Sea Leopard

by Craig Thomas

  The scraping, the cries of metal as the crippled submarine dipped time and again to the bottom of the ledge, dragging her belly across silt and mud and rock, the grating, thrumming noise and vibration of the captive prop as it tried to turn, the smaller vibration — almost normality — of the small docking propeller being used. It seemed endless, unbearable.

  He turned in the chamber, banged against the wall of the cylinder, gripped the lower hatch venting wheel, turned again, banged, was thrown off, his lamp flickering wildly against the flooded metal of his prison, gripped again, braced himself— the vibration and movement slowing now?

  — and turned a third time. The water began to seep slowly from the hatch into the torpedo room. Three-and-a-half minutes. He had practised the number of turns to allow the pressure to alter at the necessary rate, the precise amount of water to release per second, perhaps two hundred times. But not when it really mattered. He remained gripping the wheel of the lower hatch, the light of his lamp playing on his watch.

  Ten, eleven, twelve seconds. Almost eight minutes of time gone, and another three minutes fifteen before the water had drained away and he had safely depressurised. A total of more than eleven minutes. And where were they? Had they hung on? Were they alive?

  Slowing, vibration bearable. Scraping on its belly, lurching to starboard, a cry of rent metal, the main prop not being used, docking prop dying away. The Proteus was stopping again. He had waited too long. He should have acted earlier, when the noise and vibration were at their height. Now the water dripped on to the empty torpedo room floor in the sudden silence as men's hearing returned. Thirty-seven seconds, thirty-eight, nine, forty —

  Silence. He stood upright in the chamber. The water was at shoulder-height. He ducked back beneath its surface. Fifty-five seconds. He couldn't wait, had to wait. Perhaps the great bulk of the submarine had rolled on one or more of them? Teplov? Nikitin? The others? If they were alive, could they find the Proteus again in time in the forest of silt that must now obscure her? They would swim through an unending, almost solid grey curtain of silt, looking for the submarine that was their only hope. It was already too late to begin slowly ascending to the surface. Now he was safely decompressing, no one could enter the torpedo room escape chamber until he had left it. If any of them were still alive. He thought of the whip of a loosened steel cable across an immersion-suited body —

  One minute twenty seconds. He was crouching against the floor of the chamber as the water drained slowly into the torpedo room below. Not a trickle, not a drip, but a slow, steady fall, noisy. The wardroom next door, normality returning, things being righted again, objects picked up from the floor, bruises rubbed, hearing returning, awareness of surroundings increasing. What's that noise? Sprung a leak? Better go and take a look —

  Ardenyev was on his own. He remembered the helicopter going down in flames, then Petrov's broken leg, then the hellish noise and vibration of the Proteus. Dolohov, he was able to consider distinctly, might have killed every member of the special Underwater Operations Unit, his unit. For a box of tricks to make a submarine invisible.

  Two minutes five. The compartment was less then half full of water. He was squatting in a retreating tide, as he might have done at Tallinn or Odessa as a child, watching the mysterious, fascinating water rush away from him, leaving the froth of foam around him and the stretch of newly exposed wet sand in which shells sat up in little hollows. Two minutes twenty.

  Noise, they must hear the noise, no they won't, they're too disorientated, they'll be listening for water, the dangerous water of a leak, a buckled or damaged plate, they'll hear it —

  Two minutes thirty-two. Fifty-eight seconds remaining. He pulled at the hatch, and it swung up, emptying the chamber in an instant. His hands had been locked on the wheel, turning it slowly though the forebrain had decided to wait. The pressure of imagination as to what might have happened outside the submarine was greater than any other, pressing down and in on him like the ocean. He dropped through the hatch into the torpedo room, the water already draining away, leaving the cold, clinical place merely damp. Instantly, he felt dizzy, and sick. Too soon, too soon, he told himself. He had never tried to get through decompression at this depth in less than two minutes fifty. He'd been prepared to cope with the dizziness and sickness, the blood pounding in his head, that would have assailed him only half-a-minute early. This was worse, much worse. He staggered against the bulkhead, his vision unable to focus, his surroundings wobbling like a room in a nightmare. The noise in his ears was a hard pounding, beneath which he could almost hear the accelerating blood rushing with a dry whisper. His heart ached. Pain in his head, making thought impossible. His hands were clutched round the two canisters on his chest as if holding some talisman or icon of profound significance and efficacy. His legs were weak, and when he tried to move he lurched forward, almost spilling on to his face like a baby trying to walk for the first time.

