“We’ve been running seven minutes, Captain,” said Keith.
“All ahead one-third,” Rich called out. “Control, make your depth five-eight feet.”
The annunciators clinked in the forward part of the conning tower as Cornelli executed the order. Gently Eel’s deck inclined upward. The drumming of the superstructure stopped.
“You get the BT card?” asked Richardson. “And what was the depth of water?”
“We got a seventy-five-foot reading at two hundred feet, Captain,” said Keith, answering the last question first. “They’re putting the BT card in the fixer now. We’ll have it up here in a minute.”
There was someone coming up the ladder from the control room. Blunt. Behind him, gesticulating helplessly, the lanky pharmacist’s mate took two steps up the ladder and stopped, head framed in the opening, silently signaling his failure. Now Rich cursed the weakness which had allowed him to accede to Keith’s request regarding the hatch and ventilation. Better to be sweltering in peace than cope with an erratic superior, especially during an approach! That solution was now irrevocably gone. No time to toady to the squadron commander’s unpredictable states of mind. No time to consider, or evaluate, the sudden dismay communicating itself to the area just below his own diaphragm. Play the game out. Pretend his appearance had not been greeted with hastily concealed startlement. Hearty greeting. “How are you feeling, Commodore?” No sign of the deep unease awakened by his sudden appearance.
“Fine, Rich, I never slept so well in my life, but what was the pharmacist’s mate doing? Why didn’t you call me? He tried to keep me from turning out. Did you send him?”
“Well, frankly”—calm tone, get over this part quickly—“I told him to see what he could do for you. You’ve been looking a little peaked lately.”
Blunt was about to say something, but Richardson went on, a little hurriedly, as if he had not noticed. “We’ve got a convoy of four ships up there, Commodore, with four escorts. I’m hoping to shoot bow and stern tubes. Also, we’re going to be in for a depth charging, sir. It’ll be pretty uncomfortable up here in the conning tower after we shut off the ventilation, so I recommend you move back to the control room when that time comes.…” Handling the ship in combat was Richardson’s sole responsibility. Best signal his intent to exercise it.
“All right, Rich,” said Blunt, “just give me a minute to get down the hatch when you give the word.” There was a degree of truculence in his manner. Perhaps he felt he should have been informed as soon as the enemy ships were sighted. Surely in his state of extreme drowsiness the previous night, he had not suspected the sleeping potion which had finally enabled his body’s craving for sleep to be satisfied. Probably he did not yet realize that, in contravention to his last expressed wishes, while he had been sleeping the Eel had entered the Maikotsu Suido, nor that coordination instructions had been sent to the Whitefish in his name. Hopefully, his long sleep might have restored some of his oldtime equilibrium. But of this Richardson could not yet judge. There was no time to make an evaluation. The ship was about to go into mortal danger, would be under determined attack by four fully aroused escorts in half an hour. There would be one chance, only a single quick opportunity, to fire torpedoes at the convoy. Even this would exist only if prior detection could be avoided.
If all went well, the first announcement of the presence of a submarine would be the crash of lethal explosions against the steel sides of enemy cargo ships. With four ships in the convoy, and four close escorts, not to mention probable air cover, only consummate skill would make possible an attack on all. He would have only ten torpedoes to shoot. From that moment on, Eel would become the subject of a relentless search by at least two, and perhaps all four, vengeful tincans. If she could remain at periscope depth there was the possibility that a modicum of the initiative might yet remain with her. The probability, on the other hand, was that she would be driven deep, or as deep as the shallow Yellow Sea would permit, there reduced to a sea-mole, blind, wandering through the watery wasteland, fearing every change in enemy propeller cadence, every shift in echo-ranging scale, as the precursor of the depth charge attack that would have Eel’s name on it.
He would need every faculty, every capability, every intuitive sense, if he was to guide his ship and crew safely through the ordeal into which he was leading them. A querulous superior who held no responsibility for the operation of the ship, nor for the conduct of the approach and attack, could not be tolerated. He would have to be put aside even if strong methods became necessary.
Blunt was still in the forward end of the conning tower, several feet away. Richardson crowded over behind the TDC, alongside Keith and Buck Williams. “Keith,” he hissed, “when I tell you, run down to the control room and get hold of Yancy. Tell him that if I send him a message to take charge I mean to take charge of Captain Blunt with as many men as he needs, and get him back in his bunk asleep in whatever way he has to do it.” Keith nodded his understanding. “Don’t go until I tell you to,” he finished.
Keith nodded again.
“What’s the distance to the track now?” Richardson said, resuming his normal voice.
“Forty-two hundred,” said Buck.
“Range?”
“I’m showing — mark! — ninety-two hundred yards.”
“Speed through water?”
“Own speed — three and a half knots coming down slowly.”
“Depth?” demanded Richardson.
“We’re at ordered depth, sir,” said Keith. “Depth is five-eight feet. You haven’t looked around yet.…”
“Keith, I want that bathythermograph card,” said Richardson, putting special emphasis in the words. “Jump on down and see what’s holding them up. Get it and bring it back up here yourself.” There was an understanding look in Keith’s eyes as he ran below.
“Stand by for an observation,” said Richardson. “Radar periscope — we’ll use the fast procedure again for our next range, Scott, but this time I want you to stop it at the deck and bring it up slowly until we break water. I want to get a look around first.” Scott and Rogers nodded their comprehension.
“Up ’scope,” said Richardson. The periscope came up, stopped with the handles just clear of the bottom of the well. On his knees, Rich extended them, bent over, his chin on the floor, to look through the ’scope. “Up a little,” he said, motioning with his thumbs, “up a little more, that’s high!” He extended his right hand palm down over the handles. Swiftly he rotated the periscope completely around, bouncing on his haunches much as a cossack sword dancer might have done, his torso and head contorted to look through the eyepiece. He made two complete circles. “All clear for now,” he said, turning around to the port bow. “Here they are. Bearing, mark!” He flipped up the handles and pointed downward with his thumbs. The periscope started down into the well.
“Two-nine-six relative,” said Scott, who had moved to the periscope in Keith’s place to read the azimuth ring.
Richardson made a sudden horizontal cutting motion with the palms of both hands. Quin, still wearing the telephone headset, had taken Scott’s place at the periscope hoist controls and stopped the periscope’s descent.
“I think there’s a plane up there,” said Richardson. “No point in leaving the ’scope up too long. Now we’ll go for the radar range. Everybody ready?” Quin and Rogers nodded.
“Bring her all the way up, Quin, until you hear Rogers sing out ‘Range,’ then drop it immediately. Don’t worry about me. You got that?” Quin had seen the procedure many times in drill, and only moments ago again, this time for real. He nodded his understanding.