Apart from a light wind stirring the trees and the occasional cry of a bird, there was no sound except for the crunch of Ranua’s boots on gravel as the wirehair terrier headed for the rendezvous point.  His orders were to meet the SLF squad at the northern tip of Moon Island, where they would board the S-16.  Since there were rocks and shoals along the northern spur of the crescent-shaped island, he guessed that they would either row or swim out to the submarine.
        He hadn’t wanted to leave Miri, and he had to resist the urge to head back up the hill.  Saying goodbye to her had been hard, easily the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
        But he was sure he’d come back.
        And he prayed that his certainty was correct.
        “Pssst, Ranua.” 
        The softly whispered call made his ears twitch and he stopped beside a stand of trees.  Estes stepped out into the roadway.  “Good morning,” the horse said as five members of his squad stepped out.  All were in civilian clothes, and one of the wolves chewed on an unlit cigar as they stood in the feeble moonlight.
        He now understood the Euro phrase cloak and dagger a bit better.
        “Hello, Estes,” Ranua said, forcing himself to sound businesslike and professional.  “So, where’s our ride?”
        The horse pulled back his sleeve and studied the softly glowing radium dial of his wristwatch.  “Ken’s on the lookout for it.”
        Ranua nodded.  He had wondered where the wolverine was.  There was a low whistled bird call from the trees, and heads turned in time to see the submarine surfacing about a hundred yards offshore.  “There’s our ride,” Estes remarked with a grin.
        “Will we have to swim?” Ranua asked.  The currents could be treacherous at the turn of the tide.
        “No, we’ve got two rubber rafts, and all our gear’s already aboard,” Sam replied.  The wolf stretched and said, “Looks like a nice night for a boat ride.”
        “Yeah,” another wolf replied.  “Nice and romantic-like.”  All of them laughed quietly as they headed for the shoreline.
        The weather in late September was starting to get cooler, but the water was still warm as the eight furs paddled out to the waiting sub. 

        As they were helped aboard and the rafts deflated, Ranua heard a familiar voice and walked up to the Doberman.  “Hello, Matt.”
        Peters did a double take.  “They explained what we were supposed to do, but I never dreamed you’d be in on it, Ranua.”  He suddenly chuckled.  “Looks like you’ll be able to see what I do for a living after all.  Come below and I’ll show you around.”  The terrier followed the Doberman down a hatch and into a compartment lit with a single dim red bulb. 
        “This is the forward torpedo room,” Matt said as Ranua looked around.  The compartment was quite narrow, with some bunks interspersed with the handling gear for the torpedoes.  The sub’s slim and lethal-looking main weapons sat clamped to racks, ready to be shoved into the tubes.  “We offloaded half our torpedoes a few hours ago so there’d be room for you.”
        “I hope nothing happens,” Ranua said, sniffing.  The air felt close and damp, and smelled a bit musty.
        “You and me both, brother,” Matt said, crossing himself in Orthodox fashion, the three fingers of his right paw touching his forehead, right shoulder and left shoulder. 
        Apparently, joining the submarine fleet had caused a religious revival in his friend. 
        Matt led Ranua aft as furs bustled about.  There was a soft clang behind them, and the air seemed to get a bit closer.  “What was that?” Ranua asked as he glanced behind them.
        “Hatch closing,” Matt explained.  “The Boss doesn’t believe in hanging around.  I have to get to my diving station in the control room.  Care to watch?”
        “Sure,” and the two headed aft.

        “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Peters,” Commander Madsen said as she glared at the Doberman, who promptly flinched and headed for his station by a bank of controls.  She nodded absently to Ranua as she said, “Chief of the Boat, diving stations please.”
        “Yes ma’am,” and the senior petty officer who was also the crew’s Syndic switched on the intercom.  There was a sound like an old-style car horn, and the heavyset feline said into the microphone, “Now hear this.  Diving stations, all compartments rig for dive.”
        Matt leaned over and studied a chart clipped to the table by the periscope.  “Chart shows eighty feet under the keel, ma’am.”
        “Very well.”
        “Close all vents and valves,” the Chief ordered.  One by one, the lights on a large console slowly changed from red to green.  “Board shows green, ma’am.”
        Madsen nodded.  “Thank you, Slim.  Helm, make three knots.  Open main inductions.  Ten degrees down on the bow and take us to fifty feet.”  As her orders were carried out, the boat tilted slightly, and Ranua involuntarily grabbed an overhead conduit to steady himself.  He moved aside to be clear of the open hatchway, just in case.
        He gulped quietly.  Although he knew intellectually how a submarine worked, that knowledge didn’t prepare him for the actual experience of sealing himself inside a pressurized tube under the sea.
        After a few moments the helmsman said, “Fifty feet, ma’am.” 
        “Steer course three-five-oh until we enter the main shipping channel, then take us to periscope depth,” and Madsen turned toward Ranua.  “You must be Ensign Milikonu.”
        “Permission to come aboard, ma’am,” he said, and she returned his salute with a curt nod.  He was in civilian clothes, but it was a habit he had gotten into.
        “Granted.  Of course,” the greyhound chuckled, “you wouldn’t want to try to leave now anyway.  First time aboard a submarine, Milikonu?” she asked, noting his nervously wagging tail.
        “Yes, ma’am.”
        “Well, try to stay out from underfoot if anything happens,” she said.  “We anticipate intercepting the target right on time,” and she rubbed her paws as she looked around the control room.  “Close quarters though, isn’t it?  I’m really itching to get my paws on one of the new boats we’re building,” she remarked, and bent to study the charts of Spontoon that Matt spread out for her.  The submarine’s executive officer was already aft, doing his required inspection of the engines.
        Madsen’s offpawed remark made Ranua start thinking.  How many dock workers at Kiel, Groton or Yokosuka were actually working for Vice-Commodore Broome, feeding the fox small details of the latest in submarine construction?  For that matter, how many workers at Port Vancouver and other shipyards were secretly working for other nations?
        He suspected that he’d never know, and it wasn’t his area of expertise anyway.  He shook himself out of his reverie and tugged at the collar of his sweater.
        The air felt stuffy.  The mingled scents of the sub’s crew of twenty in such close quarters almost made his head swim.  Matt saw the look on his face and remarked, “You get used to it.”
        “Feels like I’m suffocating,” Ranua said, and he glanced up at the conning tower ladder. 
        Madsen cocked an eye at Ranua as Matt asked, “You didn’t tell anyone you were afraid of closed spaces, Ranua?”
        “I never knew I was, Matt, until now,” the terrier said, swallowing hard.  He closed his eyes and took a breath before saying, “I think I’ll be okay, though.”  He made a feeble attempt to smile, but failed rather abjectly.
        “You’ll find that life aboard a sub’s not that bad,” Madsen said in an almost absent tone.  She only rarely made eye contact with him, instead looking all around at the various control room stations to make certain that everything was running smoothly.  “In fact, we generally submerge during the day, and run on the surface at night to charge the batteries.”  She started listening to the reports coming into the control room, and the conversation died.

