“Thirteen minutes since the zig,” said Buck. “Larry and I are getting ten knots.” No one had directed him to report the minutes, but he as well as anyone was aware of the importance of catching the exact moment of the zig. The next zig would be critical.
Blunt called for the periscope, put it down again. Another range and bearing were fed into the TDC. Richardson noted approvingly that Blunt’s periscope exposures were extremely short, as short as his own, nearly as short as they had been when Commander Joe Blunt of the Octopus, nine years ago, had so prided himself upon his ability to get a complete and accurate periscope observation in seven seconds. Intentionally, Rich had not suggested using the radar periscope. Blunt had been a past master on the attack ’scope. This approach was to be as near as he could make it to the techniques Blunt had been so good at.
At Blunt’s direction, Al Dugan increased depth another foot, to sixty-five feet. In the calm water even two and a half feet of periscope might be spotted by an alert lookout as the ships drew nearer. Stafford on the sonar had been monotonously reporting the bearings of two sets of screws with no change in their steady beat. Eel’s sonar equipment was far more acute than the older one fitted in Octopus. Perhaps Blunt had failed to realize that the first sign of a zig might be indicated by some variation in Stafford’s reports. Perhaps a subtle hint was in order.
“Keep the sound bearings coming, Stafford,” Rich ordered, crossing over to the sonar equipment and speaking loudly so that Stafford could hear him through his heavily padded earphones. “We’re expecting a zig any minute.”
Stafford nodded his comprehension, pointed to his bearing dial, shook his head to indicate no change. He answered rather loudly because of his artificial deafness, “Watch for zig, aye aye. No zig yet, sir.”
Blunt seemed not to have heard. “We’ll wait another minute,” he said. He put his hand to his forehead, shut his eyes, and spanned across the bones of his temples with his thumb and fingers. The gesture, which took only a moment, startled Richardson. The fleeting hand motion was out of character. But Blunt’s next words were the right ones, the ones Richardson had been willing him to say: “How have the sound bearings been checking?” he asked.
“Right on, Captain,” said Buck. “Lagging about a quarter degree, no more.”
Blunt appeared pensive. Rich looked at him carefully, trying at the same time not to seem overly interested in his appearance. The crowded conditions in the conning tower made this, at least, fairly easy. Blunt’s brow was furrowed, but this was certainly normal. Perhaps Richardson had only fancied that there had been an instant of weakness. The wolfpack commander crowded closer to the TDC, peering between the heads of Buck and Keith and effectively cutting off further inspection of his face.
In the best submarine fire control parties, few words are spoken except those absolutely necessary. Silence reigns, broken only by the ship noises conveying their own messages, the background whirring of the selsyn motors in the TDC, the muted murmur from the likewise silent control room. As far as possible, hand signals take the place of verbal communication. Words spoken take on added significance in consequence.
Suddenly, in Eel’s conning tower, there was nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to check. Only the slowly creeping dials on the face of the TDC to watch, or the equally slow movement of the tiny dot of light indicating Eel’s barely perceptible progress across Larry Lasche’s plotting sheet. Despite his determination, Richardson felt himself becoming nervous. It was always like this, as the target approached, but he always had in mind, also, what he would do for each of its possible maneuvers — including the possibility of no maneuver at all. But now he could not know what Blunt was thinking.
The old Blunt of Octopus days would have seized the opportunity to describe what he intended if the target zigged in either direction or not at all. He might even have indulged in a short discussion of the various possibilities and the likelihood of each. But that was eight years ago, during peacetime training exercises, when the only actual danger was collision with escort or target. Today, with conditions so much a carbon copy of the simplest exercise approach, there were depth charges in the escort, depth bombs in the aircraft, and men trained to use them. There was a hostile shore close at hand. Collision no longer would be solely the result of stupidity and clumsiness on the part of the submarine, and inability to avoid on the part of the target. Now it was something avidly sought by all surface ships.
The enemy freighter’s zigzag pattern was such that another zig was probable any moment. Sonar would discover it by some change in the drift of the bearings or in the regular cadence of the propellers. A radical zig away, to the target’s right, might produce an impossibly long range shot, or, at least, make bow tubes mandatory. A big left zig would run the target through a perfect firing position, requiring little or no maneuvering on Eel’s part. A small zig in either direction would still allow the submarine to achieve a firing position, though a small right zig might present the greater problem. No zig at all was probably the worst of all the possibilities. Any zig carried with it at least the likelihood that there would be no further zigs for several minutes, long enough for the submarine to get in firing position and her torpedoes to complete their lethal runs.
On the other hand, if there was no zig soon, Eel would be forced nevertheless to begin the slow maneuver necessary to bring her stern tubes to bear. Nearly a complete course reversal would be necessary. But once additional speed was put on the boat and her rudder placed hard over, a zig would be harder to detect on sonar. Canceling the submarine’s maneuver and replacing it with another would be difficult if not impossible in the time remaining. Hence the waiting, the quick, rapidly repeated observations, the rising tension.
Rich could hear the sibilant sound of water as Eel patiently drove through it, the hum of the ventilation blowers down below, the gentle hiss of air coming in through the vent in the overhead of the conning tower. The ship had long since been rigged for silent running and for depth charge, but the blowers had not yet been shut off. Even so, everyone in the conning tower was perspiring freely. With the crush of people — fourteen men jammed into a horizontal steel cylinder eight feet in diameter and sixteen feet long — there was nothing that could be done about it. When the ventilation blowers were finally secured and the hatch shut to the control room, the temperature in the conning tower would shoot to 120. The perspiration would increase, and so would the moisture in the air.
“Bearing one-two-eight,” announced Stafford.
“That’s half a degree to the right, Captain,” said Keith. “It might be a zig to his left.”
“Up ’scope,” said Blunt. “Zig to his left,” he announced. “He’s still turning. Down ’scope.” He stopped the periscope before it descended very far into the well, just far enough to get its upper extremity under water, waited about fifteen seconds, motioned for it to go back up. “Bearing, mark!” he said. “Range”—he fumbled for the range knob (strange: one’s hand simply dropped to it, under the handle; Richardson had never before noticed anyone having trouble finding it), grasped the knob, turned it—“mark!”