MARCH ANSON and SCOOT BAILEY
OF THE
U. S. NAVY
_Story by_
GREGORY DUNCAN
_Illustrated by_
HENRY E. VALLELY
FIGHTERS
FOR
FREEDOM
_Series_
WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
RACINE, WISCONSIN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1944, by
WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Printed in U.S.A._
All names, characters, places, and events
in this story are entirely fictitious.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Farewell to the _Plymouth_ 11
II. Back to School 26
III. Fifty Pounds of Pressure 38
IV. Underwater Escape 51
V. First Dive 66
VI. A Real Submariner 83
VII. Orders to Report 95
VIII. _Kamongo_ 106
IX. Destination— 122
X. Through the Canal 131
XI. Under Way Again 143
XII. Visit to Wake Island 155
XIII. Scoot Meets Two Zeros 169
XIV. Crash Landing 186
XV. Find the Convoy! 201
XVI. Downed at Sea 219
XVII. Attack! 231
XVIII. Depth Charges 242
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
“She Was a Swell Ship!” Said Scoot 10
“Going to the Sub Base, Sir?” 31
They Filed into the Pressure Chamber 45
Hand Over Hand He Ascended 59
They Watched From the Dock 73
They Inspected the Torpedo Room 89
The Sub Set Off and Submerged 101
“They’ve Made You a Lieutenant!” 113
The Skipper Was at the Door 127
The Big Freighter Came Head On 135
“I Want You to Take Over Ray’s Job!” 149
He Adjusted the Eyepiece and Looked 161
Some Fighters Stayed With the Carrier 177
A Two-Motored Flying Boat Came at Them 193
March Pounded Scoot on the Back 207
The Skipper Was Still Unconscious 225
He Tied Himself to the Strut 233
Scoot Appeared in the Doorway 245
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“She Was a Swell Ship!” Said Scoot_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARCH ANSON
and
SCOOT BAILEY
of the U. S. Navy
CHAPTER ONE
FAREWELL TO THE _PLYMOUTH_
The launch purred smoothly across the calm waters of the harbor, making
for the Navy Yard pier. Their feet braced against the slow roll of the
boat, two young men stood looking at the huge gray ship they had just
left.
“I’m beginning to have my doubts,” Scoot Bailey said almost to himself.
“Same here,” the other replied. March Anson was shorter than his
friend, but more solidly and compactly built. His gray-blue eyes were
steady and cool, matching the set of his jaw, but the crinkling lines
at their corners showed that this apparently serious young man spent a
good deal of time smiling or laughing.
“She was a swell ship,” Scoot said sadly.
“_Was!_” exclaimed March. “She still is! Just because Bailey and Anson
have left her, don’t you think she can carry on any longer?” A slow
smile spread over his face as he turned to look at his friend. But
Scoot was serious.
“Oh, sure, March,” he replied. “But she’s out of our lives now. She’s
past tense for us. And—well, she’s been just about everything to us for
a year now—home, mother, and sweetheart!”
“I know what you mean,” March said. “And it’s natural for us to wonder
if we’ve done the right thing in being transferred. Right now we’re
looking at what we’re leaving. In another ten minutes we’ll be
concentrating on what we’re going to!”
Scoot Bailey turned around and sat down.
“I’m going to start right now,” he grinned. “No use getting sentimental
about the old _Plymouth_ at this point. I’m going to start thinking
about the _Lexington_ or the _Shangri-La_ or whatever aircraft carrier
I’ll be on in a few months.”
“Good idea,” March agreed, sitting beside the tall and gangling young
man who now stared ahead at the Navy Yard. “But that’s one trouble
right now, Scoot. Neither one of us knows exactly where he’ll be. If
you knew exactly what ship you’d be attached to, you could make your
thoughts more specific. When you get there, you know you’ll love her
just as much as you’ve loved the _Plymouth_—more, in fact, because
you’ll be flying at last!”
“Yes, I know, but what about you?” Scoot asked. “I still can’t figure
out why you want to be a pigboat man. And what can you dream about now
as you look into the future? The name of some fish, that’s all.”
“Sure, subs are named after fish,” March replied. “And they have some
swell names, too—the _Barracuda_, the _Dolphin_, the _Spearfish_, the
_Amberjack_!”
“Yes, they sound all right,” Scoot grinned. “But what if you’re
assigned to the _Cod_ or the _Herring_ or the _Shad_? No, I can’t
figure out what you see in those stuffy, cramped, oversized bathtubs!”
This light-hearted argument had been going on ever since March Anson
and Scoot Bailey had been in the Navy together. Neither one minded the
jibes of the other, but the dispute as to the respective merits of air
and underwater craft never ended.
“Cozy and snug,” March said stoutly, “that’s what subs are! Not cramped
and stuffy! Why—they’re all air-conditioned now!”
“Maybe so,” Scoot said, shaking his head, “but no air-conditioning can
match the clear blue sky a couple of miles up there where I’ll be
flying! Boy—what a chance! Just what I’ve always wanted!”
Their departure from the cruiser _Plymouth_ was forgotten now as they
thought of their futures. Only one aspect of that future was rarely
mentioned by either of them, and they tried not to think too much about
it. In their new activities they would not be together—these two who
had been inseparable friends for so many long years.
