Silent Running: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 2) Read online

  “We could do something about it,” Charlie ventured. “The torpedoes.”

  “What can we do? This is how things are, pal. Until they change, you and me, we’ve just got to deal with it.” Liebold sighed. “You want some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Stop trying to win the war and just do your damn job.”

  Charlie couldn’t shake the belief they should be one and the same.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HARA-KIRI

  Charlie lay on his bunk listening to Liebold snore in the bed above him. His exhausted body craved sleep, but his mind was running.

  Evie’s refusal, the hazing, the secrets, the grinding work, the tension of waiting. None of it compared to the agony of passing up that convoy.

  He put up with all of it, had volunteered for such hazardous duty in the first place, just to take down ships. Ships the captain allowed to steam right past.

  Liebold was wrong. This wasn’t just a job to him; it was war. Christ, if it were just a job, he would have stayed home in Tiburon, working a full day and coming home to Evie every night. Not out here, giving up everything to risk his life at the edge of the world.

  If the Navy couldn’t give them torpedoes that worked, why were they bothering? Maybe Liebold was onto something after all.

  It smacked of giving up, though, and Charlie couldn’t do that.

  Reading Rusty Grady’s latest letters from PXO School, he tried to find his center. His friend was doing well and would be assigned as exec of his own boat soon. Rusty had proved time and again wise beyond his years. He’d been right about so many things. Not least of which was how Charlie, in his zeal to find himself in war, had blown it with a great woman and lost a chance to find out who he truly was. One thing Rusty said had always stuck in his craw, however.

  On the way to Rabaul, he’d said Charlie had a death wish. Not a conscious wish, but it was there. The foolish desire of young men to be tested in battle. There might have been some truth to that. He wasn’t sure. For him, the war was a personal contest, not just a duel of nations.

  But this, steaming into Japanese waters with broke-dick torpedoes. That struck Charlie as a true death wish. What were they doing here?

  He opened his eyes. The room seemed to have shrunk. Goddamn. He didn’t need that too. The submarine sometimes made him feel buried alive. The strange, nagging thought that the complex machinery keeping her afloat would fail, and they’d plunge straight to the bottom, gasping for air until they all died in this ugly metal tomb.

  Or worse, that the massive pressures of the ocean would succeed and pour into the boat.

  He had to move. Head swirling, Charlie rolled off his rack to visit the head. Another bonus of serving in a fleet boat—stainless steel toilets. The ceramic toilets on the 55 had been reduced to shards and dust during the fight with the Mizukaze.

  Except this one, he noted with a sigh, refused to flush. It took eighteen steps just to work the damn thing, and now it wouldn’t flush.

  He found Bryant in the motor room with some auxiliarymen. They huddled around the access doors of one of the massive diesel engines.

  Bryant scowled at Charlie. “We’re kind of busy here, Harrison.”

  “The officers’ head needs to be repaired.”

  “Drop a torpedo on it, did you?”

  The auxiliarymen turned away to hide their grins.

  Charlie didn’t feel like playing. “Whenever you can get to it.”

  “How about you get to it, hotshot?”

  “Me?”

  “I’ve got my hands full with a broken piston rod. Next time we surface, I’d rather have all four mains online than a working shitter, wouldn’t you? Pick your man to do the work. Unless you’d rather fix this engine. I’d be happy to switch places with you.”

  Charlie growled, “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yippee! Maybe Uncle Charlie will give you another medal.”

  He left the laughing men and headed to the darkened enlisted men’s quarters. A group of off-duty sailors played a loud craps game on the floor between the rows of triple bunks. The men quieted at the sight of him.

  Charlie knew exactly who he wanted. “Where’s John Braddock?”

  He found the machinist lying in his bunk. The big man opened one glaring eye. “Fancy seeing you here among the serfs, Lieutenant.”

  “I knew I’d find you dogging it. Come on. I’ve got an emergency.”

  “You always do, sir. They seem to follow you around. All right, let’s go.”

