Up Periscope Read online

  Table of Contents

  UP PERISCOPE

  I - SUBMARINE Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  II - UP PERISCOPE! Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  III - MIDNIGHT Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  UP PERISCOPE

  Robb White

  * * *

  Copyright ©, 1956, by Robb White

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 56-9060

  All Rights Reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America

  * * *

  For

  M.T.

  I - SUBMARINE

  Chapter 1

  Kenneth M. Braden, lieutenant (junior grade), U.S. Naval Reserve, sat perfectly still and waited for the admiral to finish talking on the telephone.

  From his chair Ken Braden could look down on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor. The battleship California was lying, broken, her decks awash. The Oklahoma had capsized. Only the Nevada s bow was above water. Other ships were rusting, burned-out hulks as a result of the Japanese sneak attack on that Sunday morning almost two years ago. All around the harbor, and on Ford Island in the middle of it, there were signs of bomb damage and fire.

  In spite of all the wreckage and ruined ships there was movement everywhere in the harbor. Ships of all sorts were coming and going or lay tied up at the wharves. On Ford Island, Navy battle planes were landing or taking off—Ken could even see a jeep with a big red sign on the back reading FOLLOW ME scurrying around. And everywhere there was the flickering, hard, bright blink of welding as the damage of war was repaired.

  Close outside the window some myna birds were making a surprising amount of noise as they fought among themselves on the green lawn. But somehow here in the room with the admiral everything was quiet—waiting.

  The admiral kept on talking on the phone. Ken at last crossed his legs, the khaki trousers so starched and firmly pressed that they rattled a little as he moved.

  He glanced again at the chart on the wall. In big letters above it were the words TOP SECRET. Below them, in smaller letters, was SUBMARINE DISTRIBUTION CHART—PACIFIC OCEAN AREA.

  On the pale blue chart there were little flags with names on them, and tiny models of submarines floated here and there.

  The names of the islands on the chart were strange, some harsh, some soft—Eniwetok, Ujelang, Rongelap, Nukuoro.

  Strange names; strange, dangerous, distant places in the wastes of the Pacific.

  The admiral kept on talking and Ken, sitting there waiting, wondered again what he had gotten himself into.

  Weeks ago—in California—he had volunteered for what the commanding officer of the Underwater Demolition School had called only a “job.” There hadn’t been any details about it, just a “job,” but Ken and a lot of the other students had held up their hands.

  But nothing had happened. Weeks went by and no more was said about it. Until—in the middle of the night—a messenger woke him up. In two hours he was in a plane. In a few more hours he was in Hawaii.

  And now, still knowing nothing about the “job,” he waited.

  Ken heard the admiral ask, “What boats are available?” Someone on the other end of the phone answered and the admiral frowned. “Only Wahoo and Shark, eh? Then it’ll have to be Shark.”

  Another pause and the admiral said, “It’ll have to be Shark, Bill. I’m sorry.” Then he hung up and turned back to Ken.

  For half an hour before the phone call the admiral had been talking to him. Just chatting. Where had he gone to college? How long had he been in the Navy? How old was he? How much did he weigh?

  The admiral had not yet even hinted to Ken the reason for his being here; the reason for the quick, secret flight from California.

  Instead the admiral went on chatting. Asking questions. “What sports did you go out for in college, Braden?”

  “Boxing, sir, and lacrosse.”

  “Not swimming?”

  Ken tried to smile. “No, sir. I never was much of a swimmer.”

  “Oh… . Were you a good boxer?”

  “We had a good trainer, sir. He kept us in shape and it showed up in our fights with other schools.”

  The admiral sat down on the corner of his desk and began tapping the side of his shoe with a long wooden pointer. “How many fights did you lose?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Tell me,” the admiral said, “when you volunteered for this job, did they let you know that it was not going to be a picnic?”

  “They just said it was a job, sir.”

  “How many of you volunteered for it?”

  “A lot, sir.”

  “Any idea why the commanding officer chose you, Braden?”

  “No, sir. I wasn’t the best underwater man in my class or anything like that.”

  The admiral tapped his shoe. “Twenty-two of you volunteered, Braden. Tell me, do you remember a girl you met on Shell Beach at La Jolla?”

  Ken hesitated, then remembered. Sally … Sally Johnson? Jenkins? A blonde. Good-looking. Had a brother in the Navy. “Yes, sir.”

  “She asked you a lot of questions.”

  “She was interested, sir. She had a brother in the Navy.”

  The admiral nodded. “And do you remember a man who gave you a lift to Port Hueneme one Sunday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He asked a lot of questions, too.”

  Ken nodded.

  “From the time you volunteered for this job, Braden, until right now you have met a good many people, been asked a good many questions. So did all the others who volunteered. Now IT1 tell you something. All the people you met—the girl at La Jolla, the man who gave you a lift, all of them—were security agents. They asked questions to see if you would answer. You didn’t. Of the twenty-two volunteers you were the only one who didn’t fail the security test. That’s why you were chosen.”

  Instead of making Ken feel proud, it made him feel cold. Whatever it was, it must be big. They wouldn’t waste time like that if it weren’t.

