Water could be heard running off the conning tower and decks outside. Scrambling up the ladder and into the conning tower, Cazanavette cracked opened the bridge hatch, and fresh air rushed into the ship for the first time in almost twenty-four hours. Through the small opening, good air flowed and quickly filled the entire compartment. Air with oxygen in it and without chlorine. All heads crowded around the hatch for a whiff of the wonderful salt air. The rich air tickled their nostrils and their neglected, oxygen-deprived blood cells ached for more.
Tremain breathed deeply, and the air did his head some good. He wanted to sit down and breathe for a few hours, but he forced himself to follow Cazanavette up the ladder and onto the bridge.
He found Cazanavette in the darkness, both hands on the wet coaming, taking in full lungs of air. Tremain doubted if he had taken the time to look for any sign of the enemy on the sea around them.
Some warped plating around the structure supporting the scopes gave an indication of the barrage Mackerel had suffered. He could not tell whether depth charges had caused the damage or the two enemy shells, but both scopes and all of the masts above the lookout perch were gone, ripped away. He glanced over the railing at the main deck and could see obvious damage in certain spots. The deck was missing wooden planking in several spots and the five-inch gun appeared to be mangled.
The night was moonless but clear and the air felt good on his face, although it did little to stop the splitting ache still throbbing in his head. He heard his heart pound in his ears and each beat seemed to make his head hurt more. He fought off the temptation to lie down and finally steadied himself against the bridge coaming next to Cazanavette.
Tremain looked out at the sea around them. The fog had drifted away and the sea was calm, more like a placid lake. He could see no ships in the blackness. The destroyers must have given them up for dead, he thought. Then he noticed a yellow glow on the water far off to the north and he momentarily forgot about his headache. Something was burning out there, several miles away. Though he could not tell for certain, Tremain estimated that the burning object lay in the channel between the two points of land that formed Kii Suido. He had forgotten his binoculars, but noticed that Cazanavette had remembered to bring his and was training them toward the burning object.
“What is it?” Tremain asked.
An exhausted smile formed on Cazanavette’s oil-stained face as he handed the binoculars to Tremain, who quickly focused them on the distant object. He saw flames leaping hundreds of feet into the air. It was a dazzling spectacle. Then he noticed the triple gun barrels of a single turret protruding from the violent flames. He quickly made out the rest of the ship. It was the Kurita. She was dead in the water and down by the stern. In fact, the water line had reached the aft gun turret and was beginning to extinguish the flames on that quarter. Mackerel's four torpedoes had done far more damage than Tremain had expected.
Through the binoculars he saw three small tugboats moving in and out of the yellow light around the burning ship. They had obviously made an attempt to tow the wounded battleship back to port and had only made it half way up the channel before the Kurita’s damage had got the better of her. The fire appeared to be completely out of control. Her stern was so low that the flooding had to be critical as well. Tremain knew that there had to be destroyers out there somewhere, hidden by the darkness.
“Let’s try to get out of here, XO,” Tremain said. “Get the main engines on the line.”
Cazanavette relayed the word down the hatch and the mechanics in the engine rooms set about reviving their precious diesels. Many false starts later, the enginemen managed to get two diesels up and running and soon they were both supplying power to the ship’s motors.
Tremain was just about to give an engine order to the helm when Stillsen grabbed his shoulder next to him.
“Sir!” he said, white-faced and staring over the railing at Mackerel's bow. “Don’t order any bells! I think I see a mine.”
Scanning the dark water off the port bow, Tremain saw the object Stillsen had discovered. It was round, with bulbous protrusions, and it was roughly the size of a fifty-gallon drum. It was indeed a mine, obviously a contact mine, and it was floating just a few yards away, well within its kill radius.
“We’re in a bloody minefield!” Cazanavette said in horror. “No wonder those destroyers didn’t follow us!”
Tremain thought about backing away from the lethal object, but then noticed a cable extending from it. The cable was difficult to see in the dark night but it coiled several times in the expanse of water that separated the mine from Mackerel's side and it even poked out of the water on Mackerel's starboard side. Tremain could clearly see that it had wedged itself into the small flow space between Mackerel’s hull and the portside bow plane.
“Holy shit! We must have picked it up when I turned the boat north to get into shallower water,” Cazanavette said. “Then we must have pried it loose from its anchor when we came up.”
Tremain did not care how it had happened. Now all he wanted was to get the cable detached from the Mackerel. He did not know how extensively the cable stretched beneath the hull, but it was most certainly tethered to the Mackerel at the bow. Thus, any movement of the ship could drag the mine closer.
“I’ve had a little experience with mines in my former station, sir,” Stillsen said. “I was on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean before I came into submarines. I’d like to go down and see what I can do.”
Tremain saw no other alternative. “Very well. What d’you need?”
“Just two men and all the line floats you’ve got should do the trick, sir,” Stillsen said confidently. Stillsen found the two volunteers from the torpedo division, and Chief Freund came up with the line floats, which were nothing more than floating balls with holes in them.
Tremain and the bridge crew watched intently as Stillsen gingerly used a crowbar to dislodge the cable from the bow plane, then he measured out the several-hundred-foot-long mine cable and dragged it from beneath the hull, never once taking his eyes from the mine itself to make sure that his actions did not move it closer. Once Mackerel was no longer fouled, he placed the floats at regular intervals along the mine cable to mark where it sat in the water, so that Mackerel did not run over it again.
Stillsen manned a set of sound-powered phones on the bow and gave directions as Tremain slowly backed Mackerel away from the mine and its cable. Several minutes later, Mackerel turned her bow toward the open ocean and began to limp away at nine knots.
The burning Kurita still glowed on the horizon, and
Tremain saw her stern slip under the water, completely immersing her aft turret. The great battleship was in her death throes. She would certainly sink before morning. Tremain briefly wondered what had become of the shipyard workers. Had they made it off the battleship in time? Part of him hoped that they had. After all, they were civilians. And strangely, he no longer felt the need for revenge upon his enemies. He no longer felt the need to even the score for his lost men on the Seatrout. He no longer felt his personal vendetta. He had lost many friends and shipmates during this war, and he himself had killed many Japanese. How many had he killed tonight? He would never know for sure. The war caused suffering on both sides, and now he just wanted the suffering to stop.