Cold is the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  “I will sign the entries in the quartermaster’s notebook and the official log to attest to their accuracy. And now, make ready the torpedoes!”

  Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin, finally relaxed at his desk, was beginning to be pleased with himself. No matter how you cut it, no matter that the American missile submarine had got away, or that the Novosibirsky Komsomol had been unaccountably and unfortunately lost, the American submarine which had had the temerity to lift her periscope in the middle of his own artificial lagoon was now also resting on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. He himself had heard the torpedo explosion which had killed her, and he had heard some of the desperate moves she had made to save herself. With her had died the possibility of premature revelation of the existence of his missile base. This the Kremlin intended to announce at the appropriate and propitious time, as the many briefings he had received had made clear. His primary responsibility was to safeguard its secrecy until then, and he had succeeded. It had been at some cost, but he had been successful.

  He would compose a priority message explaining that a number of exotic weapons had been used against him, all illegally and all unsuccessful, that Grigory Ilyich Zmentsov and his whole crew in the Novosibirsky Komsomol had died heroically defending their country, and that his own inspired crew had finally sunk the American submarine responsible for it all. Having the trapped missile submarine slip through his fingers, for there was no way to find her now, was a misfortune, but it would have to be accepted. Certainly that had been through no fault of his. On the contrary, it was he who had taken the decisive action which had nearly captured her after all—and, in any case, she could know nothing about the existence of the missile base.

  Loss of the Novosibirsky Komsomol would be the hard thing to explain, but surely the Naval Ministry knew they were taking this risk when they fitted her out for her special mission. Nevertheless, he would have to provide sufficient detail so that a plausible announcement as to the circumstances could be made. He was beginning to grapple with the problem, had decided he would have to send two messages, one in language proper for public distribution, the other a more private, more accurate explanation for official use only, when suddenly the alarm bell jangled. “Torpedo fired!” shouted a hoarse voice over the command intercom.

  Shumikin leaped to his feet, pressed the button overriding the sonar room. “What do you mean, ‘torpedo fired,’” he snarled. “Who ordered it?”

  “It’s not us, Commander, It’s that submarine! We heard it firing! There’s two torpedoes, now! We can hear them! They’re coming this way! Very noisy! They’re big torpedoes!” The voice rose in a shriek, then was cut off.

  A tremendous geyser of water and explosive gas burst out of the open silo, rose high above it and, descending, drenched everything within several hundred yards, Nearly simultaneously, a wracking, explosive BOOM shattered the calm atmosphere. A plume of gray smoke shot high above the ice, then lazily drifted away in the still air.

  The ruined silo, instantly filled with angry water, jerked sideways, hanging from the heavy steel foundations built into the ice and from its moorings to the other three. The ice cracked on the far side of the hangar, and the water level rose several feet up the steel facing of the Novosibirsky Komsomol’s mooring pier.

  The second torpedo struck a silo diametrically opposite the one first hit. Its exit doors burst open. A second geyser of water, mixed with smoke and gas, shot into the air. This time it was followed by a streak of white-hot fire from the ruptured fuel section of the missile recently lowered into it.

  The silo complex, which had begun to list to one side, straightened. It had been built with tremendously strong and wide underpinning in the ice itself, firmly planted into the rigid crystalline structure and then “cemented” in place by water. Its designer had proudly stated that it would continue to float, and remain operable, even if two of its silos were damaged or destroyed, and this had, by consequence, been written as one of the operational requirements. Now he was proved wrong, for the weight of the two flooded silos dragged down the entire structure, the whole section of the ice island into which it had been built, to within inches of the water level in the polynya. Seawater began to trickle around the hinges of the missile exit doors of the two undamaged silos, and into the long, narrow, unsealed cracks separating their halves.

