Silent Running: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 2) Page 4

  Hunter and Lewis stiffened. Charlie fought hard to control himself. He said, “Captain Kane was twice the man you’ll ever be, Bryant. So shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

  “Easy, fellas,” Lewis warned.

  “I didn’t mean any offense,” Bryant protested.

  “You can give me the usual shit you give the new guy around here, but don’t disrespect a dead man who gave his life for his country.”

  Bryant was Charlie’s height but twice his width. “Or you’ll do what?”

  “Enough,” Hunter said, his face reddening. “Deal the next hand, Walt.”

  “This is what I’ve been talking about, Captain,” the exec said as he dealt the cards.

  “We talked it to death. The buck stops with me.”

  “A captain’s only as good as his crew.” He shot a sharp glance at Bryant and then Charlie. “Ask me, the whole barrel’s rotten.”

  “We’ll do better next time.” Hunter forced a smile. “Like you, Harrison, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie said, surprised by the exchange. Was the exec blaming Sabertooth’s bad luck on the crew? Was Hunter blaming himself? “My luck’s bound to turn around sometime.”

  “A good player makes his own luck. A good player never blames it.” Hunter’s smile became more genuine. “You’ve taken your beating well.”

  “It’s just a game, sir.”

  “It’s never just a game. Something every man learns sooner or later.”

  The play resumed. Lewis led with Clubs, and the rest followed suit. Bryant took the first trick.

  On the next trick, Bryant put down the King of Spades.

  Hunter dropped the Queen of Spades on top of it, dumping points on the engineering officer. “Right or wrong, never disrespect a captain. Something else a man should learn.”

  Charlie suppressed a smile. The hazing, it seemed, was over.

  Path of Sabertooth from Pearl to Mindanao, December 5-14, 1942.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE CONVOY

  Charlie swept the surface with Sabertooth’s periscope. Under thick clouds, strong winds drove the anxious sea. Otherwise, he saw nothing. Still, he felt satisfied. Sabertooth was close to Japanese shipping lanes now, which promised action.

  “Down scope,” he said. “Planes, 200 feet.”

  “Two hundred feet, aye, Mr. Harrison.”

  Charlie loved periscope watch. It was the closest he got to tasting command.

  The yeoman said, “Mr. Harrison?”

  “What do you need, Yeo?”

  “Me and some of the other guys were wondering what it was like. When the 55 sank the Mizukaze. Did the exec really try to take him by boarding?”

  Some of the men turned their heads to hear what he had to say. After more than a week at sea, they were a motley crew. Blue shirts and dungarees smudged with diesel oil. Some stripped down to their skivvy shirts in the heat. All sported stubble and beards.

  They were pirates, and now they looked the part.

  He remembered listening to the 55’s crew describe what it had been like at Cavite during the bombing. Now he was the one with the story to tell. And what a story.

  “The Mizukaze had already wiped out most of the gun crew. Then he scored a hit on our sail that took out the bridge and conning tower. We were dead in the water. He rammed us but ended up riding up over the deck.”

  The men stared at him, mouths hanging open.

  “The exec came out the weapons hatch with about half the crew and yelled, ‘I’m taking that ship.’”

  They grinned at that.

  In his mind’s eye, Charlie saw Reynolds plummet into the sea. “He …”

  “Control, Sound,” the soundman said. “Multiple screws, north by northwest.”

  Charlie shook his head to get rid of the memory. “Bearing?”

  “Bearing, one-nine-oh. Heavy and light screws. Estimated range, about 9,000 yards.”

  A convoy! Charlie thought. That, or a battle group. “Let’s have a look. Planes, sixty-five feet.”

  When the boat leveled off at periscope depth, he ordered, “Up scope.”

  He bent his knees and rose with the four-inch number one periscope. A burst of cold water splashed his hair and shoulders, but he barely noticed. He hugged the scope with his left arm and gripped the handle with his other hand. Then he circled to make sure there was nothing up there that could get a jump on him.

  No ships or planes. Nothing but a rolling carpet of whitecaps. Every few seconds, a wave washed over the scope. With only a little scope showing, it would be hard to spot in these seas.

