Hara-Kiri_a novel of the Pacific War Page 4

  Charlie took in the sight of his communications officer slouching in one of his loud Aloha shirts. “I hope they bring us as much luck as they did Moreau.”

  The man grinned. “I thought you’d approve.”

  “If you’re smart, you’ll push that luck to take things further with Barb.”

  “You get me back alive, and I might just do that, sir.”

  Charlie turned to Rusty. “Call the men to quarters.”

  The crew scrambled to muster on the black deck abaft of the bridge. Within moments, they stood at parade rest, fifty-four enlisted men plus the officers.

  He inspected the men, who stared back with expectant half smiles. They appeared rested, spirited, and ready for a fight.

  “Buccaneers,” he said. “Are you ready to sink ships?”

  “AYE, CAPTAIN!”

  He nodded to Rusty, who bellowed an order to get to stations.

  The Sandtiger’s engines rumbled to life, her exhaust vents belching smoke. The band on the pier deftly switched to “Anchors Aweigh” while the crowd cheered and waved. The relief crew on the Harder yelled encouragement and ribald insults at Morrison, who raised his clenched fist with a grin. From the Harder’s bridge, Captain Harvey glared at Charlie.

  “Stand by to single up!” Rusty cried. “Take in the gangway!” He reported, “Engines have full loading. We can get underway anytime, Captain.”

  “Very well,” Charlie said. “Take us out.”

  “Single up! Take in two and three! Take in four! Take the strain on one!” The lines piled on the deck. “Take in one!”

  Freed from her mooring, the Sandtiger’s horn blasted. The engines pulsed with potential energy, shooting vibrations through the deck and bridge coaming. They surged into Charlie and filled him with a fierce sense of power. The Sandtiger was a living thing, a wolf smelling blood, and he was a part of her.

  The old predator growled as she backed from the pier.

  “Helm, all ahead two-thirds,” Rusty ordered and broke into a happy smile at the prospect of returning to sea. “Right twenty degrees rudder.”

  The Sandtiger departed from the Submarine Base and dieseled across the busy harbor. Charlie called the men to salute the rusting corpse of the Arizona. The submarine navigated the Pearl Harbor Channel and at last found the sea.

  The Pacific sprawled before him, a vast magnificent blue, opportunity and the unknown rolled into one, like the future itself.

  He gazed upon it with hope and something more. Relief.

  The burdens of shore life dropped away, leaving him light and loose. No matter the challenges command and the war might throw at him, life was about to get a whole lot simpler. Charlie was ready to give himself wholeheartedly to his boat and the patrol, ready to grow into his new job and its enormous responsibilities.

  As the Sandtiger reached from shore, Rusty said, “We’re underway, Captain.”

  “It’s good to be back.”

  First step, a trim dive. The smaller complement of torpedoes and extra gun ammunition had challenged Nixon to distribute the load in proper balance. The dive would reveal any deficiencies.

  “Bridge, Conn,” Nixon said over the bridge loudspeaker.

  “This is the captain,” Charlie responded.

  “The radio isn’t working, sir. We can’t receive messages.”

  “Why isn’t it working?”

  Nixon launched into a long technical description of the problem until Charlie cut in, “How long until you can get it repaired?”

  “That’s the thing. We’re missing a part. It isn’t in the inventory.”

  “Can you jury-rig something?”

  Nixon hesitated. Charlie sensed the man was embarrassed. “Not for this problem, Captain.”

  “Then…”

  “We either have to go back for it,” Rusty said with disgust, “or make the run to Midway without a working radio.”

  Charlie’s fists clenched, but there was nothing to hit, nothing for him to do other than take this punch like a man.

  He turned to Rusty. “Suggestions?”

  “I laid out our options. They’re both shit.”

  His stomach sank. Within an hour of getting underway, he had to bring his boat back to port with its tail between its legs. Embarrassing. He told himself these things happened, but it was a bad start for his first patrol as captain.

  “Very well. Conn, Bridge. Left full rudder. We’re going to come about and return to base. And Nixon?”

  “Aye, Captain?”

