Operation Malacca

by Joe Poyer

  `Where are we?' he asked, keeping his voice down.

  Àlmost even with the forward hatch, about thirty feet from the bow'

  Keilty patted Charlie's flanks. 'Right on target, ol' buddy'

  Charlie moved ahead until he was directly over the hatch and paused. Jack unclipped the line and reached around to find the hatch. His fingers encountered the raised hinge and he pulled himself down.

  `Here's where I get off. Good luck and see you later.'

  Keilty felt the line go slack and Charlie again moved off.

  As they made their way slowly aft towards the conning tower, Charlie broke the silence that had settled over them as Jack had dropped off.

  `They won't have a chance, will they?'

  Keilty hesitated. He could now feel the bulge of the conning tower against his hands and knew that precious seconds were wasting away.

  `No,' he answered shortly. 'And besides, the answer to that is rather obvious. All those people on the receiving end of the bombs wouldn't have a chance either.'

  Ànother case of the greatest good for the greatest number?'

  Keilty was taken aback by Charlie's reply. 'You know, kid, sometimes you surprise me.'

  Ànd equally sometimes I surprise myself. Don't forget, swim straight up after you set the mines.'

  Before Keilty unclipped his mike lead, the dolphin was gone. He fumbled at his belt and unclipped the first mine. He punctured the air sac with the point of his knife and turned the timer knob all the way to the right. He considered where to put it, then shrugged and pressed it against the conning tower wall near the base and activated the electromagnet.

  Hanging on with his finger tips, he felt his way down to the side of the sub, around the curve of the ballast tank, and stopped. He decided that right at the juncture would be a good spot, and set the timer. He placed the mine on the hull and flicked on the electromagnet.

  A bright beam of dazzling light suddenly stabbed ahead through the darkness and he lost his grip, flailing wildly. He caught himself and shot down the side of the tank into the purient darkness. He waited a moment until his pulse rate started to slack off and then he inched back up, letting his eyes adjust to the unaccustomed brightness.

  The light came from an underwater searchlight mounted high on the conning tower and drove a narrow, sharply defined cone straight ahead.- He made his way slowly to deck level, where he was hidden in the shadows, and cautiously poked his head over. He caught the hollow rasp of a hatch being lifted and saw an oversized entryway about ten feet ahead of the conning tower being thrown back.

  As he watched, a large metal canister poked over the coaming, rotated slowly, then rose until it was about ten feet above the deck. A second searchlight, mounted under the canister, also came to life and threw a powerful beam that reached out to bathe a portion of the deck and then swung quickly around to where he crouched. He ducked his head back just as the beam stabbed across the edge of the deck.

  The darkness outside of the beam's narrow cone was barely relieved. He glanced at the luminous dial on his watch. Thirty-five seconds since he had set his first mine. Both Jack and Charlie should be well on their way to the surface by now. Keilty hesitated. Jack's mines should have less than a minute to go. He assumed that some type of TV system was enclosed in the canister, but why had it appeared? Had they heard him? And if so, what could they do about it? He could clearly make

  out the red casing of the bomb mounted on the conning tower. Even if they did see it, they could not do anything about disarming it.

  His mind was working furiously as he reviewed the various. possibilities. Even if they found the bomb he set, would they suspect that there were others? How fast could they fire those missiles? Even if they got one away. . . . He cursed the cruiser. They had probably been warned.... Even as he inched his head over the decking again, he heard a dull rasping sound. The metal canister turned to point back along the bow, the second searchlight following it until it shone full on an opening hatch.

  A short – very short-lived – feeling of relief washed through him as he realized that they had not heard the mines being planted. They were only checking the hatch that covered the missiles. They had to make sure it was operating properly.

  Keilty looked again at his watch. Fifty seconds before the first mine would go off. How long did it take to fire one of those deadly babies whose palely gleaming nose cones he could now see fully exposed? A cloud of gas bubbles burst out of the hatch and shot upwards. That answered his question. They were all set.

