The admiral’s door swung open before he reached it. A white-jacketed Filipino steward held out his hand for Richardson’s cap. Was there something behind his smile? A smirk? But there was no time to think about it. The party was already going on. Admiral Small had evidently arranged for the other guests to be there before Richardson’s arrival.
Among them, to his astonishment, were three women.
“Rich, you’re the lion of the evening,” said Admiral Small, taking him by the arm. “Let me introduce the others — ladies first; we have to remember our manners. This is Mrs. Elliott, Lieutenant Wood, Miss Lastrada — oh, you already know each other?”
The last time Richardson had seen Joan Lastrada she had been Jim Bledsoe’s date at a hectic between-patrols party just before Walrus had departed on her last voyage. Richardson had felt it before, but even so, when their hands met at the formal introduction, he was unprepared for the sexuality which she was able, wittingly or not, to put into a simple handshake.
Mrs. Elliott, it turned out, had a home in Honolulu, and had somehow avoided being evacuated to the States at the beginning of the war. She was a navy wife, obviously a socially prominent person, and her husband was apparently an old friend of the admiral’s.
Miss Wood, or Lieutenant Wood, to give her correct army title, was a WAC officer, perhaps in her early thirties, stationed at Fort Shafter. Blond and attractive, a little large of feature and a little heavily made up, she was no match for Joan Lastrada, whose slender waist, gently out-thrust bust, and softly rounded hips complemented a finely structured face. Joan still had the overwhelming femininity which Richardson had first noticed, which since the beginning of the world has made men forget the face and figure and follow blindly after that subtle essence.
In addition to Captain Blunt, Admiral Small had also invited two other captains from his staff. And it was immediately clear that Rich was the only operating submariner present. The same white-jacketed steward who had opened the door was now attentive with a tray of drinks. Succulent little canapés were passed around. Richardson found himself telling freely how he had enticed Bungo Pete out to search for him, how he had almost blundered into his own trap, but, by good fortune, had identified the Japanese submarine before it dived, and sank it with a single torpedo fired on sonar information alone.
Perhaps it was the drinks. With the eager attention being paid to him, he found himself very quickly with his second amber-colored drink in his hand. The Jap submarine had dived just outside the entrance to the Bungo Suido. He had seen her dive, and Stafford had picked her up immediately on sonar. Once she had gained a submerged trim, she would be at periscope depth, ready to attack any American sub making a surface attack on the nearly unsinkable Q-ship. She would be on steady course, not zigzagging. There had been no reason to silence her machinery: the submarine she expected to attack would be on the surface. Eel, entirely shut down for silent running, found it absolutely simple to maneuver into perfect firing position. He had not dared to use his active sonar to obtain a “ping” range, had estimated the range, instead, by the ancient triangulation method. But he had compensated for this by firing on a ninety track angle — his torpedo aimed to hit at exactly ninety degrees to the target’s course. In such a case, range drops out of the calculation. No matter what the range, any properly aimed torpedo will hit, if it runs long enough, for the angular geometry of the firing triangle remains identical regardless of its size.
Suddenly aware he was the only one speaking, that he was being loquacious, he stopped, momentarily embarrassed. There was a ring of attentive, eager faces around him. He had set down his drink, was illustrating the maneuvers with his hands. Even the steward, a blue embroidered submarine insignia conspicuous on his starched white jacket and three blue hashmarks on his sleeve, lingered unobtrusively within earshot. Admiral Small, his eyes alight with interest, forced him to continue.
Stafford had switched the sonar from earphones to loudspeaker. Everyone in the conning tower had heard the torpedo running, had heard it merging with the enemy sub’s propeller beats and machinery noise, had unconsciously held his breath waiting for the explosion. It came with startling loudness, eight seconds after the computed running time of the torpedo. Everyone heard the grim results: the water hammer within the doomed hull, the frenzied speeding up of the motors, the blowing of tanks, the bubbling escape of the precious air. All heard the sudden cessation of the propellers, thought they heard but more likely imagined the violent arcs of electricity as sea water shorted out the motors or their controls. The last clearly identifiable sound was the crunch as the now overweighted hull crashed into the bottom. There was no hope for any of the Japanese submariners; the depth of water was too great for escape even if they had escape gear. Admiral Small shook his head solemnly; they had no such equipment, according to the best intelligence reports.
Richardson’s description was followed by a rush of questions. What depth had he set on the torpedo, and how had he made the determination? The submarine had seemed to be about the same size as the Eel herself, and he had simply set the torpedo for what he thought would be the best setting had Eel been the target. Did he know the Japanese submarine periscopes were slightly shorter than those of United States submarines, and that he should have set the torpedo a little more shallow? No, he had not. The few feet involved would have made no difference anyway, provided the torpedo ran at the intended depth which now they all uniformly did.
Why had he not fired a spread of three torpedoes at the submerged submarine instead of only one? Because three torpedoes would be three times as noisy as one. They might have alerted the submarine, given it time to maneuver. Three explosions would undoubtedly have alerted Bungo if all three had hit, or if those which missed had exploded when they reached the end of their runs, as they still so frequently did.
There was no talk about the lifeboats at first, and Richardson had already finished his second drink, or perhaps it was his third, when suddenly the subject was raised. The drinks had been very strong. Already he was feeling their effect, knew he would feel it more. He glanced uneasily at the women.
“It’s all right, Rich,” said the admiral. “Everybody in this room has read your dispatches and your patrol report. The three girls here have a higher clearance than you do.” Mrs. Elliott looked startled. Rich was sure that he caught a sharp glance from her directed at Admiral Small.
The dinner was delicious, the wine warming. Richardson realized that he had been garrulous, had fully described his decision to ram and sink the lifeboats. He had not intended to describe this part of the fight. Suddenly there was release in speaking of it, justifying what he had done. The battle had taken place only a few miles from the coast of Japan. If Nakame had been allowed to return to port, with his primary personnel and their precious expertise, he would have been back in action almost immediately. Measured against the value of Bungo’s services, even with the growing shortage of ships because of the war losses, replacement vessels would not have been a large problem. Merely sinking the Akikaze and the other two ships he was employing that day could have practically no effect on his long-range campaign against U.S. submarines. It would have been a minor setback, nothing more, and he would have come back more dangerous than ever.