

  The destroyer shuddered, his back broken and his screws stopped. The ship bent inward. Depth charges tumbled out of their racks and exploded against the bridge castle.

  “He’s lighting up like a firecracker!” Charlie cried.

  Fire raged at the center of the ship, which began to sink, shooting gouts of burning diesel oil. The bow and stern reared out of the water until almost vertical, flinging spray and debris. Then both plunged into the boiling sea.

  “Scratch one destroyer!” Charlie swung the periscope. “Contact! Another DD’s coming at us with a bone in his teeth! Shifting targets!”

  The destroyer charged at the exposed scope, bow wake foaming like a mad dog rushing for the kill. A Fubuki, smoke pouring from his stacks.

  “We’re spotted,” he said. “He’s zigging!”

  The Japanese skipper played it safe, weaving as he ran at the submarine.

  “Bearing, mark! Range, mark! Speed, thirty-five knots!”

  Liebold feverishly worked the Banjo, sweat dripping down his face.

  Again—bearing, range, angle on the bow, and speed—until they had a general idea of the Japanese skipper’s pattern.

  The bow guns boomed. Charlie didn’t see where the shells landed. “Stand by forward!”

  He couldn’t shoot farther than 1,200 yards, or the destroyer would have time to dodge his torpedoes. He couldn’t shoot less than 700 yards, or the torpedo wouldn’t arm. The timing had to be just right.

  The destroyer’s V-shaped prow grew larger until it filled his view. The bow guns fired again. The submarine rocked as the shells struck the sea close aboard.

  “Jack …”

  “Wait!”

  Range, 750 yards and closing.

  “I need a firing solution now!”

  Jack gave it. Nixon concurred. Charlie told the forward room to set gyros by hand. Then he gave the order to fire.

  “Three’s away!”

  “FIRE FOUR!”

  “Four’s away!”

  Charlie’s knuckles ached as he gripped the periscope handles.

  Sound: “Fast light screws, bearing two-four-five!”

  The third destroyer, fast approaching. The sea around the protruding periscope lit up clear as day. A searchlight.

  Just a few more seconds …

  The zigging Fubuki’s bow exploded in a fireball.

  “We hit him! By God, we hit him!”

  Sound: “Fast light screws, close aboard!”

  Charlie screamed, “Take us down to 180 feet, emergency! Dive! All ahead flank!”

  whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh

  Sandtiger bore into the water, heading directly under the sinking destroyer. The crew looked up in terror, faces glistening with sweat. Above, the warship shrieked and groaned as she sank.

  CRACK-BOOM

  The men flinched at the loudest sound they’d ever heard. Then another and another. The destroyer’s magazine or boilers had exploded. Maybe both. On the surface, the dying DD shuddered, buckled, flew apart.

  The water roiled around the submarine as the first pieces plummeted to the bottom. Within seconds, it was raining metal. Metallic howls and groans echoed through the submarine from all sides.

  Almost through the gauntlet. Depth, seventy-five feet.

  Sandtiger shuddered as something big struck the forward deck and slid away into the deep with a grating shriek of metal.

  “Jesus Christ,” Liebold said.

  Then they were through.

  Charlie took a ragged breath. “Sound, try to get on that last DD.”

  The sea behind them churned as the Fubuki’s final remains tore through the water on their way down. The thunder faded to a ring in his ears.

  Sound: “He’s short-scale pinging!”

  “Where the hell is he?”

  “I’ve got him. Bearing three-five-five. Range 1,600 yards.”

  “What’s our depth?”

  “A hundred feet,” Nixon said.

  “Bring us back to periscope depth. We’re going to sink the bastard.”

  The battle wasn’t over until Sandtiger had sunk all three warships. That was the only way to get through the strait.

  “Sixty-five feet and holding, Exec!”

  “Stand by forward. Up scope!”

  Blinding white light. A dark V-shaped prow with a pronounced bow wake.

