“When word got out some weeks ago that we were going to mount a wolf pack, both of them were told about it by their friends. The pressures from Washington to put one of those two in charge of the wolf pack were very strong. I cannot tell you how strong.” He turned his bleak face to Brannon.
“That’s why I am here, why my flag is in Eelfish. This wolf-pack operation must be successful. My boss in Pearl Harbor, Captain Rudd, and I share the opinion that if either Marble or Shelton led the wolf-pack operation it would not be successful.
“I may be pretty dumb,” Brannon said slowly. “But I don’t make the connection at all.”
“I’ll try to explain,” Mealey said. “If either one of them led the wolf pack and if they ran true to form, which is to say that the wolf pack operation would fail, the black eye for that failure would be painted on Captain Bob Rudd. This is his idea. He’s fought for it for months and months. He’s made a lot of very powerful people in Washington very unhappy.
“Captain Rudd became controversial when he began backing submarine captains in their complaints about the Mark Six exploder. He did a lot of research on that exploder.
“One of the things he found out was that the Mark Six exploder was developed by the United States in the mid-nineteen twenties. The British and the Germans developed an almost identical version shortly afterward. The British and the Germans began using their magnetic exploders as soon as their sea war started. They found them to be extremely unreliable, just as our submarine Captains found. They stopped using them and went back to contact exploders.
“We knew this. Bob Rudd also found out that our Mark Six exploder had never once been fired from a submarine at a target. Never once tested! Not from a submarine.”
“I didn’t know that,” Brannon said.
“Few people do,” Mealey said. “What’s more, you won’t find a single piece of literature on that exploder which tells you how to maintain it, test it, or use it. That literature was drawn up, but the Gun Club Admirals who developed the exploder decided that the literature was too secret to be disseminated, so they locked the original copy up in a safe.
“It took Captain Rudd a solid year of work and, I have to say this, of politics to break that logjam and modify the exploder so that it will work on contact. That was one major political battle that was won. Now Captain Rudd is in the middle of another political battle, the wolf-pack.
“He’s won the first round. We will try a wolf-pack operation. Just one. If it’s successful Captain Rudd will be riding high. If it fails he’ll probably lose his job, will probably be relieved and sent to a desk somewhere where he’ll rot away. That would be one hell of a loss, in my own opinion. He’s made a lot of very powerful Admirals angry with his work in exposing that Mark Six exploder. He rammed it right down some very sensitive throats, and if this wolf-pack fails they’ll nail his hide to the door.”
“You’ll just have to forgive me, sir,” Brannon said. “I don’t get the connection between Captain Rudd’s unpopularity with some Admirals and the assignment of Captains Marble and Shelton to this wolf pack.”
Mealey bared his teeth in what was more of a grimace than a smile.
“Captain Rudd checkmated the effort to put Marble or Shelton in charge, knowing they would fail. He managed to get me assigned to run the first wolf-pack operation. The opposition countered, sir, countered very well. They’ve given me two weak sisters, Mister! All I’ve got, all Captain Rudd and I can depend on, is the Eelfish and the two of us. Let’s pray to God that the Eelfish, you and I, will be enough. Because I mean to be successful! Each night before I go to sleep I pray, Captain Brannon, I pray that if I do not measure up to what is expected of me that the Lord will take me before I get back to port and have to face people I respect, have to face myself for the rest of my life!”
Brannon sat quietly, his hands slowly turning a pencil around and around on the table top. He was stunned by the intensity of the older man. I’d better start praying myself, he thought, praying that you do everything you expect you should do, because if you don’t and your prayer is answered that you die, then Eelfish dies with you.
The three submarines, following the courses advised by the Ultra code breakers, eased through the Sibutu Passage and timed their arrival at Balabac Strait so that that dangerous area could be run through during the night. They twisted and turned their way through the maze of small islands and turned north to begin the run up the west side of Palawan Island, through the justly feared Palawan Passage.
The water along the 300-mile length on the west side of Palawan Island is called “foul ground” by sailors. It is shallow and treacherous. Barely twenty miles to the west of Palawan’s foul ground there is a vast area that is marked on the charts with the name “Dangerous Ground.” Ships going north and south to the west of Palawan used a narrow alley of deep water between the foul ground and the Dangerous Ground. But even that narrow alley of water is not safe. Dangerous reefs bearing the names of sailing ships that foundered on them many years ago thrust skeletal fingers out into the deep-water alley.
Mike Brannon, who had permitted himself no more than cat naps during the time the Eelfish was making its twisting run through Balabac Strait and up the Palawan Passage, relaxed when John Olsen brought cups of hot coffee to the cigaret deck where Mealey and Brannon kept the night watch and announced that the Eelfish had cleared the Passage.
“So far, so good, sir,” Brannon said to Mealey. “From here on it’s a clear run to our patrol area.” He turned as he heard the rasp of the bridge speaker.
“Bridge,” the voice over the speaker said. “Notify the Captain that we have an Ultra message coming in.”
“Bridge, aye,” Lieutenant Lee said. He turned as Mike Brannon slid between the periscope shears and the cigaret deck railing and came into the tiny bridge space.
“I have it,” Brannon said. He turned and spoke to Captain Mealey. “Would you like to decode with me, sir? We’re going to dive in an hour or so. The baker should have some fresh pastry about now.” Mealey came forward into the bridge, and the two men went below.
Brannon read the decoded message and shoved it across to Captain Mealey, his eyes glistening. Mealey read the message and smiled, his right forefinger creeping up to touch his white mustache.
“Alert Hatchet Fish and Sea Chub to form up on us after surfacing this evening,” he said. Brannon nodded and went to the radio shack. He came back and sat down at the table and reread the message.
“My God!” Brannon said. “Troop transports, two oil tankers, freighters, a heavy cruiser, destroyers, and a small aircraft carrier! That’s a regular task force, Captain! What in the hell is the Jap doing sending that kind of a force out of Manila to Mindanao?”
“How much of a briefing did they give you about the Navy-Army move northward from New Guinea?” Mealey asked.
“Not very much at all. They told me the Army was going to move north, but that’s about all. They seldom tell us much.”
“General MacArthur is going to make good his promise to return to the Philippines and free them,” Captain Mealey said. “With the Navy’s help, of course. He’ll make good his promise to return before the end of this year, probably late in October. The first major step toward an invasion of the Philippines was taken last week. If I can recall my briefings in Pearl Harbor, the plan was to invade a small group of islands to the north and east of New Guinea called the Admiralty Islands.