The Iceman Read online

  There were no more explosions. Time to quit the stage. He hit the dive alarm. Then he stepped into the hatch, climbed down three rungs, and closed the hatch cover over his head as the boat took its first, almost tentative lean forward as it sought the safety of the depths. She was still going pretty fast. He hoped the diving officer was using minimal plane settings, or they’d fly their way down to the bottom.

  As his boots dropped onto the conning tower deck plates, he ordered a depth of two hundred feet. The control room acknowledged the order and the boat tilted down some more. With the captain in the conning tower, Marty went below to supervise the dive.

  “Two out of four,” he announced. “Not bad. Tell forward torpedo to reload what they can.”

  They drove north at 200 feet for fifteen minutes, and then Malachi called for periscope depth. “I want the radar mast up first to see how close they are,” he said. “Then I’ll take a look.”

  Five minutes later the radar mast whined its way to the surface. “Mast height two feet,” he ordered. It wouldn’t have much range because the antenna was low, just barely above the surface, but it should be able to pick up cruiser-sized targets that shouldn’t be that far away.

  They had to wait a minute for the radar picture to appear on the scope. There were three contacts, one small, two larger. “Targets are one niner zero, range five thousand, five hundred yards.”

  “Come right with ten degrees of rudder to course one eight zero,” Malachi ordered. “Track all three until we can ID the cripple. Cease radiating the radar but keep it up there.”

  Malachi turned to the XO, who’d come back up into the conning tower. “So here’s what I saw: the lead destroyer ate one or more fish and disintegrated. That allowed me to see the lead cruiser, pretty much bows on. He got hit twice on the starboard side and started blowing steam through his stacks. The second cruiser apparently saw that and sheered out to port—definitely a heavy, Mogami class. I never saw the trailing destroyer.”

  He was interrupted by the bitchbox. “Conn, Control: forward torpedo reports one tube reloaded, working on a second.”

  “Conn: aye, hold up after the second fish goes in. Prepare both fish for magnetic exploder function only.”

  Malachi saw the surprise in Marty’s face. “I want to try something,” he said. “Set running depth for twenty feet, speed slow. If they run true and nothing happens, then I’ll use the stern tubes and a contact setting.” He turned to the radar operator. “Now, take two hot sweeps with the radar, and then you guys get me to a point where I’m fifteen hundred yards off the ship that hasn’t moved.”

  The plotters and the radar operator jumped to their calculations while Malachi lit up a cigarette and waited for the radar operator. The XO oversaw the plotters as they did their maneuvering-board work.

  “Captain, the picture has changed,” the radar operator announced. “One large pip is stationary; a smaller one has moved about five hundred yards away on the other side of the stationary pip. The other heavy is six miles southwest and appears to be opening.”

  Malachi nodded. “Okay, that’s good. They’ve left their remaining tin can with the cripple. Give me a course solution to put the cripple between me and that destroyer at fifteen hundred yards.”

  The XO indicated he wanted to talk in private, so they moved over to a corner of the conning tower. “If these fish are running ten, twelve feet deeper than set,” Marty said, quietly, “isn’t twenty feet pushing it?”

  “She’ll be down in the water after taking two torpedoes. Their heavy cruisers typically draw twenty-two feet. Probably almost thirty now with a belly full of seawater. I need these fish to pass underneath, but close. Sound will hear it if they physically hit her, but if it’s close enough, there should be a magnetic transient big enough to fire the exploder despite the incorrect base field setting.”

  “Or we could set them both for contact and just sink the bastard,” Marty pointed out.

  Malachi hesitated. He knew Marty wasn’t challenging him, just reminding him that they could claim coup by doing what they had been doing: turning the magnetics off.

  “I need to know if it’s the depth control problem or the magnetic field problem that’s making these things useless,” Malachi said. “Our fish are nowhere near as powerful as those of the Japs, so if we can make these bastards work, we’ll be doing good work for Jesus. I want to see if running a couple of these things close underneath will make them go off. Remember, we still have four fish aft that can finish this.”