  The soundman said, “Estimated speed on the heavy screws is ten knots.”

  Charlie zeroed on the enemy ship’s bearing and made out a dark smudge in the gloom. A trail of smoke. He flipped the scope to six-time magnification and adjusted the focus. Then he saw it.

  Christ, it was big.

  “I’ve got eyes on a Jap ship,” he told the control room. “I’ve never seen one like it.” He centered the periscope’s crosshairs on the smokestack and whispered, “Boom.”

  He described the ship to Gibson, the quartermaster. Gibson checked the submarine’s reference book of Japanese merchant ships.

  “Sounds like a whale factory, Mr. Harrison,” the quartermaster said. “Maybe converted to military use. Sixteen thousand tons.”

  “Makes a nice fat target, doesn’t it, Gibson?”

  The quartermaster grinned. He was an old-timer in the submarines and lived for them, the kind of guy who had diesel in his veins. “Certainly, sir.”

  Charlie read the stadimeter, which estimated range based on the ship’s height above the waterline. “I’ve got the range at 9,000 yards.” Another ship came into view. “Yeo, wake the captain and tell him we’ve spotted a convoy.”

  “Aye, aye, Mr. Harrison.” The yeoman hustled off.

  Charlie returned to the eyepiece and settled in. He guessed the second ship in line was a freighter. If the target had a single mast, it was usually a warship. More than one, likely a merchant. If the masts were spaced close together, it was probably a freighter or tanker.

  He described the ship in as much detail as possible.

  “Pretty sure that’s the Kushiro Maru,” Gibson told him after consulting the reference book. “He’s a freighter. Seven thousand tons.”

  After that, Charlie spotted a troop transport. Then a tanker, another freighter, and the escort. One, no, two ships. Chidori torpedo boats, submarine killers capable of speeds over thirty knots. Equipped with guns, sonar, good torpedoes, and thirty-six depth charges each.

  “Down scope! Helm, come left to two-two-oh.”

  “Come left to two-two-oh, aye, sir.” The helmsman turned the annunciator. The controller responded with a bell chime.

  There’d be hell to pay with those Chidoris, but they had a good setup, and that convoy was a beautiful target.

  Hunter arrived buttoning his shirt. “What have you found for me, Harrison? Up scope!”

  Charlie stepped aside to allow the captain to circle three times, checking for hazards. Hunter settled on the convoy’s bearing and whistled.

  Charlie frowned; did he smell brandy on the captain’s breath? “I’ve put us on an intercept course, bearing two-two-oh.”

  “Yup.” Hunter chewed his beard. “Down scope.”

  Charlie forced himself to shut up. Wait. Attack. Run. It was the skipper’s call. The seconds ticked by. The men in the control room tensed, waiting for the order.

  “Battle stations, torpedo,” Hunter said.

  Charlie smiled as the battle stations alarm honked throughout the submarine.

  Gibson announced over the 1MC, “Battle stations, torpedo.”

  Across the boat, all hands rushed to stations. The control room lights extinguished, replaced by red lighting that enhanced night vision.

  “Harrison, take over tracking from Gibson,” Hunter said.

  “Aye, aye, Captain!”

  Hunter shook his head at Cha
rlie’s enthusiasm. “Helm, all ahead full. Steady as she goes.”

  “All ahead full, aye, Captain,” the helmsman said.

  Lewis and Liebold arrived. Liebold took his station near the TDC.

  “What’s the play, Skipper?” Lewis asked.

  Hunter kept his face pressed against the scope’s eyepiece. “Don’t know yet, Walt.”

  “If we attack, they’ll know we’re here.”

  The captain clapped the scope’s handles back into place. “Down scope.”

  Feeling anxious, Charlie glanced at the man. Sabertooth should attack these ships with everything she had. That’s why they were here!

  Hunter said, “Sound, keep those bearings coming on the heavy screws.”

  “Bearing, one-nine-five, one-night-five, one-nine-five and a half—”

  Charlie continued plotting the positions of the submarine and the convoy. He spared a quick glance at the men in the control room. He could feel them coming together for the attack. Becoming part of a complex machine designed to kill ships.

