LJ Idol, Week 29: "From the Depths of Hell" [fiction]
August, 1944 - East China Sea, off the southwestern coast of Kyushu, Japan
The night was clear and bright, the air heavy with humidity, the seas relatively still. The bow of the Fubuki-class destroyer-leader sliced through the gentle waves with deceptive calm as it crisscrossed back and forth ahead of the convoy. Standing at the rail up front, seaman Akihito Takahashi lowered his binoculars and glanced at the thrice-cursed moon shining happily down on him, a beacon in the darkness. He swore under his breath. In quieter times such a full and brilliant moon would have been a harbinger of plenty, a sign that the harvests would be bounteous and easily gathered. But with things as they stood now and the Emperor's War grinding ever onward, he shuddered every time there was more than a firefly's light to shine out over the rolling waves.
Because monsters prowled the deep, lurking far below, poised and ready to burst forth, to rend and crush and destroy everything in their path.
The devils. The American devils and their never-ending flood of submarines, which had already sent millions of tons of the Emperor's shipping to the ocean's bottom, and drowned thousands of his loyal subjects. Takahashi's fists clenched convulsively and he fought down the tide of rage and helplessness that always crept over him when he thought of those cowardly bastards, striking from their concealment, gradually choking off one by one the lifelines his country needed. The Imperial Navy was critically low on fuel oil; medical supplies, foodstuffs and war materiel were likewise running low and getting lower every time the Americans sank another freighter. The few convoys that did get through nowadays were shadows of their former selves; though he and his fellow sailors fought boldly back when attacked, the Americans were, Takahashi admitted to himself in moments of weakness, running rings around the Navy, laughing at their efforts to protect the hapless merchantmen. Rumors, dark rumors, circulated among the crew -- the Navy was losing fifty merchant ships a month, the shipbuilding yards couldn't keep pace, there was a critical shortage of escorts for the convoys. The chaos was growing, and in the ranks there were whispers of terror every time they set foot upon the decks and sailed into the dark unknown.
These were no thoughts for a loyal subject of the Emperor! He swallowed the rage and fear and raised his binoculars once more, scanning the rolling swells from horizon to horizon, glancing at each of the ships of the convoy in turn. A faint breeze drifted across the deck, carrying with it a trace of wet vegetation, the smell of land. Faintly, in the distance, Takahashi saw the low, dark shadow of their destination, the island of Kyushu. The convoy had been traveling day and night at top speed since leaving Okinawa days before, zigzagging back and forth across their base course, slowing down and speeding up, sometimes even doubling back on their course, all in an effort to confuse the enemy. So far they had seen no sign of the Americans, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt they were there. Had not the Shozan Maru's convoy radioed them for help just two days past? His Captain had dispatched one Chidori-class destroyer -- all he could spare -- at top speed to the area, but when it arrived, all that remained of the five-ship group was a mile-long oil slick and bits of floating debris scattered with bodies.
Once, the Americans would not have dared show their faces this close to his homeland, Takahashi thought grimly. But the days when the Imperial Navy held dominion over coastal waters were a thing of the past. The Americans seemed to be everywhere -- Luzon Strait off Formosa, Mindanao, the Philippine Sea, the Yellow Sea, even from time to time in the Sea of Japan itself. They grew bolder and bolder as their forays met with more success, and their numbers were limitless -- for every submarine the Imperial Navy sank, the Americans sent four more. All that the Navy could do was being done already. They could but scan the unfriendly seas -- as he was doing now -- and hope the monsters from the deep never struck at them.
Hope. That seemed to be all they had left these days. He sighed, and sent out a brief prayer: Ancestors, watch over me this night!
He had barely finished when his hope was dashed, scattered and broken like cherry blossom blooms in a summer storm. A screaming cry cut through the stillness, the lookout's terror plainly audible: "Bridge! Torpedoes! Torpedoes in the water, bearing two-seven-five!"
Takahashi whirled, heart in his throat, already searching the indicated area, desperately wishing that it had been a mirage. But no: there, arrowing straight towards the largest tanker in the convoy, the bubbling phosphorescent wakes of at least three torpedoes. A klaxon began blaring and screams split the night. The tanker heeled, slowly beginning a turn to starboard, but Takahashi knew immediately it was far too late. Automatically, he reached for the railing as terse orders were snapped out behind him; the destroyer's bow reared high in response to the surge of power to its screws, and it began racing down the torpedo track towards the hated submarine that had fired them. The Rising Sun flag snapped out in the wind and the techs at the stern racks began frantically setting the depth-charge pistols to one hundred feet.
"Bridge!" Another scream from the stern lookout. "More torpedoes! Bearing one-eight-zero!"