  “He’s spotted our scope! Bearing, mark! Range, mark!”

  Liebold shook his head but produced a firing solution. The telephone talker relayed the manual gyro settings to the torpedo room.

  “Come on, come on,” Charlie growled.

  The destroyer grew larger by the second.

  “Torpedoes ready!”

  “FIRE FIVE! FIRE SIX! Down scope! Right full rudder! Dive! Take her down, emergency!”

  The two torpedoes streaked out from Sandtiger toward the destroyer. The boat groaned as she turned in the water and angled down.

  “Fast screws, close aboard!” the soundman cried. “He’s starting a run!”

  whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh

  The torpedoes had missed. “How deep are we?”

  Nixon checked the gauge. “Eighty feet, Exec!”

  Not enough.

  “Splashes!”

  *click*

  WHAAAMMM, WHAAAMMM, WHAAAMMM!

  The hull buckled at the blasts. Bulbs burst. Gauges shattered. Overhead piping cracked and sprayed cold water across the room. Men screamed as the lights went out and the concussions hurled them across the room.

  Charlie held on with both hands in the dark, his feet leaving the deck as the boat listed heavily to starboard. Something struck in him in the forehead over his right eye. He dropped to the deck and landed on a body. Alive or dead, he didn’t know. Then the boat’s roll swept him across the sloshing deck.

  The emergency lighting popped on. Dust and insulation swirled in the weak light. Charlie stood among the coughing men. He touched his throbbing forehead. His hand came away wet with blood. “All compartments, report damage!”

  BOOM

  The blast tossed him like a ragdoll. He slammed against the TDC and flopped to the ground gasping for air. Sandtiger heeled over, stopped for a moment by the explosive force. Then she rolled again, her crew tumbling with her.

  Liebold shook Charlie’s shoulders. “Get up! We’re being bombed!”

  Christ, the Japanese were throwing planes at him now.

  whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh

  Pinging steadily, the destroyer made another run. The soundman should have reported this, given them some warning. But his station sat empty, his equipment smashed.

  It didn’t matter. They were done. What did Liebold want from him? He just wanted to be left alone and sleep.

  Liebold shook him again. “Charlie!”

  He wagged his head. Covered in several inches of filthy seawater, the deck ti
lted under him. The boat remained angled down. “What’s our depth?”

  Liebold helped him to his feet. “One-seven-five. We’re going down fast!”

  The boat was out of control and heading to the bottom. With the hatch closed and dogged, there was no way to talk to the control room except on the XJA or JA circuits. Wet and battered, Charlie splashed through the oily water toward the telephone talker’s station.

  *click*

  WHAAAMMM, WHAAAMMM, WHAAAMMM!

  Sandtiger shook like an earthquake. Charlie stumbled and lost his footing on the slippery deck, landing hard on his knee. He cried out as pain shot up his thigh. He lunged and grabbed the headset.

  “Control, Conn! Get control of your—!”

  BOOM

  Charlie’s vision flared white.

  He awoke propped against the bulkhead, his legs underwater and his chest warm with his own vomit. Blood poured over his left eye, half blinding him. Nixon stood under the overhead piping with a wrench, feverishly working to close a valve. Liebold dragged a body through the water. Percy, wearing one of his loud Aloha shirts, was raving into the phone. Pump the water out, he screamed. Pump the fucking water out.

  Sandtiger couldn’t take much more than this. She might be dying already. A one-way trip. Charlie had wondered what Rickard thought about in those last moments before the Japanese torpedo blew him back to God. Now he knew. He saw his entire life pass before his eyes.

  His mother nibbling a single piece of dry toast while she watched her children eat. One of his sisters cleaning behind his ears with a washcloth. JR Kane moving a chess piece, “Check, Harrison.” Evie sipping a soda through a straw while she talked about their future, the home they’d build, the beautiful children they’d one day have. Jane undressing in his room at the Royal Hawaiian, taking her time, staring him in the eye with a slight smile as if daring him to look away.