  The personnel of the undamaged silos needed no encouragement to evacuate. They had already been severely shaken by the two heavy explosions they had felt, and all electric power had cut off. Candles and battery-powered lights only heightened their appreciation of danger. When one of their number frantically reported that water was only centimeters from the portals of the crew entry hatches, they unceremoniously started up the interior ladders to the top level and ran out. They were barely in time, for great cracks had begun appearing in the laden ice. Water was coming through them, collecting on the surface, everywhere. Within minutes, a stream of water was running down the personnel hatches. The base commander, confronting the men as they ran, furiously ordered them back to their stations, but they stood stolidly, affecting not to hear him, not daring to obey.

  By this time the burning silo had begun to resemble a missile trying to drive itself farther into the ice. Violent, rocketlike flame was erupting from the exploded silo doors, reaching, like a searing blade, a hundred feet into the air. From there it gradually turned increasingly deep shades of red until finally the fire cone petered out, some six hundred feet above the ice, in a plume of jet-black smoke.

  It had been a mistake to tie in the aircraft hangar’s services with those supporting the silos. The designer had used the opportunity to include its foundations with theirs also, and the whole ice slab, with its network of steel beams, insulated conduits, pipes and cables, had been laid out with great engineering skill and frozen solidly together. It cracked in several places, but the steel links in the ice held firm, and the entire camp area began to sag. Then, with a great smashing of ice, groaning of tortured metal and snapping of steel reinforcements, along with a continuous popping of burst rivets, stretched hoses, broken pipes and tangled utility lines of all kinds, the hangar, silos, cranes and all equipment in the vicinity slowly began to descend into the sea.

  Or, rather, the sea waiting underneath simply poured up through the cracks, and out of the lowered edge of the polynya, to inundate the space recently occupied. A huge slab of ice cracked free from the rest of the ice island, just beyond the hangar, and irresistibly was dragged down by the weight of two full silos and two more filling rapidly.

  Sensing the danger from the suddenly slanted footing and the water creeping ever farther over familiar environs, everyone in the camp began to run toward the only undamaged area, the aircraft landing strip. Nikolai Shumikin, despairingly recognizing the inevitable, could do no more than follow. The last man out of the ruined missile base, he stepped reluctantly off the sinking ice and the shattered remains of his command, stood on the edge of the runway, on the good ice.

  His mind was still numb as to the magnitude of the disaster, but he knew that full appreciation would come in time. Everything was going straight to hell! And he would not be able to escape blame. Everything had gone wrong, beginning with the time that American missile submarine had arrived in the Arctic! He was furious with himself, furious with Grigory Ilyich, in a rage against his watch officer and the sonar watch-standers who should have heard the submarine returning. The fact that there might have been nothing to hear did not even enter his head. They should have alerted him!

  He shaded his eyes as he looked into the low-lying sun, and with despair saw the hangar, with one plane inside, both cranes, the other aircraft which had been temporarily parked outside the hangar, the radio hut and his two big anti-aircraft guns, flanking their combined ammunition magazine, gently dropping out of sight, following the already vanished silos.

  For a long time, Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin stood looking at the scene of his disaster. That it was
a personal as well as an official one could not be doubted. And then he saw a strange periscope rising out of the once again smooth waters of the much enlarged polynya. It was club-headed, with a large glass window—two glass windows, in fact. And it kept rising, higher and higher, until the black foundations underneath also broke water, and then the entire hull of a submarine.

  It was a strange submarine, one he had never seen before. And it seemed to surface in a strange way, somehow oddly tilted, with the highest exposed portion of the hull at the point farthest away from the periscope. No men were to be seen. No one came on deck, or into what he assumed must be the bridge area, near the base of the periscope, although he could hear some noises of concealed activity apparently from that vicinity.

  The periscope itself, he could tell from the glass windows at the top, was in nearly constant motion, although frequently it steadied for long minutes during which he felt it was leveled exactly at him. He felt distinctly uneasy at such times, as though he were in personal danger, but there were men watching him from the runway, and he stood his ground.

  After about an hour, air bubbled from around the hull of the strange submarine, and it slowly descended back into the water and disappeared.

