He turned in the chamber, banged against the wall of the cylinder, gripped the lower hatch venting wheel, turned again, banged, was thrown off, his lamp flickering wildly against the flooded metal of his prison, gripped again, braced himself— the vibration and movement slowing now?
— and turned a third time. The water began to seep slowly from the hatch into the torpedo room. Three-and-a-half minutes. He had practised the number of turns to allow the pressure to alter at the necessary rate, the precise amount of water to release per second, perhaps two hundred times. But not when it really mattered. He remained gripping the wheel of the lower hatch, the light of his lamp playing on his watch.
Ten, eleven, twelve seconds. Almost eight minutes of time gone, and another three minutes fifteen before the water had drained away and he had safely depressurised. A total of more than eleven minutes. And where were they? Had they hung on? Were they alive?
Slowing, vibration bearable. Scraping on its belly, lurching to starboard, a cry of rent metal, the main prop not being used, docking prop dying away. The Proteus was stopping again. He had waited too long. He should have acted earlier, when the noise and vibration were at their height. Now the water dripped on to the empty torpedo room floor in the sudden silence as men's hearing returned. Thirty-seven seconds, thirty-eight, nine, forty —
Silence. He stood upright in the chamber. The water was at shoulder-height. He ducked back beneath its surface. Fifty-five seconds. He couldn't wait, had to wait. Perhaps the great bulk of the submarine had rolled on one or more of them? Teplov? Nikitin? The others? If they were alive, could they find the Proteus again in time in the forest of silt that must now obscure her? They would swim through an unending, almost solid grey curtain of silt, looking for the submarine that was their only hope. It was already too late to begin slowly ascending to the surface. Now he was safely decompressing, no one could enter the torpedo room escape chamber until he had left it. If any of them were still alive. He thought of the whip of a loosened steel cable across an immersion-suited body —
One minute twenty seconds. He was crouching against the floor of the chamber as the water drained slowly into the torpedo room below. Not a trickle, not a drip, but a slow, steady fall, noisy. The wardroom next door, normality returning, things being righted again, objects picked up from the floor, bruises rubbed, hearing returning, awareness of surroundings increasing. What's that noise? Sprung a leak? Better go and take a look —
Ardenyev was on his own. He remembered the helicopter going down in flames, then Petrov's broken leg, then the hellish noise and vibration of the Proteus. Dolohov, he was able to consider distinctly, might have killed every member of the special Underwater Operations Unit, his unit. For a box of tricks to make a submarine invisible.
Two minutes five. The compartment was less then half full of water. He was squatting in a retreating tide, as he might have done at Tallinn or Odessa as a child, watching the mysterious, fascinating water rush away from him, leaving the froth of foam around him and the stretch of newly exposed wet sand in which shells sat up in little hollows. Two minutes twenty.
Noise, they must hear the noise, no they won't, they're too disorientated, they'll be listening for water, the dangerous water of a leak, a buckled or damaged plate, they'll hear it —
Two minutes thirty-two. Fifty-eight seconds remaining. He pulled at the hatch, and it swung up, emptying the chamber in an instant. His hands had been locked on the wheel, turning it slowly though the forebrain had decided to wait. The pressure of imagination as to what might have happened outside the submarine was greater than any other, pressing down and in on him like the ocean. He dropped through the hatch into the torpedo room, the water already draining away, leaving the cold, clinical place merely damp. Instantly, he felt dizzy, and sick. Too soon, too soon, he told himself. He had never tried to get through decompression at this depth in less than two minutes fifty. He'd been prepared to cope with the dizziness and sickness, the blood pounding in his head, that would have assailed him only half-a-minute early. This was worse, much worse. He staggered against the bulkhead, his vision unable to focus, his surroundings wobbling like a room in a nightmare. The noise in his ears was a hard pounding, beneath which he could almost hear the accelerating blood rushing with a dry whisper. His heart ached. Pain in his head, making thought impossible. His hands were clutched round the two canisters on his chest as if holding some talisman or icon of profound significance and efficacy. His legs were weak, and when he tried to move he lurched forward, almost spilling on to his face like a baby trying to walk for the first time.
He leaned against the bulkhead then, dragging in great lungfuls of the mixture in his air tanks, trying desperately to right his vision, and to focus on the door into the torpedo room. It was closed, but its outline shimmered, and threatened to dissolve. It was no barrier. Around him lay the sleek shapes of the torpedoes. Cold, clinical place, the floor already almost dry, except for the puddle that still lingered at his feet from his immersion suit. He tried to look at his watch, could not focus, strained and blinked and stretched his eyes, pressing the face of the watch almost against his facemask. Three minutes fifty, almost four minutes. He could have — should have — waited. He was further behind now. He snapped the lock on the weighted belt around his waist. It thudded to the floor.
He looked up. Close the hatch, close the hatch. Moving as if still under water, with the diver's weighted feet and restraining suit, he reached up and closed the hatch, turning the handle with aching, frosty, weak limbs. If they were alive — he felt tears which were no longer simply another symptom of decompression prick helplessly behind his eyes — then now they could open the outer hatch.
Door opening. Refocus. Slowly refocus. He had been about to focus on the port and starboard air purifiers on either side of the torpedo room when the door began opening. But it still ran like a rain-filled window-pane, the image distorted. A figure that might have been reflected in a fairground mirror came through the door, stopped, yelled something indistinct above the rush and ache in his ears, then came towards him.
Quick, quick, useless instincts prompted. He pushed away from the bulkhead. He could make out the port purifier clearly, then it dissolved behind rain again for a moment, then his vision cleared. He could hear the words, the question and challenge shouted. Another figure came through the open bulkhead door. Two of them. Ardenyev moved through a thicker element than air, and hands grabbed him from behind, causing him to stagger near one of the torpedoes. Slowly, aquatically, he tried to turn and lash out. His other hand cradled one of the two canisters on his chest, and the young face seemed riveted by his hand and what it held. Ardenyev could distinguish expression on the face now — knowledge, realisation. The young man enclosed him in a bear-hug, but Ardenyev heaved at the thin, light arms, pushing the man away by his very bulk.
He bent, opening the inspection plate; then his hand was pulled away, and another, larger hand clamped on his own as it held the first canister. The second canister was torn from its strap and rolled across the floor, beneath one of the torpedo trestles. All three of them watched it roll. The two British officers feared it might be a bomb after all.