Pigboats

by Ellsberg, Edward

  He looked again at Rolfe. Bewilderment and hate mingled in the face staring back at him, still struggling to reconcile the impossibility of Knowlton’s being alive with his presence there.

  “The C-3 was crushed. The diver said so.” Rolfe was talking to himself as he searched Knowlton’s tense countenance again. “They were all killed. Nobody got out. And yet you’re Knowlton and you’re here.” He paused, took a fresh grip on his pistol, suddenly lifted his voice, barked out:

  “How’d you escape?”

  “You’re making a big mistake, captain,” answered Tom slowly. “Put up your gun. I’m just Tom Knowles, chief quartermaster, and all I care about just now is saving this boat. We’re up against it. There wasn’t enough air, the pressure’s too much for the pumps, we can’t get up. If you’ve got any ideas, for Christ’s sake, let’s try ’em out, but where in hell does gun play get you or anybody in this sub?”

  “Quit trying to fool me. You’re Lieutenant Knowlton!” Rolfe thrust the gun forward as if to punctuate his question, hissed out. “How’d you escape?”

  “You’re off on the wrong foot, captain,” reiterated Tom, trying to speak quietly and calm Rolfe down. “So far as I know, if Lieutenant Knowlton was in that boat, he’s there yet. But why worry about him? Do something here if you can!”

  “So you won’t tell, eh? You’re waiting for us all to die, then you’ll get out the way you did on the C-3 and leave us all here in this pig! You will, eh?” A fierce light gleamed in his eyes, his voice rose shrilly as he slowly extended his pistol, hardly five feet away now. “Not this time! You’ll die here with the rest of us, and you’ll die first of all!”

  The pistol steadied, Tom glimpsed a wild eye staring along the barrel at him, saw Rolfe’s fingers closing on the butt. He was about to fire.

  Imperceptibly Tom slid his right foot through the water, touched the switchboard, kicked out swiftly.

  The circuit breaker tripped; sudden blackness engulfed the submarine. Tom dropped like a rock into the water, slid frantically to leeward. As he fell, the explosion of the pistol rocked the silent boat, a vivid streak of red flamed in the darkness. Another shot, then a third, both lower, as the thwarted captain fired into the water. Tom felt the bullets ricocheting past him as he brought up in the port bilges, groped an instant to haul himself out of the water. Another roar, a spurt of flame pierced the night. A bang as the bullet struck a bulkhead, flattened out; a shrill whine as it ricocheted across the room, caught Tom on the left shoulder. As if struck by a club, Tom was knocked flat, splashing heavily down into the water.

  Another reverberation echoed in the darkness, a bullet whistled over him, tore through his jacket. That splash had betrayed his whereabouts, Rolfe was firing at the noise. Dazed by the blow which floored him, Tom sprawled on the deck an instant, then choking from the water he had swallowed, struggled to drag himself above the surface. His clawing fingers closed on something, he gripped it tightly, half consciously recognized it. A heavy stillson wrench.

  Again the pistol roared. Hot iron seared his leg, it collapsed under him, involuntarily he found himself sitting on a mass of valve wheels. His arm drew back, he leaned forward in the darkness, waiting, tense, motionless. Another spout of fire flared out. With the last of his strength, Tom hurled the wrench at the flickering streak of sparks, then slipped helplessly off the manifold and lay quiet in the darkness.

  A moan, a clatter of steel on steel, a heavy splash in the water forward, then silence reigned again in the C.O.C

  CHAPTER XIII

  “Gimme a hand, Pete, an’ we’ll throw him back into the wardroom. If he’d had any sense, he’d a’ stayed there in the first place!”

  Biff Wolters hauled Rolfe’s limp form up the passage, legs dragging in the water behind, till with Mullaney’s help he stretched him out on the mess table, tossed his pistol on the table alongside him. Randolph squeezed in after them, his slight form quivering noticeably as he bent over to examine the unconscious figure.

  A huge lump, purple and green, swelled from Rolfe’s forehead where the wrench had caught him; blood oozed from a deep cut in his temple which had struck the forward bulkhead as he fell. The electrician leaned down, placed an ear over his breast, listened. Wolters slumped on the bench, watching him, while Pete gazed anxiously. At last Randolph straightened up.

  “He’s gone, mates.”