Takahashi's heart dropped out of his throat and fell all the way to his feet. He turned slowly, fatalistically, reaching out a hand helplessly as if to stop the fingers of death that were rushing now towards one of the freighters on the far side of the convoy. Barely a second later, a booming roar heralded their arrival; the freighter's decks were torn apart by the fireball that consumed her. An instant after that, the doomed tanker on Takahashi's side went up in its own conflagration, refined fuel oil flames reaching what seemed like a mile into the sky, mounting hungrily towards the traitor moon that had given the enemy such a clear shot.
His Fubuki was now making at least thirty-five knots towards the bearing that the initial torpedoes had been fired from, but they could do nothing about the submarine on the other side of the convoy. The escort on that side, the Chidori class which had been unable to reach Shozan Maru's convoy before its destruction, was at least six thousand yards to the rear and would have to swing out and around the row of ships to get clear before they could fire back. Even as Takahashi thought that, grinding his teeth in rage, another explosion spoke from further forward in the convoy; a huge spray of flame gushed from the stern of one of the troop transports and steam began pouring from its midsection as the ship was wrenched and torn. Screaming human torches ran in search of death, leaping over the side into burning seas or collapsing, eventually, as the fires consumed them.
Three of them at least, Takahashi thought fatalistically. One on our side, one to the other side, and one lying in wait further up ahead. We're outgunned and outmaneuvered.
His hands trembled as he gripped the railing. His Commanding Officer appeared on the bridge, still in his bathrobe, eyes bleary with sleep and holding a barely-seen terror at bay. "Aki!" he shouted, shielding his eyes against the glare as still another tanker went up in bellowing, crackling flames. "What in the Emperor's name are we dealing with here?"
Takahashi looked at his Captain numbly, his gaze swinging around like a weathercock. His mouth tried to form words but he suddenly didn't have the strength. Instead, he pointed with a trembling hand at the cruel shape that he had finally discerned in the waters ahead, a bare six hundred yards away.
Long and sleek; dark and forbidding; something out of a nightmare. Blunt-nosed, slim-bodied, it looked every inch the monster it was, lying calmly in wait for them, the waves caressing its sides, seeming to enfold and protect it. Its shape stirred something deep and primal in his memory -- thoughts of a time, eons past, when leviathans ruled the seas, killing what they chose with flashing teeth and crushing strength. The moonlight glistened dully on its metal skin as it rolled faintly in the soft swells.
Abruptly another bubble trail burst from just in front of its blunt snout, this time heading directly for the Fubuki, followed rapidly by another. The other bow lookout shrieked in terror and his gibbering wail of "T-torpedoes, Captain! Zero-one-zero!" sent ice down Takahashi's spine. In that instant he knew they were all dead men. The destroyer swerved, heeling over hard and throwing spray, racing against death, but what good would it do to fight back against a beast like this, one that could vanish far below them? Even as he watched, he saw it beginning to slide beneath the waves; though his ship would be on it within a minute, by then it would be hundreds of feet below, slipping away into the depths that had spawned it. Behind him he heard more blasting roars, the tortured groaning of metal on metal as more ships were twisted and wracked by explosions, the torpedoes of the other submarines working their vicious way through the rest of his convoy. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight, as the monster disappeared from view with scarcely a ripple to mark its passage.
Takahashi slid bonelessly to the deck and put his hands over his head to stifle his own screams. He never even felt the blast that reduced his ship to fragments and sent his body whirling through the air. His last thought was that he hoped his ancestors had not been watching him after all. Their shame and horror would have been too much for him to bear.
[This is a fictional piece, but it is backed wholly by fact. The U.S. Submarine Force in the Pacific during World War II waged a terrible and brutal war against the Japanese nation, sinking more than 1000 merchant vessels and a large portion of their military navy as well. Their war was an extremely difficult one -- in addition to the claustrophobic, hellish conditions aboard a WWII-era sub, the U.S. submariners were forced to deal with defective torpedoes, defective exploder mechanisms, diesel engines that ran improperly, inadequate training, and political infighting within the US Naval structure itself. These problems were eventually addressed, but it was more than 15 months after the U.S. entered the war before its submarine force had effective torpedoes and properly working diesel engines. Despite all this, they fought valiantly and prevailed; in total, US submarines sank over 5.3 million tons of shipping during World War II, nearly 55% of all Japanese shipping lost from all sources. After the war, many experts argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was by that time unnecessary, as the U.S. submarine war had already destroyed Japan's economy and decimated its supply lines to the point where it could no longer function as a nation, much less one on a war footing.
For their valiant efforts, these men paid a heavy price: more than 22% of the 16,000-plus men who went to sea in submarines died in action, a higher percentage death toll than any branch of the U.S. armed forces.
This has been my entry for Week 29 of LJ Idol, for which there were four topics available; the topic I chose was "Leviathan". I hope you enjoyed my efforts this week! Please check out the other participants' entries and show them some love as well.]
