"Port back slow, starboard ahead slow" I ordered, while controlling the thrusters myself with the bridge control box, giving the bow an additional sideward vector to port. Once I had a bit of turn momentum, I ordered both screws ahead slow, went to all stop after a half minute, and then eased her forward on a north-by-westerly heading toward the harbor entrance. As I coasted forward, Thornton and his guys made a final topside inspection, and disappeared below.
"Keep a good lookout!" I ordered Skidmore and Roscoe.
They grunted, keeping their binoculars to their eyes, scanning the surface for anything unusual.
The water ahead of me was pitch black, but the lights along the Navy Supply Wharfs in Navy Harbor behind me were brightly lit, and I could clearly see the flashing green buoy marker off the end of Glass Breakwater and the flashing white light marking the end of the breakwater itself. We moved silently through Apra Harbor without navigation lights, and too slowly to leave a wake. The bridge watch of the cruiser tied up to Wharf K probably had no idea we passed within a couple of hundred yards of their position. The red entrance buoy off Udall Island became visible ahead of us to port as we began to feel the Pacific rollers coming in from the west.
It took us a good hour before we had the red and green entrance buoys abeam of our sail. I marked our position with Control, where I was certain that Larry noted the time and location on his chart.
"Right twenty degrees rudder," I ordered, "make your course three-five-zero."
We would hold that course for 200 miles, and then turn due north for 700 miles. That would take us into our seventh day when we would turn a bit eastwardly and head directly toward the Kurils, twelve hundred more miles ahead. With no delays, we were looking at a fifteen-day transit, moving at our enforced leisurely pace of six knots.
"Are you ready, Mac?" the Skipper asked.
"Yes Sir." I turned to the lookouts. "Lay below," I said.
When they dropped out of sight, I made a final scan all around the sub, taking my time. "Control, Bridge, rig for dive status."
"Green board, Sir — except the Bridge Hatch."
I flipped the 1MC switch on the comm box. "This is the Bridge — Dive! Dive!"
Immediately Control sounded the klaxon — Aaoogah… aaoogah… aaoogah….
Just before dropping through the hatch after the Skipper, I glanced fore and aft to make sure the ballast control tank valves were wide open, spouting spray as the deck came awash. As I dropped through the hatch, I sensed Joe Thornton right below me. I grabbed the lanyard and passed it to Joe. He pulled the hatch down solidly, and I reached up and cranked the locking wheel tight.
Joe dropped to the deck before me as Pots announced, "Green board, Sir!"
"Mark your head," I said to the helmsman.
"Three-five-zero, Sir."
"Make turns for six knots."
"Turns for six knots, Aye," Roscoe answered.
"Make your depth two-hundred feet smartly," I ordered.
"Two-hundred feet smartly, aye," Chris said, and I felt the sub take a distinct down angle. A minute later Chris leveled the sub and said, "Two-hundred feet, Sir."
And with that, the boring part commenced.
We were about thirty-three hours from our first turn to the north. Aside from periodic clearing of our baffles, the entire leg was without incident. The turn happened on another watch, so I didn't even enjoy that small distraction. The next five days would be no different, except we were pointed ten more degrees to the right of our previous course.
We read, watched movies, exercised, played some poker, and drilled a lot. Even Sonar was quiet. We ran into nobody for the first seven days. We changed depth from time to time to vary the routine, but we remained below a hundred feet. No periscope liberty.
As we reached the end of our seventh day, on my watch, the Skipper took her up to periscope depth and put the snorkel up, not to run the diesels, but to ventilate the ship with the blowers. The fresh air smelled good, and we got another day out of our oxygen candles this way. Up until now the weather had cooperated, and it was nice up there. Most of the crew took a minute or two to gaze out over the calm Pacific waters.
I brought the snorkel down as the last crew member reluctantly gave up his position at the scope. Our blowers were not particularly noisy, but they did have a masking effect on our ears. As soon as I shut the blower down Sonar announced, "Conn, Sonar, I have a contact off the starboard quarter, rapid screw beat, designate Charlie-one."
I acknowledged, and several minutes later Sonar announced, "Charlie-one is actually several contacts, Sir. I think they're trawlers. They're about ten miles away, heading in our general direction."
"Make your depth five-hundred feet," I ordered. There was no way I was going to risk another entanglement with a trawler net. "Give me your best course resolution as soon as you get it," I told Sonar.
It turned out these guys were headed due west, probably Japanese trawlers on their way home. They would pass well astern of us. I kept the sub at 500 feet and ran a flooding drill that the Skipper had scheduled.
The crew saved the ship from a watery grave in record time. I was actually impressed. Then we reverted to the boring routine that we had to endure for another eight days or so, and settled in for the long haul.
We didn't have a clue about the reception committee awaiting us a week out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On day fifteen out of Guam, I had just assumed the watch. We were about a hundred miles a bit south-of-east of the Krusenstern Strait, where we had had our close encounter on our way out from the first cable-tapping mission. After careful consideration, the Skipper opted to go back in the way we had come out, if for no other reason, because we already knew a bit about this area — not a great deal, but more than any other passage into the Sea of Okhotsk, except perhaps the narrow gap at the foot of the Kamchatka Peninsula that we transited way back in the dark ages when we first got here.
The Skipper's Night Orders for this transit were very clear on several points. He expected Ivan to be out there looking for us. There was virtually zero chance that our departure had gone unnoticed by the Soviets, despite all our efforts to depart quietly. All they had to do was a bit of arithmetic. How would they determine where we would enter? No way to know, so cover them all — a picket line of Soviet destroyers and cruisers.
The Soviets had a small fleet of Kashin-class destroyers at Vladivostok and more at Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy, with the bulk of their Pacific submarine fleet residing there as well. How difficult would it be, the Skipper reasoned, for Ivan to deploy a string of surface and submerged warships for a few days before and after our most probable arrival date? They would likely designate it a picket exercise with live fire. If we didn't show, the Russkies would still get a bit of sea time and the chance to expend a few old torpedoes; if we did appear, maybe they would get lucky — and get the Halibut.
So the Skipper's Night Orders had us stopping at a hundred miles off Krusenstern, dropping down into the Kuril Trench that parallels the island chain — well, maybe not into, since the trench starts at about a mile down, and drops to nearly six miles down, while our max operating depth was less than a quarter of a mile. So it wasn't really down into… more like skimming the surface over the trench at our maximum depth.
But he wanted us deep and quiet. The task was to locate the bad guys, and then to slip past them. I dropped to 900 feet, shifted to the battery, and went to ultra quiet. I set a course that gave me nearly a broadside to whoever might be out there.