  About forty seconds, his watch mocked him. And he'd better get the devil out of there or he'd blow up with the sub.

  He had just started to push away, when a second sustained cloud of bubbles rose out of the hatch from around the missile nearest to him.

  Within his body a combination of the high oxygen, deep pressure, and most important, the total frustration of his situation, snapped. He felt it like the kick of a glass of akvavit knocking him from sober to drunk. Berserk is a little-understood term in human psychology, but there exists such a mental state. Ask most Medal of Honor winners. The old Viking and Teutonic warriors cultivated and trained the trait. It is better than any of the so-called pep pills going, because it is instantaneous. With Keilty, as he saw the cloud of pressurized gas that would blow the first of the missiles clear, the total frustration of effort, more than any other item, was all that was needed. He forgot the pressure, the cold, his tired and aching body – all that was left was the will, somehow, to destroy that missile.

  He snatched the limpet mine away from the juncture of hull and ballast tank, with the electromagnet full on. With a powerful push from his left hand, he vaulted over the edge of the decking and shot for the hatch.

  The enemy crew must have seen him as he came in range of the camera, but there was nothing they could have done. He caught the edge of the hatch, disappearing in the cloud of bubbles, and somersaulted into the yawning hatch to slap the limpet mine against the casing of the missile.

  Keilty paused only long enough to wedge his knife into the hatch coaming; then he was swimming furiously for the surface. Seconds later, the first and second mines went off, simultaneously with the launching of the missile.

  The submarine, lifted by the bow with the first explosion, heeled sharply to the right with the second. But the first missile was away. Seconds later, the two midship mines exploded one after another and the submarine rippled along its length, tearing itself to pieces. Water pressure finished her off as surely as a nuclear bomb would have done.

  The fifth mine went off, more as an afterthought, and the sixth, if it did explode, did not register on Keilty's almost unconscious mind.

  He was two hundred yards away when the shock waves from the explosives hit him. The sharp concussion from the amatol and the Deta-sheet explosive charges were magnified many times over in the crushing pressure.

  Keilty, only semiconscious, was dimly aware that he was sinking. His arms and legs refused to respond to the feeble commands from his brain. A gray blankness suffused his vision, and somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he knew he had to force himself to swim, or die on the sea bottom now less than a hundred feet below. He tried again, and one arm pushed forward. A second force of will and a leg kicked feebly, but then the grayness closed in, bringing complete unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jack Weston set the switch on the second mine and felt for the rear coaming of the torpedo tube. Satisfied, he twisted around until his body was pointing back along the length of the sub and began swimming, his left hand trailing along the steel hull. Finally, figuring that he had moved far enough back for the mine to explode into the forward torpedo storage room, he stopped and carefully pressed the mine against the hull and turned on the electromagnet.

  He took a quick look over his right shoulder, but as he expected, he could see nothing beyond the reach of his light beam. He checked the mine placement once more with the underwater torch. Then, inflating a smal
l air sac for added buoyancy, he kicked quickly upward towards the surface a thousand feet away. Hopefully, somewhere along the line, Charlie would meet him. Otherwise, it would be a long climb.

  The three of them had been swimming vigorously below a thousand feet for over ten minutes. Between the pressure, numbing cold, and the first touch of shock signaling that his body had been ill-used too long, his mind was beginning to adopt the to-hell-with-it-what-do-I-care attitude that he knew could come from prolonged use of the 'lung' –essentially oxygen narcosis. The percentage of oxygen dissolved in his blood at these depths was too great for his body to handle. Thèlung' and its effects on human physiology were still much too new for anything definitive to be known, but he knew that unless he surfaced soon, he never would, and would never know it. With an effort requiring almost his total will, he kept swimming slowly upward.

