Someone was shouting:
'D Kingstons jammed open!'
'Stop together,' Farge commanded.
'475 — 480.'
'Hold on — down on the deck!' Farge yelled at the top of his voice. 'Protect your heads!' He flung himself to the sloping deck.
'490 feet.'
Surprisingly, he felt a gradual deceleration as the submarine ploughed to a halt, the hull trembling throughout its length. She remained for a few seconds at her terrifying angle, then Farge felt her bows subsiding. As he hauled himself upright by the periscope rods he felt her stem come up all-standing on something hard. The depth pointer was fixed at 487 feet.
After the shocked seconds of relative calm, he heard shouting through the open doors as men scrambled along the plates of the engine-room, the curses of his control-room team while they struggled to their stations. The unnerving active pings were growing louder as the enemy strove to regain contact.
'All compartments make your reports.' Farge ordered, on his feet again, leaning against the steel tube of the search periscope. 'Begin from aft.'
And in those next few minutes, Farge's worst fears were realized: the after-planes, the rudder, both propellers — all inoperative. She had stuck her after-ends deep into the mud.
'Control — engine-room.'
'Control?'
'Water flooding into the gland space.'
'Roger.'
'Captain, sir,' Foggon said. 'Number two HP air accumulator is almost empty. Both pumps are failing to cut in.'
'Is number one reservoir empty?'
The MEO nodded.
'Control — engine-room.'
'Control?' Farge shouted aft through the engine-room door.
'Six and five main vents jammed open. We can't shift them in hand.'
Foggon met Farge's glance, then shook his head slowly.
'No point running the compressors on atmosphere, sir.' He was gasping for the air which was not there, as another active ping blasted the boat.
'Everybody for'd,' Farge rapped. 'Into the fore-ends and for'd accommodation space.' He glanced at Tim Prout:
'Number One, take charge in the fore-ends. I'll take the accommodation space.'
The captain stood aside, watching his men streaming through the engine-room bulkhead door: some with flesh wounds and bloodied faces, others smeared with grease, clothes sodden, helping each other as they struggled up the slippery deck which had settled at a forty-degree angle. The comedians were chiakking each other, even now.
Farge had lost track of time. He knew only that Orcus was crippled, unable to move. With the after main vents jammed open he could not blow his after main ballast, even if he could produce HP air by running the compressors on atmosphere to a slight vacuum — there was precious little atmosphere remaining. The jammed after main vents explained the disastrous angle. His propellers were damaged, the shafts probably distorted if water was streaming into the gland space. Then he heard, above the noise of the last of the hands clambering through the control-room, the whisper of a destroyer's propellers passing overhead. How often had he heard that sound reproduced in the simulator…? He cocked his head to one side, listening, as the wardroom steward poked his head through the door. Riley, a handkerchief at his mouth, was crimson in the face, coughing and gasping for air:
'There's gas, sir,' he choked. 'Coming up through number two battery boards.'
Riley was pushed aside and Prout's head appeared between the legs of the last stoker clambering through the doorway:
'Chlorine, sir.'
Farge nodded: the battery cells must have been damaged and seawater from the flooded Ds was seeping into the battery bilges. He waited until the reverberations from another active blast disappeared, then faced Prout 'What's the keel depth in the fore-ends?'
'454 feet, sir.'
'We've got a chance, then.'
'Yes — if everyone keeps his head.'
'Abandon ship: prepare for a rush escape,' Farge commanded brusquely. 'You take the fore-ends.'
'Aye, aye, sir. Able Seaman Hicks is missing: the doc turned him in in the after messdeck.'
Farge turned to his cox'n who, the last man in the control-room, was waiting patiently by the panel.
'Go aft, please, cox'n. Check that everyone's for'd.'
Bowles was already slithering downwards to the engine-room door. Farge watched him disappearing into the shadows of the machinery space as the first lieutenant shoved the last stoker through the for'd door:
'Better get dressed, Tim. Don't flood up until I give the order.'
'Right, sir.' Prout met his captain's eye. 'Good luck, sir,' he said. 'See you in Vardo.' He turned briskly and disappeared for'd up the passageway.
Waiting for Bowles to return, Farge was on his own. He could smell the faint tang of chlorine. He'd better grab a suit and start dressing. He reached up to the deckhead lockers and pulled out escape suits for Bowles. Hicks and himself. Amazingly, he felt quite serene as another active blast invaded his boat. He could do no more.
The enemy was having a field day… and fleetingly he wondered whether the Russian captains would machine-gun survivors in the water. In peacetime, they behaved as sailors the world over. They'd just sunk their submarine; they'd not wallow in blood. If only some of Orcus' company could survive, even a few, to tell 'em in Dolphin what Orcus, the old lady of the squadron, had tried to achieve — perhaps they'd install her shield in the Submariners' Church, with all those others who had never returned. At least, she'd carried out her mission. Janner Coombes could be on to his prey, might even have sunk the Typhoon by now?
Farge closed his eyes, his thoughts rushing onwards, glimpsing in a flash of clarity a vision of peace which was at this moment within the grasp of humanity. And he prayed to the God whom he had discovered at this last moment. From far away he heard the approaching chatter of the torpedo's propellers, the racket of the weapon which submariners were trained to recognize. It came from the port quarter, louder, until the propeller beats merged into one single, deafening roar. He grabbed at the periscope rods; for God's sake, hurry, Bowles..
A thud, a blinding flash: the explosion, remarkably unimpressive after the previous upheavals, shook the old submarine's hull. He was deafened momentarily by the sound of cascading water in the engine-room as the bulkhead door slammed shut on its hinges, torn from its clips. He picked himself up at the foot of the bulkhead, reached up and swung off on the quick-acting wheel, watching the dogs dig home into their sockets. Gasping for air, he fought his way upwards to the for'd door of the control-room, fell through it, grasped at the outstretched hand reaching for him.
As they hauled him upright and began slipping his feet into the legs of the escape suit, he half turned towards the passageway leading to the fore-ends:
'Shut bulkhead doors,' he gasped, choking from the first whiffs of the lethal gas. 'Flood up the fore-ends. Rush escape?
Chapter 25
Though midsummer was only five weeks away, his wind-cheater, fur hat and gloves did little to keep out the biting cold. Must be my age, Vice-Admiral Lincoln Jessup, Jr, thought to himself as he paced his small admiral's deck above the main conning position on Carl Vinsons's island. He needed the air after this long day, the most gruelling twenty-four hours he had endured since his appointment as commander of Carrier Striking Force, Atlantic. It was good to see his ships out there, dispersed across the horizon, on the edge of the pack-ice: the cruisers, destroyers and frigates and, jutting above the horizon-line to the north-east, the spiky topmast of the other carrier, the old lady, Constellation. His force packed a punch, but even with Constellation's contribution, his own aviators were flying round the clock.