Five minutes later, as Eelfish raced toward the area where the B-29 had gone down, Rafferty reported that he had a contact on radar.
“Contact bears two six zero, repeat, two six zero. Range is one three zero zero zero yards, repeat, thirteen thousand yards, Bridge.”
Lieutenant Jerry Gold turned in the bridge to inform Mike Brannon on the cigaret deck and saw Brannon beside him.
“Sound General Quarters,” Brannon said. “Secure the radar for five minutes and then take another bearing.” He stood to one side in the bridge, listening to the reports that came up through the bridge speaker. Five minutes later he nodded at Gold, who ordered another radar sweep.
“Contact now bears two five six. Repeat, two five six. Range is one one five zero zero yards. Repeat, eleven thousand five hundred yards,” Jim Michaels’s voice was calm.
“Contact course is zero nine eight, Bridge. Contact speed is fifteen knots.” Ulrich’s report was delivered in the emotionless tone he used in times of stress.
“Very well,” Brannon said. He bent to the bridge transmitter.
“Plot, we have to assume this is an enemy ship. What does his course show in relation to our last position of the downed plane?”
“He’s heading right for them, Bridge,” Ulrich said. “He’s a little over fifteen thousand yards from the plane. Request the Captain to take a look at the plot, Bridge.”
Brannon went down the ladder to the Control Room. Ulrich pointed at the plot with a pair of dividers.
“We can come right to course three five eight, sir, and dive now. We’re thirty-two hundred yards from his track as he moves toward the plane. Gives us plenty of time.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He raised his voice so it would carry to the bridge.
“Dive the ship! Come left to course three five eight.” He heard the thuds of the lookouts hitting the deck in the Conning Tower and the blast of the diving alarm. Eelfish slid downward.
“Forty feet, Jerry,” Brannon said. “Raise the radar mast. I want to get one more bearing on this rascal and see if he maintains course and speed.”
“He’s twenty-five minutes away from the plane at his present speed,” Ulrich said. “We’ll have to stooge around a little, depending on how you want to attack, sir.”
“Depends on what he is,” Brannon said. “How did he look on the radar screen, Mr. Michaels?”
“Small, sir. Not a big pip at all.”
“Probably a patrol boat,” Brannon said. He looked at the plot and picked up a pair of dividers and pricked off a distance along the course Eelfish was on.
“I don’t want to attack him when he’s close to the plane, if the plane is still there. I don’t want him to get close enough to machine-gun the fliers if they’re in rubber boats.”
“I figured that, sir,” Ulrich said. “We can shoot him when he’s still a little over three thousand yards from where we think the plane went down. That’s well over a mile from the plane area.”
“Give me two radar checks, three minutes apart,” Brannon ordered. He watched as Ulrich drew in the plot as the information came to him from Michaels.
“He’s on course, still making the same speed,” Mike Brannon said. “We’ll shoot at him with a Cutie, and if that misses we’ll nail him with a regular torpedo, and if that fails, by God, I’ll battle-surface!”
“We’re carrying Cuties in tubes Five and Six,” Flanagan said from the vent manifold. “Mark Eighteens, the electric fish, in tubes One and Two, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Sixty-five feet. Sonar, start tracking as soon as you’re able to get a good fix on him.”
He watched the plot of the attack slowly develop, looking at his watch from time to time.
“It’s time,” he said to Ulrich. He turned to Jerry Gold. “One hundred and sixty feet. Talker, inform the Forward Room that we’ll fire two Cuties from Five and Six at one hundred sixty feet and then come back up to sixty-five feet. I want the outer tube doors on One and Two opened as we hit periscope depth.”
Blake was now the sole contact Brannon had with his target. He sat in the Conning Tower, the big mufflike earphones clamped over his ears, his whole being centered on the beat of the single propeller that he could hear coming closer and closer. As he fed his bearings to the plotting party the rate of advance of the target along the drawn-in course Ulrich had given for the enemy ship moved with mathematical precision toward the small X on the plot that marked the position of the downed aircraft. Eelfish slid through the sea, 160 feet below the surface.
“One minute, sir,” Ulrich said. Brannon nodded. “Hell of a way to conduct a torpedo attack with no sighting of the target for, what, damned near twenty minutes. Stand by forward…”
“You have a solution any time, Captain,” Arbuckle said from the Conning Tower.
“Now!” Ulrich whispered.
“Fire five!” Brannon said. He waited the ten seconds he had been instructed to wait between Cutie firings.
“Fire six!” Another long ten seconds crept by and then Paul Blake reported.
“First torpedo running straight away from us, sir. Second torpedo is following the first, sir.”
“That’s what they said would happen when they briefed me in Pearl,” Brannon said. “Once the first Cutie gets clear of the ship the second one will follow the screws of the first until the first one zeroes in on the target screws. If it hits, the second fish will go right into the explosion area.”
“Torpedo track is sixteen hundred yards, sir. Running time to the target should be one minute fifty seconds. We should have an indication in… in one minute, sir.”
Brannon waited, feeling the tenseness in his legs as he stood at the gyro table staring at the plot, watching the black second hand on the stopwatch hitch its way around the dial.
“Five seconds,” he whispered, half to himself, and then a distant rumbling sound shook the Eelfish, followed in ten seconds by another slight shock that could be felt in the hull of the Eelfish.
“I think that was a hit, sir!” Blake called out. “Two good big explosions in my gear, sir.”
“Sixty-five feet!” Brannon ordered. “Close the outer doors on Five and Six. Stand by to open the outer doors on One and Two.” He scrambled up the ladder to the Conning Tower and stood by the periscope.
“Passing seventy-five feet, sir,” Gold called out.
“Open outer doors on One and Two! Stand by for a periscope observation!”
“Mark!” Brosmer read off the bearing and Arbuckle cranked the bearing into the TDC.
“He’s dead in the water. Set torpedo depth two feet. Range is twelve hundred yards. There’s a fire aft, on his fantail. Angle on the bow is one zero zero.”
“Depth set two feet on One and Two,” Flanagan said. “You’ve got a solution, sir,” Arbuckle said.
“Stand by forward…
“Fire one!” He waited, his eye glued to the periscope lens. “Son of a bitch is flying his Rising Sun flag… WOW!” A crashing explosion battered at the Eelfish.
“Hit! Dead center. Bring me up to forty feet. Radar search all around.”
Eelfish slanted upward, and Brannon heard Michaels report there were no contacts.
“Machine gunners to the Control Room. Rescue party stand by. Ulrich, I want you with me on the bridge. Surface! Surface! Surface!” Eelfish shuddered as the high-pressure air slammed into her ballast tanks and she rose, bursting through the surface of the ocean with a great cloud of spray.
“Lookouts!” Brannon shouted as the three men clambered up into the periscope shears. “We’ve got some aviators out there on the starboard bow somewhere. All ahead full on all four main engines.