In response to the increased demand for hydraulic power, the hydraulic plant in the newer subs had been redesigned and enlarged. But the load was twice as great. Maybe the plant still wasn’t big enough.…
Eel was a refuge, his home, his occupation. All he had in life, really. But she also carried memory, especially of the past three weeks. Fortunately there were many new faces in the relief crew performing various tasks about the ship. That made a difference. The boat herself also indefinably felt different alongside the dock instead of at sea. His own stateroom, untouched by any of the work going on, and yet so constricted, so crammed with memories of tormented hours, and so alien with the ship in port, was where it was worst.
He could feel the brownout closing back down upon him. Joan Lastrada’s ministrations the night before had been extraordinarily successful, but no woman, hours in the past, could compete with the here and now of the tiny metal-walled chamber in which he had for so many days sat in front of his desk or lain brooding in his bunk. Nor could any woman compete with the great steel hulk of congested machinery which he had used to smash the lifeboats.
Half an hour after he stepped aboard, he was ashore again, reading the message files.
At ten he was in Blunt’s office, a sparsely furnished, white-walled room in the bomb-proof building constructed for the ComSubPac headquarters. It was exactly as he remembered it, except for the addition of a large bookcase with glass doors. On its shelves, instead of books, was an assemblage of mementos, some of which Richardson recognized as dating from Octopus days. The majority, however, were new, evidently recent acquisitions. The single large window, deep set in heavy concrete walls, looked out toward the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. Immediately below it, Pier One, now empty, was ready for the next submarine to come in from patrol. Blunt’s desk was in front of the window, the back of his chair exactly in front of the glass.
The chief of staff was standing, gazing out the window, his hands massaging themselves behind his back. Characteristic gesture. Suddenly it was reminiscent of that night, two months ago, when, standing in the same pose, Blunt had told Rich of the loss of his old boat. Different in only one thing: night instead of mid-morning. Then the lights of the navy yard had been strong spots of brilliance in the distance, beneath them the black waters of the harbor. Now the bright sun of a late fall morning streamed through the window, tingeing the waters beside the pier an unaccustomed powdery green.
Blunt turned as Richardson announced himself. The pipe in his mouth was freshly lighted, drawing well. He held it between clenched teeth, spoke by moving his lips, articulated behind artificially rigid jaws. “Rich,” he said, “that was a tremendous patrol you turned in. You have no idea of the effect here when your message came in about Bungo Pete, and then the later one when you rescued the aviators. Admiral Small made a special report to Washington about it. I want you to know that.”
He could have used some of this knowledge a week ago. But this was not why the chief of staff had asked Richardson for a conference. He waited.
“How are you feeling, Rich?”
Why should Blunt ask this question at this time? “Fine, sir. I’ve never felt better.…”
“No, I don’t mean that, Rich. I’m thinking about your state of mind. This patrol took a lot out of you I know — now wait…” as Richardson began to protest. “Any war patrol takes a lot out of the skipper. Most of them don’t realize how much they’ve had to drive themselves, but you really had a particularly tough deal.”
Maybe old Joe Blunt had read a lot more between the lines than Richardson had meant to put there in the patrol report. Or maybe, under the influence of the admiral’s whiskey, he had revealed himself far more than he had intended. Joan, he knew, had guessed. And no doubt Keith understood. Perhaps Blunt still possessed that sensitivity of understanding which had made him so beloved of his junior officers in the Octopus.
“We were wondering whether the fight with Nakame had really gotten to you. You should have sent someone else to unlash the rubber boats when that Jap patrol plane came over. Doing it yourself doesn’t seem the smartest move. You left Leone in charge of Eel under enemy attack. There was a damned good possibility that you might be killed, along with the aviators you were trying to rescue.”
“Commodore, there wasn’t time! The boat was diving! Keith was already below. The patrol plane was practically on us.…”
“Plane! Plane!” The foghorn blast. Men dashing to the bridge, tumbling below. Eel’s vents open, air whistling out of them. Consternation: the heaving line fast to one of the bow cleats, the other end still attached to the rubber boats. As Eel submerged, the line would drag the boats under, dump the injured fliers in the water. Richardson the last man on the bridge, seconds left in which to get below before Eel went under. “Shut the hatch, Keith! Take charge!” Jumping down on deck, running forward to free the line, Blunt’s old aphorism reverberating through his mind as the diving submarine took him under with her: “Take it easy, take your time, do it right; take it easy, do it right!” Many feet under, water pressure on his back from Eel’s forward motion bending him over the cleat, he at last managed to get his fingers under the rapidly tightening heaving line, pull it free. It was murder pushing himself clear of the huge cleat digging into his abdomen.
Reliving it, Richardson could remember the pain all over again. For a few minutes he thought the heavy rounded cleat had emasculated him. He passed out, must have bobbed to the surface practically under the rubber boats. The flier caught his arm, undoubtedly saved his life.
The Japanese aviators were playing the cat-and-mouse game, hoping to entice Keith to surface. When their plane came close, he would dunk the ’scope and not raise it again until they were back on their way to the horizon. Richardson timed the plane’s movements, motioned Keith to bring Eel as close as he could, snagged the periscope as it went by, signaled for Eel to surface as soon as the plane went out of sight. Keith neatly brought the boat up directly beneath the two rubber boats, landed the three wounded fliers and the painfully bruised Richardson on deck. The bang of the hatch opening, men racing down on deck, recklessly gathering up the four temporary castaways, pitching them down the open hatch, slamming the lid, opening the vents, getting her back under. Haste. Haste. The plane coming back. Take her down! Take her deep fast! Lean into those diving control wheels! All ahead emergency! For God’s sake, get some down angle on her!
Blunt was still talking. The tone of his voice was the one he used when he was displeased. “Why didn’t you radio the task force to provide air cover? You should not have made Leone surface your boat right under that Jap Betty to pick you up!”
The direct accusation caught Richardson unprepared. This, of all matters, he had not thought would be brought under unfriendly scrutiny.
“But I was in the rubber boat, Commodore! There was no way I could tell Keith to send a message! He couldn’t have sent one submerged anyway. Maybe we should have sent one before, but we were occupied with getting those men aboard. There just wasn’t time to set up and send a message!” Lamely, Rich added the word “sir” to the sentence.
“Well, maybe not,” said Blunt. “But you should have had a message ready beforehand. That’s the way it’s got to be in submarines, Rich. You’ve got to think of everything, all the time. Trouble with you young skippers is that you don’t look ahead. You could have lost your boat, or been lost yourself, along with the three fliers you were trying to help!”