Read Omnibus.The.Sea.Witch.2012 for Free Online
Authors: Stephen Coonts
turned the plane, banking steeply to put the contact ahead of us.
As we were in the turn, he said, “It’s a submarine, I think.”
As he leveled the wings the radioman shouted, “Contact.”
Modahl looked with binoculars. “It’s a sub conning tower. About six miles. Running southeast, I think. We’re in his stern quarter.”
He banked the plane steeply right, then disengaged the autopilot and lifted the nose and added power. “We’ll climb,” he said. “Make a diving attack down the moonpath.”
“Going to drop a bomb?”
“One, I think. There may be nothing at Buka or Rabaul.”
He explained what he wanted to the crew over the intercom. “We’ll use the guns on the conning tower,” he said, “then drop the bomb as we go over. You guys in the blisters and tunnel, hit ‘em with all you got as we go by. They’ll go under before we can make another run, so let’s make this one count.”
Everyone put on life vests, just in case.
“Your job,” Modahl said to me, “is to watch the altimeter and keep me from flying into the water. I want an altitude callout every ten seconds or so. Not every hundred feet, but every ten seconds.”
“Yessir.”
He called Hoffman to the cockpit and talked to him. “One bomb, the call will be ‘ready, ready, now.’ I’ll pickle it off, but to make sure it goes, I want you to push your pickle when I do.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
MODAHL:
The theory was simple enough: We were climbing to about twenty-five hundred feet, if I could get that high under those patchy clouds, then we would fly down the moonpath toward that sub. We’d see him, but he couldn’t see us. At two miles I’d chop the throttles and dive. If everything went right, we’d be doing almost 250 mph when we passed three hundred feet in altitude, about a thousand feet from the sub, and I opened fire with the nose fifties.
I planned to pull out right over the conning tower and release the bomb. If I judged it right and the bomb didn’t hang up on the rack, maybe it would hit close enough to the sub to damage its hull.
On pullout the guys in the back would sting the sub with their fifties.
Getting it all together would be the trick.
HOFFMAN:
I opened the hatch on the bow turret and climbed astraddle of those fifties. I patted those babies. I’d cleaned and greased and loaded them—if they jammed when we needed them Modahl would be royally pissed. Dutch Amme, the crew chief, would sign me up for a strangulation. Modahl was a nice enough guy, for an officer, but he and Amme wouldn’t tolerate a fuck-up at a time likethis, which was okay by me. None of us came all this way to wave at the bastards as we flew by.
The guns
would
work—I
knew
they would.
POTTINGER:
We know the Japanese sailors are there—they are blissfully unaware of us up here in the darkness. Right now they have their sub on the surface, recharging batteries and running southeast, probably headed for the area off Guadalcanal … to hunt for American ships. When they find one, they will torpedo it from ambush.
We call it war but it’s really murder, isn’t it? Us or them, whoever pulls the trigger, no matter. The object of the game is to assassinate the other guy before he can do it to you.
We’re like Al Capone’s enforcers, out to whack the enemy unawares. For the greater glory of our side.
Modahl climbed to the west, with the moon at his back. He got to twenty-four hundred feet before he tickled the bottom of a cloud, so he stayed there and got us back to cruising speed before he started his turn to the left. He turned about 160 degrees, let me fly the
Witch
while he used the binoculars.
“We’ve got it again,” the radioman said. “Thirty degrees left, right at the limits of the gimbals.”
“Range?”
“Twelve miles.”
“Come left ten,” Modahl told me.
I concentrated fiercely on the instruments, holding altitude and turning to the heading he wanted. The Catalina was heavy on the controls, but not
As we were in the turn, he said, “It’s a submarine, I think.”
As he leveled the wings the radioman shouted, “Contact.”
Modahl looked with binoculars. “It’s a sub conning tower. About six miles. Running southeast, I think. We’re in his stern quarter.”
He banked the plane steeply right, then disengaged the autopilot and lifted the nose and added power. “We’ll climb,” he said. “Make a diving attack down the moonpath.”
“Going to drop a bomb?”
“One, I think. There may be nothing at Buka or Rabaul.”
He explained what he wanted to the crew over the intercom. “We’ll use the guns on the conning tower,” he said, “then drop the bomb as we go over. You guys in the blisters and tunnel, hit ‘em with all you got as we go by. They’ll go under before we can make another run, so let’s make this one count.”
Everyone put on life vests, just in case.
“Your job,” Modahl said to me, “is to watch the altimeter and keep me from flying into the water. I want an altitude callout every ten seconds or so. Not every hundred feet, but every ten seconds.”
“Yessir.”
He called Hoffman to the cockpit and talked to him. “One bomb, the call will be ‘ready, ready, now.’ I’ll pickle it off, but to make sure it goes, I want you to push your pickle when I do.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
MODAHL:
The theory was simple enough: We were climbing to about twenty-five hundred feet, if I could get that high under those patchy clouds, then we would fly down the moonpath toward that sub. We’d see him, but he couldn’t see us. At two miles I’d chop the throttles and dive. If everything went right, we’d be doing almost 250 mph when we passed three hundred feet in altitude, about a thousand feet from the sub, and I opened fire with the nose fifties.
I planned to pull out right over the conning tower and release the bomb. If I judged it right and the bomb didn’t hang up on the rack, maybe it would hit close enough to the sub to damage its hull.
On pullout the guys in the back would sting the sub with their fifties.
Getting it all together would be the trick.
HOFFMAN:
I opened the hatch on the bow turret and climbed astraddle of those fifties. I patted those babies. I’d cleaned and greased and loaded them—if they jammed when we needed them Modahl would be royally pissed. Dutch Amme, the crew chief, would sign me up for a strangulation. Modahl was a nice enough guy, for an officer, but he and Amme wouldn’t tolerate a fuck-up at a time likethis, which was okay by me. None of us came all this way to wave at the bastards as we flew by.
The guns
would
work—I
knew
they would.
POTTINGER:
We know the Japanese sailors are there—they are blissfully unaware of us up here in the darkness. Right now they have their sub on the surface, recharging batteries and running southeast, probably headed for the area off Guadalcanal … to hunt for American ships. When they find one, they will torpedo it from ambush.
We call it war but it’s really murder, isn’t it? Us or them, whoever pulls the trigger, no matter. The object of the game is to assassinate the other guy before he can do it to you.
We’re like Al Capone’s enforcers, out to whack the enemy unawares. For the greater glory of our side.
Modahl climbed to the west, with the moon at his back. He got to twenty-four hundred feet before he tickled the bottom of a cloud, so he stayed there and got us back to cruising speed before he started his turn to the left. He turned about 160 degrees, let me fly the
Witch
while he used the binoculars.
“We’ve got it again,” the radioman said. “Thirty degrees left, right at the limits of the gimbals.”
“Range?”
“Twelve miles.”
“Come left ten,” Modahl told me.
I concentrated fiercely on the instruments, holding altitude and turning to the heading he wanted. The Catalina was heavy on the controls, but not