They had met in the first year of high school, back in that small Ohio
city which now, during war, seemed so many miles and so many years
away. Scoot had lived in Hampton all his life, but March had just moved
there from the farm which his mother had sold when his father died. A
widow with a son only thirteen years old could not run a 160-acre farm,
she had decided, not if her son was to get the education she had
determined he would have.
So the farm had been sold, and Mrs. Anson and her young son had moved
to the near-by city of Hampton. March started high school, and his
mother went back to teaching, her profession before she married Clement
Anson and settled down to farm life. The money from the farm sale was
tucked away in the bank, to be forgotten until the time came for March
to enter college.
March and Scoot had sat next to each other in the big assembly hall of
Hampton High School on the first day. They had taken to each other at
once and from that time had been the closest of friends. Some people
had wondered at the deep friendship of these two who, in some ways,
seemed so different. Scoot had always been a noisy and boisterous kid,
eager for any activity that meant speed, excitement, and a little bit
of danger. The more conservative parents shook their heads and called
him a little “wild” although he never got into serious trouble.
March Anson, on the other hand, was quiet and serious. On the farm he
had worked hard and had learned the value of hard work. In school he
studied thoroughly and carefully. Even in sports he was serious,
playing games as though he looked on them as work, not as pleasure.
But March and Scoot recognized in each other at once the hidden
qualities that lay beneath the surface indications of their character.
Scoot saw that March really enjoyed life tremendously. He just didn’t
whoop and shout about it. He felt a thrill of pleasure in a tough
football game played hard. He loved the talk and chatter of a gang of
boys discussing the game afterward, even though he spent more time
listening than talking himself. He liked the school dances, even though
he was somewhat timid with girls and danced so quietly that he stood
out in contrast to the majority of wildly capering youngsters.
Scoot learned to appreciate the slow smile that spread over March’s
face when he was enjoying himself. When something amusing happened, he
could look at March and see the twinkle in his eye that others seemed
to miss.
In the same way, March saw that beneath Scoot’s noisy impulsiveness
there was a great deal of calm courage, a daring that had in it nothing
of foolhardiness but—on the contrary—a good deal of confidence. Scoot
had a serious side that none of his friends, until March came along,
had penetrated. He never seemed to study much, but his grades were
always good. That was because Scoot never announced, “No, I can’t do
that—I have to go home and study now.” Scoot was ready to do anything
suggested by anyone, but he still managed to get his studying done,
after the play was over.
By the time they graduated from high school together, Scoot and March
had both changed a good deal, each one influenced by the other. At a
first glance they seemed just the same as always, but March was less
retiring, less timid, while Scoot did not always hide under his playful
spirit his more serious interests in life.
When they went off to the state university together, they wondered how
long it would last, for war was already in the air.
“It’s coming,” Scoot said, “just as sure as shootin’, war’s coming. And
I’m going to be in it just about five minutes after it starts.”
“They’ve been staving it off for a long time,” March said, “and maybe
they can keep it up a few years longer. But I don’t think they can ever
satisfy that Hitler guy. Giving in to a pig won’t work—he’ll just keep
demanding more and more! But maybe we’ll get our college education
before the guns start popping!”
But the guns had started firing in Europe before their second year.
When the first peacetime selective service act was passed in the United
States, Scoot was very excited at being below the twenty-year age, and
wanted to enlist at once. But it was March who persuaded him against it.
“We can do more good going right on getting our education until they
need us,” he insisted. “Then we’ll be that much better equipped to do a
good job.”
His argument prevailed over Scoot then, but the war became their
favorite topic of conversation from that time on. Many others in the
college were not interested. They felt that the war was thousands of
miles away, that two big oceans were enough insulation to keep it away
from America.
But Scoot and March felt sure it was coming. They followed the war news
carefully, their hearts sinking as Hitler’s gangs overran one country
after another in Europe. They spent their spare time reading books and
articles about the war, the new weapons and tactics that were being
used. It was then that Scoot knew that he wanted to be a flier, and
then that March first developed his interest in submarines.
“This is an air war!” Scoot insisted. “It’s going to be fought and won
in the air!”
“The whole thing?” March demanded. “I wouldn’t deny the importance of
planes, but I’d never agree that they’ll do the whole job alone. The
country _without_ planes can’t win, I’ll say that much. But look at
Germany’s U-boats! Look at the damage they’re doing! If England can’t
get her supplies by sea—why, she’s sunk!”
The argument that never ended was begun right then. March and Scoot
read everything they could lay their hands on about submarines and
airplanes. And when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, Scoot wanted to get
in a plane and fly by instinct out over the Pacific, to give them a
taste of their own medicine. He had just decided to enlist when the
Navy’s program for college students was announced—the V-12 plan which
carried students through an intensive training course which resulted in
commissions as Ensigns.
For March there was no doubt about what course to follow. He signed up
for V-12 at once, already sure that he would be sailing in a submarine
before the year was out.
Scoot could not make up his mind for a few days. When he had thought of
flying, he had always thought of the Army Air Forces. But the Navy had
fliers, too. Eventually it was his burning hatred of the Japs that
decided him.
