Ahead and off to the right, a large ship bulked high above a forest of masts. The car reached the end of the road, turned to run along the waterfront. “That’s the mothball fleet,” volunteered the driver. “There’s the tender, I don’t know its name, and there’s all kinds of old ships here, mostly little ones, like DEs and such. There’s a bunch of subs just beyond them, all moored together. They should be waiting for us on the tender, but if we don’t see anybody there I’ll run you down to the subs.”
The repair ship, or tender, floating extremely high in the water, loomed above the sedan as it passed. Ahead, a group of people stood in the road. There were about a dozen men, some in civilian work clothing, some in naval uniform, one showing the four broad stripes of a captain. Behind them a dozen old submarines were moored to heavy wooden pilings. Serried ranks of gray had faded to a ghostly white. The rounded hulls were streaked with dirt and rust, and rubbing scars showed where the paint had scraped off against the pilings. In two groups of six each, they floated so high that the curve at the bottom of each bow, where it turned aft to join the keel, was visible above the water. Torpedo tubes, normally below the surface, were totally exposed, bow and stern. The effect was incongruous. If submarines could fly, this was how they’d look just before lift-off.
Prominent on the deck of each of the submarines was a large silver dome about six feet high with a thick, stubby projection on one side and curved vertical ribbing intersecting at the top like longitude lines on a global map. This was the protective covering over a mothballed deck gun. One submarine displayed two such domes, one forward and one aft of the bridge. With a pang of sentimental attachment, Richardson recognized the Eel. This was where she had been left, abandoned, fifteen years before. This was exactly the spot, unchanged, except that now there seemed to be fewer ships of all kinds around. Eel was fourth boat out in a nest of six, exactly as she had been. She had been carefully prepared for the mothball fleet. All deactivation instructions had been meticulously, even lovingly, carried out. Her machinery files were complete; her spare parts were as up to date as they could be, with requisitions to fill deficiencies already prepared. Her batteries, ammunition, torpedoes, fuel and provisions had been removed, her propellers detached from their shafts and securely stowed on deck. Her interior compartments had been scrubbed clean, painted where necessary, at the end — just before the dehumidifiers were turned on and the hatches locked.
Her crew had gradually been diminished during the deactivation period, until only a few were left. Then these also departed, leaving Eel, covered with gray preservative paint, tethered with heavy lines through bow and stern chocks, floating a full ten feet above her normal waterline. And there she lay, now, exactly where she had been waiting all these years.
Could inanimate hulls that once were living ships have a personality, could they think in fact as sailors are accustomed to credit them in fancy, Eel might have spent the intervening years grieving for the masters she had once served. The thought was maudlin. Richardson had felt no compulsion to revisit his old ship. Yet now, the first time back, the forgotten emotions were with him, as if they, too, had lain dormant awaiting his return. He recalled that he himself, citing the tradition that the captain must be the last to leave his ship, had shut the last hatch, been last man over the side, on that final day of abandonment. It had been done as a matter of course, not with any show of emotion, but symbolic nevertheless. Eel was not, after all, to be done away with. She was not, like the Walrus, gone forever. She would someday be returned to the active fleet, to resume the glory of a free being in the limitless sea. And yet, there had been a feeling of abandonment. He had imagined her crying not to be left alone. There was the memory of a lump in the throat, a voice not quite ringing true, a hand secretly caressing the bridge rail and periscope supports as he took his final leave.
Much had happened since then, but he had not been back. Until now; and suddenly it was all alive again.
The man wearing the four-striped uniform came around the car to Richardson’s side as Rich stepped out the door. “Captain Richardson?” he asked, dubiously eyeing the civilian suit. “I’m Jim Boggs, reserve fleet commander. This is sure good of you. I can appreciate why you wanted to do this, and it solves a problem for us, too. Great idea, but why the civvies?”
“They’re all we had where we were. But what’s this about this being our idea? We were sent here to inspect something. That’s all I know. I figured you’d brief us on what it’s all about, and we’ll look over what we can while we’re here, but we have to catch the night flight to New York. So we’ll not have much time…”
“Oh, getting to San Francisco airport is a breeze from Hunter’s Point. They’ll run you over there in a car in fifteen minutes. You’ll have plenty of time to party with the Brazilians in the club before you have to leave — ah … What are you supposed to inspect?” The puzzlement on Boggs’ broad face was genuine.
“We thought you’d be able to tell us. All I know is that our original orders were modified by telephone. We’re to report to you, inspect the reserve fleet subs, and leave San Francisco tonight.”
Boggs’ face was increasingly clouded. “Nobody not in my own chain of command can give me a surprise inspection. Something’s funny about this. I got a telephone call last night, too, telling me that you three were coming and had volunteered to ride the Eel down to Hunter’s Point. We’re turning her over to Brazil, you know.”
“The Eel? To Brazil? We volunteered?” Rich was conscious of sudden acute interest on the part of his two car mates.
“That’s right. We were going to turn over the Orca, but she wasn’t in too good condition, and the Brazilians refused to accept her. So the Eel was picked to take her place. She was being saved in case our own Navy wanted to put her back in, and we know she’s in top shape. Whoever put her out at the end of the war did a good job.”
“We put her out ourselves, you know,” said Rich, “and I guess we were sort of proud of her. Some of the boats weren’t that lucky.”
“That explains it. Some of the relief crews didn’t care very much, I guess. Anyway, ComSubPac was so embarrassed about the Orca he wanted to send someone over with the Eel to present her, to square himself, like. I naturally thought that’s what you’d volunteered for. The Brazilians are going to meet her when she gets there, and I expect they’ll want to look her over before the yard begins ripping her apart. The best presentation committee ComSubPac could put aboard would be her old skipper.”
“I guess she’ll be a lot different when the yard gets through with her,” said Rich. “Snorkel, new radar …”
“And new sonar, new radios, streamlined bridge, take off the guns. You’ll not recognize her. She’ll be a brand-new submarine.”
“When are you shifting her across the bay?”
“That’s the whole point of this exercise, or at least, I thought it was. ComTwelve phoned that you were in and would be here as quick as the car could bring you. Otherwise we’d have sent her an hour ago. The tugs are here. We’re ready to break the nest and snake out your old ship as soon as you’re aboard.”
“Skipper,” said Keith, “this has got to be what we were sent here for. There’s no other way it makes sense.” Buck, standing beside Keith, nodded his agreement.