  Time to him became a hazy, useless tool. He was aware that he had long since stopped kicking, but he was borne up faster and faster by the inflated air sac. A long, rumbling roar reached him from the depths and he knew that the sub had been destroyed. An indeterminate time later, he realized that the darkness was beginning to lighten, until at fifty feet he was in a kind of twilight darkness in which a pale white light suffused everything. By now, his mind was void of everything except reaching the surface. Only the intense pain in his ears and chest penetrated to his conscious mind, warning him to stop, to release the air sac. With his knife, he cut the nylon cord, and relieved of his weight, it shot away from him.

  Weston hung limply in the water, hands and feet paddling feebly to keep him from sinking slowly back. The pain of the mild decompression brought him somewhat to his senses. He peered closely at his watch, trying to make out the fuzzy numerals that wavered in the current.

  He considered firing a transmitter, but was too exhausted to do more than fumble with the steel clip that held the pistol to his harness. Several more minutes passed and the pain lessened and he began trudging upward again. He wondered briefly about Charlie and Keilty, then forgot them as he made out the dim rippling ahead that meant the surface.

  His head broke through and he tore away the mask and gulped air greedily. Then he trod water slowly for several minutes, retching feebly, until his stomach was completely empty. He cursed the burning taste of bile, and retched again.

  'Tor him I don't eat breakfast.

  His heart was beating furiously, thudding against his rib cage until the pain was almost unbearable. Slowly, he resolved the reason by forcing himself to concentrate. He rolled clumsily onto his back to get the 'lung' under water. The haze was thickening and his chest pained terribly as his overloaded heart strove to pump blood through the now useless 'lung'.

  He could reach the hose connection, but the coupling defied his meager strength.

  Summoning his last particle of will power, he twisted it free and broke the connection, and fainted. Minutes later, he regained consciousness. His breathing was slowly returning to normal, but he was completely exhausted.

  Again, driving his body, he forced himself to look around to see if he could get his bearings. The rain had started again, only this time as a fine misty spray that felt warm on his water-wrinkled face. The waves were still six to eight feet and occasionally he could catch a brief glimpse of Atuk Island, less than two miles away.

  The island proper was hidden by the rain and low clouds, but the waves breaking over the reefs warned him of the dangers in trying to reach the safety of dry land by swimming, even if he had the strength.

  He peered through the mist for several minutes, still treading water feebly. Charlie should be coming for him just about any time. He thought about putting the mask back on and ducking down for a look, but lacked the strength. He opened his fingers, or rather they opened of their own accord, and the mask slipped from his grasp. He watched stupidly as it sank from sight. Then he unsnapped the weight belt and let it sink after the mask. He considered briefly hanging onto the 'lung', then decided against it. The oxygen cylinder was empty and the gear would be just so much more dead weight. If he had long to wait, he could never stay afloat.

  He shrugged out of the straps, unfastened the pack, and let the tanks drop away . . . then cursed himself for a fool. The mouthpiece held the underwater microphone as well as the ear-plug connection for Charlie's transphonemator and the jack for the transmitter cartridges.

  He had just gone and done himself out of his only remaining means of communicating with the cruiser. Now he would have to wait until Keilty could surface and get a message off – providing Charlie could find them both.

  Weston glanced at the watch on his wrist. He had been up nearly five minutes – fourteen minutes since the mines had gone off, and Charlie still had not shown up. Now he was really beginning to worry. He looked around at the choppy sea, which was empty in every direction, as far as he could see. Except for the slap of waves against his body, there was not a sound to be heard. The mist was fine enough to blend quietly with the waves. Its muffling quality was certain to shut out the sound of either the copter or the MTBs until they were almost on top of him.

  He inflated both of the plastic air pillows he carried, hooked his arms through the straps, and centered them around his chest and back. Then, with a package of dye in one hand and the Very pistol with a magnesium flare in the chamber in the other hand, he settled back to wait and recoup his strength as best he could.