“There’s a lot of water between us and them,” he said. “The Navy will
have the biggest job in knocking them over—and aircraft carriers will
be the answer! Navy it is for me, too!”
So March Anson and Scoot Bailey had joined the Navy. Gone were all
thoughts of football, baseball, dances, and parties. And suddenly there
seemed to be little difference between the two. Both were now serious,
hard-working, for in the Navy’s program there was room for little but
serious, hard work. Together they crammed into their heads more
mathematics than they had thought of studying in a whole college
course. Navigation, engineering, English, Navy custom and tradition—all
were crammed into them with an intensity of which they had never
thought themselves capable.
Both had put in early their requests for assignment to submarines and
to air service. And, though they knew that the Navy tried to place men
where they wanted to go, they realized that the Navy’s needs would come
first rather than their wishes. So they were disappointed, though not
surprised, when both requests were turned down. The submarine school at
New London, even though greatly expanded, was full to overflowing. And
the applicants for Naval Aviation exceeded by ten times the number that
could be accepted.
New warships were coming off the ways in shipyards all over the
country, and men were needed to man them. So, after some further
specialized training—Scoot in engineering and March in navigation—they
found themselves assigned to the new cruiser _Plymouth_ which had been
rushed to completion four months ahead of schedule.
On their shakedown cruise they had been too interested in their new
life—the huge ship and the men they worked with—to feel disappointment
over missing out on their chosen fields. They knew they were already a
part of the war, and the job they were doing was important. As Ensigns,
they were two very junior officers on the ship almost as large as their
home town, but they had their jobs, and they learned more about them
and about all ships every day.
The Navy lost no time, after ship and crew were deemed fit and ready
for action, in getting them to the Pacific where the losses suffered at
Pearl Harbor had put the United States at a great, though temporary,
disadvantage. By the time they had made the long trip down the eastern
coast, through the Panama Canal, and across almost half the Pacific to
Pearl Harbor, Scoot and March felt like veterans. The Executive Officer
of the _Plymouth_, Commander Seaton, had taken a liking to them because
of their application to their jobs and their desire to learn all they
could. He saw to it that they got varied experiences, shifting to
different jobs carried out by junior officers from time to time.
In company with a battleship, two light cruisers, and twelve
destroyers, they left Pearl Harbor as a task force heading for action
in the southwest Pacific. And action was not long in coming.
In the Coral Sea, the small task force ran into a Jap convoy, heavily
screened by warships, trying to sneak an end run around the corner of
Australia. Two U.S. aircraft carriers had gone out to break up the
convoy, but they were so outnumbered by the enemy that they were in a
bad way when the _Plymouth’s_ force arrived on the scene under full
steam. The Japs were taken by surprise, lost their tight organization,
and fled north, leaving behind three troopships and four destroyers
heading for the bottom.
Scoot had been joyful at his first battle experience, but was angry
that he had not been on the guns.
“Just when the fighting starts I have to be down in the engine room,”
he moaned. “Didn’t even _see_ anything, let alone take a shot at those
dirty Nips!”
“Well, I _saw_ plenty,” March replied, “but navigation officers don’t
get a chance at much shooting, either!”
Scoot, by dint of much pleading and arguing, got Commander Seaton to
transfer him to gunnery, but then eight weeks went by without a sight
of a Jap. The first shots Scoot fired were into shore installations of
the Japs at Munda airfield in the Solomons, after the Marines had
consolidated their hold on Guadalcanal and had decided to move forward
to another island.
The big battle had come almost ten months after they had shipped aboard
the _Plymouth_, up in the Bismarck Sea northeast of New Guinea. Finally
finding the sizable Jap force for which he had been looking, Admiral
Caldwell, in charge of the U.S. force, had steamed right into the
middle of the bevy of Jap ships and opened fire with everything he had.
For seven hours, mostly at night, the battle had raged. Jap planes were
attacking overhead, at least until U.S. planes drove them off at dawn.
The firing on all sides was so deafening that no one could hear even
Scoot’s whoops of glee and happiness. When three of his gun crew went
down under a hail of flying fragments from a shell that landed on the
_Plymouth’s_ deck not fifty feet away, Scoot carried on with the few
that were left, but the rate of fire was cut. So he rounded up a cook
and a messboy and turned them into expert gunners in five minutes and
knocked three Jap planes out of the sky with his improvised gun crew in
ten minutes.
Meanwhile, March had not been idle. The shell whose fragments had laid
low part of Scoot’s crew had landed squarely on one of the 12-inch gun
turrets forward. March was the first man into the smoking and wrecked
turret, pulling out the wounded and dead who were there. At any moment
the ammunition below might have exploded—for no one knew if the shell
had penetrated that far—but March had no thought of such a thing. Three
of the men he lugged from the turret were still alive, though closer to
death than March had ever seen anyone. Later, the medical officer told
March those three had lived only because they got medical attention so
fast.
When it was all over, and half the Jap force lay at the bottom of the
sea while the rest ran for cover, pursued by American planes, the men
on the _Plymouth_ wearily surveyed the damage done to their ship. It
was plenty, but a month in port would fix her up again. As they headed
slowly for Pearl Harbor for repairs, Scoot and March got the big
surprise of their lives. They had no thought of making heroes of
themselves, and they never could figure out how, in the heat of battle,
any officer could have seen just what they did.
