“We can’t take a chance rolling this fish over because we might jolt it too hard. That means we got to take the exploder out from underneath and it means we can’t hit it with the maul and if the bastard sticks and won’t come out, I think I’ll put in for a transfer.”
Brannon chewed his lower lip, thinking. He shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“What’s got to be done has got to be done,” he said slowly. “I’m going to stay on the surface for a while. We’ve got to get some charge back in the battery. Once we’ve done that we’ll submerge, go down to about three hundred feet so we’ll have a nice steady platform to work with and we’ll get the exploder out.” He stooped and looked at the underside of the warhead. A steady stream of viscous drops was falling from a split in the nose of the warhead, the drops falling soundlessly into a pile of soft rags Nelson had put on the deck.
“We’ll have to do something about that warhead,” Brannon said. “If exudate is dangerous we can’t have it leaking into the room.”
“Once we get the exploder out we can roll the fish over,” Flanagan said. “Then we can seal it with something.”
“Okay,” Brannon said. “Don’t let anyone get near this torpedo, Nelson.” He turned to Bob Lee. “Let’s go up to the Wardroom, Bob. I want you to dictate everything you saw and know that happened back here to the yeoman. When he gets that typed up we can have Chief Flanagan and Nelson read it for accuracy and for additions.” He looked at Nelson and Flanagan.
“You’re damned good men,” he said slowly. He started to duck under the torpedo to go forward and then straightened up. “Chief, later I want you and Nelson to sit down with me and talk about how this happened. I don’t want to crucify anyone, I don’t think we have to do that, but I want to know everything so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. We’ve still got those Mark Fifteens in the other three tubes.” He ducked under the torpedo and went forward, followed by Bob Lee. Nelson turned to Flanagan.
“Got me a helluva mess back here, Chief. Ain’t hardly gonna be any room to live back here, let alone do our work. What do you want me to do about Dumont? He’s the dumb fuck who fired the damned fish in the tube. Said he saw a leak in a grease fitting above the gyro repeater and was going to look at it and a depth charge threw him off balance and he hit the firing key for Number Seven.”
“Don’t do anything,” Flanagan said. “I’ll handle it, I’ll do something if something has to be done. I want to talk to the Old Man about it first, and to John Olsen. Dumont’s a pretty good man.”
“Yeah, he’s a good man,” Nelson said.
“Leave it there,” Flanagan said. He scrambled under the torpedo and went into the Maneuvering Room. Chief Morris looked at him from the padded bench seat where he was sitting, his foot propped negligently against the edge of the control panel.
“How’s your ears after all that pressure, Monk?”
“Didn’t notice any pressure,” Flanagan said. “I was worried about getting my ass wet. That damned water sure came in fast through that open tube. Thought I might have drowned before we got that inner door closed.”
“Nah,” Morris said. “The air pressure in the room would have stopped the water a good three feet from the overhead. You could have breathed in that bubble.”
“You’re a cheerful fuck,” Flanagan grunted. He went forward to change clothes.
Standing on the ship’s bridge, Mike Brannon filled John Olsen and Jerry Gold in on the condition of the exploder. Olsen’s eyes widened.
“My God, if we get depth charged again the jolts from the depth charges might set it off!”
“I don’t think so,” Brannon said. “We took some hard knocks when that fish was out of the tube, and it seemed to take it. The real danger is in someone getting careless and hitting the warhead itself.” He turned to Gold.
“How’s the battery charge coming?”
“Chief Morris says he’ll have a full can in another hour, sir. We can secure any time, but when we do he’d like twenty minutes, if we can give it to him, to ventilate the battery compartments. He’s been charging at a high amperage rate, and there’s hydrogen in the battery ventilation system.”
“Something in the water, bearing zero four five, Bridge,” the starboard lookout yelled.
Brannon and Olsen raised their binoculars. In the distance the water surface had a peculiar iridescent purple sheen broken by several white objects.
“Let’s get over there, Jerry,” Brannon said. Jerry Gold nodded and spoke quietly into the bridge transmitter, and the Eelfish turned to starboard and began to close on the odd purple sheen in the water.
“That looks like oil all over the water, Bridge,” the starboard lookout reported. “I can see some two, three life rings, and there’s a guy hanging on to some sort of wooden crate or something that’s floating and he’s waving at us.”
“Control,” Brannon said into the bridge transmitter. “Give me a radar sweep, air and horizon.”
“Radar reports all clear, Bridge.”
“Very well,” Brannon said. “Chief of the Boat to the bridge with a boathook, a life line, and two seamen. Gunner’s Mate to the bridge with a submachine gun.”
“We’ve got an oil slick up ahead, Chief,” Brannon said. “There’s some life rings in the slick. I want to get one of them, two if you can. There’s a man hanging on to a crate or something a little to starboard of the life rings. I want to get him, too, but these people often would rather die than be captured. So ignore the man. Maybe if he thinks we won’t pick him up he’ll come aboard.” He turned to John LaMark.
“Gunner, if we pick this swimmer up I want you to watch him like a hawk. If he shows a knife or a gun, shoot him.” He turned back to Flanagan.
“If you have to go down on the pressure hull remember it’s got some oil on it. We’re running through some oil now. Use a safety line.”
Down on deck Flanagan tied a double bowline in the end of a coil of 21-thread manila line one of the seamen was holding. He put his legs through the two loops of the knot and pulled the line up his legs to his crotch. He took the bitter end of the line, put it around his waist, and tied it to the standing part of the line. The seaman gathered up the slack.
“Don’t worry, Chief. I won’t lose you.”
“I’m not worried,” Flanagan growled. “But you’d better worry if you do.” He sat down on the deck and eased his way down on to the pressure hull, holding the boathook ready. As the ship slowed and eased by a life ring stained with oil, Flanagan reached out and snared the ring and lifted it up on deck. The man holding on to the crate was a scant ten yards distant.
“Left ten degrees rudder,” Brannon yelled out in a loud voice that carried over the water. “That’s good, Chief. We’ve got what we want.”
The bow of the submarine began to swing slowly away and the man holding the crate thrashed his legs in a violent dog paddle.
“Don’t leave me!” the swimmer’s voice was high-pitched with fear. “Please don’t leave me!”
“Son of a bitch speaks English,” Flanagan said. He looked at the submarine’s bridge.
“You want me to get this sucker, sir?”
“Might as well,” Brannon said, his voice loud. “Gunner, stand by to shoot that swimmer if he makes one wrong move.” He turned to Olsen and said in a low voice, “He spoke English, so he must understand it.”
“He doesn’t have to understand,” Olsen said. “Look at LaMark!”
Brannon looked at the deck where LaMark was elaborately going through the process of pulling the cocking knob on the .45 caliber submachine gun back and letting it snap forward. He raised the machine gun to his shoulder and aimed it at the swimmer, his finger on the trigger.