under Jim’s command. Everything he had done these last several days, every thought he had had, every word he had said, clearly demonstrated his unreadiness for that type of added responsibility. And yet, there was no denying that he was a fine submariner, all-in-all an asset to the Navy, and that he would not be in this situation had I not, for my own advantage, put him in it.
No matter how I argued it, it all came back to the same thing. I had to choose between sacrificing the S-16 or Jim. In either case, I was really the one to blame and there was not a thing in the world that anyone could do about that. As our sorry little procession wound its way between the bunks in the forward end of the battery compartment toward the wardroom and Jim’s and my stateroom, I went over and over the situation in my mind. There was only one thing to do, and it was up to me.
When we reached the curtain in the doorway I turned to Jim. “Come in a minute, will you, Jim?” I said. The others, sensing their dismissal, went on. Jim stepped with me into our little room, automatically reached for a cigarette. He avoided my eyes as he offered me one. I ignored it. This was going to be tough.
“Jim,” I said, “I’m more sorry than I can possibly tell you. I’ll take over. I want you to start us back for New London. I’ll explain to the board.”
Jim had just taken a deep drag. With his lungs full of tobacco smoke he at first seemed not to hear, and then as it sank home he choked. “Why, you—you—” he gobbled for a moment, unable to speak. He threw the cigarette on the floor, stamped it furiously, opened and shut his mouth twice without a word. When he finally found his voice, his words were in direct contradiction of every naval tradition, everything he had learned, all the indoctrination the Navy had exposed him to. He spoke in a manner which no self-respecting person could forgive or forget, no commander of a United States man-of-war could condone. And yet I couldn’t do any more to him after what I had already done. I had to take it, had to let him get away with it, had to swallow the sudden sick indignation.
“You Goddammed son-of-a-bitch,” he said.
Laura Elwood entered my life at the tag end of a nerve-shattering day in mid-August, shortly after the S-16 arrived in New London from the Philadelphia Navy Yard. One of old Joe Blunt’s maxims had always been that no officer of the Navy worth his salt ever needed a drink to settle his problems—but this was one time that I did, and I didn’t care who knew it. An hour before I had supervised the final operations in tying the boat up to her usual dock in the river, and as soon as I could get rid of a few essential items of paperwork I headed for our tiny shower. Jim, from the appearance of our stateroom, had preceded me; we passed each other, draped in towels, as I headed forward. He halted, made a tremendous pretense of clicking his bare heels together, and raised his right hand in a caricature of a Nazi salute.
“Heil, Führer! I took a good look and there’s not a scratch on me, so can I have permission to go ashore?”
Jim was obviously trying a little, but the absurdity of his salutation could not help but make me chuckle. “Sure,” I said. “After today I think I’ll do the same.” He strutted down the passageway between the bunks, teetering from one side to another. When I got back he was already dressed and gone.
Along with several other boats, S-16 had gone out into Long Island Sound for the so-called “graduation approach” of a group of Ensign students then nearing the end of their accelerated three months’ course at the submarine school. Five torpedoes had been loaded aboard, each one made ready by the Ensign who was to fire it. While he was doing so, the other four members of the party would take over the supporting assignments: Assistant Approach Officer, Banjo Officer, Diving Officer, and in nominal charge at the tubes. Our own crew, of course, would be standing by at the remaining stations necessary to operate the ship, and I, as skipper, held the responsibility of “Safety Officer.”
Approximately fifty per cent of the grade the trainee would receive for the course depended upon the proper functioning of his torpedo, his conduct of the submerged approach leading up to firing it, and, most importantly, where that torpedo passed with relation to the target. It was a crucial test for each trainee and it was important to the S-16, too, since it was to be our first “shoot” for the school. Jim and Keith had labored most of the previous day and far into the night with our torpedo gang, checking our tubes and associated equipment.
As far as the first four fish were concerned, we need not have worried. Two of them passed under the target and the other two, though wide misses, were the results of poor approach technique. When our fifth and last approach began, however, it was late in the day. Considerable time had been lost with both of the bad shots, since each had to be pursued and hauled aboard the converted motor launch acting as retriever before the approach following could begin. And if one could judge by the length of time required to locate them, Roy Savage in S-48, with whom we shared the target’s services, must have had one or two bad ones himself.
Our target was the old four-stack destroyer Semmes, and her job was simple; merely run back and forth between two submarines five miles apart, and help chase the torpedoes at each end. Since Roy was senior, the odd-numbered runs were his, and, of course, he had chosen for his initial point the one nearer the entrance of the Thames River channel. When the Semmes squared away for the tenth and last run, our fifth, S-48 was already well on her way back to port and every minute she ran for us carried her double that time directly away from her own comfortable dock in the submarine base. I think we all expected the target to crank up the maximum speed permitted and to make the run as short as she could. Everyone, that is, except the tensely anxious officer student waiting to shoot his torpedo.
His approach was doctrinaire; he looked through the periscope every three minutes regardless of when the target’s zigs took place, and we ran first one way and then the other—and succeeded in remaining practically stationary near the spot at which we had originally dived. Even so, it looked as though he might attain a favorable firing position no matter what he did, for Semmes was coming right down the initial bearing line, zigzagging regularly an equal amount to either side. It would be difficult not to get in a shot, in fact, and this was doubtless what the skipper of the Semmes had in mind.
The school instructor, a Lieutenant named Hansen who had recently come from being Exec of the Barracuda in Coco Solo, looked my way and shrugged. He pointed with a grin to the sweat-streaming face of the toiling student, made as if to wipe off his own, looked at his wrist watch, shrugged again. We were all anxious to get it over with, for it was hot in the control room. All of us were perspiring freely, moving about in a fetid atmosphere which reminded me of nothing so much as the fogged interior of the glass jar in which as a child I had once sealed a half-dozen inoffensive bugs.
The periscope rose out of its well, reached the top of its travel, and stopped. Standing bolt upright before it, the Approach Officer reached for the handles, folded them down into operating position, then gingerly applied his eye to the guard.
“Bearing—Mark,” he said.
The acting Assistant Approach Officer read it for him, then turned back to fiddling with the Is-Was.
The Approach Officer jiggled the periscope back and forth with little taps with the heel of his left hand, his right hand cranking the range crank back and forth. “Range—Mark,” he finally said.
“Two-four-double-oh!” read the yes-man, breaking away from the Is-Was and searching the range dial with his finger.
The Approach Officer was named Blockman, and so far as I could tell the name suited him. Rivulets of sweat running down his face and into the open neck of his sodden uniform shirt, he put up the handles of the ’scope and turned away. The yes-man fumbled for the pickle button hanging nearby on its wire, pressed it, started the periscope back into its well. It had been up nearly a full minute.
Hansen and I exchanged glances. Nearly at the firing point, the supposed enemy hardly more than a mile way, the surface of the sea smooth and calm—and the periscope up in full view for a minute! On the other side of the control room Jim winked as I