‘We’ll be diving in ten minutes. Carry on below. I’ll take her down.’
With a brief, ‘Yes, sir,’ the First Lieutenant lowered himself into the hatch and descended the conning-tower ladder.
Yashimoto put down the binoculars with which he’d been examining the still dark horizon. Turning to Noguchi he said, ‘Time of sunrise, Sub-Lieutenant?’
‘0526, sir.’
‘Good.’ Yashimoto nodded approvingly, paused. ‘I was on the A A gun-platform a moment ago. There is something knocking against the hull, aft on the port side. Not loud. Possibly a piece of rope or wire caught in a vent. The light is getting stronger. Go along the casing and check. We’ll be diving soon so look smart about it.’ In a more kindly tone he added, ‘Keep a hand on the guardwire as you go. We don’t want a man overboard.’
Noguchi had replied with a submissive, ‘Yes, sir.’ He made his way aft, past the periscope standards, on to the A A gun-platform and down the ladder to the steel casing. With a hand on the guardwire, he moved cautiously towards the stern. He disliked going out on the casing at any time. It always seemed dangerous to him, even when the sea was as smooth as it was now. So he walked slowly, apprehensively, along the steel casing, the bulging ballast tanks beneath him shining wetly in the half light, the sea lapping and gurgling along their tops. He passed the engineroom, the vibrations of the diesels now stronger, reached the after end of the casing and stopped. With one hand on the guardwire stanchion, he leant over the port side. There was nothing to be seen projecting from the vents, nor could he hear the knocking sound the Captain had complained of.
Still kneeling, anxious not to give the Captain the impression that he had skimped the job, he heard the raucous blare of the klaxon.
He jumped up, slipped, but still holding the stanchion pulled himself to his feet and in the faint light of early morning stared in dismay at the distant blur of the conning-tower. It was only seconds since the klaxon had begun to sound but the sharp hiss of air from the vents as the ballast tanks flooded, the cessation of noise and vibration from the diesels as the electric motors took over, and the increasingly bows-down angle of I-357 brought home to him the reality of what was happening.
Terrified, he began a frenzied scramble for the conning-tower, screaming, ‘Wait! Wait!’ as he went. He reached the ladder to the AA gun-platform, clawed his way up it, the sea foaming and splashing at his feet. Still screaming, he made a rush for the conning-tower hatch between the periscope standards. With awful disbelief he saw that the upper lid was already shut. He was hammering with his fists on its solid top when seas flooding the bridge carried him away.
Soon after Noguchi embarked on his journey along the casing Yashimoto had moved to the foreside of the bridge, put his binoculars to his eyes and begun once again to search the fading darkness. His sudden exclamation of surprise was followed by an urgent, ‘Listen.’ He gestured towards the port bow. ‘Aircraft,’ he shouted suddenly, pressing the klaxon button for a crash dive and ordering the lookouts to clear the bridge. With the speed and precision of long practice they dropped into the upper hatch and scrambled down the conning-tower ladders. Having shut the voice-pipes Yashimoto followed, slamming to the upper hatch above his head and ramming home the safety clips before going down the ladder into the control-room. The forward hydroplanes were already pulling the bows down, the rate of dive increasing, the ballast tanks flooding, the sharp hiss of air escaping from them masking other sounds.
‘Shut the lower hatch,’ he ordered as he landed on the control-room deck. ‘Take her down to seventy-five metres.’
‘Seventy-five metres,’ repeated the First Lieutenant from his station behind the planesmen. Though his eyes were on the clicking needles of the depth gauges he was wondering why I-357’s search receiver had failed to detect the aircraft.
Yashimoto picked up the phone to the engineroom. It was answered by the Chief Engineer Officer, Susuma Satugawa.
‘Air attack.’ Yashimoto’s voice was sharp. ‘Shut off for depth-charging.’ He replaced the phone, knowing that his cryptic order would suffice for both the engineroom and those in the control-room, among them the Yeoman of Signals who at once passed the message to the men in the fore- and after-ends.
The thud of heavy watertight doors closing was magnified by the relative silence which had followed the shutting down of the diesels and the switch to electric motors. It was broken now by the First Lieutenant’s report. ‘Seventy-five metres, sir.’
‘Hold her there. Silent running. Revolutions for two knots. Steer zero-eight-five.’ Yashimoto’s voice was calm, unemotional. That was something the crew found reassuring. They were, with few exceptions, young men for whom strong leadership was of special significance.
In I-357 ventilating and air conditioning fans were switched off, the only sounds the faint hum of electric motors at low speed, the subdued voices of men giving and acknowledging orders, and the whirr and click of instruments. The bows-down angle of the dive gave way to a level trim; at two knots the planesmen were just able to hold the trim. The new course, 085°, was ninety degrees to starboard of that which the submarine had been steering before the dive.
The First Lieutenant knew that Yashimoto had ordered silent running in case the aircraft dropped a sonar buoy. The Americans had begun using them in the Pacific. Perhaps the
RAF flying boats based on Kilindini already had them.
Yashimoto leant against the conning-tower ladder, alert but apparently relaxed, a comforting figure to those in the cramped confines of the control-room with its maze of pipes, valves, controls and labyrinth of instruments, a technological Aladdin’s cave where dim red lights cast strange shadows on tense, unshaven faces which constantly glanced upwards, listening fearfully for the splash of depth-charges striking the surface before sinking towards I-357 as she moved slowly through the darkness of deep water.
Yashimoto knew what his men were thinking — that at any moment there would be violent explosions which would buffet the submarine with massive blows, rocking the control-room, splintering light bulbs and gauge glasses, water spurting from fractured pipes, short-circuited cables flashing and crackling, the sulphurous smell of burning insulation compounding the ever-present stench of diesel oil; the terrifying noise and chaos of a depth-charge attack like the one they’d experienced a few days before. But as seconds became minutes, and minutes more minutes, nothing happened and gaunt expressions of fear gave way to grins of relief, to eyes which exchanged unspoken messages of congratulation.
At last the Captain broke the silence. ‘They could not have sighted us. The crash dive was well executed. I heard the aircraft to port, flying low it seemed. It must have been the morning reconnaissance from Pamanzi or Kilindini.’
Two ratings who had been on bridge lookout when the klaxon sounded exchanged imperceptible shakes of the head. They had not heard the aircraft.
Nor had Yashimoto, for the good reason that there had not been one. The only sound he had heard was a faint scream from the AA gun-platform as he shut the upper hatch.
The unspoken question in many minds was voiced at last by the First Lieutenant. ‘Ichiro Noguchi, Captain?’
Yashimoto bowed, gestured solemnly with his hands. ‘He was on the after-casing, investigating a peculiar knocking I had heard earlier. When the crash dive came he did not reach the upper hatch.’ Yashimoto spoke without emotion, his face impassive. ‘He chose the way of honour.’