Chapter 8 Chapter VII

On rough seas, before dawn, the American submarine USS Squid was breaking through the waves of Lingayen Bay along the west coast of Luzon Island during the morning shift.Byron was wearing a sticky raincoat, standing next to the gyro repeater, on the small bridge.Every time the foredeck sank, warm black spray hit him in the face.Looking over, the surveillance posts were just silent figures.They won't be dozing off tonight, Byron thought.Aside from his awareness that they were plunging into a tiger's den and stealthily prowling, Byron's first wartime night watch as an "officer of duty" was like any other night watch in normal times—nothing more than Standing on the windy, wet, swaying bridge, looking out into the darkness, there was no movement, and the time seemed long and empty.

When it comes to throwing himself into the tiger's den, he knows better than ordinary sailors.This voyage is not so much a combat readiness reconnaissance as it is a suicidal mission.Esther pointed out to him the depths of the shallow waters marked on the charts of Lingayen Bay, and the coral reefs that nearly closed the entrance to the bay.There is a clear population to the east, but it's full of Japanese anti-submarine ships.If an American submarine is particularly lucky, sneaks past a Japanese anti-submarine ship, fires a torpedo, attacks a troop transport ship, and stabs the hornet's nest of the entire invading army at once-well, from this moment on, As Esther said, the life in the submarine will not be so easy, and it will not be too long.

All of this, Byron thinks it makes sense.But the submarine commanded by Pullen went deep into Scapaflo and sank the "Royal Oak". Didn't he also risk his life and death?The German submarine captain succeeded in one fell swoop, returned safely and became a hero. He was warmly welcomed in the country, and Hitler even awarded him a medal himself.Now, a lone submarine, advances through the darkness toward the vast hostile army that controls the skies and seas.The sight excited Byron beyond measure.It might be a stupid feeling, he knew, but it was a real feeling.Apparently, the vice-captain felt the same way.Tonight, Qatar.Esther was smoking a long brown Havana.That showed that he had a lot of energy; usually he only smoked bad gray Filipino cigars.As for Captain Huban, the eagerness to go into battle brought him almost to a state of excitement.

Byron was no longer angry with his superiors.The captain had crushed him badly, but now it seemed.It was still his own fault for being angry.He was so lazy, so childish.blanche.Huban was a master at leading submarines.This point was proved again last time: he let the submarine pass through the newly laid torpedo zone in Manila Bay like stepping on a thorn. The torpedo was deployed to stop the Japanese submarine.He was also a skilled engineer, his hands working with diesel engines.Very agile, not afraid of getting dirty, and not afraid of being stinged by acid in the battery.His shortcoming is nothing more than that, like any hard-working student from the Naval Academy, he is eager to make meritorious service, is extremely rigid about daily paperwork, and often has something to honor the "four stripes" and admirals.so what?He once won awards such as "excellent" in the maneuvers of manipulating the wheels and launching torpedoes.When it comes to war, these two hands cannot be taken lightly.Huban was a trustworthy foreman now as he sailed towards the enemy.

Dongfang spat out fish-white, and the captain stepped onto the small bridge to look at the gloomy night sky. "'Mrs.' advocates diving at six o'clock. Visibility is so poor, why should we go into the water? It's far from Lingaying Bay. I'm not going to crawl there. Three nautical miles an hour, Let the 'Salmon' and 'Dolphin' attack ahead of us. In addition, deploy four more surveillance posts, search the sky uninterruptedly, and advance at full speed." "Yes, captain." It was dawn. The Squid whirled and chugged along at twenty knots amid the wind-driven gray waves, making one want to throw up.Huban drank one cup after another of coffee, held a cigarette with four fingers, and smoked one after another, his body was wet by the waves, but he didn't care.When Byron came down from the surveillance post, he saw Esther buried in a nautical chart in the conning tower, biting an extinguished cigar thoughtfully.Byron greeted him: "Good morning!" He just hummed in his throat as a promise.

"What's on your mind, 'ma'am'?" Esther glanced sideways at the helmsman and growled: "How do we know that the Japanese planes don't have radars? They catch you off guard everywhere—these yellow monkey cubs. Besides, did you think of the Japanese submarines?" ? In broad daylight, we are just a living target. I want to get to Lingayen Bay as soon as possible. But I want to get there." Byron glanced at the nautical chart over Esther's shoulder.The peninsula sticks out from the body of Luzon to the northwest like a thumb on a yellow glove. The tiger's mouth between the "thumb" and "hand", the "U"-shaped piece of blue, is Renyayin Bay.Looking at the route on the map, the submarine has reached the middle of the "thumb".According to the planned route, after passing the "fingertip", turn east, drive straight along the coral reefs and shoals, then turn south, and then go south along the thumb, and finally arrive at the beach where the enemy is scheduled to land Position - the closest point to Manila.

