“Aircraft?”
“There will be air cover from that big airfield on that one island,” Mealey said. “But our own peacetime experience has shown us that fliers don’t usually pick up a periscope. And the Japs have weak eyes, we know that.”
“One last point, if you don’t mind,” Sirocco said.
“1 don’t mind, I welcome it, Joe.”
“If they’re on time we should pick them up when they’re an hour or more away from attack point. If he has destroyers out in the van, sweeping, what will we be doing during that time?”
“The chart shows a shelf along the sea side of the reef,” Mealey said. “You pointed it out to me yesterday. The water there is what — four, five hundred feet deep? It falls off down the side of that submerged mountain to a thousand or more fathoms. I intend to slide along at two hundred and fifty feet so the aircraft patrols can’t pick up our shadow, on top of that shelf. When we move in to the attack we’ll bore right in, come up to periscope depth, verify the sonar plot and begin shooting!
“I intend to begin shooting at eight hundred yards. That’s point-blank range! As point-blank as you can get. We’re here, a good ten to twelve hours ahead of the ETA the intelligence report gave us. If it shows up on time, if it isn’t already inside the atoll, there is simply no way I can explain a failure to get into position and shoot. My whole Naval career is riding on this one action! If I miss this opportunity I’ll be commanding a desk in some recruiting station for the rest of my career.” He got up and went through the door and into the Control Room.
Sirocco turned to Don Grilley, who had been sitting at the far end of the Wardroom table during the discussion.
“It’s a matter of priorities, Don,” Sirocco said in a half-whisper. “The importance of the target is relative to the factor it plays in your promotion. How are the torpedoes?”
“As good as we can make them,” Grilley said. “Rhodes wore a path from the Forward Room to the After Room when they were routining them. All the air flasks are topped off to three thousand pounds to the square inch and the rudder throws have been adjusted to a gnat’s ass, to quote one Ginch Ginty. The gyroscopes were taken out, spun with air and oiled and put back in. Rhodes and Ginty did that job themselves.”
“They use sperm oil to lubricate the gyros, don’t they?”
Grilley nodded. “It has no acid to corrode anything. Put it in with a hypodermic needle. I’m sure we’ll get a hot, straight normal run out of each fish. If we fire at eight hundred yards and the wake of the torpedo shows up two hundred yards aft of where the fish is, how long does that give the target ship to get out of the way? Torpedo runs at forty-five knots.”
Sirocco fiddled with his slide rule. “A little over twenty-one seconds. Not enough time to get a ship out of the way. If he gets in close and makes good periscope observations, he’s going to get hits. It’s what happens after he unloads all the tubes that concerns me.”
“Maybe he’s thinking that if he sinks a battleship, a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor will be worth it!” Grilley said with a sad smile.
“Doesn’t help us feather merchants,” Sirocco said. He stood up and stretched, the muscles in his heavy shoulders cracking. “I’d better get to work and figure out a course along that reef. What I’d like to do is get some sleep.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Grilley answered.
Captain Mealey climbed into the Conning Tower where Pete Simms was standing by the periscope.
“Full dark came down an hour ago, sir,” Simms said. “We’ll need five hours and thirty minutes for a full battery charge.”
“Very well,” Mealey said. “We’ll go up in a few minutes. I want to check something with Joe.” He went down the ladder to the Control Room and saw Aaron with his Bible in his hand.
“I hope you’re reading that, son,” Mealey said. “Pray for our success tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll do that, sir,” Aaron said. “But I think there’s something you should know about prayers, sir.”
“What?” Captain Mealey said sharply.
“ ‘No’ is also an answer, sir, to a prayer for help.”
Mealey nodded shortly and consulted with Sirocco briefly at the chart table and then went back up to the Conning Tower.
“Sixty-five feet, Control,” he ordered. Mako crept upward in the dark sea until her periscope broke water. Mealey made two full sweeps with the periscope and then snapped the handles closed.
“Stand by to surface!” he ordered. “Let’s go up. Surface! Surface! Surface!”
Mako shuddered as compressed air blasted into her ballast tanks and she rose, buoyant, her periscope shears breaking the skin of the water, and then the Conning Tower burst through the surface, the sea water streaming in silvery cascades down the camouflaged sides. Mako wallowed on the surface and with a giant snort the four main diesel exhaust stacks cleared the residual water from the outboard exhaust lines and then the engines settled down into a steady rumble, one engine on propulsion and the other three charging the two giant storage batteries that powered Mako submerged. Overhead a thick cloud pattern hid the stars. The starboard lookout raised his binoculars and sang out.
“Lights! White lights bearing zero eight zero, Bridge! Very small white lights.”
Standing on the cigaret deck Captain Mealey raised his binoculars and studied the lights. Shoreside lights, he concluded, shoreside lights on one of the islands within the atoll. The starboard lookout cleared his throat.
“I see surf, Bridge, looks like a reef bearing all along the starboard side. Can’t tell how far away it is.”
Mealey nodded to himself. The reef should be a mile to starboard. Sirocco’s navigation was excellent for a Reservist, he reflected. The man was extremely capable. Mealey thought a moment; not only was Sirocco capable but he apparently had very powerful friends. His assignment to Mako had come directly from Washington. It was unheard of to put a Reserve aboard a submarine as an Executive Officer. He wondered, as he had wondered many times before, if Sirocco was Naval Intelligence put aboard to find out about the defective Mark Six exploders. It was possible; Commander Rudd had mentioned that Captain Hinman was going to tell the President about the exploder problem.
“Permission to come topside and dump trash and garbage?” Mealey heard the voice of the mess cook and walked to the Bridge.
“Permission denied!” he snapped. “Stow the trash and garbage in the freezer locker until further orders.”
Standing at the bottom of the ladder that led to the Conning Tower, Andy “Grabby” Grabnas, Seaman First and a mess cook, shrugged his shoulders. Behind him there were eight burlap bags of garbage, each sewn tightly closed, each with a heavy stone in the bottom of the bag that had been taken from a stock of stones carried expressly to weight down the garbage bags so they would sink.
“Should have known better, Grabby,” Chief Rhodes said with a grin. “Captain isn’t going to dump garbage this close to an enemy base.”
“That wagon won’t show up,” Grabnas said. “You think I believe that stuff? I worked on my uncle’s shrimp boat down in the Florida Keys and he was the best seaman I ever saw and he couldn’t tell you within two days when he’d get us into port.” He went aft, his shoulders sagging under the weight of two bags of garbage.
At three in the morning Joe Sirocco drew a cup of strong black coffee and wolfed down two fresh doughnuts, then went to the Conning Tower and reported that he was standing by to make periscope observations to search for the target. Captain Mealey, standing on the cigaret deck, nodded approvingly as he saw the long, wide lens of the search periscope turn first toward Truk Atoll and make a long search there before turning to look toward the open sea.