  “That tin can will see wakes and come after us,” Marty said.

  Malachi shrugged. “Then we’ll kill him first, and then finish off the cripple.”

  They didn’t actually have much privacy in the tight confines of the conning tower, and Malachi was aware that the officers were listening. He scanned their faces. At least some of them seemed frightened. Why was that, he wondered. He had a weapon of great stealth at his command. The crew of that Jap cruiser were knee-deep in damage control efforts, and that tin can was probably getting ready for a mass casualty situation after seeing their sister ship disintegrating in a tower of fire. As far as he could see, he was in charge here.

  “Captain, recommend course two four zero to get to a point fifteen hundred yards from the target.”

  “Make it so,” Malachi said, finishing his cigarette.

  It took fifteen minutes to get into position at 5 knots submerged. Malachi was tempted to surface. It had been satisfying to be able to actually see what he had wrought in the Jap formation, but there was that lone destroyer, who could still come after them at 36 knots.

  “Up scope,” he ordered. “Radar take another couple of sweeps and give me an exact range and bearing.”

  He peered through the optics and saw precisely nothing. The night hadn’t gotten any brighter, and he was three quarters of a mile away from a ship showing no lights whatsoever. Probably because they had lost their generators. “Down scope,” he ordered.

  “Range is sixteen hundred yards, bearing one five five, sir.”

  “Come left to course one five five,” he ordered. “Make ready tubes one and two.”

  “Settings applied. Doors are open. Tubes one and two are ready.”

  “Fire one.” Wait ten seconds. “Fire two.”

  “Sound reports hot straight and normal.”

  “Very well.”

  The invisible cruiser was helpless. They might not even see the wakes approaching them at that ordered depth, but even if they did …

  “Twenty seconds,” the TDC operator announced.

  A heavy blast shook the conning tower, followed by a second one ten seconds later. Both explosions carried a little more authority since they were happening much deeper than the contact torpedoes.

  “Up scope,” Malachi ordered.

  Now he could see her. She was broken in half, sagging badly amidships, with a large oil fire shooting straight out of her after stack. We need to put a camera on these scopes, he thought, as he watched. The forward half of the ship, top heavy with that pagoda mast, capsized and disappeared. The back half was standing up out of the water, preparing for the final plunge.

  “Got her,” he announced. “Down scope and radar mast. Come to course one five zero, make your depth two hundred feet. Speed eight knots.”

  “What are your intentions, Captain?” Marty asked.

  “I want to pass ahead of the target, because I’m assuming the tin can will be coming around behind her at full bore to find us. Then I want to turn south and get out of here while he pounds the waters where we just were.”

  They could hear the breakup sounds as the two halves of the heavy cruiser subsided into the shocked sea. Then they heard another, more frightening sound: the swish-swish-swish of a destroyer’s propellers moving at high speed. The tin can had not gone behind the cruiser: he’d come around the bow instead and was headed right for them, echo-ranging furiously.

  “Oh, shit,” Malachi said. “Hang on, boys; it’s gonna get
noisy.”

  THIRTEEN

  Malachi, who’d been watching the depth gauge, ordered Control to flood negative to the mark and to rig for depth charges.

  “Conn, Sound: I think he’s on us—he’s gone to short-range mode on his sonar.”

  Malachi stared at the depth gauge, mentally urging it down. One hundred thirty feet. The boat was beginning to accelerate down. He felt her sag as the negative tank filled and dragged her bow down. One fifty. He knew the Japs usually set their depth charges for 150. If they could get down to 250 it would be noisy but relatively safe.

  The swishing noises were getting louder as the Doppler of the pinging, audible through the boat’s skin now, increased steadily. One seventy-five. The boat was still pointed down at almost twenty degrees.

  “Make your depth two five zero,” he ordered, because there was no way they were going to level off at 200 feet. “Blow negative.”

  Control acknowledged and slowly, very slowly, the bow began to level up as the depth gauge spun past 200. He asked Sound if there was any bearing drift on the pinging.

