“Good going, Keith,” said Richardson. “And the same for you, Blackwood,” addressing the perspiring and panting stern planesman. He was still dressed in the heavy clothing he had worn for his lookout stint on the bridge, and must obviously be pouring with sweat inside. It was hot in the control room. With all the doors and hatches shut and all bulkhead valves closed in the ventilation lines, there was no circulation of air. Less than two minutes before, Blackwood had been near to freezing on the bridge. Now he was roasting down below.
“All ahead one-third,” said Rich. “Do you want to see if you can put the stern planes back in hydraulic power?”
“We’ll try it,” said Keith. “What do you think the trouble was, Al?”
“My guess is that the depth charge went off pretty near to the stern planes while they were on hard rise, and jammed them into the stops. Didn’t you find it pretty hard to crank them clear in hand?” said Al.
“Right,” said Keith, while Blackwood nodded. “They went much easier once we started them moving.”
Richardson crossed to the general-announcing-system control station, punched the call button for the after torpedo room. “Stern room,” he said into the microphone, “is there any visible damage to the stern plane ram or hydraulic system?”
“Negative, Control,” said a voice immediately. “One of those depth charges sounded like it was right alongside, and it really gave them a jolt, but everything looks okay.”
“All right,” said Keith. “Go ahead and shift, Blackwood, but stand by to shift right back into hand power if you don’t have control in hydraulic.”
Gravely Blackwood operated the shift mechanism, tested his plane, nodded, reported to Keith, “Stern planes look okay, sir. I have control in hydraulic power.”
“Good,” said Rich. Then, addressing Keith, “Make your depth two-zero-zero feet. I daresay those planes will stick around awhile, so we’ll just stay down here until they’ve had a chance to get tired. Have all compartments check for damage and report.”
As was to be expected, the close shave with the two aircraft was the main topic of conversation throughout the ship. There had, however, been no damage. A fuse had been knocked out of the field circuit of one of the air compressor motors, causing it nearly to run away, but Lichtmann, on watch in the pump room, had been on the point of cutting off the air compressors anyway, as was routine on a dive. He had managed to cut the armature current before any serious damage had been done. It would be well, however, to check it carefully, Dugan reported, before using that particular air compressor again. Fortunately, the pump room harbored two of the vital mechanisms.
“At least, Commodore,” said Richardson, trying to make as light as he could of the incident, “they obviously had located us earlier, and carefully planned this attack. That means our decoy plan is working.”
“Too damn well, if you ask me,” responded Blunt. “Whitey Everett better have something to show for this, is all I can say!”
The wolfpack commander’s words were not a witticism. The two were having coffee alone in the wardroom. Clearly, Richardson’s scheme had gone too far for Blunt’s peace of mind. He must move carefully to avoid driving him back into the unrealistic state he had been in. Obviously, something serious, either psychological or physical, was happening to him. Keith had stated the obvious fact: stress of any kind was destructive to him.
Indeed, Richardson had already decided that the ComSubPac directive not to dive until the APR contact strength had reached three was obviously not applicable if an aircraft had previous knowledge of the submarine’s presence. During an attack run it would naturally reduce the strength of its radar signals to avoid alerting a radar detector aboard the target submarine. Henceforth, Eel would dive at strength one, or upon any persistent APR contact, whatever the strength.… He hoped there would be a message from Whitefish that night indicating that the stratagem carried out at so much risk had been successful.
But Whitefish sent no message. Instead was a message from ComSubPac:
RECENT BIG FUSS IN YELLOW SEA MUST BE DUE TO EFFECTIVE AREA COVERAGE AND SINKINGS BY BLUNTS BRUISERS X INDICATIONS INTENSIFIED ANTISUBMARINE ACTIVITY BY AIR PATROLS X CONVOYS STILL MOVING ON WEST COAST OF KOREA ALSO CHINA COAST CLOSE INSHORE X GREAT WORK JOE COMSUBPAC SENDS X
“They must be going around Whitey, Commodore,” said Richardson. “He’s in the Maikotsu Suido, all right, probably right in the middle of it. But this message says the ships are running close inshore, and my guess is they’re staying just as close to shore as they can get. They’re probably moving at night also, which could be another reason he’s not picking them up.” Rich had strenuously protested against requiring Whitefish to send radio messages. Japanese direction-finding stations had doubtless been alerted to locate the submarine in the Yellow Sea. If they should now recognize that there were two subs to worry about instead of only one, the risk to both would be intensified and the chance of targets for either greatly reduced. Eel could send messages for the time being, he had argued, for the presence of one submarine in the Yellow Sea was known; doing so, in fact, was desirable to draw attention away from the location of her wolfpack mate.
“I recommend we send Whitefish a message tonight that we’re coming in to join her in the Maikotsu Suido,” announced Richardson soberly. “We can send the message while we’re still out here, and tell her not to receipt for it or open up her radio in any way. We have four fish left, and if we’re lucky, we might be able to bag another ship. If we can get one out of a convoy running along the coast, that will divert the rest of them offshore into the middle of the Maikotsu Suido, and that’s where Whitefish will be waiting for them.” Rich could see that Blunt was somewhat less than enthusiastic.
“Why don’t we just tell Whitefish to go into shallow water?” said Blunt.
Richardson could feel his eyes narrowing. If Blunt could not see the obvious, somebody had to tell him. “Listen to me,” he said; then suddenly he realized that his voice had taken on much the same timbre as when he had protested Blunt’s callous comments about Joan and Cordelia Woods. “Listen: Les Hartly lost his ass and his ship because he didn’t know his business! It was our job to square him away, and we didn’t do it. He thought he knew all the answers because he’d been a skipper a long time, but a lot of things have changed since he made war patrols. He ran into a bear trap without even knowing what was going on, and they nailed him. It’s just the opposite with Whitey Everett. This is his first command. He’s not sure of himself. He’s good at the periscope, but he’s never made a surface attack at night, and you know he won’t. He’ll never go after those ships in shallow water, either, and we’ll just waste the rest of our time out here in the area. Dammit, Commodore, we’ve got to back in there! We know where the enemy is, and that’s where we’ve got to go!” The intensity of Richardson’s words clearly surprised the squadron commander. A lot depended upon Blunt’s reaction to Richardson’s harsh words. His mention of Les Hartly had been just right. Blunt hesitated. Rich moved in for the kill.