The Squadron Commander took pity on my evident confusion.
"Rich," he said, "these gentlemen are officers in the Free Polish Navy, the Navy Department has sent them up here with instructions to take over the S-16. Their crew will arrive by train in a couple of days. You'll probably get your orders by dispatch tomorrow, but you might as well start thinking about turning her over immediately."
I stared my consternation. Captain Blunt went on: They won't even need much training in your ship. This is the same crew which has been operating the S-17 since we turned her over to them six months ago. The Germans bombed her in dry dock in England and I understand there's little hope of getting her back in commission. They're going to take over your ship as replacement for her. Since the two boats are identical, the S-17-or what's left of her will be an excellent source of spare parts." Radwanski, Dombrowski, and Sprawny all nodded their heads vigorously.
I pulled myself together as well as I could. "How soon do you want us to turn over?" I asked. "There are quite a few outstanding repair and alteration items, and some modifications we've made in the ship."
"That's what we're here for, Richardson," said the Captain who had been introduced as Shonard. "I'm from BuShips, so is Smyth, — and Weatherwax here is from the Bureau of Ordnance. We're going to accomplish your complete list of outstanding repairs, as well as several items we have in mind on our own. This is what we've had in mind for the S-16 all along. You've done a nice job on her."
So this was to be the result of all our work! We had been getting S-16 ready for war, all right, — for somebody else to have the fruit of our labor!
"When is all of this supposed to happen?" I asked, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "What about my crew?"
"Immediately," said Shonard, "that is, as soon as possible."
Messrs. Radwanski, Dombrowski, and Sprawny grinned and nodded.
Captain Blunt broke in: "I don't blame you for feeling a bit rushed, Rich, but we must cooperate to the best of our ability. Their crew will get here this week end. The three officers will go down to your ship tomorrow to look her over and start making plans. We will terminate your assign- ment to the submarine school as of now and your only duty will be to assist Commander Radwanski in whatever he needs.
You can understand they are anxious to get the S-16, I mean Lightning-Swift into action, and the Navy Department has agreed to turn her over all standing."
I nodded my comprehension, too miserable to do more.
Captain Blunt went on. "Commander Radwanski and his friends have an appointment with the Admiral. Rich, will you wait here for about three minutes-while I show them to his office-I've got one more thing I want to talk to you about."
He indicated the chair by his desk, led the three Poles to the door, and closed it behind him.
For twice three minutes I sat there, staring at the wall.
Events, or luck, had conspired against me. In my eagerness for a new ship I had put Jim Bledsoe up for his command qualification prematurely. As a direct result his reputation had been damaged, his marriage plans spoiled, and deservedly I had lost his regard. I had made my choice between Jim and the S-16, chosen the latter's welfare as the more important, and now she, too, was gone.
My despondency deepened as Blunt's footsteps came back down the hall and the door opened. He smiled.
You've probably been wondering why I addressed you as Lieutenant Commander. "Well, here it is. Your promotion arrived by AlNav this morning." He handed me a sheet of closely printed mimeograph paper which had the words Al- Nav #12 across the top. "You're listed there. About halfway down."
Then he smiled even more broadly, — an unusual look, for him. "That's not the best of it, either. You're getting the Walrus, — she's just been launched at Electric Boat. Furthermore, the Admiral has decided that the simplest way to put a crew aboard is to transfer the whole S-16 outfit to her with you."
My jaw hung open. My heart bounded as the import of it sank home. But old Blunt wasn't quite done yet: "You don't have to take them all, just those who want to go. Of course, those who don't," His smile, for the second time in my immediate recollection, took on a sardonic glitter.
I don't know how I found my way back to the S-16. Three body blows like these, all made known to me within an hour, were a little out of the ordinary at the very least I called Jim, Tom, and Keith together in the wardroom and they were as flabbergasted as I. The four of us went together to the control room, where I broke the news to the crew.
Turning S-16 over to the Poles was an unmitigated head- ache. Few of them understood English and explaining things was not merely difficult, it was a problem of extraordinary magnitude. Had not most of the Poles already been familiar with the S-17, it would have been impossible.
We glued strips of paper with Polish writing on all our gauges and dials, and we made dive after dive with each of our men instructing his Polish relief. When we turned the boat over to them for their first dive we thought them fairly well indoctrinated, but even so they made my hair literally stand on end.
There was apparently no preparatory command, no "Clear the Bridge" or its equivalent in Polish; merely two blasts on the diving alarm. Everyone dashed below; all vents were pulled wide open and the motors put ahead full speed. Some- how the bridge hatch was shut. No one paid any attention to the Christmas Tree or bothered to bleed air into the boat to test for tightness. The bow planes were not rigged out until she was thirty feet under and no one paid any attention to the bow and stern plane controls until we passed thirty-five feet on the way down. Our bow went down at an ever-in- creasing angle, steeper than I had ever experienced, and I began to have the sensation of going into an outside loop. We could never complete a loop, of course, but we might ram her nose into the bottom of Long Island Sound with enough force to break something.
Commander Radwanski shouted in Polish. Nobody moved.
Dombrowski, in charge of the dive, had yet to utter a word.
I could see Larto standing by the main power control beside his replacement in the Polish Navy. He looked at me beseechingly, imploring me with his large, expressive Italian eyes.
I was about to shout "All back emergency" when Radwanski yelled several more Polish words. We were by this time passing ninety feet and the S-16 had assumed a fifteen-degree down angle. The little bench which was the station of the Chief of the Watch began to skid on the slick linoleum deck; a couple of wrenches located by the trim manifold slid from their accustomed location and fell on the deck with a clatter; someone had parked an empty coffee mug in an unnoticed corner and now It burst forth making its presence known with a shattering of crockery.
The two Polish sailors detailed under the silent Dombrowski's supervision now ran both planes to "full rise." The Polish Chief Electrician's Mate impassively leaned over his rheostats and, to my amazement, increased the speed. Suddenly, alarm- ingly, S-16 swooped out of her dive, reversing her down angle and reaching ten degrees rise. We had climbed back to sixty- five feet before the sweating planesmen could level her off.
More shouted commands: The Polish Electrician's Mate reduced speed and S-16 settled out into some sort of sub- merged control. Radwanski, standing in the center of the control room and maintaining balance by holding on to one of the periscope hoist wires, leaned his sweaty, whisker-stub- bled jaw toward me and hissed into my ear with a nod toward Dombrowski, who so far as I could see had still not opened his mouth.
"That-is-al-ways-his-way. Beauti-ful-sub-mer-gence, not- so?" he said.
From that moment on the S-16 under Polish hands acquired an entirely new personality. I saw her for the first time in a detached, unemotional state of mind, and was even able, with- out a twinge, to watch them paint her new name, Blyskawica, meaning Lightning-Swift, on her stern and replace our numbers on the side of the bridge with a large white B. It was not until we all stood on her deck, seeing the United States ensign hauled down for the last time, that a pang of regret suddenly registered. She had been a good ship, we had made her into one, — and now she was going to war without us. We wished her luck.