  As Braddock gathered his tools, Charlie wondered why the man always gave him hell. Braddock had hazed him a bit on the S-55, true. Given him attitude at every opportunity. But together, they’d fixed the oil leak that allowed the Mizukaze to track the boat. They’d fought together on the 55’s bloody deck. Fired the final round that sank him. One might think they would have bonded over an experience like that.

  But Braddock was Braddock, and such things didn’t happen in Braddock’s world. Some guys are a natural-born pain in the ass. Built like a gorilla with a brain to match. With his claustrophobia pressing against his chest, Charlie almost wanted to scrap with the jerk. But he’d already decided not to take the man’s crap personally.

  Speaking of crap, Charlie had a special mission for him.

  Braddock bagged his tools and followed him to the officers’ head.

  And scowled. “You want me to fix your broke-dick toilet.”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s the emergency?”

  “Yup.”

  The man sighed. “Another fine Navy day.”

  “Don’t be so down about it, Braddock. I mean, there’s no need to commit hara-kiri or anything.”

  The machinist’s mate smiled and got to work.

  Charlie left him to it and returned to his bunk feeling light as a feather.

  He remembered Rusty saying something else that turned out to be true. It was the little things that got you through a war. The little things.

  He slept like a baby.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE FORTRESS

  Charlie awoke to the 1MC blaring, “Battle stations, torpedo!”

  Liebold was already on his way out the door. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  The general alarm bonged throughout the submarine. Charlie pulled on his sandals and rushed to the control room. He joined Bryant at the plotting table.

  The engineering officer said, “We found the Fortress!”

  Charlie stared at the plot, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “What?”

  “Yosai. Jap for ‘fortress,’ right? Soryu-class aircraft carrier. Eighteen thousand tons, carries seventy-five planes. Ring any bells, hotshot?”

  “God,” Charlie said.

  They’d found a carrier battle group.

  And not just any carrier. Yosai was one of the biggest aircraft carriers in the Imperial Japanese Navy, or IJN. That ship’s planes had rained hell on Pearl.

  At Midway, American planes had sunk four of the IJN’s heavy aircraft carriers. They only had three left capable of major offensive operations. Yosai was one of them.

  “What are these other ships?” Charlie asked.

  Bryant pointed to a dot on the plot. “Pachinko, a Zuiho-class light carrier, 11,000 tons, thirty planes. Originally built as a submarine tender and later converted to a carrier. The other ships are two heavy cruisers, six destroyers.”

  Charlie whistled. Six destroyers! That was a lot of tin.

  “Helm, left full rudder,” Hunter said. “Come to three-double-oh.”

  The captain was conning Sabertooth onto the enemy’s track.

  “He’s going to attack this time,” Charlie said.

  Bryant said, “It’s like you were saying, Harrison. Some opportunities, you can’t pass up.”

  Hunter said, “Let’s do this right, boys. We put Yosai down, Uncle Charlie’s going to buy us all a case of beer.”

  The men chuckled. Admiral Lockwood would certainly be delighted.
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  Charlie gaped at the captain with a growing sense of unease in his gut. Normally, he’d jump out of his skin at the prospect of taking a crack at a carrier. After hearing what Liebold had said about the lousy torpedoes, though, he had a bad feeling about the attack.

  Charlie glanced at the torpedo officer, who stood near the TDC, which was warming up. They made eye contact. The torpedo officer offered him a sad smile.

  “Hey,” Bryant said. “Do your damn job, Harrison.”

  Charlie snapped out of it. Whatever was about to happen, these men depended on him with their lives.

  The engineering officer shook his head. “I didn’t think hotshots got scared.”

  “Up scope!” Hunter said. He rotated the periscope to make sure there were no ships nearby and then turned toward the target bearing. “I’ve got him in my sights. A handsome devil, our Yosai. I can see the planes on his decks. Sailors in white uniforms. Hey, Walt, I’m looking at two Japs saluting each other. The Jap sailors all know karate, did you know that?”

