It had been a bad anticlimax! Everybody in the crew felt badly let down. Corvin and March forgot all about telling McFee, up on the bridge, who was mentally trying to decide between the Marshall Islands and the Black Sea as probable destinations. Finally he phoned down and angrily asked why someone didn’t let the bridge know where they were supposed to be going.

“How do you expect anybody to steer the ship in this big ocean,” he demanded, “if he doesn’t know where he’s going?”

When he heard the words “San Francisco,” he groaned.

“What’s the matter with San Francisco?” Stan asked. “I’ve always wanted to see it.”

“Oh—San Francisco’s wonderful,” Ray Corvin said “As a matter of fact I live not far from there, and maybe I’ll get a chance to see my family for a day or two, so I’m very happy in some ways. It’s just that we got so keyed up expecting to head right into a pitched battle.”

“I’m not too surprised,” Gray said. “I felt sure we were going to the Pacific and I thought we might go direct to our base there. But if we hit Frisco on the way—that’s only natural. Of course, we’ll get more orders there and then we’ll surely head for some action.”

March felt just as well about the news. He would have a chance to learn everything about the submarine from one end to the other. He would actually navigate the ship a few thousand miles, but without having to worry too much about enemy ships or mines or planes while doing it. By the time they left San Francisco he’d feel like a veteran submariner. He would be able to handle his regular tasks without thinking about them, and he’d be able to take actual fighting with vigor and enthusiasm.

During the daytime they ran submerged a good deal of the time, taking a look through the periscope occasionally. Once the Skipper saw a U.S. Navy blimp right above them and they headed for two hundred feet depth in a hurry. But nothing happened.

At night they ran on the surface, and they were lucky enough to have good weather most of the time, with plenty of stars for March to shoot on the sextant so that he could check his course. He was pleased to see that his instrument navigation, carried out when they were submerged, was checked by his celestial observations.

There came a day that was cloudy and overcast, so the Skipper decided to travel on the surface.

“There won’t be any planes out today,” he said. “And we can make much better time on top. But keep a sharp lookout for other surface craft. Can’t see very far in this fog.”

March took over his regular watch that afternoon on the bridge. He had on a heavy sweater and waterproof hood and jacket, for the moisture in the air, even if it were not rain, soaked everything inside of fifteen minutes. Two crew members were on lookout, in addition to the man at the controls. March listened to their regular calls of “All clear” and stared ahead into the blanket of fog.

Then, suddenly, he saw it—just as the lookout shouted.

“Freighter on port bow!”

March shouted the alarming news into the interphone, ordered the man at the controls to reverse engines full-speed and put her over hard starboard. The big freighter loomed so large out of the mist that March knew they might crash. The freighter had just sighted them and hadn’t even slowed down. So, without another thought he shouted the order, “Rig for crash dive!”

The klaxon blared through the boat below and March knew that men were leaping to their posts, that Gray was struggling out from his bunk or from behind the wardroom table. Would he come up to the bridge? March knew there might not be any bridge—or any conning tower—by the time he could get there, no matter how fast he moved.

He glanced at the deck hatches and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were already closed, for the rolling seas were washing over the decks and none of the crew men had wanted to come up for fresh air on a day like this. In a few seconds only the word came back to him, “Boat rigged for crash dive!”

He had already motioned the lookouts down into the hatch, and the control man was securing his gear on the bridge.

“Take her down!” he ordered, as the control man slid down the hatch. He heard the bubbling hiss of air from the main ballast vents, the roar of water as it rushed into the tanks through the huge Kingston valves. With a last glance, he saw in a flash many details on the freighter. Most of all, he saw that it looked tremendous, that it seemed almost on top of him, although he realized that its size in comparison with the half-submerged sub made it look closer than it really was. He saw officers on the bridge shouting orders, and men rushing to man a three-inch gun on the forward deck. Then he slipped below, swung the hatch shut after him and dogged it down before slipping on down into the control room.

The Diesels had stopped their roar, and the electric motors were whining a high-pitched song as they drove the boat with all their power. He glanced at the “Christmas Tree” and smiled to see nothing but green lights. Every opening, every vent, was closed and the boat was tight. The inclinometer showed them close to a fifteen degree angle of dive, the maximum that was safe before the acid in the batteries would spill out.

Only then did he notice Larry Gray and Ray Corvin and McFee standing motionless, tense, in the middle of the control room. They were listening, waiting. And March listened and waited too, expecting any moment the rending, tearing sound of a steel bow crashing through their superstructure, through their outer hull, through the inner pressure hull—and then, the deluge as the ocean poured in upon them.

One second—two seconds—three seconds—four seconds passed, and then March relaxed.

“All right now,” he said. “She’d have hit now if she were going to. She was that close.”

He saw a few of the men relax a bit and begin to breathe again. But most of them remained silent and tense. They did not share his confidence, or have confidence in his judgment. He glanced at the depth gauge and saw it at fifty-five feet. Well—it all depended on how much water that freighter was drawing. Maybe it would still knock a few pieces off the conning tower, at least.

But then he heard the soundman say, “Propellers passing over.”

“How close?” Gray asked sharply.

“Just about kissing us,” came the answer. “But passing over—past now.”

Then everyone did relax. The crewmen began to talk a bit among themselves. Scotty looked at March and grinned, wiping a hand over his brow as if to brush away the sweat of fear, and then clasped both hands in a congratulatory signal. March just nodded.

“Nice work, Anson,” Gray said quietly. “That was a close one. Let’s have a cup of coffee. You probably need it.”

They turned toward the wardroom together, and March felt the eyes of all crewmen on him.

