He paused on the manoeuvring platform, fascinated however often he saw it, by the vastness of the open space that was the main engine-room. Over thirty feet from deckhead to bilges, it gleamed in its white paint even after months of running. Here were the bits and pieces which, apart from the boilers, turbines and gearboxes driving the huge propeller, were vital to the functioning of the submarine: the turbo and motor generators provided the electrical energy and charged the small battery which was so vital if the reactor was scrammed.
Scanes moved down to 2 deck and had a word with the upper-level watchkeeper: the air compressors of the freon plant, dangerous if it leaked its gas, were giving no trouble for once. He walked into the switchboard room and had a word with the watchkeeper: Safari was, in reality, an electrical ship; though the back-up procedures were plentiful, all hydraulics and controls were actuated electrically. Down on 3 deck, Scanes checked the diesel and motor generator compartment, with its ear-splitting noise level. The watchkeeper grinned and held up his thumb. In the, adjoining compartment, he found the eighteen-year-old junior MEM writing up his readings. Atkins had joined the Navy only four months ago, but here he was, enduring the long watches in this isolated, sweltering steel box, monitoring the distiller and its tanks as if he had been accustomed to the job all his life. His pale, serious face split into a nervous grin:
'Yeah — everything's okay, chief,' he yelled into Scanes' ear.
Scanes systematically read the gauges, checked the lad's entries. There was little room to move and the air was foul. He was about to sign the log when from somewhere above there was a roaring noise. He heard the shouts, recorded in his minds die emergency commands.
'God!' he yelled, shoving his way past the stoker. 'A steam leak — can't be anything else!'
Chapter 16
'Happy with the trim?' Farge asked.
Eddie Foggon was watching the depth gauge and the bubble 'She's settled nicely,' the MEO said. 'Qs half full.'
Lieutenant Woolf-Gault stood silently at the after end of the control-room: the boat was bottomed at 632 feet with a four-degree bow-down angle, in her second waiting position, three miles from the V-junction of the main shipping lanes. The roundabout buoy was six and a half miles to the south-southwest: from this new position Orcus should be able to monitor both lanes more satisfactorily.
'Who's the officer of the watch, Number One?'
'TASO, sir,' Tim Prout said. 'He's willing to keep the watch until 0300.'
Woolf-Gault sensed the hesitation, felt awkward at the first lieutenant's announcement; he intercepted the glances passing between the plotting team but registered the flash of understanding in the cox'n's kindly eye.
'Right, then,' the captain said. 'You have the submarine, officer of the watch.'
Woolf-Gault stepped forward, between the periscopes. 'I have the submarine, sir.'
'Call me at once if you're bothered or if the sound-room picks up any major war vessels,' Farge said, firmly. 'There could be a lot more activity at dawn. Shake me at 0400.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' The captain crossed to the chart table, had a word with Murray, then disappeared into his cabin.
Three minutes later, the control-room had emptied. The boat had adopted a modified action state, with a reduced attack team closed up on the sonar, the LOP and the CEP. Farge was remaining in WP2 until the sound-room had built up a comprehensive sonar state.
Woolf-Gault moved over to the chart table. Four hours ago the captain had crossed the western lane by running deep and taking advantage of the overhead traffic. When he came up for a quick look, he found good vis. and the wind moderated to five or six. He did not hang around, having sighted a group of choppers to the west. Their active pinging shortly afterwards dispelled the hope that Orcus had penetrated the Kola Inlet undetected. The captain bottomed her half an hour before the westerly tidal stream began to run and reinstated the Ultra Quiet State.
Woolf-Gault straightened his back, glimpsed the reflection of his hollow-cheeked, grey face in one of the dials of the control-room. His adorable Eve wouldn't recognize those haunted eyes staring from their sunken sockets. He compressed his lips and crossed to the doorway of the sound-room. The operators took no notice of him as they concentrated on their displays, monitoring, counting the revs, analysing the shaft and blade signatures. Chris Sims, the jovial, fair-haired sonar officer with the freckled face, was leaning over one of the operator's shoulders, helping to analyse a contact in the eastern lane, when from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Windy-Gault's arrival. Pointedly, Sims bade his team good-night and, easing past Woolf-Gault, made his way for'd to his bunk. The operators continued making their reports to the anonymous OOW in the control-room, where only the relief panel watchkeeper was half asleep at his panel. The lieutenant sat down in the captain's canvas stool and began his long vigil The life-support system was the only machinery still running: the boat had not snorted since after Vardo. The WEO had reported that the battery was down to sixty per cent: nothing to worry about yet, but a lot might happen before they could get in another charge. Denzil Woolf-Gault shivered in the silent control-room. The clammy cold? Or was this tingling at the nape of his neck the onset of flu? The doc, Bob Tomkins, the only man in the wardroom to remain tolerably friendly, was worried by the epidemic: three men were running high temperatures, all three, Bob said, would be virus-pneumonia cases, if the drugs didn't take hold.
Without the doc's unspoken sympathy, Woolf-Gault might have been tempted to put an end to this misery — and he thrust away that moment when he'd considered the revolver cupboard above the wardroom table. Messy for everyone — and the act would only compound his cowardice. And how could Eve live with the shame for the rest of her life? Jeremy, their four-year old: would he inherit his father's trait? It was going to be difficult enough explaining to Eve that moment of panic which had overwhelmed him on the bridge, that split-second of derangement which had wrecked his service career. His future depended upon Eve's reaction. She'd married a man with feet of clay, not a knight in shining armour. In the prison of his personal world, alone in the control-room with the petty officer at the panel intent on his girlie magazine, Woolf-Gault began to sense again the advent of black depression.
How could anyone begin to know what ostracism by one's peers was like? He realized how insufferable he must have been, lording his seniority and experience over Prout. But, virtually sent to Coventry, he wasn't going to crawl to them — bloody hell, no. He'd been top of his term on passing out from the college, had a successful career ahead of him. He knew he wasn't as calm, sometimes, under stress, as some of the others, but he'd managed to keep the knowledge to himself. To compensate he'd gone flat out as soon as he joined the fleet, throwing himself into any extra activity he could: the cross-channel races in the yacht; the sub-aqua clubs which led to his qualifying as a ship's diver, a skill he had conscientiously kept up to date, never missing his routine proficiency tests; and his standard A1 as a Russian interpreter. He had more to offer than most… and he felt again the stab of remorse as his eyes wandered round the control-room: depth 634 feet; bubble three degrees bow-down; ship's head steady on 039°. The hum of the ventilation was making him drowsy.
The hands of the clock moved imperceptibly. The reports from the 187 sonar were all that kept him awake: the initial contact, the classifying, the refining, ship after ship, but mostly in the eastern lane. When at 0105 the operator came up with a contact on 030°, it dawned in Woolf-Gault's half-consciousness that the bearing was odd. He ordered a check: the bearing was, confirmed, with an estimated range of six miles. He dragged himself from his chair and walked quietly to the captain's cabin. He tapped on the door frame and drew back the curtain half-way.