        Perhaps a half-hour later Madsen glanced at the chart, then at the clock over the helmsman’s head.  “Bring us to periscope depth, steer ten degrees to port.”
        “Yes, ma’am,” and the two planesmen pulled back on their controls.  “Ten feet,” one of the two ratings reported after several moments.
        “Up periscope,” and the oiled steel shaft rose up out of the deck.  Madsen flipped down the handles on either side and put her eye to the eyepiece.  She walked around, surveying the surrounding sea.  “Freighter to starboard, outbound,” she remarked with a smile.  “We’ll surface and tag along behind it.  Chief, surface; helm, steer course zero-three-zero.  Tell the engine room to prepare the diesels.”
        “Yes, ma’am.”  Orders were passed, and soon the sub tilted again, heading up for the surface.  Ranua started breathing a bit easier, but it wasn’t until the hatch over his head was opened and fresh air came in that his heart stopped hammering away in his chest.  “Lookouts aloft,” the chief said, and two ratings scrambled up the ladder.  A deep-throated rumble shook the boat as the diesel engines started.


Eighty-five miles NNW of Main Island
October 1, 1937
2107:

        01OCT371924 RINSB BLEFUSCU TO S16 3901N 8935W E AT 10 KOWALCHUK SENDS
        Madsen read the message over again, then tapped at the chart with a pencil.  The message from the commander of the submarine force on Blefuscu Island was based on a report from a Syndicate seaplane.  It had been decoded from the intricate ‘wartime’ code and passed to her almost immediately after the sub had surfaced, then the message had been destroyed.  “Okay,” she said as her Exec and Matt Peters looked over her shoulders, “we’re here, and the target’s there, about one hundred miles away at last report.  Ideas?”
        “We stay close, maybe ten miles,” the Exec, a badger named Steve Walksalone, recommended.  “Then we wait for the right time.”
        “The moon’ll be dark on the fourth, Vivian,” Matt reminded her.
        “Quite true, Matt,” the greyhound said, “but we want a little time to size it up.”  She studied the chart again, nibbling at her lip pensively.  “Where’s Milikonu?”
        “On deck,” Matt replied.  “He said he needed some air.”
        Madsen chuckled.  “Have him get down here.  I want to know what the weather’s like this time of year.”
        “Yes, ma’am,” and the Doberman climbed up the ladder to the conning tower.
        Ranua was leaning against the rail, a pair of binoculars to his eyes as his friend came up beside him.  “Pretty night,” Matt said.
        The terrier gave a little start and lowered the binoculars.  “Not bad.”  The air felt a bit crisp, with rags of cloud obscuring the stars and the thin crescent moon descending to the western horizon.
        “She wants you below,” Matt said, and took the binoculars from Ranua’s paws as the terrier went down the ladder.
        “Glad you could join us, Ranua,” Madsen said jokingly as Ranua stepped off the ladder.  She winked at the Exec and said, “I’m getting the idea you don’t like submarines.”
        “Sorry, Vivian.  It just feels sort of closed-in in here.”
        “I’ll bet.  It takes a half-crazy fur to get in one of these boats in the first place – and a completely crazy fur to want to spend their career in them,” she said with a grin, “so don’t get embarrassed about it.  Now, I need to know what the weather’s like in this area at this time of year.”
        “Well, ma’am, the weather‘s starting to shift as colder air starts coming from Siberia,” Ranua explained.  In truth, he had been slowly adjusting to life aboard the sub; at least he was sleeping better.  “It’s very changeable - lots of storms just start up out of nowhere.”
        “Bad storms?” the Exec asked.
        Ranua waggled a paw.  “Some can get severe, yes,” he replied, “but most of the time they’re small squalls.”  He glanced down at the chart and noted their position relative to the target trawler.  “They’re not too far away,” he observed.
        “Twenty hours at five knots,” Steve remarked, “but the good news is he’s coming to us.”  He grinned, a sometimes disturbing sight on a badger.
        Madsen nodded.  “Okay.  Ranua, go back up and tell Matt to post additional lookouts,” she said, “then go forward and tell your team that we’ll be closing on the target.”
        Ranua nodded and headed back up the ladder, trying not to seem too eager about it.


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