The night was clear and bright, the air heavy with humidity, the seas relatively still. The bow of the Fubuki-class destroyer-leader sliced through the gentle waves with deceptive calm as it crisscrossed back and forth ahead of the convoy. Standing at the rail up front, seaman Akihito Takahashi lowered his binoculars and glanced at the thrice-cursed moon shining happily down on him, a beacon in the darkness. He swore under his breath. In quieter times such a full and brilliant moon would have been a harbinger of plenty, a sign that the harvests would be bounteous and easily gathered. But with things as they stood now and the Emperor's War grinding ever onward, he shuddered every time there was more than a firefly's light to shine out over the rolling waves.
Because monsters prowled the deep, lurking far below, poised and ready to burst forth, to rend and crush and destroy everything in their path.
The devils. The American devils and their never-ending flood of submarines, which had already sent millions of tons of the Emperor's shipping to the ocean's bottom, and drowned thousands of his loyal subjects. Takahashi's fists clenched convulsively and he fought down the tide of rage and helplessness that always crept over him when he thought of those cowardly bastards, striking from their concealment, gradually choking off one by one the lifelines his country needed. The Imperial Navy was critically low on fuel oil; medical supplies, foodstuffs and war materiel were likewise running low and getting lower every time the Americans sank another freighter. The few convoys that did get through nowadays were shadows of their former selves; though he and his fellow sailors fought boldly back when attacked, the Americans were, Takahashi admitted to himself in moments of weakness, running rings around the Navy, laughing at their efforts to protect the hapless merchantmen. Rumors, dark rumors, circulated among the crew -- the Navy was losing fifty merchant ships a month, the shipbuilding yards couldn't keep pace, there was a critical shortage of escorts for the convoys. The chaos was growing, and in the ranks there were whispers of terror every time they set foot upon the decks and sailed into the dark unknown.
These were no thoughts for a loyal subject of the Emperor! He swallowed the rage and fear and raised his binoculars once more, scanning the rolling swells from horizon to horizon, glancing at each of the ships of the convoy in turn. A faint breeze drifted across the deck, carrying with it a trace of wet vegetation, the smell of land. Faintly, in the distance, Takahashi saw the low, dark shadow of their destination, the island of Kyushu. The convoy had been traveling day and night at top speed since leaving Okinawa days before, zigzagging back and forth across their base course, slowing down and speeding up, sometimes even doubling back on their course, all in an effort to confuse the enemy. So far they had seen no sign of the Americans, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt they were there. Had not the Shozan Maru's convoy radioed them for help just two days past? His Captain had dispatched one Chidori-class destroyer -- all he could spare -- at top speed to the area, but when it arrived, all that remained of the five-ship group was a mile-long oil slick and bits of floating debris scattered with bodies.
Once, the Americans would not have dared show their faces this close to his homeland, Takahashi thought grimly. But the days when the Imperial Navy held dominion over coastal waters were a thing of the past. The Americans seemed to be everywhere -- Luzon Strait off Formosa, Mindanao, the Philippine Sea, the Yellow Sea, even from time to time in the Sea of Japan itself. They grew bolder and bolder as their forays met with more success, and their numbers were limitless -- for every submarine the Imperial Navy sank, the Americans sent four more. All that the Navy could do was being done already. They could but scan the unfriendly seas -- as he was doing now -- and hope the monsters from the deep never struck at them.
Hope. That seemed to be all they had left these days. He sighed, and sent out a brief prayer: Ancestors, watch over me this night!
He had barely finished when his hope was dashed, scattered and broken like cherry blossom blooms in a summer storm. A screaming cry cut through the stillness, the lookout's terror plainly audible: "Bridge! Torpedoes! Torpedoes in the water, bearing two-seven-five!"
Takahashi whirled, heart in his throat, already searching the indicated area, desperately wishing that it had been a mirage. But no: there, arrowing straight towards the largest tanker in the convoy, the bubbling phosphorescent wakes of at least three torpedoes. A klaxon began blaring and screams split the night. The tanker heeled, slowly beginning a turn to starboard, but Takahashi knew immediately it was far too late. Automatically, he reached for the railing as terse orders were snapped out behind him; the destroyer's bow reared high in response to the surge of power to its screws, and it began racing down the torpedo track towards the hated submarine that had fired them. The Rising Sun flag snapped out in the wind and the techs at the stern racks began frantically setting the depth-charge pistols to one hundred feet.
"Bridge!" Another scream from the stern lookout. "More torpedoes! Bearing one-eight-zero!"
