Battle Stations: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 3) Read online

  “Helm, come left to two-seven-oh.” Moreau rubbed his hands to warm them.

  Charlie went blind as pea-soup fog enveloped the boat.

  “‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,’” Percy said, quoting Dante’s Inferno.

  Charlie felt the same foreboding. They headed into dangerous, unknown waters. In May, the Pickerel was presumed lost just on the other side of the Kuriles, off the coast of Hokkaido.

  As with other submarine losses during the war, nobody knew what happened. The boat never came home. It simply disappeared.

  Light! “Captain, ship off the starboard bow!”

  Sandtiger was off course!

  Way off course, in fact. Moreau had turned due west too early. Sandtiger now headed straight into the minefields hemming the safe channel.

  “That’s Nijogan,” Moreau growled. “The Reds keep a lighthouse on it.”

  Percy snorted.

  “Ah, right,” Charlie said. Shit.

  He’d been about to recommend conning Sandtiger north. Right into it.

  Moreau: “Sugar Jig, give me another sweep on the PPI.”

  A minute later, the conning tower reported, “The radar’s down, Captain.”

  “Uh-huh,” the captain seethed.

  “I’ll go, sir,” Charlie said.

  “Stay at your station. Nixon’s on it.”

  The boat labored to make way, her speed diminishing. The strait’s powerful current flowed east during the summer.

  “Contact!” Charlie said. “Three-five-oh on the port bow. He’s lighted.”

  The ship appeared to be heading due east.

  “Keep her so,” Moreau ordered the helmsman.

  Sandtiger maintained her heading. The Russian ship steamed past, lights burning in the inky blackness.

  Nixon’s voice over the intercom: “Sugar Jig back in operation, Captain.”

  A blown fuse, probably. Amazing how equipment always seemed to fail when needed most. At least this breakdown had a simple fix.

  “Very well! Now give me a damn sweep!”

  Radar revealed landmasses around them. Nijogan and Sakhalin to the northwest, Hokkaido to the southeast. Ships coming and going.

  Sandtiger entered La Pérouse.

  “In the old days,” said Moreau, “a ship’s crew listened for the sea lions making a ruckus on the rock. That’s how they knew where Nijogan was.”

  “That’s interesting,” Percy said in breathless terror.

  Right now, the submarine was passing through the minefields.

  The mines swayed in the black depths, waiting.

  If the captain felt scared, he didn’t show it. He didn’t seem to experience fear, only impatience. “Conn, Bridge. Time check.”

  Sunrise was coming fast.

  The fog might protect them. It might not. Sandtiger had to submerge soon, but first she had to clear the minefields.

  The submarine slowed a little, labored a little harder to make way. The Soviet ship ahead blew his foghorn. The ship astern answered.

  Charlie had a thought. “Captain, the safe channel may not be mined above a depth of seventy feet.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “The Japs are going out of their way not to anger Stalin. A depth of forty feet is only a five-foot margin of error. They wouldn’t risk sinking a Russian ship. I think they mined the channel at seventy feet. We might submerge if we had to.”

  At periscope depth, the submarine reached a depth of sixty-five feet, five above the deadly horned mines floating in the deep. Still a close shave, but at least they’d be underwater and out of sight.

  “Maybe,” the captain said. “Don’t think we’ll have to dive in any case.”

  Dawn brightened the sky. The hair-raising ride across the Sea of Okhotsk had taken all night, though it’d gone by in a flash.

  The fog thinned to wisps as Sandtiger left the strait.

  “Ship ahoy, dead ahead,” Charlie said. He’d found the ship that had its lights off during the passage. “Russian fishing trawler.”

  Otherwise, the open sea looked clear in the growing daylight.

  “The holy of holies,” Moreau said.

  The green-blue waters of the Sea of Japan. Clouds formed a remarkable zigzag pattern overhead, burned orange by the rising sun.

  “We made it,” Percy sighed. “Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.”

  Operation Payback had begun.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

  Charlie slid down the ladder to the conning tower. He stowed his coat and muffler and rubbed his arms to get warm.

