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“He’s right on top of us,” Salisbury reported quite unnecessarily.

Tremain gritted his teeth, anticipating the next explosion. He waited to hear the report of depth charge splashes, but it never came. Then, slowly, the screw noise and the echo ranging began to fade. Every man in the conning tower held his breath and glanced at Tremain in disbelief, as if they wanted him to confirm that what they were hearing was true.

As the minutes passed the pings became even more distant until they were no longer audible through the hull.

“He’s fading, sir,” Salisbury gasped. “I don’t believe it. How could he have missed us?”

“We must be under a thermal layer,” Tremain said as he let out a sigh. “These waters are famous for them. His echo ranging can’t penetrate it.”

Tremain had studied the effects of temperature and salinity layers on sonar operation when he was at PCO School several years back. They were perfect for hiding a submarine, but the trouble was you never really knew where they were in the vast ocean. Tremain had read about new boats being fitted with devices that could indicate when the boat was passing through one. It would have been nice to have one of those devices on the Mackerel.

“This little depth excursion turned out to be a good thing,” he said. “It got us below the thermal layer. Now let’s get the hell out of here, XO.”

“An excellent idea, Captain.” Cazanavette’s face broke into the first genuine grin Tremain had seen on him.

Several minutes passed with every ear listening for the return of the Matsu, but it never came. Distant muffled explosions were heard for the next hour as the escort continued to drop charges on phantom sonar returns. Eventually, even the explosions faded too. Mackerel had silently slipped away.

It took several more hours for the crew to unwind from the event. They dealt with their post-trauma by fixing valves, replacing light bulbs, stowing equipment, anything to affirm that they were still alive. Many slept, and many more could not sleep. By the time Tremain crawled down from the conning tower and headed to his stateroom, he even saw a few men smiling and telling jokes once again.

As he passed through the door to the stateroom passage, he almost tripped over a sailor frantically running aft with a folded piece of cloth in his hands. It was Seaman Ross, the signalman.

“What do you have there, Ross?” Tremain asked.

Ross appeared embarrassed and then blushed, with a huge toothy grin. “Some of the guys and me were going to do a little sewing before we turned in, sir.” He held up Mackerel’s battle flag. “We’ve got something real to add to those sampans now, sir.”

Tremain smiled at the excited young man and said, “Carry on, Ross.”

Chapter 8

“Fifteen two, fifteen four, a double run of three for twelve, and his nob for thirteen!” O’Connell shouted in jubilation, moving his peg to the end of the cribbage board. Wright rolled his eyes. O’Connell had beaten him for the third time. He noticed Hubley and Tee chuckling at the other end of the wardroom table.

“Better give up, Enswine,” Tee said. “You really are brainless, aren’t you? Brainless and dickless.”

Wright shot Tee a sardonic smile but said nothing as he gathered up the cards to deal another game. Ever since they had left port, Tee had been tormenting him in one way or another — he seemed to draw some kind of sick pleasure from it. The first week Wright could understand, he was the new officer on board and he rated a little harassment. Wright himself had belonged to a fraternity in college and he recognized the value in a little hazing. He had engaged in hazing himself and had been one of the best at it. But in the fraternity there was always a point when the harassment stopped and the new guy was accepted. They had been at sea for over a month now, and Tee still showed no signs of letting up. Whenever they passed each other in the passage, Tee would body-check him into the bulkhead. It was such a common and unpleasant experience that Wright now instinctively checked each corridor for any sign of Tee before passing through. Whenever Wright had tried to discuss the matter with him, Tee just dismissed him with “Enswine, are you genetically deficient or just brain dead?” or simply “Shut up, asshole!”

Wright was sure that Margie had put him up to it. She was getting her revenge on him in her own way, and he had come to hate her for it. But he was getting to the point where he could no longer take the harassment. It was bad enough being cooped up on a submarine for a month. Being cooped up with an unbearable bully was something else. He had found that the best thing to do to protect his own sanity was to ignore Tee altogether, though it did little to thwart Tee’s tormenting.

As difficult as it was to deal with Tee on a daily basis, all was not dismal. In sharp contrast to Tee, the rest of the officers and crew seemed to have accepted him as a part of the ship’s company. Wright had noticed the change after the attack on the freighter. That day was still a blur to him.

He could remember going to his battle station in the aft torpedo room. Tee had told him to go there because he was new and he would just get in the way anywhere else. The enlisted men in the aft torpedo room were junior too and were trying to stay out of the way themselves. Chief Kon-hausen had been there initially, but he had gone forward when he learned that Tremain would be making a bow shot. He had left Petty Officer First Class Kilcran, who was the most experienced in the room, in charge of the whole group. Wright was like a fifth wheel and did not have any particular assignment, so he did his best to blend into the shadows. He had spent most of the time listening to the speakers in the torpedo room, which intoned the conversations of the tracking party in the conning tower. Wright and the men in the room had heard the whole thing as the captain conducted the attack on the freighter and fired the bow tubes. When the three torpedoes had struck home, Wright had cheered with everyone else. Then the Matsu attacked, and Wright’s memory of the rest was sketchy. It was his first depth charging, and it had shaken him mentally. He remembered seeing his life flashing before his eyes with each resounding explosion and seeing images of things he had done in his life and other things that he wished he had. He remembered feeling true fear and discovering for the first time in his life that he was indeed mortal, and that he could die in the blink of an eye.

When the Matsu came over for the second depth charge attack, the shockwave from the blasts threw Petty Officer Kilcran across the room and into a protruding valve handle. When the pounding ceased and the battle lanterns came on, Kilcran was lying motionless on the deck with a small trickle of blood running through his hair. The other men in the room had resembled lost sheep as they stared at their fallen comrade. Within moments the deck took a sharp angle and left all of them groping for handholds. Wright had immediately suspected that the stern planes were jammed. It had occurred to him only because he had read the casualty procedure just the night before. It was one of the many things he had to read for his qualifications. The procedure had specified some of the symptoms of a stern plane casualty, one being a sudden large angle on the ship. Wright knew what had to be done, and without thinking he had taken charge of the room. He assumed that the control room would soon be ordering them to take control of the stern planes locally, so he went ahead and ordered two men to open up the valves to line up the hydraulics for the local control. Seconds later, the order had come from the control room to take local control of the stern planes. Wright’s men were already ready with the controls in their hands, and thus they had been able to level the ship in seconds, saving every man on board from being crushed to death.