Final Patrol by Don Keith Page B

sag in the middle, her bow and stern rising, forming a smoking, fiery V, as if some giant hand had delivered a killer karate chop to her midsection.
    Then, only seconds later, a second torpedo struck near the main mast, disintegrating most of the rear half of the Karukaya . If she was not a goner before, she certainly was now.
    That was all Dempsey needed to see. The enemy destroyer was done for.
    Leaning on the scope housing for support, he swung it back around 180 degrees, toward the main body of the convoy. He knew his men were already loading more torpedoes into their tubes, fore and aft, but the only weapon he had left for the moment was the one fish that still remained in the stern tube, the one he had deliberately not fired. That was common practice. Don’t empty your revolver of bullets in the middle of a gunfight. You never knew what varmint might still be lurking out there and you might not have time to reload.
    The counter had picked up the tally on the second spray of torpedoes. Dempsey was praying under his breath that some of the six fish he had sent on their way from the front of the boat would find something hard enough in their path to make them explode on impact, just as the others had done.
    But before he had time to worry, he saw and heard and counted off out loud half a dozen vicious explosions, each of them lined up neatly all along the row of oil tankers. Every one of their torpedoes had found a target!
    â€œTake her to three hundred feet! Bearing two-four-zero. Let’s run as fast as we can before they figure out where we went!”
    Dempsey knew he had stirred up a hornet’s nest. He had seen other escorts out there with depth charges on their decks and torpedoes of their own, and now they had even more incentive to use them.
    His firing position would be clearly visible to the Japanese on the surface. They could easily pinpoint the trails of the nine torpedoes and trace them right back to the spot where they were set loose. The Cod didn’t need to still be there when that inevitability occurred.
    So now Jim Dempsey was going to take his boat as deep as he dared and, at the same time, he was going to skedaddle. Or at least he was going to skedaddle at his top submerged speed of eight or nine knots, about a third as fast as the enemy escorts could go.
    And he could only do that for about another ten minutes or so without using up all of what remained of his battery power. Then, with dead batteries, they would have very few options.
    Who knew how long they might have to stay down? They would need to keep some juice in reserve for maneuvering and keep the boat’s systems functioning until they could come up and recharge.
    As they raced away, their nose pointing downward and going deeper, there were explosions behind them. Bombs and depth charges shook the boat violently, even though she was by then over a mile away from most of the commotion. A few valves and hydraulic lines up and down the length of the boat sprang minor leaks and a couple of lightbulbs shattered from the rattling concussion of the blasts. Damage-control parties were already assessing.
    But even with the thunder of the ordnance, the sonar operators could detect the ominous sounds of vessels breaking up, of hulls crumbling, of water rushing into damaged compartments with a distinctive roar, like some giant beast in its death throes. There was also the snapping and popping of ammunition exploding, likely in the cargo hold of one of the damaged transports. Ammunition meant to cut Allied soldiers to pieces on some far-flung Pacific island.
    Some aboard the Cod allowed themselves a quick cheer. Even James Dempsey grinned. He knew it would be difficult to claim credit for much more than the destroyer he had actually witnessed going down (they would eventually only be credited with sinking two vessels for a total of eight thousand tons), but he also knew they had struck a significant blow. It would be good to get the pats