"Hey, 'Ma'am, have you ever heard of Kens. Pullen?" "Never heard of it. The German who sank the Emperor Oak at Scarpaflo. What about him?" "He gave a lecture in Berlin, and I went to listen to it." Byron stretched out a finger and scratched along the coral reef on the map. "That's the kind of thing he used to go through, get into Scapa Flow, find a gap, and slip through the water." Esther turned his long-jawed face to Byron, and saw his chest crinkled, the corners of his mouth curled up, and with a strange sneer, he said, "Branney, Henry, you can't wait to polish your medal Right? You?"

"Hey, if we can get across the reef, we can reach our goal sooner, can't we? That way we can avoid the destroyers at the entrance of the harbor." Esther's sneering face was gone.He reached for the coastal navigation manual. Ah Yi Woo Ga!Ah Yiming!Ah Yi Woo Ga! "Dive, dive, dive." The rumble of the whole boat resounded through Blanche.Huban's urgent yet calm voice.The decks head straight for the water.The sailors at the surveillance post suddenly fell into the wet elevator hatch, followed by the officer on duty, the captain, and the last one was the flight signal officer. He slammed the hatch door and locked it with hooks.Byron heard the familiar hiss and sigh; it seemed that the submarine was a living monster, breathing heavily; he felt the pressure of the air on his eardrums.Then I heard the chief engineer shouting loudly from below: "The boat is pressurized!"

The "Squid" slowed down, burrowed lazily into the deep water, and made the sound of water openly. Huban wiped his dripping face. "Whitey. Pringle spotted a low-flying black shadow of an airplane. Maybe it's just a seagull. Pringle has good eyesight. I don't argue, the sun's coming up anyway, 'ma'am. Dive down to three hundred feet and keep level sailing." "Yes, Captain," Esther agreed. Byron slid unsteadily into the wheelhouse below and made his way on the forward-sloping deck.The small lights on the port bulkhead twinkled like Christmas trees in a flash of green, showing the condition of every window and door opening in the hull.The level helmsman holds the big steering wheel and keeps his eyes on the depth gauge calmly.Here, there is no trace of pre-battle anxiety.

"Drain the negative tank to the target!" Byron paid little attention to the usual set of work procedures.In the torpedo compartment at the front, he saw squad leader Hanson and his men loading warheads on the two torpedoes newly delivered to the boat.Byron's eyes hurt; he hadn't slept since leaving Manila, but he had to check for himself that the torpedoes were ready to launch at the sound of the order.Hanxun reported that all six torpedo tubes at the bow had been loaded with torpedoes; each "fish" had been checked in accordance with working procedures; new secret detonators could be inserted into warheads at any time.Racks along the bulkhead held a row of yellow dummy bullets, which in peacetime were filled with water and used for shooting practice.The compressed air will squeeze all the water out of the warhead, and the torpedo will surface for recovery.The unpainted iron warheads, filled with TNT, were now mounted on the torpedo warheads.It is impossible to explode without a detonator, but when Byron saw the sailors dealing with these gray warheads, they were always trembling and respectful, afraid of their potential lethality and destructive power.

