They gave their negative report to the patrol, learned that no other pigboat contacted had had better luck, then submerged as the flying boat took off from the choppy waters. They ran submerged at periscope depth for two hours until darkness began to fall, with one of the officers having his eye glued to the little rubber piece on the ’scope every minute. Then they surfaced and went steadily forward on their prescribed course. Two officers and three lookouts stayed constantly on the bridge, and the sound detector man below concentrated on his listening as never before. It might well be that he could pick up the sound of a convoy’s propellers long before the lookouts would sight anything, especially on a moonless night. But dawn came and found them with nothing to report. “You’d think there wasn’t even a war going on out here!” McFee complained. “Don’t the Nips have _any_ ships in these waters?” “Not in the waters we’ve been sailing on, anyway,” Stan Bigelow replied. “I feel cross-eyed from looking so hard for the last four hours.” The bright sun sent them under the water again, but only to periscope depth so that a constant lookout could be maintained. Still—late afternoon found them filled with discouragement, waiting for the patrol plane. The patrol had found nothing. “Maybe one of the others—” March suggested, but Larry shook his head. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I think we’re in the best spot. We’re furthest west of the whole bunch. That’s certainly the most likely route for the convoy, keeping as close to the Philippines, to land protection, as possible. If they were attacked they’d have support from land-based planes there for quite a while. If anything, I think they may even be further west than our route.” March and Larry talked as they stood on the bridge waiting for their patrol plane to come out of the west. Suddenly the lookout shouted, “Plane coming out of the sun!” “Can’t be ours!” Larry shouted. “Rig for dive, March.” As March barked out the orders to take the ship down, the lookout reported that the plane was a two-motored flying boat. “Must be a Jap all right,” Larry said. They all knew that their own plane was four-motored, one of the longest-ranged flying boats in the world. [Illustration: _A Two-Motored Flying Boat Came at Them_] In two minutes March had slid down the hatch, to be followed by Larry, who dogged the hatch cover tight. “Take her down to a hundred and fifty,” he said. _Kamongo_ turned her nose down and slid forward. As they leveled off at a hundred and fifty they heard the roar and felt the jar of a depth charge explosion. But it was not close and it went off far above them. Then came another, a little closer but still threatening no danger to the sub. “Not full-size charges,” Larry said. “We’re all right at a hundred and fifty. We’ll just wait him out. He can’t be carrying very many depth charges in that job of his. But hold on—he’ll probably get a little closer.”