  19

  “This is Joan Lastrada, Laura. I’m in New London for a few hours. May I come over?” Laura recognized the infrequently heard voice instantly.

  A Navy sedan dropped her off and departed. Pouring coffee, Laura looked at her visitor with warmth. Joan was still slender, still had the heavy black hair coiffed with just the right nonchalance. The strong bones beneath her dark eyes accentuated the slightly concave cheeks. Her complexion was smooth, understated; perhaps a bare touch of makeup. Was that a gray hair over one temple? No matter. Laura, too, once in a while used some coloring. Women could appreciate the necessity for these things.

  Joan’s gray suit was exactly right to set off her hair and eyes. Laura could feel the strength in the long, tapering fingers when they shook hands. Joan shook hands firmly, almost like a man, she thought.

  “It’s so nice to see you, Joan,” Laura began as she offered the cream and sugar. “Neither? No wonder you’re so stylish! It’s been almost a year since we’ve talked,” she went on tentatively. “I don’t think I ever adequately expressed how very much I appreciate what you did. Rich mustn’t ever find out, though, because you know how Navy men are about official business. He was very clear that I was never to bring the subject up with you, but he couldn’t forbid you to call me. All the same, I couldn’t even call back to find out if you’d been able to do anything. But I knew you must have been the one responsible for old Brighting’s change of heart. It was great of you to do that, Joan.”

  Joan waved aside Laura’s apology. “Don’t worry about that. All I did was make him see that Rich wasn’t involved in Scott’s plan for BuPers to take over selection of nuclear trainees.” She hesitated. Her eyes flickered, then steadied honestly on Laura’s. “Besides, I guess you know I used to be very fond of Rich—long ago, during the war.”

  “Yes, I know. . . . I know he thinks a great deal of you, too.” Now it was Laura’s turn to try to convey, without saying the words, that, to her, Rich’s wartime relationship with this still extremely attractive woman was no longer a threat to her marriage, but a bond between the two women, something she welcomed.

  “That’s awfully nice of you, Laura.” Was there the very slightest emphasis on the conventional words? “But I agree, we can’t tell Rich anything about this. Even the strongest men—like Rich—would find that hard to take.”

  Laura sat silently for a moment, sipping her coffee. Enough had been said. Probably she and Joan would not ever be intimate friends—perhaps that was in truth impossible, given the situation—but they understood each other. Joan’s integrity would always match her own. She put down her cup. “What brings you to New London, Joan? You’re still in Brighting’s office, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m still with him. But I came because I wanted to see you.”

  “That’s awfully nice for me. How long will you be here?”

  “I flew up this morning on Navy business, and I have to leave in a little while. The car that brought me will come back to take me to the airport.”

  “That’s a fast trip.”

  “I’m still in Naval Intelligence you know.”

  “Still?” Laura’s voice rose in surprise. “Rich said you were, during the war, but I didn’t know you still were. I thought you were just a regular WAVE officer.”

  “Well, I am. I’m in ONI—that’s Naval Intelligence—and I’m assigned to Admiral Brighting’s office. But I’m leaving next month.”

  “Oh, really? Where are you going? I’ll bet it’s some exotic place!”

  “Oh, I’ll be staying in Washington. What I meant was that I’ll be leaving the Service.” There was a glow in Joan’s face and an anticipatory look, as if she expected and even welcomed the next question.

  “Leaving the Service?” Laura was genuinely surprised. “Why leave it now?”

  “Martin Brighting and I are going to be married!” Joan’s face was radiant.

  Impulsively, Laura leaped to her feet and embraced Joan. “How marvelous! How stupendous! What stunning news! Rich will be thrilled too! Oh, I’m so happy for both of you! We all pictured the admiral as remaining a confirmed bachelor after Marilyn Brighting’s death. How wonderful that isn’t so! How marvelous for both of you! Can we come to the wedding?”

