'It's the day the Nerka was due back from patrol.'
'Was due. What do you mean?' I half-rose again. Not Stocker Kane!
'Was due, Rich. We won't see her again.' Blunt spoke gently, sorrowfully. 'She was a grand ship, and had a grand crew. Kane was one of the best.'
'What happened to her?' I cried. 'Where did she go?'
For once the battered pipe lay unnoticed on the desk top. Blunt met my eyes steadily. 'He was in AREA SEVEN. That makes six boats that have been lost there.'
'Six submarines lost in AREA SEVEN?' I was incredulous. No one I knew had had any idea of this.
'Yes, six. The Needlefish, Turbot, Awlfish, Lancetfish, Sting- back, and now the Nerka.'
'But, good Lord, Captain, the Turbot and Awlfish were lost en route to SouthWestPac in Australia! And I never heard of the Stingback!'
'Quite so. Naturally we didn't want to give Bungo any in- formation as to how badly he was hurting us. Incidentally, he thinks he sank several others too, among them the Octopus. But I think he's taken the Walrus off his list; at least, he doesn't mention her any more. He got the Turbot last year and Eddie Holt in the Awlfish several months ago; we made out that they had been sent south, just to quiet the local rumor factories.
Stingback was a brand-new submarine, built at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, but she had a veteran skipper and so we let her go in to SEVEN anyhow. She was the boat just before the Nerka. You were deep in the torpedo problem at the time, and I'm not surprised you don't remember her.'
I couldn't believe it. Poor old Stocker Kane! Why, only a few weeks ago he and I had sat up into the wee hours in his room at the Royal Hawaiian chewing the rag over old times. And now he was dead! Poor Hurry! I wondered how she would get the news. 'How did it happen, about the Nerka, I mean?'
'We don't really know anything, yet, Rich.' The pipe went into Blunt's mouth at last. 'He's only been overdue at our new base at Majuro for a few hours, but old Nakame has been claiming him for two weeks. And we've not had a message from him in that time.'
'Did Bungo give any hint as to how he sank her?' I was holding a wake, but I couldn't help it.
'The old fellow is too smart for that. The only thing we know about him is that he is still apparently picking up garbage sacks, despite our caution to the boats about them, and is get- ting their names out of them. I guess it's pretty hard to keep all mention of your ship's name out of all your garbage.'
I was counting on my fingers. 'Good God, Captain! Out of the last six boats that have gone into AREA SEVEN, he's sunk three!'
'That's right. And of the last two, he's sunk both of them.
And Jim Bledsoe is in there now.'
My stomach felt suddenly all washed out. 'Walrus,' I gasped.
'Why did you send the Walrus? Jim's already made seven consecutive runs-the whole ship is tired. They deserve a rest!
Not this! Why, this is suicide!'
'Easy, Rich.' Blunt's eyes were steady, but his face looked old, troubled. 'ComSubPac has orders to keep the Bungo Suido and Kii Suido under surveillance. Maybe the Jap fleet's in there-I don't know. Some day maybe Admiral Nimitz will let us know why. In the meantime, all we can do is put our best boats in there, let them know what they're up against, and try to prepare them the best we know how. Besides, at the time Jim left Stocker was doing fine. We had a message from him only the day before.'
I told him I was sorry for my outburst. 'But what can we do?
I anxiously asked him. 'We've got to do something We can't just let Walrus run into that kind of setup without some kind of action to help him!'
'We're doing all we can.' Blunt fumbled in a pile of papers, 'Here's what we sent him.'
The message said: URGENT FOR WALRUS X, INDICATIONS EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE ANTISUBMARINE ACTIVITY VICINITY BUNGO SUIDO X, TAKE MAXIMUM PRECAUTIONS THIS IS AN URGENT WARNING FROM COMSUBPAC.
Silently, I handed it back.
'The Walrus has been in the area nearly a week already, Rich, and he's sunk three ships. Two the first night, and one several days later. If there's anyone who can handle themselves in there, it's Jim Bledsoe and your old crew. But that's not why I wanted to see you. I think we've got a ship for you. That please you?'
