Collapse Depth

by Todd Tucker

  “Where were you sir?”

  “Torpedo Room. And Machinery One.”

  “Don’t they need you down there?”

  Jabo held up his hand, but tried not to look at it himself as his two fingers dangled loosely at a weird angles. “XO sent me up here.” He felt a little stupid presenting the master chief an injured hand; the room was filled with broken bones and what looked, to Jabo’s untrained eye, to be serious head injuries. But Cote put down the small scissors he was using and walked over to take a look. Jabo noted that the front part of the master chief’s poopie suit had been stained dark with the blood of his shipmates.

  “Take care of these other guys first, master chief.”

  “These guys aren’t going anywhere, Lieutenant. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to have as many people fighting this fucking casualty as I can. Maybe I can get you back in the fight.”

  “Alright,” said Jabo. Cote took his hand.

  “What happened?”

  “Missile Compartment hatch got slammed on it.”

  The master chief touched each one of his fingers in turn. “Feel that?”

  “Not a thing.”

  He squeezed another, and Jabo winced in pain.

  “These two,” said the master chief, pointing to his middle finger and ring finger. “They’re pretty fucked up. The other ones look okay, although your pinky maybe broken too.”

  “Can you tape them up or something?”

  “They’re so mangled…and if you’re going back down there, the bandage will get soaked through instantly….”

  “What do you think?”

  Cote looked him in the eye. “We might have a better chance of saving them if I cut them off. Make it as clean as I can, get them on ice. Plus, that will probably make you more effective on the scene.”

  “Do it,” said Jabo.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep,” said Jabo. “Cut them off and stick’em in ice.”

  “Alright,” he said, “You’re the one with a college degree.” He walked over to the ice cream machine and grabbed his scalpels and a syringe that Jabo hadn’t notice before.

  “Novocain,” he said. It’s all I’ve got. Well, I’ve got morphine too, but you won’t do us much good if you’re in la la land. Give me your hand.”

  Jabo stuck it out and the master chief moved fast, sticking the needle in the middle of the back of Jabo’s hand, and depressing the plunger. There was a momentary sharp sting, bad enough to penetrate even the pain that was pulsing through him, but quickly a wave of relief swept through, so strong that he almost gasped. “Oh fuck that feels better,” he said. He hadn’t realized how bad he was still hurting until the drug made it go away. Jabo felt nothing when he removed the needle.

  “Okay, tough guy, you still sure about this?” He’d selected a scalpel from the middle of the pack.

  “Do it, master chief.”

  Cote hesitated. “At least sit down. I don’t want you passing out and falling into the blade or anything.”

  All the seats were taken by men hurting too badly for Jabo to ask them to move, so he sat on the deck, his back against the starboard bulkhead, and the master chief got on his knees in front of him. “Look away while I do this,” he said, and Jabo gladly complied. He couldn’t feel anything in his hand or fingers, but he felt the master chief’s grip on his elbow grow stronger as he cut through the fingers. He felt him tugging, turning his arm slightly, trying to saw through the broken bone. He was reminded, nauseatingly, of his father carving a chicken.

  “Okay, almost done,” he said. Jabo was still looking away, but he felt gauze being wrapped around his hand, from about the wrist down, and then he heard tape being ripped off a roll.

  “Can I look now?”

  “Sure,” said the master chief.

  The wrapping job was tight, neat and compact…it paid to have the job done by a man with thirty years experience. His three remaining fingers stuck straight out, and the gap in the middle was completely covered with clean white gauze. He looked like he was making the “devil” sign at a rock concert. He noticed a zip-lock bag of crushed ice in the master chief’s hand, some of it turning pink.

  “Those my fingers?”

  “Yes sir. We’ll keep them on ice, maybe get them surgically reattached when we pull in.”

  “Don’t lose that bag,” said Jabo, getting to his feet.

  “I’ll put your name on it,” said the master chief, already returning to the table and the sailor with the broken leg.

  • • •

  Hallorann had just grabbed the hand pump kit and was returning to the front of the torpedo room when he felt the bloom of heat on his back, as the motor generator exploded into a flash of heat and light. He turned briefly, squinting to see the XO disappear into the light, He fought the urge to follow, but he felt the weight of the canvas bag in his hand, knew that he’d already been given his orders.

  He found his way to the front of the torpedo room, seawater now up to his knees, and acrid electrical smoke rapidly filling what was left of the space. The EAB fed him clean air but the smoke was growing impenetrable, a wall that he couldn’t see through. All the space’s battle lanterns had been turned on, and they shot beams of light through the smoke but did nothing to make the situation easier to understand.

  Hallorann found the EAB manifold adjacent to the port torpedo tubes by touch, and plugged in. He had seen the hand pump rig in action exactly one time, and he’d never used it himself. He started pulling pieces out of the canvas bag. He would have liked to lay them out on the deck, but the deck was covered in water and he wasn’t about to lose some critical fitting in the deluge.

