Run Silent, Run Deep. Edward L. Beach
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I come to for a straight bow shot?”
Keith didn’t answer immediately as he studied the figures on the face of the Is-Was. In a moment he said, “One-three-four,” holding out the Is-Was to Jim as he did so.
Jim consulted it briefly. “Steady on one-three-four,” he directed the helmsman, and the latter called back just past my ear, “Steady on one-three-four, aye, aye!—passing zero-one-zero, sir!”
We had to wait until the boat came around to the new course. I could not help noticing how luck had played into Jim’s hands. He had actually overshot the target, but Falcon’s zig had come so late that he was still in an excellent attack position from the opposite side—a bit long-range, but nice.
Another thirty seconds passed. S-16, like most S-boats, turned on a dime once you got her going, and we were nearly around to the intended firing course.
“All ahead two hundred a side!” Another periscope look coming. At least Jim was not forgetting all he had learned about periscope technique. That is one of the items most closely observed in a submarine officer, and one of those most freely criticized—especially by one’s Qualification Board. Every skipper counts himself an expert and has strong opinions about how the ’scope should be handled.
One thing Jim had not yet done; at no time had he looked all around with the periscope, turned it through a full 360 degrees. Doctrine as well as technique called for this as assurance against being caught unawares by another ship or a screening vessel.
Jim waited for our speed to come off; then directed the periscope to be raised.
As before, he rode it up, with Keith swinging it around to the port bow as the Is-Was had predicted.
“Bearing—Mark!”
“Three-one-seven!” Keith was quick with his answers.
“Range—Mark!”
“Two-three-double-oh!”
“Down periscope!” Jim was still looking through it as Keith squeezed the pickle button and the handles and eye-piece fell away. Eleven seconds the observation had taken. I pursed my lips approvingly, held out my stop watch to Stocker Kane, hoping no one had noticed the failure to look all around.
“Angle on the bow, starboard forty-five!”
“Starboard forty-five,” muttered Keith, spinning his Is-Was. “Distance to the track is sixteen hundred,” he went on, a moment later, anticipating Jim’s next question.
“What’s the firing bearing for this setup?”
Keith dropped the Is-Was on its cord, reached swiftly for the Banjo, squatted down on his haunches with it on his knees. “Target speed, sir?” he said.
“Use twelve knots,” returned Jim.
Keith nodded, bent over the instrument and began carefully setting up the computing arms in accordance with the tactical situation. It took a little time—Keith, though he had learned at submarine school how to use it, was not the expert on the Banjo that Jim was. It was Jim’s normal battle station as Assistant Approach Officer for me, and I could sense his impatience to get the answer. The target was moving toward the firing point; there was not much time to go.
Jim watched, irresolute. Then he turned to Tom at the diving station to his left. “Four-six and a half feet!” he rasped.
Tom nodded, obediently began to ease the boat six inches deeper in the water. This also took its quota of time, for the bow and stern planes had less effect at low speeds and he was anxious not to drop below the ordered depth. Since the tip of the periscope when fully extended reached only to forty-seven feet two inches above the keel, it would be very easy for a momentary loss of only a few inches in depth to drag it entirely under and thus blind the approach officer at the instant he might most need to see.
For an appreciable period, during which Jim tensely waited, the depth gauges did not budge. He turned to Keith, still sliding the computing arms on the face of the Banjo, and then back again to Tom—whose depth-gauge needles had not wavered from the forty-six-foot mark.
It had all taken only a dozen seconds or so, but Jim’s temper, already strained to the flash point, steamed over.
“Goddamit!” he shouted at Tom, “I said four-six and a half feet! When are you going to get there?”
Tom’s neck settled imperceptibly into the open collar of his shirt, but he made no reply. In the next instant the gauges quivered and, by the barest perceptible movement, crept down to a point midway between the forty-six- and forty-seven-feet marks.
Jim’s attention swung across the control room to Keith, now patiently recording on a piece of paper the answers he had picked off the curved lines on the face of the Banjo. “I haven’t got all day,” he snarled. “What’s holding you up, Leone?”
Keith looked as if he had been struck, but his voice betrayed no emotion as he answered: “Firing bearings, four fish; three-four-three, three-four-four, three-four-four-a-half, three-four-five-a-half. Set gyros one-and-a-half right, one-half right, one-half left, and one-and-a-half left. Firing bearing for the exercise torpedo, zero gyro angle, three-four-five.”
“Firing order normal order! Set depths twelve feet, speed high! Set gyros one-and-a-half right, one-half right, one-half left, one-and-a-half left!” Jim was all business again. As he gave the order he made a sign of negation to Quin, who functioned as telephone talker during battle stations.
“Torpedo room! Firing order, normal order,” repeated Quin, making not the slightest move toward the telephone mouthpiece mounted on a breastplate attached around his neck. “Set depths twelve feet. Set gyros one-and-a-half right, one-half right, one-half left, and one-and-a-half left.”
A second later Quin spoke again: “Torpedo room has the word, sir! Gyros set! Depth set!” He still made no indication that he had transmitted or received one iota of information or instruction.
Jim now spoke again. “Set depth on the exercise torpedo thirty feet! Set torpedo gyro on zero!” There was a shade of greater urgency in his voice, and he pointed with emphasis at Quin.
This time Quin picked up the mouthpiece, pressed the button on its top, and spoke into it. “Torpedo room,” he said, “set depth on the exercise fish thirty feet. Set gyro on zero.”
The exercise torpedo was the real torpedo, the one on which depended Jim’s qualification. In a moment the answer came back from the torpedo room; was relayed by the yeoman: “Torpedo ready, sir! Depth set thirty feet—gyro set on zero. Gyro spindles are still in, sir!”
“Stand by!” snapped Jim and, seconds later, “Up periscope!”
The ’scope whirred upward, broke surface. I could see the shaft of light from the eye-piece shining out and striking Jim on the face just as he got his eye fixed to it.
“It’s a zig away!” he shouted. “Bearing—Mark!”
“Three-three-eight!”
“Range—Mark!”
“One-five-double-oh!”
“Down periscope!” As the periscope went down into its well, Jim spoke in violent tones of bitter disappointment. “The bastard has zigged away! Right at the firing point, the son-of-a-bitch has zigged away! The angle on the bow is ninety right now!” He raised his clenched fist above his head. “Goddamit!” he swore.
At this Keith broke in rapidly. “That’s no zig, Jim! The angle on the bow should be ninety! He’s right on the firing point! Put up the ’scope and shoot him . . . Look!” And Keith excitedly held out the Is-Was so that Jim could see its face.
“It’s no good, I tell you! He’s zigged away! We can’t get him!”
“Dammit, the hell we can’t! Take another look!” I was surprised at Keith’s vehemence. With his right hand he pressed the pickle to raise the periscope again—unbidden—and