calm of the wizened graybeards under the straw hats. I was looking right at them with the periscope, only a hundred yards away as we went by. We turned around, came back. Closer this time, about fifty yards abeam. Still no sign of having seen us.
'Keith,' I muttered, as he took a look at them, 'if this is the best kind of help Bungo has got, the old rascal is slipping badly.'
Keith chuckled as he put the scope down. 'Don't waste too much pity on him, skipper. Nobody ever tried to get discovered before. These guys have probably never seen a submarine in their lives, and never expect to.'
'We'll fix that!' I crossed to the hatch, looked down to the top of Al Dugan's head. 'Control, watch your depth. We're going to go right underneath this little guy!'
'Watch the depth, aye, aye!' Al leaned his head back, acknowledged the caution.
Eel turned around again. Instead of going right under, Keith suggested we pass within a very few yards. This would permit continual observation of the fishing boat, whereas passing right under would require dunking the 'scope. We must have been less than five yards away from the boat as we passed this time, and I was looking through the periscope in low power practically under one of the straw hats. Keith had the other scope up, was doing likewise.
He was an old Jap in the classical mold. A long gray beard, about twelve inches long, wispy, and doubtless silky to the touch, ended in a point on his chest. His face was leathery, seamed from years under the sun's unshaded rays. No telling his age. It could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. His eyes were closed, or half- closed, and he was the picture of peace and contentment as he sat there, balanced bolt upright with his bare toes sticking up from behind bony knees.
The picture changed radically and suddenly when the old man opened his eyes. It must have been the noise of the water rippling past our extended periscopes, or perhaps the shadow of the most tremendous fish he had ever seen passing beneath him. Whatever the immediate cause, his peaceful contemplation was shattered beyond reclaim. His eyes grew as large as two butter plates, and his mouth, startlingly red, popped wide open. I could have sworn I heard him scream with terror, he jumped to his feet, forgetting the fishing pole he had been so blissfully tending, pointed frantically right at me.
The other five old men hopped up as if stung, crowded to his side, all six mouths wide open, an even dozen eyes staring with stupefied terror. They looked over into the water on both sides of their boat-no doubt our gray hull and black topsides could plainly be seen down beneath them-gesticulated violently, pointing down, raised their hands to their heads, waved them around helplessly.
'No more fishing for those fellows for a while,' Keith commented grimly. 'Guess we taught them a lesson at that!'
'I hope they have a guilty conscience for helping old Bungo,'
I laughed. 'Serves them right!'
Through our sonar equipment we could hear the high- pitched putter of a light gasoline engine. Our fishermen friends had started for home, as fast as their little craft could carry them. We watched them fading out of sight toward the shore, in the meantime set our own course at best-sustained speed back toward the Bungo Suido.
'Let's see,' mused Keith over the charts a few hours later.
'Let's see. Give the six old men three hours to get home and another hour to get the news through-they'll have a phone somewhere in their village, don't you think? Old Bungo ought to be stirring his stumps some time this afternoon. Maybe he'll come on out tonight.'
'That's the way I've got it figured, too, Keith,' I answered.
'He'll have us pegged for a day-submerged operator, so he'll plan on flushing us at night.'
Buck Williams had been an interested listener. 'Do you think maybe we might have overdone it?' he asked. Buck's apparent nervousness was just a mannerism, I had already decided. His brain was clicking all the time.
'Could be,' I answered him. 'But we've already used up fourteen torpedoes leaving our calling cards on Bungo Pete's doorstep, and we have only one full load left for our torpedo tubes. The best way would be to try to sink another ship, but then we'd have some dry tubes when we finally did meet up with the old rascal!'
Buck nodded, convinced. 'I guess he'll be sufficiently sure of himself to come after us anyhow,' he said.
'Well,' responded Keith as he folded up the charts and handed them to Oregon, 'he surely knows we're around any- way, and has enough reason to wonder what is happening out here in his back yard. If he can, he'll be out tonight. Otherwise, tomorrow for sure. That's my guess!'
'Mine tool Bungo will have a pretty good idea of where to look for us tonight-at least he will think he has. And that's why we should get back as near to the Suido as we can tonight.
Maybe we'll be on him before he suspects we're laying for him!'
All the rest of the day Eel raced for the entrance of the Bungo Suido, where we had been only the day before. It wasn't much of a race, as races go, for we had to balance our consumption of battery power against our speed and calculate carefully the degree to which it would be wise to allow it to be run down in prospect of the battle with Bungo Pete. We got in as close as we dared, right into the shallow water where the channel leading out of the Bungo Suido joined the open sea. It was dangerous because there was not enough water to go really deep-we'd hit bottom first-but it was the place to be if we hoped to nail Nakame before he realized what was going on.
It presented our best chance.
As the last rays of the setting sun were cut off behind the hills of Kyushu, the clouds to the east had grown until they covered nearly the entire sky. Through the periscope we could see that a freshening wind had already built up. Choppy waves four to five feet in height were running in from the east, and it was apparent that the wind also was coming from that direction.
Shortly before it was dark enough to surface, Keith sought me out in the conning tower where I had gone to get ready.
'It looks like a storm to me,' he said. 'We've had no radio warning of it, but all the signs are exactly like the description in Knight's Seamanship.' He handed me the ship's copy of the classic, open to the on hurricanes. The page showed diagrams depicting the behavior of storms in northern and southern latitudes.
I already had my red goggles on; so I didn't try to read the text. I had studied it all at the Naval Academy anyway. 'I've been thinking the same,' I told him. 'With the weather coming in from the east, it looks as though the storm is to the south, and if it behaves the way storms are supposed to it will curve to- ward the east as it moves north. The storm center will pass just to the east of us, and this area will get a good lashing.'
'When will it hit us?'
'Tonight, before morning, unless it goes erratic on us.'
'Maybe that will foul up things for tonight!'
'It can't be helped, if it does. But old Bungo might think it will give him an advantages I had raised the periscope, was slowly swinging it around in a circle. It was growing dark rapidly.
'Five-eight feet!' I ordered. 'Stand by to surface!' The waves were high enough that I would need the two extra feet for better visibility.
'Five-eight feet, aye, aye. Standing by!' Williams on the dive.
He would have the first bridge watch, too. The whole ship was in a special state of super watchfulness. Keith and I had both napped, or tried to, during the afternoon, and we had put out instructions to the crew to do likewise. Our electric torpedoes had been given a specially loving last-minute check, including a freshening battery charge. Tonight there would be special extra lookouts on, and one torpedo at each end of the ship was in readiness for instant firing, needing only to open the outer doors-hydraulically operated, hence the work of a second. Eel was as ready as we could make her.
I went around again, slowly. Something caught my eye to the northwest, in the direction of the Bungo Suido. Steady now, I fixed on it. 'Keith. Mark this bearing!'
'Three-two-eight! What is it?'
'Dunno-ship, I think.' I shifted the periscope from side to side ever so slightly. It was getting so dark it was hard to see. My eyes were not completely accommodated, for the red goggles are not one hundred per cent effective protection. It was growing darker faster than my eyes were accommodating themselves.
But the object-ship, it must be-was getting nearer, too.
'Bearing-Mark!'
'Three-two-eight and a quarter-just a hair more than be- fore!'
I spoke without taking my eyes away from the periscope eyepiece. 'Keith, are all lights out in the conning