  “Slight right, Captain, but he’s gonna be pretty—”

  A sharp explosion shook the boat, followed rapidly by three more, and then three more after that. Bits of dust and loose insulation started a fine rain from the overhead and one of the men in the conning tower made a frightened noise.

  “What’s the bearing to the sinking point of that heavy?”

  “Two niner zero, Captain.”

  “Come right to two niner zero, speed five, and rig for silent running.”

  The pinging was down-Doppler now as the destroyer rushed overhead, but Malachi knew he’d be turning around for another run. He intended to head for the mass of disturbed water where the cruiser had gone down, through which the destroyer would hesitate to run because of survivors in the water. He hoped.

  “Damage report?” he said.

  “Small leaks and weeps, but nothing serious,” the XO called back from Control. “I’m shutting off ventilation for silent running.”

  Malachi had already noticed. Technically, they were in the Indian Ocean on this side of Sunda Straits and the water temperature, even at 250 feet, was nearly eighty-five degrees. The conning tower, stuffed with men and electronic equipment, was heating up fast as the vent fans went quiet throughout the boat. Malachi donned a sound-powered phone headset so as not to use the bitchbox.

  “Distant echo ranging to the east of us, Captain,” Sound called. “Search mode. He probably can’t see through his own depth-charge disturbance.”

  “God willing,” Malachi said. “Search the area ahead of us. Take two active pings every three minutes. We’re going toward the point where that cruiser went down. I don’t want to run into a hulk if she turned turtle.”

  With the boat quieted for silent running, the creaks and cracks from the hull at 250 feet were now audible. They all jumped when they heard a series of thumping explosions that were, happily, well away from Firefish. Malachi breathed a sigh of relief, and switched to the JA sound-powered phone circuit, where he called the XO in Control.

  “That guy will search for a while,” he said, “and then he’ll go back to the sinking datum to look for survivors. If we hang around, say out at about five thousand yards and wait for him to stop, we can creep in and kill him, too.”

  More distant depth charges pounded the sea, no closer than the last series. Malachi waited for the exec to reply, but then realized which circuit he was on. There were doubtless many ears breathlessly waiting for the XO’s reply.

  “Come on up to the conning tower,” he said. “Let’s look at the plot.”

  A relieved exec said, “Right away, sir.” The depth charging was growing fainter, so Malachi ordered secure from silent running. A sweat-soaked XO climbed into the conning tower and told most of the crew there to go down and get some coffee. The ventilation came back on, granting instant relief.

  “Whaddaya think?” Malachi asked.

  “I think the Japs have several fleet units at Batavia, just on the other side of the Strait. We hurt them bad tonight, and I think they’ll be out with destroyers and those big-ass float planes now that they know we’re here. I recommend we declare victory and head to the other end of our op-area for a few days. It’s early—we have several hours of darkness left, so we can run on the surface.”

  “Where’s your killer instinct, Marty?” Malachi asked. “We weren’t sent out here to run away.”

  “Yes, sir, but we can always come back. But if we’re still loitering here in the morning, we can only evade at about four, maybe five knots. The battery is no longer full after some of these maneuvers tonight. If they sent air and a six-pack of tin cans out here, that could make for a damned long day.”

  Malachi knew Marty was right. What he was suggesting made perfect sense: get out of there, get a whole night’s cruising away from whatever the Japs did in the way of a reaction, and then sneak back into the Sunda Strait approaches in a few days. Or—

  “Is the Sunda Strait mined?” he asked.

  Marty’s eyebrow rose at the thought of taking a submarine through the Sunda Strait. “It’s much too deep to mine on this end,” he said. “But on the other side the water gets really shallow—sixty feet in some places. The charts date to the seventeen hundreds, and the east end is notorious for sand bars and volcanic reefs.”

  “Nuts,” Malachi said. “I was thinking of sneaking through and getting outside Batavia Harbor, see what comes out.”

  Marty didn’t say anything, obviously at a loss for words.

  “That dumb an idea, XO?” Malachi asked, his eyes twinkling.

