Not depth charges. These must be torpedoes. I’ve never actually heard them before. The Leviathan’s stockpile was used up long before I was brought on board.
“Caleb, stick with me!” I shout over the roar of the water, the shouting, the thrum and knock of pressure against the hull.
Jumping down into the well, there’s barely room to move around the massive bank of batteries. The water has already pooled here to my ankles. I help Caleb down.
“There are two pumps—I need you to turn this one, back here.” I point to the pump handle aft, away from the water pooling at the forward part of the well. The motorized pumps burned out long ago, and they must be manually operated in order to clear the water through the bilge.
I glance to the metal strut, just above where Caleb has started pumping, to where I hid the missile key. No time to check on it now.
I inch around the side of the battery bank, forward to the other manual pump release. The water is deeper here—ever deepening. To my knees. We’re still diving. Leakage continues to spill in from the hatch above in a waterfall, dousing the batteries.
They’re made to handle being wet and not shorting out, but they can’t become submerged. If they do, they’ll fry. The batteries would be dead, and so would Caleb and I. Electric shock.
Another screech from the deck above—the sound of the trim main blowing. The water cascades down now, drenching me.
It’s already up to my waist when my fingers find the pump handle, just beneath the murky, salty, greasy surface. I begin working it, spinning the wheel valve.
Shouting. The clanging of feet scurrying on the decks above. The rushing of water. More and more spilling in. The Leviathan is still diving. Still dropping fast. I hear the entire boat groan from the pressure. We’re going to reach the crush depth soon at this rate of descent.
There might be a war raging on the upper decks, but here is the only thing that matters.
Turn, turn, turn.
The pump isn’t draining the water away fast enough. We’re barely keeping up.
“Caleb, I need you to speed up!” I shout.
I can’t see him around the battery cluster behind me, but I hear him. Hear him grunting as he turns his pump. I also see the bottom bank is already about to be fully submerged.
Not worth risking both our lives.
“Caleb, climb out,” I shout.
“But the water—” I hear him shout.
“Do it now. Find the tool kit. I’ll call down for something if I need it. Just stay up there!”
The water level continues to rise, but Caleb does as I instructed. I look up to see his legs disappearing through the hatch above.
Meanwhile, I spin and spin the pump valve. I’m dizzy. My eyes burn from the acrid fume. My lungs ache. I’m choking. My arm is numb, but I keep at it.
And then the whole boat lurches, wrenches, thongs like I’ve never heard it before.
My head knocks against the ceiling of the low compartment.
It’s as though the whole boat has struck something.
Have we bottomed out? I can’t tell if the boat is still moving. It certainly isn’t diving any longer.
The lights flicker overhead, then wink out completely. The main power has shut down. Battery power now, keeping the auxiliary lights on.
Without main power, the batteries are essential until the reactor and the generators are brought back online.
I must keep at it.
Thankfully, the burst main seems to have been repaired. The cascade of water has lessened to a small stream pouring in through the well hatch. The boat has also leveled, shifting the water back from where it had been pooling.
There’s light enough to see that the pumping might finally be working. The bilge is beginning to recede.
I turn and turn not stopping until the water level has fallen below my ankles. My burning arm quakes, muscles clenching, angry and taut.
But the batteries are safe.
“Caleb, what’s going on up there?” I ask, panting.
No answer. Probably still looking for the tool kit. Or hiding under the table again.
I look over to the beam where I’ve hidden the missile key.
I feel for the key in the small crevice between the ceiling and the top of the beam, where I had carefully had wedged it. But I find only empty space.
I search again, running my fingers along the entire seam, but no. Nothing. No key.
It must have fallen into the water.
“Remy,” someone calls from above.
“A moment,” I say, coughing, splashing in the cold, murky water, feeling around the bottom.
If I’ve lost it, then that changes everything.
My fingers probe the rusty metal compartment deck, brush against sharp metal corroded edges.
“Remy!” I hear my name again. It’s Ephraim calling down.
Come on!
And then I find it. The smooth metal stalk. The key. Not sucked into the pump, after all.
Now is not the time to take a moment of relief. I shake as I tuck the key safely beneath my wet bindings, where I feel its cold shape pressing into my skin. Where it will stay for the next several days. Should we actually survive long enough to go through with the plan.
I finally climb up from the well, robes sopping wet, heavy.
It isn’t until I’m on deck that I recognize the silence that has overtaken the vessel. A hissing, a dripping, a tapping somewhere in the pipes, but quiet otherwise.
A thick haze of oily and electric smoke hangs about the dim compartment. Worse here than below. My eyes burn. My legs tell me that we must have bottomed out. We are resting at a slight tilt.
In the hazy darkness, I make my way forward until I see Ephraim’s form, leaning over something on the deck.
“What’s going on?”
Ephraim turns—face twisted up in sorrow.
I see now that he’s bent over a small, crumpled body. Only leaning in close do I see familiar, childish features half-obscured by a mass of dark gore.
Caleb.
“Wh—what happened?” I ask.
“Pipe must have come loose when we struck bottom,” he says, smudging his cheeks with dirty hands. Sniffling. “Thought he was down in the well with you.”
“He was,” I say, trying to blink away the burning. “I sent him out. Thought it would be safer.”
Now is the hour of Vespers, one of the most important prayers of the day. The prayer before a feast. The longest in the liturgy.
It is a time of sacrifice. Of giving back to God.
He had his offering today. Little Caleb.
Normally, I would sing the Magnificat during this hour. The Canticle of the Virgin Mary.
But the Sunset Office is not met tonight. Unessential crew has been ordered to their bunks. No excessive movement or activity. We must keep the air consumption down, while we are still submerged. Hiding, grounded, on the sea floor. Two hundred and nineteen fathoms.
Caleb’s body is in the balneary, awaiting its final rights. We cannot commit his body to the deep until the threat is gone.