Three hundred feet was just about the limit for them. Pressure was terrific at that level, they all knew. But they wanted to get as far away from the depth charges to come as they could.

Kamongo’s motors whined at high pitch as they sent the boat angling down toward the bottom. As they went down March got the report that five torpedoes had hit the carrier and all four had ploughed into the troopship.

“It was hard to concentrate,” said McFee, “but I know I’m right. And, brother, that’s good shooting.”

“Wish we could know just how much damage we did,” March said.

“But you don’t want to know badly enough to surface and find out, do you?” asked Mac with a grin. “The planes will find out when they come along in a few minutes. They’ll tell us—later, just what we did. Anyway the sound man reports that the ships are scattering in so many directions he can’t keep track of them.”

Then March heard something else from the sound man. “Sounds as if there’s solid rock below us—at about two hundred eighty feet.”

“Wonderful!” cried March. “Settle down to it and we’ll just lie there and rest. Shut off all motors. Then let them try to find us.”

“Destroyers coming in up above, sir,” the sound man said.

“Pretty slow, weren’t they?” Mac commented.

March picked up the phone from the orderly and spoke to the ship. “They’ll be coming any minute now. Hold fast. And we’ll be snug on the bottom.”

The first depth charge came far above them, and the shock from it was very slight. But then the submarine bumped slightly as its keel settled gently against the bottom. Motors were shut off and Kamongo tilted a little to one side as it lay down on the sloping shelf of rock at the bottom of the sea.

There came the metallic click and then the monstrous b-b-r-r-rrooom of a depth charge to the right and above them. Then one to the left. Then one beyond the bow. Then one beyond the stern.

“Laying a nice pattern,” McFee called, as he held fast to the little railing at the periscope well.

“That would get us if we were higher,” March said. “They probably figured we’re at about two hundred feet.”

“They don’t dare go any lower in their subs, usually,” McFee said, as he braced himself for the next series of charges which shook him.

March looked around the control room. Everyone was holding fast, but looking very calm. He phoned forward to the torpedo room to ask how everything was up there.

“All fine, sir,” reported Pete Kalinsky. “And nice shootin’, sir.”

Room after room reported everything all right. “Just a light filament busted from that last one in here,” said the machinist’s mate from the engine room.

March saw that one of the men at the controls was steadying another while he lighted a cigarette. He smiled, and then looked up sharply as a figure appeared in the door at the forward bulkhead. It was Scoot, hanging on groggily and looking angry.

“What’s goin’ on here, anyway?” he demanded loudly. “Can’t a guy sleep in peace?”

March ran to him, but a depth charge—the closest yet—sent him sprawling to the floor. McFee picked him up, holding fast to the bulkhead while doing so. Then, between explosions, they got Scoot back to his bunk, where they strapped him in place. The young flier went to sleep again peacefully.

On the way back to the control room March and McFee stopped to look at the Skipper. Sallini was with him, and he smiled.

“Temperature went down—just about the time you hit that carrier, sir,” he reported. “He’s coming through all right, though they’ll have to take those slugs out of him pretty soon.”

“We’ll get him to a hospital,” March said, and then grabbed the door hard as he heard the click and then the hardest explosion of all.

“They can’t hear anything,” he said to McFee. “Do you suppose they figure we’re lying quiet down here and are going to send them deeper and deeper?”

“Might be,” Mac said. March knew that if such were the case it would be better to try to zigzag away. The next explosion was so close that it knocked over two men in the control room who thought they were holding on fast. The next one knocked out the lights, and March shouted for the emergency system. In a moment there was light again but March was worried, trying to make up his mind what to do. Suddenly he felt that he just could not make any more decisions. He wasn’t supposed to be a submarine Skipper yet, anyway. Why decide?

“Well,” he said to himself, “if the next one’s any closer I’ll try moving away from here.”

He waited tensely. The next explosion would decide the matter for him. He still waited. It didn’t come. He looked at the sound man, puzzled.

“Destroyers moving away, sir,” the sound man reported.

Then they heard another explosion. But this was different. It was near the surface, far away, and it was not like a depth charge. Then came another and another.

“What can that be?” March said, turning to Mac.

“Darned if I know,” the veteran said.

And then it came to March. He knew. With a smile he picked up the phone and announced to everybody, “It’s all over, folks. Those things you hear are bombs from airplanes—our airplanes chasing the destroyers away from us and blasting the daylights out of the convoy we’ve scattered.”

The cheer that went up was tired but came from the heart. All over, men relaxed their grips, lit cigarettes, strolled for a cup of coffee.

“We’ll just stay right here where it’s safe for quite a while longer,” March said. “Then we’ll move on slowly—toward home.”

Kamongo was limping when it came into port and tied up alongside the tender David. It had run submerged so long that its batteries were almost dead. But as they pulled into the little harbor the Skipper came to, first saying “Take her down! Take her down!” and then opening his eyes and looking around in a daze. He found plenty of story-tellers eager to tell him what he had slept through.

“It’s just as well,” he smiled weakly, when he had heard. “I never did like depth charge attacks.”

Scoot was up and about now, his arm in a sling. He would not believe that he had complained about the noise that disturbed his sleep during the depth-charge attack.

No one was completely happy, though, until they had full reports of the convoy battle from the Intelligence Officer at the tender. It was with pride that March Anson carried the complete news to Skipper Larry Gray as he lay in the small sick bay aboard the tender.

“We got the troopship ourselves,” March said. “The carrier was on fire and listing badly when the planes came and finished her off. Not a plane got off her. Of the rest, thirty-eight ships are at the bottom of the sea. Not one ship reached Truk!”

Larry looked at March silently and then a slow smile spread over his face. “Skipper,” he said, “you did a swell job.”

That was all the commendation March wanted or needed, though he wasn’t dismayed later when he got the Navy Cross and his promotion to full lieutenant.

As for Scoot Bailey, he was flown to Australia to get over his broken arm before resuming his flying from Bunker Hill. The same award and promotion had come to him for his part in breaking up the Jap convoy, and he was very happy. But his last words to March were on the old argument between them.

“I won’t say another word against pigboats,” he said. “But I still want to get back to a plane. As I said once before, they make a great team, don’t they?”

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