Free Submarine! by Edward L. Beach Page A

O’Kane continue to watch the fleeing ship, munching sandwiches and drinking coffee between looks.
    Suddenly, a pair of heavy masts is sighted over the horizon. This is beginning to look like old-home week for the Japs—and for Davy Jones, too, if the instantly laid plans of Wahoo bear fruit. This fellow looks like a warship. So much the better!
    There are a few more torpedoes left, and his name is on one of them.
    Wahoo proceeds at maximum sustained submerged speed in the direction of the unidentified vessel. Unfortunately, she has so badly depleted her storage battery during the morning’s action that she cannot chase at high speed, and hence cannot get into position to attack the new arrival. In the meantime, the crippled freighter has been staggering away from the scene as rapidly as his engines can drive his battered hull. The plotting parties check his speed at about six knots, quite respectable for a ship with two torpedoes in him. You really have to hand it to that Jap skipper.
    It is soon obvious that Wahoo cannot hope to catch either vessel. She continues to watch through the periscope, and sees the newcomer revealed as a large tanker, instead of a warship. He joins up with the cripple, and the two proceed away at the maximum speed of the latter, black smoke pouring from stacks of both ships. All this time the undersea raider watches helplessly, too far away to interfere and too low in battery power to give chase.
    There is a hasty council in the conning tower. Morton, O’Kane, and Paine do some rapid figuring. Then, their computations completed, Wahoo changes course and proceeds directly away from the fleeing ships as rapidly as her waning battery power will permit. A continuous watch is kept on the quarry until finally the tops of their masts have disappeared over the horizon. Then Wahoo commences some maneuvers which are rather strange for a submarine anxious to avoid detection in enemy waters.
    The periscope rises higher and higher out of the water as the submerged vessel comes closer to the surface. As the height of the tip of the periscope increases above the surface of the sea, O’Kane and Morton can see farther over the horizon, and sight is thus kept on the escaping ships as long as possible. Finally, with the hull of the submarine only a few feet below the water and the periscope extending a full fifteen feet into the air, contact is finally lost. The periscope twirls around rapidly, scanning the horizon and the skies for any sign of other enemy activity. Then, swiftly, it starts down.
    There is a moment’s hiatus, and suddenly a long black shadow, visible beneath the waves, becomes sharper and more distinct. A moment later a sharp bow breaks the surface of the water at a large angle, plowing ahead through the waves like the forehead of some prehistoric monster, and within about ten seconds the whole low dark hull, cascading water from her decks and through freeing ports along the sides, has appeared.
    Up on the bridge there is sudden activity. The crash of metal on metal is heard as the conning tower hatch is flung open. The head and shoulders of a man appear, shortly to be joined by another.
    Morton’s robust voice: “Open the main induction!”
    There is a loud clang as hydraulic mechanism opens the huge engine air-induction valve. Instantly the exhaust roar of a diesel engine starting explodes into the stillness. Simultaneously, a small cloud of gray smoke pours from a half-submerged opening in the after part of the hull. This process is repeated three times, at rapid intervals, until four streams of exhaust vapor, two from each side, are sputtering and splashing the water which attempts to flow back into the half-submerged exhaust pipes. The speed of the submarine increases through the water. A high-pitched screaming sound can be heard distinctly over all the other noises, as though a hundred cats had caught their tails in a wringer simultaneously. This noise is made