“It’s bad, Captain.”
“Give me everything, XO.”
“We’re sitting on the bottom of Kii Suido in six hundred and forty feet of water. Don’t ask me how, but the hull is still holding, for now anyway. I tried to stop our descent and used up damn near all our reserve air pressure in the attempt. The surface suction forces must have given us a false trim when we were at periscope depth. We were real heavy. Several thousand pounds heavy by my reckoning. I think that’s why we went down so fast. That’s the only thing it could be. Either that or our ballast tanks have been ruptured, but there’s really no way to tell that. We have multiple leaks and minor flooding in almost every compartment.”
“I smell chlorine,” Tremain added.
Cazanavette nodded. “We have a leak in the forward battery well. We don’t know where the leak is. I’ve ordered the forward battery disconnect switch opened to take it off the bus. In the meantime, we’ve cleared the whole compartment. I’ve got two men in breathing apparatus looking for the leak. Besides them, the forward battery compartment’s to be used for passage only.
“The forward torpedo room took some bad damage when we hit bottom. The men in there are fighting tooth and nail to stay on top of things. They’re up to their knees in water. All the tubes are flooded so the outer doors must be smashed. The inner doors are holding, by the grace of God. If one of those goes, it’ll all be over. The worst damage was to the hatch. It unseated from the shock and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it completely shut again. Chief Konhausen thinks the hatch ring is bent. They’re trying to seal it with block and tackle fastened to the hatch wheel.” “How’re we looking aft?”
“Aft could be worse, sir. A panel fire lit off in maneuvering a few minutes ago. They think it’s one of the main bus breakers. The compartment filled with smoke before anyone could find out the source, and they had to evacuate it. That room’s completely sealed now, so, hopefully, the fire has no oxygen to keep it burning. Of course, now we’re cut off from the men in the aft torpedo room, and they have their own leaks to deal with. Turner and Wright are both back there.” Cazanavette stopped as several explosions reverberated throughout the hull. The explosions were well above them, but close enough to send vibrations through the hull.
“And then there’s that,” Cazanavette said, pointing up. “The destroyers topside are still dropping ash cans about every ten or fifteen minutes. So far, none of them have been very close, which kind of baffles me because they have to know where we are. Anyway, I’m afraid our hull can’t take these vibrations much longer. Not at this depth.” Tremain nodded. His throbbing head had magnified the sound of the explosions. “What about the drain pump? Is it working?”
“No, sir. The drain system has been completely mangled. The pump came off its foundation and is lying on its side in the bilge. Much of the drain piping has been ruptured.”
“Do we have any of our sensors?”
“As far as we can tell, no, sir. Either the depth charges or the bottom must have ripped off the sound heads. The scopes are still leaking, as you can see.”
Tremain was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Casualties?”
“Two dead, sir, Seaman Rucker and Petty Officer Le-land. Eight men incapacitated, including George Olander. I think everyone has some kind of scrape or bruise or something.” Cazanavette paused. “Oxygen’s low too, sir, down to eighteen percent. Carbon dioxide levels are increasing.”
Tremain closed his eyes and rubbed his head. His head hurt enormously and he felt very tired. It seemed useless. They were below test depth. Nearly every system had been destroyed or damaged. Oxygen was low. Water was coming into the ship. The next depth charge pattern might split the hull at its seams.
Rucker and Leland were perhaps better off than any of them, he thought. At least death had come quickly for them. He wanted to lie down on the deck and shut his eyes for the last time. His head hurt so much he could hardly stand it. He closed his eyes to briefly shut out the pain and their dismal situation.
When he opened his eyes again Cazanavette and Stillsen were watching him with hopeful expressions. They were waiting for him to say something, to give them the magic orders that would make everything right again and save them all. They suddenly looked afraid to him, and young.
Cazanavette had done well to attack the damage, but he was obviously at the limit of his abilities, and Stillsen did not have the experience to help, though he obviously wanted to. This was the moment in which they needed him, the captain, Jack Tremain. They needed his expertise and his experience. Most of all, they needed his leadership. Someone had to pull the crew’s efforts together and give them a chance to live.
But what can I do? Tremain asked himself. Then he thought of Judy. She would be a lonely widow. And a young and beautiful one. She would go for walks on the beach and gaze at the sunset thinking of him. In a few months she would get a letter from Ireland. It would be cold and emotionless, simply stating the standard “greatly appreciate your sacrifice” and some other bullshit. Judy would cry every night for years to come, and there would be nothing to console her but a folded American flag that would do little to recompense her for the years of sacrifice. She would get nothing but a flag and a heartless letter from a twisted old man.
Tremain felt tears forming in his eyes at the thought of her alone and grieving. The woman who had been so understanding all these years, the woman who had waited patiently for the day that he would be hers and hers alone, would be herself all alone. Now she would live out the rest of her years with a broken heart, and he sobbed inwardly because he knew that she deserved much better than that.
“XO,” Tremain said as he mustered the energy to stand up straight, the pain still throbbing in his head. He forced himself to keep going. He had to do it for Judy’s sake, and for his men’s sake. They all needed him right now. “Are you okay, sir?” Cazanavette asked.
“First, we have to get to the aft battery disconnect,” Tremain said, ignoring the question. “It’s our only remaining source of power and we can’t let that electrical fire eat up any more of our remaining juice. Someone’s going to have to enter the maneuvering room and do it.”
“Aye, sir,” Cazanavette answered skeptically.
“Also, there’s no reason for anyone to be in the conning tower, except for the men working on the leaks. So let’s clear this room and transfer down to control room.”
Tremain did this because the conning tower was perhaps the most dangerous place in a submarine, being a separate section from the rest of the pressure hull. The men in the conning tower quickly secured their stations and filed down the hatch into the control room. Tremain was the last one down, leaving the four men working on the leaks. In his condition he had trouble negotiating the ladder — the rungs seemed yards apart.
Distant depth charges shook the ocean once again. Everyone watched for new leaks to appear, and, when they did, men groped through the outboards and the bilges to repair them. Tremain looked at his watch and began to formulate a plan of attack, trying to ignore the pain in his head.
Remarkably, the pressure hull was still holding.
“Shhh! They ’re telling me something,” Wright said, holding his hand to one ear of the headset. The men around him tried to be quieter with their repair work, so he could hear the orders being passed over the sound-powered phone. Most of the leaks in the aft torpedo room had been slowed to a trickle and now they were working on minimizing the trickles. Isolation valves had been shut to seal most of the damaged valves and piping. Some piping that could not be isolated was wrapped in banding material, rubber, sheet metal, and strong pieces of steel plating especially cut for such an occasion.