Run Silent, Run Deep. Edward L. Beach
at least start back.”
It was true. The Falcon had turned as soon as the torpedo passed under her and had followed its wake. S-16, not having changed course since firing, had been proceeding all this time in the same direction, gradually increasing her speed as her ballast tanks went dry. Up ahead the Falcon still had the two flag hoists signifying “torpedo in sight” at her yardarm, and several ship lengths ahead of her we could see the splashes as the torpedo, its exercise head having blown dry, expended its last few ounces of fuel and air before coming to a stop.
I knew what Keith was thinking. Our squadron orders required that the Torpedo Officer of the firing submarine see the torpedo out of the water before departing the area. Later, after our return to New London, Keith would likewise have to inspect the torpedo with the Falcon’s Torpedo Officer and sign the torpedo record book.
“We’d better stick around just a bit longer, Jim,” I said easily. “Might as well do it right, you know. Besides, don’t forget the Board down there is watching everything you do. They might not agree with your shoving off so soon.”
Jim shot me a startled look for a split second, then relaxed with a short laugh.
“Guess you’re right at that.” Then he turned to Keith. “Close on in to the Falcon until you can see them hoist the fish out of the water.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Keith, taking the measure of the Falcon through his binoculars.
Strangely enough, I had begun to notice that not once on this day’s operations had Jim called me “Captain” or used the word “Sir” in our conversations. A little friendly colloquialism is not unexpected in submarines, and it was not anything definite that one could lay a finger on. It was, however, almost always customary to call one’s skipper, “Sir” or “Captain.” Nobody else in the ship used titles in normal address, nor was it customary for the skipper to do so in speaking to officers or crew. It was noticeable also that apparently by tacit understanding both Keith and Tom had on this day, contrary to their normal habit, used the word “Sir” in official conversation with Jim. Perhaps I was imagining things, but I could not quite decide whether Jim’s omission had any significance.
It was now nearing noon. We had been under way since shortly after eight o’clock. The day, instead of warming with the sun, had turned even more chilly during our short submergence. I buttoned the top button on my coat and turned the collar up to protect my ears. A few moments ago I had been too hot and had been perspiring. Now I was shivering. Jim and Keith, too, had already buttoned themselves up. They had put their hands in their pockets and were shielding themselves as well as they could from the biting wind whistling over the bridge. Occasionally severe health problems resulted from the rapid changes of temperature and pressure experienced by submariners, but they certainly made for a maximum of discomfort all the time, I reflected, as I sought the leeward side of the periscope standards.
Falcon now slowed down and we gained on her rapidly. We could see the torpedo, its yellow head bobbing in the water a few yards on her port beam. Keith gave the order to decrease our speed.
Men were leaning over Falcon’s rail with pieces of line in their hands, one man in particular with a grapnel or hook on the end of a pole. Her long hoisting boom on the afterdeck was swung over to the port side, and you could see that hooking the torpedo would be a mighty tricky business, even with the relatively small sea that was running. With no way on, Falcon rolled mightily; every time she rolled to port the end of the boom splashed in the water. In calmer days they would have put a man on the boom, or even lowered him to pass a line through the ring on the nose of the torpedo. Today it would have been suicide.
With the Falcon rolling violently and the torpedo bobbing up and down, they had their work cut out for them. As I watched, the man with the grapnel leaned way out over the rail, made a stab—and was drenched from head to foot with solid green water which suddenly rose up under Falcon’s counter just as he was reaching. For a moment I thought he must have gone overboard, but the wave receded and he was still there, doubled over the bulwark and clutching it with both hands, a heretofore unnoticed line leading from his waist inboard. There was no sign of his pole, and I thought it gone until I noticed another man hauling in on another line trailing astern, and in a moment he had returned the first man’s equipment.
He made several more stabs, each ineffectual, until Jim directed Keith to bring us close aboard on the other side of the torpedo so as to make a lee for it. For fear of drifting down upon it, the Falcon had had to come up to leeward of the torpedo, leaving it to windward and thus making it most difficult to lasso. The interposition of the lower-lying and slower-drifting S-16 to windward created a lee of comparatively smooth water and made the difference. Within minutes after we had moved up we saw the torpedo in the air being hoisted onto Falcon’s capacious afterdeck.
“Good thing we waited, hey, Keith,” said Jim.
Keith had no opportunity for reply, for at this moment a voice beneath us spoke up.
“Permission to come on the bridge?” It was Roy Savage.
“Permission granted,” rejoined Jim, with a glance at me.
It had been crowded before on S-16’s cramped little bridge, bundled as we all were against the cold, and the addition of a seventh person made it a very tight squeeze indeed.
“How’d the torpedo look?” asked Savage.
“Fine, sir,” replied Jim. “Hit ten yards forward of the M.O.T.”
“I mean the torpedo itself, when they picked it up,” insisted Savage.
Keith, who had been inspecting the Falcon through his binoculars, spoke up. “It looked all right, Captain. No dents that we could see. Propellers and rudders looked okay. They got it aboard without hitting the side.”
“Good,” rejoined Savage. Then he turned to Jim. “Signal the Falcon to return to base.”
Rubinoffski, being not more than two feet away, had heard also. Jim nodded to him and the Quartermaster leaped lightly on top of the periscope supports, bracing himself with one foot on the bridge rail against the wind, as he unfurled his semaphore flags.
Savage was talking to Jim: “We want to go through a few emergency drills before returning to port. After you get the message off to Falcon get clear of her and dive. We’ll spring the emergencies on you after you get her down.
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Jim, and Roy Savage disappeared below again. As he did so, Jim turned to me, his face contorted, “Good God! What more can they want? They saw me hit with the torpedo, didn’t they? And they’ve worked me over for three days besides—”
The feeling of uneasiness with which I had come on the bridge, and which had remained and intensified during the minutes prior to the recovery of the torpedo, became stronger yet. I beckoned to Jim—crowded over with him in the after corner of the bridge.
“Jim, old man,” I said in a low tone. “That wasn’t a very good approach.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, Jim, you were just plain lucky. You ran for over five minutes at high speed without making a single observation. If the Falcon had zigged during that time instead of at the end, you would never have got close enough to shoot.”
“Nothing so lucky about that: when she flashed the light she was on one course, and when I finally got a look at her through the periscope she was on another one. So I knew she had already zigged and wouldn’t zig again for a while!”
“Well, okay,” I said, “though that’s not a very realistic way of doing it. Another thing: not once during the entire approach did you look around with the periscope. If there had been another ship in the area, or if the target had been escorted, you might have got us in serious trouble.”
“But there weren’t any other ships anywhere around! I knew that. I took a good look all around before we dived.”