tower and control room?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Very well.' I spoke distinctly, still looking. 'Sound the general alarm!'
I could feel the bustle through the ship. Keyed up as we were, the tension mounted like steam in a boiler.
'What is it, Captain? Do you think it's Bungo himself, already?'
'Don't know, Keith,' I admitted. 'It doesn't look like a destroyer.' We waited. Time had slowed down. This might be it, our big fight. No time to take a chance. Still getting darker, and the waves — bigger. The ship drew closer.
'I can see him now. Big freighter. High, anyway, dark hull, no visible waterline-angle on the bow about starboard ten.' I looked searchingly astern of him. Something was ringing a bell in my brain, something wrong with the setup, somehow…
'Control! Five-five feet.' Three more feet of periscope out.
Have to watch it-that's eleven feet of it exposed, although the size of the waves makes for some reduction. We're in good position to shoot him on this course, just as we are, if he doesn't suddenly zig. He hasn't zigged yet. Wish I could get rid of the feeling there's something wrong with this whole thing. It's too easy. I have a feeling we're looking right into a trap, just like that time off Palau…
Palau! The Q-ship! High out of water. Short and stubby, because floating high! No doubt loaded with cellulose, or balsa wood, or Ping-pong balls! So she could not sink, of course, even with half her side blown open!
'Give him eighty feet, Oregon. Range-Mark!'
'Three-five-double-oh!'
'Angle on the bow starboard thirty! Mark the bearing!'
'Three-four-five!'
I could hear Buck Williams whirling the TDC cranks. 'Set!' he said.
'Ready to shoot, Captain!' Keith. He had anticipated everything. All I had to do was give the word.
'We'll wait while the situation improves,' I said. This smacked of something Bungo might pull. I kept looking for the destroyer, couldn't find him. But something else caught my eye, astern. Low and bulky. Not a tincan. My heart leaped into my throat-a submariner Coming along astern of the Q-ship!
'Rig for silent running! Six-oh feet!' This would barely let me see over the tops of the waves, if I could see at all for long.
I could feel sweat on my face around my eyes inside the rubber eye-guards, didn't dare take them away. 'Boys, this is it! I think Bungo is on his way out to look for us!'
How fortunate it had been that we had come back so quickly, had taken station so close to the harbor exit, despite the shallow water!
We watched while the high, stubby Q-ship, for there could be no doubt of it now, went by. The submarine swept forward.
Then I saw the tincan. A dull, dark shape on the far side of the sub, running about abeam of it.
This was a quandary. We might get the sub, but then Bungo would have us exactly where he would like to get us, submerged, in shallow water. And the Q-ship was no slouch at depth-charging, either. No doubt they'd work a coordinated attack on us.
'Range to sub-Mark!' Instinctively I spoke in a low key.
Oregon read it right away. 'Three-oh-double-oh!'
'We have the sub on sonar!' Keith murmured in my ear, 'The bearing checks.'
The sonarman's name was Stafford. An old-timer. He'd been around submarines for years. Suddenly I heard his voice, raised for me to hear him directly. 'The submarine is diving!'
So this was the play! This was how they had gotten Stocker Kane and Jim! Slow-speed convoy of a single ship, escorted by a single destroyer, zigzagging radically and making slow speed so that the submerged submarine could keep up! Walrus and Nerka had probably come in on the surface, fired their torpedoes, and been fired on in their turn by the submarine. A very, very slick stunt indeed! If the Jap sub didn't get a shot off at first, he must have had plenty more chances while Jim and Stocker came back in for another try at the cellulose-loaded Q-ship! And I could imagine old Bungo watching it all in his tincan, playing the part of an unwary and incompetent escort but ready to mix it if he had to.
I could see the diminishing silhouette of the submarine, now, and seconds later couldn't see him at all. 'Do you still have him on sonar?'
'Yes, sir. Coming in like a threshing machine!' Stafford turned the sonar to loud-speaker so that I could hear it, a pounding, thrashing, gurgling noise. 'He's pumping and blowing at the same time, I think!'
'Keith,' I said, speaking rapidly. 'We've got to get the sub first! They won't expect us this close, probably won't settle down to a good sonar watch for a few minutes anyway. What range will he pass abeam?'
Buck answered. 'Twelve hundred yards!'
'Good! We'll shoot him when he gets there! Figure him to be at periscope depth!'
On and on came the bearing of the Jap sub, slowly creeping up to where we had decided to shoot him. It was a perfect sonar approach, exactly like those we had practiced for years at New London and Pearl Harbor, and rarely used in the war. The only new twist-funny we had never thought of it, was that it was sub against sub.
'We'll shoot one mark-eighteen electric fish,' I decided.
'He'll probably not even hear it, and if it doesn't work we'll try another.'
'He's approaching the firing bearing, Captain!' Keith's voice.
I was still on the periscope, now staring at Akikaze, now the Q-ship, now making a sweep all around just in case Bungo might have other ships in his convoy.
'Shoot when he's on, Keith!' One advantage of firing with a ninety track as we were doing was that the range in that precise situation drops out of the problem. No matter how far the target is, or how close, your torpedo will hit, if aimed properly and if it runs long enough.
'Fire one,' said Keith. The Eel jerked under me.
'One fired electrically,' said Quin's familiar voice.
'Torpedo is running!' said Stafford. I could hear it, a high whine, not as loud as the old steam fish.
'How much longer, Keith!'
'Thirty-three seconds!'
I spun the scope around. 'How long now?'
'-fifteen seconds-ten-five-Now!'
Nothing. You could hear the ticking of the stop watch in Keith's hand. Then-BOOM! A loud roar filled the conning tower. I looked on the bearing, helped by Keith's hands on the periscope handles. A froth of white water, an angry spume Rung into the air, followed by a mushroom of white. Nothing else.
Stafford was yelping. 'He's sinking!' His voice raced excitedly on, much like a football-game announcer's: 'Listen to the water pour in! Somewhere they've got a watertight door shut — there's another one slamming — his screws are slowing down — listen to the water pour in! I can hear things falling inside him! He must be standing right on end, straight up and down!'
We could all hear the grim cascade, the torrent of suddenly released black water smashing through thin bulkheads, filling compartments with shocking speed, compressing the air with the frenzied pressure of the sea. Then another noise, crunching, rending. 'He's hit bottom,' announced Stafford.
'Any chance for them, Keith?' Williams turned serious eyes at the Exec.
'To escape from the sunken sub?' Keith snorted. 'Not at the depth he's at, even though it feels pretty shallow when they're after you with depth charges. Besides, I don't think Jap subs carry escape gear.'
'Right full rudder!' I called out. 'All ahead standard! Keith, what was the enemy sub's course?'
'One-five-oh, Captain!'
'Steady on one-five-oh!'
I waited for Scott, the helmsman, to echo my commands be- fore explaining. 'Keith, what would you do if you were Bungo and you heard an explosion in the general vicinity of a submarine you were responsible for?'
'I'd go over and take a look!'
'And what would you expect to see?'
