Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

8

We had calculated that it would take us about seven days to make the long run down the east coast of South America to Cape Horn. It was technically the first leg of our circumnavigation, and I was glad that our first landfall and the horseplay at the equator were behind us. Now we could settle down and organize the ship for the long run. If all went as we hoped, we would see St. Peter and St. Paul’s Rocks again on the twenty-fifth of April.

Various projects were already under way. Dr. Ben Wey-brew, a psychologist from the Navy Medical Research Laboratory in New London, had issued a series of questionnaires to various volunteers from the crew. They were to mark them at different times during each day and turn them in daily. The Doctor’s project was to record such prosaic things as sleeping hours; smoking and coffee-drinking habits; general feelings and moods, such as laziness or energy, depression or euphoria; how much food a man consumed and whether his eating habits changed during the cruise; his reading habits; how often he thought of his family; and other related matters. His questions seemed a bit strange to a number of us and when I asked about them, he explained that they were, in fact, derived from diaries kept by the men on Nautilus and Seawolf, who had carried out similar investigations during their long trips. Our data would add to the information thus amassed regarding the psychological effects of long cruises. The basic information would be valuable not only for future submarine operations, but for space travel as well.

One thing was already very evident: all hands were just beginning to realize how long a trip ours was to be. The crossing-the-line ceremony and the abandon with which hair had been cut brought our isolation home to all of us.

My off-hand comment that there would be plenty of time for the hair to grow back had apparently reached a large audience. The short bristles standing on stark white skin where there had been a handsome head of hair were a constant reminder that we still had a long way to go.

For a while, I was worried by the conduct of our high jinks the day before. Three of our pollywogs had refused to participate in the ceremonies. Even our technical and scientific personnel had accepted the full treatment, including Joe Roberts, who had been across the equator four times but never “officially,” as he put it.

In hopes the three holdouts would change their minds, I had refused to allow them to be dragged into the initiation. Later on, it was evident that I had missed my chance, if there had ever been one, to avert bad feeling—something we could not tolerate with a long cruise still before us.

For several days the matter preyed upon my mind, for it became apparent that some animosity was growing. Could this be the beginning of a breakdown in the spirit of togetherness, which as a crew we must have for maximum efficiency, if not for an harmonious life aboard ship? Had I acted wisely in permitting our three holdouts to get away with their defiance? Might it not have been wiser to have haled them forth at the first sign of rebellion and have it over with, hopefully as a big joke—or would other things gradually occupy us and the whole affair blow over?

The matter was discussed privately with Ben Weybrew and Will Adams. There was considerable resentment of the three among the rest of the crew, Shellbacks all. If we were to give the holdouts credit for crossing the line, which they certainly had done even though not officially received by King Neptune and his Court, there would undoubtedly be even more resentment. If we held a special ceremony for them the next time we crossed the line—during the voyage there would be three more crossings—the best I could hope for was to minimize any possible outburst of vindictiveness by instant repression; active rancor was almost a sure bet, and during this sort of situation there is always a measurable loss of control.

Perhaps I felt the risk of trouble more than was necessary, but at any rate, all moves to give the three a special initiation were vetoed. In the end, we merely placed an official entry, carefully worded, in the records of everyone else, stating that they had crossed the line on such and such a date and had been received by Neptunus, rex, and his Court. Pollywogs were converted officially into Shellbacks, and Shellbacks were reaffirmed as such. No entry of any kind was made for the three holdouts. They would have to find another ship going across the line should they change their minds at a later date. Though we were to cross the equator thrice more, I decreed, there would be no further visits from King Neptune.

Along with everything else, this was the Triton’s shakedown cruise, and so a daily schedule of drills and exercises was laid out. In addition, a number of extracurricular activities blossomed. The ship’s newspaper had become one of our primary sources of daily interest. Once a week we held our religious services. Courses in Spanish, mathematics, history, and civics were begun, with instructors, textbooks, and scheduled classes. The “ Triton Lecture Association” was formed, created by Lieutenant R. P. (Pat) McDonald with the provident thought that after we returned from our cruise, there might be numerous requests for members of the ship’s company to lecture before various audiences. A little practice in advance, Pat suggested, would be useful.