  “Between now and our return, check everything. We’re only doing this once.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  The Sandtiger completed her ponderous turn and cruised back into the Pearl Harbor Channel. A submarine was coming their way.

  The Harder, manned by Captain Harvey and his crew.

  “He’s flashing a signal,” Rusty said.

  “An apology for leaving us with a non-working radio, maybe,” Charlie said.

  The submarines drew close to each other. Captain Harvey stood motionless on the bridge while his sailors waved. A blinker gun flashed a message in Morse code.

  Charlie’s fists clenched again.

  The message was, FORGET SOMETHING?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MIDWAY

  In the sweltering after engine room, Chief Machinist John Braddock crossed his hairy arms over his barrel chest. Now, he wore a peaked cap on his big head. While the officers and crew didn’t wear hats during a patrol, the chiefs often did to designate their status.

  “Saltwater,” he shouted over the throbbing engines. “In the reduction gears.”

  Charlie scoured his memory of the boat’s systems. “A leak between the bilges and the sumps?”

  The bilge was the space where the submarine’s bottom curved to join its vertical sides. Any water in the boat drained there until it was pumped out. The sump was the base of the engine, serving as a reservoir for lubricating oil.

  “We checked out the tank tops but didn’t see anything.”

  “Did you test the oil coolers?” Nixon said.

  Braddock tilted his head to signal he’d obviously done that. He’d take such a question from the captain but nobody else.

  Nixon didn’t seem to notice. “How do the gears look?”

  Charlie braced himself for bad news. The boat’s reduction gears allowed a decrease in output speed while maintaining the same rotational force, or torque. This very simple function enabled propulsion.

  The four main diesel engines drove four generators, which produced electric power to operate four motors. The motors drove the boat’s two propellers using reduction gears that lowered input speed from 1,300 rotations per minute to the 280 RPMs the propellers required.

  “A little rust,” Braddock said. “But no pitting. They’re good.”

  “Inspect the oil sumps and take samples daily,” Nixon said.

  The chief glanced at Charlie, who nodded.

  “Aye, aye, Mr. Nixon,” Braddock said.

  Charlie sighed. They’d had nothing but trouble since leaving Pearl Harbor five days ago. Unless ground in, the exhaust valves allowed water into the engine room bilges, which had to be pumped out or the engines would flood. A fuel oil leak from a damaged injector jumper line on the No. 2 main engine diluted the after sump, requiring a complete replacement of the lubricating oil. Then the connecting rod bearing of a unit in the auxiliary engine wiped, scoring the crankshaft.

  Problems like these were common enough on the submarines, due to defect, faulty installation, wear and tear, or battle damage. They weren’t supposed to happen this frequently and so soon after refitting.

  “I’m starting to think that relief crew sabotaged us,” Nixon said.

  “The boat’s past her prime,” Braddock said. “She got rattled one too many times scrapping with the Japs.” He patted the nearest engine humming on its mount. “The uglier she gets, the more love she needs.”

  “There’s a submarine tender at Midway. We should give her
a thorough check.”

  Charlie glanced at Braddock, who shook his head.

  Aside from staring at gooney birds, Midway offered no amusements. Submarine crews hated going on liberty there, preferring the fleshpots of Honolulu. They’d rather do drills than end up idle at the base. Charlie intended to stay as briefly as possible so he could get the Sandtiger into her patrol area on schedule.

  “Can you keep her in fighting trim?” he asked.

  The chief wiped his oily hands on a rag. “Yup. She’ll hold.”

  “We can’t afford any more delay.”

  “The crew thanks you, sir.”

  “All right,” he said. “Check the inventory. If this is how it’s going to be on this patrol, we’ll need plenty of spare parts. Tell Mr. Nixon what you need before we reach Midway.”

  “Aye, aye,” Braddock said and added, “sir.”

  A call from the conn came through on the 7MC. He picked up the sound-powered phone. “This is the captain.”

  “How bad is it?” Rusty asked him.

  “It’s like we’re back on Frankie.”

