The resumption of conversation eased the tension.
Call the depths,' commanded Peace.
' Five-twenty,' chanted the diving officer. Five hundred.'
We were now 50 feet above the level of the ancient city.
' Take a sweep round,' Peace told the sonar operator.
Without warning, the precision depth-recorder stylus gave a jerk and plummeted to 2,000 fathoms. There was a gigantic hole under Devastation! The patterned line of the houses and buildings fell away into abysmal depths.
The sound reproducer of the sonarscope, still fully switched up, which a few minutes ago had dominated everybody, now was relegated to the background by the steady flow of orders and the comforting hustle of machinery. Devastation was changed from the stealthy killer of the deeps to a ship tinder way and her men were human again, not hyper-tense listeners on whose acuity of hearing depended their salvation. Then the sonar beam swung round. Something hit me like an express train.
Deafening, pulsating, terrifying sound blanketed the control room-high-pitched, screaming, grinding, like a giant pencil being scratched across a giant slate. I saw Peace shouting an 75 order, but his words were lost in the crescendo. Devastation shuddered under an immense crash. I was thrown sideways across the Control Centre. The lights went out.
I and several others lay in a heap. A torch snapped on and I saw Peace, bleeding from a cut above the eye, crawl towards the diving-stand.
Emergency circuits!' he shouted.
The emergency lights flickered, disappeared in a flash of blue sparks. I dragged myself towards Peace.
Battle lanterns!' he rasped. Break out the battle lanterns, for God's sake!'
As the first dim light came on, I grabbed Adele and put my arm firmly round her shoulders.
The floor of the control-room canted sharply downwards.
The fathometer spun. We were racing for the bottom!
Eight hundred feet!' I yelled.
Men were crawling up the inclined deck to their stations stunned, bewildered, but training and discipline brought them back to their posts.
Peace snatched up the engine-room intercom. I heard his muttered Thank God!' as the emergency circuit came alive.
The control-room became dimly, eerily lit as one battle lantern' after another-battery-operated lighting independent of the main circuit-came on.
Eight-fifty,' I called. Devastation fell as if through air. Chief-'
Peace started to say, but his voice was drowned. The sonar screamed like a madman in his dreams.
Peace said, fear in his voice, She's still under power!'
Nine hundred!' responded the diving officer. He was back on the job, all right.
' Christ!' panted Peace. She's going for the bottom!' `
Bottom is twelve thousand feet!' I exclaimed. Devastation was designed to reach one thousand.
Bob Peters returned, hanging, as I was, on to one of the overhead grab straps. Devastation spiralled down, twisting like an aircraft in a spin. Peace crouched, jammed with one shoulder against the periscope operating gear.
Devastation was completely out of control.
Blow all ballast!' roared Peace. The burst of high-pressure air made me swaliow hard and my eyes watered. Emer gency! Ahead flank! Left fifteen degrees rudder!'
A planesman brushed a trickle of blood out of his eyes and yanked the control-stick. Peace was giving him every ounce of horsepower he could to get the planes on the sail to bite and pull her out of her death-dive.
' Sounding!'
Nine-fifty feet: falling fast.'
Blow all main ballast-blow again!'
Again the roar of air.
Sounding!'
' One thousand feet.'
There was fear in Bob Peters's voice. For the first time in Devastation, I smelled the smell of men who were afraid desperately afraid. The faulty packing gland on the periscope gave a vicious spurt.
Peace snapped: ' Ahead flank-emergency!'
The planesman's reply was mildly reproachful. ' Answers, ahead flank, emergency, sir!'
Then what the hell-'
As if in answer, the long mournful wail of the oversteam alarm burst through.
Blow main ballast tanks! Again!'
Again the desperate rush of high-pressure air.
Sounding!'
Eleven hundred feet!'
There was a crack in the planesman's even voice. ' Can't hold her, sir!'
Devastation's nose pointed twenty degrees down.
Peters called, Eleven hundred and fifty! Slowing!'
I saw the prickle of sweat on Peace's upper lip. In my heart I blessed whoever had built that extra two hundred into her. The hull gave an ominous creak. A fountain spurted down the periscope barrel under the immense sea pressure. Peace had given the planes their chance to save us. They had failed. Now, the engines. But even if we pulled out now, there would be the mushing ' effect of a full-power downangle nose-dive, which would mean we would travel another 100 feet deeper. Devastation's hull was already past the point of no return.
Blow secured, negative at the mark!' reported ballast control. We had blown every ounce of sea-water out of her
– still we went down.
' Trim her a little, for God's sake!' urged Peace.
Then he addressed himself to the planesman, as if he were the only person there. He spoke slowly and distinctly. All stop! Back emergency!'
The planesman leaned forward and turned the engine-room annunciator.
He said quietly, Answers, all stop, back emergency, sir!'
Suddenly the floor tilted almost horizontal, a further sickening movement, and Devastation was on an even keel. 77
The diving officer's face was grey. Something-something turned us like that, sir! It wasn't us.'
Something!' I exclaimed.
Sounding!'
I felt the massive power-bite of the screw racing astern. The oversteam alarm whooped and bayed like hounds of death.
Inclinometer reads zero,' said Peters.
Devastation hung in her death-dive, held against the massive downward force by the reverse thrust of her screw. Now it was as dangerous to break loose as it was to be forced down, for if released the sub would shoot to the surface like a cork.
Peace spoke into the engine-room intercom. ' Chief.. He paused. Main circuit shorting, blowing every time? Can something-' he glanced round= be outside?'
The thunder of water racing past the cracking hull matched the braying of the alarms. _
Adele was close to me. Is it very bad?'
' We're holding our own-just. The hull may go at any moment.'
Eleven seventy five,' reported Peters. We had gained 25 feet!
Adele said, I think it's a devil-fish.'
Peace, half-hearing above the din, extended the trolley-strap to the full to join us.
What did you say?'
Devil-fish,' she repeated loudly. The fishermen of
Agalega think of them as gods. At night you see them glowing hundreds of feet down.'
' The electrics!' murmured Peace. That explains the, short-circuits. What size is this thing?'
Very big. The fishermen say, like an islet. The biggest of all big rays.'
What else do you know?'
Island cutters-big ships-have been pulled down by them.
They are from deep-deep.'
Eleven hundred!'
`You won't hold her if she frees, Geoffrey!'
Peace's face became set over the strong line of his law. '
I'm going to try something,' he said. If this is a devilfish, it may be a natural depth. I'll flood her to regain trim, and try to shake it off.'
I gestured hopelessly. He slid back along the trolley-strap to the control-stand.
`Stop all! Rig for ultra-quiet.' He turned informally to the petty officer who had remained so stoically at the ballastcontrol panel. ' Trim her as best you can, will you? If she shakes free, flood her down, see?'
Flood her down, aye aye, sir!'