“Affirmative to both, Skipper. Our message is a long one. Two hundred sixty-three groups. Can it wait till we’re out from under the ice? We’ve hardly been able to budge since the collision, and we’re pretty itchy. Over.”
“Sorry, Keith. Orders. But if you couldn’t budge, how did you get so far from the reference position? Over.”
“We tried some gliding and made a few miles, I guess. It’s all in the message. You’ll break it, won’t you? Over.”
“Affirmative. We’ll relay it just as you give it to us, but in the meantime we’ll be breaking it too. Are you ready to pass it over?”
“That’s affirmative, boss. Stand by to write.”
“Standing by.” Richardson closed a small switch which had been taped to the side of the UQC speaker. At Jeff Norton’s suggestion, wires had been led to Manta’s radio room and a spare speaker put in parallel with the UQC. The switch merely turned on a small light near the extra speaker. The two radiomen on watch had been instructed to copy everything they heard on their speaker whenever the light was on. They had, of course, been avidly listening already.
A new voice took over the UQC, Howie Trumbull, according to Jeff, reading in measured cadence the gibberish of the encoded message. Each letter was spoken phonetically, as were the numerals and letters of the heading. To guard against errors, Jeff Norton was then required to fetch the message from the radio room and read it back, using the same slow voice procedure. During the whole of the laborious interchange, Rich and Buck listened to it from the periscope station in the control room.
The entire exchange took two hours to complete.
“This is crazy,” grumbled Buck. “Here we’ve been half a day looking for a lead or polynya to break through — with shallow enough ice, that is, so it won’t be an all-fired emergency — and all we’ve seen is solid ice cover, twenty feet thick. We can go anywhere we want, in any direction, so long as we don’t try to go too far down, and not too far up. We’ve got a seven-hundred-foot layer of clear water to roam around in, and we’ve found the Cushing but we’ve not found a way to get that message relayed. Everything is go to try to snake her out of here, but we can’t because of that dumb message! There’s nothing in it that’s so damned important it couldn’t wait. We could have made the hookup and have her twenty miles away from there by now!”
“Ours is not to reason why,” said Rich.
“Tennyson also said someone had blundered, right?”
“Yes, back in Balaclava or wherever it was. But they didn’t know in Washington what we know now. In fact, they don’t know yet. It’s important for them to know about that plane and the bomb, and that some kind of long-planned operation is going on up here. Also, remember how ComSubPac had all the subs report in right after the cease-fire in 1945? That was so he’d know for sure who was still okay as of then. One reason was to make any possible Japanese skulduggery a little tougher to do. So, this message tells Washington the Cushing is still alive.”
“Okay, sure, Skipper. But all the same, I’d feel better if we were on our way with her. That Gertrude is the most easily detected sonar there is, even with the gain way down. If the Russians were smart enough to lower a good sonar set through a hole in the ice, even from pretty far away, they might have picked up something. And then when we open up on radio, if we ever get to, they’ll know for sure something’s cooking.”
“Can’t help it, Buck. But aren’t you the one who made me a speech about the Arctic being a free ocean, so we shouldn’t worry about what anyone else thinks or wants?”
“That was before we knew the Russians had really tried something. That bomb was not very friendly.”
“Neither was the collision.”
“Do you really think that was deliberate?”
“No way of ever telling. They’ll always claim it was an accident. Keith was smart, and damned ingenious, to get as far away from the scene of the crime as he did.”
Buck grinned a worried grimace. “Ingenious is right! Who ever thought you could glide a submarine?”
“Well, it’s no way to move very far. Not for a submarine as big as the Cushing. But one of the little research subs was designed to travel that way. It had big planing surfaces, of course. So far as I know it’s never been built, but the theory sounded as if it might work. It’s amazing, though, how far Keith managed to move that big boat of his.”
“Ship.”
“Ship.”
After spending several hours in the control room, hoping, perhaps rather naïvely, that a usable polynya would turn up quickly, Rich and Buck adjourned to Buck’s stateroom, leaving a special watch on the ice detector, with specific and careful instructions. Two changes of watch later, with the idea beginning to intrude that perhaps at least one of them ought to try to get some sleep, they felt the ship heel suddenly. Buck had already reached for the telephone handset on the bulkhead over his bunk, when the call bell rang. “Captain? This is Jerry. We’ve just passed under a possible. I’ve marked it on the DRT, and we’re turning now to go back to it.”
“We’ll be right there.” Buck replaced the telephone as Rich got to his feet, and the two walked swiftly to the control room.
“It’s the best one I’ve seen,” said Jerry Abbott, “but it’s not all that good. Here’s the fathometer trace.” He was holding a piece of paper just removed from the ice detector. Buck and Rich scrutinized it closely. “About six feet thick,” said Abbott. “As a guess, the thin spot was about an eighth of a mile long along our track.”
“Yes.” Buck looked up. “We heading back for it now?”
“Yessir. I made a Williamson turn, and we’ve slowed way down.”
“Good,” said Buck. Turning to Richardson he asked, “What do you think, Commodore?”
“This is the first reasonable opportunity, isn’t it? Maybe, in the next couple of days, we might find a better one, but I’m with you. I’d like to get this message off and go back to the Cushing as quick as we can. Did you tell me your sail can push up through six feet of ice?”
“That’s what the Electric Boat Division designers say.”
“The Manta’s your boat, so it’s your decision, Buck. But if you’re asking me, I say let’s give the EB designers a test of their product.”
“Good!” said Williams. “I say the same.” Abbott had been an interested listener. “Do you have the conn, Jerry?” Buck asked.
“Affirmative, Skipper.”
“All right. Put us right under the polynya at all stop, dead in the water, and catch the best trim we can get. I’ll take over the conn when you’re ready, and we’ll bring her right on up.”
“Tom asked to be called if we’re going up, sir. He wants to take over the dive.”
“Okay. Call him. Also alert radio, and have the topside crew get ready with ice-clearing tools. Be sure they’re dressed for the cold.”
The routine regularity of the submerged watch gave way to an orderly bustle of preparation. In a very few minutes movement stopped and quiet returned. Buck, looking through the periscope, maneuvered into the center of the thin-ice area, using Manta’s propellers sparingly and methodically, taking his time. Finally ready, he looked inquiringly at Richardson, who had stood quietly watching nearby, received his quick nod of assent, spoke to Clancy. “Tom, blow forward and after groups slowly. Bring us up flat. Remember, there’s probably a layer of fresh water under the ice, so we’ll be losing buoyancy as we get closer to it. Try to keep us moving upward at the same rate.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Clancy, who had already been thoroughly briefed on the vagaries of specific gravity of seawater under the polar ice cap. He turned to Chief McClosky, who also had come on watch for the occasion, said, “We want to keep the bubble on zero as we come up, Mac. Blow forward group. Blow after group.” The chief flipped the two toggles, kept his hands on them. There was the sound of air blowing into tanks. Clancy and he huddled together watching the gauges. “Secure after group!” said Clancy. McClosky, anticipating the order, instantly moved the left toggle to the shut position. Another second, two seconds. “Secure the air!” McClosky snapped shut the other toggle. The submarine had assumed half a degree down angle, but the bow now was rising faster and she was on an even keel again. “Ninety feet,” called out Clancy, vectoring his voice in Buck’s direction. “Zero bubble.”