There was yelling and confusion among the patrol boat’s crew. Moonface was roaring orders. There were other voices shouting, the rapid thumps of many running feet. Eel had not backed clear. She was still driving ahead, holding her nose in the hole she had made. The patrol boat was in fact impaled on Eel’s bow. The submarine’s steel bow, with its heavy bullnose casting, had driven deep into its side.
The firing increased in fury. Two more fifty-caliber machine guns opened up from Eel’s bridge, one on either side, and at the same time more men scrambled out on Eel’s deck through the gun access trunk. They were weirdly accoutered. Some carried rifles with a bandolier of ammunition slung around their shoulders. Others had pistols in their hands, the corresponding belt and holster strapped around their waists. Several carried coils of heaving line. Two men had grapnels with short pieces of chain attached to them, and additional coils of rope. Several of them carried an assortment of tools: a crowbar, sections of pipe, a fire ax. They crouched nervously on deck just forward of the bridge, only a few feet beneath the deafening banging of the forty-millimeter cannon raking the patrol boat’s wooden decks. Richardson could hear the bullets striking the superstructure and hull of the patrol boat. There was a distinctly splintering impact as they shattered the thick wooden timbers.
There was the blast of a horn from the vicinity of Eel’s bridge. It was her compressed-air foghorn, commonly used as a signal to clear the decks of gun crews prior to an emergency dive. Instantly all guns ceased firing. Rich heard Buck Williams yell, “Come on!” The men who had been crouching on deck dashed forward, leaped past the forward torpedo-room hatch with its now quiet machine gun, passed out of view.
Some were yelling words Richardson could not understand. Others were imitating what they evidently supposed must have been the rebel battle cry during the Civil War. Still others were screaming like Indians.
There was much hoarse shouting, more splintering and smashing of wood. Richardson could distinguish the blows of the fire ax and the characteristic noise made by the crowbar as it tore apart wood panels and pried open barred doors. Obviously there was no organized resistance from the Japanese crew. If the patrol boat had had any arms she had been unable to cast them loose or use them. There were several heavy splashes, much shouting and yelling in Japanese. Then suddenly all was quiet.
Now he could hear what it was that the Eel’s crew was shouting, in between the rebel war yells and the Indian war whoops. It was his own name, his nickname. “Rich!” they were yelling. “Rich! Where are you, Rich?” Some of them were also shouting for Oregon.
“Here,” he shouted, banging on the door of his tiny cell, but it was much too solid. He could not even rattle the door. Perhaps a paint can would do better. He grabbed one, began banging the door with it, but the resulting noise hardly seemed satisfactory. He went back to the porthole, shouted through it. “Here I am,” he yelled. “Up forward.”
Whether they heard him or not, he could not tell, but it seemed to make no difference. A crowd of men was heading his way. He could hear them clumping through the between-decks area, smashing lockers and scattering equipment about as they came. Buck Williams’ voice was in the lead. “He must be all the way up forward,” he said. “Rich, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Skipper?”
“Here I am,” he yelled again.
Then Buck’s voice was just outside the door to his prison. “Here we are, Skipper,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Buck. Get me out of this place.”
“Stand clear of the door,” said Buck. “It’s got a big iron hasp and padlock over this beam. We’ll have to chop it down!” A series of heavy blows rained upon it. He could hear the ax biting into the thick wood. It must have been difficult to swing the ax in the confined, low-head-room area, especially with the heavy list the patrol boat had now taken. She was slanting well over to starboard, obviously waterlogged, might even sink once Eel pulled her bow out of the hole she had made. In their haste and eagerness the men must be getting in each other’s way. He heard Williams give instructions to some of them to stand back to give the others room to work.
A shiny ax blade bit through the heavy wood of the door, was jerked out, bit through again. Next came the edge of the crowbar, and several men must have heaved on it, for a section of the door was pulled out. He was face to face with Buck Williams.
“Hi, Skipper,” said Williams. “They sure have this thing bolted down, but we’ll have you out in a jiffy!”
A few more blows with the ax, and then came the tip of the crowbar again. Many men placed brawny arms on it, heaved with irresistible force. There was more splintering of wood.
“That did it,” said Buck, and with the words the door fell open.
“How are you, Skipper?” said Buck again. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m all right, Buck, but I’m sure glad to see you fellows.”
“Where’s Oregon?”
“They killed him yesterday,” Richardson said. He could sense the effect of his announcement upon the men gathered around. Suddenly silent, they helped him from the storeroom, supported him as he painfully climbed the companionway to the open deck above. A dozen Japanese sailors were huddled in a group against the deckhouse, under the leveled rifles of half as many Eel men standing guard. It was difficult to stand on the slanting deck, and hard to find room, for much of the deck of the patrol boat was splintered and smashed. Timbers lay where they had been tossed by the force of the blow from Eel’s bow, and there was a huge hole in her wooden side. Beneath the shattered deck, framed by smashed timbers, rested the scarred forepart of the submarine, driven into the side of the patrol boat almost half its width and, like a huge wedge, splitting the wooden patrol boat virtually asunder.
Richardson’s whole body hurt. His head throbbed. His leg muscles ached. His stomach felt nauseated. “Where are the rest of the Japs, Buck? Where’s Moonface?”
“Moonface? Who’s he?”
“I mean the Jap skipper. I’d just like to see that son of a bitch…” Richardson stopped. Despite the injuries he had received, his hatred of the Jap skipper, now that he had gained the upper hand, should be more dignified.
“Oh. Well, some of the Japs jumped overboard, and I guess we hit a couple of them before our boarding party got aboard. One of those in the water is a great big guy with swords and medals hung all over him. Is that the one you mean?”
“Yes, that’s the one I mean. Where is he?”
“Over there.” Williams pointed. There was a group of men in the water clinging to the side of the ship — its rail on the starboard side was at the water’s edge — and others were floating a few feet away, holding on to various pieces of debris.
“Why don’t you go back to the ship, Captain, and let Yancy look you over? We’ll take care of things over here.”
“I will, later. Let’s get things straightened out here first. Except for Moonface, these guys were all pretty decent.”
“Well, we’ve captured their ship, but we sure can’t use it, and neither can they any more. Maybe we can help them get their boat in the water.”
Richardson had not previously seen a boat, but he looked in the direction Buck pointed and saw one inverted on the roof of the deckhouse. “Have some men take it down and look it over,” he said. “See that it’s patched up if it needs it, and be sure it has provisions and water. Get that raft over the side also.” Richardson pointed to a wooden float-like structure about ten feet square built on oil drums. Then he thought of something. “There’s a prisoner in irons below. Get him out. And search this boat for any more like him.”