A bull’s-eye! The wake heads straight for the target, now looming big in the periscope field, and passes harmlessly beneath him. No explosion. Morton grimly orders another fish fired. It follows the path of the first, but this time the depth mechanism does its job, and the torpedo goes off right under the tall, sooty stack of the doomed vessel. A blast of water momentarily hides his amidships section from view, reaching up higher than the top of the stack itself. Then it subsides, showing the ship broken in half, sinking rapidly by the bow, with men clad in olive drab jumping off into the water, or trying desperately to lower the lifeboats they should have gotten ready long ago.
Two down out of three, and time out is taken to get a few pictures. Besides, the remaining torpedoes have to be loaded into the tubes and checked, a job much better accomplished submerged than on the surface. It is now noon, and Wahoo’s crew is sent individually, as they can be spared, to get what food the harried cooks have been able to get up on short notice. In the conning tower, Morton and O’Kane continue to watch the fleeing ship, munching sandwiches and drinking coffee between looks.
Suddenly, a pair of heavy masts is sighted over the horizon. This is beginning to look like old-home week for the Japs — and for Davy Jones, too, if the instantly laid plans of Wahoo bear fruit. This fellow looks like a warship. So much the better!
There are a few more torpedoes left, and his name is on one of them.
Wahoo proceeds at maximum sustained submerged speed in the direction of the unidentified vessel. Unfortunately, she has so badly depleted her storage battery during the morning’s action that she cannot chase at high speed, and hence cannot get into position to attack the new arrival. In the meantime, the crippled freighter has been staggering away from the scene as rapidly as his engines can drive his battered hull. The plotting parties check his speed at about six knots, quite respectable for a ship with two torpedoes in him. You really have to hand it to that Jap skipper.
It is soon obvious that Wahoo cannot hope to catch either vessel. She continues to watch through the periscope, and sees the newcomer revealed as a large tanker, instead of a warship. He joins up with the cripple, and the two proceed away at the maximum speed of the latter, black smoke pouring from stacks of both ships. All this time the undersea raider watches helplessly, too far away to interfere and too low in battery power to give chase.
There is a hasty council in the conning tower. Morton, O’Kane, and Paine do some rapid figuring. Then, their computations completed, Wahoo changes course and proceeds directly away from the fleeing ships as rapidly as her waning battery power will permit. A continuous watch is kept on the quarry until finally the tops of their masts have disappeared over the horizon. Then Wahoo commences some maneuvers which are rather strange for a submarine anxious to avoid detection in enemy waters.
The periscope rises higher and higher out of the water as the submerged vessel comes closer to the surface. As the height of the tip of the periscope increases above the surface of the sea, O’Kane and Morton can see farther over the horizon, and sight is thus kept on the escaping ships as long as possible. Finally, with the hull of the submarine only a few feet below the water and the periscope extending a full fifteen feet into the air, contact is finally lost. The periscope twirls around rapidly, scanning the horizon and the skies for any sign of other enemy activity. Then, swiftly, it starts down.
There is a moment’s hiatus, and suddenly a long black shadow, visible beneath the waves, becomes sharper and more distinct. A moment later a sharp bow breaks the surface of the water at a large angle, plowing ahead through the waves like the forehead of some prehistoric monster, and within about ten seconds the whole low dark hull, cascading water from her decks and through freeing ports along the sides, has appeared.
Up on the bridge there is sudden activity. The crash of metal on metal is heard as the conning tower hatch is flung open. The head and shoulders of a man appear, shortly to be joined by another.
Morton’s robust voice: “Open the main induction!”
There is a loud clang as hydraulic mechanism opens the huge engine air-induction valve. Instantly the exhaust roar of a diesel engine starting explodes into the stillness. Simultaneously, a small cloud of gray smoke pours from a half-submerged opening in the after part of the hull. This process is repeated three times, at rapid intervals, until four streams of exhaust vapor, two from each side, are sputtering and splashing the water which attempts to flow back into the half-submerged exhaust pipes. The speed of the submarine increases through the water. A high-pitched screaming sound can be heard distinctly over all the other noises, as though a hundred cats had caught their tails in a wringer simultaneously. This noise is made by the low-pressure air blower, which is pumping atmospheric air into the ballast tanks, completing the emptying job which had been started submerged by high-pressure air.
All this time Wahoo’s speed through the water has been increasing as the diesel engines take the place of the battery for propulsion, and she rises higher and higher out of water as the ballast tanks go dry. Soon she is making a respectable 17 knots — considering that one engine must be used to recharge the nearly empty storage battery so that Wahoo will be ready for further action submerged if necessary — which, of course, is exactly Mush Morton’s intention.
While other members of the crew are relieved from their battle stations, there is no rest or relaxation for the plotting parties. But not one of them thinks of being relieved, nor would he accept relief were it offered. The plotting parties are busy with a problem which, by virtue of nearly incessant drill, has become second nature to them. You have a target trying to get away from you. You have his approximate bearing, and you have a good idea of his speed. Also, you have a lot more speed available than he has. Problem: Find him. Problem: Keep him from sighting you. Problem: Dive in front of him so that, despite his zigzags, he will run near enough to the spot you select to give you a shot!
So Wahoo chases her prey from the moment of surfacing, shortly after noon, until nearly sunset. This is known as the “end around,” and is to become a classic maneuver in the Submarine Force. You run with your periscope up, barely maintaining sight of the tips of the enemy’s masts, so that he will not have a chance of spotting you, and you run completely around him, traveling several times as far as he does, in order to arrive at a point dead ahead of him.
Half an hour before sunset Wahoo dives, once more on the convoy’s track. This approach is much more difficult than the previous one. The enemy remember only too vividly the fates which befell their two erstwhile comrades, and consequently are zigzagging wildly. Then, too, Wahoo wants to attack the tanker first, since he is as yet undamaged.
Finally, one hour after diving, Wahoo sees the tanker limned in her periscope sights in perfect attack position. The old routine procedure is gone through. As always, there is still the same breathless hushed expectancy, the same fierce thrill of the chase successfully consummated, the same fear that, somehow, at the last possible moment, your prey will make some unexpected maneuver and frustrate your designs upon him. And you never forget that your life, as well as his, is in the scales.
O’Kane is at the periscope… Paine is on the TDC… Morton is conducting the approach, as always, blind.
Bearing! Range! Set — FIRE!
And three torpedoes race out into the gathering dusk. One minute and twenty-two seconds later, “WHANG!”—a single hit. The tanker stops momentarily, then gets underway again, at reduced speed. Wahoo spins around for a shot at the crippled freighter, but that canny Jap has already started away from there, and his change of course has spoiled the setup.