The Iceman Page 13

  There was a moment of silence in the conning tower as the attack crew digested this news. Then they jumped to their preparations. Malachi went down one deck and then headed forward toward the wardroom for a quick coffee and something to eat. They wouldn’t go to battle stations until the destroyer sweep got much closer. As he approached the wardroom he heard Peter Caldwell, the ops officer exclaim: “Are you shitting me? Surface in a convoy?” One of the senior enginemen was passing Malachi in the passageway. When he heard the outburst in the wardroom he glanced at Malachi and grinned. Malachi drew the curtain aside and stepped into the tiny wardroom. Lieutenant Caldwell was on the sound-powered phone and went wide-eyed as he realized the captain had to have overheard him. He hung up the phone and then just stood there as if unsure of what to do or say.

  Malachi let him suffer for a minute as he stepped by him and got some coffee. Then he sat down at the head of the table and pointed Caldwell into one of the side chairs.

  “You have a problem with my tactical decisions, Mr. Caldwell?” he asked.

  “No, sir, absolutely not,” Caldwell said. “It’s just … it’s just…”

  “Just what, exactly?”

  “Sir, this is my first war-patrol boat, and Cap’n Russell told us our first priority was to keep the boat safe. That we were the only US forces out here who could do something to the Japs. So we did everything submerged, and if there were four escorts? We’d usually take a pass.”

  “And how many ships did you bag in those two patrols, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh, damage to one, sir. The torpedoes just didn’t seem to work.”

  Malachi gave him his best stone face and spoke through clenched teeth. “As I thought I’d made clear, our purpose out here is not to keep the boat safe. Our purpose out here is to destroy Japanese warships and the maru’s that keep their warships and their armies going. The Japanese have been butchering entire populations ever since they went into China, and that was eleven years ago. It’s time somebody started butchering them, and that somebody is this boat, for one. My predecessor accomplished nothing in two patrols. So far I have sunk two heavy cruisers, four escorts, and one large freighter in one and a half patrols. That’s almost forty thousand tons gone forever, along with a few thousand sailors. That’s what we’re out here to do, Mister, and if you’re not man enough, feel free to let me know. But understand this: if you want off I’ll put your ass ashore on Java, not Perth. Now go away before I lose my temper.”

  Caldwell was white-faced by this point. Malachi thought there might have been people out in the passageway eavesdropping. Not necessarily a bad thing, he mused.

  The destroyer sweep passed overhead about an hour later without incident. Firefish headed inshore behind them toward the entrance to the Lombok Strait. They only had a few hours before dawn, so he wanted to close the convoy. If there was a convoy; those tin cans might just have been hunting. He ordered periscope depth as the sound of the sweep’s pinging died away to the west.

  “Put the radar mast up. Get a fix, and see if there’s anything out there.”

  The navigator was summoned to the radar console, where he wrote down bearings and ranges to the landmasses surrounding the entrance to Lombok. Then the radar operator opened up the display to a greater range. “Christmas,” he said softly. “Many, many contacts up in the strait. Range, eleven thousand yards to the lead ship.”

  “All right,” Malachi said. “Start a plot on the lead ship. Are they in formation?”

  “No, sir,” the radar operator said. “A loose gaggle. Maybe twelve, or more. The pips are overlapping. Eight miles.”

  “Okay, troops,” Malachi said. “I’m guessing there’ll be a couple of escorts in that gaggle. Probably one ahead and one tail-end Charlie. I want to position the boat to the northern side of that crowd of ships. I intend to surface close to the convoy, get the gun set up, and start shooting into tankers. When I say close, I mean close: five hundred to a thousand yards. Point blank. I need hits immediately. We’ll only have a few minutes before both escorts come after us, at which time we’ll dive and drive under the convoy to the other side. Or, I might choose to stay on the surface and run through the convoy, shooting as we go. Get the plot going.”

