“Try and get a radar bearing!” Brannon said. He turned his head upward and saw the radar settle on the lookout’s bearing.
“No contact, Bridge,” the radar operator sang out. “Maybe the ship is below the horizon or maybe it’s too small to pick up at this range, sir.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Keep trying.” He walked back and forth across the small cigaret deck, waiting.
“Got me another little flickering light!” the port lookout called out. “Two flickering lights, Bridge!”
“Radar contact bearing three five zero!”
“All ahead flank!” Brannon ordered. He went to the bridge and bent his head to the bridge transmitter.
“All hands, this is the Captain. We’ve got two ships up ahead of us that appear to be on fire and we’ve got radar contact. Mako must have hit some targets. Now it’s our turn! We’re going to go in and get ‘em! All hands stand by for a surface attack with torpedoes! I’ll slow down to let you open the outer doors when the time comes.”
“Plot is running, Bridge,” the voice came up through the Bridge speaker. “We’re on an intercept course with the contacts.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. He turned to the Officer of the Deck. “Go below, Jim. I’ll take over now. Stand by to dive if we have to do that.”
“Bridge!” the radar operator’s voice was sharp. “I’ve got a lot of small blips up there and one pretty big blip! Bearing is zero zero one!”
“Keep the bearings coming,” Brannon said. He raised his binoculars. The flickering lights the lookout had reported were within his sight. He turned his face upward toward the lookouts. “Can you see what kind of ships are burning?”
“Looks like two kinda small ships, sir,” the port lookout answered. “I can see some other small ships now, little ships they look like. They bear from dead ahead to three four five degrees, sir.
An echoing boom rang across the water and then another and another.
“Depth charges!” Lieutenant Olsen called out from his post at the Aft TBT. “Those sound like depth charges, Captain!”
Fleet Captain Akihito Hideki of the Imperial Japanese Navy put a bathrobe on over his pajamas with a word of thanks to the seaman who had brought him the robe. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and turned to the commanding officer of the Fubuki destroyer-leader that was designated Eagle.
The Fubuki’s commanding officer pointed out to the port side where the flames from two ships were clearly visible.
“The two lead ships, loaded with lumber as you know, were attacked by a submarine on the surface. Both were hit. The fires are now under control. The submarine then attacked the inboard ship of the next two. They were in formation side by side. The torpedo missed and the submarine then ran down between our two ships. The captain of the outboard ship reports that he opened fire on the submarine with all his machine guns and that he scored a great many hits on the submarine’s bridge.”
“They always say they hit the target,” the Professor said.
“The range was only about forty-five meters, sir.”
“Hm, in that case maybe they did hit what they shot at. When they opened fire did the submarine return the fire?”
“No, sir. It dove immediately.”
“Not because of any damage, I’d bet,” the Professor said. “The vulnerable part of a submarine is not its bridge, you can wipe that off the ship and not hurt it greatly. They should fire at the pressure hull!”
“Contact!” the telephone talker on Eagle’s bridge raised his voice. “We have a contact… zero five zero… range two zero zero zero yards.”
“Depth charge settings?” the Professor asked quietly.
“As you ordered sir; the Y-guns are set for four hundred feet. The charges on the racks are staggered from two hundred to six hundred feet, sir.”
“Signal Eagle’s Feather One to make an attack down the target’s track. We’ll follow to the starboard of the track.” The Eagle’s commanding officer said a few words to his telephone talker and then raised his arm. He dropped it and a signalman on the wing of the bridge aimed his light at Eagle Feather One.
The first attack on Mako went awry. Eagle’s Feather One dropped its charges too quickly and Eagle, following to starboard, dropped its charges too late. Even so the heavy charges, many of them exploding at depths greater than Mako was cruising, shook the submarine heavily. In the Forward Torpedo Room Johnny Paul turned to Chief Ginty.
“God damn it,” he said in a half-whisper, “we got a feather merchant playing Captain and we’re gonna get the shit kicked out of us!” He winced as Ginty’s massive hand closed on his upper arm.
“Shut your fuckin’ trap, sailor!” Ginty rasped in Paul’s ear. “You’re in charge this fuckin’ room! The people here look up to you so don’t go bad-mouthin’ Grilley! Do your fuckin’ job, man!” He turned and started for the after end of the room. A member of the reload crew stopped him.
“Captain’s dead, Chief?”
“Either dead or swimmin’,” Ginty answered.
“Looks pretty bad, hey? No Captain?”
“What’s bad?” Ginty grunted. “You’re makin’ your first war patrol and you sit here bellyaching! Them topside people is either dead or they’re being picked up by the Jap ships or they’re swimmin’ and the beach is fuckin’ miles away! Which is worse off, them or you?
“You heard Captain Grilley, Eelfish and Captain Mike Brannon is on the way. Fuckin’ Jap is gonna get a big surprise!” He reached for a dog on the water-tight door and swiveled it around and reached for a second dog. A series of pings echoed through Mako’s hull. Ginty dogged the door down tight and went back to the forward end of the torpedo room. He turned and faced the people in the room.
“Alla you people with nothin’ to do and that means all of you, you get in bunks and hold on and don’t make no noise! Ol’ Jap has got a bearin’ on us and he’s gonna drop some shit on us! For you people ain’t heard no depth charges, don’t shit your skivvies! What you hear ain’t gonna hurt you!”
In the Maneuvering Room just forward of the After Torpedo Room, Chief Hendershot cocked his head upward as he heard the sound of the Japanese sonar.
“Told me when I shipped in this Navy,” he said to the man sitting beside him in front of the control console, “told me that joining the Navy was like getting married. It was for better or for worse and son of a bitch if this isn’t one of the worse parts comin’ along now!”
The second attack on Mako was coordinated precisely. The two destroyers under the command of the Fubuki destroyer-leader called Eagle wheeled and formed up and ran down Mako’s track, one on each side. The Y-guns roared, sending their charges far out to each side, the depth charges tumbling awkwardly through the air before hitting the water with a great splash and sinking downward. On the narrow sterns the depth charges rolled off the racks and plunged straight downward. Mako shook and rolled, groaning under the heavy pounding of the explosions. Don Grilley, holding on to the chart table for support, looked at Aaron at the bathythermograph. Aaron’s wide blue eyes narrowed slightly and then he shook his head. No layers.
“He twists and turns oddly,” the Professor said to the Fubuki’s commander as the two men studied the neatly drawn plot of Mako’s movements. The Professor looked up at the taller, younger officer. He tapped the plotting paper with a bony forefinger.