Only one more question to ask, for which Rich already knew the answer. “Have you decided which boat you’ll be riding, Commodore?”
“I figured you’d ask that. The admiral and I think I should be on the most experienced boat, with the most experienced skipper. This adds up to yours.”
Perhaps, in the process of doing something really big, something of real significance in the war effort, the old Blunt would reassert himself. Once away from Pearl Harbor and its indivious subtleties, the old relationship Richardson had so valued could be revived.
He could feel himself pulled in two directions at the same time, but all the decisions had already been made. Admiral Small of course knew that Blunt had once been skipper of the Octopus, and that Richardson had served three years under him there, as well as an additional time in New London. Obviously, it was Small who had decided that Blunt would ride the Eel.
“Great,” said Rich, this being the only reply he could think of. “What do we have to do for training? And when can we start?”
“There’ll be a little more work in it for you and some of your officers, of course, and you won’t have as much free time in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel as maybe you’d hoped. I want all of you to study all the reports of all the previous wolfpacks. And I want you three skippers to get to know each other pretty well, too. Then we’ll set up a training period to work out our tactics.”
“Is our area picked already?” Rich asked.
“AREA TWELVE, the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. That was where we were going to send you, remember, when we diverted you to the Bungo Suido last time. Matter of fact, we’ve not had a submarine in there since, and by now the Japs must be running a lot of traffic through there. There should be plenty of targets, at least in the beginning. As soon as we hit them, of course, they’ll close off again. So I want to go in and hit them real hard right away. Good thing they won’t have old Bungo to shift over there.”
“Fine,” said Rich. “It sounds like a lot of fun.” “Fun” was the wrong word, but Blunt did not seem to notice. If Richardson’s latest evaluation was on target, there would be a lot more than “fun” involved. He hoped he had sounded convincing. “When do we start getting ready?”
“Right after the Chicolar gets in, day after tomorrow. I’ll call all three of you skippers together, along with your execs. It won’t be too tough a schedule. You’ll have plenty of time off. There’ll be plenty of time to see the Lastrada dame, if she has any free time. After sixty days at sea you must really have had lead in your pencil last night.…”
Somehow, Richardson managed to make a quiet retreat. There was something wrong, all right.
To Richardson’s surprise, at the afternoon-long refit conference there was no resistance at all to his proposal to move the two Target Bearing Transmitters into little bulges built into the sides of Eel’s bridge. He had prepared himself with diagrams showing the increased arc which could be covered by either TBT in the event of failure of the other, and he was psychologically ready to discuss the loss of aiming capability from the forward TBT after Nakame’s rifle had smashed it.
In this instance, Eel had no torpedoes remaining forward — or aft either, for that matter — but the principle was valid. Rich would use this argument last, had begun to describe his intended use of the side-mounted bearing transmitters for director control of the two five-inch guns, when he realized here was no opposition to his proposal. So far as the refit people were concerned, it was only the question of the physical capability to do the job.
The reaction to his other primary request, that extra skids be provided for stowage of ten torpedoes in the after torpedo room, instead of the standard eight, was the same. He had been prepared for opposition, for no submarine had yet taken twenty-six torpedoes on patrol. Sufficient space existed, but the designed load was only twenty-four fish. Should Eel be unlucky enough to have a “dry run,” be forced to bring her full load of torpedoes back to her base, expenditure of fuel — lighter than the water replacing it — would cause her to be so heavy that submerged trim would not be possible without using Safety tank as a part of the trimming system. The extra gun forward compounded the problem. Well, Safety had been designed with a view to this potential necessity. It was already piped and valved into the trim system. If necessary, he would use it.
Keith put it into words. “Skipper,” he said, “they’d give you ten TBTs on the bridge if you wanted them, or fifty torpedoes. If you asked them, I think these guys would jack up the periscope and build a new submarine underneath it for you!”
It was true, and the amount of work agreed to be accomplished upon Eel in the period of two weeks was nothing less than prodigious. The clue — it was more than a clue, it was a plain statement — came as the conference was ending, as the base repair officer shook hands with Rich. “All of us lost some friends in AREA SEVEN,” was what he said — and then his face showed dismay as he realized that somehow he had said the wrong thing.
The biggest problem concerned the hydraulic plant and what to do about it. Eel was a new submarine. The patrol just finished had been her first. She was also, however, one of the first to have the new enlarged hydraulic system. There had been no previous experience with this particular design. Much was known about the older hydraulic plants, which involved a smaller hydraulic accumulator and an entirely different hydraulic pump, but Eel presented completely new problems.
Al Dugan had carefully maintained the operational history of the plant, especially after difficulties had begun to appear. It was apparent that there was gradually worsening leakage of some kind taking place, perhaps in the accumulator itself, very likely elsewhere too. The expenditure of replacement hydraulic fluid had increased alarmingly in the last few days of the patrol, and the time between recharging cycles of the accumulator had reduced correspondingly.
It was agreed that the hydraulic plant would be completely disassembled and carefully tested. This was to be the principal job of the refit.
Richardson also found, to his surprise, that apparently as an afterthought Keith had requested a survey of the officers’ shower with view to restoring the head room. If the heating control panels for the electric torpedoes could be relocated anywhere else in the compartment, Keith pointed out dryly, it might be possible to do away with the commanding officer’s discomfort while bathing. Richardson had not spoken of the shower design, or joked about revenge upon the designer, for weeks. Changing the heating panels would be a large job for a marginal result. Keith must have done some negotiating with the base repair shop. Clearly, he expected the base to agree to do the work. He must have considered the job important.
Another conference was scheduled for the following morning, at which only Keith, as the ship’s personnel officer, need be present. This was to review the rotation of crew members. Even though Eel had finished only one patrol, in order for the crew rotation policy to work it was necessary to replace some 20 percent of Eel’s complement by new people.