  He leaned against the bulkhead then, dragging in great lungfuls of the mixture in his air tanks, trying desperately to right his vision, and to focus on the door into the torpedo room. It was closed, but its outline shimmered, and threatened to dissolve. It was no barrier. Around him lay the sleek shapes of the torpedoes. Cold, clinical place, the floor already almost dry, except for the puddle that still lingered at his feet from his immersion suit. He tried to look at his watch, could not focus, strained and blinked and stretched his eyes, pressing the face of the watch almost against his facemask. Three minutes fifty, almost four minutes. He could have — should have — waited. He was further behind now. He snapped the lock on the weighted belt around his waist. It thudded to the floor.

  He looked up. Close the hatch, close the hatch. Moving as if still under water, with the diver's weighted feet and restraining suit, he reached up and closed the hatch, turning the handle with aching, frosty, weak limbs. If they were alive — he felt tears which were no longer simply another symptom of decompression prick helplessly behind his eyes — then now they could open the outer hatch.

  Door opening. Refocus. Slowly refocus. He had been about to focus on the port and starboard air purifiers on either side of the torpedo room when the door began opening. But it still ran like a rain-filled window-pane, the image distorted. A figure that might have been reflected in a fairground mirror came through the door, stopped, yelled something indistinct above the rush and ache in his ears, then came towards him.

  Quick, quick, useless instincts prompted. He pushed away from the bulkhead. He could make out the port purifier clearly, then it dissolved behind rain again for a moment, then his vision cleared. He could hear the words, the question and challenge shouted. Another figure came through the open bulkhead door. Two of them. Ardenyev moved through a thicker element than air, and hands grabbed him from behind, causing him to stagger near one of the torpedoes. Slowly, aquatically, he tried to turn and lash out. His other hand cradled one of the two canisters on his chest, and the young face seemed riveted by his hand and what it held. Ardenyev could distinguish expression on the face now — knowledge, realisation. The young man enclosed him in a bear-hug, but Ardenyev heaved at the thin, light arms, pushing the man away by his very bulk.

  He bent, opening the inspection plate; then his hand was pulled away, and another, larger hand clamped on his own as it held the first canister. The second canister was torn from its strap and rolled across the floor, beneath one of the torpedo trestles. All three of them watched it roll. The two British officers feared it might be a bomb after all.

  Ardenyev chopped out with the lamp attached still to his wrist, catching the smaller officer on the side of the head, knocking him aside. He flipped over one of the torpedoes, and subsided to the floor, a vague redness staining the side of his face. Then Ardenyev was hit in the stomach and he doubled up. Another blow against the side of his facemask, then he lunged upwards with his upper torso, catching his attacker in the chest with his head. A soft exhalation of air, the man staggering backwards —

&n
bsp; He turned, twisted the canister in both hands, releasing the incapacitating gas, then jammed the canister into the air purifier, closing the inspection plate immediately. Then he was punched in the small of the back, just below his air tanks, then hands were round his shoulders and face, and his mask was coming off. He felt the mouthpiece ripped out of his mouth, and he inhaled the warm, sterile air of the submarine. He staggered across the torpedo room, still held by the second man, lurching against the trestles, his eyes searching the floor for the second canister, oblivious even of the need to re-insert his mouthpiece before the gas passed the length of the submarine down the air ducts and returned to them in the torpedo room.

  He dropped to one knee in a feint, then heaved with his shoulders. The second man, the heavier, bearded officer, rolled up and over his neck and shoulders, falling in front of him, winded by the metal floor of the room. Ardenyev scrabbled under a torpedo trestle, his fingers closing over its damp coldness, gripping it. He got to his feet, clutched the canister to his chest, which was heaving with effort, and staggered clumsily across the torpedo room in his flippers, to the starboard air purifier.

