The Captain half smiled, became quickly serious. ‘We’ve just picked up a four S from a US merchant ship. Her signal was mutilated. We won’t reach the position given for another six hours, but make ready for picking up survivors. Scrambling nets, boathooks, blankets, etcetera. Warn the Doctor. He must put the sickbay on standby.’
‘I don’t expect we’ll make contact with the U-boat, sir?’ ‘Unlikely, I think. They usually move well clear of a sinking. But if the CO’s brave and greedy — and most of these German U-boat commanders are — he may hang around hoping to make a target of whatever comes along to pick up survivors. We’ll see.’
‘D’you think it’s the U-boats we tangled with the other day? The Gruppe Eisbar lot operating off Lourengo Marques?’
T imagine so. Having stirred things between Durban and L.M. they may well have decided to move into the Mozambique Channel.’
Barratt looked at his watch. Five minutes had elapsed since Fort Nebraska's transmission. What other ships and shore stations had picked it up? That reminded him it was time Dodds was back with the draft of the signal to SOO.
As if his thoughts had somehow triggered a response, the phone buzzed. It was the Navigating Officer. ‘Course to steer 293 degrees, sir. That allows for a southerly set of two knots. I’ve drafted the signal to SOO.’
‘Right, I’ll come down.’ Barratt hung up the phone, told Lawson to steer 293°, and went to the chartroom.
Four
With the heat and smoke, the acrid smell and shock of the explosion still about him, Yashimoto knew that he must at once get I-357 clear of the Liberty ship’s gun. It was no time to question how an apparently dead gun’s crew had come to life, though the puzzle of this nagged at the back of his mind. More important was the reality that the submarine, moving slowly past the sinking ship, could no longer bring her own gun to bear on the enemy’s stern gun. The most effective manoeuvre now was to increase speed and take station immediately ahead. Shouting into the voice-pipe, ‘Emergency full ahead together,’ he ordered the Coxswain to steer fifteen degrees to starboard.
Distant lightning, followed by thunder, came from the storm which had moved away to the south-east, taking with it the rain. The thunder all but coincided with the bright flash and muffled report of the Liberty ship’s gun, the screech of the shell rising in pitch as it passed astern of I-357. It was evident that the enemy’s increasingly severe list was making it difficult for her gun’s crew to train on the submarine with accuracy.
Yashimoto stood at the bridge screen, taut nerves jangling, his mind a turmoil of anxiety as the submarine drew slowly ahead of its adversary. In the flickering light of flames from the fire he saw the name-board on the bridgehouse; Fort Nebraska, beneath it the port of origin, Baltimore. To his longstanding dislike and contempt for the Americans was now added an immense anger. The shell which struck I-357’s conning-tower had been fired after the enemy had given every indication of abandoning ship. They would have to pay dearly for that.
When I-357 was at last in station ahead of the Fort Nebraska, Yashimoto ordered stop engines. Only three minutes had elapsed since the shell hit the submarine, but to him they seemed the longest three minutes of his life.
From the after end of the bridge he watched the ship astern through binoculars; the plume of escaping steam was still jetting from the funnel, the shrieking hiss now joined by the deep note of the siren, a weird harmony which lent to the scene a Dantesque quality. Turning from it he ordered the officer-of-the-watch to examine the damage done by the enemy shell and report back without delay. Toshida disappeared in the darkness. The voice-pipe call sounded. It was the First Lieutenant, reporting that the explosion at the foot of the conning-tower had caused a number of casualties in the control-room; one man killed and several wounded.
‘The explosion was not in the conning-tower,’ barked Yashimoto in angry contradiction. ‘The shell struck the base of the outer casing. It must have been splinters from that which fell down the tower into the control-room.’
‘I see.’ There was muted doubt in the First Lieutenant’s reply. ‘Matsuhito is checking the damage. He will report back shortly.’
‘I have already sent Toshida to do that,’ snapped Yashimoto, adding, with some petulance, ‘I suppose it will do no harm to have two reports.’ He went back to the front of the bridge uncertain, confused, worrying about how shell splinters could have caused casualties in the control-room. Was he right in believing that they had been fall-out from the shell-burst at the foot of the conning-tower, in the same way that splinters had fallen on to the bridge itself?
Back from a quick inspection, Toshida brought contrary and more serious news. ‘The armour-piercing shell penetrated at the foot of the tower’s outer casing, sir. Then went on through the side of the conning-tower itself and burst as it struck the coaming of the lower hatch.’
Yashimoto received the report in stubborn silence, his mind wrestling with its implications. Though insulated from the pressure hull by the lower hatch, the conning-tower was itself a unit of the pressure hull. Once pierced, its watertight integrity had gone. It would mean diving with a flooded conning-tower and relying on the lower hatch to maintain the integrity of the main pressure hull. A holed conning-tower would not only make a crash dive impossible, but would involve some difficulty in trimming when dived.
He was considering these problems when the Yeoman called out, ‘She’s going, sir.’
Yashimoto trained binoculars on the sinking ship. She was deep in the water now, listing heavily to port and down by the stern, flames from the fire casting flickering light over the desolate scene. But there were more urgent matters to attend to than watch the last moments of the stricken vessel. He ordered Toshida to take over the bridge. ‘I will see for myself the damage.’ He gestured astern. ‘When it has gone, proceed at eight knots, turn slowly to port. I will not be long.’
The contempt in Yashimoto’s voice when he’d referred to the ship as it instead of she warned the Gunnery Officer that the Captain was in a dangerous mood.
Despite an outward show of calm, Yashimoto was dismayed by what he found in the conning-tower. The shell had penetrated both the outer and inner sides of the tower before exploding as it struck the coaming on which the lower hatch lid was seated when shut. The explosion had not only torn away most of the starboard side of the oval shaped coaming but had left a jagged hole in the main pressure hull adjoining it. He trained the beam of his torch on to the hatch lid. Before the explosion it would have been in its open position, standing vertical, clipped back against the inside of the conning-tower. It must have taken much of the force of the explosion for, apart from blast marks and deep scoring by shell fragments, one side of the lid was noticeably closer to the conning-tower than the other. He assumed that the hammer effect of the explosion had warped the lid, twisting it on its massive hinges. With a sense of helplessness, of bewildered dismay, he saw through the shellhole the broken ends of air pressure pipes and electric cables. He saw, too, the fracture marks on the heavy steel hinges of the hatch. Shaking his head, his emotions a mixture of despair and anger, he sent for the Engineer Officer, whereafter he went to the bridge a deeply troubled man. I-357 could not dive. That was the stark reality which now faced him. Nor would she be able to until the damage had been repaired. If it could be repaired? How long would it take? Only Susuma Satugawa, the Engineer Officer, was qualified to answer those questions. As long as the weather remained fine I-357 could run on the surface, but if the weather deteriorated that too would be hazardous with the main pressure hull holed no more than six or seven feet above the waterline. The fundamental problem remained: I-357 could not dive. When daylight came the chances were they would be found by the enemy’s air reconnaissance. That would be the end of the submarine and the seventy-five men of her crew. The attack on Fort Nebraska had been disastrous. Not, he assured himself, because of any failure on his part. It was due to an incredibly lucky hit by the American ship. The stern guns of merchant ships were 1914–1918 War relics, their crews naval reservists with little training. That they could in almost total darkness score a direct hit on I-357 after their own gun’s crew had been knocked out by a shell burst was almost beyond belief. And yet it had happened. He supposed that one or two members of the American’s gun-crew had recovered from concussion and managed to lay and train the gun. That, too, must have involved a considerable element of luck.