  The captain came down minutes later. “You get the message off, Charlie?”

  The wolf pack used a special new code Cooper’s people cooked up to shorten communications between the boats. Shorter messages gave the Japanese less time to detect and zero in on the signals.

  “Message sent and confirmed both ways,” Charlie said. “Warmouth and Redhorse both say they made it across.”

  The operation was off to a good start. Sandtiger could now rest while the other submarines moved on to their hunting grounds. Sandtiger covered the western coast of Hokkaido. Redhorse, the mid-sea between Dogo and northern Honshu. Warmouth, the southern end of the sea.

  “Very well.” Moreau pulled out his battered lawn chair and sat in it with a contented sigh. “Time to pull the plug.”

  “Aye, aye.” Charlie keyed the 1MC call box. “Rig for dive. Clear the bridge.”

  The lookouts zipped down the ladder. Percy called out, “Hatch secured!”

  “Dive, dive, dive!”

  The klaxon blasted twice.

  Sandtiger had a different layout than the S-55 and Sabertooth. In those boats, attack, navigation, diving, and control all happened in the control room. In Sandtiger, the conning tower served as the CO’s battle and navigation center. Just eight feet wide by seventeen feet long, the conn packed up to ten men at stations during combat.

  The TDC aft to port, the radar stations aft to starboard. Sonar just forward of the TDC. Plotting table, periscopes, torpedo indicator panels. The helmsman steered the boat at his station mounted against the forward bulkhead.

  Chief of the Boat “Spike” Sullivan oversaw operations in the control room below. The planes, manifold, and instrumentation such as the gyrocompass, fathometer, and bathythermograph.

  “Maneuvering, stop the main engines,” Charlie said. “Switch to battery power. Control, rig out the bow planes. Close the main induction.”

  In the maneuvering room, electricians took the motors off engine power and put them on battery power. The main induction, which fed air to the engines, banged shut. The bow planes extended from the hull.

  “Helm, all ahead two-thirds.”

  “All ahead two-thirds, aye, Exec.” The helmsman rang up the designated speed.

  “Pressure in the boat, green board,” Spike shouted up from the control room. “The boat is rigged for dive!”

  The green and red lights on the Christmas Tree showed all hull openings secured. Air pressure flowed through the hull, confirming the boat was sealed.

  “Fathometer reading?”

  “One-nine-five, Exec.”

  “Very well.” Charlie turned to Moreau. “Ready to dive in all respects, Captain. The boat has 195 feet under the keel.”

  The captain nodded with a distant smile. He seemed to be listening to the boat talk to him, sensing every part of her. “Dive.”

  “Aye, aye. Control, open all main vents. Flood safety. Flood negative.”

  In the control room below, the hydraulic manifoldman pulled a vent valve lever. This opened the main ballast tanks, which were filled with air to maintain buoyancy on the surface. Seawater flooded them, which made the boat heavy.

  Moreau said, “Take us down and set her like a baby on the bottom.”

  The submarine’s bow slid into the sea as she angled down on propulsion. Charlie felt the air pressure increase in his ears. He watched the depth gauge. The needle slowly mo
ved as Sandtiger sought the depths.

  “Depth, forty-five feet. Control, close all vents.”

  At 180 feet, he ordered the negative tank blown to restore buoyancy. Charlie watched the depth gauge, shoulders clenched with tension. Percy reached and grabbed the nearest handhold. Moreau sat in his sagging chair with his hands folded on his belly. Calm as Buddha. He operated on his gut, and his gut hadn’t been wrong yet.

  “Speed one-third, Captain.”

  “Very well. Control, ease your bubble.”

  Sandtiger glided gently onto the sea bottom.

  “All stop,” said Moreau.

  The boat nestled on an even keel, her screws stopped.

  “Final depth, one-nine-seven,” Charlie sighed. “Control, open bulkhead flappers. Start the ventilation.”

  Moreau gripped the armrests and heaved himself up with a grunt. Charlie suspected he suffered back pain when he stood too long. “Section three will report to stations.” He said to the quartermaster, “Smokey, the conn is yours. Everybody else should get some rest. We got a busy four days ahead of us.”