Would it! In spite of the ominous shadow that lay on my mind, I started up eagerly at the news.
'The Eel is coming in from Balboa, and they think their skip- per has pneumonia. We'll have to check the whole crew, of course, and may have to transfer some of them if they show signs of having contracted the disease. You can have her as soon as she gets in.'
Eel was a brand-new Portsmouth-built boat, containing all the new and fancy gadgets which we in the old Walrus had wanted for so long, and improvised to get. She had a thicker skin and heavier frames, a narrower silhouette bows on, a larger conning tower with more gear in it and a smaller bridge, and the very latest in radar. In her engine rooms were four of the new ten- cylinder double-crankshaft Fairbanks-Morse diesels, rated at the same horsepower as the earlier nine-cylinder jobs and as the sixteens of the Walrus, but capable of considerably more. On deck she carried the same gun armament as Walrus, except for a new five-inch gun instead of our old S-boat four-incher.
Altogether she was a wonderful command, a real dreamboat, except for one thing-she had no crew.
It turned out that the trouble with her skipper was diagnosed as tuberculosis, and every man in her whole complement had to be sent up for observation. The probability of any others having it, the submarine force doctor said, was not too high, but they had been breathing the same air as their skipper for a long time, and in the confined quarters of a submarine, especially when submerged and recirculating the ventilation, the chances for wholesale exchange of germs could not help but be at their highest. The ship was thoroughly fumigated after the crew was taken off, and a crew of medical corpsmen went over her with disinfectant before anyone else was permitted to go aboard. When I got my new ship, that's exactly what I got, a ship. Bare.
Not that getting a crew assigned was difficult. With the normal rotation system in full swing, there were ample men with the necessary rates and skills to fill out several complete crews.
And some of the old Walrus crew, who had been left behind when she last departed, had already had enough of the rotation and specially asked to be assigned to the Eel. Among these were Quin and Oregon, both now first- class Petty — Officers with war experience which belied their youth.
My best piece of luck, however, was in getting Keith assigned also. He was due back anyway from leave in a few days, so I sent a telegram to his leave address asking him if he wanted the job of Executive Officer, and telling him to come back right away if he did. The answer came back next morning, and consisted of only one word: ENROUTE.
The rest of the officers were taken from the various relief crews which were the usual rotation assignments. I was careful to take only volunteers, however. A thin, nervous-looking Lieutenant named Buckley Williams came as Gunnery and Torpedo Officer, and another Lieutenant, Al Dugan, rather heavy-set and phlegmatic in appearance but already known for his sure touch on the dive, as Engineer and Diving Officer.
But merely having the personnel assigned is a very long way from having a fighting submarine, or a fighting anything else, for that matter. First we had to get things organized, lay out a Watch, Quarter and Station Bill, assign everyone in the crew a locker and a bunk, divide them into watch sections and into the various departments aboard a ship, lay out all their duties in accordance with what needed to be done as determined by the way the ship was built-and then begin the training.
Fortunately, having had the pick of the relief crews, Eel's new complement was basically all experienced. We were not, at least, required to take aboard a load of trainees in addition to the rest of our training problem. Though it was a back-breaking job, it turned out to be a fruitful one. I was amazed at the amount of progress that could be made in a day. As an Exec, Keith was a natural. In four days we had Eel at sea for her first dive, and in six we were shooting torpedoes. In two weeks I was beginning to wonder what area we would draw for our patrol.
The last week, our third, was spent merely polishing things up. We practiced the quick snap shot at an enemy submarine, taught all the officers, and the Quartermasters too, how to determine the quickest way to turn, how to line up the shot with sight of eye, what essential inputs the TDC had to have, and how to shoot. And we practiced how to shift instantly from one target to another, how to anticipate the enemy's next zig during the firing and how to correct for it. By the time I reported Eel to Captain Blunt as in all respects ready for a combat assignment, there