There were indeed many separate and diverse activities going on. Some of us brought along books we had been planning to read or correspondence courses which, in many cases, were a prerequisite to advancement in rank, or rating. I found room in my cabin for the entire six-volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant, Samuel Eliot Morison’s biographies of Columbus and John Paul Jones, Admiral Mahan’s The Life of Nelson in two old volumes and Dr. Charles McKew Parr’s carefully researched life of Ferdinand Magellan, So Noble a Captain.

All in all, there was plenty to occupy everybody as we proceeded on the first leg of our “official” circumnavigation.

As it happened, the run down the coast of South America started out smoothly enough, but it didn’t end that way. On the first of March, 1960, Jim Stark, a Commander in the Medical Corps, USN, and our ship’s doctor, sought me out.

“Captain,” he said rather abruptly, looking serious, “I’m afraid we have a pretty sick man aboard.”

This, of all things, was what I had been dreading most. “Who is it?” I asked. “What’s the matter with him?”

“It’s Poole,” said Jim, “Chief Radarman. I’m afraid he might have a kidney stone.”

My tone of voice must have indicated relief that it wasn’t something highly contagious like smallpox or meningitis. “Oh,” I said. “He’s not really sick then, is he?”

Stark grinned wryly. “It’s not infectious, Captain, if that’s what you mean, but he’s a pretty sick boy, all right. The trouble is there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You mean you can’t treat him on board?” I asked, feeling the glimmerings of worry again.

Jim nodded. “He’s not sick in the sense of having a germ or a bug of some kind, but if you take a look at him, you’ll agree that if he doesn’t improve, we do have a problem. You need special tools for this, and we don’t have any of them. This is a job for a hospital.”

Stark produced a thick medical book with photographs and drawings to illustrate Poole’s problem. A stone had formed in one of Poole’s kidneys, had been dislodged, and was now in a ureter tube where it was damming the normal flow. The specified treatment was rather similar to what one might do with a clogged drain line on board ship, but as Jim patiently explained the techniques of doing it and described the delicate equipment which we did not have—which included an X-ray outfit—I began to understand his concern.

“Suppose the kidney stone remains stuck in the tube,” I said. “What happens then?”

“Well,” replied Jim, “in the first place, it’s terribly painful—and that’s what’s happening to Poole now. That’s why I’ve had to give him sedation. If there’s no relief—in extreme cases—there can be mild or serious damage of the kidney, which could result in a permanent injury. In an extreme case,” he said soberly, “if unrelieved, a person could die.”

“You mean he’s in danger?”

Jim hastened to assure me that this was not so. The treatment Poole was receiving at his hands was the standard treatment in the early stages of a kidney stone ailment. In most cases, the trouble cleared up more or less spontaneously, with the stone passing the rest of the way down the tube and out of the body in the urine. Poole was already using a specimen bottle, he explained, and his urine would be carefully examined.

“I’m giving him morphine to ease the pain,” Jim said, as he rose to leave. “All we can do is wait.”

I sat pondering. Prior to leaving New London, I had been briefed on the general locations of all US naval units in the areas near which we might be passing, and I knew that the Macon, a cruiser built at the end of the war, was somewhere in these waters. Maybe we could effect a rendezvous with her. But even if we were to do so, how could we transfer Poole without surfacing—and if we were to surface, would this not ruin our submerged record? Suppose we were to surface, transfer Poole to the Macon, and keep it a secret. Would our submerged record still be valid? Suppose the press discovered it; suppose—after the cruise was announced publicly—the newspapers of the Soviet bloc were to get hold of the item? Would it not be terribly embarrassing to our country? What about the special purpose of our mission? Would this not, in fact, utterly destroy it?