Yet when the citations came along, Scoot and March both found
themselves on the list commended for conspicuous gallantry in action.
“My golly, we didn’t do anything,” Scoot had objected, even though he
was beaming all over with pleasure. “Everybody else did the same kind
of thing. All the crew were fighting just as hard as we were!”
“Yes, but they didn’t all keep their heads under fire and show the
spontaneously clear thinking that you two did,” Commander Seaton said
to them in a friendly talk later. “That’s what counts—that’s what makes
leaders of men. And the Navy needs leaders these days. By the way, the
Skipper asked me if there was anything special we could do for you
two—anything you wanted especially. I told him that you, Scoot, had
wanted to be a Navy flier and that March had wanted to be a submariner.
If you still feel that way, the Skipper’ll recommend your transfer to
those branches.”
March and Scoot were dumbfounded! And it had not been an easy thing to
decide, though a few months before they would not have hesitated for an
instant. Scoot still wanted to fly. March still wanted to go into the
pigboats. But they had lived on the _Plymouth_, gone through battle
with her, and they didn’t like the idea of leaving her now.
It was March who made up his mind first. “I’m going to ask for the
transfer,” he said. “I hate to leave this ship and the men on it and
the action I know she’ll be seeing. After a battle or two you don’t
feel like going back to school again. You want to go on to more
battles. But I love the idea of submarines so much that I know I’d be a
better man in a pigboat than I can ever be on a surface ship. So I’ll
take a few months out, learn what I have to learn, and come back to
this part of the world and really send some of those Jap ships to the
bottom.”
“Guess you’re right,” Scoot agreed. “It won’t be long!”
So they had said farewell to the _Plymouth_ sadly as they stepped into
the launch taking them ashore. And they had stood looking at the great
gray ship as the little boat moved toward the Navy Yard pier.
But now their eyes were set forward. They had a long way to travel to
get home, a lot of hard work and studying to do before they could
accomplish what they wanted.
They stepped from the launch and stood on the pier. For a last moment
they looked out at the _Plymouth_ once more.
“So long, old gal,” Scoot said. “You’ll be getting your face lifted
here at Pearl Harbor and you’ll be back in the thick of it soon. Maybe
I’ll see you out there—when I’m up in the blue sky flying my Grumman
Wildcat.”
“Yes, and some time when I’m submerged and hear the throb of a
cruiser’s engines,” March added, “I’ll stick up the periscope for a
peek, wondering whether that ship is friend or foe. And it’ll turn out
to be my old friend, my old sweetheart, the _Plymouth_.”
Together, the two young men turned and walked toward their new lives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWO
BACK TO SCHOOL
March felt lonely as he stood on the corner opposite the railroad
station in New London, waiting for the bus. It was cold and there was
rain in the air. The wind whipped about him as he stood close to the
building.
The _Plymouth_ was a world miles away by this time, although it had
been less than a month since he left it. First there had been the wait
of a few days in Hawaii before they found space in a plane heading back
for the United States. But those had been good days—interesting in that
they saw how completely erased were the effects of the first terrible
Jap attack. Then, too, there had been time to rest, to swim and to lie
in the sun on the beach.
Finally the long over-water hop had brought them back to America, which
they had left so long before. It was the first time either March or
Scoot had been in San Francisco, and they enjoyed the two days spent
there before taking the train east. Finally there had been two weeks’
leave back in Hampton. They had seen their parents, visited their old
friends, slept late and eaten huge meals. They had even been persuaded
to make an embarrassed appearance—supposed to be accompanied by
speeches—in the assembly hall of the old high school.
Their leave had come to an end all too soon. Then both young men had
been faced with the prospect of saying goodbye not only to their folks
and their friends, but to each other. It was one fact that both of them
had tried to avoid thinking about, but as the time approached they were
very aware of it. For so many years they had been together almost every
day—but they had taken each other for granted. It never occurred to
them that they were closer than many brothers, that each one supplied
something necessary and important to the other.
They couldn’t say much, of course, when they finally did say goodbye.
It was March’s train which left first, although Scoot would be heading
south only two hours later. They were all at the station in
Hampton—March’s mother, Scoot’s father and mother and kid sister. March
had to say goodbye to all of them and step on to the train alone.
He shook hands with Scoot. “My golly,” he stammered, “I’m going to be
worried about you, Scoot. You’ve had me around to look after you and
keep you out of trouble so long, that I don’t know how you’ll make out
alone.”
They all laughed a little, and Scoot tried to kid back at March, but
his heart wasn’t in it.
“Don’t worry about me,” he replied. “I think the baby is busy worrying
about the nurse this time. Anyway, if it makes you feel good, March,
maybe you’ll have a chance to get me out of trouble later—out in the
Pacific somewhere.”
“Say—maybe I will at that!” March tried to act serious. “I can just see
myself dashing up in my trusty submarine and rescuing you from a bunch
of Japs.”
Later, when they _did_ meet under circumstances not very different from
March’s joking suggestion, it was Scoot who remembered what his friend
had said back in the station in Hampton, Ohio.
