At the same time, the sooner we came up the better horizon would there be for Jim to get his evening star sights. It was important to have our position accurate, after having been un- able to, navigate for fifteen hours or so, and it was also impor- tant to get our battery charge started as soon as possible in case it would be needed later. And finally, during a long day submerged, a crew of seventy men and six officers-seventy-six human machines breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide could greatly reduce the livability of the atmosphere inside the ship. True, we carried carbon dioxide absorbent, hermetically sealed in shiny, metal canisters, and we carried oxygen in bottles for air revitalization, but these were needed for emergencies.
The resolution of the conflicting requirements was to juggle the various pros and cons and to surface as soon as possible, Today, our first day within, sight of the Japanese coast, we waited a few minutes longer before surfacing, and when — we, finally started up nothing more could be seen through the periscope. I had donned red goggles twenty minutes before and was standing underneath the hatch leading to the bridge as I told Rubinoffski to sound three blasts on the diving alarm.
The third blast of the klaxon horn had not yet died away when I felt the jolt of high-pressure. air blasting into our ballast tanks, blowing water out. Walrus gave a convulsive shudder, inclined upward by the bow, and in a few moments we could hear the splashing and gurgling of water draining off the bridge.
Keith Leone was handling the surfacing procedure from the control room and now he commenced to shout depths up to me. 'Four-oh feet,'-he sang out. 'Three-five feet, three-oh feet.'
'Crack the hatch,' I said to Rubinoffski.
The Quartermaster leaped two steps up the bridge ladder, rapidly undogged the hatch hand wheel. Air commenced to blow out through the slightly open hatch rim and a few drops of water splattered in.
'Pressure one-half inch,' came up from Keith, This meant that our barometer indicated one-half inch more pressure inside the ship than had been the case on diving. Barring great atmospheric fluctuation 'topside,' this would be approximately the pressure differential existing now.
'Two-six feet, sir. Holding steady,' from Keith again.
'Open the hatch.' I was right behind Rubinoffski as he completed undogging the hatch and snapped open the safety latch. The heavy bronze hatch cover, counterbalanced by a large coil spring, flung itself open with a huge rush of air as Rubinoffski released the latch, banging the side of the bridge and latching itself open with a loud bell- like thud. The two of us, carrying binoculars, were on the bridge less than a second later. By prearrangement Rubinoffski ran aft to survey the after one hundred and eighty degrees sector, while I concentrated on the forward half of the ocean.
Slowly, intently, I scanned the horizon; then the water between us and the rapidly fading demarcation between sea and sky; then the sky above, where a few stars glittered stonily from between the clouds. I heard Rubinoffski report, 'All clear aft.'
'All clear forward,' I muttered, half to myself, then raising my voice, 'Open the main induction; lookouts to the bridge. Start the low-pressure blow.' The main-induction valve, just below the cigarette deck, opened with a thump.
Four lookouts, all previously prepared with adequate clothing to stand watch up in the wind-and-rain-swept periscope shears, and having become at least partially night adapted by wearing red goggles for some time beforehand, came dashing up on the bridge and took their places. Immediately behind them came Keith, similarly attired, and then Oregon, who, as Quartermaster of the Watch, went back aft to relieve Rubinoffski.
'Ready to relieve you, Captain,' said Keith after a few minutes, making a hand motion that might have passed for a salute.
I gave him the customary turnover: course, speed, and the various other details of the watch. As I did so an, almost human screech came from below decks. One would have said that a wild animal was being tortured and was in mortal pain; its cry of agony, an undulating, wavering, high-pitched scream, piercing through the bowels of the ship. 'There goes the turbo blow,' I said. 'Run it for five minutes. That will be plenty.'