  Rusty reading aloud from the letter he wrote his wife on the eve of the Battle of Blanche Bay: “I love you. I’m sorry. Be happy.”

  Charlie thought about Evie again and thought, I’m sorry—

  Sandtiger shook again, groaning as another string of depth charges pounded her hull. The men staggered at the hammer blows, shouting to each other. The radarman sat on the deck, screaming with his hands over his ears.

  Charlie slid from the bulkhead onto his side in the brackish water. The boat bucked again. The deck had more or less leveled out, he realized. Trimmed heavy, the boat had an up angle. The planesmen had taken control of the planes and stopped Sandtiger from slamming into the sea bottom.

  They still had a chance.

  The pinging faded in volume as the destroyer completed his run and turned about for another go.

  Charlie hauled himself to his feet, dripping blood and water. “Helm.” He coughed hard into his fist, ribs flaring with pain. “Helm! How does she head?”

  Nixon answered for him. “Oh-oh-five, Exec!”

  “Right full rudder!”

  The helmsman cowered against the bulkhead.

  Charlie splashed through the water until he stood over the shaking sailor. “Helm, mind your rudder! Return to your station!

  The sailor crept back to his post. “Right full rudder, aye!”

  “Take us into the strait! All ahead flank!”

  The officers stopped and stared at him.

  “That’s suicide!” Percy said. “Helm, belay that order!”

  Charlie clenched his fists. “Mr. Percy, shut it, or you’re relieved!”

  “It’s crazy—”

  “Silence!” Charlie roared. “Helm, head for the strait! That’s a goddamn order!”

  The helmsman gaped from Percy to Charlie with wild eyes. “Aye, aye!”

  “Why?” Percy pleaded.

  “You sure about this, Charlie?” Liebold asked.

  Charlie said, “It’s our only chance.”

  Sandtiger limped toward the minefields. Row after row of horned mines moored to the bottom, swaying in the murk.

  “Control, periscope depth,” he ordered into the headset. “Spike, put fresh men on the planes. We’ll need to hold depth at exactly sixty-five feet for the next thirty miles. Not a foot deeper.”

  The chief hesitated before saying, “Aye, aye.”

  The conning tower fell into a tense silence, the men holding their breath. The pinging faded as she entered the strait. The boat tingled at distant explosions, fresh planes dropping their payloads onto the sea.

  Then no sound except for the loud ringing in their ears.

  Liebold was the first to break the silence. “I’ll be damned.”

  Sandtiger cruised at periscope depth in La Pérouse Strait.

  When the boat had entered the Japan Sea, Charlie theorized the IJN mined the strait at a depth of seventy feet. The strong current caused the mines to dip at least several feet, providing more room between the submarine’s keel and the mines.

  The torpedo officer shook his head in amazement. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” Charlie said. “It was just a theory.”

  And the biggest gamble of his life.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  FINAL RECKONING

  Sandtiger’s crew held the general court-martial in the mess hall. As trial judge advocate, Charlie faced Tanaka at one of the tables. Acting as jury, Percy, Liebold, Nixon, and two ensigns sat at another table. Smokey wrote everything down to produce a court record. Off-duty crewmembers crowded the rest of the room and the outside passageways, craning their necks to see.

  “First Lieutenant Tanaka Akio, 25th Regiment, 180th Infantry Division, Imperial Japanese Army,” Charlie intoned. “You, a person subject to military law, stand accused of murder of two men. Lt. Commander Gilbert Moreau of the United States Navy, and Ando Eiji of the Japanese merchant marine. Do you understand the charges against you?”

  Tanaka rubbed his wrists, worn raw by his bonds. “Hai. Yes.”

  “You are entitled by the articles of war to counsel. I understand you wish to waive this right. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you wish to plead then?”

  “I am guilty.”