But at the time it was nothing but banter, the kind of talk made to
cover up real thoughts that are too deep to be expressed easily. And in
another moment the train came thundering down the track. There was a
last hurried round of goodbyes and March was on the train, waving and
smiling from the car platform as it pulled away from his home.
Because the train was crowded, March had been busy trying to find a
place to sit. His suitcase on the same platform was the seat he finally
chose, until they pulled into Pittsburgh and he found a more
comfortable seat.
The ride had been dirty and uninteresting and March felt himself
getting depressed long before they reached New York. There he had to
rush to get the train for New London, and now he stood on that windy,
rainy corner waiting for a bus, feeling sorry that he had ever won the
chance to get into submarine work.
Then he remembered the one thing that had made him feel good since he
had left Hampton, and he glanced down at the cuff of his sleeve.
Yes—there it was—the extra stripe that had been added when he became a
Lieutenant instead of the lowest of commissioned officers, an Ensign.
The promotion had come to them when they were in Hampton on leave—for
both Scoot and March. They had quickly added the new stripes to cuffs,
to shoulder boards, and had got the gold bars to wear on their work
uniform shirts. March felt very proud and pleased, for the promotion
had come quickly for such young men in the Navy. Going to the submarine
school as a Lieutenant, even if only j.g., or junior grade, was much
better than walking in as an Ensign.
He was staring at the stripes on his cuff and smiling so that he didn’t
notice the salute of the three men who approached him. Only when the
first man spoke did he look up.
“Going to the sub base, sir?”
March saw a sailor with the insigne of a petty officer, third class, on
his sleeve, a sturdy, smiling young man with his seabag over his
shoulder. Behind him appeared three more men of the same rank. The
first, March noticed, was a radioman, two of the others fire
controlmen, and the last a pharmacist.
“Yes, waiting for the bus,” March answered with a smile. “Is this the
place to wait for it?”
“That’s what we were told, sir,” the radioman said. “You see, we’re
just reporting there for the school.”
“Oh, so am I,” March said. “I thought maybe you men were there already
and just in town on liberty. But you wouldn’t have brought your seabags
along in such a case, would you?”
In a moment the bus appeared and they all climbed aboard. On the long
ride out of town and along the river they talked together about the
school they were going to, and March caught again, in these men’s
enthusiasm, his old feeling of excitement about going into submarines.
The men, who had obviously just met as they went to the bus together,
were discussing their reasons for volunteering for submarine duty.
“I had two uncles in the Navy,” the pharmacist said. “I’ll never forget
the way they talked about submariners. They had both tried, but
couldn’t pass the tests. They thought the pigboat men were the cream of
the fleet.”
“Speaking of the hard tests,” one of the fire controlmen said, “that’s
really why I first got the notion of applying for sub duty. I heard it
was the toughest branch of the service to get into and stay in—and I
just kind of like to try any challenge like that. When I hear about
something really tough, I like to take a crack at it. This is harder to
get into than aviation!”
[Illustration: “_Going to the Sub Base, Sir?_”]
March smiled and thought of Scoot who had been worrying about his
ability to meet the strict qualifications for naval fliers.
“I like the life on a sub,” the radioman said. “You know—a good bunch
of guys doin’ something big together, all workin’ together like a team.
And the—well, friendliness between officers and men is swell. Not that
I don’t believe in strict discipline—” he glanced at the officer’s
stripes on March’s cuff—“but I still think it’s a good idea for
officers and men to get friendly, get to know each other well, the way
they do on subs.”
March agreed, and noticed that not one of the men had mentioned the
extra pay for submarine duty as one of the reasons for entering that
branch, and a dangerous branch, of the naval service.
“That’s a good sign,” he told himself. “Of course, they’ll like the
extra pay—no doubt of that—but it’s not the reason they volunteered for
sub duty. They really go into it for its own sake.”
The bus turned and entered the driveway of the sub base grounds and all
the men looked eagerly out the windows. Their first look was for the
river, where they hoped to see submarines.
“Look!” cried Scott, the radioman. “There’s one in dry dock!”
“And over there by the pier,” called another, “there’s a bunch of ’em
lined up.”
March looked at the long slim lines of the pigboats and felt warm
inside. He wondered just how soon he would take his first ride beneath
the waters of Long Island Sound in one of them.
The bus passed a few buildings, but the sailors had no eyes for such
ordinary things. Another structure had caught them—a tall round tower
looming up above the trees on the gently sloping hillside.
“What’s that?” one of the men asked. “A water tower?”
“Water tower’s right!” exclaimed Scott. “But a special kind. That’s the
escape tower!”
“Oh-oh, that’s the baby I’m wondering about,” said the pharmacist. “I
don’t know how I’ll like going up through a hundred feet of water with
just a funny gadget clamped over my nose and mouth.”
“Well—you better not let it get you,” one of the others put in. “It’s
one of the first tests, I hear. If you can’t handle the escape-tower
tests, you’re tossed out of submarines pronto!”
The bus pulled up in front of a large brick building and stopped.
Everyone got out and walked up to the front door. Inside, March left
the men with a smile and reported to the personnel man in charge of
receiving new officers assigned to the school. In another half hour he
found himself in his quarters in a building some way up the hill above
the main buildings of the base. Here the school itself was situated,
with its buildings for classrooms, barracks for enlisted men, and
quarters for officers without wives. Married officers were allowed to
live in New London with their families and commute daily to the school.