Byron was crouching in a bunk above a torpedo, drinking coffee with the torpedo crew, when Captain Esther appeared. "My God, Braney, he's going to try it." "try what?" "Try your idea. He's been studying charts and directions. We're going to surface and look for breaches in the reef. He wants to talk to you about the German submarine captain's speech." At noon in the golden light, the black nose of the submarine emerged from the surface of the sea.Byron staggered onto the bumpy, foam-slick foredeck, that is, into a patch of bright, hot sunlight.Lookout posts and sounders in their bulging life jackets staggered after him.He couldn't help but glanced at the blue sky without a single cloud.After staying in the turbid air under the cabin for a while, the fresh sea breeze always makes people feel very beautiful, especially today, because I am about to plunge into the tiger's den, the feeling of beauty is even more vivid.Straight ahead, the dark sea melted into green shallows, and there was a roar of foaming surf that lapped at the projectile palm islets and brown jagged rocks.White gulls screamed over the submarine. "One-third horsepower, slow down! Throw the sounding hammer!" Huban shouted from the bridge.Huban's shouts were drowned out by the clamor of the waves lapping heavily on the hull, and the breakers roaring on the sand.Coral reefs poke out of the deep—pink spirals, round gray domes. The Squid was heading for the gap between two small rocky islands. "Mark! Four fathoms, starboard!" Byron saw the piece of yellow coral fine sand under the water slowly rising obliquely, and above it were densely swaying sea fans.The ballast water had been drained, and the "Squid" had a draft of thirteen feet. "Mark! Three fathoms, port!" eighteen feet.There was still a good five feet of water under the keel.The submarine bumped so badly with the waves that Byron and his crew couldn't stand still, and their bodies were wet by the waves.The smaller island drifted closer and closer, and I could count the coconuts on the trees.On the bridge, on the bull-nosed prow, on the fish-tailed stern, lookouts were scanning the sky with binoculars.Yet in this vast sunlit landscape of air, water, palms, and rocks, the only sign of man was the grotesque black ship that rose from the depths of the ocean. "Shut down all engines!" On the bridge, Esther cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, "Fifteen feet up the echo sounder, Blaney! What do you see?" Byron, drenched all over, walked forward with slippery steps, waving his hands forward. "No problem! Keep moving forward!" He shouted loudly. It turned out that he passed through the gap, and the color of the sea water turned blue again.On both sides of the submarine, the rough surf continued to pound the brown, pitted rocks, and when the breaking waves died away, they left a white foam. The propeller cut through the waves; a huge wave rolled by, lifting the boat and dropping it. The "Squid" made a metallic crunching sound, shuddered, and staggered forward.Islands slid by, and Byron caught the faint scent of palm leaves—the palms were so close that the hat could be hit with a sharp toss of the hat. "Four fathoms, port!" "Four fathoms, starboard!" Clusters of coral heads drifted beneath the boat like anchor mines, deeper and deeper.At this time, the bow of the boat was heading straight for the blue water.Amid the crashing and splashing of the surf, the captain could only be heard shouting happily: "Take down the sounders and surveillance posts! Get ready to dive!" Byron stood in the cabin, naked, with a pile of soaked clothes under his feet, which he was using.A dirty coarse towel to dry himself off.Esther poked her head in, grinning wide, her green eyes shining like emeralds. "How about this one? Well done!" "You found the gap," Byron said. "Lucky too. That chart is so fucking unclear. Thanks to the pilots on the patrol plane eating their midday 'hot pot' or something." "What happened? Are we stranded?" "The starboard propeller hit a cluster of coral heads. The crankshaft is unharmed. The captain is overjoyed, Blaney. Take a break." Yawning again and again, Byron climbed onto the musty, hot bed.He thought to himself, this time, the "Squid" has gone into a dead pit, and it will be very difficult to break free.But that's for the captain to worry about.He cut off his train of thought as if turning off a light--Byron could do this, to the great advantage of his muscular frame, though it often pissed his father, his admiral, for it-- The child fell asleep. A shaking, a hoarse whisper woke him up.He smelled the breath of a tobacco chewer—it was Sergeant Major Dellinger in the boat. "On combat posts, Mr. Henry." "What?" Byron drew back the curtain, and the dim light from the corridor revealed a face with two chins and a strong smell of smoke, facing him. "Is it just a combat position?" "Shut up." "Oh." At this moment, through the thin hull, Byron could hear the sound of tumbling water under the hull, as well as a ping, which was sharp, slight, and trembling.This sound is familiar from the attack training ship during sea exercises.The current echo-ranging sound is different: higher-pitched, more trembling, with a special timbre. is the enemy. They were driving quietly, he realized that.The ventilation was turned off.The air is suffocating.The wrinkles on Sergeant Major Dellinger's fat face were drawn tight with worry and excitement.Byron held out his hand excitedly.The chief engineer shook Byron's hand with his big callused hand, and left.Byron looked at his watch and saw that he had slept for