100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER TWO

Being in the control room of a submarine felt like being in an egg carton. Calling it close quarters didn’t really convey how cramped it was. Crewmen were wedged into their seats practically on top of one another. Sailors couldn’t have issues about personal space on submarines, but especially not in the control room, where they were quite literally breathing down each other’s necks until the end of their watch section. When Tim, Captain Weber, and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson entered the control room, most of the men were at their stations already, including, Tim noted, the new planesman, Jerry White—the transfer Captain Weber had tasked him with keeping on the straight and narrow.

He was a couple of years younger than Tim, in his early twenties, with a skinny frame and sandy-blond hair. He sat at a control panel at the front of the room, with a yoke in front of him that he would use to steer Roanoke once they were underwater. As planesman, White operated the winglike horizontal hydroplanes on the boat’s bow and sail, steering the submarine up or down. He also controlled the vertical rudder at the stern, to make left and right turns. Seated beside him, separated by less than a foot of space, was the helmsman, with the yoke that controlled the angle of the submarine, through the horizontal hydroplanes at the stern. For the sub to run smoothly, both the helmsman and the planesman had to work in unison, developing a wordless rapport.

The helmsman on duty was Steve Bodine, a skinny kid out of Oklahoma and the only black sailor on Roanoke besides Lieutenant Commander Jefferson. Like White, Bodine was in his early 20s, but he was already halfway bald. He denied it strenuously, but everyone knew it was the real reason he kept his hair stubble-short. Bodine had the most stereotypically suburban middle-class background of any sailor Tim had met: swimming pool in the backyard, newspaper delivery route as a kid, Boy Scouts—the whole nine yards. He was a nice, uncomplicated guy, the kind you could have a beer with when you had a night off at the base. Tim figured that if anyone was going to be a good influence on White, helping keep him out of trouble as the captain wanted, it was Bodine. Captain Weber should have asked him instead.

The diving officer of the launch, Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Duncan, sat behind White and Bodine in a chair so close he could reach past them to the control panel just by leaning forward if he wanted to. A cold and distant officer, Duncan wasn’t one for small talk. Indeed, he was extraordinarily strict with enlisted men. Tim had seen him ruthlessly dress down sailors for even small, easily fixed mistakes.

Ensign Mark Penwarden took his position beside the captain as the acting officer of the deck, or OOD. Sailors abbreviated everything, Tim mused. The chief of the boat was the COB. The executive officer was the XO. Petty officers were POs. The trash disposal unit was the TDU. Nothing and no one was spared the indignity of an initialism. Being OOD was a temporary station, a responsibility that passed between officers with other jobs on board. Normally, Penwarden worked in fire control, where he operated and maintained the combat and weapons direction systems, but he needed to pass his off-quals to earn his dolphins, and acting as OOD during a launch was his final test. He looked nervous but ready. Tim knew how important this was to him. Penwarden had been working to complete the extensive quals process for almost a year now. He was desperate for the dolphin badge that so many other officers on Roanoke proudly wore on their uniforms, not to mention the official submarine qualification that came with it. If he didn’t get it right today, he would have to wait months to try again.

Senior Chief Farrington, the COB, was serving as chief of the watch for the underway. Seated in front of the ballast control panel on one side of the control room, he oversaw the moving of water in and out of the ballast tanks to control the submarine’s buoyancy, as well as monitoring all hatches and hull openings. Tim suspected that Farrington wasn’t all that happy to be in the control room with White after objecting to his transfer to Roanoke, but the COB was a good, experienced sailor. He kept his eyes on his control panel and didn’t let his personal feelings distract him.

Tim crossed the control room to the enclosed space affectionately known by sonar techs like himself as the sonar shack. Inside, he sat down in front of his display console, put on his earphones, and prepared for the launch.

Submarines didn’t launch on a single order; they launched with a dialogue. The submarine corps choreographed its procedures to the last detail. It was the officer of the deck who began the dialogue.

“Bridge rigged for dive,” Penwarden reported. “Last man down.”

Captain Weber stood in front of the two periscopes on the conn, the raised stand positioned a few feet back from the helm. “Rig for dive, Ensign Penwarden,” he ordered.

“Rig for dive, aye,” Penwarden replied. After double-checking the report that all hatches were secured, he added, “Bridge rigged for dive, aye. Last man down, aye. Two minutes to dive point, sir.”

“Excellent, Ensign Penwarden,” Captain Weber said. “Chief of the Watch, rig control room for red.”

“Rig for red, aye,” Farrington replied.

In the sonar shack, Tim sat in front of his sonar display screen and braced himself. Though he had experienced it nearly a dozen times now, when the darkness came there was always something menacing about it. The overhead lights winked out in the control room, and the red lights snapped on. The crimson hue lent the control room an eerie, otherworldly appearance, as if everyone and everything in it were covered in a haze of blood.

“Officer of the Deck, report,” the captain said.

But here Penwarden, who had been doing well until now, tripped over his tongue and didn’t answer quickly enough.

“Officer of the Deck, what is our status?” the captain repeated, an annoyed edge creeping into his voice.

Lieutenant Commander Jefferson came up beside Penwarden and whispered in his ear, “Take a deep breath, Ensign. You’re doing fine. We haven’t hit anything yet.”

With Jefferson’s encouragement, Penwarden pulled himself together. He called out the depth soundings, course, and speed to the captain. “Ship rigged for dive, sir. We are one minute from dive point, Captain, confirmed by navigator. We hold no surface contacts by visual or sonar. Request permission to submerge boat, sir.”

“Very well, Ensign Penwarden,” the captain replied. His expression gave no indication whether Penwarden had burned his chance or pulled himself out of the fire at the last moment. “Submerge boat to one-five-zero feet.”

White adjusted his yoke, ready to control the dive as soon as the OOD made the necessary announcement. Penwarden picked up the phone talker of the main circuit, the submarine’s PA system.

“Dive! Dive!” he shouted into the phone talker.

The high, shrill alarm sounded, and Tim braced himself. The first dive was always a tense moment. Then the floor tilted under his feet, and he could picture Roanoke submerging beneath the waves, engulfed in the endless dark of the ocean.