“Steady at a hundred feet,” the Skipper ordered before leaving the control room, “and keep on course.”

“Steady at one hundred,” came back the order. “Yes, sir.”

Then the officers went into the wardroom and sat down just as Stan appeared at the door.

“What in blazes happened?” he asked.

“We just about got run down, that’s all,” the Skipper smiled. “Not an uncommon occurrence in submarining, Bigelow. Your friend Anson here took us down in a big hurry.”

“Were you on the bridge, March?” Stan asked.

“Yes, if you’d known that,” March laughed, “you would have been twice as scared, wouldn’t you?”

“Wow, we went down in a big hurry, all right,” Stan said. “Did you have to—to miss it?”

“Guess so,” March said. “Anyway, they were unlimbering a gun the last thing I saw and would’ve been shooting at us if we’d still been in sight.”

“Yes, you did the right thing, all right,” Gray said. “And without much time to think about it.”

“But the crew was marvelous,” March said. “I got the call back that the ship was rigged almost before I got the order out of my mouth. It’s a good feeling to know a crew can act like that, isn’t it, Gray? Especially when a third of it is brand new.”

“Yes, mighty satisfying,” Larry agreed. “And just as satisfying to know the same thing about your new officers. I’m going to feel pretty confident when we suddenly have six Jap destroyers pouncing on us all of a sudden.”

“Say, I just thought of something,” Corvin said. “Those poor guys in that freighter are probably still looking frantically for signs of a periscope and sitting there biting their nails waiting for a torpedo to blast them to kingdom come.”

Gray looked at his watch. “They’re just about getting over that by now,” he said. “They’re just concluding that we are an American sub and not a German. And they’re thanking their lucky stars.”

“Just like us,” McFee added.

In a few minutes the Skipper went out and ordered the sub up to periscope depth, had the ’scope run up and took a look around.

“Not a thing in sight,” he announced. “Down ’scope.”

As the big shaft slid down into its well in the deck, the Skipper ordered the ship to surface once again, and up she came. Gray was the first man up on the bridge, and the other officers quickly followed him. Lookouts and controlmen took their posts, and the Kamongo went steadily ahead on her course.

Corvin took over the watch on the bridge and in a little while the others went below. The crew had settled down and once more everything was serene and quiet.

More days went by, but without the excitement of even a sight of ship or plane. After they had passed into the Caribbean Sea, the Skipper ordered them to hold up for two hours before proceeding.

“We’re a bit ahead of schedule,” he explained, “because of the extra speed we made on the surface. Coming into Panama, we’ve got to surface and run exactly on schedule and on course. Patrol craft and planes are expecting us and they’ll bomb us out of sight if we’re five minutes off schedule or two degrees off course.”

When they resumed speed, on the surface, March checked the boat’s position regularly to make sure of their course. The first time a big Martin PBM-1 shot out of a cloud ahead of them, March felt his throat grow dry. If they were not exactly where they should be at that moment, he knew what would happen to a beautiful new sub and about sixty-four good men of Uncle Sam’s Navy.

But the patrol plane just circled low overhead, gunned its motors and flew away. He knew that its radio reported the sub’s position to other patrol craft, and that they would be checked up on regularly.

Two other planes came over for a look on their way in toward the Canal, and for the last twenty-five miles they were sighted by half a dozen surface ships.

“Are we to go right on through without stopping?” March asked the Skipper.

“Stop long enough to take on the Canal pilot,” he replied. “Nothing else.”

The Skipper was on the bridge, along with Corvin, as they ran alongside the jetty leading to the first locks. As they tied up at the dock below the locks, Corvin stepped ashore. He came back shortly with a gray-haired man who would pilot them through the Canal. The weather was clear and the sun beat down warmly, so half the crew were lined up on the deck, and all hatches were open. All officers were on the bridge, except McFee, who stayed below in charge. Even Stan left his Diesels long enough to come up for a look at the Canal, for all the submarine’s engines were off as they were pulled through the locks by the little donkey engines running on tracks alongside.

The Canal pilot came aboard and climbed to the bridge. Lines were cast, cables attached fore and aft to the donkey engines on both sides, and they began to move forward on the pilot’s orders. Ahead March saw the huge steel doors into the first lock. Slowly and steadily the pigboat moved into the chamber, and the great doors swung silently shut behind them.

Then water rushed into the lock and the boat gently moved upward as the surface of the water rose. Soon they were level with the water in the next lock and the gates ahead of them swung back against the walls. They saw, in the lock next to them, a battered destroyer heading the other direction.

“She’s been through something, all right,” Gray commented. “Going home for repairs.”

The crew on the destroyer waved to the men on Kamongo and for a time there were shouts back and forth. Then they had moved out of the second lock into Gatun Lake, as the destroyer sank down in its lock toward the level of the ocean.

Sailing through the lake was like a pleasant excursion trip on a lake steamer. The thick jungles were unlike anything most of the men had seen before and they looked about them with curiosity.

Through the locks at Pedro Miguel and then at little Lake Miraflores, and they were once more at sea level—this time at the level of the Pacific.

They dropped the pilot at the edge of the long breakwater and then headed out to sea, looking back at the lights of the city of Panama which were beginning to twinkle in the growing darkness.

“Not much time for sightseeing when you’re on submarines,” Stan said, as he and March climbed down to the control room.

“Not when there’s a war going on, anyway,” March said. “We’re in the Pacific now, Stan. How does it feel?”

“Just like the Atlantic,” Stan said.

“Not to me,” March mused. “This is the ocean we’re going to do our fighting in. This is the ocean where I’ve already done a fair amount of battling Japs. But this time, I think I’m going to do a lot better.”