The men came in, nine of them, faint with the cold, gasping, but alive.
“Twenty-three men left, Rich! We’re putting ten of them out this time! It’s all our hatch can hold! Stand by to grab them!”
There was no way to communicate with the men topside, except through a hastily generated system of pounding on the hull. The situation had been explained, however, the last time a scubaman appeared in the escape trunk. The number of bangs on the hull indicated the number of men to be found in Cushing’s trunk when the hatch was opened. As the tenth bang resounded, the rope connecting the two submarines was extending downward at an appreciable angle. The action of the line was causing the sinking Cushing to drift slowly under the Manta, or pulling the Manta over her, which was the same thing. The line was stretched to its uttermost, a fact the divers recognized. Hurriedly, they urged the men onward and up the line. The escapees pulled themselves up rapidly along it. Then, near the Cushing, but with a snap audible also inside the Manta, the line broke.
The released nylon snapped backward like the rubber band it had virtually become, but the vicious whiplash was subdued by the water. Even so, the short end of it struck the scubaman on the missile submarine’s rounded foredeck, knocking him off. At that instant the two submarines touched, Manta’s keel scraping across the bullet-shaped bow of the Cushing. Pulling himself back by his safety line, the scubaman found to his horror that the line was jammed in its slot on Cushing’s deck, where the Manta’s scraping passage had crimped the recessed track. He could feel the pressure rapidly increasing in his ears. Frantically, he struggled with the belt around his middle. It seemed jammed too. He let out all his breath, tried to force the heavy web belt over his hips. It would not move. The buckle was suddenly too complicated to operate. Desperately, he tried to shove it over his shoulders, but this, too, was impossible. He had forgotten about the tanks on his back, and now he had lost his mouthpiece. A huge dark shadow, the Manta, and safety, was just above him. He could almost reach it with his hand! He grabbed for his mouthpiece, found it hanging down on its hose, jammed it into his mouth. His lungs were tight. There was pressure on his chest. No air in his lungs. No help for it; he would have to inhale water, swallow it. Then he could get air! But, instead, a violent coughing fit seized him. He lost the mouthpiece again. He could not release himself from the Cushing. With a last convulsive effort, he managed to yank the toggles which inflated his life jacket. The rubber-impregnated fabric closed around his chest, lifted him to the limit of the tether still connecting him to the sinking submarine. But now he could not move. He was like a kite on the end of a string, floating above the slowly descending Cushing. Despairingly, he saw the shadow of the Manta receding. He reached for it with both arms, and knew that he was doomed.
Three of the ten hooded men had got into the Manta’s rescue chamber before the line broke. Two more were nearly there, managed to get in on their own. The remaining scubaman got two more in, but three floated away, lifted up against the ice cover by the air in their hoods. Heedless of his instructions, he released himself from his safety line, swam after them. Grabbing the nearest one, he motioned downward. Seventeen feet below, the submarine’s dark upper works were visible. The man nodded, tried to paddle downward in a vertical, upright position so that the air would remain in the hood. He could not. The scubaman squeezed the hood, forced a bubble of air out, but it immediately expanded again with air from the breathing bag. He tried wrenching the hood off, tried improvising instant buddy-breathing technique with his single mouthpiece, but the man could not, or would not, understand.
Anxiously, the scubaman swam down, tried to enter Manta’s rescue chamber. It was closed. The men inside were transferring into the interior of the sub. He banged on the deck with the hammer tied there for the purpose, heard the answering sledgehammer thump. The door opened after an interminable time, and he entered. Minutes later, he emerged again, this time with an assistant, not dressed, who would remain in the airlock. He carried a length of line with a buoy on the end. Swiftly he knotted the line outside the open outer hatch, released the buoy, followed it up, riding with the line under his arm. He was not far from the men in the hoods, who were floating quietly with their heads against the underside of the ice. He reached the nearest, gripped his arm — and recoiled in horrified dismay. The arm floated downward limply, remained hanging at a small angle with the rest of his body. The man was dead.
So were the other two. But as the scubaman was investigating them, two others appeared, and then four more, floating up swiftly from below the Manta. Rapidly he swam to each, dragged him to the buoyed line, indicated he should haul himself down it. Gratefully, worriedly, they obeyed. The next to last got only partway down, then stopped, his hands and feet desperately gripping the line. The man above was forced to stop also. When the scubaman finally was able to turn his attention away from the others to go back and clear the tangle, he had to pry both bodies free. Two more yellow hoods appeared below him, coming from deep beneath the Manta. Helplessly, fatalistically, he let go of the stiffened body in his arms, let it float away, lunged for the newcomers. He intercepted one before he had reached the ice, was able to get him to the buoyed line, start him down. The other hit the ice, but he was able to get the buoy to him, and he accompanied him partway as he haltingly pulled himself down.
There were five dead bodies floating in yellow, Plexiglas-faced hoods, up against the ice. The scubaman swam to each, felt him carefully, then on to the next, repeating the procedure. Finally he left them and swam down to the submarine. The two men he had just sent down were holding the knotted end of the line near the closed hatch. They were still alive, moving feebly. They could not last long in this temperature. He banged on the hatch, banged again. Finally an answering thump, and a minute later it opened. By this time both men were unconscious. He shoved them inside, yelled to the suited diver waiting for him with head above the waterline in the chamber, “Watch for more guys coming up! I’ll be right back, but these guys may have had it!” Then he pushed him out and shut the door.
He was in time, Manta’s doctor assured him, though barely. But when he got back outside there was no one in sight except the scubaman who had taken his place, and the five hooded bodies above, against the ice. In vain they searched for the missing diver who had been on the Cushing’s deck. He was an experienced, qualified scubaman. He would not have panicked, would have found means to free himself from the sinking missile submarine’s deck. But he was nowhere to be seen. Ten minutes, fifteen, they waited. No more yellow hoods came up from the depths below. No welcome dark-suited comrade appeared. The five bodies overhead stood watch, dangling upright against the ice, their hoods slightly flattened against it, their bodies hanging loosely, limply, arms slightly away from their torsos. They had so nearly made it! Their heads were on the same level as the top of the Manta’s sail. One could so easily swim the few yards up to them, grab their feet, and pull them down…