  “Might be a good time to splice the mainbrace,” Percy ventured.

  The captain smiled. “I got something even better in mind. A fresh education. You too, Charlie. Tell Nixon to meet us in the wardroom. Dat sourpuss Liebold can mind the store while we’re gone.”

  Charlie pulled Percy aside. “What’s going on?”

  The communications officer groaned. “The Old Man wants to play poker.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALL IN

  The weary officers shuffled into the wardroom for a few hands of poker. A good game for submariners. Luck, probability, and high stakes. Shuffling cards at the table, Moreau eyed them like the shark after which the boat was named.

  Good idea, Charlie thought. Some coffee to heat him up. Something to take his mind off his claustrophobia.

  Not quite claustrophobia. He’d looked up the precise word. Cleithrophobia. The fear of being trapped.

  Some guys puked their guts out while at sea. Not Charlie, not even when the boat listed up to thirty degrees a side during a severe storm. Raised among sailboats, he had strong sea legs, never stumbled on deck. When the submarine rode the surface, he slept like a baby while the great engines sang to him through the hull.

  Underwater, he felt trapped. Buried alive, to be exact.

  The unease started during the dive. Dry mouth, sweaty hands. He’d pictured the waves cascading across the deck as she sank. As the boat submerged, he thought about endless tons of water pressing against the hull.

  By the time Sandtiger reached the bottom, his heart felt like it would boom right out of his chest.

  Moreau said, “Grab a chair, gents. The game is Texas Hold ’Em.”

  The captain dealt two cards to each man. Waldron, the steward’s mate, served hot coffee all around.

  Charlie picked up a red checker from the stack in front of him. Ten boxes of the game lay piled under the table. “You play for checkers?”

  “Worth a penny each. We settle up at the end of the patrol.”

  A soundman taught Charlie the game when he served on the 55. The auxiliarymen had fleeced him until he learned how to play well.

  Percy put down a checker as the blind. Charlie, two checkers as the big blind. He held a Jack and Ten of Spades as hole cards, a hand with decent prospects. The officers all put in bets, two checkers each.

  The captain laid down the flop from the deck, three face-up cards. The Ten of Hearts, King of Spades, and Queen of Spades.

  The idea was to put together the best five-card poker hand using both his hole cards and the face-up community cards. With the two Tens, Charlie had a pair. Not exactly a winning hand, but better than nothing.

  As dealer, Moreau would put down another face-up card after the next round of betting, called the turn. Then another after that, called the river.

  If the Ace of Spades showed, Charlie would have a royal flush. An unbeatable hand. He had two chances to get it.

  The probability of the deck producing that card was extremely low, though.

  Otherwise, he had good odds at getting a King-high flush, since he already had four Spades. A straight flush, full house, and four of a kind beat it, but still an excellent hand. He also had a crack at a straight if any Ace turned up. Four of a kind with his two Tens if by some miracle the next two cards were Tens.

  Moreau raised his bet. “I do believe I’ll have my cigar now.” He produced a fat stogie from his breast pocket and lit up with a cloud of acrid smoke. Percy joined him, torching one of his Lucky Strikes.

  The captain’s ashtray was a twisted chunk of metal that landed topside after he blew a freighter sky high off the coast of Borneo.

  Nixon’s eyes flickered across the cards as he performed rapid probability calculations. He frowned as he carefully laid down his checkers. “I call.”

  “Mother of God, boy. You got more tells than a cat in heat.”

  Percy said, “Behold my blank face and neutral body language.”

  “Ha,” Moreau said. “I can still read you, Jerry. You got nothin’.”

  “Oh, you’re right.” He set his cards down. “I fold. You want me to be more aggressive, Skipper, we should play for booze.”

  “What about you, sunshine? You gonna check?”

  Charlie’s heart hammered in his chest. The cleithrophobia was worse knowing the boat lay on the bottom of the sea, engines off. He blew air out his cheeks, sweat pouring off him. “No, I’ll raise.”