  The first boat on which he’d served with Rusty, the S-55, had been a broken-down sewer pipe, fickle and barely seaworthy. Battered and scarred, she’d held together long enough to get them home after one more good fight.

  Rusty snorted. “I remember that patrol well. You fought the Japs, while I fought Frankie. I just wanted to report we’ve made landfall.”

  At least the radar was working and they’d found Midway, which, being as small as it was, actually wasn’t an easy task. If nothing else, Charlie thought, I got that right.

  He stepped out of the engine compartment and mounted to the conning tower. “Take us in, Rusty. I’m going to the bridge.”

  “Wait.” His friend approached and added, “You look really wound up. You find out something’s wrong with the boat?”

  “It’s what I didn’t find that worries me,” Charlie said. “Nothing seems to be going right on this patrol, and it’s barely even started. I feel like I’m waiting for the next sucker punch.”

  Rusty relaxed. “That’s just first-command jitters. Try and take it easy. You can only deal with what you know. The rest will take care of itself.”

  “I’m still getting my sea legs on this job.” He started for the ladder and stopped with a self-deprecating chuckle. “You know, I got a letter from Evie just before we shoved off. She was worried about me. Said she had a dream I was drowning. I think she meant this job.”

  “Must have been that,” Rusty said, clearly rattled.

  “What’s with…? Oh, come on.”

  “Did Percy tell you about his dream where he goes home, and his family tells him he died in the war?”

  “It’s just a dream.”

  “Yeah, everybody keeps dreaming we’re going to die.”

  “How can you be so superstitious?”

  “You’re in the Navy. How can you not be?”

  “I can only deal with what’s in front of me—ah, okay.” Charlie laughed. “Well, that got my head on straight. Thanks for the talk, Rusty.”

  “Anytime,” Rusty said, still looking pale. “Sure thing.”

  Charlie mounted to the bridge. Seabirds shrieked in a bright blue sky as the Sandtiger cruised toward the Midway Atoll. Roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, and one-third of the way between Pearl and Tokyo, Midway was a chain of islands, coral reef, and seamounts.

  Before the war, the Navy considered it second only to Pearl in strategic importance and built an air station there. Since then, it had become a major base. Landfilling had doubled Sand Island’s size, and it was now home to a second airfield as well as a tender and floating dry dock servicing submarines.

  There, the Sandtiger would top her fuel tanks, pick up mail, and take on fresh stores. And most important, Charlie thought with a smile, he’d be able to open his sealed operation order, which would reveal his first war patrol as captain.

  An albatross cried and dive-bombed the submarine, dropping a turd that splatted on the bridge deck.

  Charlie frowned. Maybe somebody was trying to tell him something. He didn’t hold with superstition, but he was starting to see its merits.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AREA TWENTY

  The Sandtiger reached from Midway, plowing through calm sea on three mains. In the wardroom, Charlie and his officers gathered around the small table while Waldron, the steward, poured coffee all around.

  Percy flapped his Aloha shirt against his sweating chest. “Is it me, or is the boat hot as hell?”

  “We had a failure in the air conditioning,” Nixon said. “The A-gang is on it.”

  “It makes you wonder if the boat’s haunted.”

  Rusty’s eyes widened. “Will you guys stop saying stuff like that?”

  The communications officer grinned. “Vengeful spirits, Exec. All those Japs we killed? There’s a legend—”

  “Gentlemen.” Charlie held up an envelope, its seal broken. “Our operation order.”

  The men silenced to listen. Nixon slurped his coffee. Percy lit a cigarette and squinted behind a cloud of silver smoke.

  He read, “One, sink Japanese shipping.”

  The men smiled. Sinking enemy ships was a standing order in the submarines.

  “Two, we’ll be doing that in Area Twenty, which is the good news.” Charlie spread a chart on the table. “It’s a stretch of water off the east coast of the Philippines.” He tapped it. “Covering Samar Island to about here.” In terms of area, Area Twenty was about the size of New Jersey.

  No major shipping lanes, which were to the west, but they’d expected that. Still, the patrol area straddled minor sea lanes between Manila and Peleliu, which was under assault by the U.S. Marines, and between Manila and Davao on Mindanao Island.