  It took them thirty minutes of several quick radar observations, careful plotting on the dead-reckoning tracer table, and then repositioning of the boat to end up on the northern side of the crowd but still close in. Malachi told the torpedo officer, LTJG Sullivan, he wanted the 20mm antiaircraft gun also manned, with orders to shoot into the pilothouses of any ship within range.

  Finally he put the periscope up to take a look. The night was dark but clear. Christmas indeed, he thought. There were over a dozen ships out there, not yet in any identifiable formation, but steaming west at about 12 knots. He could not identify any escorts, but he had to assume there were some. And there were three big tankers right in front of him. Filled with aviation gasoline, he prayed.

  He could just start shooting torpedoes at them, but he wanted to try this gunnery gambit. Surface, start shooting immediately, set them on fire, then run into the convoy, shooting as they went. If one of the escorts showed up, they could crash dive and then run under the convoy, where the escort’s sonar would be overwhelmed by all the propeller noises.

  “Match our course with the convoy’s course,” he ordered, bringing down the scope. “Then let’s get closer—we’re still out at fifteen hundred yards or so. Get the gun crews ready. XO, make sure the chief understands: load and start shooting the moment they get up there. Aim into the hulls. As soon as they get a decent fire started, pick another target. We’ll only have about two, maybe three minutes before we have to escape.”

  They made two more radar observations, trying to identify escorts, but it was still just a crowd of ships, chugging along while trying to keep from colliding. The second observation showed that they were starting to fall behind the convoy, but they were in to 700 yards.

  “Battle surface—guns!” Malachi ordered, and headed for the conning tower hatch. The sub came up in good order. Malachi opened the conning tower hatch and climbed out onto the navigation bridge as the diesels lit off in a cloud of smoke aft. He saw the forward torpedo-loading hatch pop up and the gun crew coming up, each man cradling a five-inch fixed shell in his arms. After them came the 20mm gun team, each one of them carrying two ten-round magazine boxes. They ran to the ladders along the sail and climbed like a troop of monkeys to the cigarette deck, where the single-barreled 20mm gun was still shedding water. He looked back at the nearest tanker, which remained dark and unaware.

  He was startled by the first shot from the five-inch, a heavy bark of ear-squeezing power from the short-barreled naval rifle. The shell apparently went over. Buck fever, Malachi thought; steady up and aim the damned thing! The next round hit the tanker low on the hull and a second later, it was no longer a clear dark night.

  “Shift targets!” Malachi yelled as the tanker blew up amidships, throwing up a white-hot fireball of exploding gasoline a couple of hundred feet into the air. The gun crew swiveled the blunt barrel of the five-inch aft and opened fire on another tanker. The first round hit the water without exploding. The second hit the side of the tanker, also without exploding. The third drilled into pay dirt and the second target also blew up, this time with a red-orange blast of exploding fuel oil. Malachi was dimly aware of the 20mm gun behind him banging away, sending red tracers across the water at the third tanker within range, hitting the water, then the hull, and then the bridge at the back of the ship, sending red fragments ricocheting into the night air.

  As the five-inch gun crew trained aft to take on the third tanker, Malachi searched the surrounding area, looking for the telltale shape of a destroyer coming with what was called “a bone in her teeth”—the huge white bow wave created by a tin can going 30 plus knots, bent on vengeance. He had no problem seeing: the first target continued to burn with the intensity of a blast furnace, clearly lighting up the whole convoy. There
was a satisfying orange fireball erupting from the third tanker, followed by a much bigger explosion.

  Then he saw it: the thin but deadly shape of a destroyer coming up the side of the convoy behind them. As he stared at it he saw gun flashes and then heard the ripping sound of shells going over, but not by much.

  He yelled at the five-inch gun crew to get below, and then turned around to tell the 20mm crew the same thing, but they couldn’t hear with all their gun noise. He picked up a set of binoculars and threw it at the gun captain, who turned to look at him in astonishment. Malachi gestured down vigorously with his index finger. The gun captain understood at once. He smacked the other gun-crew members with his hands and they all bailed out, scrambling down the sail ladders to the main deck hatch. Then he hit the dive alarm, after checking to see that the five-inch crew was clear of the main deck and the forward hatch was closed. More shells came slashing overhead, closer this time. He dived for the conning tower hatch and dropped through, slamming and dogging it behind him.

