Down below, in the sound room, Maley and I looked at each other.
“Seaplane tender!” Maley pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Now wouldn’t that make a nice Christmas present for the boys!”
Captain Warder’s voice was even. “Bearing three five five relative. Guns fore and aft. Two stick mast cranes. Might be a sub tender. Something alongside of her that might be subs or seaplanes. Down periscope.”
Maley scratched his head. “Funny we don’t patrol in a little closer.”
“Hell,” I said, “there’s that Nip destroyer right around the corner. He can get here in ten minutes.”
Maley looked at me almost scornfully. He was young, and he wanted action. “He won’t help her if we get her first, will he? Let’s sink the damn thing now and worry about him later.”
I said nothing. Silence in the conning tower. I had a pretty clear idea of what was taking place up there. Captain Warder, brows knit, was at his chart desk, checking carefully through his confidential papers, trying to type the Jap ship we wanted to attack. Apparently he was satisfied, for a minute later:
“Battle stations!” sang out the tinny voice of the intercom.
“Battle stations!” echoed from bow to stern of the Wolf. Before the words died out, the aaap! aaaap! aaaaap! of the battle alarm rang through the boat.
The emergency lights were snapped on. A dull reddish glow suffused the interior of the Wolf.
“Up periscope… Make ready the bow tubes. Down periscope.”
Behind the Captain, Signalman Frank Franz stood with phones and chest telephone. He was the Captain’s talker and relayed his orders. He repeated: “Forward torpedo room, make ready the bow tubes.”
The Wolf slowed down so that when her periscope was raised again she would not cause a noticeable wave.
“Open outer doors,” ordered Captain Warder.
Talker repeated: “Open outer doors.”
In the control room below a man worked feverishly spinning a huge control wheel by hand… ten revolutions, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen… Far forward in the bow, two great steel doors in the Wolf’s hull swung slowly open, exposing the blunt heads of the torpedoes…
“Forward tubes ready, Captain,” Franz reported. “Outer doors open.”
“Up periscope!” said the Skipper. A few moments later: “Stand by.”
Then: “No, no, wait a minute! Rudy, come left a little more, little more… there! Hold her, Rudy… Fire one!”
There was a sudden whoosh! as though the safety valve of a radiator had blown off. Then a gentle kickback, as though the Wolf coughed, suddenly alive. I felt the pressure on my eardrums.
Torpedoes are fired by an impulse of compressed air. The air pressure within the boat goes up correspondingly.
The crew was on its toes: water had to be flooded into tanks to compensate for the change in the boat’s weight and center of gravity. The Wolf had to be trimmed, placed in balance again, or she might bounce to the surface like a rubber ball.
On the phones I picked up the sound of the torpedo, a high-pitched whine as she tore through the water. Captain Warder, I knew, had his eyes glued to the periscope. His orders came crisply.
“Stand by to fire two… Fire two!”
Again the hiss, the jar, the gentle kickback, again and again.
As each fish left, I picked it up on sound. The first whine died out, then the second came into my phones. It died out. I waited tensely for the explosions. The skipper kept his eyes glued to the periscope. I listened hard. I had to keep my ears on those torpedoes. An erratic fish can circle about and come back to blow you into Kingdom Come.
Captain Warder’s voice was sharp: “I can see them…. They’re running hot… Jesus! They missed the target! Oh, hell! Make ready the aftertubes. Open outer doors in after-room! Hard right rudder!”
He ordered the Wolf full speed ahead. “All ahead, full! Eckberg, hear those fish run?”
Yes, I had heard them run. But I’d also heard dull thuds. They were like knife thrusts into my heart. I knew what had happened. The torpedoes had missed the target, continued on, and exploded on the beach.
I reported heavily. “Yes, sir. All ran hot and missed the target.”
“Hmmmm,” said the Captain. Then: “Rudy, come to course two seven zero. Let me know when you get there. Sound, do you hear any propellers?”
I searched intently. “No screws, sir.”
“Good!” said the Skipper. He was as disappointed as a man can be, but he hadn’t given up hope yet.
Rudy’s voice came over the intercom: “Steady on course two seven zero, sir.”
“Very well, all ahead one-third,” replied the Captain.
“One-third, sir,” said Rudy.
The Wolf, her speed reduced to one-third, moved slowly forward.
The Captain said: “Up periscope. Are the after tubes ready? Okay. There’s a lot of activity up here, as far as I can see. They are trying to get under way. Come right a little, Rudy… Hold it there, Rudy…. Stand by to fire…. Fire!”
Again I picked up the high, thin whine of the fish.
“Easy now, Rudy… Close the outer doors… All ahead, standard. I see him now…. They’re running straight again—”
I was listening to the fish with all my ears. They were running straight and hot, all right. Then ka-boom! The Wolf shuddered. Then again, and again, and again. This time our torpedoes had run straight and home. The concussion shook us each time.
“Explosions, Captain!” I barked into the mike.
“I can see her!” he snapped back. “Wait… wait… They may have hit in the bow.” Then, eagerly: “I see white water. I see a lot of white water! Down periscope!”
We dared expose our periscope no longer. There was a murmur of conversation between the Skipper and Ensign Mercer. Captain Warder, we learned later, wasn’t sure if our fish struck the Jap or not. The crew to a man was certain that at least one had hit. But Captain Warder did not even claim this ship as damaged. He had not seen it go down. He was not positive.
“Proceed with the reloads,” he finally ordered. “We are expecting company any minute. Keep careful watch, sound.” Then, a moment later: “Send Mr. Syverson up, please.”
In a few minutes the Skipper was talking to Ensign Donald Syverson, torpedo officer, a stubby, red-headed, personable sub man from Michigan.
“I can’t understand it,” the Captain said quickly. “I don’t know what was wrong with those first fish. Got any ideas about it?”
“No, sir.” Syverson sounded crestfallen. “We readied them according to instructions, Captain. I inspected them myself.”
“I can’t figure it out,” said the Skipper, musingly.
I began hearing telltale sounds again. Ping!… ping… ping!
“Got a ship up there, Captain,” I announced.
“Propellers or pings, Eckberg?”
“Pings, Captain. I think they’re on the starboard side, well aft.”
“What do you mean, they? More than one?”
“Yes, sir. I hear two of them.”
We waited. And then, far distant, a muffled boom! The Wolf shook. Her joints creaked. The lights flickered, went out for a moment, then on again. It was a depth charge, mild because it was some distance away. Actually, no depth charge attack can be called mild, because when 700 or 800 pounds of TNT explode in your general vicinity, any number of things can happen. A depth charge doesn’t have to score a direct hit to sink you. Water is incompressible. An explosion can write your finish if it’s near enough for the concussion to place sufficient pressure on the water surrounding your boat to stave it in or crush it altogether.