  “Tell me,” the admiral said, “when you were a kid were you always getting into fights with the other kids?”

  Ken tried again to smile. “No, sir. I don’t think I ever had a fight.”

  “Then you’re not very belligerent?”

  “I guess not, sir.”

  The admiral stopped tapping his shoe. “Did you volunteer for this job because your father is a prisoner of the Japanese?”

  “That had a lot to do with it, sir. We haven’t heard anything about him except that he survived the death march from Corregidor.”

  “Your fathers an Army doctor, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My brother’s in the Army, too. He made that death march with your father—and lived. But I don’t know whether he’s still alive. I’m going to find out—with your help, perhaps.”

  The admiral walked over to the chart on the wall and tapped the blue Pacific with a pointer. “All right. All I can tell you about this job is that—if you still want it—it is going to be hard, lonely, and dangerous.” He tapped the chart. “Out here.”

  Ken nodded.

  “It is also important,” the admiral said, pulling a cloth across to completely conceal the chart. “You could lose your fife.”

  Then he turned around.
“Think it over for a while and then let me know. There won’t be any medals for you. Nobody will even know whether you’re a hero or not. It’s just a risky, dirty job which, if you pull it off, will save some fives, save some ships.”

  Ken started to say something, but the admiral stopped him. “If your answer is ‘no’ I’ll understand that and think none the less of you for it.”

  Ken tried to imagine what the job might be but all he could think about was the huge, blank Pacific Ocean.

  The admiral seemed to want him to say something so, at last, Ken said, “How would I—I mean, anybody—get out there, Admiral?”

  “Submarine.”

  Ken couldn’t stop the shiver going up his spine. “Oh,” he said.

  The admiral put the pointer down. “Go think it over, Braden. And, no matter what your decision is, there must be no discussion with anyone about it, nor about what we’ve talked of this morning. I don’t want anybody to know who you are, where you came from, what your training has been. As far as you know, you’re just another j.g. in the officers’ pool waiting assignment. If you talk it may cost you your life.” Ken stood up. “Aye, aye, sir.” His khakis cracked a little as he went out.

  For a moment the admiral stood in the empty room looking at the door Ken had closed behind him. Then he spoke into a squawk box on his desk. In a moment a commander came in carrying a thin sheaf of papers in a folder.

  From the window the admiral watched Ken Braden walking slowly down the hill.

  Without turning from the window the admiral said, “There’s the man we want, Bill. But does he want the job?”

  “Good boy?” the commander asked.

  “Yes. Quiet. Steady. Not the hero type. He’s got a reason, too. His father’s a Jap POW.”

  “I didn’t see him when he came in,” the commander said. “He’s got a good chin,” the admiral said. “Good, level eyes. Big, honest mouth. Weighs one sixty; close to six feet. Boxed in school. Won. He was scared in here, not nervous.”

  “Sounds good. Here’s the Shark’s patrol report, sir.”

  The admiral turned back to the desk.

  At the top of the first piece of paper there was the Navy submarine insignia. Then, under it, L7.S.S. SHARK, Lieutenant Commander Paul Stevenson, U. S. Navy, Commanding.

  The admiral read the pages slowly, finished them, and closed the folder. “Paul Stevenson shot from beyond thirty-five hundred yards,” he said, frowning.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why didn’t he get in closer? He knew he was going to have to take a beating anyway. Why not make it worth while?”

  “I don’t think Paul has gotten—well, the feel of it yet, Admiral.”

  “Do you think he’s a coward, Bill? If he is I want him out of the boats. Right now!*

  The commander hesitated. “Sir, Paul’s boat isn’t really on the ball yet. The crew doesn’t seem to be with him yet—” The admiral interrupted. “This didn’t make the crew admire him—shooting from ’way out there. They must have thought he was scared to get in close and sink that ship.”

  “It might help to pull him and his crew together if he went on this special mission, Admiral. It won’t be rough for the submarine, and it might give Paul a chance to get his feet under him. A chance to build up confidence in his crew.”

  “The Shark’s going to make the trip but I’m not yet sure that Paul Stevenson is going to be her commanding officer,” the admiral said. “A submarine is no place for a man who won’t close the target. Who won’t—fight.”

  “This special mission ought to tell the story one way or the other, Admiral. And, after all, it isn’t like Mush Morton taking the Wahoo into the Sea of Japan. Paul can’t get into anything too dangerous on the mission.”

  “No, I suppose not,” the admiral agreed. “All right, let him go out on it. But if his boat doesn’t come back here with all hands spoiling for a fight, he’s through in the boats.”

  “He’s outside now, Admiral. Do you want to talk to him?”

  The admiral nodded.

  In a moment, Paul Stevenson, commanding Shark, came into the room and closed the door. Paul was pale, thin, his mouth drawn tight and his eyes wary. He sat down in the chair and held his hands in his lap, his fingers wrapped tightly together.

  “You had a lot of hard luck, Paul,” the admiral said.

  “Yes, sir, we did.”

  “On that second attack you shot from thirty-five hundred. That’s pretty far out.”

