We were finishing an austere lunch when the control room messenger appeared. 'Captain,' he said, 'you're wanted in the conning tower. Mr. Adams says there's smoke.' I dashed down the passageway, hearing the last words of his hastily muttered message over my shoulder as I ran. In a moment Hugh turned over the periscope to me. Sure enough, a thin column of smoke could be seen close inshore northwestward.
I watched it carefully to see which way it was going, finally accepted the fact that it was heading away. The smoke gradually became less distinct, faded out in the distance.
Twice more we sighted smoke that day, once more to the northwest and once to the southwest. In all three cases the ships were going away, not toward; and it would have been fruitless to have pursued them.
'Do you think they are slipping by us close inshore?' Jim asked me. I shrugged. There was no way of telling. 'Maybe if we went in closer, close enough to see the coast distinctly.
'Too shallow,' I said, but the eagerness I had noted during, the fruitless attempt on the Jap submarine was now dancing in Jim's eyes, showing through the considered awareness I had become accustomed to.
'Look, skipper, why don't we go in here?' He indicated a spot on the coast where the extent of shallow water was much less than elsewhere. 'They couldn't get by without our seeing them if we went in here.'
To fall in with his suggestion would have meant giving up our watch position on the Bungo Suido. The position we had chosen permitted us to cover one segment of the probable traffic lines from there. Several days in this position and several days in each of three others would, we had figured, give us some idea of traffic patterns.
'Jim, we've, only been here one day. Keep your shirt on,' I said in small exasperation. 'We've got twenty-nine days more in the area.' But Jim persisted, pointing out eagerly the con- figuration of the coastline and the depths of water here and there to bolster his argument. On our area chart he had drawn the approximate location of the three ships we had sighted.
'Look, Captain,' he said, 'we already know they are going here,' indicating with his finger. 'We know they are running close, inshore. Our main mission is to sink them. After we knock off a couple.' We might have argued longer had not the musical notes of the general alarm interrupted us.
Startled, I jerked up, caught Jim's eye and then with one move we raced to the conning tower.
'Bong bong bong bong bong,' the doorbell chimes were still pealing out as, breathlessly, I confronted Dave Freeman.
Already the reduction of oxygen was becoming noticeable.
'A ship, sir, coming this way, a big ship.' The periscope was down, evidently having just been lowered. I grasped the pickle, squeezed it as Dave spoke, started it up again. In a moment I was looking through it. There in the distance, exact- ly like our practice approaches in New London, were the masts, stack, and bridge structure of a large vessel. I could hear the warming-up notes of the TDC. Keith was ready for business.
'Bearing-Mark!' Down periscope!'
'Three-two-eight,' read Dave from the azimuth ring.
Keith furiously spun one of the handles. 'Angle on the bow?'
'Starboard ten.'
'Estimated range?' I had not tried to get a range.'
The ship was still well hull down, only her upper works showing. 'Give it fifteen thousand yards,' I said.
Jim had extracted the Is-Was from its stowage, was rotating the dials. Rubinoffski, garbed in his underwear with hastily thrown-on shoes and carrying his trousers, came clat- tering up the ladder. Off watch, he had been caught in his bunk by the call to quarters. Freeman relinquished the pickle to him, dashed below, bound for his own station. The Quarter- master hastily thrust his bony legs into his dungarees, managed to get them hooked at the top in time to grasp the periscope control button and raise it at my order. I spun the periscope around quickly, lowered it. 'Nothing else in sight,' I said, motioning for it to come up again. Another look, this time carefully at the sky. Clear, a few clouds, not much cover for aircraft, no airplanes in sight. Down went the periscope again.
I looked around, looked at Jim. He nodded briefly.
'Conning tower manned, sir.' Quin was hastening on his headset, nodded also. The periscope started up with my thumb motion.
'Observation,' I snapped 'Ship is at battle stations, rapidly called out Quin.
I rose with the periscope. 'Bearing-Mark!'
'Three-three-nine and a half!'
'Use forty feet. Range-Mark!'
Rubinoffski fumbled with the range dial lining up the pointers.
'One-four-oh-double-oh!' The scope dropped away.
'Angle on the how still the same. Starboard ten.' Keith was spinning his TDC cranks with both hands.
'Any other ships in sight, Captain?' This was Jim. 'No,' I said, 'no escorts.'
'I have the dive, Captain, depth sixty feet.' Tom had climbed up two or three rungs of the ladder to the control room, had his head at the deck level.
'Very well.' I turned to Keith. 'What's the course to close the track with about a thirty-degree angle?' Keith looked at his dials for a moment. 'We're on it now, sir. Recommend no change. What kind of a ship is it, Captain?'
Jim had finished orienting the Is-Was, now crowded between Hugh Adams at the plotting table and Keith at the TDC. He looked at me with that same look of anticipated pleasure, that eagerness for combat that I had recently noticed.
'Can't tell yet. Buff superstructure, black stack, two masts. Some kind of a cargo vessel.'
'Is he smoking?'
'No-no smoke at all.'
'New ship then, Anyway, in good shape.'
I nodded.
Up forward of the periscope hoist motors was the under- water sound receiver and control equipment for the sound heads under our bow. I leaned over alongside the earphoned sonar operator. His pointer was going around steadily and slowly. He shook his head at my inquiring glance'. I indicated the area on our starboard bow as the place for him to concentrate on, stepped back to the periscope, motioned with my thumbs.
'Zig to his right,' I called. The angle on the bow, had changed, was now port twenty degrees, and I could see more of the enemy ship, a large new-type freighter. As I turned the periscope something, else caught my eye-a discontinuity in the horizon-another mast. It would indeed have been highly improbable that a large, valuable freighter should be coming out of port unescorted. I looked closely on the other side, then back again. There were two small masts, one on either side, both apparently abeam or a little distance astern. This would not be as easy an approach as I had for a short time been hoping. 'He has two escorts, Jim,' I said.
'What kind?'
'Can't tell yet. They're a lot smaller and I can't see them.
Quin was watching me. He picked up the telephone mouthpiece, spoke into it briefly. I could visualize everyone in the ship getting the word: 'The skipper sees two destroyers up there!'
'Jim,' I said, 'have the ship rigged for depth charge.
Shortly before we fire we will go to silent running also.'
'Right,' said Jim, as he squeezed by me to relay the necessary instructions to Quin.
Several observations later the situation had developed more clearly. Our target was a single large merchantman with cargo hatches forward and aft and four large goal-post type derricks. She had a single low, fat stack rising out of an amid- ships deckhouse evidently fitted for passenger accommodations.
The ship had obviously come out of Bungo Suido and was headed south, perhaps bound for Guam or Saipan, making respectable speed and escorted by three old type destroyers.
One escort rode on either beam of the target and the third one, which I had not seen until some time later, was following astern.
I could feel Walrus tense up as the target drew steadily near her. He was zigzagging, presenting first one side and then the other. We were right on his base course and had only to maneuver for a shot as he went by. I could feel myself tense up as well as the crucial moment approached.
We closed off the ventilation system, the air-conditioning machinery, and all other equipment not absolutely essential to the progress of the business at hand. The sweat spurted out of my pores, ran saltily down my cheeks
