Rich raised his own gain to full. What could he say to help Keith over these horrible last few minutes? What could anyone do? “Keith, remember our second cruise on the Eel? Remember how you rescued me from that fake sampan, and that sadistic character, Moonface? I’ll never forget how you burst out of the water with our old ship and impaled that wooden tub on her bow buoyancy tank. That was beautiful!”
“Thanks, Skipper!” Keith’s voice took longer to reach him. Perhaps he had not answered immediately. “I’ve often thought of it, too, and wondered how you managed to keep from finishing Moonface all by yourself when we got the upper hand.”
“I’ve wondered myself. It was partly because of Bungo Pete, I guess.” (There, the name was out again. Rich sensed Buck looking strangely at him.)
“Seven hundred! Forget Bungo, Rich! You’ve paid for that too many times! I’d have done it, too, and I’d not have worried about it after, either. What about this guy you and Buck sank today? He probably had a wife and kids at home, and so did Bungo, most likely — and so did I. Eight hundred!”
“I understand what you’re trying to say, Keith, and I’ll try.”
It took appreciable time for Keith’s voice to make the return trip. “You’ve got to promise me, Rich. Don’t let me down now. Don’t let any of that stuff throw you. Put it behind you. No matter who comes to you with it! No matter who! I mean it, Rich. Haven’t been able to think of the words to say, got to try to get it in.” Keith’s voice had risen in pitch, and was louder. “Buck knows what I’m talking about. Tell Peggy I love her, and for her to take the insurance and get that house and garden, far away from New London. But don’t you talk to her, Rich. Not unless there’s someone with you. Ask Buck! This is going to throw her, and sometimes she’s — Passing a thousand feet. Missed the nine-hundred-foot mark. Sometimes she says things she doesn’t really mean, or doesn’t really know about but makes you think she does. Don’t let her upset you, Rich. She’s my wife, and you’re my best friend, and I love you both, and it tears me to think of it. Be sure Buck or Laura is with you! That’s all I can think of to say. The others are over in the corner talking by themselves. They said they don’t need to talk to anyone. Eleven hundred. Going fast, now. I can hear the internal bulkheads squeezing. She’ll last a bit longer, but not much. Twelve hundred. I can smell chlorine. The battery’s spilled for sure. Took a long time, though. It’s a good design. Thirteen. We’re off the deep gauge. Give it to you in sea pressure. Where’s a sea pressure gauge? I’m disoriented. Here’s one. I can barely read it from where I’m sitting to get to this mike. It should be built with a long cord, instead of fixed to the bulkhead, which is now the floor — the gauge is showing seven hundred pounds. That’s more than fourteen hundred feet. Now it’s nearly eight hundred. I’ll hold the mike button down with my foot and maybe I can stand up partway to read it — it’s eight fifty. I’m shouting. Can you hear me? Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter, but I’ll keep trying…”
Keith’s voice was changed with the distance and with his attempt to shout from a position closer to the sea pressure gauge. But it was still intelligible, still Keith. Rich felt Buck’s arm around his shoulders, put his own arm around Buck’s neck. Subconsciously, both of them felt the presence of other men, other members of Manta’s crew, many members of the Cushing’s crew. Rich felt Buck’s quiet, shaking grief, knew his own was communicating itself to Buck. There were soft noises of anguish from others in the control room, but otherwise silence, except for many men, breathing as quietly as they could. Never had the silence been so absolute. Never had a packed control room, packed with the crews of two submarines, been so still. Even the breathing was stifled, muted, kept shallow so as not to bother anyone. In the distance, a far corner, someone let out a tiny wail, “Oh, God—!” It might have been a prayer. It was savagely shut off. A vicious elbow in the ribs, or a firm hand over the mouth.
Keith had said not to answer, but Rich had to say something in the momentary silence of the UQC. He cleared his throat, swallowing the lump that was in it. “Keith,” he said. He had to force his voice to work. By sheer will he overrode the clutch in it. “Most of your crew is here with me. They’re all blessing the best submarine skipper they ever had, and the best friend they ever had. Their hearts and minds are with you at this time. Those who traveled in deep waters with you are with you still.” He released the button, heard the strange traveling sound of the carrier beam as the message went out, attenuating, in all directions. But also down.
“… hundred pounds. That’s amazing, Rich! Eleven hundred! Who could have thought — twelve hundred! Tell Peggy I love her! Tell Ruthie the last thing her dad did was to think of her. Thirteen hundred! Something’s given way down aft! I think she’s going! Good-bye! Thanks for all! Fourteen …”
A smashing roar came over the UQC speaker — Keith had been holding the button down — and then it was silent. But everyone in the Manta heard the awful, shattering, crushing implosion when the fantastic sea pressure, at whatever depth Cushing had reached, burst the stout, unyielding, high-tensile steel into smithereens. Embrittled under pressure, yet standing rigid, firm against millions of tons of overpressure, when finally it gave way the thick, armor-quality steel split into thousands of pieces, ranging in size from tiny fragments to tremendous solid plates weighing tons, all of them driven inward with velocity beyond comprehension. And the sea followed instantly, with a voice like thunder, compressing the air to one one-hundredth of its previous volume and raising its temperature high into incandescence.
Keith, Jim, Curt, Larry and Stewart did not suffer, nor did they even feel pain. Awareness ceased instantaneously, when their bodies ceased to exist.
Great sections of steel curved in various shapes to fit the exigencies of Cushing’s designers, now broken in every conceivable way but still curved, fluttered down through the black water like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. When they came to rest they covered a wide expanse on the bottom of the Fletcher Abyssal Plain. Under them, deeply buried in the ancient ooze of the bottom, were the resting places, for all time, of the two halves of the Soviet nuclear submarine Novosibirsky Komsomol, and the Cushing’s reactor, which sank swiftly in one piece because of the immense pressure it had been built to contain.
18
There was a new compulsion in the Manta as she raced for the edge of the ice pack, where the ice would be thinner, the probability greater of being able to break through to send a message. For the better part of a day, Rich and Buck labored over its wording. They must report the loss of the Cushing, give the names of the men lost with her, tell of the battle with the intruding submarine, and describe their suspicions that there was some sort of a Soviet base, not far away, near enough for the submarine they had sunk to have gone there for instructions. The Cushing might well have been originally very near it, since Keith had reported seeing aircraft apparently orbiting just over the horizon, and landing and taking off.
The message, encrypted in the highest classification code available on board, ended with terse naval jargon, UNODIR PROCEEDING RECON GUARDING VLF ONE HOUR NOON GREENWICH: Unless otherwise directed, Manta would try to locate the base and discover its nature and purpose. Once a day, at noon Greenwich Mean Time, she would come to as shallow a depth as possible, at minimum speed, to listen to the very-low-frequency radio circuit for any instructions. Otherwise, the Manta would most likely be at deep submergence and unreachable by any means of communication.