Run Silent, Run Deep

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"Left full rudder," I ordered. With our slow speed this would put us a little closer. Two boats now could be made out clearly, plus some dark objects which were most probably life rafts, and miscellaneous pieces of floating debris.

"Rudder amidships!" I could bear the groan of the hydraulic mechanism. From the pump room beneath the control room came the thump as the hydraulic accumulator replenished itself and cut off, and the screaming of the blowers welled out of the hatch in a never-ceasing wail. We coasted gently closer. Now people could be distinguished in the life rafts, sitting motionless, crouched over, faces turned toward us.

There were many bobbing beads still in the water, hanging on to a barrel or hatch cover, or to the ropes lining the sides of the rafts. In the lifeboats no one could be seen, though the dark interior seemed to be solid with a crawling, jostling life- movement.

A wave of passion shook me. This filthy, spineless, crawling thing was the enemy! This, the perpetrator of the Pearl Harbor crime! This the killer of innocent women and children in the Chinese war, and now again in the Philippines! I could feel the savage lust for revenge. I had never hated the Japanese so much as now, now that I could kill them, crash them, smash them to small bits, ram their fragile boats with my ship, grind them beneath her ribs of steel…

"Yaaaah! You Jap bastards! How do you like it now! Go back and tell your stinking emperor and his buddy Tojo about this!" Jim cupped his hands, was screaming at the top of his lungs in the general direction of the enemy survivor group as they slowly came alongside.

There was no movement, no answering hail, no indication of having heard, much less-understood. Suddenly Jim reached for the automatic rifle, really a portable machine gun, raised it to his shoulder before anyone could stop him. He pulled back the bolt, aimed into the middle of the nearest lifeboat.

I reached him just in time, grabbed the gun. His face was livid. "Stop it, Jim!" I hissed savagely into his face. "Stop it, or so help me I'll." I never did know what I'd have said, for Jim, breathing hard, released his grip on the gun.

"Thanks, skipper," he whispered after several deeply drawn breaths, "I must have flipped my lid-I'm sorry! I–I-I don' t know what came over me-" his voice trailed off.

I could sense the revulsion of feeling taking possession of him, and felt the same within myself, as the boatloads and raftloads drifted past. Stricken faces stared at us or turned away to hide from us. The pathetic figures huddled together, not for warmth, for it was warm enough, but for fear of us.

To them, probably only simple merchant seamen, we must have seemed malevolent, inscrutable, the perpetrators of all that was evil. It was a wonder, in fact, that there were so many of them. Their ship had sunk so rapidly that there could hardly have been time even to get topside after the explosion of the torpedo.

Tom put it into words: "They must have been sitting in the boats and rafts waiting for us to attack that ship!"

There could be no other answer. Furthermore, the lifeboats must have simply floated off as the decks went under, certainly they could not have used davits and lowering gear. The sinking of their consort, and the previous unsuccessful attack in which two dud torpedoes had already hit their ship, had no doubt provided ample incentive for all hands to get into the boats. Even so, those on the forecastle of the ship must have had a bad time of it, for any boats or rafts located there must have been hurled over a hundred feet into the water!

It was, Jim estimated, about one hundred and fifty miles to the nearest island of the Palau group, Babelthuap. The kindest thing we could do for the survivors was to leave them alone and to depart the scene before some hothead in their group unlimbered a gun he might happen to have carried with him. We headed northward, doubled around to the southwest after losing sight of them.

Palau is a most frustrating area to try to patrol with a single submarine. In the first place, there are two entrances to the main ship harbor of the archipelago, one on either side of the island chain, and keeping a watch on either one is a full- time job for one boat. If a ship is attacked near either entrance, or if presence of a submarine is known or suspected, it is a simple matter merely to use the other one until the scare dies away. Under the circumstances we felt as if the enemy retained the initiative.

Certainly, our first two days in the area were not characteristic of the remainder. We went — for a week without sighting another ship. Then it was a huge, new tanker making high speed. We pulled out all the stops, ran our battery almost flat, never got within shooting distance. We tried patrolling on the surface out of sight of land, changing our locale radically whenever there appeared the possibility of our having been, detected by a plane. Days went by in which we slowly wandered about in an oily, flat sea. The oppressive heat of the sun beat down upon us until our bridge watchers, at least, gave the lie to the theory that all submariners looked pale and wan when they got back from patrol. But we saw no enemy ships.