To this last question, at least, I knew the answer as soon as I formulated it. As for the rest, going around the world submerged was naturally tremendously important to us as a morale factor. No doubt it held real value for our Navy and our country, particularly in view of the Russian successes with their Sputniks. But so far as the fundamental purposes of our voyage were concerned—the research to be made, the data to be collected—surfacing for an hour or so would make no difference at all. But we could not under any circumstances pretend to an accomplishment we had not done.

And I knew, or sensed, another thing, which was simply that either Poole passed the kidney stone and recovered, or we would have to get help for him somehow, somewhere. Were this war, were our mission one of life or death, were the ship to be endangered with the possibility of more lives lost if we exposed ourselves in order to help Poole, then there might conceivably be some excuse for gritting our teeth and making him grit his. But not under the circumstances that existed.

Jim Stark, however, had made it clear that the situation was not yet desperate. We could hang on a while longer and await developments.

I had just about reached this point in my reasoning when there came a rap on my door, and Dick Harris pulled aside the curtain. He, like Stark, wore a troubled look.

“What’s on your mind, Dick?” I asked. “Have you a kidney stone in your sonar?”

Dick’s face twisted. “Something like that perhaps, Captain,” he said. “It’s the fathometer.”

Constitutionally, I needed much less background information to become excited about a sick fathometer than about a sick kidney, and I was intensely concerned. “What’s the trouble, Dick?” I asked.

As he answered, Dick characteristically chose his words carefully. “We’ve been slowly losing sensitivity with the fathometer,” he said, “and I’ve started checking into it. The strength of the echo is becoming noticeably weaker. I worked on it for a couple of hours last night, but it is still weaker than it should be, even though we seemed to have been able to make some improvement in it. We’re getting only a faint echo, and it could go completely out of commission at any time.”

“Where do you think the trouble is?” I asked. “Is it in the transmitter head, do you think, or the transmitting or receiving section of the set itself?”

“Dunno yet, Captain,” he said. “As far as we can tell, the outgoing signal is about the same strength as ever, but the return signal seems to be weaker. Maybe we’ll find something wrong with the receiver section, and if we can get the right parts, we should have it back in commission soon.”

“Keep me advised, Dick,” I said. “The fathometer is a mighty important instrument for this cruise, especially since we are passing over waters that are basically uncharted.”

Dick tried another twisted half-grin. “I know that, sir,” he said. “‘Whitey’ Rubb is in there helping us with his electronic technicians. Maybe that will speed up the process of figuring out what’s wrong with it.”

After Dick left, I sat for a long moment. Now there were two problems to ponder. Shallow water areas near most of the big land masses of the world are well charted these days, and a surface ship has generally little difficulty picking its way along an unfamiliar coast as long as it has the right chart. But nobody had ever gone to much trouble to make accurate charts of deep waters, the so-called “off-soundings” areas, which comprise ninety-nine percent of the oceans. Our unsuspected discovery of a new and previously uncharted mountain peak as we neared St. Peter and St. Paul’s Rocks a few days ago was a case in point. The chart of the South American coast showed a number of very shallow spots—just dots on the charts—where evidently some submerged mountain peaks had been discovered more or less by accident as ships passed overhead. Surface vessels had been passing over these peaks in perfect safety for centuries, their existence entirely unsuspected. But our situation in Triton was very much different, for we were traveling many hundreds of feet deeper than a surface ship. At the speed we had to go, our ship would be heavily damaged by even a glancing contact with the bottom, and I didn’t even want to think of the result of striking the vertical face of a cliff like the one we had found a week ago. Traveling in uncharted waters, the fathometer was absolutely vital to us.

Fortunately, an immediate decision on this, too, could be postponed for a little while. At the moment, Triton was proceeding over a particularly deep section of the South Atlantic, and for some hours the fathometer had been showing a relatively flat, level bottom. There would be small chance of sudden peaks, since the topography of the bottom indicated that the granite substructure required for such peaks was most likely not present. In a couple of days, however, we would pass into more shallow areas. There, the structure of the earth could very likely be composed of stone outcroppings of one sort or another, and we would need that fathometer desperately.

