Tremain looked over the rail at Stillsen, who was still on the bow gathering up the phone cord. He had come a long way since they had left Pearl, Tremain thought.
Just then an ear-splitting sound rushed over Tremain’s head and a millisecond later the ocean off Mackerel's starboard bow erupted in an explosion that shot a waterspout fifty feet in the air. The sound deafened Tremain and the concussion knocked him and the others on the bridge behind the coaming, but not before he saw Stillsen’s body blasted over the side like a rag doll.
Tremain struggled to his feet just as another screeching shell blasted the ocean again only a hundred feet off the starboard bow. Tremain’s previous injury responded to the shock waves and he suddenly felt dizzy.
“Destroyer!” Cazanavette yelled, pointing astern. “Destroyer off the port quarter!”
Tremain dragged himself to the coaming and looked aft to see a dark shape less than a mile astern. Through the binoculars he could see that the destroyer was coming at full speed, its ominous shape finely silhouetted against the distant burning battleship.
“Are the aft tubes ready to fire?” Cazanavette shouted into the bridge box.
“No, sir,” came the reply, “we have no air pressure to shoot with.”
It would not have done much good, Tremain thought. He had noticed through the binoculars that the charging destroyer was doing small periodic course changes to avoid a stern torpedo shot. This destroyer captain knew what he was doing.
Another salvo rang out and slammed into the water near the port bow, showering the bridge with spray. Damage reports came from below the waterline that the hull was leaking in several places. Submerging was out of the question.
“Get the gun crews up here!” Cazanavette screamed into the microphone. He glanced at Tremain in desperation as he took charge on his own initiative, seeing that Tremain was in no condition to even be on the bridge. Tremain’s head was spinning and he needed the coaming to stay on his feet.
Mackerel’s guns would be mere popguns compared with the destroyer’s arsenal, and with her meager nine knots compared to the destroyer’s thirty knots, the range was falling away quickly.
“Give me more speed, engine room!” Cazanavette ordered.
Tremain saw that Cazanavette was trying everything he could to save them, but it appeared that the game was finally up. Mackerel could not outrun her adversary, and it was only a matter of time before the destroyer’s guns scored a direct hit. Another salvo crashed into the water on the port beam, one shell skipping several times before it exploded a hundred yards off the bow.
Tremain wanted to help Cazanavette. He could not abandon him now. There had to be a way, he thought. But it was hard to think when his head was in such pain. Then something suddenly occurred to him. He dragged himself upright and brought his binoculars to bear on the pursuing destroyer, the black smoke now visible from its coughing stacks. He scanned the churning water before the destroyer, glimmering in the distant fires of the Kurita. That’s when he saw it.
The mine cable, with its small floats, was distinctly visible as several small black dots stretching out several hundred feet across the glistening water’s surface, and it lay just to the northeast of the destroyer’s position. It would only be visible from Mackerel’s perspective and not from the destroyer’s, because one could only make it out with the fire light of the burning Kurita behind it.
“Hard left rudder, XO!” Tremain shouted.
Cazanavette looked at him perplexed. “Sir, that’ll present our beam to them, I don’t—”
“Do it, damn you! Steer course north.”
Cazanavette shook his head, but he must have trusted Tremain even in his current state, because he relayed the order and the helm responded. No sooner had Mackerel turned than a three-shell salvo smashed into the water right where she would have been had she kept going on her original course.
Cazanavette glanced at Tremain, but Tremain had his eyes glued to the binoculars to watch every move of the destroyer. As Mackerel steadied on course north, the destroyer continued on its original course, and Tremain started to believe that his far-fetched idea might not work. The destroyer had almost driven past the strung-out cable when it suddenly came hard left and steadied on a northeasterly course in an obvious attempt to continue closing the range to Mackerel.
Tremain watched as the destroyer ran over the bobbing cable at flank speed, making maximum turns. Seconds later, the destroyer’s stern exploded in a towering column of red flame.
Though he could not see it, Tremain knew what had happened. The destroyer’s screws had run over the mine cable and had become fouled. As they had turned for flank speed revolutions, the cable had coiled around the propeller shafts and had “winched” the mine right into the destroyer’s stern, where it had exploded on contact.
Tremain also noticed that the destroyer’s rudder must have jammed after the explosion because she immediately made a hard turn to the left and continued turning in circles. As her speed came off, the aft deck started to burn intensely. With the binoculars, Tremain could see small shadowy figures against the burning backdrop leap from her deck and into the sea. Moments later, the inevitable happened as the rows of depth charges lined up on her deck exploded in a nightmarish crescendo of heat and flame that could be felt on Mackerel's bridge a half mile away.
As the burning mass of fuel oil and metal bathed the sea in a ghoulish red glow, Cazanavette ordered the helm to come back to an easterly course in order to get Mackerel as far from the Japanese mainland as possible before the sun came up, and away from any other destroyers that might be lurking.
Tremain nodded his approval and gave a small sigh as he touched the dried blood beneath his hair. He had no sensation in his fingers or in his scalp and he felt lightheaded. He suddenly became too dizzy to stand and he started to fall, but Cazanavette caught him before he hit the deck.
“Take over, XO,” he managed to mumble. Then all went black.
Chapter 29
The room was cold, that was his first sensation. The room was dark, that was his second sensation. The bed was soft, that was his third. He could not breathe, that was his fourth.
Wright woke abruptly with a violent guttural cough. He felt a burning in his throat that did not go away when he swallowed. Within a few minutes, he regained his wind. His head still spun from the drugs they had given him. Then he remembered where he was — or at least he thought he did.
He was lying in a hospital bed. Which hospital, he did not know. There were ten or twelve other occupied beds in the room, and the lights were out. He was the only patient awake.
He vaguely remembered the trip back to Midway. He had stayed in his rack the entire trip, slipping in and out of consciousness and in no condition to do anything but eat and drink. The pharmacists’ mate had looked after him the entire time. He had been transferred to the field hospital on
Midway, then after that it got fuzzy. That’s when they started giving him the drugs.
He remembered a plane, or was that just a dream? No, he had ridden in a plane. They had loaded him onto a plane and flown him to this place. He must be in Pearl.
He looked around. Nothing was familiar. Could this be her hospital?