“Fire five!..
“Fire six!.. There’s another hit! Lots of smoke over his bow! ‘All back emergency!
“Right full rudder!
“Give me all you’ve got, maneuvering!”
Mealey felt the Mako shudder under his feet as Chief Hendershot in the Maneuvering Room threw all the voltage and amperage in Mako’s two huge storage batteries across the buses of the electric propulsion motors, adjusting the immense, surging power with a delicate touch so as not to blow out the circuit breakers and leave Mako helpless, without propulsion. Mako began to go astern, gathering way, her bow swinging widely to port. A second VAL sighted on the periscope, stooped and shot downward. The two bombs missed well to the right side of Mako’s swinging bow.
“All stop!
“All ahead full!
“All ahead full! Stand by to shoot aft!” Mealey twisted the periscope around.
“Another hit! Right under her bridge! Here we go, Plot!”
“Mark!” Botts read the azimuth ring bearing and Edge cranked the bearing into the TDC.
“Range… six zero! Meet your helm right there! Meet it, damn it! Don’t take me off course!
“Angle on the bow… one four zero starboard!” He looked at the battleship, hearing the gears in the TDC whir.
“We’ve got a solution, sir,” Edge said.
“Fire seven!” Mealey counted down from six to one.
“Fire eight!”
The precision ballet began in the After Torpedo Room with Mike DeLucia as the ballet master and Lieut. Don Grilley assisting.
“Fire nine!
“Fire ten! Another hit! Under his after turrets! Lots of smoke from his bow! Now there are flames shooting way above his bow! There’s a big explosion, lots of flame! Another hit! Amidships! Six hits! Six hits!” He swung the periscope around, chanting the bearings of the ships racing toward him.
“Range to the nearest destroyer… three zero zero zero yards… I’m going to have to shoot at this one!”
“Torpedo Tubes One and Two reloaded forward,” Sirocco’s voice held a note of repressed excitement. “Outer doors open, gyro spindles engaged, depth set two feet. Number Seven aft is ready, outer door open, gyro spindle engaged, depth set two feet. Number Eight will be ready in five seconds, sir! You’ve got One and Two forward and Seven and Eight aft!”
“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. He steadied on the onrushing destroyer.
“Zero gyro angle! He’s coming too fast for a plot! Right down his throat!.. Stand by… Fire one!” He paused. “Close tube outer doors! Flood negative! Take me down! Fast, Control, damn it, fast! Left full rudder! Down periscope! Stand by for depth charge attack!”
The torpedo burst out of the Number One tube and flashed toward the destroyer that was rushing at Mako. It roared down the destroyer’s port side, missing by 10 yards, leaving behind a trail of bubbles that reduced the lookout on the destroyer’s port side to gibbering fright. The destroyer’s captain, recognizing the lookout’s stammering shriek for what it was, pressed the buzzer to alert the depth charge crews at the destroyer’s stern and at the two Y-guns that would hurl charges far out to each side. He picked up his VHF microphone.
“Eagle’s Feather One to Eagle,” he said calmly. “We have the enemy in sight and have commenced an attack run. Enemy fired one torpedo, missing down our port side.” He nodded to his gunnery officer and the two Y-guns boomed and the depth charges began to roll off the squat stern of the destroyer.
“Drop is made, sir,” the gunnery officer reported. “Depth charge exploders were set for one hundred feet.” The destroyer captain nodded. Back of his ship there was a low rumble and the ocean began to erupt in great gouts of water.
On the bridge of the Fubuki destroyer leader designated as Eagle, Fleet Captain Akihito Hideki of the Imperial Japanese Navy, lately the commander of the Japanese Navy’s Advanced School for Anti-Submarine Warfare, rubbed his small gray goatee. Captain Hideki was a small man, physically, with delicate bones and a scholarly manner. That manner and his standing as the ranking expert in the Japanese Navy’s anti-submarine warfare department had led to his nickname, the “Professor.”
He rubbed his goatee again and then smoothed it and turned to the Eagle’s commander.
“Please tell all the Small Birds to deploy in a half circle from here to here….” His narrow forefinger traced a line on the chart that lay on the table beside the Eagle Captain’s position at the starboard wing of the bridge.
“Small Birds are to form a sonar listening line and report to us. Eagle’s Feathers One and Three form up port and starboard of Eagle’s Feather Two. Ask our friends in the Air Force on the atoll to please put some observation planes in the air at once. The water is very clear. They should be able to see the submarine down as far as two hundred feet.”
“The battleship, sir?” Eagle’s Captain’s face was stricken. The safety of the battleship had been the responsibility of the destroyer squadron and he was second in command only to the Professor.
“We can do nothing for her now,” the Professor said calmly. He steadied his binoculars and looked at the burning ship.
“She still has some way on her. I presume her commander is trying to beach her on the reef. The fires appear to be out of control.”
A junior officer approached, saluting smartly.
“Your message sent and acknowledged, sir.” The Professor nodded and looked down at the chart. Then he raised his head and looked at the battleship, flames soaring high above its forward turret area.
“A skilled, daring attack!” he said slowly. “Does the battleship commander know how many torpedoes were fired at him? How many hits he took?”
“He reported seeing the wakes of nine torpedoes, sir. He took seven hits, all down near the keel. The second torpedo set fire to his ammunition storage for the forward turrets, sir.” The junior officer was standing at ramrod attention, his moon face impassive.
“Lucky shooting!” Eagle’s commander said.
“No!” the Professor said. He touched the chart with his forefinger. “Eagle’s Feather One attacked here. The submarine got under us undetected and closed to point-blank range! That is not luck! That is skill and daring! Seven hits out of nine torpedoes is remarkable shooting! And getting his hits below the armor plating! We’d better make a note to inform Intelligence that the Americans have apparently solved their torpedo problems.” He looked at the chart again.
“He fired nine at the battleship and saved one if he were attacked. He fired that one at Eagle’s Feather Two and missed. So now his fangs are drawn! He can’t risk a reload, reloading torpedoes is a noisy and slow business.” He rubbed his hands together and the skin made a dry, rasping sound.
“You know, I’d like to meet with this man below us, talk to him! But that is impossible because we are going to kill him! So we must now put ourselves in his place, think as he will think.” He turned to Eagle’s Captain.
“When I had you as a student you were very good at putting yourself in the place of a commander of a Japanese submarine. Now let me see how you will put yourself in the place of an American submarine commander! What will he do, do you think?”