The negative tank was a variable ballast tank that could hold roughly fourteen thousand pounds of water. It was normally flooded to speed up diving. The tank had been blown dry earlier when Cazanavette had tried to stop Mackerel's almost fatal descent, so it should be empty now. Most submariners would have been unnerved at the thought of opening the access hatch to a hard tank while at sea, especially while submerged. It was not normally done, due to the dangers involved. While the access cover was removed, they would have only one protection valve between them and the outside sea pressure. But it was their only chance to get the water off the ship, and Cazanavette and Freund both knew it.
Cazanavette and Freund walked through the ship, rousing the men. They laboriously formed bucket brigades using every bucket on the ship. When there were no more buckets, they grabbed whatever they could find that would hold water. The cooks even broke out some of the empty five-gallon food cans.
The men formed a long line that wound through the passageways connecting the flooded torpedo room bilge with the negative tank access hatch in the pump room. Most of the men were so exhausted that they had to lie on the deck and use only their arms to pass along each bucket to the next man down the line. A full bucket came from the torpedo room, and an empty one returned, to be filled and passed back again. The men worked in three shifts, officers included. One shift worked for fifteen minutes while the others rested for thirty. Fifteen minutes was as long as they could go since they were working on such low oxygen. Periodically, the corpsman would walk by and give any droopy-eyed sailors a breath or two from a Momsen lung to help them revive a little. Momsen lungs had not been distributed to the crew because every ounce of reserve air pressure would be needed to get them back to the surface.
Slowly, bucket by bucket, hour by hour, the water level in the torpedo room bilge lowered, until no more full buckets came down the line. Then the line shifted to the forward engine room, and the water was removed from that bilge in the same fashion. Then the storeroom, and so on, until only a few inches of water remained in all of the spaces.
Tremain watched through blurry eyes as the last bolt sealed the negative tank access hatch shut. His head still throbbed and he did not know how much longer he could stay on his feet. He reached down to the deck and grabbed some water in his hand, then threw it onto his face. Even the cold liquid did not help anymore.
“That’s it, Captain,” Cazanavette said. “The access hatch is sealed…. I’ve had the men check the bolts for the.. proper torque.”
Tremain nodded and forced out the words. “Very well… XO. Man stations…. Prepare to surface. Let’s hope this works.”
The word was passed and the weary crew gradually moved to their posts. Tremain and Cazanavette took up their positions in the control room behind Chief Freund and the two planesmen at the ballast control panel.
Tremain looked at the clock. It read 0134. They had not heard any depth charges for eight hours. Perhaps the Japanese had given up on them. Either way, the Mackerel had to surface now or never.
“We may end up in a POW camp, XO,” Tremain said.
Cazavnavette did not respond. He did not appear to have the energy.
“Maybe.. they won’t be up there,” Stillsen said hopefully.
Tremain looked back at Stillsen and managed a smile.
“All stations report … manned and ready for surfacing,” a sailor with a phone headset intoned.
“We’re ready, Captain,” Cazanavette muttered.
Tremain stood up as straight as he could to help give the crew faith. “All right, XO. Use every last bit of air and blow negative to sea.”
Cazanavette repeated the order and Chief Freund turned a valve on the ballast control panel. A faint sibilation filled the room as air pushed the water from the negative tank into the sea, then the sound faded away, signifying that the air banks were now empty.
Tremain thought it seemed too fast. It didn’t seem like much air had been released. He turned his attention to the depth gauge, as did everyone else in the compartment. Several battle lanterns had their beams squarely focused on it. A hush came over the room as every man’s eyes stared at the gauge needle as if they could will it to rise just by concentrating hard enough.
Then, Mackerel gave a slight shudder and the needle moved.
Mackerel shuddered again.
Tremain felt a motion in his feet and the deck began to slope as Mackerel's stern slowly lifted out of the sand. The depth needle showed six hundred and thirty five feet and rising. A few men cheered as they watched the needle go, but most just stared with smiles on their faces and prayers on their lips. They had been at death’s door and now they might live. If it was to mean years in a Japanese prison camp, even that was better than certain death.
The deck continued to slope downward as Mackerel’s stern climbed, so much so that Tremain wondered if the bow would ever break free. It seemed to be firmly anchored.
“I don’t know what’s keeping the bow from coming up, sir,” Freund shouted.
“Try moving the bow planes,” Tremain ordered.
The planesman on the bow plane station leaned on the wheel that operated them to no avail.
“They seem to be stuck, sir.”
“We’re caught up on something and it’s fouling the planes,” Tremain said, as the deck approached a thirty-degree angle. They all knew the concerns. If the angle got too large, it could allow air to escape from the ballast tanks, and then Mackerel would never come up again.
“Helm,” Tremain struggled to say. “All back full! XO, tell maneuvering to give us every last bit of battery power we have left!”
The helmsman rang up the ordered speed and Cazana-vette got on the phone to pass the word to the engineering officer of the watch to run the battery to depletion.
Tremain felt the deck lurch slightly as Mackerel’s screws spun in the astern direction. A terrifying scratching sound could be heard against the hull outside. It sounded like metal grinding against metal. Then suddenly Mackerel’s bow broke free of the ocean floor and the boat leveled off. Both bow and stern began rising together, slowly at first, but with an ever increasing rate of ascent.
Six hundred twenty… six hundred ten.. six hundred.…
Tremain heard some men sobbing behind him, breaking under the stress. He managed to remember to order the ship to a complete stop and the aft battery placed back on the bus to give the ship some power. As partial power returned to the ship’s systems, the replaced light bulbs flicked on, allowing the men to move around without battle lanterns. The new and better lighting showed Tremain how bad his ship looked on the inside. Tools, rags, planks of shoring, flashlights, bolts, pieces of sheet metal, and other miscellaneous items covered almost every inch of deck space.
“Sir,” Cazanavette said from near the bow planesman. “We still don’t have control over the bow planes. Something must be jammed up there.”
Tremain nodded. A hundred explanations went through his weary mind, but he put them all off until later. Mackerel was coming up, with or without functioning bow planes, and that was all he cared about at that moment.
As Mackerel passed three hundred feet, Tremain ordered the compartment rigged for red light. With the sonar gone, he had no way of knowing what was above them.
Tremain at least wanted to have the crew’s eyes conditioned for the darkness before they reached the surface.
Mackerel passed two hundred feet, then one hundred feet. The air pockets in the ballast tanks expanded as the sea pressure decreased, speeding up the rate of ascent as she got shallower. The depth gauge then stopped abruptly at twenty feet, signifying that Mackerel was now on the surface, bobbing like a cork.