Walrus rode sluggishly on the nearly smooth sea. Her decks were almost awash and little ripples of water splashed in her superstructure above her pressure hull. Now as the turbo blow commenced to force large quantities of air into the ballast tanks, at just sufficient pressure to expel the water, thus saving our precious high-pressure air, Walrus slowly began to lift herself to a more seaworthy altitude. To bring the ship to the fully surfaced condition would require approximately fifteen minutes. Five minutes would get her high enough for the slow patrolling we proposed.
'Permission to come on the bridge.' This was Jim. Keith had not yet relieved me so I still had the deck.
'Come on up,' I said. Jim moved aft to our bulwarkless cigarette deck, joined Rubinoffski in whispered consultation.
The latter pointed skyward in several directions, and in a moment Jim was shooting the stars with the sextant he had brought with him.
'Permission to start a battery charge.' This was relayed up the conning tower hatch by the messenger stationed there.
'Permission granted,' I called back. This also was part of our surfacing routine. A main engine snorted and then another, and I could hear them loaded down as the life-giving amperes began to be forced back from their generators into our battery.
'Permission to dump garbage?'
'Granted,' I said again. Up came Russo and two mess cooks, lugging three large gunny sacks containing the days accumulation of trash and garbage, each one of them weighted with crushed tin cans, broken or discarded tools, even a stone or two from the supply Russo had brought aboard. The sacks were unceremoniously pitched over into the water, floated aft as they slowly became waterlogged.
'Well proceed in toward the coast at slow speed, Keith,' I said, 'until Jim gets his fix. Be alert for aircraft or Jap vessels.'
Keith nodded. 'I relieve you, sir,' he said. I moved back to the after part of the cigarette deck, leaned thoughtfully against the wire cable which had replaced our bulwarks. We had achieved our destination. We had come over eight thou- sand miles to war and a few miles ahead of us lay one of the main islands of Japan, southernmost Kyushu.
Kyushu is separated from the islands to the north and east, Honshu and Shikoku, by the Japanese Inland Sea. From the Pacific side there are two entrances to this confined body of water: the Bungo Suido between Kyushu and Shikoku and the Kii Suido between Shikoku and Honshu. Since the earliest times Japan's Inland Sea has been one of the island empire's main traffic arteries between the home islands and, of course, during the war it constituted a huge sheltered harbor in which their whole battle fleet could hold maneuvers if desired.
AREA SEVEN included the eastern coast of Kyushu, beginning with the Bungo Suido on the north and extending down, almost to the southern tip of the island. Our instructions were to examine the area; determine what, if anything, were the Japanese traffic patterns; estimate how often the Bungo Suido was used, whether naval units were in the habit of using that entrance. And our mission was also to sink any and all Japanese vessels we might encounter, and avoid being detected, attacked, or sunk ourselves.
We were still headed west. Up ahead, no longer in sight, was Kyushu. I stared unseeingly in that direction, then took my binoculars and made a slow sweep all the way around the horizon. It felt good to be topside, to draw in clean, whole- some air instead of the torpid atmosphere we had been breathing. My greedy senses drank in the freedom of the ocean.
There was a musty tinge to the air, an odor of wet, burned sandalwood, of unwashed foreign bodies. A seaman, near shore, can always smell the shore-it is the smell landsmen identify as the 'smell of the sea.' But it is not noticeable at sea, only close to shore, and it pervaded my consciousness this night. All night long we cruised, aimlessly about, seeing nothing, never losing the smell of Japan. By morning we had approached close enough to Kyushu to take up a patrol station about ten miles offshore where we hoped some unwary vessel might blunder into our path, and where the first of a series of observation posts on the Bungo Suido could logically be set up.
Jim and I had studied the chart. Inshore lay a bank of mod- erately shallow water, hardly deep enough to shelter us in the event of a counterattack. Jim had argued for going in closer, saying that coastwise Japanese shipping would rim in as shallow water as possible. I demurred, pointing out that we had the dual responsibility of watching the Bungo as well, and that we could always go closer inshore after a merchant vessel if necessary. The spot we finally selected was intended to satisfy both objectives, though Jim never did express final satisfaction.
