When he’d steadied the submarine on the new course he turned to the Engineer Officer who had come to the bridge to report. Satugawa said he had examined the shell damage while the survivors were being dealt with. The damage to the main pressure hull and to the conning-tower walls could be repaired but the submarine would have to be in sheltered water. The repairs to the damaged lid and coaming of the lower hatch would be a more complicated operation, involving much time even if continuous shifts were worked. He was not able at that stage to say exactly how long. Possibly three or four days. A lot of improvisation would be necessary in the absence of shore assistance. ‘In a neutral port it could soon be done,’ he suggested hopefully.
‘That is out of the question.’ Yashimoto shook his head. ‘It would mean internment. The end of the War for this boat and everyone in her.’
‘Once the repairs are completed we can dive again, but…’ Satugawa hesitated, looked past Yashimoto’s shoulders as if somewhere out there in the night lay the solution to their problems.
‘But what Chief?’ prompted Yashimoto. The moon had gone and he was checking the darkness ahead, his back to the Engineer Officer.
‘It would not then be advisable to go deep again, Captain.’
Yashimoto swung round. ‘Why?’
‘There would be patched-up holes and fractures, fatigued metal. It would be dangerous to subject them to high pressures.’
‘How deep would we be able to dive?’
Satugawa hesitated, frowning at his thoughts. ‘At most thirty to forty metres, Captain.’
Yashimoto made a long face, hunched his shoulders. ‘Well — so long as we can dive. That’s the vital requirement.’ There was silence after that while he considered what the Engineer Officer had told him. That the repairs would take some time was desperate though not unexpected news. Daylight would come in about nine hours. It would be followed by the enemy’s air reconnaisance. Fort Nebraska’s brief transmission was an SSSS message. It would have given her position. Such transmissions by merchantmen were well known to the Japanese submarine service. British naval headquarters in Kilindini, more than four hundred miles to the north, would now be planning a search and rescue operation. What they did not know, however, was that I-357 could not dive.
They would assume one of two things: the submarine responsible might have left the area travelling on the surface at high speed, heading out into the deeper waters of the Mozambique Channel to get as far away from the scene as possible before making the dawn dive; their second but less likely assumption would be that the submarine had remained in the area of the sinking in order to attack any vessel, naval or otherwise, which responded to the SSSS message. These thoughts had been in his mind since the moment he’d known the extent of damage caused by the Liberty ship’s shell. Now that he’d had time to consider the implications of what had happened a plan of action was suggesting itself. But it would be necessary to work at the chart-table before coming to a decision — and he would have to work fast.
Turning back to the Engineer Officer he said, ‘Carry on below, Chief. Make all preparations for the repairs. Assume that we will be in sheltered water.’
Knowing the Captain better than any other member of I-357’s crew, and respecting him, Satugawa refrained from asking questions. Of one thing he was certain. Yashimoto would make the right decision. He always did. Saying, ‘I’ll do that, sir,’ he left the bridge.
Yashimoto called the control-room by voice-pipe. The First Lieutenant answered. ‘Captain, sir?’
‘Inform the Chief Telegraphist that strict wireless silence is to be observed. Listening watch only. Hydrophone and search receiver operators to be especially vigilant. When you have passed these orders, come to the bridge.’
The First Lieutenant came up and the Captain gave him the submarine’s course and speed. ‘Take over the bridge now,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be long. Make sure that the lookouts are on their toes.’ With a last scan of the black wall of night round I-357, he lowered himself into the conning-tower.
Yashimoto stepped off the ladder on to the deck of the control-room and bumped into a seaman kneeling at its foot. There was a bucket of water beside him.
The Captain growled. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ ‘Mopping up blood, sir.’
The Captain looked down, saw the red lights of the control-room reflected in the dark pool at his feet. He’d forgotten about the casualties. Well, there was no time to worry about them now. He went across to the chart-table, conscious of the eyes which followed him, the gaunt expressions of inquiry on bearded young faces. After the comparative silence of the bridge the control-room was noisy with the clatter of the diesels. The Navigating Officer moved aside to make room at the chart-table. He had been entering details of the gun-action in the War Diary.
Yashimoto said, ‘Leave that now, Sato. There are more urgent matters to attend to.’ He looked at the chart on the table, Lourengo Marques to Mogadiscio.
‘Where is the large scale chart for this section of the coast?’
‘Underneath that one, sir. Our DR position is on it.’ Yashimoto grunted, pulled clear the chart he wanted, placed it uppermost and switched on the shielded light. From the position Sato had plotted he saw that they were eighteen miles to the east of the Mozambique coast, abeam of Ilha Matemo, one of a chain of small islands which ran parallel to the coast from Porto Amelia in the south to Cabo Delgado in the north, a distance of 135 miles. In the main the islands were close inshore with scattered reefs and shoals abounding in the few navigable passages between them.
Yashimoto worked fast and with complete absorption, for there was little time in which to do all that had to be done. To the Navigating Officer, standing silent at his side, there was something feverish in the Captain’s activity; the way in which that formidable man snatched up dividers to measure distances, hurriedly jotted down figures, muttered enigmatically, constantly switching his attention from the chart to the volume of Sailing Directions.
The time was 2132, the sun would rise at 0520; that left Yashimoto with eight hours in which to conceal I-357 from the air search which would begin at daylight. He was not long in making his decisions. He would use, at most, four of the eight hours of darkness left to find a small island, preferably wooded and uninhabited and with enough deep water to manoeuvre close in to its lee on the landward side. This would conceal the submarine from prying eyes to seaward, and give shelter from the prevailing north-easterly monsoon. There would also be the advantage of lying in the shadow of the island when the sun rose. That would make her less conspicuous from the air during the early hours of daylight. Before then the crew would have to carry out the project he had in mind. It was a formidable one.
Close study of the chart and Sailing Directions had persuaded him to concentrate on what looked like the loneliest part of a lonely coast; the twenty-five miles between the islands of Medjumbi and Tambuzi. Little mauve blobs printed against those names indicated the presence of light beacons. They would be invaluable navigational aids. In the twenty-five miles he proposed to explore there were a number of islands from five to twelve miles offshore; the shoals, coral reefs and others navigational hazards on their landward side were sufficiently numerous to daunt searching warships. And he was encouraged by what he’d read in the Sailing Directions: references to mangrove-lined beaches and creeks — Ilha Medjumbi was wooded, with some tall trees — Ilha Mionge, a thickly wooded islet some seventy feet high in places. Surely he would find what he wanted somewhere among those islands.