An hour went by with negative reports at five-minute intervals from Sirocco. Another half hour went by with the same negative report, no masts visible. Standing on the cigaret deck Captain Mealey could see a horizon that was four and a half miles distant. The searching lens of the periscope above him could reach out to a horizon a little more than eight miles away. Given the fact that the masts of the lead destroyers would be at least as high above the sea as the periscope lens, the tops of those masts should come into view when the destroyers were still sixteen miles distant, their superstructures and hulls below the horizon. It was not likely that any lookout on the destroyers would pick up Mako. The positioning worked out by Sirocco put Mako in a line between the approaching flotilla and the dark bulk of the large island of Truk.
Captain Mealey fidgeted on the cigaret deck. In a half hour the first light of the false dawn would begin to show and he’d have to submerge to escape detection by the morning air patrols. He gripped the twin barrels of the 20-mm machine gun on the cigaret deck and ground his teeth together in frustration. Joe Sirocco’s voice floated up through the hatch from the Conning Tower.
“Bridge! Here they come!”
Mealey pushed by the OOD and paused at the hatch. “I want the lookouts to strain their eyeballs until they pop a blood vessel! I won’t be surprised by some aircraft out early or a damned patrol boat nosing along the reef!” He dropped down the hatch to the Conning Tower. Sirocco stepped away from the periscope.
“Bearing three two two, sir,” he said. Mealey put his eye to the rubber eyepiece and stared at the distant horizon. It was bare. He moved the periscope minutely from side to side and then he saw them.
Far away, barely visible against the still dark sky he saw two tiny, hair-thin sticks, the upper masts of the leading destroyers. He clung to the periscope handles, centering the periscope’s cross-hairs on the faint lines. He watched, fascinated by the sight of the thin masts and then suddenly he realized that the thin lines were thickening, growing more distinct.
“Mark!” he snapped and Sirocco noted the periscope bearing. Mealey swung the periscope in a full circle to search the horizon and the sky and then came back to the bearing where he had seen the two masts
“Damn it!” he said. “The horizon’s getting light and they’re getting close! The bastards are an hour late! We’ll never be able to get a fix on them before we dive!”
“Bridge, sah!” The deep rolling voice of Thomas Thompson, the Officer’s Cook and a superb night lookout came down the hatch.
“Bridge! I have two small dots on the horizon bearing three two five, sah!”
“Bridge!” The starboard lookout’s voice was a yell. “Aircraft! Bearing zero nine zero, taking off and circling!”
“Down periscope!” Mealey said, snapping the periscope handles up against the barrel of the periscope as Sirocco jammed a broad thumb against the button that lowered the periscope. Mealey took two long steps to the ladder to the Control Room and turned his face toward the bridge hatch.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” he yelled.
Sirocco heard Pete Simms yell “Clear the bridge!” and then the lookouts were thudding down into the Conning Tower, taking one practiced step backward and turning and plummeting down into the Control Room. Simms slid down the ladder to the Conning Tower deck, edging to one side to let the quartermaster reach up past him and grab the toggle that hung from a short length of bronze cable fastened to the inside of the bridge hatch. The quartermaster heaved downward on the toggle and as the hatch slammed shut and latched Simms reached up and spun the locking wheel tight. Mako’s bow buoyancy tank sighed noisily as its vent valves opened and all seven main ballast tanks burped mightily and Mako slid under the sea.
“Two hundred and fifty feet!” Mealey said to Simms as he landed on the Control Room deck. “Make it fast! We’ve only got four hundred feet of water so don’t hit our ass on the rocks!”
As Mako leveled off at 250 feet Mealey punched the Battle Stations alarm button. The clanging of the gong sent Mako’s crewmen racing through the ship to their battle stations. When all the compartments had reported all Battle Stations manned, Mealey picked up the telephone and turned a switch that would let him talk to all compartments by loudspeaker.
“This is the Captain,” he said.
“The enemy destroyer line is in sight. Somewhere astern of the destroyer line there is a big battleship.
“The battleship is our primary target.
“This morning we are going to make submarine history. No other American submarine has had a shot at a battleship. No other submarine, to my knowledge, has ever successfully broken through an escort of twelve destroyers helped out by aircraft.
“We are going to make that penetration!
“We are going to hit and sink that battleship!
“Now hear this: I want complete silence about the decks. The success of our attack depends entirely on surprise, on our ability to slip under the destroyers and attack.
“Set depths on all torpedoes at twenty-two, repeat two two, feet.
“I intend to fire all tubes forward and then swing ship and fire all tubes aft.
“As soon as possible begin a reload forward of tubes one, two, three and four. Set depth on the reload torpedoes at two, repeat two feet.
“As soon as possible aft begin a reload of tubes seven and eight. Set depth on reload torpedoes at two repeat two feet.
“Reload of torpedo tubes fore and aft will begin as soon as possible without direct orders from me. Once we shoot down this battleship we’re going to have to fight our way out of here against the destroyers.
“Rig ship for depth charge attack!”
Ginty grunted as he knelt down on the deck between the two vertical banks of torpedo tubes and set the depth at twenty-two feet on the torpedoes in tubes five and six. He snapped out the depth-setting spindles and yelled at his telephone talker.
“Tell ‘em depth set at twenty-two feet all fish and spindles disengaged!” He got to his feet and walked — back into the torpedo room and began to lay out the block and tackle, called the “Tagle,” used to pull the reload torpedoes into the tubes.
“You fuckers in this here reload crew,” he growled. “Don’t panic when you see water pourin’ in from the inner doors when they open. I ain’t gonna wait until them tubes is dry enough to sleep in before I open the inner doors! Soon’s as I can manhandle that fucking inner door it’s gonna open and when it does you get the safety strap off’n the fucking fish and start pullin’ the bastard into the tube!”
Lieut. Nathan Cohen sat in front of his sonar dials, his ears covered by the big muff-like earphones, and listened to the distant sounds of ship’s propellers. He sat loosely on a stool, his eyes closed, opening them only to note the bearings on the dials, which he reported in a soft voice to Joe Sirocco. Captain Mealey watched as Sirocco plotted in the bearings on a tracking chart. Mealey turned to Lieutenant Simms.
“We’ve got maybe an hour before they get here. You’d better review your compensation figures. Once I start shooting and they start reloading fore and aft you’re going to have to be sharp as hell, Mister!” Captain Mealey’s voice was cold, impersonal.
“You broach me or dip the periscope so I can’t see and you’ll think the end of the world has come and it will have, for you!” Simms nodded and managed a sickly smile as he took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and began to study the rows of figures he had written down earlier.
Sirocco glanced at Simms and felt a sudden pang of sorrow for the man. Simms was an able Diving Officer but the assignment he was facing called for a sensitive feel for the ship and a mind that could coolly handle a dozen or more intricate mathematical calculations simultaneously, interpret them and then give the necessary orders.