Lieutenant Nangi, on watch in the conning-tower, called the Captain by voice-pipe at 0200 to report that all was well. ‘It is very dark, sir. Cloud still obscures the moon. There have been flashes of lightning in the north-east.’
Having thanked the Lieutenant for his report Yashimoto replaced the whistle in the mouthpiece of the voice-pipe beside the bunk. Inured by long experience to such interruptions, he slept until 0300 when Nangi again reported that all was well.
Forty minutes later the voice-pipe whistle shrilled once more. It was Lieutenant Sato, sharing the watch with Nangi. ‘Captain, sir — on the bridge at once, please.’ The note of urgency in Sato’s voice was sufficient for Yashimoto to leap from his bunk and make for the conning-tower in nothing more than the singlet and shorts in which he’d been sleeping. Only his cap with its gilded peak identified him as he climbed on to the bridge.
‘Please follow me, sir.’ The voice in the darkness was Sato’s. Yashimoto followed the Lieutenant past the periscope standards and down the ladder to the after gun-platform where men were standing by the twin.25 anti-aircraft guns. Sato stopped at the after guardrail, pointed into the black void astern. ‘There was a flash of lightning a moment ago, sir. One of the gun’s crews, Able Seaman Kamachi, says he saw something in the water, some movement between the catamarans.’
‘What did you see, Kamachi?’ rasped the Captain.
From the darkness round the A A guns came the reply, ‘I saw movement, sir. Something there. Maybe a big fish disturbing the boats. I do not know.’
Yashimoto peered into the night for a moment. ‘Fire a parachute flare,’ he ordered.
The rocket soared away in a hissing, sparkling climb. Yashimoto and Sato moved clear of the barrels of the AA gun. ‘Standby to fire on the catamarans,’ commanded the Captain. The rocket burst high overhead and in the light of the descending flare Yashimoto saw that Kagumi had come on to the gun-platform, revolver in hand. He was followed by a seaman carrying a rifle. The First Lieutenant is an excellent officer, thought the Captain; always does the right thing at the right time.
Astern of the submarine the three catamarans showed up as clearly as if daylight had come. It was Yashimoto who first detected the slight movement between them. Train on the outrigger float of the centre catamaran,’ he ordered in a voice hoarsened by anxiety. ‘Open fire.’
With an explosive rattle the twin barrels flashed into life, the tracer shells racing like brightly lit darts into the water beyond the catamarans.
‘Bring down the range,’ barked Yashimoto. ‘Fire another flare.’
‘The guns are at maximum depression, sir,’ reported the gunlayer, ‘We cannot…’
‘Get rifles from the lookouts,’ interrupted Yashimoto. ‘Standby to fire another rocket.’
Kneeling, with the barrel of the rifle on the guardrail, Kagumi was firing single shots into the water beneath the float on the end of the outrigger. He stopped when the dying flare dropped into the creek. The second rocket hissed away, a fiery trail marking its passage. It reached the top of its climb, the parachute fluttered open and once again night became day.
From the conning-tower came the sound of a lookout shouting something unintelligible.
Yashimoto had turned to Sato, was saying, ‘Find out what that man…’, when the conning-tower and gun-platform came under heavy fire from the trees fringing the bank. Kagumi and most of the gun’s crew were hit with the opening bursts. Yashimoto and Sato managed to drop down from the gun-platform and take cover on the layers of foliage on the offshore side of the conning-tower. Once there, they were pinned down by a hail of bullets. Noise precluded any attempt at voice communication. Confused, bewildered and powerless, Yashimoto crouched behind the conning-tower. His state of shocked anxiety was compounded by the intrusion of a new sound: heavy gunfire was coming from the mouth of the creek. At about the same time there were muffled explosions on the submarine’s casing. The unmistakable smell of petrol reached him as fires broke out fore and aft along the length of I-357. Seconds later came the thump and flash of more solid explosives. Yashimoto took them to be shells from the destroyer’s secondary armament until he realized they were hand-grenades thrown from the bank.
Flames were now reaching high above the casing where the stacked layers of brushwood and timber were ablaze, the roaring, hissing of the fire punctuated by the screams of men trying to escape. Many were jumping over the side into the creek, their scant clothing alight. There was a sudden explosion in the conning-tower close to where Yashimoto cowered. A hand-grenade? Sato, crouching near him, shouted something but the words were lost in the clamour of action. The fire was spreading rapidly towards them from both ends of the casing. The trees above them, ‘planted’ in the conning-tower and gun positions, were ablaze. The heat had become unbearable. Yashimoto was vaguely aware of Sato dropping on to the saddletanks and sliding down into the creek where men swam frantically in their efforts to get away from the fire.
With the flames scorching his near naked body, the heat beyond endurance, Yashimoto took off his cap, stood up and dived over the side, coming up clear of the saddletanks. Using an ungainly crawl, he swam away from I-357.
The water through which Yashimoto swam reflected the lurid hues of the fire — the breath of dangerous dragons, hell-fire, his mind told him. Unable to compass ordered thought, it fed him scraps of survival information: get away from the fire; swim towards the bluff; go ashore at the first break in the mangroves; walk on through the trees to the sentry post; you have armed men and a machine-gun there.
In the water through which he swam men were struggling to keep afloat, some silently, others noisily crying out for help. Passing them, passing corpses, some in grotesque attitudes, he swam on, never stopping, determined to survive. Survival was the dominant thought.
A small break in the mangroves showed on his left. He made for it, reached the bank. With difficulty he pulled himself clear of the water. Crawling on all fours, he found cover in a thicket. He waited there, exhausted. He would move into the trees when his strength returned. There would be less light from the fire then.
He was utterly confused. What on earth had happened? The main thrust of the attack had come from the enemy on the bank. There must have been — must still be, he corrected himself — many of them, judging from the scale and fury of the action. And the enemy swimmers in the water by the catamarans? What were they doing? How had the British got so many men into position without being detected?
How could their landing craft have come through the narrows without being seen by Hosokawa and his men? And by the other sentry posts? Could those inside I-357 have lessened the effect of the fire by flooding the ballast tanks? The tide was at half-ebb. There was less than two metres of water beneath the keel. Not enough to submerge the casing. No — flooding wouldn’t have helped. If the casing hadn’t been ablaze they might have fought off the enemy. The British had attacked with petrol bombs and hand-grenades. How had they known in advance that I-357 was covered with layers of brushwood and timber? Had an African told them? How would he have known, unless he was from the huts on the beach? How could he have got away from the island? What had happened was incomprehensible, unbelievable. Yashimoto gave up. It was too late now.