  Other men were coming in now. He opened the inspection plate, twisted the canister, and jammed it into the purifier, closing the plate after it. He was grabbed, then. The room was full of noise, an alarm sounded somewhere, while he tried to jam his mouthpiece back into his mouth. They wanted to stop him. It was as if the hands that reached for him had only that one minor object, to prevent him regaining the safety of the air mixture in his tanks while the gas moved swiftly through the submarine. He felt himself hit, but his attention could not be spared for his torso, arms and legs, kidneys, stomach, chest. He went on trying to force the mouthpiece back into place.

  One breath, two, three, doubling over on the floor, not resisting now, hoping they would assume he was beaten, even unconscious. Someone turned him over; he saw through slitted lids a hand reach for the mouthpiece and mask again — the mask askew, obscuring much of the scene — then the hand lunged past him, a body toppled down beside him, subsiding with a peculiar, slow-motion grace, mimicking death. He opened his eyes now, knowing he had nothing to fear. Others fell like skittles, ninepins, but in the same seeming slow-motion.

  Ardenyev closed his eyes. He alone was conscious on board the British submarine. There was no hurry, no hurry at all. They would be out for an hour, perhaps longer. There were no noises from the escape chamber, and therefore there was no hurry whatsoever. He had captured the Proteus and "Leopard", and he was entirely alone. A sad, even vile heroism. He surrendered to the exhaustion that assailed him, as if he, too, had inhaled the incapacitating gas.

  Chapter Nine: RETRIEVAL

  From their identification papers, Ardenyev knew them to be Thurston, the first-lieutenant of the submarine, and Hayter, the officer responsible for "Leopard". Because of their importance, he had allowed them to remain with Lloyd in the control room of the Proteus after the remaining officers and ratings had been confined to the wardroom and crew quarters "for security reasons".

  Ardenyev had watched Lloyd come round, come to an almost instant wakefulness, and he had immediately warmed to the man and granted him his respect and his wariness. Lloyd would now sabotage "Leopard" in a moment, if he could. Ardenyev stood before the captain of the submarine and his two senior officers at attention, like a junior officer presenting his compliments. It was part of the charade he was now required to play.

  "As I was saying, Captain," he began again, having been interrupted by an expletive from Thurston, "we very much apologise for the manner in which we were required to board your vessel. However, it is lucky that we did. Your purification system had developed a fault that would almost certainly have proved fatal had we not arrived." He said it without a flicker of amusement or self-mockery. The truth did not matter.

  His men, his team were missing, presumed dead. Vanilov, brokenly, had told him he had seen Kuzin catch a whipping, freed tendril of steel cable across his back, and he had seen him flung away into the dark, his body tumbled and twisted in a way that would have been impossible had it been unbroken. Nikitin had fallen beneath the weight of the Proteus, forgetting in surprise to loosen his hold on the cutting gear. Stabs of blue flame had come from the cutting-pipes as the silt had boiled round, and swallowed, Nikitin. Shadrin he had not seen at all. Teplov and Vanilov alone had clung to the submarine, been dragged through the water and the boiling mist of silt and mud, rested dazed and exhausted and were slowly being poisoned by nitrogen in the blood until Teplov had trawled back to the stern and found Vanilov and boarded the Proteus through the aft escape hatch, into the electric-motor room. They had waited in the slowly-draining compartment for five minutes, until it was safe to emerge into the submarine. Dizziness and exhaustion, yes, but not the bends. Teplov had put the neutralising agent through the aft purifiers, and then come seeking his commanding officer.

  Ardenyev felt his left cheek adopt a tic, the last, fading tremors of weariness and shock. These men in front of him had killed three of his men, indirectly killed Blue Section. The knowledge that he would have done precisely the same, threatened as they had felt they were, intruded upon his anger, dimming it. Lloyd, the captain, was watching him carefully, weighing him, the expression on his face like a suspicion that they had met before, or always been intended to meet.