an hour. Whenever in combat readiness, he serves as a diving officer.He hurried to his combat post and was relieved to see that everyone in the control room was calmly doing their job.The bow and stern levelers watched the depth gauges by the large steering wheel, Dellinger and his plotters huddled around the automatic dead reckoning tracer; Whitey.Pringle stood by the trim adjuster, just as he would during the peacetime maneuvers outside Pearl Harbor.They've been through it a thousand times.Now, Byron thought, he saw the benefits of Huban's monotonous practice schedule.Esther was smoking a long, fragrant Havana.Standing with the sergeant major, watching the plot gradually being drawn.The echo rangefinder was getting louder; the jumble of thrusters was getting louder.Ensign Quinn was standing on the diving officer's post.Of all the people in the control room, he was the only one with wide-eyed eyes and trembling lips.Quinn is not yet a member of the team. He has just encountered a shipwreck, and he has not been out of submarine school for a long time.Thinking of this, Byron didn't blame him anymore, he changed Quinn's shift. "'Madam', when did this sudden change come?" "We picked up these babies with 'sonar' at about nine thousand yards or so. All of a sudden. We must have just come through a thermosphere." "It sounds like the other side has come in a large number," Byron said. "It sounded like there was a whole batch of goddamn landing troops. The reflection waves of these things stretched up to a hundred degrees. I couldn't tell what it was before I used it." Esther briskly boarded the ladder of the conning tower, As he walked past Byron, he gave him a firm grip on the shoulder. Byron pricked up his ears to hear what Esther and the captain were whispering in the conning tower.An order came from the microphone, in Huban's confident voice, calm and tense: "Brani, go up to seventy feet and no higher, do you hear? Seventy feet." "Seventy feet. Yes, captain." Level helmsmen turned the wheel. The "Squid" tilted up.The index on the depth gauge is constantly rising.The noise outside was louder: the ping-ping of the sonar, the rattling of the propellers, and it was now clear that the sound was coming from the front. "Seventy feet, captain." "Very well. Now, Braney, listen carefully. I want number one to keep raising the number two periscope." The captain's voice was firm, but lowered.-Then I want you to go up exactly a foot and level for a while--one more foot, and level for a while--just like we did when we last attacked the Lichfield.Take it easy, you understand? " "It's the captain." The thin barrel of the attacking periscope behind Braney rose quietly, and finally stopped. "Up to sixty-nine feet, captain." "very good." Keep sailing level.paused. "Up to sixty-eight feet, captain." The two level helmsmen were the strongest sailors on board, and they made a perfect pair.Spiller—the freckled Texan—has a “fuck” in his mouth; and Marino—a no-nonsense Italian from Chicago—perpetually hangs a Jesus around his neck. The Calvary never even said "Damn it"; but they worked together like twins as they worked, making the sub rise steadily inch by inch. "Good! Hold this height! That's it!" Huban raised his voice, loudly, almost fanatically. "Boy! My God! Mark! Forty degrees to starboard at leading edge approach angle. Lower periscope!" There was a silence.There was a crackling sound from the speakers. "Ping—ping—" The voice of the captain spread throughout the silent submarine, the voice was calm, but with the passion of fighting: "all officers and men pay attention. My boat has spotted three large transport ships in a column, escorted by two destroyers , a compass point on the bow on the port side. On all these warships, the flag of the sun is flying and can be seen clearly. There is a bright sun on the water over there. Exactly! I will take the quadrature heading. Bow Torpedo tubes at the ready." Byron felt hot pinpricks in his shoulders and arms.He heard Aster and the captain arguing about range.The periscope behind him popped up suddenly, then retracted.I only heard a quick discussion in the conning tower about the height of the masthead, followed by the captain urging the flight signal officer to give him the identification manual.The sound of the echo-range finder grew louder and shriller, and the sound of the propeller grew louder.Byron used to use the torpedo launch data computer, so the trigonometry relationship came naturally to his mind.On the automatic dead reckoning tracer, the problem was clearly posed: the "Squid" was represented by a moving dot of light, and the course of the enemy ship and the course of the submarine were represented by two centripetal pencil lines.But the target's route is zigzag.These transport ships are advancing in a zigzag.They were still out of range of the torpedoes, according to Este's estimate; or, in the captain's judgment, barely within range.Both of them were experts at guessing distances from the height of the masthead.In submarines, there are no more accurate rangefinders than theirs.The transport ships were zigzagging, much faster than the crawling subs. The commanding tower was silent.The whole boat was silent.Now all the sound came from outside the boat, the noise of the machinery, the sound of the Japanese ship's sonar exploring. Ping!Ping!Ping -!Ping -! "Periscope up. Yes, they're coming! They're turning! Mark! Distance 4,500 yards. Mark! Bearing zero twenty. Mark! Leading edge approach angle seventy degrees starboard. Lower periscope!" Pause for a while.The captain's lowered and urgent voice came from the public address system: "Now, all officers and men, I am ready to launch. Open the outer cover of the bow launch tube." His original voice in the conning tower: "Damn! Very good target, 'ma'am, but out of range. We're having trouble getting close to the Japanese ship at this leading edge angle. Bad luck!" "Captain, why can't we release the torpedoes slowly and follow for a while? