“Reload completed, sir. All torpedo tubes ready for firing. Gyro spindles engaged. Depth set four feet all fish. Speed setting is high and speed spindles disengaged. Request permission to shift the outboard fish in the Forward Room to the reload position and to stack the empty torpedo racks outboard when we can, sir. We can’t do that without making some noise.”
“I’ll give you the word on that later, Chief.” Hinman sat back in his chair. “How does the crew feel?”
“Pretty happy, sir. The lookouts who were topside during the action have been telling all about it ever since we began standing easy on Battle Stations. It’s not like the first patrol, sir. Crew feels pretty cocky.”
“Tell them to get over that!” Hinman said. “We were damned lucky we didn’t get depth-charged. Next time we might not be lucky.”
“Yes, sir,” Rhodes said. He backed out of the Wardroom and went aft to the Crew’s Mess in the After Battery Compartment and drew a cup of coffee. Ginty was standing near the coffee urn.
“What’d the Old Man say about the fucking reload, Chief? Ain’t any ship in the fucking submarine Navy can reload four fish forward and two aft in eighteen minutes without making one fuckin’ bit of noise! What did he say about the way those exploders worked?” He stood, balancing his massive body on the balls of his feet, his scarred face set in a grin, ready to accept the plaudits that Rhodes would pass on to him from the Captain, ready to shrug off the praise of the crew members sitting with their coffee cups at the mess tables.
“He didn’t say anything,” Rhodes said, sipping at his cup.
“Bastard!” Ginty rumbled. “The fucker is too busy figurin’ out what kind a medal he’ll get! That son of a bitch has sure changed a lot since we put this shit-kickin’ ship in commission!”
“So have you,” Rhodes said. “First time I ever saw you put fish in the tubes you didn’t wind up so hoarse you couldn’t talk!”
“Shit!” Ginty said. His eyes flicked around the crowded compartment. “Man don’t have to yell when he’s got a reload crew trained like I train ‘em and when he’s got the Chief of the Boat pushin’ his flat ass off against a fish!” He bent his head and ducked through the water-tight door, grinning to himself as he heard a gust of laughter sweep around the mess compartment. He padded forward to his torpedo room, scowling at the green curtain at the Wardroom door as he passed it.
Captain Hinman drained his coffee cup and looked at his watch.
“I want to go up and have a look through the periscope,” he said. “Mike, I want you to take the dive. I want sixty-five feet. Not one inch higher.”
Brannon drew a deep breath. “Skipper, here we go, my big Irish nose and me. Were standing easy at Battle Stations and Pete Simms is the Battle Station Diving Officer. I’ll stand by him when we go up but I don’t want to take over his Battle Station, sir, not unless you insist on it.”
Captain Hinman studied the troubled face of his Executive Officer. When he spoke his voice was flat, level.
“Mr. Brannon, I am the Captain. I know what you’re thinking about, why you spoke up. I’d suggest that if you are practicing for the time when you get your own command — if I so recommend — I suggest you do your practicing somewhere else!”
Brannon dropped his eyes.
“Aye, aye, sir. To sixty-five feet. Not one inch higher!” Captain Hinman nodded and left the Wardroom.
Chapter 5
Mako surfaced in the first full dark of the night and wallowed sluggishly on a course southward down the coast of Borneo, her bull nose pointed in the direction of the harbor in Balikpapan. Lieut. Nathan Cohen leaned his elbows on the teak rail of the bridge and stared through his binoculars at the mountainous bulk of the island.
“I never noticed before,” he said to the quartermaster on watch. “At night. The mountain over there looks as if it’s only about five hundred yards away! I’d swear we were going to run aground if I didn’t know better!”
“Yes, sir,” the quartermaster said. “But the chart shows that we’re almost three miles off the beach. But it does look awful close, yes sir.”
“Those little spots of light on the beach,” Cohen said. “They must be fires, probably cooking fires. I wonder what kind of people they are? What food are they cooking?” He heard Captain Hinman’s footsteps as he moved from the cigaret deck into the bridge and stood beside him.
“I find it strange, Captain; there are people over there around those fires who have no knowledge of our presence here, our mission. People who probably don’t even know there’s a war going on and who don’t care at all about who wins or loses.”
“I know, Nate,” Hinman said quietly. “I stand up here at night and I wonder about the same things. It’s a very strange world. Those people around those little fires probably have their own enemies, fight their own wars, live and die and we don’t know anything about that, either.
“I have to go below and write up a contact report and the action report for the Staff at Pearl. I’ll call you to encode when I’m ready. Keep a sharp lookout.” He went down the hatch and Cohen turned and began to study the horizon through his glasses. An hour went by and he jumped as the bridge speaker rasped tinnily.
“Bridge. Executive Officer requests permission to come up.”
“Permission granted, sir,” Cohen answered. Mike Brannon hauled himself up through the hatch and took a deep breath of the night air.
“Skipper wants you in the Wardroom, Nate. I’ll take the deck. You don’t have to hurry; stop and get some coffee when you’re through if you want.”
“Yes, sir, thank you,” Cohen said. “We’re on course one seven five, speed… but you know all that, you’re the navigator.”
He turned to go below but Brannon’s hand stopped him.
“Always go through the whole routine, Nate,” Brannon said gently. “Course, engines on propulsion or battery charge, state of the battery charge, what fuel oil tanks are on the line, state of the diving trim, conditions of the ship, any changes of course in the night order book, the whole thing.”
Cohen felt the hot rush of blood to his face and hoped Brannon wouldn’t notice in the dark. He obediently rattled off the ritual demanded of all officers who turn over the OOD watch to another officer and went below to the Wardroom.
“Sit down, Nate,” Captain Hinman said. He shoved two pieces of paper across the felt-topped table.
“Two messages. The first is a report of all the shipping we saw in the harbor at Balikpapan. Send that message in the usual code for reporting on shipping.
“I want the second message sent in plain language. I want every submarine skipper on station who hears us to know what we did and exactly how we did it!”
Cohen studied the second message.
While observing ships in harbor at Balikpapan from a submerged position in the harbor mouth Mako saw a Fubuki-class destroyer leader accompanied by three destroyers leave harbor and begin submarine search to the north of the harbor.
At twenty-three hundred hours Mako saw a three-ship oil tanker convoy leave harbor and proceed on a northerly course escorted by three destroyers. The Fubuki ranged ahead of the convoy.
Mako took position to the west of the convoy and launched a night surface torpedo attack, closing to six hundred yards before opening fire with the forward torpedo tubes. Fired four torpedoes from the forward tubes at two tankers. Two hits on first ship. One hit on second ship. Both targets exploded and burned fiercely. Fired two torpedoes from stern tubes at a destroyer and got one hit. Torpedo blew entire bow off destroyer, which sank immediately.