In the control room, Chief Sonarman George McDaniel, assisted by Sonarmen First Class Beckhaus and Kenneth (“Shorty”) Remillard, had already removed the cover from the fathometer console, and they were taking electrical measurements of the electronic equipment inside. The space where they had to work also happened to be the Diving Officer’s watch station. And Lieutenant George Sawyer, whose watch this was, appeared to be having a little difficulty staying out of their way.

One deck below and one compartment aft, in the air-control center, where the data supplied by Triton’s radars is plotted and evaluated, Electronics Technicians Gordon Simpson and Martin Docker were huddled with their division officer, Lieutenant Milton R. (“Whitey”) Rubb, over the manufacturer’s instruction book for the fathometer.

It was apparent that all these men, at least, fully shared my appreciation that our fathometer needed to be put back in commission quickly.

In the crew’s berthing compartment, just forward of the control room, I came upon Poole. In spite of Jim Stark’s warning, I was unprepared for what I saw, and was instantly shocked into concern.

Eyes half-closed, face swollen, Poole had risen to his forearms and knees and was quivering with obviously excruciating pains.

It so happened that he had one of the higher bunks in the ship, normally reached by a portable aluminum ladder. The ladder had been placed against the side of his bunk, and First Class Hospitalman Richard Fickel stood upon it in such a manner that if Poole, in one of his uncontrolled movements, were to fall out of his bunk, Fickel would be in a position to catch him or at least restrain him and break his fall.

One or two off-watch personnel, who occupied the same bunking area as Poole, looked uncomfortably at me. The message in their eyes was unmistakable, though they knew that everything possible was being done for him. “Can’t we do something to make it easier for him?” they appeared to ask. One thing I did know—though this did not seem the appropriate time to mention it—Jim Stark had explained that despite his painful writhings and muffled groans, Poole was in fact not fully conscious. Later on, he would remember nothing at all about his sufferings. The morphine would take care of that.

Abruptly, I turned about and went back to the wardroom. There, ignoring the troubled gaze of two or three of the ship’s officers, I silently drew a cup of black coffee and retired to my stateroom. There were a number of things I needed to think out.

Taking the easier one first—casualties to fathometers were rare. I had never heard of one going out of commission before. Fathometers are, after all, not extremely complicated pieces of equipment, and the Navy has been using them for many years. By this time, surely, they should have been perfected, made proof against all the ordinary hazards of shipboard service. Perhaps there was something about ours that was improperly hooked up, perhaps some part in this particular fathometer was a little extra fragile—just enough to cause the trouble. In that case, we’d find it. But the worrisome thing was Dick’s report that the fathometer head was slowly losing sensitivity. Was anything actually happening in the fathometer head? If this were so, there would be nothing we could do about it.

The fathometer lay up in the bows of the ship, adjacent to the keel; the only way it could be reached was by dry-docking the entire ship. In earlier submarines, perhaps with this very casualty in mind, the fathometer had been located in the forward trim tank, where it was accessible. Would that this were true in Triton! Without a fathometer, the hazards of our trip would be infinitely increased. What to do if it proved impossible to repair?

One thing seemed to be clear. The importance of our voyage, the responsibility which the Navy had placed on us to complete it—for its stated and unstated purposes—justified every reasonable effort to continue. Serious though the loss of the fathometer might be, if this were our only debility, we could and would keep on. Will Adams, I knew, could be depended on to take all reasonable and possible precautions to compensate for the lack of this vitally important navigation aid.

Poole’s problem was considerably more difficult, and I had much less experience to guide me. Jim Stark’s medical book detailed the treatment for a kidney stone, which involves an extremely complicated operation, and I found myself reading the book quite carefully in order to understand the problem. I read and reread the description of what would happen in the event proper treatment could not be given. As Stark had already said, there would be a backing up of the normal flow; swelling of the tiny ureter tubes; dreadful pain, less and less controllable by opiates; serious illness, possibly involving both kidneys; ultimately, permanent injury to the kidneys; possibly death.