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They take the 'zigzag' route, and the forward speed slows down. Maybe I OJ can catch up and shorten the distance. " "No, no, no. Our chance is here, ma'am. They're going fifteen miles an hour at full throttle. If they turn around again, we'll miss the bastards. I've got Attacking the target, I also have an attack plan, and I plan to launch it now." "Yes, sir." "The outer cover of the launch tube is open, sir!" "Good. Slow launch!" Byron was so preoccupied with maintaining the prescribed depth that he hardly noticed that this time it was a real shot:—not a fake torpedo with a yellow warhead, but a torpedo loaded with a TNT warhead. A transport ship full of Japanese soldiers.Except for the different sounds from the sonar and the almost breathless tension, This is no different from offensive training in naval schools, or maneuvers at sea!Now the situation follows the familiar old Lu Zi, how fast it develops.Huban even got a "superior" for hitting the USS Lichfield using this slow launch. "Raise the periscope! Mark the bearing zero-two-five. Distance: 4,000 yards. Lower the periscope!" With a slow launch, it is more difficult to aim, there are more opportunities for mistakes, and the wake of the torpedo is more likely to be detected by the enemy.This was the first time that Huban launched a torpedo at a slow speed during the war. There was really no choice but to make this decision.He has been a naval officer for fifteen years, and a submariner who has done a very good job in peacetime for ten years. With such a deep foundation, he can come up with this idea... Byron's heart was beating wildly, and his mouth was as dry as a knife. Filled with a mouthful of dust... "Shoot one!...Shoot two!...Shoot three!...Shoot four!" As usual, there was a turbulence and a sound of water waves, and the torpedoes were launched from the "Squid" one by one. "Raise the periscope. Boy. Four wakes! Four beautiful wakes, hot and straight, everything is normal. Lower the periscope!" On the entire "Squid", there was another burst of wordless, heart-stopping anticipation.Byron watched the second hand of the clock in the control room.According to the last shouted distance, it is not difficult to calculate the time to hit the target with a slow launch. "Raise the periscope!" There was a long silence.The time required for all four torpedoes to hit their targets elapsed.Byron froze in panic.It didn't hit the target, and the periscope has surfaced for {seconds, and it's still there!The maximum safe exposure is six seconds. "Periscope lowered. Missed four, 'ma'am. His grandma's," said the captain sadly. "There were at least two wakes that should have gone under the lead transport. I saw them go straight. I don't know what's wrong. Now they spotted the wakes and turned around. The last One of the destroyers is coming towards us, look at how hard it is breaking through the waves! We speed up, ten knots per hour." He leaned into the microphone and called: "Byron! Dive to two hundred and fifty foot." Over the speakers, his voice became muffled and awkward. "Now, all officers and soldiers, quickly prepare for the depth bomb attack." Two hundred and fifty feet?In nowhere in Lingayen Bay is the depth more than one hundred and seventy feet.The captain's order was impossible to carry out, which surprised Byron and didn't know what to do.Thanks to Esther who intervened, his tone was very relaxed. "You mean one hundred and fifty feet, captain. That's almost down to the bottom of the mud here." "That's right. Thank you, 'Ma'am'—one hundred and fifty feet, Byron." There was such a silent jerk of the hull as it accelerated, and the sub cocked its tail and sank.Esther spoke again. "Which course, captain?" It was a silly question to ask, but Huban did not give the order for the all-important evasive turn.On the sea above the submarine's head, there are four neat torpedo wakes with white bubbles pointing directly at the "Squid".The destroyer must have been rushing along this visible trajectory at a speed of forty knots an hour.The pitch of the echo range finder was high enough to scream.Narrowband pulse signals are becoming more frequent and rapid; ping, ping, ping, ping! "Course? Oh, yes, yes, full rudder left! Turn to—oh, turn 270." "Left to two seven zero, sir," called the helmsman. A submerged submarine faces sideways.The sound of the approaching Japanese warship sounded similar to that of the "Litchfield" maneuver, only louder and full of anger, but this was probably Byron's imagination; Coming on the loose old rails: clack... da... clack, clack... clack... clack... clack... clack! On the whole "Squid", only the sound of shouting, the slamming of the door, and the clang of the screw buckle of the highest sealing degree can be heard. The destroyer came closer, passed just overhead—clack...da...clack-clack...clack...clack-clack...clack...cluck-passed. The pitch of the sonar dropped.The pale faces in the control room turned to look at each other. Byron heard a crisp click, as if a ball bearing had broken off the hull of the submarine.There was another second of silence, and then the depth charges exploded.