  “Well, no. Not actually. I mean, we’re going to be married very quietly by ourselves, and then take off for a honeymoon in Jamaica.” There was a hint of pride in the smile on Joan’s face as she added, “It will be Martin’s first vacation from the Navy in years. He’s promised not to mention business even once! But the next time you’re in Washington, you and Rich must visit us!”

  “We will! We would love to!” said Laura enthusiastically, and then stopped, bewildered, as she looked at Joan.

  A transformation had come over her visitor. The look of happiness on Joan’s expressive face had changed to one of deepest sorrow. There was the glint of moisture in the large eyes. “Why, what’s the matter?” Laura asked.

  “There’s something else I have to tell you. I really had no right to come here and be so happy. It’s terribly sad. You’ll have to help all you can. No, this has nothing to do with Rich,” she added quickly, as Laura stiffened with alarm.

  “What is it, then?” Laura asked, almost in a whisper.

  “Laura, this is completely unofficial. I ought not even to be here, according to all the rules, but Martin insisted on it and Admiral Donaldson agreed. But I can’t tell you anything more. You’ll know soon, but please, when you do, don’t say anything about this visit. Don’t ask me how I know this—it’s part of the business I’m about to leave—but we know you’ve been having trouble with Peggy Leone. She’s going to need your help, Laura. Lots of help, and soon. You’ve got to do what you can!”

  “Joan, I can’t. Peggy would never want my help. You have no idea of the things she’s said to me!”

  “I know what she’s like. I could probably repeat nearly every word to you. She said a few untrue things about me, for example. And poor old Captain Blunt, too. We know she’s behaved very badly. But she’s going to need you. She’ll need help very much. She’s alienated nearly everyone around here, you more than anyone, I’ll agree, but you’re the wife of Keith’s squadron commander. You have a duty to her.”

  “Joan! You’re telling me that something’s happened to Keith! You can’t mean—!”

  “I can’t tell you anything. I’m only saying you’ve got to help Peggy, no matter how you feel about her. She’s always been terrified of the Navy. Did you know she’s been going to a psychiatrist? We’ve talked to him. This morning. We knew he wouldn’t discuss his patients, but he managed to convince us she should not be alone even for a minute, once this thing hits her!”

  “You’re saying Keith’s dead! Joan! I can’t believe it!
How can it be? What happened?” Laura put her hand to her face in horror. Something was grabbing her intestines. Her flesh felt dry, her body rigid. She clutched at Joan with the other hand.

  “I can’t say anything more,” said Joan uncomfortably. “Whatever you’re guessing is only a guess. And keep it all inside you. Don’t show, and don’t tell.” The look of inexpressible sadness was unmistakable. “You’ve got to be with Peggy when the news breaks. Admiral Treadwell will tell you when. Nobody else can handle it. Will you?”

  “What dreadful news!” Laura felt as if her mind were flooded with emotion. “Of course I’ll be there!”

  The good-bye handshake turned into a fond, sad embrace, and Joan was out of the house and into the car, which had arrived unnoticed. When she was gone, Laura stood leaning against the door she had just closed. The enormity of what she had heard was shattering. Poor Keith! What could have happened? She visualized him at the bottom of the sea, entombed in the steel prison of his submarine, suffocating slowly and horribly. Rich had many times said that dying from lack of oxygen was not unpleasant. One merely went to sleep. But the thought was a frightening one, nevertheless. Why did it have to happen to Keith, Rich’s best friend in the Navy? Then another idea seized her. Rich and Buck must have failed in their mission of rescue. But, at least, they would come home safe. Keith would not. His death, however it had happened, would soon be made public.

  And what about Peggy? Laura’s personal dislike of her had vanished. Joan had been exactly right. She was simply terrified of the Navy. Was that wrong? Especially when her fears had proved justified in the most devastating way? Like her or not, one had to admit she had been right to be afraid. The poor thing! How cruel! How dreadful for her! And how awful, too, for poor little Ruthie!