  The convoy zigzagged in an irregular pattern, but Charlie had their base course in hand. He was starting to piece it together. In about two minutes, the merchants in the convoy would likely zig to port.

  Lewis eyed the captain. “Skipper?”

  “Yeah,” Hunter grunted.

  Charlie sensed a change in atmosphere. He looked up and saw the exec give a pointed glance at the attack periscope. They should be getting visual bearing, range, angle on the bow.

  “Two Chidoris up there,” the captain said. “You know our lousy luck. I hate to let this convoy go, but it’s too much risk to the mission.”

  Charlie’s heart sank. He couldn’t believe his ears.

  Hunter said, “Helm, come left to two-double-oh. Secure from battle stations.”

  Sabertooth cruised on without taking a single shot.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE CAPTAIN’S CALL

  His duties completed, Charlie stormed back to his tiny room and threw himself on his rack. He hugged his pillow to his face and let loose a string of obscenities.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” he raged.

  Liebold entered the room. “Jesus, look at you. Claustrophobia come back?”

  Charlie flung the pillow aside. “I think I figured out the source of Sabertooth’s bad luck. I think the captain’s lost his nerve.”

  Liebold crouched and sighed. “Maybe.”

  “Come on. You were there. You saw it.”

  “It’s easy for us to criticize. There were a lot of factors.”

  “He didn’t even try!”

  Liebold said nothing for a while. Finally, he said, “Guess how many torpedo attacks sink a Jap ship. Take a wild guess.”

  The question surprised him. He knew the rule of thumb. A salvo of three torpedoes fired at a range of a thousand yards had an 80 +/-10 percent chance of hitting a decent-sized target. It was why they fired a spread instead of a single torpedo. It improved the odds.

  But many attacks involved engaging targets at long range. And the target’s bearing and speed estimates weren’t always accurate.

  “More than half,” he ventured.

  “Try around one in ten, Charlie.”

  He whistled, forgetting his anger. “Wow. They all miss?”

  “Maybe.”

  Charlie thought about the number of variables involved in a torpedo attack. Range, bearing, speed, angle on the bow. All these values had to be accurately pegged for the TDC to produce a good firing solution. The gyros that guided the torpedoes had to work. The torpedoes themselves had many mechanisms that each had to do their job perfectly.

  Liebold said, “I met a junior officer in Darwin who served on the Seawolf. Fred Warder commanded her, and talk about a skipper with balls; he had ’em. At Luzon, he slipped past a destroyer guarding a harbor. Spotted a seaplane tender tied up and waiting like a sitting duck. He conned the boat for a straight bow shot and fired four torpedoes at 3,800 yards. Nothing. He backed off a bit and fired another four at him from the stern tubes. Nothing.”

  Charlie sat up in his bunk. He couldn’t believe it. “He completely flubbed it.”

  “You think so, huh?”

  “He missed a big target that wasn’t moving with eight torpedoes.”

  “That’s right.”

  He thought about it. It wasn’t the speed, as the target wasn’t moving. It was a straight bow shot, and they’d observed the torpedoes going in; the TDC and gyros worked. “Maybe the Jap ships have a shallower draft than we think they have.”

  “Some captains think that. But that’s not it.”

  “You’re not telling me something. Did he flub it or not? What do you think?”

  “I think our torpedoes don’t work.”

  Charlie stared at him and said, “Christ, you can’t be serious about that.”

  “On the 55, you used the old Mark 10s, right?”

  “Yeah. They didn’t pack enough TNT to sink a lot of ships. The gyros stuck. Some went erratic. We fired a lot of duds.”

  “But they generally worked. The Mark 14s we use don’t. I think they’re rotten, and I’m not talking a few apples. I’m saying the whole damn barrel.”

  Charlie couldn’t believe it. He remembered how everybody on the S-55 envied the fleet boats for having the Mark 14. The torpedoes weren’t as good as what the Japanese and Germans had, but in the American Navy, they were state of the art. The Mark 14 weighed more than one and a half tons, including 700 pounds of explosive. The fish traveled up to 4,500 yards at forty-six knots or twice that at about thirty knots.

