“You’re assuming we’ll have torpedoes left aboard to turn in at Pearl,” Captain Hinman’s voice was dry.
Brannon shrugged his meaty shoulders. “It would seem likely we will. The patrol orders tell us to observe and give a detailed report on the shipping in the harbor at Balikpapan and to report on the size and course of any convoys that leave the harbor.”
“So other submarines to the north of us can have first crack at the ships!” Hinman growled. “Those damned bureaucrats at Pearl Harbor want their old friends, the Captains with three full stripes, to get the first crack at the ships so they’ll get medals and promotions! I’m the youngest commanding officer in the submarine fleet, did you know that? They want to make sure the older skippers get the targets.
“I know what the patrol orders say. I’ll obey the orders. I want your plot laid down so I can go right into the mouth of the harbor if I have to. You let me worry about everything else.”
“I know my Irish nose is too big,” Brannon said mournfully, “so I’ll stick it in some more. You’re not only my Captain, I consider you to be my friend, and this damned exploder business has me worried!”
Hinman reached out in the dark to put his hand on Brannon’s shoulder and then he thought better of it and pulled his hand back.
“I know how you feel, Mike. We both know there’s something wrong with the design of that Mark Six exploder. We both know it’s never been properly tested. But the BuOrd people and the Staff at Pearl are going to keep on saying that the submarine captains are missing the targets rather than admit they’ve given us a defective weapon. Every captain who has complained about the exploders has had his ass chewed out! Hell, Donaho in Flying Fish damned near got a General Court for telling those dummies at Pearl what he thought of their exploders — and what he thought of them!” He drew a deep breath.
“I intend to follow my orders to the letter. I will observe the shipping in the harbor and report what I see. And then, by God, I intend to carry out a sentence in the patrol orders you seem to have forgotten. It reads, quote and unquote, no attack on enemy shipping will be carried out unless conditions are most favorable and the chance of enemy reprisal minimal.
“If there is enemy shipping to be attacked then the conditions are going to be favorable! If Chief Rhodes is right about what’s wrong with those exploders and if he and Ginty have corrected that error, then by God, we’re going to end this exploder controversy once and for all!”
Brannon turned toward the bridge. “Very well, sir. We should be about three miles due east of the harbor when we dive.”
“Not ‘about three miles due east,’ Brannon. My night orders say we will dive exactly three miles due east of the harbor mouth.”
Brannon was busy at his chart in the Control Room, sliding a set of parallel rulers across the harbor mouth of Balikpapan when Chief Torpedoman Gordon “Dusty” Rhodes stopped beside him.
“I gave him the word, Chief,” Brannon said in a low voice. “I told him that he had laid himself, you and Ginty open to a court-martial but he says it doesn’t make any difference. He’s going to shoot all the fish we have and if we get hits he feels this will end the argument about the Mark Six exploder, that they’ll have to modify the exploders.”
“I didn’t think we’d be doing much shooting this patrol,” Rhodes said. “I thought we were on a search and observe patrol.”
Brannon tapped the chart with his dividers, touching the port of Balikpapan. “The Dutch, to be precise, the Royal Shell Petroleum Company, built a big oil refinery here, back in eighteen ninety-nine. The whole area is full of oil — they say it’s almost pure stuff. The people who were running the refinery tried to sabotage it when the Japs moved in, that would be last January, but they didn’t do much of a job of sabotage. The Japs have got the refinery in operation. Japan lives on oil, you know. This is one of their biggest sources of supply.
“Which means that they are going to protect it, protect the oil tankers that leave here for Japan. I think we’re going to find as many destroyers in that harbor as there are tankers. I’ve tried to talk to the Old Man about the possibility of tanker convoys under strong escort but he just ignores me. He used to be willing to talk about everything with me. Now he only tells me what he has to tell me. He’s changed a lot since the ship was put in commission.”
“He’s got more reasons than most of us to change,” Rhodes said. “He’s lost more than any of us.”
“His wife? Yes, that’s a reason, Chief. But that’s behind him now. The ship comes first. This patrol isn’t going to be any picnic. The Japanese are getting damned good at anti-submarine warfare and they’re going to get a lot better!”
“How would we know how good they are?” Rhodes said. His eyes were veiled, his face without expression.
“Chief,” Brannon said slowly, “you and every other Chief of the Boat hold a position found only in submarines. You aren’t one of the officers and you aren’t really one of the crew. You sort of float in between both. So I’m going to tell you something for your ears alone, understand?
“We lost the Perch a little while back, in March. She survived a number of attacks before they got her and her Captain got off several messages before the Japs got the ship. From what he said the Japanese anti-submarine attacks were extremely well coordinated, they have sonar equipment much better than we ever realized and they used it with great skill. He tried every evasive maneuver he had been taught and none of it worked! He said in one message that they were so sure of him that they played with him like a cat with a mouse!
“We’ve lost seven submarines this year and the war isn’t nine months old! I try to talk to the Old Man about evasive tactics and things like that but he doesn’t seem to want to talk. I’d just like to know what’s got into him, why he’s changed.”
“We notice it,” Chief Rhodes said. “He used to be an easy Skipper, easy to live with. Hard if you didn’t know your job but easy if you did. Now he’s easy one day, hard the next. He doesn’t stop and shoot the shit with the crew like he used to do. They notice things like that. Some of the people wonder if the lousy luck we had the first patrol has made him afraid, nervous.”
“He’s not afraid, Chief. Not that! If anything I’m afraid that he’s not afraid at all! But I guess we’ve all changed a little. If you’re going aft will you ask the baker to give me a cup of hot coffee and a couple of doughnuts?” He watched Rhodes’ broad back move toward the After Battery Compartment. The rest of us might change, he thought to himself, but the Chief of the Boat won’t change. He’ll always be what he always has been, a solid rock of a man, an invaluable link between the Wardroom and the crew, governing the enlisted men with a shrewd practical psychology backed with the unspoken threat of sudden physical violence if his orders were not obeyed to the letter. He turned to his chart and went back to work.
“Coffee’s coming up,” Rhodes said to him a few minutes later. “No doughnuts this morning, sweet rolls. The baker will split a couple and fix ‘em with butter for you.”
“That canned butter!” Brannon made a face.
“Soaks in real quick, doesn’t taste too bad,” Rhodes said with a chuckle. He went forward through the Forward Battery Compartment where the officers and chief petty officers slept and into the Forward Torpedo Room. “Ginch” Ginty, the Mako’s leading torpedoman, was sprawled in a folding canvas chair in front of the shiny brass doors of the six torpedo tubes. He stood up as he saw Rhodes approaching, balancing his massive weight on his toes.
“Old Man get the word on the exploders, Chief?”