March’s room was small but comfortable, and he was neatly settled in it
in a short while. His time in the Navy had taught him already to travel
light, with only the necessary belongings, and to settle himself
quickly. He was at home and comfortable by the time he reported to the
officers’ mess for dinner.
There he met other young officers who also lived at the school, and a
few of the instructors. The latter were older men, full of years and
wisdom in the submarine service, every one of whom would much rather
have been on active duty hunting down Jap or Nazi ships on the oceans
of the world. But they were too valuable in the great task of training
the hundreds of new officers needed for the subs coming off the ways of
the shipyards. Here in New London they could pass on to the younger men
like March Anson a portion of their knowledge of pigboats.
March felt, during dinner, the quiet good-fellowship of these men. On
the _Plymouth_ the officers with whom he ate and talked and played were
pleasant and agreeable fellows, but there had been all types there—the
quiet ones, the back-slappers, the life-of-the-party men with practical
jokes and loud guffaws, the grimly serious officers, and everything in
between. But here the men were more alike.
“Not that they’re all the same,” he told himself, as he looked around
the table. “McIntosh here next to me is quite different in most ways
from that Lieutenant Curtin across the table, for instance, but they
have something in common. Something similar in their personalities, I
suppose. They’re sociable, but in a quiet way. They’re serious, but not
without a sense of humor.”
March did not realize that he was describing himself when he thought of
the other officers in this way. But he might have known that this
question of personality was one of the most important in considering
men who volunteered for submarine service.
No man in the Navy was ever assigned to sub work without his request.
It was an entirely volunteer service, but there were always far more
applications, among both officers and enlisted men, than could be
accepted. So it was possible for the Bureau of Navy Personnel to keep
its standards very high in selecting men for the pigboat branch.
When a man already in the Navy was recommended by his commanding
officer for assignment to the sub school at New London, as March had
been, this did not mean that the recommendation was accepted just like
that. The Bureau looked over the man’s record with the greatest care.
And just bravery such as March had displayed was not enough, even
though it counted strongly in his favor. What they looked for in the
“Diving Navy” was the kind of man who was brave, cool under fire, far
above the average intelligence, with the ability to get along well with
other people under all circumstances, and the kind of nerves that
didn’t crack or even show strain under the greatest danger, the worst
crowding, or seemingly fatal situations.
As March thought of this, he swelled with pride to think he had been
chosen for the submarine school.
“But that’s just the beginning,” he told himself. “I feel pretty darned
good to know that I’ve got this far, but they’re going to watch me like
a hawk every moment I’m here. I think I can pass all the tough physical
tests okay, because I’m in good shape. The studies are hard but if I
work enough maybe I can handle them. But how will I act the first time
I’m in a submerging sub? How will I react to a crash dive? They’ll be
watching me. And even if I get through the school I’m still not a
submariner. Why, on my first real trip or two my commanding officer can
transfer me back to surface ships just by saying the word!”
After dinner, in the officers’ lounge, March spoke with the executive
officer of the sub base, a kindly, gray-haired man with skin that still
looked as if he spent a few hours every day facing the salt breeze on a
ship’s bridge. Captain Sampson chatted easily with March as they looked
out the windows at the gathering twilight.
“Glad to have you with us, Anson,” he said. “Hope you like it here.”
“I’m sure I will, sir,” March replied. “I’ve been looking forward to it
long enough.”
“I had an idea this was no sudden impulse of yours,” Sampson replied.
“First off, you’re not the kind, I take it, that acts on sudden
impulses. And I imagine that subs always appealed to you.”
“Yes, before I was in the Navy that’s what I wanted.”
“Then you ought to do very well,” the Captain said. “You’ll want to
make your call on the Commandant tomorrow, I suppose?”
“If it can be arranged,” March said.
“Yes—tomorrow will be all right, I’m sure,” Sampson said, “for you to
present your compliments to him. There’ll be a few more officers
arriving for the new class tomorrow morning early. I’ve set aside a
couple of hours in the afternoon for the calls. Report at fifteen
o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” March said.
When the Captain had gone, March went back to his quarters and sat down
to write a few letters. The first was to Scoot Bailey.
“Dear Scoot,” it began. “I’m here at last—at the Submarine School in
New London! Tomorrow things will really start!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THREE
FIFTY POUNDS OF PRESSURE
Things really did start the next day for March! In the morning he had a
physical examination that made all his previous examinations look like
quick once-overs. Eyes, ears, lungs, heart, stomach—they went over
March’s body so thoroughly that he felt not a microbe, not a blood
cell, had escaped their detection. But he knew, without waiting for the
report, that he had no difficulty in meeting all the requirements.
In the afternoon there was the official call on the Commandant, which
was not the stiff and formal ceremony such Naval customs often are, but
an interesting and heart-warming experience. The “Old Man” really took
the time to talk informally and in very friendly fashion with the new
officers who came to the school.
March met the new officers who were just beginning their work at the
school with him, got his schedule of duties for the next few days, and
managed to work in a letter to his mother in the evening.
