100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER TWELVE

By the time Jerry got to the control room, Duncan was already fuming.

“You’re late, White,” he snarled. “They let you get away with murder on your previous boat, but I assure you I won’t tolerate any such nonsense here.”

“Sorry, sir,” Jerry said. “I was with the hospital corpsman—”

“I’m not interested in your excuses,” Duncan interrupted. “Take your seat.”

Jerry relieved the planesman of the previous watch, who fled the control room as if he couldn’t stand to be around Duncan another minute. Jerry didn’t blame him. The helmsman beside him was new—the sailor assigned to be Bodine’s replacement when Bodine went missing.

Duncan didn’t bother asking why Jerry had been with the hospital corpsman. If he had shown even a glimmer of concern or humanity, Jerry’s disdain for him might have lessened. Instead, Duncan likely assumed Jerry was sick or injured, and despised him too much to give a damn. Jerry swallowed the loathing he felt before it made him say something he would regret. He was already on thin ice—best not to hop.

The watch progressed routinely until an hour in, when the officer of the deck announced, “Captain on deck!”

Jerry looked up as Captain Weber entered the control room from the captain’s egress. He hadn’t seen the captain outside his stateroom since the launch. What brought him out of his cocoon now?

“The captain has the conn,” Captain Weber said, formally announcing his intention to take control of the boat. “Officer of the Deck, take us to periscope depth.”

“Periscope depth, aye,” the OOD replied. “Lieutenant Duncan, periscope depth.”

“Make our depth one-six-zero feet,” Duncan said.

“One-six-zero, aye,” Jerry replied. Periscope depth was actually 65 feet, but because planes and surface ships could spot a sub at that depth, submarines in hostile waters had to pause partway up while the sonar techs listened for signs of activity in the surrounding area. As soon as the report came back that they were alone, Captain Weber ordered the sub taken up the rest of the way to 65 feet. Jerry complied, using the hand wheel to adjust the hydroplanes.

The captain raised the observation periscope out of the floor, an action that raised the periscope head above the surface. Taking the handles, he brought his face up to the eyepiece. He turned 360 degrees, making one final sweep of the surface for any hostiles. Satisfied, he lowered the periscope again.

“Communications officer, I need to reach SUBPAC,” Captain Weber said. SUBPAC was the Pacific Submarine Force, overseen by the four-star admiral who commanded all the US Pacific Fleet. “Route communications through to my stateroom.”

“Radioing SUBPAC, aye,” the radioman replied, pulling on his bulky headphones in the radio room at the rear of the control room. He began fussing with the bank of switches and knobs in front of him, adjusting frequencies to find an open channel.

Now Jerry understood why they had come so close to the surface. There was no radio contact below the thermocline, the thin layer of water that separated the warmer surface waters from the cold depths. The thermocline played havoc with sound waves—a good thing when the sub needed to hide from surface traffic, but not so great when they needed to radio fleet headquarters.

Still, it was unusual—not to mention risky—to break radio silence this close to Soviet waters. He wondered whether it had anything to do with Stubic’s death and Bodine’s illness. If it turned out that a contagious disease was working its way through the submarine, they might be ordered back to port. Or would they be quarantined, left to float in their tin can until the disease had run its course? He forced the unpleasant thought out of his head and tried not to worry. The best he could do was accept that he didn’t know anything, and not give his imagination too much running room.

“Officer of the Deck, you have the conn,” Captain Weber said.

He started walking back to his stateroom, but the radioman stopped him.

“Captain, sir, there’s a problem with the radio.”

Captain Weber turned around. “What kind of problem?”

The radioman pulled his headphones off. “I—I’m not sure what to make of this, sir. The radio is dead.”

The captain crossed the control room to the communications station and looked over the radioman’s shoulder at the equipment. “What do you mean, ‘dead’?”

“It was fully operational yesterday, sir,” the radioman said. “But now… Look, sir, it’s not even lighting up.”

He flicked a few switches but got no signal.

Jerry and the helmsman beside him exchanged a worried glance. There were a few things no sailor wanted to hear on a submarine: that the boat was approaching crush depth, that there was a leak or a fire—or that the radio was down. A dead radio on a submarine so close to Soviet waters was more than a problem; it was potentially deadly. If the Soviets spotted them, Roanoke wouldn’t be able to call for help, and at a maximum speed of 32 knots, it sure as hell wouldn’t be able to outrun airplanes or destroyers. They would be sitting ducks, stranded with no chance of help on the way.

A contagious disease incapacitating crewmen, a dead radio—Jerry wondered what else could go wrong on this underway.

“Captain,” a voice called.

Tim stood in the doorway of the sonar shack. He looked worried in a way Jerry hadn’t seen before.

“Go ahead, Spicer,” the captain replied.

“I’m picking something up on the sonar, sir. It’s another submarine.”