“Up scope!” Tremain said. “Final bearing and shoot!”
As the scope glided up Tremain again met it at the floor. He could see the spray drizzle off the lens as he rapidly swung it through one revolution. He quickly saw the fast-moving Matsu only a few hundred yards off Mackerel's starboard beam and still heading east. Waves from its frothing wake slapped against the periscope lens. With magnification, Tremain could make out racks of neatly stacked depth charges on the escort’s stern. The Matsu did not change course and simply drove on. She seemed to be unaware of Mackerel's presence.
Tremain rotated the periscope slightly to the left.
“Damn!” he cursed under his breath as another wave slapped against the lens, obscuring his vision. When the lens finally cleared the freighter appeared before his eyes. It looked to be on the same course and speed. It was simply plowing through the ocean at ten knots, heading for its distant port. Tremain noticed that the freighter also appeared much larger than he had anticipated. He was looking straight on at the ship’s starboard beam. It was close enough that it took up most of the periscope’s field of view. He could see every detail of her hull, every line and rust stain, even a few crewmen strolling on the deck.
It had to be inside fifteen hundred yards, Tremain thought. He quickly centered the reticle on the single smokestack.
“Bearing, mark!” he called.
“Three four eight,” Smithers replied.
“Down scope.”
As Smithers lowered the scope, Tremain closed his eyes to wait for Hubley’s response. How true the torpedoes ran depended on the quality of the solution in the TDC and the final observation bearing would be the truth teller. If the bearing that Tremain had marked matched the one generated by the TDC then the firing solution was a good one.
Hubley rapidly spun the dials and turned the knobs on the TDC. To Tremain it seemed like it was taking him an eternity to evaluate the observation.
“Bearing matches with generated solution, Captain,” Hubley finally reported.
“Fire one!” Tremain said, without hesitation.
Cazanavette depressed the plunger on the bulkhead. A small pressure change, followed by a loud “Whoosh” and a slight lurch of the deck, signified that a shot of high-pressure air had ejected the first torpedo from its tube.
Tremain waited six seconds between each shot.
“Fire two! … Fire three!.. Fire four!”
After similar pressure changes, Smithers relayed the report from the forward torpedo room that all torpedoes had been fired.
Several seconds later, Salisbury reported, “All torpedoes running hot, straight, and normal, Captain.”
“Time to impact, fifty-five seconds, Captain,” Hubley said.
“Very well. Helm, left full rudder, steady course two nine zero, all ahead full.” Tremain then leaned over the ladder railing and called down to the control room, “Dive, take her down to four hundred feet, fast!”
Olander acknowledged the order and Mackerel pitched forward as she began her plunge into the deep. Everyone in the conning tower was still silent and perspiring nervously. Some of them had their fingers crossed. Others simply watched their panels. They all eagerly anticipated the results as they waited for the torpedoes to cover the distance to the freighter. Only George Olander’s voice could be heard above the low hum of the electric motors as he quietly gave orders to the planesmen in the control room.
Cazanavette made his way over to Tremain.
“You’re not going to confirm, sir?” he asked, the question sounding more like an accusation.
Tremain gave him an obligatory answer. “That escort is inside a thousand yards, XO. You can bet we’ll get a confirmation of a different sort real soon.”
Cazanavette thought for a moment and then seemed satisfied. He went back over to the chart desk and stared at the plotted positions of the enemy ships. Tremain knew what he was thinking. An unconfirmed kill is no kill at all on the record books and it would not be officially recognized back at ComSubPac. But Tremain knew that he had no choice, he had to go deep. The escort was too close for comfort. He glanced at Hubley who was holding a stopwatch and counting each second with his lips.
Ten … nine … eight … seven … six … five … four.…
A muffled “Whack,” followed by a loud rumble, shook the hull.
Tremain and Cazanavette exchanged glances. The modified detonators had worked. The torpedo had run true.
Tremain could not help but give a small smile. Inwardly, he was breathing a sigh of relief.
Everyone in the conning tower burst out in cheers and the same could be heard coming from the other compartments. The men shook hands and slapped each other on the back as another “Whack!” filled the air.. then another.
The exultation of the crew intensified with each detonation. The cheers died down for a moment as they waited for the final torpedo to hit, but the seconds passed with only silence.
Hubley looked at his stopwatch. He waited a few seconds more before announcing, “Number four missed.”
The single miss did not seem to affect the mood as more cheers erupted. The crew was so elated they appeared to have forgotten that they were at battle stations with a Japanese escort only a few hundred yards away.
Tremain rubbed his temples. Number four had missed but there could be no doubt that one, two, and three had hit the target. His gamble had worked. Now when the court martial relieved him of his command he could at least go to his sentence knowing that some good came of it.
“Quiet down, gentlemen!” Tremain said finally. The celebration amongst the crew had lasted a bit too long for their present situation. “We still have an escort up there!” “Passing three hundred feet, Captain,” Olander called up from the control room.
The hull creaked a little as the boat started to feel the increased sea pressure.
“Captain,” Salisbury said, removing one side of his sonar headset, “I’m picking up high speed screws off the starboard quarter, getting louder.”
Tremain nodded. He tried to gather a mental picture of what was going on up on the surface. The freighter would be sinking for sure — or at least in its death throes. With three torpedo hits he could not imagine it staying afloat much longer. The Matsu would be backtracking, desperately searching for the submarine that had sunk its consort. It would almost certainly see the wakes left on the surface by the exhaust from the torpedo internal combustion engines, then follow them straight back to Mackerel's firing position. That’s where the Matsu would begin its search. Tremain had to get Mackerel as far away as possible from that piece of ocean before the destroyer escort got there.
“Steady on course, two nine zero, Captain,” the helmsman reported.
The angle slowly came off the ship, as Olander reported, “At four hundred feet.”
Tremain moved over to the chart desk. Cazanavette was plotting Mackerel's dead reckoning position using the sub’s course, speed, and simple mathematics.
“We’re approximately five hundred yards from our firing position, sir,” he said, measuring the distance with a pair of dividers. “It’s not much.”
Tremain nodded. Then he heard it, as did every other sweating man in the conning tower. The sound came through the hull, faint at first but it grew louder quickly. It was the dreadful “Swish! Swish! Swish!” of the escort’s screws churning up the ocean overhead. Those big screws were propelling the Matsu at high speed toward Mackerel’s position.