  As quickly as he could, he hooked up the hoses and the pump. The parts were labeled but it was too dark to see them and the mask of his EAB was covered in mist from the flooding. He found the connections on the torpedo tube by hand, hooked up a hose to each. Behind him he could hear the stomping of booted feet, hose teams rushing to the fire, the crackle of water on fire.

  He was not completely alone in the torpedo room. Two men still struggled to keep the submersible pump running. But no one appeared to be in charge. He had his orders, anyway, from the XO. The water was up to his knees now, he knew he couldn’t wait for a confirmation.

  He removed the hand pump from the bag. It looked like a more rugged version of one of those large staplers used to fasten together hundreds of sheets of paper. There was a written procedure, he knew, but he’d never find it in the chaos, so he hooked it up by sight and feel, lining up what he knew were the inlets and outlets, lining up the pump to open the outer door.

  A torpedoman showed up at his shoulder. “Hey! You’re lined up to open…”

  “I know!” said Hallorann. “That’s the order. We’re going to pump it open, then pump it shut. They think it might be fouled.”

  The torpedoman looked over his rig, verified it correct, and then threw open the two valves that aligned hydraulic fluid to the hand pump. As the hoses went slightly rigid, Hallorann began furiously pumping.

  He watched alertly as he began to see if opening the outer door increased the rate of flooding. It didn’t appear to, based on the noise level, but the space was so full of water now it was hard to tell.

  “How long?” said Hallorann to the torpedoman.

  “A while longer til’ it’s fully open. Here.” They switched off while Hallorann caught his breath.

  Twice more they switched. As the torpedoman was pumping, Hallorann saw a green circle light up on the torpedo control console. “It’s fully open!” he said.

  The torpedoman quickly shut the two isolation valves and switched the positions of the hoses on the pump. He reopened the valves and began pumping. The green circle disappeared, as they were now pumping the door shut. His arms felt like rubber, but it was easier to get energized about closing the hole that was allowing water into the ship. He and the torpedoman switched off more frequently. When he wasn’t pumping, he stared aft, trying to get
an idea of how the firefighting was progressing, but it was impossible to tell. There were still a great number of men in the space, that was all he could tell for certain, based on the noise, and the number of feet he could see illuminated by a single battle lantern as they descended the ladder.

  The torpedoman stood up and Hallorann replaced him, pumping until his arm felt like it would break. He started to notice, to his excitement, that the noise of rushing water was starting to decrease. The water was up to his waist now. But the sound got higher in pitch and lower in volume as he pumped, like they were pinching off the flow. Finally, the roar stopped.

  “It’s shut!” said the torpedoman, pointing to an amber line on to the torpedo console. “It fucking worked…we cleared it, and now its shut!”

  The space was filled with a huge, dangerous amount of water, water that sloshed with the slightest motion of the crippled ship. But after twenty-three minutes, they’d plugged the hole.

  Hallorann slogged forward and picked up the 4MC, which was just inches above the water.

  “This is Seaman Hallorann in the torpedo room,” he said. “The flooding is stopped.”

  • • •

  “Captain, the flooding is stopped,” said Kincaid, even though everyone in control had heard the report.

  The captain said nothing, but continued running it all through his mind, still trying to calculate if the time had come to perform the complete emergency blow. He was convinced now that the front main ballast tanks had been nearly destroyed in the collision, meaning the blow would only get them about half the effective buoyancy that it might if the ship were intact.

  Secondly, the flooding had stopped, and they were moving water off the boat. Getting shallow would make it easier to do this—the reduced sea pressure at a shallower depth would make the all the pumps that much more effective.

  But the fire—that changed everything. They wouldn’t be able to ventilate until the fire was stopped and overhauled. Any sudden influx of fresh air could inflame the fire, or cause hot spots to reignite, like blowing on a campfire.

  As much as it pained the captain to stay at this depth, in this damaged condition, they wouldn’t emergency blow. Not for the moment.

  “Captain?” said Kincaid.

  “Continue prosecuting that fire,” said the captain. “And get water off the boat.” He looked around control. “Has anybody seen the navigator?”

  • • •

  Jabo ran forward, squeezed down the ladder to Machinery One past two fire hoses that were heading for the same destination. Almost out of breath, he plugged his EAB into the manifold at the bottom of the ladder. He took in the scene.

  The fire raged. Flames licked up the aft bulkhead, orange and blue, and the compartment was filling with thick black smoke. Six men on two hoses crowded the space, aiming water at the base of the flame. The beams of the battle lanterns criss-crossed the darkness randomly, cutting swaths through the smoke. Several crossed in front of the dead pale face of the navigator, the only human face visible in the compartment, as everyone else’s was covered by an EAB. His was covered in water that ran in dirty, sooty tracks down his cheeks. His neck had stretched since Jabo first saw him, it looked almost like he was leaning over to get a better look at the men who were fighting the damage he’d caused. The hose teams had organized themselves, one on each side of the hanging body. Jabo’s feet were freezing, his shoes soaked through. The rest of him cooked, the space was becoming a furnace. Jabo took a deep breath, unplugged, and moved forward, found the XO.