  Pete crossed himself reverently, slipped out through the curtains.

  “C’est la guerre” muttered Biff. “I s’pose if he’d got Tom, he was goin’ after the rest of us. That’s what y’call a strong sense o’ duty. It works even at the bottom o’ the sea. He was bound to see Tom got shot just like the Regulations sez fer mutineers in wartime.”

  The pallid chief electrician rose with an effort.

  “I suppose it’s our funeral as well as his. He ain’t beat us to it a lot. How much longer kin we last?”

  “About six hours yet, Tom says. That is, if we all went together,” he added thoughtfully. “Course if some o’ the boys pass out sooner, they’ll quit usin’ their share o’ the air’n that leaves that much more fer them that’s left.”

  Randolph’s breathing suddenly slowed, involuntarily economizing on his share of the oxygen. He slumped back on the bench, dropped his head on the table, clutched it in both arms, pressing in his throbbing temples.

  A puddle of water gathered on the table, slowly spread out, wet his face. Randolph raised his head a trifle, then drew it back convulsively, as he found himself rubbing against Rolfe’s dripping legs.

  “Six hours more o’ this’ll drive me nuts,” he murmured, running his long fingers through his hair and gripping his head as if trying to hold it together while he struggled to think. “Six hours more! What good are they to anybody down here? Say, Biff,” he asked suddenly, “are you married?”

  “Naw, thank heaven,” replied Biff. “I never marry ’em, Sparks. Just tattoo their pictures on my hide somewhere to show ’em I love ’em, ’n everybody’s happy. That’s the best way fer a sailor. Y’ wanna look ’em over?” He started to strip off his undershirt.

  “Never mind, Biff, I seen ’em before. Maybe y’re right. But I’m married an’ I got two kids.” He buried his head in his arms again. “Six hours to live, an’ I can’t even leave a message fer them kids. They ain’t never seen the sea, Biff, just the mountains out near Denver. An’ all my boys’ll ever know about their dad is that the ocean’s swallowed him up! An’ my wife!” His face softened, a smile lighted his thin features for an instant as a far-away vision floated before his eyes.

  “Did y’ever live in the mountains, Biff?”

  “Mountains!” Biff looked at his companion in disgust. “Wot good’s the mountains fer a sailor? Gimme Coney Island with some Liz’r the Bund at Yokohama with them geishas strumming on guitars ’n lookin’ at ye with them big eyes sorta cut on a slant in their smilin’ little faces. You don’t catch me lookin’ fer no mountains to make a liberty when I’m ashore!”

  Randolph hardly heard him. A rapt expression spread over his face, the pain of breathing seemed to ease.

  “You’d ferget all them dames, Biff, an’ y’ wouldn’t want no more o’ the sea nor them liberty ports, neither, if you’d ever lived in the mountains with a girl like mine an’ roamed away by yerselves and watched the clouds scud over the peaks, an’ seen the outlines of the Snowy Range lookin’ close enough to touch, an’ you just ramblin’ round with yer girl in them pine forests where there’s nuthin’ but mountain brooks babblin’ music, and soft pine needles underfoot, an’ you both drinkin’ in the stars and the blue sky an’ the little fleecy clouds playin’ tag with the mountain tops.”

  With a far-away look in his eyes, Randolph gazed out through the curtains as the memories of his cherished mountains came back, but as he looked he came face to face with cold reality. His eyes fell on tilted periscopes, on the useless switchboard, cluttered with open switches and dead voltmeters. The gleam of rapture swiftly faded

 
His face grew grey, he started to sob. “Mary, sweetheart, why can’t you hear me!” He jumped up, glared at his companion. “Biff, Biff, it ain’t fair! Six hours to live an’ not a word we say’ll ever get home! Damn these pigs! Dyin’ soldiers in the trenches has got it all over us! They kin send messages to their wives an’ kids! What’s the use of living six hours! I don’t want ’em. The rest of you kin have my air! Mary, darling!”

  Before the startled Biff even knew what he was about, Randolph seized the pistol from the table, sent a bullet crashing through his heart, fell lifeless across the body of his captain.

  Biff gazed at the smoking pistol, rose wearily. The curtains jerked apart; Knowles’ ashen face peered through, took in the tragedy at a glance.