  “I did not, Skipper,” Lewis said, though his smile suggested this might be an old routine.

  “Every time they salute, they knock themselves overboard.”

  The men laughed.

  Hunter said, “Bearing! Mark!”

  “Bearing, oh-five-oh!” Lewis called out from the other side of the periscope, reading off the bearing ring on the shaft.

  The TDC operator fed the bearing into the TDC.

  “Range! Mark!”

  “Range, 3,900 yards!”

  “Angle on the bow, oh-four-oh port! Speed, thirty knots! Down scope!”

  The TDC operator cranked the computer’s dials. For a submarine to shoot a torpedo and strike a moving object, the captain had to know bearing, range, angle on the bow, and speed.

  Most attacks failed due to errors in the approach. This was where an experienced crew proved its mettle, by quickly and accurately assessing the target.

  Hunter went to the table and stared at the plot while the soundman called out bearings. “Liebold!”

  “Captain?”

  “We’ll fire a spread of four fish at Yosai.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Liebold said.

  “All compartments, rig for depth charge. Rig for silent running.”

  With so many tin cans on the surface, he was expecting to catch hell. The crew turned off the ventilation blowers and refrigerator motors. They put the helm and the planes on manual control. All nonessential personnel reported to their bunks. Loud thuds echoed through the boat as sailors shut and dogged the watertight doors. All unnecessary lights went out.

  The telephone talker said, “All compartments report rigged for depth charge. Rigged for silent running.”

  “Very well. How long until he comes, Harrison?”

  Charlie did a quick calculation. “Six minutes, fifteen seconds. He zigged eight minutes ago, at twelve minutes. Another zig due in about two minutes, at fourteen minutes. Probably to port.”

  “Distance to the track?”

  “Three thousand yards.”

  Together, they worked out the final approach. With the air-conditioning turned off, the boat’s temperature climbed steadily.

  Bryant tapped the plot. “Recommend we take him here, sir.”

  “No.” Charlie pointed to another location. “Here.”

  “Do it like this, and we can get more way.” The boat could shoot at a closer range. “It’s the normal approach course.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Not the way they’re zigging. We’ll end up shooting up the skirt, Captain.”

  They’d be shooting at Yosai’s stern, a harder target to hit.

  “We can hit him broadside here at 2,400 yards,” Charlie said.

  The captain chewed the inside of his lip. “Helm, come left to two-nine-five.”

  “Come left to two-nine-five, aye, Captain.”

  Bryant scowled. Charlie didn’t care. This wasn’t about winning whatever big-dick contest the engineering officer imagined they were having. This was life and death. This was war. With six destroyers and two cruisers on the surface, they were all about to get the worst beating they’d ever taken in their lives.

  First, he wanted to sink that aircraft carrier.

  The soundman said, “A ship in the port screen is coming right at us, Captain.”

  Charlie growled. If the destroyers detected Sabertooth before she could take her shot, they’d get their beating without doing anything.

  Hunter returned to the periscope. “Up scope! I’ve got him. Bearing, mark! Range, mark! Angle on the bow, double-oh-eight port. Down scope! Sound, keep the bearings coming on that escort.”

  The soundman focused on the destroyer’s high-speed light screws bearing down on Sabertooth. “Oh-four-four, oh-four-four, oh-four-four and a half, oh-four-four and a half, oh-four-five—”

  whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh

  The men gaped at the overhead bulkhead as the thrash of the destroyer’s screws flooded the boat. They collectively held their breath.

  “Oh-four-five and a half—I’ve lost him, Captain.”

  The sound was all over the dial. The soundman had lost his fix. Charlie listened to the bang and churn of machinery as the destroyer passed close aboard.

  But no depth charges. No echo ranging. The Japanese still didn’t know they were there. Charlie remembered to breathe and let out a relieved sigh.

  The destroyer was out of the way. Now they could focus on their quarry again.

  “Sound, pick up the carrier,” Hunter said. “Bearing oh-four-oh.”

