Tremain paused for a moment. “If you have any theories, Chief, I’m ready to entertain them.”
Konhausen hesitated for a moment. He certainly did have a theory. But he had to keep himself in check. He didn’t want to risk ruining his career by speaking too quickly, the way he used to. He needed to be careful.
Tremain eyed him suspiciously, setting the logbook down on the table and leaning back in his chair.
“Look, Chief,” he said. “I’m not going to fry you. I want to get to the bottom of this. Anything you say will not leave this room. Understood?”
“Yes.. sir,” Konhausen replied. He still was not sure he trusted Tremain.
“Well?” Tremain said.
“Well what, sir?”
“You have any theories or don’t you?” Tremain snapped. Konhausen could see that the captain was losing his patience and it suddenly occurred to him that this time he might be putting his career in jeopardy by being tight-lipped.
“I have theories, sir,” he said finally. “But, I’ve been told that’s not my department, sir.”
“By who?”
Konhausen shot an accusatory glance across the table at Cazanavette.
Cazanavette appeared flustered for a brief second, then spoke up. “Chief Konhausen approached Captain Russo and me during the last patrol, Captain, suggesting that we modify the Mark 6 magnetic detonator on our Mark 14 torpedoes. He believes that the exploder and arming mechanisms are suspect.”
“And what became of your investigation into the matter?” “Investigation?”
“Surely you looked into that possibility if you were failing to sink ships.”
“No, sir,” Cazanavette said. “We didn’t.”
Tremain’s expression indicated that he was not satisfied. It was obvious that he wanted more of an explanation than that.
“Sir, Bureau of Ordnance regulations specifically prohibit unapproved modifications to any weapon by ship’s force personnel,” Cazanavette said quickly. “The modifications suggested by Chief Konhausen were exactly that, unapproved. Captain Russo and I felt that—”
“Chief,” Tremain interrupted Cazanavette and turned to face Konhausen. “Why d’you believe the detonator is causing the problems?”
The interruption visibly irritated Cazanavette, and Tremain’s tone made it clear that he did not want to hear any more quotes from the BuOrd regulations.
“Well, sir,” Konhausen answered a little reluctantly, “I started thinking about what exactly happened on those eight shots that didn’t hit. Four exploded before they made it even halfway to their targets. First, I thought it had to be wave slap. I thought maybe our fish were running too shallow and the surface waves were setting them off. So, I checked the depth settings we were using and bounced that against the sea state on those days. But, all the fish were set to run deep enough to make it all the way to their targets. So I ruled out wave slap as the problem.”
“What about the other four?” Tremain asked.
“Well, sir, one of those never left the tube. We know that one was due to a mechanical failure in the tube itself. As for the other three, we assumed that they ran under the targets because we never saw or heard any detonations. But, even if the depth setting on those fish had been wrong, the magnetic detonator should have gone off when they ran under the enemy ships. And that leads me to think that there must be a problem with the detonator. Sometimes it goes off prematurely and sometimes it does not go off at all.”
Tremain considered for a moment, exchanging glances with Cazanavette and Freund. Cazanavette was fidgeting in his chair, obviously not happy with Konhausen’s assertion.
“All right, Chief,” Tremain said. “Suppose I buy it. What do you propose?”
Konhausen looked once more at Cazanavette before continuing. He had already thought all of this out, but he could hardly believe the captain was asking his opinion on the matter. “Sir, I think it’s the magnetic component. I want to disable the magnetic component on the detonators in our torpedoes. Just on the ones in tubes one through four. I want to make them strictly contact torpedoes. If we shoot them and they screw up like all the others, then we really haven’t lost much. But if they run hot, straight, and normal, and we get hits, then we may have solved our problems.”
“That won’t solve our problems, Chief,” Cazanavette blurted out. “It will only give us more problems.”
Tremain silenced him with a glance.
“Very well, Chief,” Tremain said, folding his hands in front of his face. “Draw up your work order and bring it to me for approval.”
Konhausen’s face broke into a big grin only equaled by the one on Freund’s face. Cazanavette sat red-faced and silent.
“Aye, sir. I already have it prepared from the last time I wanted to do this. If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll go and get it.” Tremain nodded. “Let’s cut the torpedo officer in on this too, Chief. Pass the work order through him first. How long’ll it take you to do the work?”
“With the back hauling of each weapon, it should take roughly ten hours, Captain.”
“Very well. Thank you, gentlemen.”
Freund and Konhausen both rose to leave, but Cazana-vette stayed. Tremain knew that he would. Cazanavette ushered both of the chiefs out of the wardroom and then abruptly closed the curtain behind them. “Captain, I must protest this. Bureau of Ordnance regulations are not negotiable. They exist for a reason. They’re there for our safety. Chief Konhausen did not design the Mark 14 torpedo nor did he design the Mark 6 detonator, and he’s certainly not qualified to open one up and work on it at sea. It simply is not authorized, sir!”
“What about sinking ships, XO. Is that authorized?” Tremain paused and Cazanavette started to respond but the captain stopped him with a raise of his hand. “Look, I know what BuOrd regs say. But the simple fact remains that this ship’s torpedoes are not hitting the targets while other boats’ fish are. For some reason our torpedoes don’t work. Now, either we have the great misfortune to get all of the bad torpedoes in the lot, or the other boats are getting the same bad fish we do and they are finding ways around it.”
“So you’re saying the other boats are getting hits because they tamper with their weapons, sir?”
“Very likely. I’ll admit to you, XO, Chief Konhausen is not the first one to come up with the faulty detonator theory.” Cazanavette eyed him skeptically. “You mean to say this is how you conducted business on the Seatrout, sir? Breaking regulations to test theories floating around the fleet?”
Cazanavette’s scornful tone struck deep. Just the name of his beloved lost ship sent an uncontrollable surge of grief through Tremain. He had to fight back the urge to let loose on the inexperienced Cazanavette. He could not let him know how close to the mark he had hit.
Tremain had to wait until he had internally collected himself before he responded. “No, XO. But I have shot my share of torpedoes that mysteriously went awry. Perfectly lined up shots would miss clean. I discussed it with several other boat captains in Darwin, and found that they were having problems too. We all agreed that there had to be something wrong with the torpedoes themselves. Chief Konhausen has a good theory, and I believe it’s a sound one.”
“Fine, sir, I agree. Let’s write down his whole theory with all the modifications as he suggests, then we can submit it through the proper channels when we return. But, for crying out loud, let’s not do anything to our weapons without proper approval while we’re at sea and without the expertise of the shipyard technicians.”
Tremain shook his head. “I don’t have time for all that, XO. It’ll take months for that paperwork to get processed through BuOrd — and you know it. This crew needs a good patrol, and they need it now. I can’t afford to risk their lives taking them inside an enemy convoy, only to have our weapons malfunction. I’m using commanding officer’s prerogative here.”