Stepanov was in the midst of a round through the compartment, checking on his men. His First Officer was still unconscious, and Medical Officer Kovaleski was worried he might not recover. Stepanov stopped by Starshina First Class Oleg Devin, who was taking air samples. He broke the tips of the glass tube and inserted it into the handheld pump, then squeezed it five times, drawing air through the tube. This tube measured oxygen, and read 17.2 percent.
Stepanov moved on, stopping by Senior Lieutenant Ivan Khudozhnik, the Torpedo Division Officer, whose men were taking turns manning the sound-powered phones, staying in communication with the men in Compartments Four through Nine. Stepanov found it both odd and comforting; this was the Torpedomen’s compartment, and it was their duty to man the phones during emergencies. It was as if they were oblivious to the fact that their submarine was wrecked, that they would likely not survive. The adherence to their obligation to man the phones, however, provided a sense of normalcy.
“How is everyone doing?” Stepanov asked.
“It is quiet,” Khudozhnik replied.
Khudozhnik’s response was as close to all is well as one could expect.
15
Commander Tolbert headed aft, stepping from the freezing Forward Compartment into the welcome warmth of the Reactor Compartment Tunnel. Even though the reactor was shut down, it was still generating heat from the decay of fission by-products. It was probably only sixty degrees in the passageway, but compared to the other two compartments, it was downright balmy. It was now thirty-five degrees inside the Forward Compartment and Engine Room.
Tolbert stepped through the watertight doorway into the Engine Room. Inside the near-freezing compartment, his breath condensed into white mist. Several crew members wore the orange “pumpkin suits,” thick full-length foul-weather gear worn by personnel on the Bridge in harsh weather. However, the ship had only ten suits, and the rest of the crew had donned Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment suits to preserve body heat. The insulated SEIE suits, also orange, came with flexible black neoprene gloves and a polar fleece head mask.
Upon entering the Engine Room, Tolbert took in the scene. It was a virtual rain forest. As the temperature plummeted, the water vapor in the air condensed on the cold metal surfaces, and water was dripping from piping, machinery, and walkways. Tolbert entered Maneuvering, a ten-by-ten-foot control room. Normally occupied by an officer and two enlisted, there was only one man present. Petty Officer Second Class Allen Terrill manned the Electric Plant Control Panel, monitoring battery discharge rate and voltage.
“What do you think?” Tolbert asked.
“It doesn’t look good, Captain,” Terrill replied. “The battery is already down to thirty percent; enough power for one more day. It’s probably the low temperature, reducing capacity.”
The battery was draining faster than expected. They needed to return a condensate pump to service soon. He had headed aft to get an update, and the answer better be — within a day.
Tolbert left Maneuvering and descended to Engine Room Forward, where he found the Engineer Officer, Lieutenant Commander Roger Swenson; the Electrical Division Chief, Mike Moran; and two first class electrician’s mates, Art Thompson and Tim Brandon. Thompson was working on a condensate pump controller, while Brandon was repairing one of the pumps.
The covers were off both controller cabinets, and as Chief Moran aptly described it, they were a hot mess. Almost every circuit card had been damaged, some with charred components, while other cards were more difficult to diagnose. Even the smallest component gone bad could prevent operation. Supply didn’t have a spare for every card in the controller, forcing Thompson to triage the cards with no spares. He had picked the best one between the two controllers, and was now diagnosing which components had been damaged. The cards were laid on a rubber mat, keeping them away from dripping water, and he was taking measurements with a multimeter.
Brandon was working on the pump. Normally, a wetted pump had a decent shot of returning to service. However, Number One Condensate Pump had been running for several hours, and when its hot internals had been doused with twenty-nine-degree salt water, the pump had turned into a rotating molten fireball. Number One Condensate Pump was unrepairable.
That left the second pump. Unfortunately, Number Two Condensate Pump had turned on when its partner tripped off-line, starting up at the same time it was submerged in seawater. It had fared much better, but its stator had been damaged. There was little Brandon could do to fully repair it, but he was giving it his best shot.
Chief Moran was supervising the two first class Petty Officers, studying the controller schematic in the tech manual. At the end of the day, they didn’t need to fully repair a controller and pump. The pump just had to run. Moran was figuring out how to circumvent the bad components that could not be replaced.
Moran had his four best electricians working the problem. Thompson and Brandon had this twelve-hour shift and Bowser and Radek the other. By the time the electricians were done, the controller and pump were going to look like little Frankensteins, pieced back together. Tolbert didn’t care as long as they came alive when the switch was flipped, and that the repairs were completed before the battery was expended.
The Engineer Officer wasn’t much help when it came to controller and pump repairs, but there was nothing more important than restoring the condensate system, so he hovered in Engine Room Forward like an expectant father.
“Eng, how much longer?” Tolbert asked.
The Engineer looked at Moran. The chief must have felt eyes on him, because he looked up from the schematics. “Three, maybe four days.”
Moran’s response hit Tolbert in the gut. The battery would be drained in one day.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours, Chief,” Tolbert said. “Make it happen.” Tolbert often challenged his subordinates to meet tight schedules. This time, however, it didn’t work.
“It can’t be done, Captain,” Moran replied. “We’re going as fast as we can. Three or four days is what it’s going to take.”
Tolbert looked to his Engineer, but Swenson confirmed his Chief’s assessment. “It’s the best we can do, sir.”
“Then we need to solve the battery problem,” Tolbert said.
The Engineer replied, “We need to preserve enough power to complete a reactor and engine room start-up. I recommend we open the battery breaker.”
Tolbert considered his Engineer’s suggestion. North Dakota would become completely dead — a cold metal carcass beneath the polar ice cap. However, he could think of no alternative.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll let the crew know what’s going on. In the meantime, you’ll need to set up to continue repairs using emergency battle lanterns.”
A few minutes later, Tolbert entered the Control Room. Even though the tactical systems had been deenergized, he had left the normal underway watches stationed; they were performing an important task. Moisture was condensing on the metal surfaces, including the sonar and combat control consoles, navigation plot, Radio Room equipment — everything. It was one thing for water to drip from piping and machinery in the Engine Room, another to allow it to seep inside the tactical consoles. Each watchstander was armed with Kimwipes, the Navy version of lint-free paper towels, and the men were wiping down the consoles.
Tolbert stopped beside Lieutenant Molitor, who was stationed as the Officer of the Deck, and explained the plan. Molitor passed the word to all spaces, and a few minutes later, he retrieved an emergency battle lantern mounted in the overhead, then gave the order.