The report that came next was no surprise. “Comrade Captain! The solenoids are operating, but the dump valves will not open!”
“Find a way to open them!” Hwa shouted. “Do it now, or we are all dead!”
He wiped his bleeding nose against his sleeve: a crudity he had not allowed himself since childhood. That thought brought back something else from his youth: the memory of a puzzling phrase once spoken by his father’s father. A tiger brought down by crickets.
As a boy, Hwa Yong-mu had never understood the reference. How could a fearsome beast like the tiger be brought down by insects?
The phrase was no longer a mystery to him. The Steel Wind, built to outrun every antisubmarine weapon in the arsenals of the fatherland’s enemies, was being killed — one tiny insect bite at a time.
He grasped the periscope’s control ring, cancelled the retract signal, and reversed it to re-extend the scope. If he couldn’t accelerate to supercavitation speed, at least he could continue the fight.
He returned his face to the light shroud and peered through the scope. The American destroyer was down by the stern and listing to port, but stubbornly afloat. He would change that. It might be too late to save his own vessel, but he would take his enemy to the grave with him.
“Weapons Officer, ready tube two! Prepare for a snap shot!”
“Comrade Captain, the outer door of tube two will not close! We cannot open the inner door to load the tube!”
“Of course you can’t,” Hwa said to himself. “I should have expected as much.”
The American torpedo was now close enough to be heard through the hull. The high-pitched howl of its screws grew louder and more shrill, like the buzzing of an angry insect.
And that was fitting, Hwa supposed. One last cricket, come to bring the final sting of defeat.
“Conn — Sonar. Loud underwater explosion off the starboard bow, bearing two-two-nine! Correlates to bearing of contact Sierra One-Four.”
Ernie Pooler was through the door of the sonar room before the report was complete. “Any secondaries?”
The sonar operator held up a hand in a wait gesture. “Standby, COB. Standby… Affirmative! We have definite secondary explosions! Target is breaking up! Score one for the skimmers. Looks like those boys have killed themselves a submarine!”
Ernie chuckled and patted the operator on the back. “Bound to happen sooner or later, Shipmate. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”
CHAPTER 65
Cassy came up through the companionway with a mug of coffee in her hand.
Jon reached for it. “Thanks! I can use that.”
Cassy held the cup out of reach and took a sip. “What makes you think this is for you?”
“It’s only fair,” said Jon. “You gave my soup to some Cuban guy. The least you can do is bring me some coffee.”
After a second (and much longer) sip, Cassy surrendered the mug. “You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”
Jon took a swallow. “So you keep telling me.”
“How’s Eagle Eye doing?” She nodded toward the spot on the upper deck where Fris sat cross-legged with his back toward the mast, scanning the horizon behind the boat with a pair of binoculars.
Jon shrugged. “I told him we’re outside the twelve mile limit and that nobody’s going to come after us now. But I don’t think he’s gonna come down from there until we’re within sight of Key West.”
“Maybe I should bring him some coffee,” said Cassy.
“Probably a good idea,” said Jon. “He didn’t get any soup either.”
Then he dropped the levity from his voice. “How’s Liv holding up?”
“She’s still just sitting there,” said Cassy. “I don’t think she’s said a word since she called in her report. She needs a good cry to let some of it out.”
“Maybe she can’t,” said Jon. “Sometimes, you get so wrapped up in being a good Marine that you forget how to be human.”
Cassy sighed. “You think she’s going to be okay?”
This brought a snort from Jon. “What are you asking me for? You’re the doc.”
“Yeah,” said Cassy, “but not that kind of doc.”
Jon downed another swallow of coffee. “We’ll be in Key West in a couple of days. The Corps can either fly her back to GITMO for treatment, or get her into counseling right there at the Naval Clinic.”
“I guess the real doctors can figure it out,” Cassy said.
Jon held up the coffee mug in a toasting gesture. “Chesty Puller always claimed that Navy Corpsmen were the best doctors in the business. I’m betting you can cure her by the time we get to Florida.”
Cassy shook her head. “I’m not sure this is something that can be cured.”
“Then it can be treated,” said Jon. “If I was a shrink, I’d prescribe an extended vacation on a beat-up old sailboat, with a beautiful woman and a faithful Staffordshire Terrier. Maybe that’s not the cure for PTSD, but it’s a damned effective treatment regimen.”
“I don’t know if Liv leans that way.”
“What? She doesn’t like dogs?”
Cassy elbowed him gently in the ribs.
“Although,” said Jon thoughtfully, “if she’s going to do the sailing vacation thing, she can probably skip the nuclear explosion part.”
“And the gunfight on the boat,” said Cassy.
“Right,” said Jon. “She can skip that part too.”
CHAPTER 66
The Chief Engineer plodded into the wardroom, ambled to the coffee urn, and slouched into a chair with the weariness of a man near to collapse. His coveralls were wet, smeared with grease, and torn in several places.
Captain Heller came in a few seconds after, somewhat less bedraggled, but showing his own signs of exhaustion. He also went straight for the coffee urn. “So, Cheng, what’s the verdict? Or we going to sink, or not?”
“That depends,” said the Cheng. “Are you planning to recommend me for commander?”
“Not if we sink,” said the captain.
The engineer yawned. “Then I reckon I can keep us afloat. Well, maybe not me personally. But my people can do it.”
Heller responded with a yawn of his own. “That’s the spirit! Seriously though, how are we looking?”
“We’ve got power restored to critical systems and most of the crew areas. Between pumps, eductors, and liberal use of fairy dust, we’ve got the water level in MER 2 down to about fifty percent. That’s as good as we’re gonna get, I think. Not much we can do about Shaft Alley or Aft Steering. We can’t get a patching team into either compartment without opening a watertight door. If we do that, we end up flooding the adjoining passageways. And we can’t afford to take on much more water, or we really will sink.”
There was another (unspoken) reason for wanting to access Aft Steering. The bodies of MRFN Jessica Marsh and MR3 Dale Hanning were still in there.
For the first several hours following the attack, everyone’s hands had been full just trying to save the ship. Now that the flooding was under control and things seemed to be stabilizing, there would be time to recover the remains of their casualties.