Wright looked back towards the door. The fire had subsided now, probably because there was no more oxygen in the room.
“You ever opened the battery disconnect before?” Wright asked between breaths.
“No, sir.”
“Well, man the phones, then. And hand me that wrench and those rubber gloves.”
Tucking the wrench in his belt, Wright donned the rubber gloves while he recharged his Momsen lung. He would have to open the battery disconnect himself. Although he had never operated it before, he knew exactly where it was from his endless hours of study.
He moved quickly. Blinded by the smoky air, he felt his way through the battered door and into the maneuvering room. The smoke in the maneuvering room was dense, but he quickly felt his way to the electrical panels on the starboard side. Some of the panels were charred, yet others seemed untouched. He groped his way along several feet forward until he found the panel he was looking for. Strangely, he started to think about the time he had first studied the battery system. It was during one of those sleepless nights during his first week on board. Now it seemed like a hundred years ago.
Methodically, Wright unscrewed each bolt on the panel. He knew that his air would be running out soon, so he kept a steady and deliberate pace, removing each bolt one at a time. It seemed like there were so many of them, and he lost count. As he finally removed the last bolt, he felt a suction effect from his Momsen lung. It was out of air.
He quickly reached into the dark panel and found the lever that he knew must be inside it, the lever that would disconnect the aft battery from the ship’s electrical distribution system. He clutched the lever with his gloved hand and rotated it slowly through ninety degrees, his fingers starting to lose feeling from the lack of oxygen. With the lever locked in the open position, the aft battery was now physically disconnected from the ship’s electrical distribution system. The source of the fire had been removed.
Wright would have breathed a sigh of relief if he had the air to do it. He started to feel light-headed and dizzy as he stumbled back through the door, desperately groping and searching for an air manifold to recharge his lung. In the dark smoke he suddenly lost his orientation and he could not tell whether he was still in the maneuvering room or back in the torpedo room. Without thinking, he threw off the Momsen lung and relentlessly groped around the room. His panicked lungs forced him to take in several breaths of the dense smoke and instantly he fell to the deck and went into convulsions. His lungs tried to cough out the smoke but in their desperate need for air they only brought in more.
Then a hand reached out from the smoke and grabbed him. It was Guthrie. Guthrie put his arm around his shoulder and dragged him the rest of the way out of the room. Moments later, Guthrie had a new Momsen lung on him and plugged it in to the nearest manifold.
Wright was phasing in and out of consciousness, and felt his lungs reject the fresh air. He forced himself to take a deep breath, then he grabbed Guthrie’s arm.
“Is it done, sir?” Guthrie said, examining Wright’s eyes.
Then Wright lost his senses in phases. He could not breathe, that was his first sensation. The deck suddenly felt very soft, that was his second sensation. Guthrie’s face and everything around him suddenly became very dark, that was his third. Suddenly, he felt very cold, and then he felt nothing.
Chapter 28
Tremain leaned against the cold steel skin of the port-side diesel in the forward engine room. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he brought his watch into the fading light of a battle lantern. It read 2013 hours. They had been sitting on the bottom since noon. The boat was silent now, as was the sea all around it. He flicked on his flashlight and shone it around the room, its beam stretching off into the thick air. A few trickles remained here and there. Tremain coughed as the smoke and chlorine mixture touched a nerve in his throat. His cough echoed off the metal bulkheads and made him feel like he was the only one on board.
Partially rested, he pressed on, making his way through each compartment, inspecting the repairs. Wooden planks and shoring blocked his path in many places, as did the bodies of sleeping crewmen. The men had been working continuously in the worst of conditions since the Mackerel had crashed on the bottom of the sea. They had fought every leaking valve, every leaking pipe, every leaking hatch, until there were none left to fight — at least none worth wasting energy on. All of the large leaks had been patched in some fashion or other, including the periscope seals. The men had pulled together all of their efforts and had exhausted themselves while doing it, and now they slept wherever they could. Tremain even saw a few lying on the deck in some of the flooded compartments, oblivious to the oily muck lapping at their bodies. They were physically drained. Even if they had not been so tired, the lack of oxygen in the ship’s atmosphere would have put them to sleep.
Tremain walked through the maneuvering room. The fire damage in the room had been limited to only a few electrical panels. If young Wright had not opened the battery disconnect, they would have never regained access to this vital room, which controlled Mackerel’s critical supply of electricity. The aft battery still contained some badly needed energy. Even now, some electricians worked sluggishly on the damaged gear over in the corner, attempting to jumper around the fried circuits with makeshift cables and remove them from the ship’s electrical distribution system.
Tremain shone the light down onto the large motors beneath the deck plates. The motors seemed to be in good shape. If the shafts were not bent, they might be able to restore propulsion. But only time would tell. He moved on to the torpedo room. The door bore the blackened marks from the earlier explosion that had killed Lieutenant Turner. The room’s atmosphere had cleared a little, now that it had shared its smoke with the other compartments in the ship. Tremain tried to imagine what it must have been like for the men who had been trapped in the room. It must have been a hellish experience. When they had finally gotten through to them, just a few hours before, most had suffered badly from smoke inhalation, young Wright among them. They were all quickly transferred to the forward torpedo room, the cleanest atmosphere left in the boat, but they were all in bad shape. Tremain did not know if the men would make it. But then, he wondered, would any of them make it home?
Cazanavette and Chief Freund came through the door, both out of breath. The XO rested one arm on a torpedo rack before speaking. “The… forward battery well has been pumped dry, sir,” he breathed, “… using a hand pump. We pumped it… to the forward torpedo room bilge. And the chlorine levels have stabilized. Still dangerous.. but stable.”
“Good,” Tremain breathed, “I’ve been thinking.. about our buoyancy situation… We can’t be heavy.. the ballast tanks have to be near dry unless they’re ruptured… So we should be close to positive buoyancy…. If we can just get some of this water off… I think she’ll rise.”
“And how … do we do that, sir?” Freund muttered. “The drain pump’s gone.”
“We could cross connect the trim and drain systems,” Cazanavette said. “But… we don’t have enough power … to operate the trim pump long enough to get it all off.”
“I know… I know,” Tremain said. To utter the words was a labor in itself. “We won’t use the pump.”
“Then.. how, Captain?”
“We’ll remove the access cover to the negative tank … and use buckets to get the water into it.. then we’ll seal it up.. and use all the rest of our reserve air to blow the water overboard.”
Cazanavette grimaced, then nodded. He realized that it was their only chance.