“All ahead two-thirds. Come left to course two-two-five,” Rich ordered down the hatch. In the stillness on the bridge, the clink of the annunciators answered him before the acknowledging call came from the helmsman. “Al,” he said to Dugan, “take over the deck. Check with the forward torpedo room to be sure that no torpedoes are loose in the room. When you’re satisfied that everything is secure, go ahead and dive. Take a quick sounding first. We should have at least forty fathoms under our keel.”
Richardson fought down a feeling of bitterness as he descended the ladder into the conning tower. He waited there, withdrawn and uncommunicative, as Dugan gave the necessary orders, received the correct responses, and supervised the operation of submerging. Instead of the wild exultation of successful combat, the satisfaction over destruction of three enemy cargo ships without having received a shot or a depth charge in return, gloom enveloped him. The three ships sunk had been far less offensive than Bungo Pete. They had not shot at him, had not even known he was there. Their only offense was that they happened to be on the other side of a war.
They had had nothing to do with starting the war, nor, for that matter, had he, nor had Bungo Pete. Perhaps, as Blunt had once suggested, he spent too much of his time thinking about the lifeboats. Was that why he had wished to rush to the aid of Les Hartly and the Chicolar? Was he still impelled to rush headlong into danger in order to satisfy his unconscious craving for absolution? If so, perhaps Blunt was right. He had no right to risk his men or his ship to fulfill some inner psychological compulsion of his own.
He waited in the conning tower until the dive was complete, and Eel was cruising quietly at periscope depth. Suddenly he felt tired. Keith had been standing silently in the after part of the conning tower alongside Buck Williams, facing the now quiet TDC. Neither had said a word to him. Perhaps they had some inkling of the inner turmoil which possessed him.
“Keith,” he said in a low voice, “secure from battle stations. Set the regular submerged watch. I’m going below.”
He swung himself onto the ladder leading to the control room, went down with his back to the ladder, his heels on the rungs, supporting himself from falling by hands on the opposite side of the hatch coaming.
In the control room, Al Dugan obviously wanted to say something. He beat him to it. “Al,” he said, “Keith has the conn in the conning tower. We’ll be securing from battle stations in a minute. He’ll turn over to you.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Al. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Captain?”
“What is it?”
“We have a problem coming back, Captain; it’s the hydraulic system. I didn’t want to bother you about it before with all that was going on, but she’s recycling fast again. If we’re going to have a few hours, I’d like to turn to on it with a couple of men. We’ll have to put the planes in hand power, and secure the plant. You won’t be able to use the periscopes for several hours.” Dugan’s normally stolid face was clearly worried.
-5-
Al Dugan’s plan of attack on the hydraulic system was to isolate all of its parts and methodically inspect each one. “We’re lucky to have that fellow Lichtmann aboard, Captain,” he said. “Our boat was built in Portsmouth, and Nerka at Mare Island. She was an earlier boat than this one, but Mare Island builds to Portsmouth designs, and it turns out he was Nerka’s hydraulic plant expert. Starberg and Sargent are pretty good at it too; so we’ve got our three best men on it, and we’ll go at it systematically. There must be something basic wrong with it.”
“How long will it take you to put the plant back in commission if we need it? If we can’t use the periscopes, we’ll be in trouble if something turns up.”
“Depending upon which part we take down, we should be able to get the vital parts of the system working again in an hour. To find the problem, though, may take several days. I’d like to begin with the periscope hoists, and that’s why I thought maybe we could go deep for a while. I’ll let you know if we strike any trouble. We’ll have it ready for surfacing by sunset for sure.”
“Okay, Al. Let me know if there’s anything at all anybody else can do to help.” He felt a deep yawn arising from the depths of his being. Going deep for a few hours would give the whole crew a rest. He wanted nothing so much as to surrender to the demands of sleep.
Blunt, as usual, was sitting in the wardroom, unlighted pipe in his mouth.
“Commodore, we’re going to have to stay below periscope depth for a while. I’m turning in. You should do the same,” said Rich.
“I’m not sleepy,” said Blunt. “You go ahead. I’ll call you if anything turns up.”
So far as anything turning up in any way connected with Eel, Rich thought, he had better be informed of it before Blunt, who was, after all, sort of an official passenger, not involved with the operations of the ship. But it was a small matter, not worth worrying about. He removed his outer clothing, climbed in his bunk, and was instantly asleep.
Al Dugan awakened him several hours later. “We think we may have found at least some of the trouble in the system,” said the engineer. “The accumulator ram may be scored again — she’s not holding pressure like she ought — but the main trouble seems to be in the overload bypass system. This new design has a complicated valving setup. I think some of the valves are sticking. We don’t know which ones, though.”
The clock on Rich’s stateroom bulkhead was indicating nearly noon. “I must have been asleep quite a while, Al. What shape do you have the plant in now?”
“Well, we’re still checking some of the parts, but unless we find anything more, we’ll have to go with what we’ve got. We’ll have it ready to surface by sunset,” Al promised.
It was with gratitude for a long comfortable rest that Richardson brought Eel to periscope depth several hours later, and, just at sunset, took a careful look around through the periscope. Nothing was in sight. The sea was flat, calm as before. The murky gray atmosphere was unchanged.
The worrying in his mind had been growing stronger as the uneventful day wore to its close. The overcast sky reflected his mood. “Keith,” he said, “be sure Rogers has the radar all peaked up before we surface. I want to see if we can pick up the Whitefish and Chicolar radars on ours. No telling where they’ll be. Both ought to be north of us, I think.”
As it grew dark, the familiar surfacing routine took place and Richardson was on the dripping bridge. “There are no stars, Keith,” he called down the hatch. “You’ll have to work on dead reckoning.” This had been anticipated. No stars had been seen through the periscope either. Keith clicked the bridge speaker button from the conning tower twice.
The deep rumble of two main engines recharging the battery and providing steerageway was always comforting to hear. Eel settled into her surface cruising routine. Another night of tense watchfulness in enemy waters lay ahead. It felt almost better this way than to be submerged deep below periscope depth, with ’scopes inoperative because of lack of hydraulic pressure. Rich looked up at the shears. On their after side, just above the topmost periscope support bearing, the slotted oval dish which was the radar antenna rotated ceaselessly. Evidently it was seeing nothing, not even the radar of another submarine, for otherwise it would have been searching right and left of the suspect bearings, looking for confirmation in short, jerky sweeps.