The next day, when March learned that he had passed his physical
examination with flying colors, he also learned that one of the doctors
examining him had been a psychiatrist.
“That’s the smartest thing yet!” he muttered to Ensign Bigelow, another
new officer-student who had just come from a teaching assignment at one
of the Navy’s technical schools. “Usually the psychological examination
is separate. You know you’re going to be questioned by a psychiatrist
who will ask you all sorts of strange questions about how you get along
with girls and what you thought of your fifth-grade teacher, and—”
“And what your dreams are like,” added Bigelow.
“Sure, and you’re self conscious,” March went on. “A smart doctor
probably sees through that and gets the real dope as to what makes your
personality tick, but it has always struck me as a sort of silly
business.”
“Same here,” Bigelow agreed. “Even though I know those Navy
psychiatrists have been right about ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“But this was wonderful!” March exclaimed. “I just thought those three
docs were all looking at blood pressure and listening to my heart and
such things. Sure, one of them was especially friendly and talked to me
a lot, but that was just natural. And, come to think of it, he talked a
lot about what I did when I was on the _Plymouth_, and how I liked its
Skipper, and where I’d gone to school.”
“I remember now,” Bigelow said, “that he asked me about my leave before
I came here. Mentioned big drinking parties. I didn’t go in for any and
said so. I thought he must be a heavy drinker from the way he talked,
but he was just finding out whether _I_ was or not.”
“He pulled the same line on me,” March said, “and I just thought it was
making talk—you know, the way a dentist does before he does something
that hurts, to take your mind off what’s happening.”
“Well, that won’t be the end of the psychological tests,” Bigelow said.
“I understand that a psychiatrist is always there when we make our
first dives, and he’s just happening to be around in the escape-tower
tests. He’s keeping an eye on us all the time.”
“Some people might not like that idea,” March said. “I suppose they
wouldn’t like the idea of having somebody looking them over to spot
their bad reactions to everything that goes on.”
“Like a guilty conscience,” Bigelow added.
“Always on hand,” March grinned. “But I don’t think it’s a bad idea.
After all, it’s for our own protection. They’ve got to try to weed out
the guys who will crack at the wrong time. And nobody thinks he will,
so you can’t find it out just by asking. If I’m that kind, then you
don’t want to find yourself out in the Pacific undergoing a
depth-charge attack with me alongside you, suddenly going nuts inside a
very small submarine.”
“I should say not,” Bigelow said. “And it’s nothing especially against
a fellow if he can’t stand this particular kind of strain that he gets
in a sub. Maybe he’s got a kind of claustrophobia—fear of being shut up
in small places—without knowing it. Maybe he’d make a swell aviator or
bombardier or the bravest PT-boat Skipper in the world! It’s just that
submarining takes certain qualities, that’s all. You’ve either got ’em
or you haven’t.”
“And those docs find it out before you go out,” March agreed.
March spent the evening with Bigelow and began to like the red-headed
young man more as he got to know him better. Stan Bigelow was a chunky,
broad-shouldered fellow who looked so hard that a tank could not bowl
him over. A broken nose, covered with freckles, added greatly to his
appearance of toughness, even though it had come, as he told March,
from nothing more pugilistic than a fall out of a tree when he was
sixteen years old.
“Landed just wrong on a pile of rocks,” he said. “Didn’t hurt a thing
but my nose. I was at a summer camp and the doc there didn’t fix it up
right. By the time somebody tried to put it back into a decent shape
the bones had set too well.”
Despite Stan’s look of a waterfront bruiser, he was really a
serious-minded student. He had graduated from one of the country’s
top-flight engineering schools just before going into the Navy, and
then had attended one of the Navy’s technical schools. Diesel engines
were his specialty and he felt sure that this knowledge would quickly
get him into submarine work where he wanted to be. But his work at the
technical school had been so brilliant that they kept him on as an
instructor despite his pleas for transfer to New London. Finally, after
a year of teaching, he had been recommended for submarines by an
understanding commanding officer.
“So here I am,” he concluded. “And right now I’m scared to death that
it won’t make any difference how much I want to be a submariner or how
much I know about Diesels. If I get jittery in the pressure tank
tomorrow—out I’ll go!”
“You don’t even need to get jittery,” March laughed. “How do you know
whether you can stand pressure or not? Even in perfect physical shape,
some people just can’t, that’s all. I don’t mean because they’re
nervous. Maybe their noses bleed or their ears won’t make the right
adjustment or something.”
“Well—we won’t know until we try it!” Stan exclaimed. “I’m just going
to keep my fingers crossed.”
After breakfast the next morning March and Stan Bigelow, along with the
other new officer-students, reported to the little building at the base
of the tall escape tower. They were joined by the new class of enlisted
men who were to undergo the same tests. During preliminary training,
there was no difference between officers and men in the examinations
and work they had to undergo. Only later, when actual classes of study
began, did they separate—for the enlisted men to learn their particular
trades in reference to submarines and for the officers to get the
highly technical studies and executive training they must have.
March saw Scott, the radio petty officer, and the others who had ridden
to the sub base on the same bus with him. He called a friendly hello to
them as they all stood waiting for the Chief Petty Officer in charge to
call the roll.
