Control! Six-four feet! Bring her up flat!" I leaned over the control-room hatch, called the order down to Tom, whose head I could see just below.
"Six-four feet, aye, aye!" Tom acknowledged, looking up.
"Request more speed!"
"Nothing doing, old man," I responded, squatting on my haunches to speak to him more easily. "Bring her up easy.
We've plenty of time." If Jim's evaluation was correct, there was nothing to worry about up above; there would be no reason why we should not, come up with normal procedure, letting Tom have a bit more speed for better control. But more speed would mean more noise also, and more disturbance in the water. Some subconscious caution held me back, caused me to direct that the remaining torpedoes loaded forward be made ready for instant firing, though later examination of the events of the next few moments could furnish no clue as to why.
Gently Walrus inclined gently upward. With no more than minimum speed, it would take her a long time to plane up to periscope depth. After several minutes had passed we had only covered half the distance, and I could feel the impatience around me. As we passed the hundred-foot-depth mark the angle of inclination decreased still more; Tom was obey- ing my dictum to "bring her up flat." Two more minutes passed. The ship was at seventy feet, with zero inclination.
Having no speed for control submerged, Tom was afraid to come right up to sixty-four feet for fear that some unexpected variation in water density or temperature might cause us to broach.
Slowly, Walrus swam up the few remaining feet. I now regretted not having authorized more speed, for at sixty-nine feet we were still totally blind, the periscopes still four feet short of reaching the surface. I nevertheless ordered one of our two scopes raised.
When it was "two-blocked" all the way up, we were passing sixty-seven feet, and through it I could see, just over- head as though it were actually only a couple of feet above, the ripply surface of the ocean. Only two feet-as good as two hundred. As I waited, the wavy surface, which looked exactly as I had seen it many times, looking down from above, grew nearer, then farther, then nearer, as the Pacific swells passed over.
"What's the bearing of the noise now?" I spoke without talking my eyes from the periscope.
"It's shifted to the port bow, Captain!" Jim's voice.
"Put me on it!" I felt someone's hands laid on mine, felt the pressure. The periscope was twisted some considerable distance to the left, and I followed docilely.
Suddenly I was conscious of a flash of brilliant light; then it was gone, and the light through the periscope was darker than it had been before. In the split-second interval I had seen blue sky and clouds. I realized I had tamed the elevation control to full elevation, was looking nearly straight up, had missed the precious chance to garner a quick look on the port bow. Hastily I turned it down to the horizontal, determined not to miss the next chance.
The periscope popped out again, for a longer interval, in the hollow of a long swell. It was possible to see only a few feet, and only for a moment at that, until the wave in front of me engulfed the periscope eye-piece. Then we were out again, in the trough of the next wave. I caught a glimpse of masts above the crest of the wave in the direction in which I was looking, but nothing more. They seemed fairly close, but the momentary impression was too fleeting to make much out about them.
I waited another second or two, I would be able to see in a moment-the periscope popped out again: there was a wave in front of it, beyond which I could see the upper section of a mast. It might be the mast of our target at some little distance away, perhaps a thousand yards, or it might be the mast of another ship considerably closer. I tried to flip the periscope handle to the low-power position, found that it was already in low power.
The wave in front of me receded, the periscope eye-piece — topping it easily, and the source of the masts came clearly- and suddenly-to view.
It was a Japanese destroyer, broadside to us, and it was close, very close, nearly alongside in fact.
I snapped the handle into the high-power position, felt my- self catapulted almost into his bridge. There were white-clad figures all about his topsides. A quick glimpse of activity, several arms pointed our way-we could not have been more than two hundred yards from him, a hustle on the bridge, someone battling the wheel, someone else doing something to an instrument which could have only been annunciators; There was no time to do anything. No time to do anything at all except try to get away. We were caught, caught fair!
"FIRE!" I shouted. I banged the periscope handles up. My hair felt as though it were standing on end. The flesh crawled around my belly. "Down periscope! Take her down! Take her down fast!"
"What is it? What's the matter?" shouted Jim. Involuntarily my voice had risen in pitch, and my fright must have been evident. So was Jim's. Keith, Rubinoffski, and Oregon, at the wheel, likewise turned their startled faces toward me.
"Take her down! Take her down fast! All ahead emergency, Left full rudder!" The urgency in my voice brought instant obedience: Oregon heaved mightily on the steering wheel, whipped both annunciators all the way to the right, banged them three times against the stops. A whoosh of released air welled up from the control room. where Tom's action in flood- ing negative tank had probably been equally instinctive.
Through it all I felt-sensed would be more accurate-three solid jerks in Walrus tough frame as three torpedoes went on their sudden way.
We could practically feel the bow and stern planes bite into the water. The increased thrust of our screws heaved us forward and downward, but the movement of two thousand tons of steel is a slow, ponderous process.
"What is it, Captain? For God's sake, tell us what's the matter!" Jim was nearly beside himself.
"Destroyer! Waiting for us! Not over two hundred yards away! He'll be on us in seconds!"
"Do you think they saw us?"
"You're God dam right they saw us." The people on the Bridge were pointing at us!" I swore without even thinking about it or meaning to. "There were at least fifty men all over his topsides on special lookout watch, and they looked as though they all, every one of them, had a big pair of binoculars!"
"Is he headed for us?"
"Hell yes! We were so close I could even see them put the rudder over and ring up full speed!"
Careless of how it might sound, I had almost been shout- ing. Now I recollected myself, turned to Quin. "Rig ship for depth charge! Rig ship for silent running!" The yeoman's eyes were huge as he repeated the orders over the telephone.
They flickered to the conning-tower depth guage. It read sixty-five feet. It was hardly moving.
The sounds of slamming of watertight doors and bulkhead ventilation valves came clearly into the conning tower. No need to be careful about noise right now! Our straining propel- lers were making more than enough anyway, and besides, our torpedoes would give us away for sure, draw an arrow to our position at the apex of their wakes. No more ventilation. The conning tower again grew stifling and humid, but no one noticed. I crossed back to the sonar gear, picked up the extra set of headphones.
"Where is he?" O'Brien indicated the pointer in the sonar dial, nearly dead ahead, moving from port bow to starboard.
Our rudder was still at full left, and Walrus was now swing- ing rapidly. Turning toward had been the instinctive thing to do, and also evidently the best maneuver in the emergency.