“There are no heroes, you know, not in this day and age. It was different in the old days. The mothers of the Spartan warriors told their sons to come back carrying their shields or borne on them, dead.
“All we can hope for today is to have superbly disciplined men who will do what they have to do when they have to do it, regardless of the consequences.
“We have to understand that the people we command are afraid, that they feel fear as we do. That is one of the burdens of being a leader.”
He turned his back on Brannon, went to the other side of the cigaret deck, and began to study the horizon with his night binoculars. Brannon kept his distance, wondering what had moved this strange and distant man to talk about fear. Captain Mealey had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after his attack on the battleship at Truk. Everyone Brannon knew believed he had earned that honor. And yet, without reason or cause, he had spoken about fear. Brannon shrugged. If Captain Mealey was afraid going into action, then that made two of them.
The next night and day passed slowly. In the two torpedo rooms Petreshock and Nelson routined each torpedo, making sure that it would run properly when fired. The reload crews were summoned to go through simulated drills of a fast reload, working in the dim light of battle lanterns to simulate the loss of lights during a depth-charge attack.
Captain Mealey sat with the officers of the Eelfish after dinner, six hours before he estimated that the attack would begin. Mike Brannon, sitting at his right hand, realized that the atmosphere in the small Wardroom had subtly changed. Without a word being spoken, full command had slipped from him to Captain Mealey.
“Here is how we will operate, gentlemen,” Mealey said. “The Battle Station assignments you are familiar with are not altered, with one exception.
“Mr. Olsen will run the plot until just before we go to the attack. Then he will go to the Conning Tower and man the battle periscope. At that time Mr. Lee will take over the plot. Mr. Arbuckle will run the TDC. Mr. Michaels will handle radar and sonar. Mr. Gold will stand by to dive.” He looked at Jerry Gold.
“You will have your work cut out for you, sir. I intend to fire every torpedo we have in the tubes and to begin a reload as soon as we begin firing.
“We will be attacking on the surface. If we have to dive it will be a crash dive. I want a safe trim on this ship.
“Bear in mind, Mr. Gold, that during a hasty reload operation a good torpedoman is not likely to wait until he has blown his fired tube down to the WRT tank and vented off the tube before opening the inner door and beginning the reload. He will, I am sure, stop blowing, vent, and open the inner door while there is still considerable water in the tube. That water will go into the forward bilge, and it will affect your compensation for a good trim. You are going to have to be very sharp, sir.”
“I talked about that with both torpedo rooms, sir,” Gold said, his voice a slow drawl. “I’ve got a fairly good idea of how quick they’re going to be opening those inner doors, about how much water they’re going to take in the rooms.” He tapped a leather-covered notebook in his shirt pocket. “Got nearly every contingency you can think about all worked out here. We’ll make it, sir.” Captain Mealey stared at Jerry Gold for a long moment. Gold grinned back at him and Mealey turned to Lieutenant Perry Arbuckle.
“Captain Brannon and I will be on the bridge. Captain Brannon will have the after TBT. Mr. Olsen will be with you in the Conning Tower. Once we go into action you are going to be literally swamped with bearings from me, from Captain Brannon, from Mr. Olsen, and with bearings and ranges from radar and sonar. There will be a lot of confusion. That can’t be avoided. There will be noise, too. You’ll have to keep a clear head.”
“No sweat, sir,” Arbuckle said. A smile spread across his full lips and crinkled around his dark brown eyes. “As long as the gears in that TDC don’t burn out, sir, we’ll give you solutions just as fast as we can.”
Mealey turned to Jim Michaels. “We are going to use your radar sparingly until we get into action. Then I want you to range on everything you see. Keep feeding the information to the Conning Tower and to me. It is vital that you give only accurate information.”
“Understood, sir,” Michaels said. His serious young face was flushed, and he was shifting slightly in his chair with the excitement he felt.
“Any questions?” Mealey asked.
“One, sir,” Olsen said. “Bridge complement. Who will be on the bridge. We have some trained Battle Surface lookouts, sir.”
“Captain Brannon and I will be alone on the bridge,” Mealey said. He reached over beyond the end of the table and picked up a bulky canvas bag that made a clinking sound. He opened it and took out two metal helmets, the type used by the Marine Corps.
“I took the trouble to find out your hat size, Mike,” he said. “This one is yours. We’ll wear these topside in case the Jap begins throwing shot at us. Mr. Michaels, see to it that the galley has plenty of hot coffee and sandwiches. If we get driven down — there are a number of destroyers in that task force — if we are driven down we may be down for a very long time.” He turned to Brannon. “I’m going to lie down for a while, Mike. Call me in two hours. No sense in not getting some rest before the music starts to play.”
Sitting in the Wardroom after Mealey had gone to his stateroom, Olsen looked at Brannon.
“What did he say? ‘Before the music starts to play’? Some concert!”
“It’s going to be one hell of an operation if he pulls it off,” Brannon said. “No one has ever seen a task force this big. No submarine has ever seen one. That attack we made on that baby convoy in Leyte Gulf, that was peanuts compared to this operation. He’s going to pull a first.”
“He’s done things like this before,” Olsen said. “No one had ever tried to get at a battleship guarded by a dozen destroyers with aircraft overhead. He did it. Did it damned well, too.”
Lying in his bunk Captain Mealey composed himself for sleep. So far everything had gone well, he reflected. Everything except the one mistake he had made. It had been a mistake to talk to Mike Brannon about fear. There was only one person that he should talk to about things like that, his wife. He remembered that after he had brought Mako home from Truk he had told her how scared he had been during the long, long hours of depth charging. She had looked at him with a smile.
“We are all afraid of what we don’t know,” she had said. “And often more afraid of what we think we know.
“When young Arvin was born, when he was due to be born, I was paralyzed with fright. You were gone, on that awful little S-boat. All I could remember, all I could hang on to, was what you had once told me, that a good sailor does what he has to do when he has to do it and that nothing else matters.
“Well, young Arvin didn’t give me any choice. He decided it was time to be born, and when it was over I remembered that I’d been afraid but that once it was over it didn’t matter.”
He wriggled in his bunk, trying to get comfortable, and then, suddenly, he drifted off to sleep, thinking again that it had been a mistake to talk to Brannon about being afraid.
CHAPTER 15
The Eelfish surfaced after dark, creeping along the northern coast of the island of Mindoro, certain that any enemy radar would fail to detect the ship against the background of mountains. The night air was like warm velvet on the skin, the humidity so high that drops of moisture formed on the flat surface of the teak bridge railing. Overhead a canopy of stars blazed in the clear sky, but off to the east, where the Hatchet Fish and the Sea Chub were waiting, a line of clouds obscured the horizon. Lieutenant Jerry Gold stood in the bridge space, periodically sweeping the horizon with his binoculars.