Hara-Kiri_a novel of the Pacific War Read online

  “This ain’t a storm,” Hooker cried. “It’s a goddamn typhoon!”

  The sea lit up in a flash, followed seconds later by a terrific salvo of thunder. The rain thickened to sheets, drumming the deck.

  “Recommend diving,” Rusty shouted over the gale.

  “We’re staying on the surface as long as we can,” Charlie shouted back. “We’re losing bearing! We need to make as much way as possible!”

  The Sandtiger lurched up an even taller crest and plunged into the trough, water smashing into the bridge. The men emerged from the waist-high flood, sputtering and staggering as their boat pitched and yawed.

  “We’re barely making thirteen knots now,” Rusty said.

  “We need to get as close as we can to the target, or we’ll lose him for good!”

  The wind roared and blasted them with incredible force.

  “Conn, Bridge,” he shouted into the gale. “Give me a sweep on the PPI!”

  “Wait one, Bridge,” Nixon said. “Captain, Chief Braddock recommends we dive. We’re taking in too much water through the main induction.”

  “What do you think, Nix?”

  “I agree with the chief. We’re getting too many electrical grounds.”

  The boat needed the main induction to suck air used by the engines for propulsion and to charge the batteries. With multiple electrical grounds, he’d pay an escalating price for staying on the surface.

  “Captain, Sugar Jig reports no contacts on the PPI,” Nixon added. “The radar is barely making 5,000 yards.”

  “Very well,” Charlie said, thinking hard.

  Rusty flinched as another wall of water slammed across the bridge. “We’ve been at this over an hour, and we aren’t making way, Skipper. We need to give it up.”

  Charlie bristled. He didn’t give up. If he was the type who gave up, the Yosai would still be fighting, the Meteor would have killed a lot of Americans on Saipan, and he and his crew would be dead.

  Stay on the bastard until he’s on the bottom. Mush Morton’s motto and one all the captains of the Silent Service had adopted as their own.

  His stomach lurched as the Sandtiger crested another wave, this one tall as a mountain.

  “Listen,” Rusty said. “Even if we somehow caught up to the target, we couldn’t attack!”

  His friend was right. The high waves would wreak havoc on his torpedoes’ accuracy, and he had no fish to waste on long odds.

  Charlie cast one last longing gaze to the north, where the enemy steamed, out of sight. Vanishing along with his hopes of sinking the Mamiya.

  He’d tried, but he was no longer doing any good staying on the surface.

  He grit his teeth. “Very well. Clear the topsides! Conn, rig to dive!”

  The main induction banged shut. Hooker raised the main hatch. He’d timed it after the last wave drained off the bridge. Still, seawater gushed all the way to the control room to splash the men and equipment there, evoking a round of curses.

  Charlie slid to the deck and jumped aside as Rusty thudded after him.

  The water pouring from above stopped.

  “Hatch secured!” Hooker called down.

  Soaked, bruised, and exhausted by his battering on the bridge, Charlie pulled off his oilskins. The diving alarm bonged.

  Nixon said, “Pressure in the boat, green board, Captain. All compartments rigged to—”

  Charlie staggered as the Sandtiger corkscrewed, pitching and rolling at the same time. Men shouted in alarm as the boat went into a partial spin.

  Nixon stumbled toward a bucket and vomited.

  Charlie said, “Planes, take us—”

  The boat rolled again and this time didn’t stop.

  The Sandtiger listed heavily, sending men and loose equipment sliding and crashing across the deck.

  Charlie grabbed a section of overhead piping just in time, yelping as his feet dangled in air. He glanced across the compartment at the inclinometer, which showed the boat’s list climbing from forty to fifty to sixty degrees.

  She was going to capsize.

  Then men and their boat groaned together as she righted herself.

  Charlie’s feet met the deck. “Planes, 200 feet! Take her down!”

  No point in diving to periscope depth. Rain would curtain the periscope’s glass. The rough waters would make good depth control almost impossible, resulting in frequent dunking of the scope.