  While the Mark 10 detonated on contact, the Mark 14 had a magnetic exploder. That way, it could be fired under the lightly armored keel of a battleship and blow up on contact with the ship’s magnetic field. The explosion broke the ship’s back and sent it straight to the bottom.

  Instead of doing that, the torpedoes tended to explode before they reached their targets. Liebold told him wasn’t the only problem with the Mark 14s.

  “Let me tell you about another captain I heard about. Captain Tyrrell Jacobs, commander of the Sargo. Before the war, he served at the Bureau of Ordnance, so he understood how the torpedoes were designed. After some misses, he knew something was wrong. He disabled the magnetic exploder but kept missing. He believed the torpedoes were running deeper than they were supposed to run.”

  And they had yet another problem. When the Mark 14 hit a target dead on, it failed to explode. Possibly a design flaw in the firing pin. Liebold told him how Sabertooth had struck three targets with torpedoes on previous patrols, only to hear a jarring thud and nothing more.

  “Damn.” Charlie shook his head. “If you’re right, why don’t they just fix the lousy torpedoes?”

  Liebold shrugged. “Who knows? The captains complain, but nothing happens.”

  “I’ll tell you why. It’s the Navy. Once the Navy comes up with an idea it thinks is the right one, it only accepts results that support that idea.”

  “Makes sense. The Bureau of Ordnance blames the commanders. Any shit the skippers throw at the Mark 14 rolls right back downhill on them.”

  “All right. But it sounds like there are workarounds. Why doesn’t Hunter modify the torpedoes and shoot them shallow at an oblique angle?”

  “You know that’s against regulations,” Liebold said. “It’s also damned risky to fool around with $10,000 torpedoes that could blow up in your face. And I’m not sure Hunter believes the torpedoes are the problem anyway. I think he blames himself.”

  “Damn.”

  “We’re shooting blanks half the time. It’s enough to make a man like the skipper second-guess himself. That’s what you saw today.”

  Charlie nodded. It would. He understood now.

  Liebold went on, “I’m trusting you a heck of a lot by telling you all this, Charlie. Just as you trusted me with your doubts about the Old Man.”

  “I won’t say a word, I promise.”

  “Do yourself a f
avor and watch your back on this boat. Walt Lewis loves the captain. He blames the crew for our record. Get on his bad side, and he’ll hang that failed attack on your plotting. Understand?”

  “For Pete’s sake,” Charlie said. “I thought the Japs were the enemy.”

  “Speaking of which, watch your back around Bryant too.”

  “Him, I can’t figure out. Why does he have it in for me?”

  “That’s an easy one. Bryant thinks he should be captain. Then some hotshot comes aboard and reminds him of everything he’s not. Somebody who’s senior to him but has less experience.”

  Charlie thought about it. “What about Hunter? Does he have it in for me too?”

  “Him, least of all, I’d think. But he’s under a ton of pressure. Just make it clear you’re on his team. See what I mean about loose lips getting you in trouble around here?”

  “You weren’t kidding.” Charlie studied the man’s face. “What about you, Jack? Can I count on you?”

  Liebold’s face fell. Charlie immediately regretted asking him that. The man already showed him trust; no, Liebold was probably the only friend he had on this boat. He added quickly, “Sorry. That was a dumb thing to say.”

  “You want the honest truth? Charlie, sometimes I can’t even stand to look at you.”

  Charlie didn’t know what to say. He just stared. Finally, he sputtered, “Why’d you say that? What did I ever do to you?”

  The man’s face twisted into a mask of bitterness. “You showed me what’s possible, that’s what. The things you did in the Solomons in an old sugar boat! The things you saw. What you survived. The victories. Goddamn, what I wouldn’t give to have been there! Now you’re here, and nothing’s going to change. We’ve got a great boat, a great crew, and a captain who knows what he’s doing. But with these torpedoes, most of the time, when we shoot, we’re just drilling holes in the water!”

  “The war’s not going to end anytime soon, Jack. They’ll figure it out.”

  “If we live that long! You showed me what can be done with working torpedoes and the right amount of guts. We should all be getting the same results. With this boat, who knows what we could do? But I’ve got the feeling your patrol was the oddity, Charlie, not us. We’re what’s normal.”