Takahashi's heart dropped out of his throat and fell all the way to his feet. He turned slowly, fatalistically, reaching out a hand helplessly as if to stop the fingers of death that were rushing now towards one of the freighters on the far side of the convoy. Barely a second later, a booming roar heralded their arrival; the freighter's decks were torn apart by the fireball that consumed her. An instant after that, the doomed tanker on Takahashi's side went up in its own conflagration, refined fuel oil flames reaching what seemed like a mile into the sky, mounting hungrily towards the traitor moon that had given the enemy such a clear shot.
His Fubuki was now making at least thirty-five knots towards the bearing that the initial torpedoes had been fired from, but they could do nothing about the submarine on the other side of the convoy. The escort on that side, the Chidori class which had been unable to reach Shozan Maru's convoy before its destruction, was at least six thousand yards to the rear and would have to swing out and around the row of ships to get clear before they could fire back. Even as Takahashi thought that, grinding his teeth in rage, another explosion spoke from further forward in the convoy; a huge spray of flame gushed from the stern of one of the troop transports and steam began pouring from its midsection as the ship was wrenched and torn. Screaming human torches ran in search of death, leaping over the side into burning seas or collapsing, eventually, as the fires consumed them.
Three of them at least, Takahashi thought fatalistically. One on our side, one to the other side, and one lying in wait further up ahead. We're outgunned and outmaneuvered.
His hands trembled as he gripped the railing. His Commanding Officer appeared on the bridge, still in his bathrobe, eyes bleary with sleep and holding a barely-seen terror at bay. "Aki!" he shouted, shielding his eyes against the glare as still another tanker went up in bellowing, crackling flames. "What in the Emperor's name are we dealing with here?"
Takahashi looked at his Captain numbly, his gaze swinging around like a weathercock. His mouth tried to form words but he suddenly didn't have the strength. Instead, he pointed with a trembling hand at the cruel shape that he had finally discerned in the waters ahead, a bare six hundred yards away.
Long and sleek; dark and forbidding; something out of a nightmare. Blunt-nosed, slim-bodied, it looked every inch the monster it was, lying calmly in wait for them, the waves caressing its sides, seeming to enfold and protect it. Its shape stirred something deep and primal in his memory -- thoughts of a time, eons past, when leviathans ruled the seas, killing what they chose with flashing teeth and crushing strength. The moonlight glistened dully on its metal skin as it rolled faintly in the soft swells.
Abruptly another bubble trail burst from just in front of its blunt snout, this time heading directly for the Fubuki, followed rapidly by another. The other bow lookout shrieked in terror and his gibbering wail of "T-torpedoes, Captain! Zero-one-zero!" sent ice down Takahashi's spine. In that instant he knew they were all dead men. The destroyer swerved, heeling over hard and throwing spray, racing against death, but what good would it do to fight back against a beast like this, one that could vanish far below them? Even as he watched, he saw it beginning to slide beneath the waves; though his ship would be on it within a minute, by then it would be hundreds of feet below, slipping away into the depths that had spawned it. Behind him he heard more blasting roars, the tortured groaning of metal on metal as more ships were twisted and wracked by explosions, the torpedoes of the other submarines working their vicious way through the rest of his convoy. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight, as the monster disappeared from view with scarcely a ripple to mark its passage.
Takahashi slid bonelessly to the deck and put his hands over his head to stifle his own screams. He never even felt the blast that reduced his ship to fragments and sent his body whirling through the air. His last thought was that he hoped his ancestors had not been watching him after all. Their shame and horror would have been too much for him to bear.
[This is a fictional piece, but it is backed wholly by fact. The U.S. Submarine Force in the Pacific during World War II waged a terrible and brutal war against the Japanese nation, sinking more than 1000 merchant vessels and a large portion of their military navy as well. Their war was an extremely difficult one -- in addition to the claustrophobic, hellish conditions aboard a WWII-era sub, the U.S. submariners were forced to deal with defective torpedoes, defective exploder mechanisms, diesel engines that ran improperly, inadequate training, and political infighting within the US Naval structure itself. These problems were eventually addressed, but it was more than 15 months after the U.S. entered the war before its submarine force had effective torpedoes and properly working diesel engines. Despite all this, they fought valiantly and prevailed; in total, US submarines sank over 5.3 million tons of shipping during World War II, nearly 55% of all Japanese shipping lost from all sources. After the war, many experts argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was by that time unnecessary, as the U.S. submarine war had already destroyed Japan's economy and decimated its supply lines to the point where it could no longer function as a nation, much less one on a war footing.
For their valiant efforts, these men paid a heavy price: more than 22% of the 16,000-plus men who went to sea in submarines died in action, a higher percentage death toll than any branch of the U.S. armed forces.
This has been my entry for Week 29 of LJ Idol, for which there were four topics available; the topic I chose was "Leviathan". I hope you enjoyed my efforts this week! Please check out the other participants' entries and show them some love as well.]