  “Aye, Captain.” A moment later: “Heavy screws, bearing oh-four-two.”

  Charlie wiped sweat from his eyes. The control room was getting hotter by the minute. He looked up and realized the captain was eyeballing him.

  Hunter smiled and said, “Ready to make history, Harrison?”

  Despite his bravado, the man’s eyes told the real story. Hunter didn’t believe the torpedoes worked right either. There was a good chance they were going to do nothing more than shoot holes in the water. Mark a nice, neat trail leading straight to their position.

  Then they’d lose the initiative, and the destroyers would hammer them.

  No sane man would go up against such an enemy with torpedoes that didn’t work. This wasn’t an attack. It was flirting with suicide.

  Talk about a death wish.

  But some opportunities, you just can’t pass up. As a submarine commander, Hunter had to try. The man was under enormous pressure, and only half of it came from the Japanese. He had to produce results or let another man take his place.

  There was still a chance, Charlie told himself. Sometimes, the torpedoes worked. One out of ten attacks succeeded, Liebold had said. Long odds, but there was a chance.

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie said. “We can do this.” He looked at the plot and did a final mental calculation. “We’re set up. Shoot anytime.”

  The captain nodded and returned to his station. “Up scope.” He rose with the periscope, eye glued to the piece. “I’ve got him. He’s coming on. Forward room, order of tubes is one, two, three, four. Make ready the tubes.”

  “Depth and speed, Captain?”

  “Set depth at fourteen feet. High speed.”

  Charlie caught Liebold’s eye. Liebold shook his head. He held a stopwatch.

  The tubes flooded with seawater. The outer doors opened with a thump. This was it.

  The captain said, “Forward room, stand by … Final bearing, mark!”

  “Set!” Liebold said. The firing solution matched.

  The TDC operator locked in the data. The TDC transmitted the firing angles to the torpedo gyros.

  Hunter: “Fire one!”

  Liebold pressed the plunger on the firing panel. “Firing one!”

  Forced air burst at a pressure of 1,600 pounds per inch to launch the torpedo out of its tube. The boat shuddered as one and a half tons of metal and explosives pushed away and raced toward the target.


  Liebold watched eight seconds tick by on his stopwatch and punched the second plunger. “Firing two!”

  Then: “Firing three!”

  Then: “Firing four!”

  The four torpedoes streaked toward the distant IJN carrier.

  A cathartic moment for the crew, but it only lasted a moment. The tension quickly returned as they waited for the fish to strike home.

  “Bow planes, two-degrees down angle,” Lewis said. The sudden exit of so much weight had played hell with the boat’s trim. “All ahead two-thirds.”

  “Secure the forward tubes,” Hunter said. “Sound, stay on those puppies.”

  The soundman reported, “All torpedoes running hot, straight, and normal.”

  “Very well.” The captain clenched his fist and hissed, “Come on. Do it.”

  Liebold: “Ninety seconds to impact.”

  The second cathartic moment was coming. The moment the first torpedo burst and broke a hole in Yosai’s armor, exposing its innards to the sea.

  The quartermaster counted off the seconds. “Twenty-nine, thirty—”

  The boat shook as a hollow boom spread through the water and struck the hull, ringing it like a gong.

  The captain went rigid at the periscope. “That was a premature. A nice big warning for the Japs.”

  And a dinner bell. The torpedo wakes converged where supper was served.

  Hunter said, “Japs are running all over the deck. They’re pointing at the explosion. Yosai is turning hard to starboard to evade.”

  Lewis said, “The escorts, Skipper! Where are they?”

  The captain turned from the periscope and cried, “Dive, dive, dive!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SEESAW

  Crash dive. The diving alarm sounded. Charlie grabbed hold of a section of overhead piping as the boat angled to go deep fast.

  “Flood negative!” Hunter said. “Take her down, down, down!”

  The soundman called out, “Light screws! Bearing—”

  Doing his job, but he needn’t have bothered. They all heard the destroyers coming fast, their screws beating the water.