  He tapped him hard on the shoulder. The XO looked at him, eyes fierce.

  “Good!” he said. “Take over. Can you?”

  Jabo nodded, holding up his bandaged hand.

  “Lieutenant Jabo is the man in charge!” the XO announced. He unplugged and moved to control.

  The hose teams moved in closer. Jabo could not see what was actually on fire, but he assumed that the electricity that had originally fed the fire was gone: hopefully Maneuvering had secured that machine immediately. But the original heat from that ground had been enough to set ablaze all the wiring and insulation inside the motor generator, and some of the insulation on the surrounding walls. A chunk of lagging fell off a pipe over their heads, almost at their feet, trailed by a shower of orange sparks. The hose team next to him quickly doused it with water. The nozzle man stomped on it, breaking it up into ash and embers.

  The hose teams were not tiring, Jabo saw, they were fighting the fire with a fury.

  “Stop!” said Jabo, tapping each nozzleman in the small of his back with his closed fist. They all threw the bails forward, and the gushing water stopped.

  They waited a few minutes, hoping that the fire had stopped. But like a good campfire, a tendril of smoke came from what was left of the machine, the smoke turned dark, there was a pop, a flash, and then more flames.

  Without waiting for Jabo’s order, both nozzle men threw open their hoses and doused the fire again. Jabo counted to five, then hit their backs again.

  They waited again. This time, there was nothing. The room was now filled with a combination of thick smoke and steam, the water that had vaporized after hitting the flames; it was almost impossible to see anything. The battle lanterns could no longer penetrate the haze, each was just now a dull, smeared glow, like a tired sun behind fog. Jabo moved forward cautiously, felt his way forward with his bad hand. If he was going to get burned, shocked, or sliced, he wanted it to be the hand that was already fucked up. He knelt down, feeling everything, looking over the front part of the space.

  He turned to the phone talker who was kneeling slightly behind the hose teams. The men stared at him wide-eyed, pointing their hoses at him like he was the condemned man in front of a firing squad. “To control,” he said. “The fire is stopped. Send in an overhaul team.”

  He turned to the nearest nozzleman. “You’re the reflash watch.”

  He nodded, breathless, too exhausted to acknowledge the order with words.

  Jabo looked again at the dangling body of the navigator, then unplugged his EAB and walked to the ladder.

  • • •

  The XO stomped into control, covered in water and the stench of the fire. He stopped at the top of the ladder, plugged in his EAB, and took a few breaths, ready to report to the captain. Just as he was about to speak came the announcement that the fire has stopped.

  He started to talk again but before he could, the captain held his hand up to silence him. Had he not been wearing his EAB, the XO would have known he was concentrating, looking at the CODC console in front of him.

  The XO moved behind him: the screen was filled with columns of green numbers. The lower you looked, the more exotic the data became, derivatives of derivatives. First came depth, speed, then pitch, roll, acceleration on each axis, the rate of acceleration on each axis. They were almost motionless forward, the XO saw, but they were moving slightly upward. He could see from the history on the screen that this was a recent change: they were now positively buoyant. Books would be written, the XO knew, about why the captain hadn’t emergency blown immediately. Time would tell whether or not this was looked at as a wise decision or a disastrous one. The captain waited one more second, looking at the very bottom of the screen, where the rate of change of acceleration was increasing. They were accelerating, ever so slightly, in the upward direction. Then he saw something else, an asymptote they been approaching in the calculus of their motion through the sea. The captain stood up straight.

  “Chief of the watch, emergency blow.”

  “Emergency blow, aye sir.” The chief of the watch stood and this time threw open both chicken switches, the giant valve handles that channeled high pressure air into the main ballast tanks. It made a huge noise, and frost covered the valve handles as the giant pressure change reduced the temperature of the air that passed through. Almost immediately, the ship took a steep down angle, which was intuitively alarming for the experienced men in control: generally a downward angle meant you
were travelling deeper. But in this case it was just because the forward main ballast tanks were nearly destroyed, and more air was filling the aft tanks, pulling that end of the ship higher.

  The captain looked at the console again. They were zooming upward. And the rate was increasing. Once they started moving upward, they had another factor in their favor. The ship became more buoyant at shallower depths. As sea pressure decreased, the ship expanded, making it displace more water, and more buoyant.

  “Five hundred feet, sir,” said the diving offer.

  “Very well,” said the captain.”

  “Four hundred…three hundred…two hundred…one hundred...”

  There was a sound as the ship broke through the surface of the ocean, the sound of water breaking against the side of the hull. It crashed back down, then settled out.

  “Raising number two periscope,” said Kincaid. He quickly spun around. “No close contacts!” he said.

  There was a murmur of relief in control.

  The captain turned to the XO. “Are you here to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “The navigator is hanging from a pipe in machinery one by his belt. Jabo tells me he did all this.”

  The captain nodded, tried to digest what the XO had said. “Any reason you can think of we shouldn’t ventilate the ship?”

  The XO turned to Lieutenant Maple, who was on the phones with Machinery One. “Hot spots?”