“Blow Negative!
“Bring me to periscope depth! Plot, give me the picture, give me bearings!” He climbed into the Conning Tower where Bob Edge and Botts had been for hours, suffering the horrendous noise of the depth charges which made the Conning Tower vibrate and ring like the inside of a drum.
“Get on the TDC!” Mealey snapped. “Stand by the periscope!”
Mako planed upward, rolling violently in the after wash of the explosions. In the Forward and After Torpedo rooms weary men wrestled the tube outer doors open and the talkers reported that tubes Two and Three, Seven and Eight were ready. Sirocco repeated the information to the Conning Tower.
“Up periscope!!” Mealey snapped as the depth gauge showed 75 feet. “Give me sixty-five feet!”
He swung the periscope around, blinking as the lens broke water.
“Mark!”
“Bearing one eight zero!” Botts rapped out and Edge set the bearing into the TDC.
Mealey’s hand found the range knob and spun it.
“Range to the target one zero zero zero! Angle on the bow is zero nine zero port! Oh, I’ve got you, you bastard! Stand by aft! Stand by Seven!”
“Fire seven!
“Right full rudder… flood negative… close the outer tube doors… my god this bastard’s coming right after us! Take me down! Hard dive! Hard dive!”
“Torpedo is running hot, straight and normal!” Cohen yelled. “Screws bearing one five zero speeding up and coming fast!”
The starboard bridge wing lookout on Eagle saw Mako’s periscope break water and his screaming warning brought the Professor and Eagle’s Captain rushing to the bridge wing. They both saw the long finger of bubbles reaching toward Eagle’s Feather Two.
“Eagle’s Feather Two turn hard right!” The destroyer Captain’s voice was a scream and the bridge radioman hesitated slightly before relaying the order.
“Set depth charges at one hundred feet!” the Professor said to the bridge talker, an older man and poised. “Quickly!” On Eagle’s fantail two gunners began to frantically reduce the tension on the diaphragm springs of the two depth charges at the end of the release rack.
Eagle was under the full drive of her engines, turning to where Mako’s periscope had shown briefly. A shattering roar filled the air and the Professor saw a huge gout of water rise beside Eagle’s Feather Two and then as the water subsided he saw the ship, broken in two, its bow rising high, the dull red anti-fouling paint showing in the clear air, its stern twisted off to one side and then the bow began to slide downward.
“Don’t lose him!” the Professor said softly and the destroyer’s Captain nodded grimly, his lips set. Eagle raced toward where Mako had shown. The Captain raised his hand and then brought it down in a sharp chopping motion. On Eagle’s stern the gunners pulled back on their release levers and two big depth charges set to explode at 100 feet rolled off the stern.
The booming roar of Mako’s torpedo hitting the enemy ship shook Mako and Joe Sirocco clicked his stop-watch and looked at it.
“That was a hit!” He yelled up at the Conning Tower. He spun and looked at the depth gauge needle as the roar of an enemy ship’s screws filled Mako. The needle showed 110 feet, moving steadily.
As the roar of the Fubuki’s screws filled the ship the crew looked at each other with naked fear in their eyes, turning instinctively toward the telephone talker to find out what was being said in the Control Room.
“Sound says he’s dropped!” the talkers said. The crew waited, some lying tensely in bunks, others braced defiantly, holding on to torpedo racks and rails in the engine rooms. They waited.
The two depth charges exploded as Mako passed 125 feet. The noise, the racking shock of the two explosions, were greater than anything Mako had experienced before.
“Agggh!” Ginty cried as his grip on the handle of Number One torpedo tube door was broken and he was thrown violently to the deck. Farther back in the compartment the man who had kidded with Dusty Rhodes about not having enough lead in his ass began to scream, a long ululating sound that went higher and higher in pitch until it seemed impossible that the human throat could make such a sound. Rhodes, spitting out the fragments of two broken teeth, fought his way down Mako’s bucking deck to the bunk and yanked the man out of the bunk and on to his feet.
The sailor’s face was blank, his eyes closed, his mouth wide open, his wailing scream exploding into the torpedo room. Rhodes carefully jabbed the man’s chin with his left hand, closing the man’s mouth and then crossed the right in a short, chopping blow. The man spun sideways into the arms of one of the reload crew.
“Stow the son of a bitch in a bunk and if he yells again smother him with a towel!” Rhodes growled.
“Damage report! Control wants a damage report, Chief!” The talker’s voice was trembling.
“No leaks that I can see,” Rhodes snapped. “Report just that! Tell ‘em I’ll give them a full report in one minute!”
Mako twisted downward, seeking the safety of the depths. Sirocco turned his face toward the Conning Tower hatch.
“Mr. Grilley reports that After Trim tank may be ruptured,” he said. “The grease fittings on the bulkhead back between the tubes have blown out. DeLucia is plugging them now.”
“Very well,” Mealey said. “Mr. Simms, take note of that; you may have to compensate with a flooded After Trim.” He dropped down the ladder to the Control Room.
“Seven hundred feet,” he said to Simms. “Get back on course zero zero zero. Now we’ll see what that bastard will do!”
In the After Torpedo Room DeLucia had dragged a bright orange canvas sack filled with tapered wooden plugs of varying sizes to the torpedo tubes. He stood to one side, gauging the course of the two streams of water that were jetting into the room. Then he edged in between the banks of the torpedo tubes with his bag, a short-handled sledge tucked under one arm.
“We’re at four hundred feet and going down,” Grilley warned, his eyes on the pressure gauge. “Don’t get a hand in front of those streams of water! At this depth that water will cut like a knife!” DeLucia nodded and squatted under the two streams of water. He pulled a tapered oak plug from the bag.
Carefully, moving very slowly, he moved the point of the plug up the bulkhead until it was just below a jetting stream. Then in one smooth motion, grunting with the exertion, he pushed the point of a plug into the hole and held it there with one hand while he grabbed the sledge from between his knees. He rapped the plug hard with the sledge and hit it again, two solid blows. He got another plug out of the bag and Grilley heard him curse and saw the sledge moving in short arcs.
DeLucia backed out from between the torpedo tubes, the sledge tucked under one arm, the orange bag dragging behind him. As he moved a bright stream of arterial blood splashed on the deck plates.
“Let me see that!” Grilley said, and DeLucia held out his left hand. Blood was pouring from a hole in the palm of his hand, a hole that went completely through the hand.
“I slipped a little,” he said ruefully. “Son of a bitchin’ water is strong at that pressure!”