  Legend had it the Spanish explorers who’d first arrived at Samar found a wounded man and asked him the name of the island. Not understanding Spanish, the man answered, “samad,” which meant “cut” or “wound.”

  “We might bag a troopship heading for Peleliu,” Charlie added. “Maybe some trawlers and coasters in the local traffic.”

  Morrison perked up. “Sounds like a job for my commandos.”

  Charlie nodded. “Three, we’re going to monitor the area for enemy warships. If we see any, we’re not to engage. We’re to radio it in. ComSubPac also wants us to take intelligence photos along the coast.”

  Other submarines were on station surrounding the islands. ComSubPac intended to throttle the Philippines.

  “That’s not a bad first patrol for you, Captain,” Percy said.

  “With ten lousy torpedoes, we’ll have to make every shot count,” Rusty said.

  “On the plus side,” Morrison pointed out, “we’re almost guaranteed a clean sweep.”

  “Now that we’re past Midway, there’s something I need to tell you about this patrol,” Charlie said. “Or rather, Nixon will. Tell them about the secret weapon.”

  “Secret weapon?” Morrison’s eyes lit up. “I like it already.”

  “Defensive measure, really,” Nixon said. “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Pillenwerfer and the Sieglinde.”

  The men returned blank stares, which Charlie didn’t find surprising. The Americans fighting across the Pacific were jealous about their side of the war, largely unaware of what was happening in the European theater. Charlie himself only just learned the Allies had liberated Paris after reading one of the newspapers Braddock brought aboard.

  “Come on, guys,” Nixon huffed. “You need to keep up with the scuttlebutt.”

  “Fill them in,” Charlie said.

  “The Germans developed two countermeasures we were able to copy. The Pillenwerfer, which means ‘pill thrower,’ is a metal can filled with calcium hydride. Seawater reacts with it and makes a huge amount of hydrogen, which bubbles out of the can.”

  “And the Japs bomb the bubbles instead of us,” Percy said. “Sweet cherry pie.”

 
Rusty said, “How long does it last?”

  “Twenty minutes, supposedly,” Nixon told him. “Maybe twenty-five.”

  “What’s the other upgrade?”

  “The Sieglinde, which is Kraut for ‘shield.’ It’s a straight-up sonar decoy. We shoot it from the sides of the boat. Electric motors keep it going at a speed of six knots, and rise and fall in depth. On sonar, it sounds just like a submarine.”

  “While we make tracks on silent running.” Percy’s face glowed like a kid given a shiny new toy. “I’m so happy.”

  Like all submariners, he hated being depth charged. While Japanese depth charging was largely ineffective except in shallow waters, that didn’t stop it from being terrifying. The only way Charlie could describe it was like being on the ground floor of a collapsing building.

  “It’s brand new,” he said. “We were lucky to be in refitting when the first arrived. We’re one of the only boats in the entire Pacific to have it.”

  Rusty shrugged. “I’ll love it if it works. The Navy still can’t make a decent torpedo.”

  The Navy had finally acknowledged and fixed the problems with the Mark 14 and then put out the new and improved Mark 18, a wakeless torpedo. Still, one out of three shots fired was a dud or went erratic in the water. Some went on terrifying circular runs, putting the submarine at risk of sinking itself.

  “Ideally, we won’t need to use them at all,” Charlie pointed out. “It’s insurance, there if we need it. By the time we reach Area Twenty, we’ll need to have the crew properly trained on the procedures. Nixon, see to it.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The meeting broke up soon after that. Rusty returned to his duties while Percy and Nixon headed for some rack time. Charlie sat alone, drinking his coffee and feeling a solid deck under his feet for the first time since the patrol started.

  Evie’s dream, a seabird dropping a fecal bomb on his deck, getting stiffed on torpedoes, the patrol’s false start, the boat’s systems going broke dick one by one—bad omens, maybe, but none of it mattered anymore. The operation order was good news. Area Twenty offered solid hunting prospects.