Every night, during the ritual planning and strategy council in the wardroom, the discussion would begin on the subject of Eel’s hydraulic system. Al Dugan reported that at least two bypass valves in different return lines seemed to be sticking occasionally and might be responsible for the continual bleeding down of the accumulator. This was apparently the cause of the rapid cycling and might have led to the scoring and other troubles. If nothing of greater seriousness developed, he thought, the system could be kept under careful surveillance and give satisfactory service for the remainder of the patrol.
As to where enemy ships were going, the arguments were no different from before. Everything had been said several times. Adamantly Captain Blunt held to his mid-area patrol thesis, insisting that sooner or later ships must cross the Yellow Sea. In the meantime, it became distressingly evident that something serious had happened to Chicolar. At the very least, her radar and radios must be out of action, a theory hopefully advanced by Larry Lasche and seized upon by Blunt. But after the first day, no one made further mention of this possibility.
After the second night without news, Richardson hesitantly brought up the need to reorganize the combined operations of the two remaining members of the wolfpack. Blunt became agitated at the suggestion, peremptorily ordered it dropped. Only when it became Eel’s turn to send the routine weather report for the Yellow Sea area did he permit a single terse sentence concerning lack of word from Chicolar to be included at the end of the message.
Rich could sense the dropping of morale throughout the ship. Years ago he had learned that no secrets could be kept from the crew of a submarine. This was axiomatic. Chicolar and her crew had gone to join Nerka, Walrus, and the other submarine casualties of the war. The fact cast gloom upon all of them, particularly Eel’s skipper, since he could not rid himself of the thought that just possibly, if he had persisted a little more strongly in his initial impulse to go to her assistance immediately, he might have won the argument with Blunt. Clearly, he should have insisted on returning to the spot after sinking the three freighters. A submerged approach at dawn might have been successful in picking off one of the destroyers, or even two, had he been lucky, but, most important, a sudden salvo of torpedoes would have distracted them from the wounded Chicolar, even perhaps convinced them she had got away. Then, if she were indeed disabled on the bottom, it might have been possible later to communicate on sonar and render some help. At a minimum he could have stood by to rescue those of her crew able to escape via the rescue breathing apparatus.
Over and over in his mind Richardson revolved the alternatives that might have been. Every time he did so, his thoughts went back to the same point: he was the captain of the Eel, and he held the responsibility for what she did, or didn’t do, to help her consort. Was this not, indeed, what Blunt had almost said? But it was all too late now.
After the fourth fruitless day of patrolling with nothing but fishing boats of various sizes sighted, and no messages from ComSubPac, he tried a new approach.
“Commodore,” he said, once again pointing out the various salient features of the shore topography around Korea and the coast of China, “we’ve been in the area eleven days. We have only nineteen days more before we have to pull out. So far, Whitefish hasn’t made a single contact. He’s got a full load of twenty-four torpedoes, and we need to figure out some way to give him a chance to shoot some of them.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Blunt.
“Well,” Rich said slowly, trying to speak matter-of-factly, “this is Whitey’s first patrol as skipper. He’s never made any night surface attacks, but he always was good with a periscope. So maybe if we could find a deep spot close in to shore somewhere, where ships might be pretty sure to pass, we could send him in there. He’d still be in radio contact at night, so we could coordinate our operations if a big convoy came by.”
Richardson was startled at the alacrity with which the wolfpack commander seized upon his suggestion. Within an hour Whitefish receipted for a message directing her to proceed close into the coast of China south of Tsingtao, where, the chart showed, relatively deep water extended fairly close to the shoreline.
Again there was the waiting, the deadly boredom of readiness with nothing happening. Two nights later a message arrived from Whitefish: SANK FIVE THOUSAND TON FREIGHTER X DEPTH CHARGED X PROCEEDING TO CENTER OF AREA TO REPAIR DAMAGES X FOUR TORPEDOES EXPENDED
“Good for Whitey Everett,” said Blunt when the decoded message was placed in front of him.
Rich tried to press his advantage. “Commodore,” he said, “this at least proves that there are ships moving. The total bag for the patrol so far is four, but they’re all relatively small coastal freighters. Maybe that’s all the Japanese have left. Anyway, now that Whitefish is back in the center of the area, it’s our turn to go close into shore, and I was thinking that this spot off the west coast of Korea…”
“With your hydraulic system in the shape it’s in?” said Blunt. “Not on your life! I forbid it!”
“Commodore,” Rich spoke sharply, “this submarine is not a cripple. We’re perfectly able to carry out our functions. If not, there’s a submarine tender at Guam, and we should go back there for repairs. We’ve been two weeks in the center of the area now, sir, and we haven’t seen a thing come through here. The four ships our wolfpack has sunk were all picked off close to shore.” There was a bite to Richardson’s voice, a compound of annoyance and of frustration.
“No!” said Blunt, slamming his fist on the table. “I’m running this wolfpack, and as long as I’m in charge you will operate in accordance with my instructions!”
This time it was Richardson who, in scarcely concealed anger, abruptly rose and left the wardroom.
He climbed to the bridge, seething. There was no question that something was wrong with Blunt. He had been a highly competent peacetime skipper of the Octopus eight years earlier, and he had been a source of strength and support with the old S-16 and the Walrus. Beginning with the recent period at Pearl, however, Blunt seemed to have changed, and he had not bounced back upon going to sea. The stimulus of a patrol had not had the hoped-for effect. His thought processes were not as incisive as they once were. He looked older, acted older, spoke in unaccustomed clichés. Rich also was convinced he was getting far from enough sleep. His eyes always looked blurry and tired, and he spent hours in the wardroom drinking innumerable cups of coffee, morosely speaking to no one. No doubt Admiral Small had thought getting him to sea, away from the routine of his desk and the distractions of Pearl Harbor, possibly also away from Cordy Wood, would restore him. But the problem obviously was deeper. Something else was wrong.
Perhaps the loss of Chicolar had begun to prey upon his mind, but Richardson had truthfully to admit to himself that he, at least, had begun to notice disturbing signs before the patrol began.