In the far corner of the wardroom, ensconced on the settee which sometimes doubled as a bunk for the most junior of all the officers, Keith Leone was already deep in conversation with someone who could only have been the submarine base engineering and repair officer. They started to rise when the admiral and Captain Blunt entered, but there was obviously nowhere for them to go; Small, in a single motion, bade them retain their seats.
Things were no better in Richardson’s own stateroom, to which the three adjourned briefly after the coffee ritual. Eel’s well-ordered existence had been totally disrupted. There were strangers everywhere bustling up and down the narrow passageway, loud conversation, the general brouhaha of holiday.
“I’m sorry for the confusion, Admiral,” said Rich. “It always seems to be this way when you come in from patrol.…”
“I know, Rich,” interrupted the admiral, “I just wanted to get a feel for how you are after that fantastic patrol of yours, and tell you how proud we are of you. I read all your messages personally, and I want you to know I am in complete accord with everything you did.” Small had spent his entire career in submarines, and had many times voiced regret he could not make war patrols himself. He was a short man, though taller than Blunt, and now, in middle age, had begun to verge on stoutness. His face was heavy, elephantine with a prominent hooked nose but his forbidding countenance faded with the genial friendliness he always displayed to his “submarine drivers,” as he sometimes referred to them.
“That’s right, Rich,” said Blunt. “We just want everyone to know we think old Bungo had it coming to him.…” Was that a look of disapproval in Small’s unexpectedly bleak eyes? Blunt changed the subject. “How about giving me your patrol report just as it is? I take it you’ve put it on stencils?”
“Yes, sir, Commodore,” said Richardson. “Also, we have a special Top Secret addendum, separately submitted.”
Admiral Small nodded his eyes shifting back to Richardson. “Good thinking, Rich. We’ll take both of them right now.” Richardson rose from his seat on his bunk and pressed a button built into the top of his desk. A moment later Quin thrust aside the green baize curtain which had been pulled across the doorway to the stateroom.
“Let me have our two patrol reports.…” began Richardson.
“Here, sir. I figured that’s what you wanted, Captain,” said the yeoman. Quin was always one jump ahead of everybody else, mused Richardson as his guests stood up to leave. In single file, the admiral leading, the three made their way topside.
“Again, Rich, that was a magnificent patrol,” said Small, extending his hand. “I won’t ask you to lunch. I know you have a lot of things to do. But will you join me for dinner at my quarters tonight? We eat early because of the curfew you know, so come on up about five o’clock for a drink, and we’ll see that you get out to the Royal Hawaiian before they chase everybody off the streets at ten.”
“I’ll be there too, Rich,” said Blunt. “The boss has asked a couple of others, too, so you won’t have to do all the talking. We’ll have read your report by then, and we’ll be anxious to hear what went on between the lines.”
Richardson forced himself to show pleasure in accepting, saluted four times as the admiral and his chief of staff in turn went through the departure ritual of saluting first him and then the colors. Then they stepped from Eel’s slotted deck to the brow and walked swiftly ashore.
Having to go to dinner was an ordeal he had expected. Richardson was grateful to be spared the preliminary of luncheon at the admiral’s staff mess, where the current crop of “staffers,” most of them either ex-skippers or Johnny-come-latelys awaiting their turn at a fleet submarine command, would have had free access to him. It was thoughtful of Admiral Small to dispense with this portion of the regular routine.
It was just as well, anyway. For one thing, he would have to go through at least the form of turning over to the “relief commanding officer”—the experienced executive officer of another submarine, now waiting his own command, who in the meantime was designated to take over all responsibility for Eel. This would permit Eel’s own regular crew, except for those to be rotated ashore during the next patrol, to be transported in a body for a two-week vacation at the luxurious Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.
Boxes, duffel bags, and a couple of small collapsible suitcases were already appearing on deck, and two large navy buses were parked only a short distance away.
Richardson felt alone, detached from it all. This was not the same as the returns from patrol he had experienced before, the joyous release from pressure and travail. If anything, the pressure seemed greater. He felt indecisive, unable to think or hold an idea. Keith, he noticed, had not asked him for a single instruction. Keith was doing it all. Once he thought he saw Keith cast a worried look, quickly masked, in his direction.
It was impossible to move from the spot where he stood. A group of fellow skippers, nearly a dozen in all, surrounded him. All were eager to ask questions about his battle with Bungo Pete: the sinking of the submarine, the fight with the Akikaze-class destroyer, the final destruction of the Q-ship with single shots from stern tubes in a small typhoon.
How had he got Eel into position with weather conditions as they were? Why had not the Q-ship or the destroyer been able to hit him with gunfire? How had he known it was Bungo Pete whom he was fighting? What depth had he set on his torpedoes — had he made any adjustment for the heavy seas running? Why had he not shot at the Q-ship first — how had he identified it as a Q-ship and not an ordinary freighter? How in the world had he gotten away with sinking a submerged submarine right out from Bungo Pete’s formation without alerting Bungo? What did he consider to be the optimum firing range and depth setting of the electric torpedo? Had Richardson heard of the new periscope radar — a radar made small enough to fit right into a periscope so that a radar range could be obtained submerged, thus facilitating more accurate fire control solutions? Had Richardson heard of the latest fleet submarine design, a bigger, faster boat, with even more torpedoes than the twenty-four which were standard?
The professional conversation, normally of huge interest, had nothing for him. Richardson answered the questions as briefly as he could, only with difficulty remembered the depth settings and firing ranges. He asked no questions in his turn about the radar in the periscope or the new, bigger submarines.
The silent arrival of an ambulance provided an excuse to break it up. The rescued aviators brought back from Eel’s “lifeguard” stint would have to be tended to. None were ambulatory. All would need stretchers. “Keith,” he began — but Keith had also seen the ambulance. Several men were already striding purposefully across the brow toward it. They returned with three metal stretchers with assorted straps for holding the patients in as they were lifted vertically up through one of Eel’s deck hatches.
Still, the operation needed supervision. Richardson must say good-bye to the Army Air Corps captain and his two men. They would be coming up from the crew’s dinette, through the deck hatch just abaft the bridge and conning tower structure, this being the shortest lift. Quickly they appeared. Keith’s arrangements had been well made. Richardson shook hands with the lanky pilot, who managed to extend his hand out from under the straps holding him in the basket stretcher. Richardson hoped that the treatment his corpsman had given the westerner’s broken leg would prove satisfactory. A little over a year ago his own broken leg — a compound fracture, to be sure — had had to be rebroken and reset after the return to Pearl Harbor. In consequence he had insisted on hours of study of Eel’s meager medical library by Yancy, the ship’s pharmacist’s mate, Keith Leone, and himself before the first move was made to set the flier’s leg.