Dust on the Sea Read Free

Suido be kept under surveillance. Walrus had been the only submarine available.
    Nakame had claimed sinking Walrus in a Japanese propaganda broadcast on the same day Richardson’s new ship, the Eel , completed her training prior to departure on patrol. The news came on the heels of the Navy’s official announcement that Nerka was overdue and presumed lost. Joe Blunt, his first submarine skipper, later his squadron commander in New London, and now chief of staff to the Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet—Vice Admiral Small—had been theemissary of both bits of bad news. The cumulative wound had been deep.
    Walrus , Blunt explained, had been reporting weather every three days. Three days previously, Jim had added to the routine report the further information that he had only four torpedoes remaining, all of them aft. The next message, due that morning, had not arrived. Instead, there was a propaganda broadcast detailing the claim that the USS Walrus had been sunk by Nakame’s forces.
    In despair at the news of the loss of his old ship, following so closely on the loss of Stocker Kane in the Nerka , Richardson pleaded for assignment to the Bungo Suido. The upshot was that Eel ’s orders were changed: instead of AREA TWELVE , the East China and Yellow Sea, she was sent to AREA SEVEN , with particular instructions to destroy Tateo Nakame and his Special Antisubmarine Warfare Group.
    Richardson soaped himself all over for the second time. Now, Eel was returning. He had carried out his mission. Bungo Pete was dead, sliced to bits by Eel ’s propellers. Sunk, during a storm, were all three ships of Nakame’s little squadron: the Akikaze -type destroyer, a disguised “Q-ship” (an old freighter with big guns, filled with flotation material), and a submerged submarine behind the pseudo merchantman. Eel had expended her last torpedoes on them. Three lifeboats remained, launched, as their destroyer sank, by Nakame and his professional crew.
    Of course, the lifeboats. Nakame would weather the storm in them. Less than fifty miles from shore—he’d be back in business in a week: A little boat with oars tossed against the sky. A row of faces staring, suddenly knowing what was to come . Eel’ s huge bow raised high on a wave, smashing down. Guillotine .
    A brief search for the second boat. The bullnose rising, striking it on the way up, smashing it in, rolling it over. Still rising, grinding the bodies and the pieces of kindling down beneath Eel’ s pitiless keel .
    One more lifeboat. Nakame’s. Black water driving in solid sheets over Eel’ s bridge. Somebody in the stern of the boat, heroically fighting back. Rifle bullets striking the armored side of Eel’ s bridge, shattering the forward Target Bearing Transmitter . Eel’ s bow alongside, sideswiping, slashing past. Shift the rudder! The boat bumping alongside, dropping on the curve of the ballast tanks, its side bellied in, its ribs crushed. Tateo Nakame: a short fellow with an impassive face; deadpan. A first-class naval officer. A professional. Dedicated. Tough .
    Around in a full circle. No avoiding this time. Bungo still fighting back. More rifle shots. The lifeboat in halves. The rifle flying out into the water. Nakame somehow managing to reach Eel’ s side, get his hands on the slick tank tops—clutching, gripping, clawing to hangon. Grimacing with the effort, and with anguish at finally losing. Washed off by the sea as Eel hurtled past. Sucked under by the screw current. Doubtless instantly killed by the thrashing, sharp, spinning blades rising under him as Eel pitched downward into the hollow of an oncoming sea. . . .
    It was a glorious Hawaiian morning on Eel ’s bridge as the submarine, coming up from the southwest, rounded Barber’s Point and straightened out for the Pearl Harbor channel entrance. The approach from sea was simple; straight in, perpendicular to the shore, past the sea