  “He wuz worryin’ over his wife back in the mountains,” explained Biff slowly. “It oughta be agin the Regulations fer a sailor to git married ’n have kids. They just don’t jibe with goin’ to sea.” The acrid tang of the powder smoke stung his nostrils. Reaching over, he lifted the pistol, extracted the clip from the handle, snapped back the slide to make sure no cartridge remained in the chamber.

  “Here, Tom,” he tossed Knowles the empty Colt, “you take care o’ this. If any more o’ the boys feel the urge to shove off, let ’em get a bayonet. It’s bad enough havin’ to breathe wot’s left o’ the air now, without seasonin’ it with any more o’ that damned powder!”

  Together, they emerged into the control room. Biff vanished into the battery room.

  Limping from a deep flesh wound in his thigh, white from loss of blood, Tom crawled through the forward door into the battery room after him, and dragged himself up the narrow starboard passage toward his own bunk. At least there was no water on the battery deck — yet. With Mullaney’s assistance, Tom worked his way to his bunk, tried futilely to pull himself up into it, but the sharp flashes of pain shooting through his tortured body as the leg twisted awkwardly in his attempt to haul himself up, caused him to collapse suddenly. He rolled down the sloping deck till he brought up in a limp heap against the stanchions from which the wire bunks were slung.

  Pete cast an agonized look at his unconscious friend, then seized him by the shoulders and tried to lift him waist high onto his mattress, but unfortunately for his efforts, the passage was so narrow there was no room to get a firm grip and swing his dead-weight burden up. A trickle of blood smeared his hand as he struggled, stirred him to frenzy. Tom was bleeding to death. He looked wildly down the long passage for help; no one was stirring, only the slight rise and fall here and there of dark grey blankets showed that any of his shipmates were still breathing. His roving eyes fell on a white spot in the lowest tier, near the after end of the compartment. A vacant bunk. Whose was it? Oh, yes, Randolph’s.

  With a shudder, Pete seized his fainting shipmate by the shoulders, dragged him foot by foot through the cramped space between bunks and lockers, rolled him at last onto Randolph’s mattress. Thrusting his fingers into the bullet hole in Tom’s trousers, he ripped them wide open, exposing a deep gash in the right thigh where the bullet had torn through the flesh.

  “Where’s a bandage?” he murmured, looking vainly around. No sheets, nothing. He turned, twisted open the nearest locker in the nest behind him, with a jerk pulled out its contents. Letters, dungarees, a pack of cards, some pictures, fluttered out on deck. He rummaged farther back, found a heap of undershirts neatly rolled in clothes stops.

  With these he quickly fashioned a compress from one undershirt, bound it tightly over the blue flesh with bandages torn in long strips from the other shirts. At last he was through. He watched a moment as the white cotton slowly turned red; the flow of blood was stopped. Gently he straightened out the unconscious quartermaster, pulled Randolph’s blanket close about his wet body, carefully tucked it in at feet and shoulders. And then, getting his own blanket, he rolled himself up in it, crouched in the narrow aisle alongside Tom, his feet braced against the bunk, his shoulders fitting neatly into the open locker behind him, watching for a while the irregular heaving of the blanket at his feet. Then in spite of himself, his head drooped, he closed his eyes, soon Mullaney too, like the others, was fluttering into the twilight zone between sleep and death.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Tom Knowles stirred slightly, his nostrils distended convulsively, feebly he opened his eyes. A new odour filled the room. He sniffed apprehensively, then rolled out of his bunk, dragged himself erect, clung to the stanchions while he prodded the recumbent Mullaney with his wounded leg.

  The blanket-clad form on the deck stirred slightly, lay still again. In alarm, Tom drew back his foot and, in spite of the acute pain, kicked Mullaney with all his force. The pallid face on the deck moved uneasily, the eyelids slowly opened and Pete looked up, mildly surprised to see Tom erect again.

  “Lemme alone, Tom, shure it’s as aisy restin’ here as in me bunk.” His blue eyes blinked, closed again.

  “Pete, get up!” Another kick, another stab of pain. Mullaney rose to a sitting posture, looked at Tom reproachfully.

  But Knowles had no time to waste.

