“Five degree down bubble. Six hundred feet.”
“Here he comes!” Mike DeLucia said to Lieut. Don Grilley in the After Torpedo Room. The sound of the destroyer’s screws began to fill Mako’s hull as the ship up above raced down Mako’s invisible wake.
In the Control Room Captain Mealey unconsciously rose to the balls of his feet and stood, quietly, beside the gyro table. As the sound of the destroyer’s screws built to a roar within Mako’s hull he said,
“Right full rudder! All ahead flank! He can’t hear us now, he’s making too much noise! How’s the depth?”
“Five hundred and fifty feet, sir,” Simms reported, his voice rising in an effort to be heard over the sound that was filling Mako’s hull.
“He’s dropped charges!” Cohen yelled. “Two other sets of screws back there are picking up speed, sir!”
Cohen half-turned on his stool to see if Captain Mealey had heard him and the first depth charges exploded with a gigantic roar that hurled Mako sideways and downward. Cohen was thrown from his stool. Sirocco, who was standing at the chart table gripping its edge with both hands, felt himself lifted and then flung bodily into Captain Mealey, who crumpled under Sirocco’s weight and went sliding across the deck into the legs of the machinist mate who was stationed at the high pressure air manifold, bringing that man down in a heap. The lights went out, leaving only the feeble glow of the emergency lanterns. The helmsman, who had been thrown backward into Lieutenant Simms, picked himself up and got back to the helm.
“No power!” he said. “We’ve lost power to the helm, sir!”
“Shift to manual power on the bow and stern planes and the helm,” Mealey croaked from the other side of the Control Room where he was trying to untangle himself from the machinist’s mate. Cohen, flat on his back, but still wearing his earphones, rolled over.
“Two more sets of screws coming fast, sir! This is an attack run!” He got to his knees and reached for his stool and then thought better of it and sat on the deck, his stool cradled between his legs, his eyes on his dials.
“Left full rudder!” Mealey snapped as he got to his feet. “Come back to zero zero zero!”
“Both ships have dropped charges, sir!” Cohen said.
Mako bucked and rolled under the impact of a dozen or more depth charges dropped by Eagle’s Feathers One and Three. A spray of water jetted across the Forward Engine Room and Chief John Barber scrambled to the fitting with a wrench in his hand and brought the stream down to a trickle.
“Damage reports!” Captain Mealey snapped. Sirocco spoke softly into his telephone set.
“Nothing major, Captain. Electrical power is being restored, circuit breakers jumped out for the lights and auxiliary systems. Some minor leaks, nothing serious. Few bruises and bumps but no broken bones.”
“Very well,” Captain Mealey said. “What do you hear, Nate?”
“Hard to hear anything right at the moment because of all the disturbance from the depth charges, sir,” Cohen said. “That’s why he isn’t pinging on us. But he’ll be back in a minute.”
Mealey touched Dick Smalley, the Gunner’s Mate who was manning the bow planes, on the shoulder.
“Our depth charge exploder mechanisms have a limit of what, four hundred feet, Gunner?”
“Yessir,” Smalley said. “But the book says if you screw the spring down to more than three seventy-five you might rupture the diaphragm and get a dud. Chief I know on a tin can told me that they had orders never to set charges for deeper than three fifty, sir and that they had failures even then.”
“Let’s hope their depth charges have the same limitation,” Mealey said, “but from the sound of that last barrage they seem to be deeper than that. If we can stay below his depth charges we can get out of here with nothing worse than a bad shaking up!”
The destroyer designated as Eagle swung back in a long curve, heading for the place where the bulk of the depth charges had been dropped.
“All lookouts keep their eyes open,” the destroyer Captain said. “Look for an oil slick, debris of any kind or large air bubbles.”
“I hope with you,” the Professor said softly to the younger man. “But I don’t think we got him! A beautiful attack! But I am sure this man down there is a thinker. It is easy only in the classroom, eh? Do we still have contact with him?”
The radio operator overheard the question and answered without being asked.
“Eagle’s Feather Two has resumed sonar search, sir.” A junior officer trotted on to the bridge with a message flimsy in his hand, saluted and handed over the message and then retreated.
“This is an intercepted message, sir,” the destroyer’s Captain said to the Professor. “The Captain of the battleship is reporting to the command at Truk that he has grounded his ship on the reef. Fires are still out of control. A list of casualties will follow later. At present he is estimating three hundred or more dead.”
“If this were an American movie we’d all be going through the ceremony of Hara-kari,” the Professor said with a small smile. “And then who would be left to catch this man underneath our keels, eh?”
“The ceremony is an honorable one!” The destroyer’s Captain spoke in stiff, formal tones.
“Oh, I grant you that!” the Professor said “But so wasteful when there is so much work to be done. Arte purire sua, the old Romans were fond of saying. ‘One perishes by one’s own cunning.’ This is a cunning fox we fight. We must help him perish by his own cunning!”
“Contact!” the radio operator’s voice was loud. “Eagle’s Feather Two has contact with the enemy, sir!” The destroyer’s Captain looked at his superior officer.
“Again, sir, would you like the honor of conducting this attack?”
“And again, no thank you. But I appreciate your courtesy.”
“Sir, this man below us is clever! I would feel better if you were in charge.”
“Very well,” the Professor said. “We will enjoy a joint effort, the two of us pitted against the one man below. I have one suggestion; we know that he turns to one side or the other as soon as one ship begins its high speed run to drop charges. Then he comes back to his original course to foil the other two who are attacking and staying well outside the first ship’s run.
“Eagle’s Feather Two has done all the sonar work so far and her commander must be impatient. So I suggest that you issue him orders to make a delayed attack up the middle of the attack plot and see if we can catch this fellow after he sneaks back on his original course, eh?”
The younger man nodded, a small grin touching his lips. The Professor was a tricky man, he had sent many a destroyer commander almost weeping in rage and frustration to his quarters at his anti-submarine school. He issued the necessary orders in a harsh, chopped voice and the destroyers under his command began to form up for the attack. As his own ship heeled in a tight turn and took position he nodded at the signal officer and a bright flag at the foremast yardarm snapped open as its binding cord was pulled and Eagle moved to the attack, its screws biting the water, the depth charge crews standing ready. The second assault on Mako was under way.
The first attack had done little real damage to the submarine. The electricians had quickly replaced the few light bulbs that had broken. The cork insulation that had rained down in the first burst of charges and the broken glass from gauge faces had been tidied up.