  The captain frowned behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “You’re bluffing.” He called. Then he turned the next community card.

  The Two of Clubs.

  Nixon folded with a sigh.

  Charlie raised again. He still had very good odds at a flush.

  Moreau grinned. “Looks like we got ourselves a showdown. You’re still bluffing. Look at your face, rigged for red. Here comes the river.”

  Five of Spades.

  No royal flush, but he’d gotten his flush.

  “I’ll raise,” the captain said.

  Charlie called and laid out his cards. “Flush, King high.”

  Moreau grunted, his face darkening. “Jack-high straight. Well, look at dat.”

  “Congratulations, Harrison,” Percy said, grinding out his smoke in the ashtray. “Looks like you’re buying, next time we’re in port.”

  “I have to admit, I read you wrong,” the captain said. “Sitting there red-faced and sweating buckets.”

  The truth was Charlie’s body was still suffering from cleithrophobia, which had screwed up the captain’s radar. But he couldn’t tell him that.

  He pulled the stack of checkers in front of him. “I was raising my bets on the small chance you’d turn the Ace and give me a royal flush. The flush was my main hope. The odds were good enough you’d pull a Spade.”

  “You can tell a lot about a man the way he plays poker. Look at Nixon here. He can drum up probabilities like a human TDC, but he hates taking chances. You, you play like you fight. Going on Mindanao to shoot Japs. Drilling Yosai in a surface attack. You go all in.”

  Again, the truth was somewhat different. Going ashore at Mindanao had almost gotten him and Braddock killed. Taking on Yosai had been similarly rash with battle damage that nearly prevented the boat from diving.

  In the strait, he’d confused Nijogan Rock with the Russian running lights. Instead of querying for a radar sweep, he’d concluded Sandtiger was off course. Quiet Bill had been right to worry about his experience. His last XO had said a good submariner had to be both willing and able.

  “A submarine attack is a lot like high-stakes poker,” Moreau said. “You start with a stack of chips. Concealment, surprise, torpedoes, battery power, air. Your very lives. You gamble them one at a time to win. Some men fold early. Others, if the pot is big enough, they gamble it all. You’re a gambler, Charlie.”

  Charlie stared at the captain and wondered. Am I like you?

  The captain c
ollected the cards and shuffled them. Then he dealt again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE HUNT

  Sunset.

  Sandtiger shuddered as she left the ocean floor and rose to a depth of sixty-five feet.

  There, she glided with a one-degree up bubble.

  Moreau heaved himself out of his lawn chair and jerked his thumbs. At the unspoken command, the periscope rose from its well. He yanked the handles down and pressed his wide face against the rubber eyepiece.

  “Uh-huh,” he grunted. “Fog all over. Down scope. Sugar Jig, do a sweep.”

  The radarman called out contacts. Land masses, no ships. According to the maps, Rebun and Rishiri lay to the west and southwest. East was Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese Home Islands.

  On these islands, millions of people labored around the clock to support a war effort that had won them one-tenth of the world.

  Moreau: “Let’s take her up, Charlie.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Charlie keyed the 1MC. “All compartments, rig to surface.”

  The men in the conning tower smiled at the command, even the taciturn Liebold. They’d come halfway around the world. At midnight, the wolf pack would start hunting Japanese ships in their own backyard.

  “Maneuvering, stand by to switch from motors to diesels,” Charlie said. “On surfacing, answer bells on the main engines. Put two mains on charge.”

  Once Sandtiger reached the surface, the electricians uncoupled the electric motors from the batteries and put them on the diesels. Two of the engines powered the boat while the other two dumped amps into the waning batteries.

  The telephone talker relayed the order to Maneuvering.

  “Forward engine room, secure ventilation. All compartments, shut the bulkhead flappers.”

  “All compartments report rigged to surface,” the telephone talker said.

  Charlie turned toward Moreau. “Ready to surface in every respect, Captain.”

  Him, most of all. Constant work had kept the cleithrophobia at bay so far, but he craved an unsecured hatch. A way out of this cramped metal box.