  He slid down the ladder, landing on the steel deck plates with a bang and ordered a hard left rudder and full electric power. The boat was already slanting down and then she tilted dangerously to starboard as that rudder order took effect.

  “Make your depth one hundred fifty feet and come to one eight zero,” he ordered. That would take them under the convoy at right angles to the convoy’s course. They could clearly hear more rumbling explosions as the three hapless oil tankers burned to death above them. Ninety seconds later came the depth charges, happily behind them as they slid underneath the chaos above.

  “Shouldn’t we get deeper?” the exec asked, looking nervously at the depth gauge—150 feet was within direct range of Jap depth bombs.

  “I need to be above that layer so we can hear,” Malachi replied. “I’m betting that four-pack split up when they came running—two to each side. I want to be able to hear if there’re two escorts on the other side of this gaggle.”

  Above them the dozen or so marus chugged ahead, minus the three seared hulks behind them. A merchant ship’s propeller sounds were different from a destroyer’s—a regular, dull thumping noise from their single, low-speed screws. Firefish drove under the crowd at almost 8 knots, draining the battery rapidly. Finally they were clear and Malachi ordered the boat to slow down to 5 knots.

  “Sound: anything?” he asked.

  “No, sir. Merchie noise is drifting west and diminishing.”

  Malachi wanted to get up to periscope depth but he controlled that urge. “We’ll keep going south for another twenty, thirty minutes. If no escorts show up, we’ll take a radar look, then surface and run to get ahead of the rest of the convoy. We have an eight-knot advantage in speed on the surface.”

  “We’ll be running right toward that division of destroyers,” the exec pointed out.

  “I don’t think so, XO,” Malachi said. “I think they were closer than we thought and came running when those tankers went up, and now they’ll be trying to wrangle this group into some kind of formation so they can take stations and protect them.”

  He slipped down to the wardroom for a sandwich and some coffee. He was pleased with what they’d done. Three good-sized tankers destroyed—with no torpedo expenditure. If they didn’t sink by themselves the Jap destroyers would put them down like sick cattle. The next big decision would be whether to attack the convoy on the surface or submerged. He looked at his watch. Ninety minutes to nautical twilight, when it would be too dangerous to be on the surface, especially if those tin cans had summoned supporting air. The other consideration was the battery: they could stuff some amps in the can when they made their run to get ahead, but would that be enough to get them through the daylight hours? The wardroom sound-powered phone chirped.

  “Captain.”

  “Captain, Sound reports we have what sounds like two destroyers echo-ranging to the east of us. Recommend we keep going south and get deeper.”

  “Concur; make your depth two hundred feet, or whatever it takes to get below that layer. And slow to three knots.”

  The exec acknowledged. Malachi lit up a cigarette and sat back on his stool. If there were two destroyers out looking for them, he might not get to attack the convoy again. So be it—he’d taken down three tankers. Once the Japs went past in their search, he’d surface and concentrate on replenishing the battery. They’d get a contact report off just before sunrise on the convoy. Maybe there were other boats on their route. He yawned. The COB knocked on the wardroom bulkhead and stepped in.

  “Sandwiches and coffee over there,” Malachi said.

  “Chiefs have their own supply, but thank you, sir. Need a word.”

  “Shoot.”

  The chief sat down in one of the wardroom chairs. He stared down at the table for a moment, choosing his words. “Sir, the crew’s getting scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “You, sir,” the COB said.

  FOURTEEN

  “Okay,” Malachi said. “I’m all ears.”

  “Part of the problem is the way we operated under Captain Russell. His whole emphasis was on keeping the boat safe. Attack if we could, but no unnecessary chances. He said things like he was ‘husbanding’ our resources. We were short on torpedoes, and the ones we were shooting often didn’t work, but they always left a wake. And after Pearl Harbor, the only thing America had to throw at the Japs were the boats, so we had to preserve them.”