  The storm had effectively postponed the war in this stretch of the Pacific.

  Down in the control room, the planesmen turned their big brass wheels in opposite directions. Bow planes rigged to dive, stern planes angling the submarine.

  “Control, open all main vents,” Rusty gasped.

  The hydraulic manifoldman opened the vents to flood the ballast tanks with seawater, draining the boat’s buoyancy.

  The Sandtiger slid into the sea. She clawed for depth. The rolling ebbed until it was hardly noticeable.

  Rusty picked himself up off the deck. “God. That was close.”

  Charlie understood this was his opportunity to say something bold or humorous. A story the crew would pass around. Did you hear what the Old Man said? The guy’s got balls!

  He felt too beaten up to fake it right now. “You all right, Nix?”

  The engineering officer nodded, his face shifting from pale green to bright red. The list had tossed his vomit back onto his shirt. “Aye, Captain.”

  “Go get yourself cleaned up, and then report back to finish your watch.”

  “I’m hurt, Captain,” Hooker said. “Think I broke a rib up on the bridge.”

  “You’re relieved, Hook. Go see Doc on the double.”

  “Aye. Sorry, Captain.”

  “Percy, are you able to take the conn until Nixon returns?”

  The officer blew out a ragged sigh and finally let go of the plotting table to which he’d been clinging for dear life. “Yup. I’m good.”

  “Mr. Percy has the deck and the conn,” Charlie announced. “Get us onto a bearing of double-oh-five and keep us on it. The storm is slowing the enemy down too.”

  He wrote his orders in the Captain’s Night Order Book. “Periscope checks every hour. As soon as the storm breaks, I want us surfaced and back on the hunt.”

  Percy nodded in a daze. His Aloha shirt had torn and was missing a button. “Aye, Captain.”

  “And find a replacement for Hook. I’ll be in my bunk.”

  There, he’d sleep with the emergency call bell mounted over his head, which would ring if the boat was able to surface or otherwise ran into trouble.

  Not that he honestly believed he could sleep right now.

  Not with the storm preventing him from surfacing, which was already triggering his cleithrophobia.

  And certainly not after today. So much effort with nothing to show for it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WAITING

  As expected, sleep eluded as him. Stretched out in his skivvies on his bunk, Charlie went over the attack again and again, wondering where he went wrong.

  The problem was, if he had to do it all over again, he’d make the same decisions. He regretted only the lack of results.

  That bothered him more than anything. He wanted to believe he had more control than he did over the outcome of a battle.

  Stay on the bastard until he’s on the bottom. A motto presenting a stark absolute that wasn’t always possible in war. Mottos didn’t account for typhoons.

  Every passing hour carried his prey farther from him, along with his hopes of catching them. A storm like this could last eight hours or longer.

  As Charlie finally began to drift into slumber, he sensed the walls closing in. The sweltering room became suffocating. Drenched in sweat, he rolled onto his side and clenched his eyes shut, willing himself to sleep.

  No use. He rose and clicked on his desk lamp. Might as well do something productive. Pulling his logbook in front of him, he started writing.

  A knock on the doorframe of his stateroom.
He rubbed his aching eyes. “Come in.”

  Braddock parted the curtain. “Saw your light on and figured maybe you could use one of these, sir.”

  Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Chief. I could use a cup of joe.”

  The machinist held up a bag and grinned. “Beer.”

  “Beer’s for winners, remember?”

  “We’re alive, ain’t we? I know you didn’t get to kill anything, but I count that as a win for today.”

  “All right,” Charlie said. “Give me one. Grab a chair. We can talk about the air conditioning.”

  The chief settled his big frame on the edge of the bunk, pulled out two steel cans of Busch, and handed one over. “The AC is broke dick.”

  “I know it’s broke dick. Can you fix it or not?”

  Braddock cracked his beer open and drank from it. “Already did. Twice. We’re lucky we’re getting out of it what we’re getting.”

  Charlie took his own swig. The fizz worked its way down his gullet. Warm but just what he needed. “All right.”

