“Aw, nuts,” somebody said, and we called it a day. We finished the beer, packed up our softball equipment, and ambled happily back to the liberty boat and the Wolf.
We were in port several days. Quite a few uniforms paraded up and down the main avenue—Indian, Dutch, American, British. At night a gloom of its own settled upon the whitestone buildings and the hodgepodge of weather-beaten shacks. The Salvation Army had established one of their famous huts on the outskirts, a one-story green frame building. We munched free doughnuts, gulped what the Australians call coffee, and lounged in easy chairs. A middle-aged Australian couple were the staff.
But most of the time we had work to do aboard the Wolf.
Before supper of the last day, Sousa came bellowing through the ship. “All right, sailors, take it easy for a while and eat a good chow. Tonight we’re really going to labor.”
“What are you talking about?” someone asked him. “Work? Work on what?”
“Never mind the comment,” said Sousa. “Do like I’m telling you.”
That night two dim lights were rigged up on the conning tower, and about 8 p.m. a string of motor launches came out of the darkness. They were jammed with boxes of ammunition. We looked at them, swore, and set to work unloading them.
“What the hell,” someone said bitterly, “are we a sub or a transport? Now they’re making a cargo carrier out of us.”
“Yeah,” said Swede Enslin. “Put a smokestack and some lifeboats on us, and we’ll go out disguised as a tramp steamer.”
Jap ships were everywhere, waiting to be sunk, and here we were again, wasting our time acting like a freighter. The crew felt indignant. I think we began to see the light when Captain Warder ordered a number of torpedoes taken out of the Wolf and put on the Holland to make more room for ammunition. If the Skipper went so far as to take off our warheads—well, this job we were doing must be important. We felt better when the word came around that we were carrying this ammunition—anti-aircraft and machine-gun ammunition—to Corregidor, to the Rock. We were going to take this ammunition for our boys right through the Jap blockade, right through every ship and subchaser and destroyer the Japs could put there, and we’d take it to the boys on the Rock so they could hold Corregidor as long as human heart and muscle and skill could hold it. And for the record, too, we’d settle once and for all one of the oldest arguments in sub circles—just how valuable a submarine could be as a cargo carrier. If we got this cargo into the Rock, there’d be practically nothing the Wolf couldn’t do except fly over it.
We packed ammunition until it almost oozed out. We thought the cases would never stop coming down. Ammunition piled higher and higher. It was in the forward torpedo room, the after-torpedo room. We stepped over it and we slept on it. The cases were above the level of my bunk, seven feet above the deck. That night I crawled over cases of shells to get to my bunk. Sleeping on that ammunition gave us a queer feeling. A heavy depth charge, with us packed in explosives like china in excelsior—“Well,” said Maley, summing it up, “if they get us, they’ll just blow us a little higher, that’s all.”
When we finally pulled away, the only torpedoes the Wolf had were those in her tubes, but she carried tons of ammunition.
We slid steadily through the waters north of Australia.
We traveled submerged in daylight and surfaced at night as usual. We were running at periscope depth, taking observations every few minutes, when Sousa’s voice boomed over the intercom: “Call the Captain!”
Captain Warder went flying up into the conning tower. I heard Lieutenant Holden say: “Captain, I see something on the starboard bow. Can’t make it out.”
“Let’s take a look at it, Dick,” said Captain Warder. A thirty-second pause as he peered through the periscope. “She’s pretty far off yet.” Thoughtfully he added: “It could be a ship, all right. Let’s continue as we are. Down periscope.”
Three minutes later he upped the periscope again. He took his bearings, giving them to Lieutenant Holden: “Mark, three four six…” Then, after a minute: “Mark three four seven… That’s pretty steady bearing. She’s coming almost directly toward us, or she’s going directly away from us.” He waited, then: “Mark, three five two. That’s a ship, all right. Coming this way, angle on the bow, five degrees starboard. It’s a big one. Pretty far off yet, but looks like an aircraft carrier.” Pause. “Battle stations!”
Again the battle alarm. The approach party took over the conning tower and began computing the approach course, the distance of the target, the speed and direction. Ten slow minutes went by. It was “Up periscope” again. “Mark, three five seven,” began the Captain. “Range… wait a minute! Wait… a… minute!” Then, in a disgusted voice, “Secure battle stations.” Pause. “Dick, come over here a minute and take a look at this ship you sighted.”
Then Holden’s voice, crestfallen: “Well, I’ll be damned. A seagull floating on a log!”
The entire ship snickered. For days afterward, the crew greeted each other, “How we going to attack this here seagull? Shoot torpedoes at him or get up and fire a three-inch? Anybody got a slingshot?” And, “Baby, fresh meat—and we let him go!”
Then, hour after hour, no excitement. I caught up on my mending. I sewed up every bit of torn clothing I had. We gave Baby, the washing machine, a good workout. We resorted to all the old time-killing arguments. For three days I called upon heaven to witness that “Give me two spoonsful of sugar,” was correct, and for three days Sully stamped through the Seawolf shaking the bulkheads, roaring that “Give me two spoonfuls” was correct. We held spelling bees as we lay in our bunks, resting our heels on the cases of ammunition.
“O.K., Eck, let’s hear you spell separate,” Lambertson, a husky fellow from Nebraska, his full beard making him look like a House of David baseball player, would sing out. Sometimes Sully broke the monotony by digging up one of his prized possessions, a dog-eared copy of an old Consumers’ Guide. He swore by it. If Consumers’ Guide failed to give a product a clean bill of health, Sully’d have none of it. We played blackjack, poker, and hearts in the mess hall, and we listened to Tokyo Rose and to ’Frisco. The news wasn’t good. Tokyo Rose always told us we were being pushed back, and ’Frisco had a news commentator whose smooth voice got on our nerves. The only man on the boat who believed him was “Short Pants” Hershey. Hershey came from a farm in Wisconsin. He was thin-faced, slim, and wiry. He’d been wrestling champ of the Navy at 132 pounds, and he believed the best of everyone. Sitting back on a stool with his feet on a bulkhead pipe in the mess hall, he’d say, “You don’t like the sound of his voice, that’s all. That hasn’t got anything to do with the truth of what he’s saying. He’s giving you the news.”
Zerk would snap back, “I don’t like the sound of that news. If what he says is true, why are we rushing this flea powder up to the Rock? Why isn’t the fleet steaming out here and brushing the Nips off like he says they’re about to do?”
“Well, Zerk, give them a little time,” Hershey would say.
“They’ve got to get organized. That takes a lot of planning.”
“Planning, hell!” retorted Zerk. “I’ll tell you why—the Nips have so damned many ships out in this country that our fleet just can’t stand up to them!”
“Hey, Zerk!” I interrupted. “What Navy you in, anyhow?”
That started him off. He pushed back from the table, slammed his fist down until the coffee cups jumped, and shouted: “Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch if that isn’t the pay off! I was in this Navy when you all were just a glimmer in your old man’s eye. I’m telling you what I think. I only hope there’s enough land left the Nips haven’t claimed yet so I can get a couple of beers.”