War Beneath the Waves by Don Keith

Author:Don Keith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF HELL

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do.”

—Author and adventurer Robyn Davidson

1 450. At a range of 3600 [yards], target appeared to have got by so abandoned approach. At this point he commenced pinging and turned toward us to present a 10 degree angle on the bow, at slow speed.

Charlie Rush was still surprised that Captain Lucas had not relieved him from his watch and had him taken into custody. Instead, the captain simply stood there, his hands still on the grips of the periscope, with an odd, puzzled look on his face.

“Well, Mr. Rush, what should I do?” he finally asked.

Rush was so shocked at the question that he almost forgot to answer it, but the pinging was growing louder, their stalker even closer.

Captains never ask junior officers on a ship what they should do. And certainly never in front of any other crew members.

“Shoot him or go deep!” Rush told him. “Shoot him or go deep, Captain.”

“I can’t shoot him. He’s too shallow and his angle is too small. We would never hit him.”

“Then I’m going deep,” Rush said.

“Well, Mr. Rush, you are the diving officer . . .” Lucas began, but Rush was already giving the order to take them deeper as he dropped down the ladder from the conning tower to the control room. “. . . but do not make any noise doing so.”

That statement alone indicated Lucas’s inexperience. When the enemy was using echo-ranging sonar, noise was no factor. Fleeing or ducking were the only maneuvers, damn any noise it might make.

Lucas remained in the conning tower.

“I have the dive,” Rush announced to the men in the control room. “Full dive on the bow planes. Five degrees down bubble. Take her down! Take her down!”

They could feel the bow of the boat ease downward slightly. The depth gauge ticked off the submersion slowly, slowly, one foot at a time. All the while, the pinging was building and they could even hear the warship’s engines above the rush of air from Billfish’s ballast tanks and the inrush of seawater to replace it.

The Japanese warship would soon be right on top of them—less than a hundred feet above them.

“Flood negative! All ahead two-thirds!” Rush barked. “Rig for depth-charge attack. Rig for silent running when we reach four hundred feet.”

The captain should have already given the command to full speed but he had failed to do so. He was probably still worried about the noise it would create. Still operating under the mistaken impression that the enemy did not yet know they were down there.

Now Rush knew he had to use the boat’s propellers to drive them deeper, to go down faster than they would if he simply flooded the tanks. Yes, it would be noisy. Anybody on the surface with listening capability would easily hear them.

He called for maximum submerged power to drive them down more quickly.

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