  “Not a miracle worker,” the chief muttered.

  “I know how much you hate compliments, but you’ve taken the job by the horns. You’re doing even better than I expected, and I expected a lot.”

  The sailor was a changed man in every respect. Even now, it made Charlie worry the old Braddock might show up again.

  “I’m the same guy I was before,” Braddock said. “My job changed, not me. It’s a whole different ballgame when it ain’t just your ass you got to worry about. Know what I mean?”

  Charlie smiled. “I think I do.”

  “They’re asshole knuckle draggers, but they’re my knuckle draggers. I want to see them all get home.”

  “What about you? What comes after?”

  “After the war? There’s that optimism again.”

  “You must have some ideas.”

  “Sure do, sir.” The sailor took another long pull and sighed. “I’m gonna screw everything in sight.”

  The obligatory answer for a sailor. “Duly noted. And after that?”

  “Go somewhere else and screw everything there.”

  “You’ve got ambition,” Charlie deadpanned.

  “I don’t know, sir. You spend a lot of time thinking about what comes after? Start hoping for it? Thinking you’ll come back the same man you left? Believing you’ll get home in one piece?”

  Charlie contemplated his beer can. “I guess not.”

  “Three fucking years. Millions dead, and I got to kill my fair share. For what?”

  “We all have our reasons for fighting.”

  “All right, I’ll play. I guess I’ll find a broad who can put up with me and start making babies. Get an honest job. Work hard to make some rich assholes even richer until I croak.” He belched. “The American Dream. What about you?”

  “Figure myself out before I make any decisions.”

  Braddock nodded sagely. “Of course. Guys like you are always looking at their belly buttons. I guess that’s what makes you a good CO. In the engine rooms, it’s a lot simpler. Everything is cause and effect.”

  “The jury’s still out on whether I’ll be a good captain.”

  “You were forced to take the conn from Hunter, Moreau, and Saunders. You did fine. Better than fine. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be captain now.”

  Charlie finished his beer to hide his smile. The man had made a simple point, and it was true. Cause and effect. “Thanks for the confidence, Chief.”

  The big sailor scowled at the sudden intimacy. “I was just—ah, to hell with you, sir. I don’t know why I bothered.”

  Braddock stomped from the room with the rest of the beer. Charlie waited until he was out of earshot before he laughed.

  The man was full of surprises.

  He set down his can and pulled on his service khakis. Sleep was an impossibility now. He’d just have to tough it out as he’d done before many times. The boat pushed and pulled around him. Nixon was shortening the depth as ordered to test the weather, which was still heavy.

  He found Rusty tuning his fiddle in the wardroom. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a wall of water coming at me,” the exec said. “Tonight would have been a good one to go into reversa.”

  Reversa, flipping the crew’s schedule between day and night, during patrols when most action would occur after dark. Charlie already had his veterans on duty at night, and he made sure he’d be awakened during any confirmed nocturnal target sightings.

  He shuffled to the tiny galley to pour himself a mug. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “We lost them,” Rusty said. “They’re gone.”

  “Looks that way.” Charlie sighed as he returned to the room and sat at the table. “Hopefully, our contact report to Pearl will come back as a Fox to another submarine in the Philippines net.”

  The exec grinned. “You okay with another captain getting the glory?”

  “We had our shot. As long as the Mamiya ends up on the bottom, I’ll be happy.”

  And as long as I get to sink something else later, he thought.

  “Nothing to do but wait, then.”

  Charlie gestured to Rusty’s fiddle. “Play something. Maybe some of that mountain music you like. I’ll join in.”

  His friend smiled. “‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made’ it is.”

  Whenever Percy wasn’t around to force some Gene Autry on them, Rusty liked to play a mix of old time and Appalachian music. Often, he ended up playing in thirds and fifths to produce a certain sound, slurred his long strokes to produce rapid noting, and didn’t use the instrument’s chin or shoulder rest.

