Free Submarine! by Edward L. Beach Page B

by the low-pressure air blower, which is pumping atmospheric air into the ballast tanks, completing the emptying job which had been started submerged by high-pressure air.
    All this time Wahoo’s speed through the water has been increasing as the diesel engines take the place of the battery for propulsion, and she rises higher and higher out of water as the ballast tanks go dry. Soon she is making a respectable 17 knots—considering that one engine must be used to recharge the nearly empty storage battery so that Wahoo will be ready for further action submerged if necessary—which, of course, is exactly Mush Morton’s intention.
    While other members of the crew are relieved from theirbattle stations, there is no rest or relaxation for the plotting parties. But not one of them thinks of being relieved, nor would he accept relief were it offered. The plotting parties are busy with a problem which, by virtue of nearly incessant drill, has become second nature to them. You have a target trying to get away from you. You have his approximate bearing, and you have a good idea of his speed. Also, you have a lot more speed available than he has. Problem: Find him. Problem: Keep him from sighting you. Problem: Dive in front of him so that, despite his zigzags, he will run near enough to the spot you select to give you a shot!
    So Wahoo chases her prey from the moment of surfacing, shortly after noon, until nearly sunset. This is known as the “end around,” and is to become a classic maneuver in the Submarine Force. You run with your periscope up, barely maintaining sight of the tips of the enemy’s masts, so that he will not have a chance of spotting you, and you run completely around him, traveling several times as far as he does, in order to arrive at a point dead ahead of him.
    Half an hour before sunset Wahoo dives, once more on the convoy’s track. This approach is much more difficult than the previous one. The enemy remember only too vividly the fates which befell their two erstwhile comrades, and consequently are zigzagging wildly. Then, too, Wahoo wants to attack the tanker first, since he is as yet undamaged.
    Finally, one hour after diving, Wahoo sees the tanker limned in her periscope sights in perfect attack position. The old routine procedure is gone through. As always, there is still the same breathless hushed expectancy, the same fierce thrill of the chase successfully consummated, the same fear that, somehow, at the last possible moment, your prey will make some unexpected maneuver and frustrate your designs upon him. And you never forget that your life, as well as his, is in the scales.
    O’Kane is at the periscope . . . Paine is on the TDC . . . Morton is conducting the approach, as always, blind.
    Bearing! Range! Set — FIRE!
    And three torpedoes race out into the gathering dusk. One minute and twenty-two seconds later, “WHANG!”—a single hit. The tanker stops momentarily, then gets underway again, at reduced speed. Wahoo spins around for a shot at the crippled freighter, but that canny Jap has already started away from there, and his change of course has spoiled the setup.
    It is still fairly light, though too dark to see effectively through the periscope. There are only four torpedoes left in the ship, all aft. A moment’s reflection, and Morton gives the command to carry the fight to the enemy.
    â€œSurface!” Three blasts of the diving alarm, the traditional surfacing signal, sound raucously in the confined interior of the submarine. Up comes Wahoo , ready to try her luck on the surface, under cover of what darkness there may be.
    In this she has the advantage of a much lower, darker hull, and, since there is as yet no moon, the shadows of night grow progressively thicker, concealing her more and more from the Japanese lookouts. Another advantage lies in the fact that the two damaged ships choose to stick together instead of separating. But having