  “Get up, Pete, for Christ’s sake! It’s chlorine! Look!” A greenish yellow gas like a heavy smoke was trickling from the exhaust vents in the storage battery space beneath the deck, thinning out and vanishing as it filtered into the room. “Sea water’s hit that sulphuric acid from the batteries!” Tom choked as he inhaled a stronger whiff of the gas.

  “Quick, Pete!” Mullaney struggled weakly to his feet. “It’ll generate fast now and kill us all in a few minutes.” Pete looked at him helplessly, too horror-stricken to move.

  “What kin we do?” he gasped.

  “Get out of here! Close off the battery room, that’s what! Shake everybody up. Get ’em out of their bunks, back aft into the engine room or the control room. Quick! We’ll have to seal off this compartment before the gas spreads any farther. For God’s sake Pete, shake a leg!”

  Mullaney staggered away on his task.

  Haltingly Tom stumbled aft along the passage, thrust his arm into each bunk as he went, gripped its occupant by the hair, jerked his head savagely, yelled, “Chlorine, get out!”, hobbled in agony to the next tier aft. He heard Mullaney’s shouts, the feeble curses of the sleepers, the dull pad of feet behind him as men tumbled out on the battery deck. He came to the bulkhead. The heavy steel door was swung forward into the battery room, latched back against the fore and aft partition which formed the captain’s stateroom. Tom fumbled behind the door, feeling for the catch. He swayed unsteadily, squeezed hard against the partition as he sought to make room for the gasping sailors streaming out of the battery room. He found the catch, pulled out the pin. But, due to the heavy port list, the door still lay to port, wide open.

  Knowles turned, looked forward. A greenish haze was filling the battery room. Coughing men groped by him, feeling blindly for the passage. Pete burst through the haze from the port side, fell against him. He stared a moment at Tom, his eyes watering, his lungs heaving convulsively as he finally took a breath.

  “I shook ’em all, Tom.” A choking pause. “All hands’r out — that’s comin’ out,” he added with an effort. “Fer the love o’ Mike, close the door!” Pete stooped through the opening, passed aft.

  Tom seized the handle, tugged hard to swing the weight uphill. He started it, then stopped a moment while he listened intently, and his smarting eyes sought to penetrate the green fog masking the tiers of bunks. No noise, no movement. A new cloud of vapour poured from the vents, rolled aft along the deck toward him. He stepped back into the control room, slammed the door shut, hurriedly jammed down the dogs.

  “Shut off all the voice tubes and ventilation mains going through this bulkhead, Biff,” yelled Tom as he hammered the dogs hard down on the wedges. “We mustn’t leave any gas leak through!” He finished, leaned back clinging to the door handle while he panted for breath. Behind him he heard the bang of closing clapper valves. Still leaning against the wardroom partition for support, he hobbled a lit
tle farther aft and came to the space abreast the manifolds. Sanders was screwing closed the voice tube valves; a few men, Mullaney, several more, were perched on valves here and there, knees drawn up under their chins to keep their feet out of the cold water. Tom looked inquiringly aft into the engine room. It was deserted. An icy fear numbed his heart.

  “Where’s the rest of the boys, Pete? Gone aft to the motor room?” he demanded.

  Mullaney shook his head, looked mournfully forward at the dogged-down door.

  “Most of ’em were past wakin’, Tom,” he replied. “They wuz already stiffer’n boards when I shook ’em. There might’a been one or two waked up but didn’t have no strength to crawl out. I dunno.”

  The quartermaster’s eye ran over the little group — only eight left, including himself, but his courage sank as an anxious glance showed neither Wolters nor Arnold among them.

  “Didn’t Biff turn out, Pete?” he asked sadly. “Surely he was still O.K.?”

  “I yanked him, Tom, an’ I thought I saw him followin’ me, but he ain’t here.”

  Silence.

  Tom sat down on the drainage manifold. Carefully he started to drag his feet up out of water. A stab of pain made him desist. His right leg would not bend. He leaned back instead, head against the forward diving wheel, feet dangling in the flood. Wearily his eyes rested on the clock.

  Midnight.

  A dull rap broke the quiet. Tom looked inquiringly around. The others were perched as before. Not one had moved.

  Another rap, then a muffled knocking echoed through the silent submarine. The startled sailors looked around the C.O.C. striving to locate it. A wild hope flared in their hearts. Divers? They looked eagerly at Tom. He shook his head. Not at that depth. Nor in enemy waters.