After roll was called all the students were instructed to strip to the
swimming trunks they had been instructed to wear, eyeing the pressure
chamber suspiciously all the time.
“Looks like something to shut somebody up in if you never wanted him to
get out,” Stan Bigelow said, nodding at the huge gray-painted cylinder
with its tiny portholes and small hatch-like door.
“Anyway, we can look out,” March said, “even if the portholes are tiny.”
“I wonder if that psychiatrist will be peeking in one of those
deadlights at us,” Stan mused, “making notes about every flicker of an
eyelash.”
But then the grizzled old Chief Petty Officer opened the small door to
the chamber and ordered the new men inside. Stooping as he stepped in,
March saw that the sides of the chamber had long benches, about twenty
feet long, on which the men were to sit. The compartment was brightly
lighted, and March noticed a fan in one corner.
“I guess it gets a little warm,” he told himself, “with so many people
in a small closed space like this.”
Stan Bigelow sat beside him on the bench, and the other students filed
in after them. March saw that Scott, the radioman, sitting opposite
him, looked a little frightened, and he wondered if he appeared the
same to the others.
“Funny how this gets you,” Stan said in a low voice. “There’s not a
thing to be afraid of, of course.”
“No, the most that can happen is that your nose will bleed or some
small thing like that will show you can’t stand pressure,” March
agreed. “But some of the older guys around here have had a lot of fun,
particularly with the enlisted men, building up some fancy pictures of
what the pressure tank and escape tower are like. They say you get
weird sensations in your head, feel flutters in your heart.”
“Oh—just a little bit of subtle freshman hazing,” Stan laughed. “Well,
I think the reason I’m nervous is that I don’t want anything to happen
to toss me out of submarines.”
They looked toward the door of the compartment as the Chief Petty
Officer stepped inside and tossed a bunch of robes on the seat near the
door.
[Illustration: _They Filed into the Pressure Chamber_]
“Wonder why the robes?” March muttered. “If anything, it’s going to be
too hot in here—that’s why there’s a fan.”
“Maybe this is a combination test,” Stan said with a grin. “They want
to see if we can stand pressure—and heat.”
The CPO closed and fastened securely the door, and they all heard
someone on the outside testing it to be certain it was tightly shut.
“You’re goin’ to be out of here pretty fast,” the officer said to the
students, “so don’t fret. We get fifty pounds of pressure in here,
that’s all.”
His tone was casual and reassuring, but none of the men sat back in
relaxed positions, even though they tried to appear completely at ease
and even unconcerned. They almost jumped when the CPO banged his fist
lustily against the end of the chamber as a signal to the man handling
the valves outside.
They jumped again as a hissing sound filled the small compartment. The
air was pouring in, and the men sat listening to it in silence. March
saw that the Chief had his eyes on a dial at the end of the chamber and
he looked there, too. Stan noted the direction of his glance, and in
another moment every student was staring at the hand that moved up
slowly to indicate one pound of pressure, then two pounds, then three
pounds....
The CPO banged on the side of the chamber again. The hissing stopped.
Everyone looked up in surprise, wondering if there was something wrong.
March glanced around quickly. Was one of the students too jittery? Had
a nosebleed started already? But everyone looked all right, except for
an expression of worry.
“There’s only three pounds pressure now,” the Chief said. “Even fifty’s
not really a lot, but three’s almost nothing. Still, just to give you
an idea that air pressure is real pressure and not just something like
a billowy cloud, I thought I’d tell you that we couldn’t possibly open
that hatch now. You see—when I say three pounds of pressure, that means
per square inch. There’s about a ton and a half of pressure on that
door right now. Figure out how much there is on _you_.”
With another bang the hissing of the inrushing air began once more and
the hand on the dial began to creep around again, passing the figure
five, then the figure ten, then fifteen. March began to feel
uncomfortably warm, and then he saw that most of the other men were
beginning to sweat. Stan leaned over and put his lips close to March’s
ear so that he could be heard over the sound of the air.
“Air under pressure gets hot,” Stan said. “Remember your physics? It’s
the whole basis of a Diesel engine, incidentally, but the pressure is
considerably greater. The temperature in a cylinder gets up to about a
thousand degrees.”
“Around a hundred in here now, I’d say,” March replied in a loud
whisper, and Stan nodded in agreement. Then he swallowed with some
difficulty, and smiled in some surprise afterward.
“My ears popped when I swallowed;” he said. “Feels better.”
“That’s right,” boomed the CPO, who had apparently noticed what Stan
did. “Everybody try swallowing a few times if your ears feel funny.”
March swallowed and then almost laughed as he saw the two rows of
students earnestly swallowing. Then he realized he had not looked at
the pressure dial for some time. He was startled to see it at
thirty-five pounds. It was a good deal hotter now and everyone was
sweating profusely. March looked around at the others carefully,
forgetting his concern about himself in his interest in the others.
There seemed to be less tension now than at the very beginning. A few
of the men talked to each other, comparing their reactions, laughing at
the way their ears popped, expressing surprise at the increasing heat.
Suddenly there was another banging on the wall of the chamber, and the
hissing stopped. Everyone’s eyes went to the pressure dial, and saw the
hand standing at fifty pounds.