We had already decided to head back to close-in submerged patrolling around the entrances to Palau harbor, when finally a convoy showed up. Four ships, this time, and we sighted them shortly after daybreak on a calm, clear, hot day without a vestige of cloud, hint of rain, or shadow of a breeze.

Two Chidori-class small destroyers or large submarine chasers, depending on how you wanted to look at them, furnished the escort group. We ran up a periscope, maintained a watch on the enemy ships through it, and ran on the surface at full power to get in front of them, so that we could submerge and lie in wait. They were zigzagging, which made it more difficult, and because of their high speed it took us all day. After we did dive, which was only an hour or so before sunset, the absolutely flat sea caused any kind of periscope exposure to take on the aspect of a severe risk of detection.

And the two little Chidoris didn't make it easier, for in preparation for the inevitable depth-charging, turning off our ventilation shot the temperature within the sub to fantastic heights. One hundred thirty-seven degrees in the hot engine rooms and maneuvering room, someone reported.

The approach was routine, without incident. We got inside the escorts, fired three torpedoes at each of the two leading ships, were swinging to bring our stern tubes to bear, when all hell broke loose. The harbinger was O'Brien. He turned a pale face to me right after the sixth torpedo was sent on its way: "High-speed screws, running down our port side!"

I spun the periscope. Nothing. Putting it down, I grabbed for the extra earphones and heard it. No doubt about it; O'Brien was right. It sounded very much the same as one of our own torpedoes, the same high-pitched whine I had heard hundreds of times. It crossed our stern, came back up the starboard side, veered to the left as if to cross our bow. That was enough. My hair tingled as I thought of the secret magnetic exploder in the warheads of our torpedoes.

No doubt that this was one of our fish, running awry, in circles. If it passed too close, or overhead…

"Take her down, Tom! All- ahead emergency!" No time to wait to see the results of our other torpedoes. We'd be lucky to get out of this ourselves! Walrus clawed for the depths, the depth gauge slowly, ever so slowly, indicating safety gained.

The screws approached again, from the port side again.

Didn't seem to be running down toward the stern this time, might curve away before getting to us, though, O'Brien's face looked positively pasty as he manipulated his control handle.

"Coming right at us!" he whispered to me.

I nodded. It all depended if we could get deep enough in time. The screws became louder, still louder-and still on the same relative bearing. Probably the arc of the circle the misguided torpedo was making just happened to be such that it kept up with our increased speed.

"Right full rudder!" I said. I had refrained from giving the order until now for fear that the slowing effect of the rudder might also slow our dive to the shelter of deeper depths.

Maybe now it would be all right. The depth gauge showed eighty feet. Still wearing the sonar phones, with the horrible little propellers beating into my ears, I looked about me. For several seconds I had forgotten the remainder of the conning tower party. They stood in hypnotic attention, riveted upon me. In his hand Jim held the stop watch with which he had intended to time the torpedo runs to the targets… I could see the slender hand moving around the dial. It was almost straight up toward the winding stem, one minute since we had fired.

Time, indeed, stood still. Every second was a heartbeat.

I imagined, I could hear the ticking of the stop watch, an impossibility because of the earphones and the fact that I was listening to the hypnotizing rhythm of our own juggernaut come back to seek us out. The high whine came closer, louder, still closer-sweat standing out on the face. of O'Brien, told sweat. Salt taste in my mouth; I licked the edges- of my lips.

They were dry and salty, too.

WHRAAANNGGG! The explosion seemed to burst my eardrums!

The conning tower danced before my eyes. I felt myself flung bodily against the sonar receiver. Walrus lurched madly, her hull resounding, her deck plates drumming beneath our feet. Startled eyes looked widely at me, and at the familiar instruments about them., Jim's mouth moved. I couldn't hear him. I ripped off the earphones, still couldn't hear. There was a roaring in my ears. I cupped my hand behind them.