“First target bears zero one zero, sir,” The telephone talker on Eagle’s bridge spoke up.
“All ahead full,” the Professor said calmly. “Captain, you will signal the dropping pattern, please.” The Fubuki’s commander nodded and raised his right arm. Then he brought it down with a swift motion. The big Y-guns roared and sent their charges tumbling through the air and on the stern of the Fubuki the gunnery ratings began to release the depth charges.
Eelfish was passing 150 feet when the young sonar man reported the attack run had begun on Mako. The sailor’s eyes widened as he listened.
“Explosions all around out there, sir. Worst noise I ever heard, sir!”
“The son of a bitch is a professional,” Mike Brannon said. “He wants his first target! Blow Safety! Blow Negative! Open the outer tube doors at one hundred feet! Stand by to flood Negative, John, I want to show my bridge to that son of a bitch! Maybe that will draw him off of Mako. Come on, get me up! He can’t hear anything out there with all that noise! I want that son of a bitch to see us! Then I’ll take him!”
Mako twisted in the wracking explosions, her hull groaning and creaking. In the After Torpedo Room the lights blew out and the one-inch thick steel holding pins on a torpedo rack holding a 3,000-pound torpedo sheared off and the rack slammed across the room and crushed a reload team member.
The Control Room telephone talker turned to Captain Grilley.
“Maneuvering Room, Chief Hendershot, reports that the starboard propeller shaft started to run wild and he’s shut down that screw, sir! The Chief says we might have lost the wheel, sir!”
DeLucia leaned over from his position at the ladder and tapped the stern planesman on the shoulder.
“You still got stern planes?” The man nodded.
“If we lost a wheel, sir,” DeLucia said, “we’d probably lose the stern planes too. Must have been the shaft, is all.”
“Very well,” Grilley said. “Helm, we’ve only got one screw turning, port side. Compensate for that.” He turned his head toward the Conning Tower hatch as Cohen spoke.
“He’s turned and he’s coming back, Control! He’s coming fast!”
A series of heavy explosions shook Mako. DeLucia fought back the desire to yell with pain as he was knocked to the deck. He held on to the ladder, his right leg sticking out at an odd angle.
“Two hundred feet, sir, five degree up bubble!”
“Keep her coming,” Grilley said.
“After Torpedo Room is flooding!” The telephone talker’s face was white in the light of the emergency lanterns. “After Room reports they’ve got a split in the After Trim bulkhead between the tubes an inch wide! Room is flooding, sir!”
“Order the Maneuvering Room to open the salvage air valves to the After Room,” Grilley snapped.
“Hard to keep her ass up, sir!” The stern planesman had his planes on full rise. Grilley felt the deck under his feet tilt as Mako’s stern sank.
“Blow Number Seven Main Ballast!” Grilley ordered. His mind was sorting out the factors. The After Torpedo Room held almost 140 tons of sea water if it were flooded completely. The Number Seven Main Ballast tank held 39 tons of sea water. If they could get enough air pressure into the After Torpedo Room to hold the water in check before the tonnage of flood water outweighed the water he had blown out of the ballast tank, there was a chance Mako could be kept on an even keel.
“Number Seven is blown dry, sir,” the auxiliaryman said. Mako sagged, her stern down, her bow rising.
“Blow Main Ballast Six Able and Six Baker!” Grilley said. He waited as the high pressure air roared through the manifolds, blowing dry two of the four tanks in the Number Six Main Ballast group. Mako’s stern began to rise slightly.
“We’re gonna broach!” DeLucia yelled. “Forty feet and going up fast! We’re gonna surface, sir!”
The lookout stationed on the port wing of the Eagle saw Mako’s bow burst through the surface of the dark sea. His yell brought a calm response from the Fubuki’s commander.
“Right ten degrees rudder! Gunnery officers — your target is submarine bow! Commence firing!” He watched, not bothering to use his night binoculars, as the shell splashes neared Mako’s bow.
“Submarine! Submarine bearing zero nine zero!” the starboard lookout yelled.
“Blow Main Ballast Six Charlie and Dog!” Grilley ordered. “Let’s see if that won’t get this damned up angle off her! He whirled as a giant hammer blow rang through Mako’s hull.
“What the hell was that? Get me a report!”
Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Arnold Samuel “Ginch” Ginty died as he had lived for the better part of the past sixteen years, standing in front of his torpedo tubes as a five-inch shell from the destroyer burst through the Mako’s hull just aft of the tubes. Four of the reload crew escaped the hail of shrapnel that riddled the Torpedo Room and drowned as the last of Number Six Ballast Tank blew dry and Mako’s bow came down to an almost even keel. The flooded Forward Torpedo Room dragged Mako’s bow downward and the ship began a long slide back down into the sea from which it just burst.
“Can’t raise the Forward Room, sir!” The Control Room talker clutched at the chart table as Mako began her descent.
“Blow Bow Buoyancy!” Grilley snapped.
“Blowing bow buoyancy tank, sir!”
“I don’t have a reading on bow buoyancy vent, sir!” The auxiliary electrician who had taken over Chief DeLucia’s Battle Station at the hydraulic vent manifold rapped his knuckles against the indicator panel that showed with lights whether the vents and flood valves were open or closed.
“I got no light at all, no red and no green on bow buoyance!”
“Keep blowing!” Grilley ordered. “Telephone, try the Forward Battery, see if Thomas can tell us what’s wrong up there!”
The telephone talker hunched over his mouthpiece. Then he raised stricken eyes to Don Grilley.
“Tom says he looked through the bull’s-eye glass in the water-tight door. He says all he can see is water.”
“Passing one hundred feet Captain,” DeLucia said from the deck beside the ladder.
“Blow all tanks! Blow everything!” Grilley snapped.
“Stand by forward!” Mike Brannon ordered. “He’s shooting at our bridge! Son of a bitch has seen us! Turn, you bastard, turn! Mark! Range is one three zero five!.. angle on the bow is thirty port!.. stand by…
“Fire five!..
“Fire six!.. Left full rudder… stand by aft!”
“Torpedoes running hot straight and normal, sir!” The sonar man’s voice was low but intense, charged with the excitement he felt.
Mike Brannon’s eye was glued to the periscope lens as he twisted the periscope around. He saw the Fubuki’s high, knife-like bow plainly in the bright moonlight and then he saw a dull orange flower at the destroyer’s midsection that changed to bright red.
“Hit!” Brannon yelled. “Hit!”
Another bright flash enveloped the side of the Fubuki just below its bridge and Brannon saw the entire bridge rise up in the air as the ship’s boilers exploded.