looking paper with Octopus on it.
But we kept it up during the rest of our time in the area.
There wasn't much time left, as a matter of fact. A few days more than a week, and our 'bag' of three ships was beginning to look like the total for that patrol. The week passed. We sighted nothing but aircraft and a number of fishing boats.
Then, only two nights before we were due to leave the area, the radar got a contact. It was a rough night, dark, overcast, raining intermittently, with a high, uneasy sea running. It was warm, too, unseasonably so, and the ship was bouncing uncomfortably with 'no regular pattern as we slowly cruised along, two engines droning electricity back into our battery.
'Radar contact!' O'Brien happened to have the radar watch, and it was his high-pitched voice which sounded the call to action. 'Looks like a convoy!' he added.
'Man tracking stations!' responded Keith, muffled in oilskins on the forward part of the bridge. Pat Donnelly, standing watch with Keith as Assistant OOD, was aft on the cigarette deck, as was I. I was beside Keith in a second.
'What's the bearing?'
'I've got the rudder over. We'll have it dead astern in a minute!' A main engine belched and sputtered; then another, and we had four half-submerged exhaust ports blowing engine vapor, water, and a thin film of smoke alternately above and under the waves.
'True bearing is nearly due north, Captain!' Keith was doing my thinking for me. 'We're steadying up on course south right now, still making one-third speed.'
I went aft again, searching the ocean astern. Nothing could be seen through the binoculars, not even the faint lightening of the murk which would indicate where water and sky met to form the far-distant and unseen horizon. Walrus pitched erratically, and a sudden gust of warm wet wind whipped my sodden clothes around my body. I spread my feet apart and leaned into it with my knees slightly bent, adjusting to the jerky motion of the ship. Holding my binoculars to my eyes, I made a deliberate search all around the horizon, or where I imagined the horizon to be. Nearly completed, I was startled by, a small black object which abruptly intruded into my field of view, relaxed as quickly. It was only the stern light fixture, mounted on top of our stern chock where, for over a year, it had been a useless appendage.
'Keith, have the radar search all around!' I called. It wouldn't do for us to become so interested in our contact that something else, an escort vessel perhaps, or some as-yet- undetected section of the convoy, could happen unexpectedly upon us.
'Nothing on the radar, sir! just the original contact!' Keith had anticipated that, too. I moved back to the forward part of the bridge, almost collided with Hugh Adams, who chose that instant to come jumping out of the hatch. He was rubbing his eyes.
'Take me a few minutes to relieve you, Keith,' he gasped.
'I'm not night-adapted-I was sound asleep when you called tracking stations.'
'I've been up here. I can see fine,' I broke in. 'Keith, I'll take over that part of it. You go below and take over the TDC so that Jim can organize the approach.'
Both of them nodded gratefully, and delaying only long enough to make the turnover of essential details to Hugh, Keith swung himself below.
Jim's voice came over the announcing system: 'Captain, it's a good-sized convoy. Looks like a dozen ships, maybe more.
At least two of them are escorts-maybe more of them, too.
Course one-six-zero, speed about ten!'
'Steer one-six-zero!' I told the helmsman. Not Oregon-he would not come on until battle stations was sounded. 'All ahead two thirds.' Then raising my voice, 'Maneuvering, make turns for ten knots!' The conning-tower messenger would relay the word to the maneuvering room via telephone. In a moment I could feel our speed pick up, a slightly more determine manner with which Walrus thrust her snout into the seas. Some of them began to come aboard over the bow, running aft on the deck, partially washing down through it, smothering our new four- inch gun and breaking in a shower of spray on the forward part of the bridge beneath the 20-millimeter gun platform.
We ran on thus for several more minutes. Jim's voice again: 'Recommend course one-six-five, speed twelve.'
I gave the necessary orders without comment. No doubt that was the convoy course and speed according to more extensive plotting data.
Several more minutes. 'Captain, we've got eleven big ships, three or four smaller ones. Possibly one other astern, also small, They're zigzagging around base course one-six-five, speed four- teen knots, making good about twelve down the course line.
We're almost dead ahead of them. Range to nearest ship, the leading escort, is ten thousand yards.'
'What's the range to the stern escort?' These fellows had come out of the Bungo, all right, and that stern escort must be nobody else but Bungo Pete himself. At least he was keeping to Bungo's old favorite position, astern, the clean-up spot. Bungo would have figured that after an attack the submarine was most apt to wind up astern of the convoy, and out of torpedoes, too until a reload could be effected. It was not a bad analysis. It would almost unquestionably be true for a submerged attack very likely so for a surfaced one as well. Captain Blunt had wondered whether any German liaison officers might have been helping him-here I caught my breath as an idea rose, full blown, in my brain: Bungo might most likely be a Japanese submariner himself! He would be one of their old-timers, no doubt, working on the problem for all he was worth and making, thereby, his own contribution to the war effort of his country! Just as Captain Sammy Sams was doing in the role relegated to him!
As such he was doubly dangerous, though I couldn't hate him quite so much as before. And if this, indeed, was Bungo himself, cruising along in his Akikaze-class tincan behind the convoy, we were in for an interesting night of it.
'Range to stern escort-we can hardly make him out-he's fading in and out of the radar scope-about fifteen thousand yards.' Jim fell silent for a minute. 'Zig! The convoy has zigged to his left. Now on course one-three- zero!'
We followed suit. 'Keep plotting and checking his zigs, Jim,'
I said. 'When we get them down pat we'll start in.' I began to weigh the various factors of the problem. Bungo was astern, and he was by far the most dangerous of the many destroyers and antisubmarine escorts. Instead of turning toward the rear of the convoy, which would be the natural thing to do after shooting our torpedoes, maybe we should turn back toward the head.
This would keep us clear of Bungo for a while. If we could count on a bit of confusion on the part of the Japs, perhaps over dependence on Bungo's sweeping-up operation, we might get away with it. One thing we would have to be careful to avoid, however, was the temptation to dive. If we dived, we became virtually stationary, and that was what Bungo Pete wanted us to do. Plodding along astern of the convoy, having had ample time to be fully alerted to our presence, he would be upon us immediately and subject us to another one of those silent, thorough, unhurried, and practically lethal creeping at- tacks, or perhaps something else, even better, which he might have thought of since. That, above everything, we had to keep away from.
'Another zig, right, this time! Course now one-six-five!
Recommend increase speed to fourteen knots!'
'All ahead standards I ordered. 'Sound the general alarm.
Jim, will you come up to the bridge for a moment?'
'We're already practically at battle stations, skipper,' said Jim a second later. The musical chimes were still sounding.
'Just a couple of men haven't taken over their regular battle stations yet.' He looked at me questioningly.
'Jim,' I told him, 'I want to avoid tangling with that last ship. It's no doubt a tincan, and it might even be the one that nearly sank us on our first run here.'
'How do you know that?'
'I'll tell you all about it later. Should have before this.
Besides that, we mustn't dive unless it's absolutely an emergency.