  It took everything Charlie had, at his skill level, to keep up. He tripped, recovered, and tripped again. Still, this song was one of his favorites, fast and jaunty. True to his nature, he gave it everything he had.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

  One song flowed into the next, melody and harmony. The next two hours flew past until Waldron arrived and served breakfast. Percy and Nixon showed up to pour themselves coffee from the galley and join Charlie and Rusty at the table.

  Percy stared at his captain, who put his harmonica away and tucked into his eggs. “Did you play ‘In the Jailhouse Now’ without me?”

  “Hillbilly music,” Charlie told him, cheeks bulging.

  “That’s okay then, I guess.”

  The deck tilted as the Sandtiger planed up to periscope depth. Morrison was checking the weather’s temper. Charlie froze, fork poised in front of his face. The boat rolled only slightly. He shot a glance at the 7MC mounted on the wall.

  Moments later, the conning tower called.

  He picked up the phone. “This is the captain.”

  “The storm’s passing, sir,” Morrison reported.

  “Any contacts?”

  “Nothing, Captain.”

  “Take another look then surface the boat if practical,” Charlie said. “The exec and I will be there in a minute.”

  “It’s after sunrise,” Rusty said in alarm.

  “We need to replenish our air and batteries. See if we can make some way north. We’ll get a radar sweep in while we’re at it.”

  Rusty nodded. He didn’t like it, but there was no other way to get the boat fresh air and power.

  “All compartments, rig to surface,” the 1MC blared.

  They mounted to the conning tower as Morrison ordered all compartments to shut the bulkhead flappers.

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

  Morrison came to attention at the sight of the captain. “Ready to surface in every respect, Captain.”

  “Very well. Take her up.”

  The helmsman pulled the handle to blast the surfacing alarm.

  Morrison smiled at the commotion, clearly enjoying himself. “Control, blow all main ballast!”

  High-pressure air blasted into the ballast tanks, displacing the water an
d buoying the boat. The planesmen angled the Sandtiger for the ascent.

  Morrison: “Lookouts, report to the tower!”

  The quartermaster and three sailors reported for the watch as the Sandtiger burst from the sea.

  Charlie checked the dead reckoning indicator, which gave him the boat’s latitude and longitude, then studied the plot. He was too close to the shore. “Helm, come right to oh-four-five. Radar, warm up the Sugar Jig and stand by. Sugar Dog, give me a sweep for planes as soon as you’re able.”

  Starting over. He hadn’t gained anything, but he hadn’t lost anything either. Today was a clean slate.

  The foul air whistled through the open hatch as the boat vented the pressure that had built up during the night. The quartermaster called out the all clear. Charlie and Rusty followed the lookouts onto the bridge.

  The morning air, already warm and sticky, stank. Dead jellyfish lay strewn across the decks, deposited by the rough seas and as good as glued.

  Charlie ignored it and scanned the surroundings with his binoculars, grateful to be out of the boat’s noxious atmosphere and back in the open air. The seas had calmed. A mild wind blew from the northeast. Despite a few scattered rainsqualls, the horizon was clear all around, the sky partially obscured with cloud cover. Nothing was happening on Samar. No patrol planes, though that would change soon enough. And no ships in sight.

  The Sandtiger crossed a light chop, heading toward the open sea. The conn passed on the message from the SD radarman. No plane contacts.

  He said into the bridge phone, “Sugar Jig, give me that sweep on the PPI.”

  Overhead, the radar swiveled on its mast, sweeping the surface of the sea.

  “Back to square one,” Rusty said.

  Charlie surveyed the empty sea. “Looks that way. Ideas?”

  “You’re onto something by staying close to the coast. We could work our way up to Luzon and then back down to Hernani. Something will turn up.”

  “Something,” Charlie agreed. “I’d like to peek into Borongan next. Maybe we’ll find some coasters.”

  At this point, anything would do.

  The bridge speaker blared: “Multiple contacts! Bearing, three-five-oh, oh-one-oh off the starboard bow, range 25,000 miles.”