Japanese, or that they had shouted in English, and I strained to catch their last words.
Always they cast some foul curse upon me and the Eel, always prophesying doom, swearing ever-lasting revenge. I took to spending long solitary hours on the bridge, alone, standing at the after part of the cigarette deck, looking at the water rushing past, or sitting on my bunk staring at the green curtain closing off the entrance.
Keith tried unsuccessfully to snap me out of it. 'Don't take it that way,' he'd say. 'We all did it together. I'd have done the same thing! We had to do it-Bungo would have been back there with all his crew of experts in a new tincan within a couple of weeks. Nobody's blaming you. The men are proud of you.'
But it didn't do any good. I hardly glanced at the operation dispatches as they came in, made Keith do all the planning, see to all the preparations. Vaguely I knew that we were supposed to stay on the surface during the air strikes, and remain in a certain spot, where crippled planes could find us. The aviators would ditch their planes or parachute out as close to us as they could get, and it was up to us to get them aboard. We were to remain there three days, unless the objectives of the air strike were achieved sooner.
On the morning of the first day, flying our biggest American flag, we were on station. The dispatches had said that the Jap aircraft would have much too much to do to spend any time bothering about a little submarine wandering around on the surface thirty miles south of Guam, but it felt a bit risky at first.
Then several flights of U. S. carrier-based planes appeared to the south, flew overhead en route to make their attack. We were too far to see the actual bombing runs but some of the dog- fights took place within our sight. And as the dispatches had said, none of the Jap planes took a second look at us.
We got no business the first day. So far as Keith or I could see from the bridge, every U. S. plane returned safely to its carrier, in the big task force over the horizon to the south. There were no distress calls on the special aircraft frequency we were guarding, though we did hear the fliers talking to each other.
As the second day wore on, it appeared likely that we'd have no business either. Our forces greatly outnumbered the enemy, and they were having a picnic. Mid-afternoon they started back, some of them flying low over us and waggling their wings. As I looked up at them, I wondered how it felt to fly in combat over the ocean, with no succor nearby in case of trouble, and thought I could sense, in some measure, the moral support given by our presence.
'Guess it's about over for today, too,' said Keith. 'Wonder if we can try to stay on the surface instead of diving like yester- day?' The day previous we had dived as soon as the last planes had gone back, in accordance with our instructions, but the air had seemed so empty and peaceful that after a time we wondered why we had bothered.
It was about this time that the bridge speaker blared forth: 'Bridge! Radio thinks they can hear a distress message!'
'I'll go down and see, skipper!' With that, Keith slipped down the hatch. In a few minutes his voice came up the speaker: 'It's a little business for us after all, sir. I'm telling the rescue party to stand by!'
Six men had been selected for their general stamina and ability to swim, to help bring wounded or helpless airmen aboard.
Buck Williams was in charge, and they were outfitted with heaving lines, knives, Mae West life preservers, and other pieces of paraphernalia.
Keith on the speaker again: 'There are three men in the plane, all wounded. They're going to try to ditch near us. They say they have us in sight!'
Low to the water, just appearing over the northeast horizon, a plane appeared, flying one wing low. It approached, circled us once. I could see holes in the fuselage and wing. The plane went off in the distance, turned, began to drop slowly, tail down.
The pilot had evidently picked his heading so as to finish- fairly near to us, and he did a nice job of letting his craft down into the water. It came in pretty fast, however, struck with a tremendous splash, bounced into the air, belly-flopped back in, and skidded to a stop.
Before it stopped moving we were under way heading for it, and several short minutes later we drew up alongside the two yellow life rafts that had miraculously appeared before the plane sank. Our rescue party was down on deck, looking very businesslike as they waited for the ship to approach closer to the rafts. One of them, Scott, held a heaving line coiled loosely in his hand, as though he were going to heave it to shore.
There was about fifteen yards' distance to the rafts when our headway petered out. We were anxious, of course, not to come up too fast and take a chance of upsetting them with our wash.
Scott took two or three tentative swings with the heaving line, wound up, and let fly. The heave was a beauty-which was why he had been picked for this job-and the weighted end landed just beyond the nearest raft, trailing the line across it.
Through my binoculars I could see the single flier in the smaller of the two rubber boats grasp the line and painfully haul upon it. It was evident that it hurt him to move. I cupped my hands, yelled at him: 'Make it fast! We'll pull you in!'
He made no acknowledgment, but I could see him pass the end of the line through one of the flaps of the boat and take a quick turn.
'OK, Scott. Pull them in easy,' I called. Three or four sailors on deck grabbed the rope, pulled slowly and gently, and in a few seconds the first life raft was alongside, the other following at the end of a short line. Several men reached down to help the fliers aboard, but it was evident that they were badly hurt, not to say exhausted, and beyond doing anything more to help themselves. Feebly, the man in the nearest life raft reached up, finally lay back, and shook his head with a helpless grimace.
'Pull them up forward to the sea ladder,' Keith called to Williams. Buckley and Scott ran forward, pulling the heaving line with them, lined the rubber boats up with the foot holes cut in the side of our superstructure, knotted the line around one of the forward cleats. Then they ran back to where Oregon, also in the party, was preparing to lower himself over the side.
His feet had already reached the first rung when one of the look- outs on the platform above me shouted a frantic warning.
'PLANE! PLANE!'
Keith and I looked over our shoulders instinctively. It was there, all right, a big four-engine patrol boat. It was coming right at us, the four big propellers glinting in the sun, the straight-across Japanese wing a thin, horizontal line bisecting them.
'Clear the decks!' I yelled. I reached down, pulled the toggle handle-our air-operated foghorn blasted its warning. Then, 'Clear the bridge!' Keith and the lookouts dashed below. The men down on deck came racing up. Oregon almost flew up from his barely over-the-side perch. When Williams, the last man off the deck, had almost reached the bridge level, I sounded the diving alarm.
'They'll be all right in the rafts, I told them we'd come right back up for them,' Buck said, as he ran past me.
'You bet!' I thought, 'and we'll surface under the plane and smash it to bits if it lands to capture them I'
Our vents were open, air whistling out of them, as I gave a last look around. The plane was a fair distance away; we'd get down in time. But as I looked forward my heart froze like a stone in my chest. The heaving line Scott had used was still fast to the starboard forward cleat, and our bow was already dipping toward the sea!
Instantaneously my mind encompassed the inevitables.
Within seconds we would be submerged, dragging the line, and instantaneously my mind encompassed the inevitable Within seconds we would be submerged, dragging the line, and the two rubber boats, with us. The three fliers would be dumped into the water. In their condition their survival for even a few minutes was a foregone impossibility. Even if we did come back for them, all we would find would be bodies, half-chewed by fishes attracted by the blood.
It could not have taken me more than a third of a second to assess the grim results of our carelessness. My carelessness in allowing the line to be made fast to the ship, Buck's in not cutting it free during the half a dozen seconds he had waited for Oregon, down on deck. All of ours, for not having anticipated the possibility of this very situation days ago.
Keith's head was framed in the hatch. 'Skipper!' he shouted.
'Take charge, Keith!' I yelled the words at him while running to the after part of the bridge where the rail was cut for access to the deck.
I leaped down, raced forward. The bow had just begun to dip when I got there, water barely sliding over the
