After three years of wartime command, broken by his wound and convalescence, Richardson had, by his own estimation, changed the least of the three. The net effect on himself, the few times he tried to define it, was merely increased self-confidence. Daily inspection in his polished steel shaving mirror prevented him from noting the gradual accumulation of seams around his mouth and in his face, the progressive leanness of his jaw which revealed its musculature, the combination of weather-callus and wind-burn which ended dramatically at the line of his open-necked shirt. The most subtle change of all was not visible: a mellowing of his attitude toward the enemy, even while, simultaneously, his capacity to damage them increased.
Perhaps it could better be described as improved understanding. On the personal level, this was to a large degree because of Nakame; but more important, it was the product of a growing appreciation of the differing national drives which had impelled Japan to initiate the war.
The greatest mistake Japan could have made was the attack on Pearl Harbor: a despicable onslaught while negotiations aimed at resolving the differences between Japan and the United States were at their height. Its sneaky, underhanded execution justified any horror the resulting war might visit upon its perpetrator. It blocked any possible resolution other than calamity to Japan. It eliminated any conceivable terms except unconditional surrender. It would cost Japan her entire way of life before that account was closed.
Yet, in spite of the hatred, Richardson had begun to feel growing compassion for the people of Japan. They were the ones who would have to suffer the sure retribution for what their leaders had unleashed. Which he was helping to bring upon them.
When Eel entered the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, her first war patrol at an end, a coxcomb of eight tiny Japanese flags, four of them radially striped naval ensigns, the others the standard meatballs denoting merchant ships, would fly from her radar mast. Richardson had not wanted them, but he had permitted the crew’s enthusiasm, as rendered by Keith, to control the decision. The prospect of entering port was, as usual, conjuring up the anticipation of mail, fruit, respectful admiration by the crews of other submarines who were already in port and had already had their moment of attention. Except for Rich. This was part of the bleakness. The patrol had had as its express purpose the destruction of Bungo Pete. He had been extraordinarily successful against U.S. submarines. Early in the war, before anyone had known who he was or what his real name was, Nakame had earned the sobriquet of “Bungo Pete” from those who had experienced his depth charges. He had sunk seven subs off the Bungo Suido, one of the entrances to the Inland Sea of Japan. The last two were the Nerka, commanded by Richardson’s close friend, Stocker Kane, and the Walrus.
It had been a difficult, emotion-wracked voyage. But he would have to relive it yet one additional time for the admiral and his staff, principally his chief of staff, Captain Joe Blunt, and then again, in greater detail, for the debriefing team. It had all been laboriously written into a two-part patrol report — one part labeled “Confidential,” the other “Top Secret,” but the debriefers would insist on getting it all verbally, too.
From his hospital bed, Rich had used his influence with the chief of staff to give the Walrus to her executive officer, Jim Bledsoe. Jim had promptly taken off on three supremely successful patrols to Australia and back. But instead of sending Walrus back to the States for a badly needed overhaul upon her return, Blunt had reluctantly ordered Jim to make one last patrol. Admiral Nimitz had directed the Bungo Suido be kept under surveillance. Walrus had been the only submarine available.
Nakame had claimed sinking Walrus in a Japanese propaganda broadcast on the same day Richardson’s new ship, the Eel, completed her training prior to departure on patrol. The news came on the heels of the Navy’s official announcement that Nerka was overdue and presumed lost. Joe Blunt, his first submarine skipper, later his squadron commander in New London, and now chief of staff to the Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet — Vice Admiral Small — had been the emissary of both bits of bad news. The cumulative wound had been deep.
Walrus, Blunt explained, had been reporting weather every three days. Three days previously, Jim had added to the routine report the further information that he had only four torpedoes remaining, all of them aft. The next message, due that morning, had not arrived. Instead, there was a propaganda broadcast detailing the claim that the USS Walrus had been sunk by Nakame’s forces.
In despair at the news of the loss of his old ship, following so closely on the loss of Stocker Kane in the Nerka, Richardson pleaded for assignment to the Bungo Suido. The upshot was that Eel’s orders were changed: instead of AREA TWELVE, the East China and Yellow Sea, she was sent to AREA SEVEN, with particular instructions to destroy Tateo Nakame and his Special Antisubmarine Warfare Group.
Richardson soaped himself all over for the second time. Now, Eel was returning. He had carried out his mission. Bungo Pete was dead, sliced to bits by Eel’s propellers. Sunk, during a storm, were all three ships of Nakame’s little squadron: the Akikaze-type destroyer, a disguised “Q-ship” (an old freighter with big guns, filled with flotation material), and a submerged submarine behind the pseudo merchantman. Eel had expended her last torpedoes on them. Three lifeboats remained, launched, as their destroyer sank, by Nakame and his professional crew.
Of course, the lifeboats. Nakame would weather the storm in them. Less than fifty miles from shore — he’d be back in business in a week: A little boat with oars tossed against the sky. A row of faces staring, suddenly knowing what was to come. Eel’s huge bow raised high on a wave, smashing down. Guillotine.
A brief search for the second boat. The bullnose rising, striking it on the way up, smashing it in, rolling it over. Still rising, grinding the bodies and the pieces of kindling down beneath Eel’s pitiless keel.
One more lifeboat. Nakame’s. Black water driving in solid sheets over Eel’s bridge. Somebody in the stern of the boat, heroically fighting back. Rifle bullets striking the armored side of Eel’s bridge, shattering the forward Target Bearing Transmitter. Eel’s bow alongside, sideswiping, slashing past. Shift the rudder! The boat bumping alongside, dropping on the curve of the ballast tanks, its side bellied in, its ribs crushed. Tateo Nakame: a short fellow with an impassive face; deadpan. A first-class naval officer. A professional. Dedicated. Tough.
Around in a full circle. No avoiding this time. Bungo still fighting back. More rifle shots. The lifeboat in halves. The rifle flying out into the water. Nakame somehow managing to reach Eel’s side, get his hands on the slick tank tops — clutching, gripping, clawing to hang on. Grimacing with the effort, and with anguish at finally losing. Washed off by the sea as Eel hurtled past. Sucked under by the screw current. Doubtless instantly killed by the thrashing, sharp, spinning blades rising under him as Eel pitched downward into the hollow of an oncoming sea….
It was a glorious Hawaiian morning on Eel’s bridge as the submarine, coming up from the southwest, rounded Barber’s Point and straightened out for the Pearl Harbor channel entrance. The approach from sea was simple; straight in, perpendicular to the shore, past the sea buoy to the two entrance buoys and the black and red channel buoys marking both sides. A straight shot, with only a few easy bends after passing inside the shoreline. Always there was someone patrolling off the entrance, an old destroyer or one of the smaller PC-boats, and Richardson could not recall a day since the start of the war that there had not been aircraft overhead and a minesweeper chugging up and down the channel length.