“Diving Officer, make your depth six zero feet.”
“Make my depth six zero feet, Dive, aye,” Chief Ketterling responded. Resting his arms on the backs of the planesmen’s chairs, he spoke a few words to the two men and they gently pulled back on their controls. Slowly the deck tilted upward and the digital depth gauge on the panel in front of them started counting down.
“One hundred forty feet,” announced Chief Ketterling. “… One hundred thirty … one hundred twenty …”
All the way up Miller kept his eyes glued to the periscope lens, slowly turning it back and forth across the forward field of view. Likewise, Edwards’ eyes never left the view screen. He imagined what Providence’s black hull must look like emerging from the dark shadows of the deep, rising to the illuminated water near the surface, her high-protruding periscope reaching to see into the other world, her tall sail coming within a few of feet of breaking through to that world.
The deck rocked slightly as Providence’s hull felt the first suction forces from the waves overhead, and Edwards placed one hand on the railing surrounding the periscope stand to steady himself. The surface was getting closer on the view screen. He could make out a few distorted clouds through the watery barrier. Then suddenly, the scope broke through the waves and he could see the blue sky and the flat horizon. Initially, the periscope window received several dousings from the bothersome two- and three-foot waves distorting his view on the screen, but once the Providence leveled off at sixty feet the periscope was high enough to prevent any more interruptions.
Miller swung the periscope through several three hundred and sixty degree rotations before calling out, “No close contacts.”
The danger was over now and the bond of silence that had stifled all conversation in the room was broken.
“It’s a clear day out there, Captain,” Miller said, still looking through the eyepiece. “Just a few patchy clouds. No visual contacts. A perfect day for coming home.”
Everyone in the control room smiled at the thought. After six months away, they would finally see their loved ones again.
“Very good, Weps,” Edwards said. “Let’s see what kind of messages we have waiting for us.”
“Aye, sir. Chief of the Watch, raise number one BRA-34.”
“Raise number one BRA-34, aye, sir,” the petty officer sitting to the left of the planesmen at the ballast control panel responded. His panel contained hundreds of buttons and switches that operated everything from pumps and valves to the various masts and antennas. He reached up and flipped a switch and the massive communications antenna started its journey skyward. The sound of the antenna’s hydraulic lifting system filled the room and soon the oval-shaped pole appeared on the view screen as it climbed higher than the periscope. The communications antenna towered over the periscope by several feet and its large diameter completely blocked the field of view off the starboard bow.
A voice sounded over the control room speaker. “Conn, Radio, request permission to query the satellite.”
“Radio, Conn, query the satellite,” Miller replied. “Download all message traffic.”
Edwards imagined his radiomen, back in the radio room, frantically lining up the various satellite radio receivers with the appropriate cryptography equipment in preparations to communicate with the satellite several miles above the Earth. The messages traveled from a shore station, which could be several thousand miles away, to the satellite and back down to the Providence. General administration, e-mails, news and sports updates, all of the message traffic came in one large data download, and it all happened in the blink of an eye.
“Conn, Radio. We are in receipt of all message traffic. We have received a flash message addressed to us only.”
Edwards’ ears perked up and Miller briefly took his eyes from the scope. A flash message meant the highest priority. It was not something that a ship received very often, let alone in the last few hours before returning to home port.
“Radio, Captain,” Edwards said into one of the control room microphones. “What is the subject of the flash message?” Several seconds passed as the radiomen accessed and opened the message on their computer. The wait seemed like an eternity and Edwards noticed that the whole room had become silent again. A flash message seldom meant good news.
“Captain, Radio,” the radioman’s voice finally intoned. “The message directs you to establish a video-teleconference with ComSubPac immediately, sir.”
Edwards’ eyes met Miller’s. The weapons officer’s previously happy face now showed bleak consternation, as did all the other faces in the room. The Commander of Submarines Pacific Fleet would not call for an immediate video conference unless it was something serious, and they all knew that their anticipated shore leave had just become an uncertainty. “Shit!” muttered a sailor standing back by the chart table. “Let’s not panic, everyone,” Edwards said with a smile. He had to do something to keep them concentrating on their watch stations. “First, let’s find out what ComSubPac wants. Weps, let’s get on the surface so that we can have a clear signal for the conference.” He paused for a moment then added, “And somebody please wake up Commander Bloomfield.”
A few men chuckled at the remark. At least his executive officer was good for something, Edwards thought. If nothing else, the man provided a humorous outlet for situations like these.
Miller’s face drew a smile too. He could see right through Edwards’ attempt to get the men’s minds off the message, but he played along with his captain like a good department head should.
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Miller said, then returned his face to the eyepiece. “Diving Officer, prepare to surface!”
Showering and shaving in the tiny accommodations offered on a submarine were cumbersome tasks, and Lake was happy that he had completed them for the last time. Fresh water was a closely guarded commodity on a submarine, thus it was a rule that only one minute’s worth of shower water was to be used per man per day. Thirty seconds to lather, thirty seconds to rinse. But Lake smiled at the thought of his shower this morning, which had been long and thorough. It had been a true “Hollywood” shower, as some sailors were known to call it. Who was going to say anything? He was leaving the ship in a few hours, so what could they do to him?
Lake wore his best cotton khaki uniform for entering port. As he conducted his tour of the ship in preparations for assuming the watch, his mind drifted to all of the events that had taken place on this ship in the last three years. The torpedo room, the auxiliary machinery room, the clerk’s office, and the berthing spaces. The galley, the crew’s mess, then aft through the watertight door that separated the forward compartment from the engine room. As he walked through the three different levels of the engine room, he recalled those difficult days as an ensign and the time he had spent learning every tank, panel, pump, and valve. And he thanked God that he would be saying goodbye to it all today.
Finishing his tour of the engine room, Lake walked back through the watertight door and into the forward compartment. As he passed through the crew’s mess where two dozen or so men of the oncoming watch section ate their breakfasts at small booth tables, he saw the burly figure of Chief Michaelson rise from his seat and approach him. Lake kept walking into the passageway beyond as if he did not notice him. He had a feeling he knew what the torpedo chief wanted and he did not feel like dealing with him right now.
“Mr. Lake.” Michaelson had followed him and caught up with him in the passage. “Mr. Lake.”
“What is it, Chief?” Lake said with forced irritability. “I’m right in the middle of my pre-watch tour and I’d really like to grab some breakfast before I relieve the watch.”