  "Fucking piracy, that's what it is," Thurston offered into the silence, and Hayter rumbled his agreement. "How do you explain the guns if you're here to help us?"

  Ardenyev smiled innocently. “We understand your concern with security. We would not wish to be blamed for any — mistakes you might make, any damage you might cause to sensitive equipment. It is merely a precaution."

  "Locking up my crew is just another precaution, I presume?" Lloyd asked sardonically, sitting in a relaxed manner in one of the sonar operators" chairs, which he swung to and fro slowly, almost as if he intended mesmerising the Russian. A relaxed, diffident, confident child. Ardenyev was pricked by his seeming indifference to the fate of Nikitin and the others.

  "Captain, I would understand, even expect, some reaction such as that of Commander Thurston translated into action, either from one of your officers, or some of your men. That would only complicate an already complicated situation. We are here to help you — " Here, sincerity seeped into his voice in a measured, precise dose —"because it is our fault that you are in this situation."

  "You admit it, then?"

  "What else can we do? The captain and officers of the submarine Grishka will be severely disciplined for their provocative action."

  "This is unreal —!" Thurston exploded.

  "Not at all — is it, Captain?" Ardenyev said with a smirk. "It will be the agreed version of events."

  "How do you explain the cuts and bruises on two of my officers?" Lloyd enquired. "The air purifiers struck them, I suppose?"

  "Falling to the deck, I suppose," Ardenyev replied, "overcome by the lack of oxygen. I came aboard when your signals from inside stopped — you tapped out one word, HELP, before that happened. You don't remember?"

  Lloyd shook his head. "No, I don't. Oxygen starvation plays tricks with memory, obviously."

  Ardenyev sighed with pleasure. "I see we understand each other. Captain."

  "What happens now?"

  "From the damage report, there will be some repairs, to your buoyancy and to your hydroplanes. Then you will be towed back to Pechenga, our nearest naval base, for sufficient repairs to allow you to return to Faslane under your own power." He spread his hands innocently in front of him. "It is the least we can do, apart from the sincerest diplomatic apologies, of course. It will take little more than a day or two before you are on your way home." He beamed.

  "If your mission is so humanitarian, why is your petty-officer carrying a Kalashnikov with the safety-catch in the “Off” position?" Thurston remarked sourly.

  "Security." Ardenyev sighed again. He was tiring of the charade. It was not important. Everyone kne
w the truth. "Now, I will have to contact the rescue ship Karpaty and arrange for divers and equipment to be sent down to us."

  "I'm sure you're reasonably familiar with our communications?" Lloyd remarked with forced lightness, as if his situation had come home to him in a more bitter, starker way.

  "Thank you, yes." Ardenyev's hand released the butt of the Makarov pistol thrust into the belt of his immersion suit. He tousled his hair in an attempt to retain the mocking, false lightness of his conversation with the British officers. He wanted to clamber back into the fiction of a terrible accident, a life-saving boarding-party, apologetic repairs in Pachenga, as into a child's tree-house. But he could not. Whipping steel cables, boiling flame from a crashed helicopter, accompanied him vividly to the communications console.

  As if admitting that the fiction could not be sustained, he drew the Makarov and motioned the three British officers to the far side of the control room before he seated himself in front of the console.

  * * *

  "These pictures were taken forty minutes after the previous set," Aubrey remarked. "You are telling me, Captain Clark —" the excessive politeness seemed designed to stave off any admission of disaster — "that since no divers have resurfaced, they must be on board Proteus"?

  "Right."

  "Why?"

  "They couldn't stay down more than ten minutes at that depth. Then they'd come back up slowly, but by now they'd be back on board the launch. Sure, the launch has returned to take station on the port beam of Karpaty —" Here Clark nodded in Copeland's direction — "but as far as I can make out, they're loading heavy cutting gear from the rescue ship. And these men on deck. More divers. In full rig, not scuba gear. They're going down. Therefore, you can bet Ardenyev's men are on board."