  “Go on.”

  “May I speak freely, Captain?”

  “You’re the COB.”

  “Thank you, sir. This thing tonight: surfacing and shooting up tankers with the guns, with four destroyers somewhere nearby. That’s unheard of.”

  “Getting three tankers in one attack is unheard of, too, or so I’m told. You talk to the gun crew?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “They were scared shitless. On the other hand, now they’re pretty proud—three of those tankers went to see the baby Jesus because of them. Then that destroyer started flinging rounds at us and we had to crash dive. They weren’t sure they’d get back inside before the boat submerged. The last guy through the hatch was soaking wet by the time he got it closed. And the twenty-millimeter crew said you threw a set of binocs at them to get them inside.”

  “I assume they were grateful,” Malachi said.

  The COB laughed and shook his head. “Yes, sir, I’m sure they were. Then they started thinking about how close they came to being left topside during a crash dive. With a Jap destroyer coming in, offering a five-inch handshake. One youngster got so shook up he cried for an hour afterward.”

  Malachi nodded but did not say anything. The COB got up, fetched a cup of coffee for himself, refilled Malachi’s cup, and then sat back down. “May I ask where you’re from, Captain?”

  “Floyd County, Kentucky. My father was a hard-rock coal miner. So was I, for a while.”

  “I’ve heard that’s a tough business.”

  “It is.”

  “Often wondered why people do it.”

  “Because they have to, for the most part. No other kind of work in that part of the state. If you’re born into that world your options are pretty limited. I first went underground at thirteen.”

  “Thirteen? That was legal?”

  “The company usually doesn’t ask if you look big and strong enough to do the job, or if your old man’s a miner, as mine was.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  Malachi grunted. “A sympathetic judge offered me a choice,” he replied. “Prison or the armed forces.”

  The COB’s eyebrows went up. Malachi could see that the chief really wanted to ask, but was too smart for that.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I tried for the Army but they had demobilized after World War One, so I signed up in the Navy, became a torpedoman striker, then got selected a year later for the academy prep school. Graduated in nineteen thirty. Went into submarines after a few years on a battlesh
ip, and then spent three and a half years at the Newport Torpedo Station after my first boat. That’s where I met the Mark fourteen.”

  The COB nodded, now understanding Malachi’s knowledge of the troubled torpedo. “Back to the crew, Captain. I understand why we’re really out here. I get it that we’ll have to take chances if we’re gonna get Jap ships. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you might want to talk to the officers and the rest of us along those lines.”

  “I explained this to the wardroom when I came aboard. I explained it earlier this evening to Mr. Caldwell. I would have assumed the word would be out by now.”

  “Well, yes and no, sir. After the first patrol, people sorta pulled into their shells. They’re afraid of screwing up, and maybe they’re finally figuring out what real submarine warfare’s all about. They go into a bar in Perth, yeah, they’re proud of getting Jap cruisers, but when someone asks about you, they say they don’t really know you, other than that nothing scares you. You’ve got a name, by the way.”

  “Do I, now.”

  “Yes, sir. They call you The Iceman.”

  Malachi grinned. The Iceman, indeed.

  “Guys in the conning tower said you sat down and had a ciggy-weed while we waited for the Jap cruiser formation to get closer. Coming in at pretty high speed, too. Said the XO was almost bat-shit when you finally called the dive.”

  Malachi shrugged. The Iceman. He liked it. “Well, COB, if it’s any comfort, I don’t have a death wish, and I’m not deliberately trying to do stupid stuff to show off or make a rep. But I am deadly serious about killing Japs and their ships. Emphasis on that word ‘deadly.’ That’s not gonna change.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand, and I apologize if I’ve stepped over the line.”

  “Not at all, COB. It’s your primary duty. Chief of the boat. You are closer to me in age and professional experience than any of my officers, so I want it straight every time, and my door’s open to you anytime. Or my curtain, I guess.”