  The crew growled as one. A sailor called out, “Goddamn right you are!”

  “Silence!” Charlie snapped. He turned to the tribunal members. “There will be no need for you, gentlemen. I am ready to pronounce the court’s judgment.”

  He fixed his stare on Tanaka. The lieutenant put up a brave front, but it was obvious that’s all it was. The man trembled as he awaited his sentence.

  This man had murdered Captain Moreau in cold blood. He’d snapped his countryman’s neck as a ruse to escape.

  At the same time, he was pitiable. Take the uniform and everything it represented away, and he was just terrified man. In his mind, he was simply doing his duty to his nation. A duty he’d perform to the very end, though he detested it.

  Charlie didn’t like it either. A strange thing. He’d killed hundreds, if not thousands of men by ordering torpedoes launched. Now here he was, discomforted by the prospect of sentencing a single man to death.

  Percy was right. The propaganda served an important purpose. Nameless, faceless demons were far easier to fight than real, flesh-and-blood men were. The more nightmarish and monstrous the enemy, the easier he was to kill.

  Charlie said, “Lieutenant Tanaka, you are hereby sentenced to death. The United States Navy will punish you. It’s up to God to forgive you.”

  The crew’s throaty cheers filled the boat.

  “SILENCE!” Charlie roared. “Do you understand the punishment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have anything to say before punishment is carried out?”

  “I told you I would die soon,” Tanaka said.

  “That was your choice. Smokey, remove the prisoner.”

  Tanaka’s stony expression faltered. “Wait. Please.”

  “Yes?”

  “Please let me die in daylight. I want to see my country one la
st time.”

  “Very well. Punishment will be carried out topside at dawn. Court adjourned.”

  Sailors hauled Tanaka away. Exhausted, Charlie slumped with his head supported by his hands. The execution he ordered was simple justice, a necessary act. Still, he wouldn’t feel joy at the man’s death.

  A horrible waste, all of it.

  His head throbbed under the bandage. His ribs ached with each breath. Pain lanced from his knee to his hip as he hauled himself to his feet.

  Little time to sleep and heal. Too much to do to put Sandtiger to rights. By tomorrow, she’d be free of the Sea of Okhotsk and back in the Pacific. From there, she’d cruise to Midway to continue repairs and replenish her provisions.

  Meanwhile, the boat was a shambles, held together by sheer stubbornness. Every system damaged. The crew labored to repair leaks, restore function, and jury-rig fixes that hopefully would see them arrive safely at Midway.

  Percy approached. “Hey, Exec?”

  What could it be now? “Yeah?”

  “I just wanted to say sorry I tried to contravene your orders. No excuse, Exec. It won’t happen again. I lost my shit back there. Okay, that’s my excuse.”

  “Percy, we have a lot of work to do,” Charlie said. “I’ve got bigger things on my mind right now. If we make it back to Oahu alive and intact, I’ll remember to tell you not to do it again or I’ll keel-haul you. Sound good?”

  The man grinned. “Sounds fine, Exec.”

  “Carry on.”

  As he reached the passage, Charlie called out to him.

  Percy turned. “Yeah?”

  He said, “Splice the mainbrace, if any of the bottles survived the battle. After what we went through, better make it a double ration.”

  The communications officer sketched a salute. “Aye, aye!”

  Charlie returned to his stateroom and stretched his battered body on his bunk.

  Then Smokey was shaking him. “Dawn soon, Mr. Harrison.”

  He blearily checked his watch. Two hours gone in a wink. He accepted a cup of coffee from the quartermaster. “Thank you. You know, you might try to catch some shuteye yourself.”

  “When I’m dead, sir. When I’m dead.”

  Charlie changed into a fresh uniform and mounted to the conning tower. “Attention, sections two and three,” he said over the 1MC. “All hands, bury the dead.” He flicked the switch to OFF. “Helm, reduce speed to one-third.”