Well, so be it. There was no doubt the plane had seen them now. It had turned slightly to compensate for Eel’s own course change. It was the same plane which had flushed Eel that morning, or one exactly like it. He could see the glint of the whirling blades in the early afternoon sun and the two engine nacelles under the wings. It might be able to increase speed to four miles a minute on a run in. He estimated the range right now to be about six miles, but it would not do to run this one too close.
“Clear the bridge!” he called. Might as well get the lookouts and Cornelli below ahead of time. Thirty seconds. Yes, the plane was probably now about four miles away. With a fast dive Eel could get completely submerged in thirty seconds, probably even faster at the speed with which she was still racing ahead. The wind was now coming over the port bow and was considerably less unpleasant, since he could keep his back to it as he watched the airplane.
Fifteen seconds more. It would be touch and go, but this was the way it had to be. “Clear the bridge!” he shouted. “Take her down!” There was no one on the bridge but himself, but all dives should be done as nearly as possible with the customary routine. He fumbled for the diving alarm, placed his mittened hand on it, pressed twice. The vents popped. One more quick look at the airplane. It was beginning its dive, coming in at a shallow angle. Estimated range three to four miles. This would be good. Eel was due to catch a bomb, but except by the greatest of misfortune she would survive it unscathed. The important point was that it would give at least one of the convoy escorts a point of aim, a datum point to investigate. The involved scheme which Richardson had laboriously composed while conducting the end-around run depended upon separating the convoy from the escorts. His gloved hands fumbled for the hand rail. He dropped down the hatch, grabbed the lanyard toggle, heard the hatch click shut.
Eel was already perceptibly angling downward in a swift, surefooted dive. “Hatch secured,” shouted Cornelli, too loudly, thought Richardson.
“Depth of water is two-five-oh feet, Skipper,” said Al from below. “I’ll start taking the angle off after we pass one-hundred-seventy-five feet.”
The conning tower annunciators, both of which should have been at the “ahead flank” position, had been moved over to “ahead emergency.” Obviously Al’s doing. With the full voltage of the battery discharging current almost as if there were a short circuit, the propellers for a few minutes would be turning even faster than under the drive of Eel’s four diesels. Eel’s deck tilted down even more. He heard Al speak imperatively to the planesmen. “Full dive on bow planes. Stern planes keep the angle at fifteen degrees. Yes, I said fifteen degrees!” Eel leaned even more steeply into the dive.
“Mark! Four-six feet,” said Cornelli. But he held out his hand to show that he had no stop watch. In the back of the conning tower Keith was grinning, exhibited the stopwatch with his thumb on the winding stem. “Twenty-three seconds,” he said, consulting it. “Fastest dive in the books. I almost didn’t get the periscope down. When the water hit it, I thought we were going to break it right off!”
Rich nodded, crossed to the control room hatch, squatted on his heels to talk to Dugan. “We’ve stopped our watch up here, Al,” he said. “Did you get a watch started on the dive?”
“You bet, Skipper.” Al had one in his hand, the short white lanyard looped around his thumb. “We’re passing seventy feet now. It’s forty-five seconds since the diving alarm, and we’re just reaching fifteen degrees down bubble.”
“What’s your speed through water?”
“Still showing twelve knots. It dropped fast as soon as we opened the vents, but it’s dropping a lot slower now.” There was indeed a furious rush of water around the conning tower, perceptibly shaking it, vibrating all topside equipment.
“Passing one hundred feet, Skipper,” said Al. “Do you want to change course?”
“Good. Left full rudder,” he ordered, raising his voice to the helmsman standing with his back to him alongside Cornelli. “Come left to one-four-zero.” The plane would be approaching the diving point now, would be adjusting for time late, computing the lead angle. Probably it had already dropped, since the release point for the speed and altitude would no doubt be passed long before the airplane arrived over the diving point.
“Taking the angle off now,” said Al. “The rudder helps.”
Richardson could feel the submarine’s attitude returning to the normal horizontal.
“Steady on one-four-zero,” said the helmsman. Just as he said the words they were swallowed up by the roar of a tremendous explosion in the water near at hand. Eel’s tough frame shook like a tuning fork, its component members vibrating in their own discordant cacophony, as the shock wave was converted into the innumerable frequency ranges to which the parts of it resonated.
“That was good and close,” Keith started to say, when his words likewise were engulfed in a second explosion, a ringing, high-pitched metallic WHAM, as though some giant outside Eel’s hull were striking her side with a tremendous sledgehammer.
“All compartments report,” said Cornelli, grabbing a hand telephone set from its rack. He held the phone to his ear for several minutes, nodding his head briefly from time to time. “I figured they’d all be on the line, sir,” he said. “All compartments report no damage.”
“Al,” said Richardson, “you still have speed control. Get us up to periscope depth as soon as you can.”
“Periscope depth, aye aye. All ahead one-third,” called out Dugan. The annunciators clicked as the helmsman carried out the order, and Eel began to climb back to sixty-foot keel depth in a much less dramatic fashion than she had initially gone the other way.
Richardson had forgotten Blunt in the conning tower. Now the latter spoke. “What are you up to, Rich?” he said.
“We’ve got two torpedoes left, Commodore, and I want to try to turn the convoy around to give Whitefish a chance to get into action one more time.”
“How are you going to do that with only two fish? And even if you do get one of the ships, the escorts will keep you from surfacing.…”
“Yes, sir, but what if we knock off the escorts?” Richardson stared hard at Blunt. He did not want to reveal his entire scheme, for the discussion which would inevitably follow would arouse concern in the well-knit submarine crew which could only be to its disadvantage. Again Blunt looked unsure of himself. He almost replied, then evidently changed his mind, said nothing.
Several minutes later, through Eel’s periscope, barely projecting above the tops of the waves, splashed over by some of them, Richardson had two things in view: the Japanese patrol bomber, now minus two of its limited supply of bombs, orbiting over the general area and obviously looking for his periscope; and a single escort which had appeared over the western horizon. Upon seeing it, he had directed that a white smoke candle be broken out and made ready near the submerged signal ejector. If the bomber was not thoughtful enough to fire a smoke float for the tincan, it might be necessary for Eel to do it. It was a disappointment, however, that only a single escort had taken the bait.