  Charlie set the last of his two mines and backed away. He could see Weston swimming for the surface nearly fifty feet above the sub, as well as Keilty planting his last mine. He noted Jack's course and decided to move upwards where he could continue to keep an eye on both.

  The cold had penetrated his wet suit and his throat and lungs were beginning to hurt quite badly. Charlie had never been this deep before and the cold and pressure squeezing him from all sides plus the visual blackness were steadily increasing his nervousness. His movements were becoming jerky

  and he could no longer think dearly without having to fight to keep his thoughts in mind.

  He stopped moving upwards at seven hundred feet and hung suspended, tail slanting downward, as if he were a weary rocket pausing in its journey. In the seeming long swim up, depression and weariness had set in quickly as the pep pills wore off. He could no longer find Jack with his sonar and his apathy was so great that he felt it unimportant to search farther for him. It was easier to assume he was still moving upward and was now out of range.

  He had no way of clearly estimating the time that had passed since the mines had been set, and as he set to work on the problem, the thought of Keilty flickered through his mind.

  Languorously, he turned himself until his head was pointing downward. He was aware that he was sliding back as his tail flukes continued to move slowly up and down in the attitude he had used for station keeping, and he made himself stop. He exerted himself and pulsed his sonar tightly, circling slowly until he found the sub. He had to force himself to concentrate, or else he would have begun swimming slowly ahead again, only dimly aware that he was moving downward.

  He could see the sub clearly now, outlined sharply against the faint background echo from the muddy bottom. It lay almost directly beneath him like a great metallic whale, completely silent, until he realized suddenly that a tiny figure just showed near the side.

  As his mind cleared slightly, he saw a hatch slide back, then the tiny figure dart forward into the opened hold. Then he found himself watching a figure approach from a great distance. A stream of froth bubbled around the forward deck of the submarine and rumbled back along the submarine's sides. As he watched, uncomprehending, a slender pencil darted at him, rushing past at less than two hundred yards as it slanted towards the surface. The submarine lurched and disappeared in a churning mass of released air.

  Charlie smiled and felt good. Somewhere in his brain a relay clicked and he knew he had done a good job. For some reason which he could not understand, he knew his friend would be proud of him. He smiled fooli
shly again and turned to swim towards the surface. He felt out of breath and needed some air.

  As he turned, he caught sight of the figure he had seen near the sub. It was twisting slowly from side to side as if helpless. A momentary surge of panic caught at him, but his instincts, nurtured and trained carefully, checked him. The shape was beginning to settle back, and for some reason it looked to him like another dolphin. The metal tanks were the same as he wore and the soft covering also resembled the one he wore. That dolphin was hurt and sinking and would drown.

  He started down, his tail flukes working feebly at first, then more strongly as his instincts pushed him to make speed. He came abreast of the figure, but his sonar was jumbled as his mind wandered and his eyes could not see in the blackness that surrounded him. He fumbled with his beak at the unseen man until he found the center of gravity. Pausing shortly to set himself, he came beneath and started upward. His mind had stopped functioning and only his long past and insistent training told him that somehow this figure meant something, made him go on, climbing upward.

  Brief tactile sensations brushed his unseeing mind: cold, blackness, the blankness that surrounded him as his sonar stopped functioning, and the deadly weariness. He climbed ever so slowly, his great reserves of strength draining away. By the time they broke surface nearly a half hour later, Charlie's head had cleared somewhat with the decrease in pressure. Keilty remained unconscious and Charlie struggled to keep his still form above the surface.

  His powerful body floundered feebly, as if great weights were dragging him downward again. A fine rain pattered against his wrinkled face, hissing down softly, and every so often a wave washed over him completely. Otherwise there was only the gentle hissing and the soft lapping. He tried to look around, struggling to discern features in the watery scape surrounding him, but the red glow of the horizon pulsated and blended with the distant hammering in his brain. He realized in a sudden instant of clarity that he could no longer see. The reddish haze enveloped him and he felt the heavy burden slipping from his grasp.