Eelfish twisted and turned, its hull racked and wrenched in a seemingly endless series of depth charges as it fought its way slowly toward the deeper water. The temperature in the Control Room had long ago passed 110 degrees. The humidity stood at 100 percent, the air saturated with moisture. The crew, gasping for oxygen in the foul air, struggled with the job of stopping leaks, working in the dim light of the battle lanterns.
“If those bastards up there don’t get tired of loading depth charges pretty soon, we ain’t gonna make it,” Jim Rice grunted as he tried to tighten the packing gland around the capstan shaft, his beard dripping salt water from the leaky shaft.
“We’ll make it,” Petreshock said grimly. “Telephone talker says the Old Man is trying to get to deep water. The talker said we had about ten, fifteen minutes to go.” He winced as a stream of salt water sprayed into his eyes as he relieved Rice on the wrench.
A string of depth charges exploded above the Eelfish, and John Olsen went to his knees at the gyro table with the shock. He struggled to his feet, hearing Brannon order a fathometer reading.
“Three hundred fathoms, sir,” the Chief of the Boat said.
“Make depth four hundred feet,” Brannon ordered, his voice soft. Eelfish planed downward, and in the compartments where there were leaks the crewmen fought harder to stem the incoming water as the pressure outside the ship’s hull increased steadily.
“Four hundred feet, sir,” Jerry Gold gasped. He was hanging on to the ladder to the Conning Tower, fighting for breath. He raised his head as the steady ringing sound of the destroyer’s searching sonar beams echoed through the ship. Gold braced himself for the depth charges.
The pinging continued for long minutes but no depth charges were dropped.
“You suppose he emptied his depth-charge lockers?” Olsen said.
“No,” Brannon said. He walked to the Conning Tower ladder, realizing suddenly how deadly tired he was.
“Chief,” he called up to Booth, “how many charges did you count?”
“Seventy-one, sir.”
Brannon looked at Olsen. “Seventy-one. Each destroyer carries at least forty charges, that’s what we’ve been told. Forty times three is one hundred and twenty. They’ve got plenty left. I wonder why in the hell they didn’t drop?” He listened, realizing how utterly silent the ship was.
“They aren’t pinging anymore.” He chewed his lower lip reflectively. “I wonder what sort of a trap that son of a bitch up there is setting for us. Whatever it is I’m not falling for it.” He looked at his watch, turning his wrist so that the radium face caught the dim rays of the battery-powered battle lantern.
“Nineteen hundred hours, almost. Dark in another hour or less. I’m going to stay on this course for another thirty minutes. If they don’t ping on us again we’ll increase speed and see if that brings them to us.” He looked at the men on the bow and stern planes and at the helmsman.
“Stay with it, fellas, just a little longer.”
John LaMark on the bow planes turned a sweating face toward Mike Brannon.
“Hell, Captain, we can take this all the rest of the night. Just a nice workout.” Brannon looked at the man’s heaving chest, the soaking wet khaki shorts, and the puddles of sweat on the leather seat where the planesmen sat when they were using the ship’s hydraulic power to tilt the bow and stern planes.
“I know you can, John,” he said.
A half-hour later Mike Brannon ordered Eelfish brought up to two-thirds speed. There was no response from the sea above. He ordered Eelfish brought up to 300 feet at full speed. There was no indication of enemy retaliation.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, my mother used to say,” Brannon said. “Shift to hydraulic power on the bow and stern planes and the helm.” The hydraulic pumps in the Pump Room below the Control Room began to hum. A gusting sigh of relief came from John LaMark on the bow planes. Doc Wharton, who manned the stern planes on Battle Stations, looked over at LaMark.
“If you could do this all night, you peckerhead, why don’t you tell the man we don’t need hydraulic power?”
“Don’t want to see a Chief pill pusher pass out on me,” LaMark said. “You left arm rates got no stamina like us right arm rates.”
A half-hour later Brannon cautiously eased the Eelfish up to periscope depth and ran the periscope upward. The sea, bathed in the white light of a full moon, was empty. He ordered the ship to forty feet and swept twice around with the radar.
Eelfish surfaced, and as the big diesels began to thunder, drawing a small cyclone of fresh, sweet air down through the bridge hatch and aft to the engine rooms the crew began to relax.
“That nice new deck they gave us at Fremantle,” Mike Brannon said to Jerry Gold, who had the OOD watch. “Most of it’s gone. What a beating this damned ship can take.”
“Don’t forget the beating we can take, Captain,” Gold said. “All I want once this war is over is to get a Jap in my dental chair. Then we’ll see who can take a beating.”
CHAPTER 24
John Olsen watched the relief-crew officer, who was approaching down the deck. The seamed face and the grizzled patches of gray at the temples were far too old for the pair of silver Lieutenant’s bars on his collar tabs. Probably a Mustang, Olsen thought, a former Chief Petty Officer elevated to officer’s rank. The Lieutenant came up to him and gave Olsen a perfunctory salute.
“You people specialize in losing things we don’t have in spare parts,” he growled. “First you lose the outer door to a torpedo tube. Now both sound heads. I sent a priority message to Pearl Harbor asking for two sound heads, shafts, and associated parts. Haven’t got an answer yet.”
“I’d like to say we’re sorry,” Olsen said, “but we didn’t have much choice. Three destroyers caught us in some shallow water after we sank their oil tanker and drove us down until we hit bottom.”
“I know,” the Lieutenant said. He eyed the gold oak leaf on Olsen’s collar tabs. “I’m Arnold Lever, sir. I used to be a Chief Shipfitter before they hung the gold on me.”
“John Olsen,” Olsen said and stuck out his hand. “Am I out of order in asking when you expect to get the new sound heads?”
“Nah,” Lieutenant Lever said. “I just don’t know. I do know that I looked at a chart of where you hit the bottom. The chart showed mud and shell bottom, but that doesn’t mean that maybe there weren’t a few rocks. You’ve got to go in the dry dock to fit the new sound heads, and when you’re there we’ll check the hull, the screws, ballast-tank openings, the works.”
“What are you talking about in terms of time?”
“Maybe five, six weeks,” Lever said. “I don’t know that, either. I’ve learned to say I don’t know when I don’t know. This place here is about as screwed up as a Navy base could be.”
Mike Brannon scowled when Olsen told him the news about how long they might be in port.
“I don’t like being around that long,” he said slowly. “I’m afraid to open my mouth in the O-Club for fear some white rat will overhear what I’m saying and take it to the Admiral or someone else.” He looked at his wrist watch. “I’ve got to see Admiral Christie in an hour. How about dinner this evening? I want to talk to you about something. I think.” Olsen nodded, wondering what was on his Captain’s mind.
At dinner that night he found out. Brannon made a little design on the tablecloth with his fork, his eyes intent on the fork’s tines. Then he looked up.
“I made a strong pitch today to Admiral Christie that you have your own ship, John. He agreed. You’ll make this next patrol with us and then you’ll go back to the States, to attend Prospective Commanding Officers’ School, which is a damned joke because you’ve had the experience, you have the intelligence, the time in rank to command your own ship. After PCO School I assume you’ll be sent to new construction.”