“How’s the Skipper?” March asked. “Still unconscious. Fever high but receding a little bit. Maybe he’ll make it.” “Here I am going into battle with my Skipper and my best friend out cold!” March exclaimed. “You’ve got the whole crew with you, sir,” the pharmacist said. “Every man of ’em. Let’s get in the middle of that bunch of Jap ships and blast the daylights out of ’em!” Tension began to rise in the boat as they neared the convoy, traveling at a hundred and fifty feet where no shadow of a sub would be likely to be seen from the air. March got on the phone and told all hands the plan of attack, not minimizing the dangers. “We’re going into the middle,” March said. “Alone. It was the Skipper’s plan. We’ll be the first there, and we’re to scatter them so the planes will find easy pickings and the other subs can pick them off as they scamper away. We’ll have all tubes ready to go at just about the same time—six fore and four aft. Then we’ll duck for all we’re worth and we’ll go mighty deep and lay low.” There was another shout through the ship and the men stood eagerly at their posts. And then came waiting, tense waiting, as the ship moved forward. Men had a cup of coffee, smoked a cigarette, walked back and forth nervously. But they did little talking. They were waiting, listening. Finally the sound man picked up something. “Propellers,” he said, “plenty of them—ten degrees to port.” “Take her to two hundred feet,” March ordered, and then gave a slight change in course to the helmsman. “We’ll get right in their path and lay low without motors running. The sound detectors on the advance destroyers won’t catch us, then. When they’ve passed over we can pick up motors again because their own propellers will kill all the sound ours make. We’ll come up in about the middle, pick our spot and let go. I’ll want the periscope up for just about five seconds.” The boat leveled off at two hundred and fifty feet. Motors were shut off. Soon the sound man reported the close approach of the propellers. March had judged right—they were passing overhead. “Destroyer a little to starboard, passing over,” the soundman reported. “Another to port,” he reported in a moment. Then, a little later, “Battleship.” “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to get that?” murmured one of the men. “Nice, yes,” March replied. “But that wouldn’t do the job for the other boys that we’re going to do. We’ll let one of the Forts get that battleship. We’ll just send it running.” The men nodded in agreement. They knew the Skipper’s plan was best. Ship after ship passed over as there was silence in the submarine. Then March spoke. “Come up to seventy-five feet now. They can’t hear.” The motors whined again and the sub tilted up slightly. Everyone watched the depth hand move to seventy-five and stay there. The sound man continued to report propellers overhead. March figured that they must be getting near the center of the convoy.