At that precise moment action erupted among the men on the pier. The workmen who had been resting against the bollards grabbed the lines which held the submarine and threw them over; the truck driver raced for the brow. On top of the sail two men suddenly appeared holding automatic weapons in their hands. One of them fired a short warning burst over the heads of the startled enemy guards, then he leveled his weapon in an unmistakable command. The man toward whom he aimed threw up his arms; he had no chance otherwise and he knew it. Quickly his colleagues understood and did the same. They stood frozen as the few workmen on the dock ran one after the other back across the brow onto the deck. Then, very slowly, the long black shape of the U.S.S. Ramon Magsaysay began to creep forward.
The brow began to turn, lost its support, and fell clumsily down between the pier and the moving submarine. On the deck some of the workmen were rapidly pulling in the lines while those not needed lost no time in getting down the hatchways.
On the middle of the pier one man who was being left behind came abruptly to life; suddenly he lunged forward and started sprinting toward the ship with desperate speed. When he reached the edge of the concrete he jumped with all the strength he had, hurling himself toward the sharply curved, smooth deck of the submarine. A workman saw him coming, braced himself as best he could, and grabbed him as he landed. He had no idea who the jumper was, but the man’s face was a mask of fright. The workman had not a moment for anything but his assigned duty on the lines; he grabbed them up again and jerked his head toward the hatchway.
In the enemy security office the direct-line telephone rang. The chief picked it up, listened for a few seconds, then paled in sudden alarm. He jumped to his feet, yelled out an order, spoke rapidly into the phone, and then dashed out of his office. With urgent gestures he assembled his total force on hand, then he got behind the wheel of a vehicle as fast as he could and turned the key with shaking fingers.
At the bottom of the hatch ladder the commander of the shipyard confronted his overseer, who had just jumped for his life. “Keep out of my way!” he roared, and cursed the luck that had allowed the man to come on board. Then he thrust his head through the hatch to check on what was happening.
On the bridge atop the sail more men appeared. A coolly efficient Officer of the Deck was already directing the still very slow forward progress of the submarine. There had been no opportunity to warp away from the dock, and moving this close to the edge of the pier was dangerous. The bow was already past the end, which relieved the pressure somewhat; once the stern could be swung a safe distance away from the piling the acute hazard would be over.
The captain stood silently on the bridge, watching everything that was going on. The phone talker who was also there was young but determined; he relayed the orders crisply and showed no signs of fear.
What was left of the dumpster still dangled from the great high boom which stretched well out over the water.
“Left five degrees,” the OD directed.
“Left five degrees,” the talker repeated and passed the order below. Seconds later the stern began to show movement away from the pier.
Then the captain looked up. Very high overhead the figure of the crane operator was visible out on the catwalk which ran the length of the boom. He was bent low and moving forward as fast as he safely could. He continued on, right to the end, and then stopped with nothing but dizzying height and a vast emptiness before him and looked down fearlessly at the submarine far below. Carefully he judged the rate of her progress; when the turn was well begun he raised his arms to shoulder height, held them out, and slowly leaned forward into the open void.
For several fractions of a second he seemed to hang there at an angle over empty space, then he began to fall. Gradually at first, then with increasing speed, he dropped, his body rotating slowly in the air as he held it straight, his arms now at his sides. He plunged downward at mounting speed for a long three seconds like a hurtling meteorite, and then hit the water. He went straight in, feet first, and disappeared. Seven seconds later his head came up less than fifty feet from the port side of the submarine, which was moving a little faster now as it turned into the channel.
A crewman who had been waiting safely behind the sail stepped forward and threw a light line expertly behind him. As the ship moved forward the diver caught it and held on while some mechanism he could not see pulled him in. As he felt the hull with his feet he heard the shouts of men from the pier behind him; a bullet plowed the water beside him.
He was on the deck in another three seconds and running in a zigzag pattern the few steps to the sail. He found sanctuary behind it where the crewman who had thrown him the line was holding open the door. As he stepped inside he noted that all of the top hatches were already closed and secured.
On the bridge the OD said, “Seventy turns.” The scattered shooting at the submarine had stopped; she was pointed at 355 degrees now and the Oakland Bay Bridge was visible in the first light some four and a half miles ahead.
The speed of the ship began to increase until there was a visible bow wave beginning to build.
“All ahead full.”
“All ahead full, sir,” the talker repeated and relayed it below. In the now almost unearthly quiet well before sunrise the whole desperate venture seemed to be suddenly almost a peaceful cruise. The captain, with binoculars, was carefully studying the shoreline on the port side. The enemy knew now and had known for some minutes, and they could be expected to be taking some action. What that action might be he did not know but he was gravely concerned. Although the tide was in and just beginning to ebb, he knew that he could not depend on more than fifty feet of water depth, and Magsaysay drew almost thirty-seven feet on the surface.
He felt a sense of comfort in the increasing speed. The ship was accelerating now as fast as she could without causing excess cavitation, but he still had a fourteen-minute run to reach the Bay Bridge at the rate they were going. The bow wave built up slowly, giving testimony to faster progress through the water.
“All ahead flank,” the OD said.
“All ahead flank.” The order went below for maximum speed. Once that order was given nothing more could be done to hurry the ship’s progress; hopefully the very early hour would catch some of the enemy forces literally asleep.
A mile out from shore the Magsaysay passed the Army Street terminal; she was moving better now and her forward speed provided a light breeze on the bridge. The OD felt it gratefully and nodded to the captain, who smiled a little tensely. By the grace of God there was no visible traffic ahead likely to get in the way. There was plenty of water, but a big freighter maneuvering in could have forced an alteration of course which would be expensive in time, and every minute was increasingly precious.
“Steer three four seven.”
“Three four seven.”
In the calm water of the bay the submarine rode so smoothly as to seem almost still. When the speed at last reached and passed twenty knots, the OD could almost sense the captain’s reaction, although he gave no outward indication. There was nothing more that could be done now that was not being done, running on the surface toward the open water of the Pacific. There was a little comfort in the fact that full surface speed had not yet been attained, the ship was still accelerating; the bow wave was still building up.
“I know the temptation to save an extra five minutes,” the captain said, “but don’t let her get within small-arms range of the shore. Two thousand yards minimum except where we can’t help it.”