“Forward Engine Room’s taking water through broken welds on the outboard exhaust lines, sir,” the telephone talker said. “The Chief back there says it isn’t serious. Yet.”
“Here they come again,” Blake called out, and the thunder of the destroyer screws up above filled the inside of the Eelfish. A half-dozen depth charges went off in crashing explosions, shaking the Eelfish heavily.
“Watch your depth, damn it!” Jerry Gold’s harsh order brought Brannon’s head around. The depth gauge needles showed 200 feet as John LaMark wrestled his big brass wheel around in an effort to bring up the submarine’s bow.
“Couldn’t help it,” the Gunner’s Mate gasped. “Damned depth charge must have gone off right above the bow. Drove her nose right down.”
“Damage reports,” Brannon ordered. The telephone talker raised his head and looked at Captain Brannon.
“Forward Room reports a real bad leak around the capstan gear, sir. Petreshock says he’s trying to stop it, but they’re takin’ some water. Forward Engine Room reports the leak around the exhaust lines isn’t doing too much. No other damage reports, sir.
“Keep me advised of that leak in the Forward Room,” Brannon said. “Jerry, keep in mind they’re taking water up there.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Gold said.
“I’ve got twin screws bearing zero one zero and running across our bow, Control,” Blake called out. “I’ve got two sets of screws aft bearing one seven zero and one nine two. Target up ahead is pinging.” Brannon nodded. He didn’t need to be told the destroyer up ahead was pinging. The loud ringing noise echoed through the Eelfish in a constant, nagging vibration.
“Screws aft picking up speed,” Blake called out. “This is an attack run, Control!”
The two destroyers raced toward the spot on the ocean beneath which they knew Eelfish was hiding. As they approached the area the gunners on the squat fantails released one depth charge after another, and the Y-guns amidships boomed as they threw depth charges out to the side to tumble through the air and then sink downward until they reached the depth where the sea pressure would overcome the spring tension cranked against the diaphragms of the exploders and fire the depth charges.
The Eelfish was smashed downward by the first two depth charges. There was a loud crunching noise that reverberated throughout the ship, and Brannon heard Jerry Gold curse. He whirled and saw the long black needle of one depth gauge standing at 220 feet. Another half-dozen charges went off with a tremendous roar, and cork from the hull insulation rained down over the people in the Control Room. Jerry Gold cried out in agony and Brannon saw him hopping on one leg, his face distorted with pain.
“Damned ladder like to broke my shin!” Gold moaned. Brannon looked and saw that the Conning Tower ladder was swaying, its bottom rivets snapped by the sudden bulging inward of the Eelfish’s hull.
“Forward Room is reporting we hit something, Captain,” the telephone talker said.
“Our bow is stuck in the damned bottom! That’s what we hit!” Brannon snapped. “All stop! Get me a damage report as quick as you can.” He looked at the depth gauge. It now read 230 feet.
“Forward Room reports water still coming in around the capstan shaft. They’ve got a foot of water in front of the tubes. After Battery reports leaks around the sea valves for blowing the heads to sea. They’re working on that. Both Engine Rooms report all exhaust welds are busted and taking some water.”
Brannon lifted the soggy towel that hung around his neck and wiped his face. He stared at the plot.
“So damned near to deep water,” he muttered. He looked over at the Machinist’s Mate on the blow manifolds.
“Next time they make a run and drop on us,” he said, “I want you to hit the after main ballast tanks with a high-pressure blow, hold it for ten seconds, and then hit bow buoyancy with high-pressure air for five seconds.” He turned to Chief Flanagan. “Keep your eye on me as we blow. When I drop my hand I want all-astern rung up, all-astern full. Tell maneuvering to stand by to shut down power the minute I signal you.” He turned to Jerry Gold.
“I’m going to try to jolt her off the bottom, Jerry. I don’t want to go up more than twenty, thirty feet if I can help it.” He looked upward, the sweat dripping off his chin, as the noise of the pinging echoed through the ship.
“I don’t get anything out of the regular sound heads, Control,” Paul Blake called down. “But I’m getting some readings through the topside JP sound head.”
Brannon chewed his lower lip for a second. The topside JP sound gear, a small horizontal bar mounted on a shaft, was not nearly as sensitive as the two big sound heads that were lowered beneath the ship’s forward keel. Those sound heads, he reasoned, were either broken off or buried in the bottom.
The thunder of the destroyer screws hammered through the submarine’s thin hull, and Brannon craned his neck upward, waiting for the shattering explosions he knew would come. The first two charges exploded with a massive roar.
“Hit it!” Brannon yelled at the Machinist’s Mate. The high-pressure air roared into the after main ballast tanks, and the Eelfish lurched upward a few feet.
“All astern! Hit bow buoyancy!” Brannon barked. The Eelfish lurched backward, its bow beginning to rise.
“Belay the blow! All stop! Gold, how does it feel?”
“Under control, Captain,” Jerry Gold said.
“All ahead dead slow. Two hundred feet,” Brannon ordered. The Eelfish, freed of the grip of the bottom, moved slowly upward, the men on the bow planes gasping for air in the oxygen-depleted atmosphere of the submarine.
“Two hundred feet, sir,” Gold reported.
“Sonar,” Brannon said. “Can you hear anything at all through the regular sound heads?”
“Negative, sir,” Blake answered.
“Probably wiped them out on the bottom,” Brannon said. He stood, staring at the plotting board, wishing that Captain Mealey were standing there with him. What would Mealey do with no sound heads to get accurate bearings on the enemy above? What sort of maneuvering would he go through without ears to hear? He squared his shoulders and wiped his face with the sodden towel.
“Keep me on this course to deep water,” he said to Olsen. “We can’t risk going down on the bottom and staying there. We’re too easy to find. How much farther have we got to run?”
Olsen measured with the dividers. “Little less than a mile, sir.
The destroyer captains recognized Brannon’s strategy at once. Once the submarine was beyond the shallow shelf that ran along the west coast of Borneo it would be in very deep water, free to maneuver as it could not in the shallower water over the shelf. The navigator on the destroyer carrying the flag for the small convoy bent over his plotting board and looked at his chart.
“He’s getting close, sir,” he said tonelessly.
The destroyer captain, a small, thin man whose face still showed the shock of seeing his treasured oil tanker go skyward in a series of tremendous explosions, touched the chart with his finger.
“Once he is there we lose him. That paragon of virtue of a supply officer with his talk of water less than two hundred feet along the coastline! So he emptied his warehouses of all the old depth charges he had, charges that cannot be exploded below two hundred feet because they have the old exploder mechanisms! Continual attack! Continual attack!”