Jon Land
The Gamma Option
For my parents again,
Because once was not enough
Prologue
The U.S.S. Indianapolis was sailing to her death. Captain Charles Butler McVay III entered the cramped communications room and spoke to the ship’s chief radioman only after making sure the door was sealed behind him.
“Anything, mister?”
“Negative, sir. No contact.”
“Damn,” McVay muttered, certain this time the ensign had caught the edge in his voice.
He had come down personally once more in the hope some word had come in — something, anything, pertaining to the status of what still remained in the Indy’s number three cargo hold. Three days before she had dropped the contents of cargo holds one and two on the island of Tinian. Ten days from San Francisco at top speed had got her there right on schedule, in spite of a stop at Pearl Harbor that had seen her take on numerous passengers with a keen interest in her journey.
All of them knew that contained within the Indianapolis’s storage holds one and two were the unassembled parts for two atomic bombs. None of them knew about the contents of storage hold number three.
But that was what we were supposed to drop at Tinian, McVay thought. He could accept the last minute switch from the primary plan to the backup formed by the atomic bombs. The rest he could not.
From Tinian, the Indy had been ordered to Leyte by way of Guam, the first stop surely to relieve him of the remainder of his cargo. But the touch saw the ship simply take on more supplies and set on her way again. So the unloading would take place on Leyte then. He at least expected an escort ship to be assigned for the voyage, yet none was offered, and under the circumstances McVay wanted no record of having requested one.
Doesn’t anyone know what we’re still carrying? he’d been tempted to ask at Guam.
They almost certainly didn’t, though. And now, without an escort possessing sonar, the Indianapolis would have to depend on radar and visual contact to detect an enemy submarine.
The first day out of Guam the weather had cooperated brilliantly, but today brought a storm in the afternoon that didn’t clear until nearly midnight. The storm left choppy seas and a clammy smell in the air that festered in the stifling humidity. With that in mind, the captain had allowed all ventilation ducts and most of the bulkheads to remain open throughout the ship. Otherwise the tropical climate would have made sleep impossible for his men.
One thing for certain, ships of the heavy cruiser class like the Indianapolis hadn’t been built with comfort in mind. Commissioned in 1932, she was cumbersome to the eye but quick, with a top speed of thirty-two knots. The Indy had fought bravely as both sentinel and warrior, most recently as Admiral Spruance’s flagship for the Fifth Fleet. That tour had ended when a Japanese kamikaze struck her off Okinawa in late March, and this latest mission had come up too fast to allow for a shakedown period following her repairs. McVay had done his best to make up for this with plenty of training exercises during her high speed run to Tinian, but the overflow of passengers always seemed to be getting in the way.
Damn them, the captain thought to himself with the sweat soaking through his uniform in the radio room, damn them all….
McVay returned to the bridge uneasy and tense. His routing orders at Guam had stated simply to proceed to Leyte for a two week training mission with nothing whatsoever mentioned about the contents of cargo hold number three. Did the bastards expect him to sail the rest of the war with it on board his ship?
McVay chewed the thick air as he fought unsuccessfully to shove the question back in his mind. There was too much here that didn’t make sense.
“Sir,” came a desperate call from the radar operator immediately before him on the bridge, “I have incoming torpedoes!”
“Bearing!”
“Trying for a fix now, sir…. God, north by northwest. Heading right for us! Range one mile. Speed fifty knots!”
“Damn!” McVay barked. The low yield signature Kaiten subs the Japs were running called this area home. Why hadn’t they given him an escort? “Right full rudder!” he ordered. “Engine room, we have incomings. I need evasive action. Get us the hell out of here!”
“Aye-aye, sir!” came the half-garbled reply.
The Indianapolis’s engines tried valiantly to provide the additional thrust required for the maneuver. But the extra armor plating that made her an effective warship sacrificed quickness and agility. She managed to turn, gaining only slight ground in the process against the onrushing torpedoes angling toward her.
“God help us,” McVay muttered, and imagined in that instant he could see the promised steel death rise out of the ocean night like a giant shark ready to pounce.
Of the four torpedoes fired, only two hit the Indianapolis—both on her starboard side forward. A pair of violent explosions followed, and the cruiser’s bottom and topsides vanished in a flash of brilliant orange that quickly gave way to black smoke. But the engines clung stubbornly to life, pushing the Indianapolis forward at top speed for an additional minute, in which she took on countless tons of water through the gaping holes in her hull.
Captain McVay’s first thought was that they might be able to ride the damage out and stay afloat. But it was rapidly apparent from the ferocity of the flames and belching black smoke that he was wrong. He knew his ship was doomed, knew it with a steel heaviness that settled in his gut and climbed for his throat. McVay shouted the order to abandon ship through the clog, clinging desperately for balance against the ship’s severe list to starboard. His last order was for the radioman to send the appropriate distress signal.
Of the twelve hundred men on board, the initial blasts and fires had claimed one-third. The remaining eight hundred made it over the side in time to see the Indianapolis roll onto her side, and begin to drop bow first into the black depths below.
Captain McVay coughed the water from his lungs, held over the surface only by the life jacket he had pulled on at the last instant. He had struck his head during the plunge downward, and now a blurred darkness had become his world. The scent of loosed diesel fuel filled his nostrils, and somewhere burned the sight of the last of his ship’s flaming carcass disappearing beneath the sea.
Dazedly he felt himself being dragged toward a waiting circle of entwined crewmen. With no time to launch the life rafts, such a tactic formed their only hope of survival until a rescue team arrived. McVay was conscious of his arms being raised to the shoulders of others and his being supported in turn. Seawater flooded his mouth, and he coughed fitfully again. His eyes teared as he fought for breath, for life, against the raging waters heavy with the smell of fear and death and—
McVay’s eyes bulged at a dim sight revealed by the half moon being abandoned by its covering clouds. An apparition at first, but then a shape, slithered like a huge snake through the water.
This can’t be! … It can’t be!
In that instant everything was clear to the captain. A new coldness flooded him deeper than the sea’s.
There! he thought to scream to the men around him. Look over there!
But fresh floods of water flushed his nostrils and stung his eyes anew. The clouds covered the sky once more in a dark blanket that draped down to the water, the impossible shape lost as the sea raged against him and Captain Charles Butler McVay surrendered to oblivion.