Juan and Dave looked surprised. After all, a Second World War Nazi U-Boat base was surely more of a ‘guy thing’.
“Well we’ve got nothing much else to do while we wait for PACOM to mobilize some help, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt for you to explore a just a little?”
Juan was already strobing the bleak concrete interior with his camera flash like a snap happy tourist. Dave also looked like he was ready to jump ashore.
“Captain,” Durand broke their festive spirit with his authoritative tone, “is that such a good idea?”
“I’m going exploring, Durand,” Leah interjected forcefully, although she had wished they were better dressed for a polar excursion.
“After you secure us to the dock Mr. Durand, you have the boat. I’ll be ashore with these three.” He gestured to the smiling trio as they hopped from one foot to the other and rubbed their hands to keep warm.
“Aye sir,” Durand responded but he looked far from happy about it. At least he’d be warm in the boat while the other guys went off with Dora the Explorer.
The XO keyed his mic to order engineering to send up a couple of men to help him secure the boat when he felt the deck move below his feet as if they were in open water. The water in the center of the U-Boat pen roiled and churned before forming into a powerful wave that surged across the water and slammed broadside into the Barracuda, knocking it into a nearby concrete berth. The sound of thousands of tons of steel colliding with the reinforced concrete berth produced a torturous groan that echoed throughout the enormous chamber. The reverberation was so loud and so prolonged that it drowned out the sound of the submarine erupting to the surface, like a leviathan from the depths, following an emergency blow of its tanks.
Nor did anyone hear the cry for help as one of their own fell overboard into the bitterly cold, inky black water.
Chapter 25
Sam had explained to Jack that he didn’t know how to blow the ballast tanks any other way than with a full emergency blow. One of the salty old German sailors he’d worked with on the U-505 restoration project at the Science and Industry Museum had proudly demonstrated the procedure on the inoperable submarine many times. He’d served aboard a U-Boat during the final months of the war, having been conscripted as a fifteen year old boy. Germany had been desperate for men having lost many millions of them at the brutal Russian Front. Nobody had cared about his age, he said, U-Boat crews had a short life expectancy, anyway. The one thing he’d learned during his short service before Germany surrendered was the emergency blow and he’d been telling anyone who would listen all about it ever since.
Jack had no choice but to trust Sam, after all, he was the one who had got the screws turning so they could navigate to safety using the extraordinarily detailed charts that were still on the chart table as if the navigator had stepped away only moments ago. The state of the U-Boat greatly unnerved Jack and something about the whole situation made his battle hardened survival instincts bristle. There was a darkness with them in the boat that even the emergency lights Sam had lit up couldn’t chase away. The sooner they got out of the stale air of the claustrophobic boat, the happier Jack would be. He wasn’t afraid of a fire fight, he’d survived plenty of those in his time, but he’d always known exactly who he was up against. This mission was different and he felt like he was clawing at the darkness unable to see what he was really up against.
And now he was in a World War Two U-Boat heading toward what the charts indicated was described as a ‘bunker’ under the ice.
Nothing in his training or field experience had prepared him for anything like this. And he didn’t even know what this was. It was damn spooky, to say the least.
“We’re almost there, according to the chart,” Sam called through the engine room voice tube to the conn where Jack was manning the rudder.
It became clear very soon after damage control was squared away that they wouldn’t survive if they just bobbed aimlessly under the ice like a cork. With limited weapons and ammunition, surfacing and facing the army that awaited them wasn’t a very good plan. They needed a new plan. Any plan. It didn’t even have to be a good plan.
On the navigation chart spread out on the table, they noted a thick grease-pencil line showing the last course the sub had sailed… into the heart of an ice mountain. No explanation as to how the sub ended up where they’d found it, but answering that question didn’t help their chances of survival. That could wait.
The plan was far from ideal, but then again so were the circumstances. Sam would man propulsion in the engine room, with the chart in hand and Jack would man the rudder as instructed by Sam through the voice tube. As far as plans went, it was, like their vintage U-Boat, full of holes, but it was the only one they could come up with.
“Hold the rudder steady and I’ll reverse a third to bring us to a stop.” Sam’s voice sounded remarkably free of tension, Jack thought. That man was having way too much fun playing submarines. Jack never wanted to see another submarine as long as he lived.
The compartment hatch leading to the conn filled with Sam’s oversized frame as he squeezed sideways through it. “Ready?” he asked.
If the cramped sub didn’t already feel like the bulkheads were crushing in on him, having the big ginger headed giant fill what was left of the space really made Jack feel like he was suffocating.
“No,” Jack replied but squeezed his way to the confusing jumble of pipes and levers on the other side of the conn, regardless.
“I checked the compressed air tanks and we’ve got enough pressure for one emergency blow.”
“That’s all we need, then we’re out of here?” Hope hung in his words.
“Alright, you pull these four levers on my mark, right?” Sam indicated the four levers again, although they’d rehearsed the procedure before navigating their way to through the tunnel to the base.
“I’ve got these four, but we have to pull them at the same time so we surface bow first and don’t roll over on our back because we’ve lost trim,” the big man continued.
“You didn’t mention that before,” protested Jack.
“Didn’t want to scare your jarhead ass.”
“I’m not a marine—”
Sam cut him off with his countdown, “Three, two, one…”
That’s when Jack’s world went ass up. Again.
With speed and agility Jack thought wasn’t possible for such a huge vessel, the U-Boat changed attitude by at least twenty degrees and began to shoot to the surface.
“Hey, navy, what if we hit something up there?” Jack called over the riotous roar of the compressed air and seawater through the tanks on either side of the pressure hull.
“At this rate of ascent, you and I would end up a gooey smear on the upper bulkhead. At least I won’t have to listen to you whining after that.”
Before Jack could reply, the boat righted itself to what Sam had referred to during his explanation of the maneuver as ‘zero bubble’, but not before an almighty boom rang through the entire submarine as the bow fell down through the air and pounded back into the water.
Sam raised his hand to high five Jack, but Jack was already half way up the conning tower ladder, making a dash for the hatch. He hadn’t even bothered to grab his pack. Getting out of the sub was his new mission.