He did not believe any bones were broken, but every part of his body ached. The expected summons had come in midafternoon, and although feeling light-headed from lack of food and drink, he had managed to stick to his determination to give only name, rank, and serial number. The result had been a beating by several crew members who obviously hated their job but had, nevertheless, cuffed him about heartily enough to allay any suspicions Moonface might have had as to their willingness. Toward the end Moonface had himself lent a hand with a short stout piece of timber, and it was from these blows around the head and ribcage region that Richardson suffered most. Perhaps a rib had been cracked. His skull felt as if spikes had been hammered all over it. By twisting and squirming in the grasp of the men who were supposed to hold him, he had succeeded in some measure in protecting his head and soft abdominal area. His arms and legs were by consequence covered with deep bruises. His skin had been broken in several places where Moonface had struck it with his club, and finally he was bleeding quite profusely around the face and from his nose. It was perhaps this that brought the interview to a close. Doubtless the kudos for bringing in an enemy submarine captain alive would be greater than bringing him back dead.
Richardson had stopped feeling the blows as they fell upon him. Somewhere, in his remaining awareness, he realized he was only semiconscious. He perhaps actually did pass out for a moment or two. His next recollection was of being roughly carried along the deck and down the companionway into his cell. The roughness ceased as they passed through the companionway — out of sight of Moonface — and to Richardson’s surprise, when after a little delay he was laid gently on the floor of the cell, someone had dumped the rags out of the bag and had spread them around into the semblance of a bed for him.
He was never clear how long he lay there. Again his state of near-unconsciousness changed imperceptibly to sleep. When he awoke, it was because of a tremendous need to urinate, almost like a surge from within his body. Moonface, of course, had given no thought to sanitary facilities. He would have to use the same stratagem as the previous night. Painfully he crawled to his knees, pulled the rags away from the lowest corner of the sloping deck, made a little pile of the most absorbent of them. His urine was full of blood and reeked with the smell of it. The thought — almost a detached observation — crossed his mind that he might have suffered permanent damage. Well, it could not be helped, and probably did not matter, for neither his kidneys nor he could stand a repetition of today’s inquisition. He pitched the reeking bloody mess out the porthole.
Night was falling again, the end of his second full day aboard the Japanese patrol boat. She had not run her engines for twenty-four hours, had simply drifted all day long in the light haze, no doubt supposedly carrying out a sonar watch. With her demoralized crew and psychopathic skipper, she could be of very little benefit to the Imperial Japanese Navy. A couple of hours of lying quietly on his bed of rags had somewhat restored Richardson’s strength. He was able to think clearly once again. If his hopes and assumptions had been correct, if Eel had indeed been keeping the patrol boat under surveillance, something was likely to happen around the end of twilight, after the dying tendrils of the day had been replaced by the secrecy of night.
He had moved again, painfully, to the porthole, was staring out of it as he had for so many hours during the past two days. He could only see out to port, more or less to the eastward, he judged. The other side of the patrol boat, the starboard side, was his blind side. If Eel attacked, she would probably attack from the port side, simply because that was where he had painted the name. She would realize he had painted it from the porthole, would hope he was nearby, would want to avoid damaging that part of the ship. She would probably execute a battle surface attack close alongside. She would have to keep good way on to hold herself down while she blew her tanks, therefore would approach from well astern. Then, when her ballast tanks were well emptied and she could no longer be held down by bow and stern planes, the planes would suddenly be reversed and she would pop to the surface, riding high, presenting a good gun platform for her gun crews. He regretted that the turn of the patrol boat’s bows confined his view to her port forward quadrant only. He would have liked to see Eel as she suddenly and dramatically burst from beneath the sea. Probably he would not see her until she came abeam, already fully surfaced, guns blazing. She might sink the patrol boat, with him in it — a distinct possibility. An unlucky shot, or a ricochet, might finish what Moonface had started. What did it matter?
The scenario was fully played out in his mind, and he was therefore unprepared for a small disturbance in the water, perhaps 200 yards away, slightly forward of the patrol boat’s beam. Almost, he thought, it might have been a periscope feather, but this was the wrong place for it. Perhaps it was a fish jumping. He watched the spot, saw it again. It was too early. It was in the wrong place. It was still not dark enough. This could not be the Eel!
But it was. Suddenly she burst out of the sea, less than fifty yards away. Bows on, her bullnose cleaving up from the depths, she reared high above the water, splashing tremendous cascades of foam from the freeing ports at the bottom of her bow buoyancy tank. He could clearly see the tightly closed torpedo tubes as they came above water. She was moving fast. There was frightened yelling on deck of the patrol boat. Eel’s bow lowered as her stern came up. There was already someone on her bridge. Thirty yards — twenty yards — the distance closed rapidly. Her bow had lowered to approximately four feet above the water, about half its usual fully surfaced height, as she smashed perpendicularly into the stout wooden side of the pseudo sampan.
Richardson had his face pressed to the rim of the porthole, felt the force of the blow communicated to his forehead and chin. The patrol boat heaved massively to starboard. There was a horrendous crashing of timbers, a massive pouring of water, confused shouting and yelling. Eel’s bow had passed from his sight, must be buried in the side of the wooden boat. Men were boiling out of her bridge, jumping out of the gun access trunk opening, which he could see on her port side. The forward torpedo room hatch flung itself open, came to rest vertically, partly shielding the area behind it. Two men leaped out, placed a machine gun in one of the mounts which had been built there. Swiftly a belt was produced, clipped in. Then one man jumped back into the hatch while the other sprawled at full length on deck, and using the open hatch as a shield, opened fire. The stuttering roar of the gun overwhelmed all other sound. On Eel’s bridge another group of men leaped over the wind-deflector shield to cast loose the forty-millimeter gun. Ammunition clips were appearing magically from over the bridge and up through the gun access trunk. Within seconds the forty-millimeter began to speak in a steady, monotonous pounding. Tracer bullets and solid armor-piercing shots stitched their angry message into the amidships section of the patrol boat. Rich could see several rifles on the bridge, all aimed with precision into her midship section, all of them firing rapidly.