"Are they unconscious?" I asked him.
"They weren't when they got in it. Maybe now they are."
In the distance the flying boat went out of sight. I tried to sit up straighter, to disregard the discomfort it brought. "Can you see the periscope of my sub?"
"Nope. Never seen one. What does it look like?"
"Like a broom handle, floating straight up and down," I said. "It ought to be around here somewhere."
Presently he nudged me. "There's a broom handle." I looked where he indicated, saw the Eel's periscope approaching. I waved violently, involuntarily rocking the boat, to show Keith that I was all right. The periscope began to rise higher. Keith was surfacing, or about to surface.
The flier nudged me again. "There's that Jap bastard again!" To the north, sure enough, the now-familiar outlines were all too evident, coming back. Heedless of my companion's protests, steeling myself against the waves of pain, I stood up, braced myself on his shoulders, pointed determinedly down. I made several violent hand signals, shook my head from one extreme to the other, pointed to the north. A bubble of white burst astern of the periscope, and its length began to decrease. I saw the quick glint of the eye-piece as it turned in the direction I had pointed, and sat down again, relieved.
Keith would have the word now.
For about an hour Eel's periscope slowly cruised warily about, and for an hour the Jap flying boat flew-back and forth, flying over the horizon, coming back almost overhead, then flying out of sight again. Each time it disappeared I thought it might stay away, and each time my hopes were dashed by its reappearance.
"How long can this kind of a plane stay in the air?" I asked of my companion.
"I sure don't know. A mighty long time, but it depends on when they took off." He grinned a pain-filled grin. "Now let me ask you a foolish one. How soon do you figure you can come up and get us aboard? I'm getting worried about those two fellas over in the other boat."
I shook my head dolefully. "I'm beginning to think those Japs know what's happened down here, and they're expecting the sub to come back. That's why they're flying back and forth." An idea struck me.
"Let's time the flights. Have you got a watch? Mine's stopped."
Silently he produced one and at my instruction timed the flights of the plane from just before it went out of sight until it arrived back in our vicinity. While he did so, I busied my- self hauling in the heaving line and inspecting it carefully. It seemed in fair shape. Carefully I fashioned a slipknot in the unweighted end, tested the security of the knot — by which it-, was fastened to our raft. Likewise, I checked the line leading. to the other raft and shortened it as much as I could, bringing the other rubber boat tight up against ours.
The preparations, in our cramped situation, took quite a while. It hurt like hades to move, too. "How long?" I finally, asked as the flying boat swung, around at the completion of its second circuit.
"Ten minutes this last time, eight the time before. Takes, three minutes to go out of sight."
"Good. Maybe eight minutes will be long enough." I didn't want to rise in the rubber raft yet, for fear the Jap aviators would see that something out of the ordinary was going on.
Obviously they were playing the cat-and-mouse game, hoping Keith would swallow the bait and try to rescue us. Eel, in the meantime, was cruising around with only the minimum of periscope showing, keeping it alternately fixed on us and the flying boat, with occasional looks all around the horizon just in case. When the plane came, close, Keith would dunk the scope and we would not see it again until after the plane had started back on another leg.
The flying boat was well on its way now. I motioned to Keith to come alongside, to cruise as close to us as he, could The periscope went up and down several times, and slowly it began to approach.
He was a little too cautious, no doubt for fear of hitting-the. rafts and dumping us all, but I was ready for that eventuality.
Carrying the noose end of the heaving line, I slipped over the side and struggled through the water into his path. The scope, came at me surprisingly fast, three knots or so is mighty fast to a man in the water, but I managed to grab hold and slip the loop over the end of it As the, Periscope took it away I slid down the tautening line until I reached the raft again and remained there in the water, my arm looped over the thin, tight cord.
The other periscope came up, turned around, studied the first one, rising and, descending slowly to inspect the line where I had made it fast, then steadied on us. I made a staying motion with my hand, looked to the plane. It was approaching the horizon, not there yet. I watched it going over, waited a deliberate twenty seconds, made a violent upward motion.
Beneath us I could see the long hull of the Eel-black on top, gray on the sides. Because of the refraction of the water, I could see the gray sides as well, made a mental note to carry the black just a little farther down the next time we painted her. We were dragging along somewhere over the five-inch gun.
Nothing happened for a long time. I knew Keith would not delay, wondered what was taking so long, finally realized the deck was nearer. Suddenly the periscope with the fine around its neck disappeared. Keith had lowered it. The other, now higher out of water, commenced to show the bright cylindrical section which went down inside the hearings, began also to lean back toward us.
"Here they come!" I said. Eel came with a rush. Water cascaded from her periscope supports and from the bridge, poured in torrents from her main decks. It was a good thing Keith had had the foresight to lower the periscope to which I had tied the heaving line; otherwise its length would have been insufficient to Teach the deck, and we should have taken a nasty tumble. Hanging on to it as I was, I was able to touch the deck first with my feet and, gritting my teeth against the hurt of it, to some small degree guide the landing of the two rafts.
The second one almost landed on top of the gun, avoided it by inches as I strained in the tumultuous rush of water to pull them forward toward me. And then there was the bang of the hatch on the bridge, and Keith's voice yelling. Men raced from the cigarette deck, dived over the raft, jumped down recklessly.
Eager hands grabbed all four of us, hustled us to the bridge, pitched us unceremoniously down into the conning tower, feet first or head first, whichever end got there first. It didn't matter, for there were plenty of people inside to help out.
Through it all I was conscious of great haste. Finally the last injured man was passed down the hatch, followed by Keith and Buck Williams, and the hatch was slammed shut. Instantly the vents went open, I heard no two blasts or anything else on the diving alarm-and Eel began to slip beneath the waves.
"Buck," Keith said urgently, "did you get the line cut?"
"You bet I did, this time, and I punctured both rafts, too!"
Williams looked a bit shamefaced.
"All Take her right on down! They're coming in as fast as they can! Rig for depth charge!"
I had to admire Keith's command of the situation. He had thought of cutting the two rafts free so that they would not trail behind on the line to betray us, and he had certainly organized the rescue party in jig time. Now he held firm command of the ship in what amounted to a serious emergency.
He paid no attention to me or anyone of the raft party, was strictly business, at the moment anxiously watching the conning tower depth gauge.
"Seventy-five feet," he finally said. "I guess we're clear!"
WHAM! Good and close, too. The Eel's tough hide rang for several seconds, and dust raised here and there. Keith crossed to the phone, picked it up.