  “We couldn’t get in any closer, sir. He had destroyers patrolling all around him.” The fingers began to move, gripping and regripping.

  “They gave you a beating.”

  “Terrific, sir.”

  “Since you were going to get that hammering anyway, Paul, wouldn’t you have felt better if you’d closed that tanker and nailed him?”

  For a long time Stevenson sat there staring at the admiral. His eyes grew angry, white lines creased around the corners of his mouth. At last he said, “Do you mean I was afraid to close him?”

  “Not afraid, Paul. Just not mad enough.”

  Stevenson stood up. “Admiral, you don’t know what it’s like out there. It’s murder! Murder.”

  The admiral said quietly, “I know it is, Paul.” He pointed to the blackboard. Chalked on it were the words: OVERDUE AND PRESUMED LOST AS OF 1 JANUARY, 1943. Under that, the list of submarines: Sealion, S-36, S-26, Perch, S-27, S-39, Grunion, Argonaut… Name after name.

  Stevenson said angrily, “You want me to put Shark on that list? You want me to close until they sink me?”

  The admiral was still quiet, still friendly. “No, Paul. I want you to put Shark on the list with Wahoo and Trigger and Tang. I want to see your name up with Mush Morton, Red Ramage, and Done Donaho.”

  “A guy gets lucky and it makes a hero out of him,” Paul said.

  “Or maybe he gets mad. He starts fighting.” The admiral sat down on the desk. “Who’s your Executive Officer, Paul?” “Lieutenant Carney, sir.”

  “Good officer?”

  Stevenson shrugged. “He’s a reserve.”

  The admiral looked at him for a moment, and then said, “I’ve got a job for you, Paul. I’ll tell you more about it later. Right now I want you to get Shark ready for sea.”

  “Right now, sir?”

  The admiral nodded.

  Stevenson waved his hands pitifully. “I’ve just come from sea, Admiral. We’re whipped. We can’t go out again right away.”

  “I’m not sending you into a hot zone, Paul. Just a cruise out to some islands and back again. No roughstuff.”

  Stevenson walked slowly toward the admiral. “Sir, I know that we didn’t sink a ship but we were out there for fifty-seven days. We need rest, sir.”

  The admiral looked at him. “Paul, the only other boat available for this job is Wahoo. She gets in today, and as soon as we can get some good torpedoes in her she’s going back to the Sea of Japan.”

  “When do I have to go out, sir?”

  “As soon as a j.g. makes up his mind,” the admiral said.

  Chapter 2

  It was much hotter in Hawaii than it had been in the States. Ken Braden could feel sweat soaking the starch out of his shirt as he walked slowly down the hill.

  He had never seen so many things growing. All around him there were flowers, green grass, trees, bushes—everything green and growing and loaded with color. And the myna birds were everywhere, acting as though they owned the place.

  There wasn’t much green around Pearl Harbor itself. Mostly gray ships and black wharves and camouflaged dirty gray buildings. It looked messy down there, with bedding being aired on the ship’s life lines, trucks and trains moving around, ships going in and out, and everywhere mountainous piles of gear, provisions, ammunition.

  Ken caught up with a sailor and asked him where the submarines were based.

  “Straight down the hill, sir.”

  He had never seen a submarine outside a newsreel but he had never liked the i
dea of them. Just thinking about it, he could feel the way it must be shut up inside one of them with the black, cold, silent water all around it and pressing in upon it. It would be like being trapped and helpless.

  He went through an archway, showed his pass to the marine at the gate, and went on toward the open water of Pearl Harbor.

  As he walked along he noticed that there wasn’t much of the saluting and other military courtesies that they had had at the training school. Sailors overtook and passed him without any “By your leave, sir,” and others went by without even glancing at him. Everyone seemed to be intent on something and in a hurry. Only he walked slowly, idly along.

  Out on the submarine docks there was a good deal of moving around. A truck drove up and unloaded several sacks of mail, each one with a tag on it saying U.S.S. Wahoo. A group of high-ranking officers were talking beside a building. A gang of musicians, their instruments beside them, were sitting in the thin shade.

  Only one submarine was tied up at the docks. Ken, remembering the admiral talking on the phone about Wahoo and Shark, decided that this must be the Shark. This was the submarine he would ride on—if he went out there.

  Skirting the group of officers, he went along until he was beside the submarine.

  She was old and ugly. The gray paint was peeling off, there was rust, almost red in the sunlight, on her. The long, low, narrow, flat fore- and afterdecks were cluttered with gear of all sorts and full garbage cans stood on the fantail.

  She lay low in the dirty water and looked like something dead except that, from somewhere inside her, gouts of water were pulsing out of her as though she were breathing.

  Ken stood for a long time looking at this boat. All of his horror at the idea of submarines came back strong.

  There were only sailors on the deck, moving listlessly. Ken could hear no sound from inside her. She seemed, in her dirt and rust and ugliness, to have been abandoned by the Navy —like the battleships lying in the mud over by Ford Island.

  But as Ken stood there a man at last came out of a deck hatch and wandered toward the gangplank between the boat and the dock.