  “Um.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ll do it your way. Get us out to five miles from this area, then we’ll surface and make our creep.”

  Later that night they got off their attack report, claiming one destroyer and one Mogami-class heavy cruiser sunk with visual confirmation of both sinkings. They reported that the other cruiser had headed southwest into the Indian Ocean by itself, and that they intended to return to the straits in two days. The next day they received a congratulatory message from the admiral in Perth and a new patrol area off the eastern end of Java. They were ordered to lurk for three days on the western, or Indian Ocean, side of the strait, and then to go through the strait to the Java Sea. Their objective was to pick off oil tankers headed for or leaving the petroleum refineries around Surabaya.

  On the first day off Lombok, they were driven down by constant aircraft contacts, probably from the big Japanese base at Surabaya. Malachi spent several hours familiarizing himself with the hydrography of the Lombok Straits themselves. Unlike Sunda, Lombok was wide and deep except for where some underwater pinnacles threatened the channel here and there. At 1,200 feet deep, the shallowest parts were unlikely to be mined, so they could probably do the transit submerged if they wanted to, relying on the radar for navigation.

  He now had to consider the matter of torpedoes. The boat could carry twenty-four; their “allowance” for this trip had been eighteen due to the shortages in Perth. They’d already expended seven getting the cruiser and its escort. Getting the two magnetics to work presented a tantalizing opportunity: with their five-hundred-pound warheads, it took at least two Mark 14s to sink a warship. But if you could get that same Mark 14 to go off beneath the keel, it only took one. Big if. The final shots at the cruiser had been against a sitting duck target where Malachi could control the attack geometry.

  Then he had an idea. What if they surfaced close in to a convoy at night and used that five-inch deck gun, firing incendiary shells, against gasoline and oil-filled tankers. Setting the highly flammable cargo afire with a few well-aimed shells was as good as torpedoing the ship. They could probably knock off two ships before the escorts realized what was going on, and then they’d have to dive and use torpedoes. That was the one good feature of a convoy, Malachi thought. From a submarine’s perspective it concentrated the targets. The fact that it also concentrated the esc
orts was just a hazard of the game. Intelligence had warned that tankers especially were all being convoyed, which meant several escort destroyers and frigates for any sizable group. They also reported that the bigger tankers were armed with deck guns.

  At night they surfaced and patrolled a line across the most likely shipping lane coming out of Lombok. At 0230, radar picked up four radar contacts heading in their direction. The contacts were smallish but they appeared to be in a line-abreast formation. The plotters in the conning tower made their calculations and reported the contacts were indeed in formation, and headed due west at 15 knots. They were almost 18 miles away.

  When Malachi was informed, he ordered the boat to dive and go deep—250 feet. He’d recognized that formation. The Germans had used something similar when they went hunting for a submarine. Put four destroyers in a line abreast at a distance of eighty percent of effective sonar range for the water conditions at hand. Then they would sweep an area in a three-mile-wide swath using active sonar with each pass. Fortunately there was a good nine-degree thermal at 180 feet, so they should be safe enough if they kept reasonably quiet. But it was a disturbing development—until he realized what it meant. They were sanitizing the area. Something big must be coming out. He summoned the exec to the conning tower as the boat leveled out at 250 feet. He explained what he thought the current contacts meant, and that he wanted to move into the mouth of Lombok Strait once the sweep had moved past.

  “Will they come back to meet the convoy?” the exec asked.

  “They might, but I expect they’ll wait for the convoy to come to them and then head west, or maybe even south. Either way, I want to get into the convoy if we can before they join up.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the exec said.

  “One more thing, XO—get the gun crew ready to go topside, and tell them to break out incendiary ammunition.”

  The exec just stared at him. “You mean to surface inside the convoy?”

  “Yup,” Malachi said. “I figure a convoy coming out of Surabaya will be tankers full of oil and gasoline. I mean to surface and fire incendiaries into them. Setting them afire from end to end is as good as sinking them. Then we’ll submerge and start using torpedoes while the escorts go nuts.”