Richardson had heard of prisoners making weapons out of spoons, but there was no way he could envision to make one out of the spoon Moonface had forgotten, even if he had enough time. Maybe something would present itself later. He carefully put it out of sight on one of the shelves. Night was falling. He began to feel the hunger pangs, but more important was dryness in his mouth heralding real thirst. No doubt this also was part of Moonface’s design.
With the coming of darkness it became impossible to distinguish objects inside the storeroom. No light could enter through the solid walls and door, and very little came through the cloudy glass in the porthole. This at least could be repaired somewhat. Rich unlatched the glass port, swung it open, breathed deeply of the cool sea air. The opening was much too small for him to put his head through, but it gave him some comfort to crouch near the porthole, the better to get its full benefit. At the same time, he reflected, this would give him the opportunity of closing the port quickly and silently. He practiced the little maneuver so that he could do it in the dark without fumbling.
With the light still remaining, he could see almost straight down into the water. This resulted from the rather considerable flare of the patrol boat’s bows. By the same token, one would have to lean dangerously far out over the edge of the forecastle deck to see the porthole or the side of the little ship from topside. Flared bows, of course, were common with surface ships. Even Eel was built with considerable flare to give her better sea-keeping ability at high speed. It was owing to this characteristic of design that years ago a cruiser had sailed from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco, unknowingly bearing the word “MADHOUSE” in huge block letters on both her bows. Her entrance into San Francisco Bay created a delighted sensation in the newspapers, and instant consternation to naval authorities. Her captain had been completely unaware that anything was out of the ordinary until after he had anchored his ship and was heading shoreward in his gig.
There was a change in the regular routine of the patrol boat. After some moments Rich realized the engine had stopped. The boat was lying to, drifting. Perhaps she had also been drifting part of the time last night. Possibly this was why Eel had not heard her on sonar before surfacing. It was even possible that Moonface, believing in the presence of a second submarine, was hoping to catch Eel unawares.
It was becoming a dark night, darker than most. After a while, peering out of his tiny porthole, Richardson was convinced that a night fog had set in. The visibility, so far as he could tell, was nearly zero. It would be a good night for someone with a radar, a bad one for anyone without. Moonface’s orders might well be to lie to at night, making maximum use of whatever sonar gear he possessed. But if so, why had he gotten underway again last night? It was while he was mulling this over, wondering if the boat in which he was prisoner was capable of a sonar watch, and if so what it would use for power with the engine stopped, that a tiny noise wafted on the foggy air called him to straining attention.
Somewhere in the distance — it might be miles away, carried by the vagaries of fog and damp night atmosphere — an engine had started. He turned his head from side to side, putting first one ear and then the other to the open porthole. It was an engine! He had heard it starting — first rolling on compressed air and then bursting forth with power — too many times not to recognize it. It was one of Eel’s main diesel engines starting! There should be at least two — there were two! But the sound was so faint, so vague, that he could hardly believe he really heard it. Yet he had heard it; of this he was sure. Sonar, listening for underwater noises, probably would miss it. He wondered if any of Moonface’s patrol-boat crew had also heard, and, having heard, would understand what it portended.
There could be a number of reasons why an engine might be heard in the Yellow Sea: other patrol boats, a merchant ship, even an airplane flying overhead. No Japanese could be so intimately familiar with the sound of a U.S. submarine diesel engine as the sub’s own skipper. It was about the right time — a little late, perhaps — for Eel to surface, assuming she was back on some sort of a near-normal routine. Every sound he had heard had been a familiar one in the right order. Had he been closer, he would have heard the clank of the main induction and the clank also of the hydraulically operated engine exhaust valves. He could almost swear he had heard them, though it might have been only that he so wanted to. If true, it meant that the hydraulic system had been repaired and Eel was back in full commission!
It must be Eel. It could not be Whitefish. Distant and faint though it was, that sound was like a fingerprint. There was only one possible source for it! Eel was remaining in the vicinity, must be looking for him. She might even suspect the sampan. She would not, surely, be caught twice by the same trick of lying to with engines stopped.
If she saw the patrol boat, she would surely look it over through her periscope, would wonder whether the boat might indeed have picked up her skipper and quartermaster.… And then the idea which had been nagging at Richardson’s mind for the past several minutes suddenly assumed full detail.
He would have to move quickly and quietly, and he must eradicate all signs of what he had done. The hull of the patrol boat was dark, probably in order to blend in better with the general low visibility at night. He would need contrasting paint; one of the sealed cans he had noted had some dried white paint around its edges. He seized it, shook the can carefully, was rewarded with the heavy gurgle of a partly full can. He laid it gently on the floor at his feet To open it — the spoon!
It would not do to commit himself too far in advance. All must be in readiness to eliminate the signs as quickly as possible, preferably as he went along. It was imperative not to betray himself by paint drippings. There must be no cause for someone to look over the side and see what he had done. He must not leave any marks on the deck, on himself, or on his clothes. He would need something to apply the paint — a rag — and something to clean his hands with afterward, another rag. One of the cans apparently contained a solvent — turpentine. He thought about using it, decided not to unless absolutely necessary. The odor might become noticeable outside his cell. Perhaps if he would wrap his hands first — better yet, his leather wool-lined mittens, still in the pocket of his jacket!
Hastily he made his preparations. He placed the can on the deck, pried up its lid carefully. With a paint-soaked rag in his left hand, he reached as far out the porthole as he could to the right, drew a single broad vertical white stroke on the black wooden hull. He could not see what he was doing, had to go by the feel of the rag against the hull planking. Three times he resoaked the rag, repeated the stroke, until he was satisfied that he had made a solid vertical smear of paint, carefully allowing for the fact that he could not reach as far at the top and bottom of the stroke as he could in its midsection. More paint on the rag. Three short horizontal strokes, not too long. Then another vertical stroke alongside the porthole. Three more horizontal strokes attached to it. Finally, with his right arm reaching as far to the left as he could, a vertical stroke and a single horizontal stroke at the bottom.
He dropped the paint-soaked rag into the water. His ruined gloves followed. Carefully he squeezed the lid down tightly on the can, placed it on the shelf where he had found it. The rag he had laid on the rim of the porthole, after some thought, also went over the side. The remaining rags went deep into the sack from which he had taken them.
The whole operation had taken perhaps an hour. It was a dangerous move. A gamble. If discovered, the retribution would be savage. Rich could feel his pulse thumping as he proceeded with his careful clean-up. Finally he was left with only the spoon. For several minutes he debated dropping it out the porthole, decided against it. He might have use for it later on. Moonface might remember it, demand it back. He wiped it off carefully. Perhaps he should place it on the floor where he had found it, but he decided against this also. In the end it was hidden again on the shelf where he had first put it.