Blunt appeared to agree, yet he remained irresolute. “There’s no reason for Eel to go over there,” he said. “Those two fish you have left aft won’t be much use.” The unstated portion of the argument, the important part of it, Blunt still could not see: without the presence of the Eel to drive her, Whitefish would find no more targets.
The discussion would have gone on longer. Richardson had not expected an easy victory. The degree to which he could push for his own point of view had to be balanced against the resultant stiffening, the psychological resistance which Rich had by now come to expect. Admiral Small, in Pearl Harbor, made it all academic. For the second time, his message was most complimentary: DEPREDATIONS OUR BOATS CLOSE INSHORE KOREA HAVE CAUSED JAPANESE FITS X WELL DONE BRUISERS, it said. Then it went on to the meat of the communication:
KWANTUNG ARMY EMBARKING TWO DIVISIONS THREE LARGE TRANSPORTS TSINGTAO X DEPARTURE IMMINENT X ESCORTED BY TOP ASW TEAM RPT TOP ASW TEAM NOW REDUCED FROM THREE TO TWO MIKURAS PLUS DAYLIGHT AIR COVER X INDICATIONS CONVOY BOUND FOR ICEBERG X WILL SORTIE DURING DARKNESS FOR HIGH SPEED DAYLIGHT DASH ACROSS YELLOW SEA TO COAST KOREA X MUST NOT RPT MUST NOT ARRIVE X COMSUBPAC SENDS X TERMINATE ALL OTHER OPERATIONS CMA MAKE MAXIMUM EFFORT X
On a moonless night in a cold but musty sea, Eel arrowed at maximum sustained speed to the northwest. The storm of the past week had blown away the customary overcast, but this could not last long in the Yellow Sea, and the cloud cover with its atmosphere of sea dust had returned. Somewhere to starboard, Whitefish was also running for the same destination. Now, the decision made, Richardson found himself unable to remain in the warmth and comfort of Eel’s below-deck spaces, or to participate in the interminable strategy sessions in the wardroom. Nor was there solace in the bellowing roar of four powerful diesel engines, the purposeful routine of the control room, or the quiet readiness of the conning tower. There was no interest left in the torpedo rooms; only two useless fish remained, both aft — well, not quite useless. If Eel could engage the escorts, take them away from the convoy, Whitefish had ten torpedoes with which to deal with the three troop transports. Eel’s two fish might give her some capability, should an opportunity develop, of handling at least one of the two remaining Mikuras. As to the other, he would simply have to take what came and do what he could. The important thing was to make it possible for Whitey Everett to carry on, for only Whitefish could do the job that had to be done.
Restlessly, Richardson wandered from forward torpedo room to after torpedo room. The supreme test of his career, of his command of Eel, was about to come. He must be ready for it, must meet it, without adequate weapons. Only once before, in his youth, had he been faced with a similar situation. On a camping trip with three other boys, all of them Eagle Scouts, they had come upon a female grizzly bear with young. The bear attacked, the boys ran, and she caught one of them. Rich had saved his life by making a huge show of attacking the cub, striking it with a stick until it bawled, with result that its mother left her victim and made for him instead. He had by consequence spent the night in a tree, from where he had continued to occupy the bear’s attention while the other scouts took their injured companion to safety. The totally unexpected conclusion to the affair was that the Senator from his state, learning of it from a newspaper account, had offered him a vacant appointment to the Naval Academy for the following year.
That had been nearly fourteen years ago, and there were some analogies to his present situation. The wolfpack commander had been quite right in his observation that the two torpedoes remaining, both in stern tubes, would be of little use. Perhaps they could sink one of the transports — indeed, if the chance offered, he would seize it. But Eel’s job clearly was to help Whitefish get into action with her ten torpedoes, and if necessary she must be prepared to take the required risk. If Richardson could divert the attention of the escorts, Everett would be able to make an unopposed approach. With the transports in close formation, as they would be, he ought to be able to hit at least two of them.
In the ensuing confusion Eel would have her best chance to evade the escorts. Then, if she could somehow get on the surface unobserved, and providing she had not been forced to expend her two now doubly precious torpedoes — how fortunate that he had insisted on taking the two extra fish! — there might yet be an opportunity to pick off the third troopship. Even if Eel’s torpedoes were all gone by then, there were still the deck guns. Or, by re-engaging the escorts (for they would have raced to rejoin their injured charges) Eel might still be able to provide the ingredient which would enable Whitey Everett to make one final effort.
The dangers of the course he was setting for Eel were, however, also very clear. With only two torpedoes remaining, and both of them in stern tubes, she was not in a good defensive position. There were, of course, the deck guns, and a single unescorted troopship might be attacked with surface gunfire; but the transport, too, would have guns. Furthermore, she would be calling for aircraft on her radio. A long fight would undoubtedly ensue, and the longer it lasted, the more the probability that an airplane would abruptly terminate it. A fight with the two escorts was even more out of the question; and should there be only one, whatever the outcome of such a battle, Eel would almost certainly be in no condition to pursue and attack anything.
The only place in the ship which seemed to offer what he sought — the silence, the solitude, the contemplative peace — was the alert quiet of Eel’s darkened bridge. Here he could come closest to the privacy his troubled thoughts craved. It was cold, but he had protected himself with foul-weather clothing. The air was calm and relatively dry. The cold did not seem to penetrate, even though Eel was surging through the quiet waters at maximum speed.
There must be a following wind. The exhaust from four main engines, spewing their diesel defiance into the dark Japanese-controlled sea, proved him right. With Eel fully surfaced and the sea quiet, the exhaust pipes were a good six inches or more clear of the water. The water spray and smoke were directed downward, but the smoke reversed itself, rose lazily in four tiny plumes which hung suspended above the ship as they continually rose and were continually fed from beneath, until they disappeared above into the dark night.
He stood silently against the after rail, bracing himself in the corner it made with the forty-millimeter gun cradled there. A few feet forward of him, two lookouts and a quartermaster, maintaining their vigil, paid him no attention. Farther forward loomed the bulky after portion of the periscope standards, and beyond them the bulletproof bridge bulwarks and windscreen in which he could dimly make out the round heads of the Officer of the Deck and two more lookouts. He had forgotten to notice who had the deck — no, he hadn’t forgotten; it was Al Dugan, who had reported as Rich came on the bridge that the most recent survey of the hydraulic system indicated it was performing as well as could be expected, but would require another thorough overhaul upon return to Pearl Harbor.
Bungo Pete had not been in his mind of recent days, had been pretty well driven out of it by the emergency over Joe Blunt. Moonface had also helped him forget for a time. It occurred to him that he might have happened upon the motivations behind the pseudo samurai. Ambitious he undoubtedly was. He was also imbued with the idea of rediscovering an ancestral culture, which, in California, must have been ridiculed. Had he been able to bring in the broken commanding officer of a second submarine, after the destruction of Chicolar, his status among his fellows would have risen high indeed; but it would have risen highest in his own recently repatriated mind.