Unlike most complaints, however, kidney stones can suddenly and dramatically cease to be troublesome. If Poole passed the stone, and there were no others, he might well make a complete recovery in a few hours. This, Jim had assured me, was the normal experience. Or, should the stone not pass, it might not create a complete blockage. If this were the case, Poole might become a sort of arrested case which could be “held”—Jim’s expression—under careful surveillance until our return home.

A third possibility was that there was not one but a number of stones, any one of which could hang up in an already irritated and inflamed urinary passage. A “remission” could occur, after which Poole might well experience more attacks. There was no possible way, short of X-raying him, to find this out.

Fourth was the possibility that a complete and permanent blockage had already occurred; that Poole was fated to become progressively worse until he received proper medical attention.

With a sigh, I recognized that this problem was entirely out of our hands. It was a question of whether Poole got better or worse.

But suppose Poole recovered for a day or two, or even for weeks, and then had another attack? Suppose by then we were well out into the Pacific? What would we do then? Where could we take him, how get him the medical help he needed? On the other side of South America there was Chile, with its lovely port city of Valparaiso, where surely there was competent medical care to be found. Farther along our route—many thousands of miles farther—lay Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. Here, we would be among friends and be able to get all the assistance necessary.

But either Valparaiso or Pearl Harbor would be well out of our way, far enough to cost us many days of travel.

In the meantime, we were passing two of the largest cities in South America, Montevideo and Buenos Aires, both bordering on that enormous Rio de la Plata which Magellan had first joyously assumed to be the long-sought south passage to the Pacific. Entering Montevideo, Buenos Aires, or Valparaiso would all be about one and the same, so far as the effect on our intended submerged circumnavigation. But the USS Macon was scheduled to visit Montevideo in a few days. This was an important consideration. On this side of South America, help from the US Navy could best be received from the Macon. On the far side, we would have to wait to reach Pearl Harbor, a matter of about three weeks.

It would be unfortunate to be forced to surface and wreck our submerged record, but doing so to enter a foreign port was not to be thought of, unless there were no other alternative. Here was a dilemma!

Fortunately for my peace of mind at that moment, Macon was not due to arrive at Montevideo for a few more days. Besides, Jim Stark had impressed upon me that Poole’s condition, although serious, was still promising. The stone or stones might clear up at any time. We could afford to let events move along at their own speed for a little while longer.

Feeling depressed, I decided that the first of March was certainly not “our day,” and that troubles came in twos. The only cheery note was that both of our problems had a common quality: we could allow them to develop a little farther.

This was a far from satisfactory way to handle either, but it did have the virtue of postponing the real decision.

I think it was about seven o’clock that same night when Jim Stark and Don Fears came to see me together. I immediately sensed that something else was wrong.

Stark spoke first. “You’ll be glad to know that Poole has been asymptomatic for some time now, sir. The morphine is wearing off and he’s up and around. Apparently, he’s in no pain.”

“Good,” I said. “Have you found the stone?”

“No, but that’s not surprising. Sometimes these things are very hard to find.” Jim’s report came in a rush, as though he were anxious to get it over with.

“Well,” I said, unable to shake off the foreboding in my subconscious, “that’s good. What’s the new problem?”

Don deliberately shut the metal door behind the curtained entrance to my room, then, very quietly, informed me that something might be seriously wrong with one of our reactors. So far as Triton and the first of March were concerned, it seemed that troubles were not to be confined to pairs. On that day we were to have them in threes.

Naval reactors, let it be understood, are constructed and inspected with the most extraordinary care. Very precise operating instructions are prepared before anyone is permitted to use them, and the most careful training is given all hands. The remarkable record of dependability which Admiral Rickover’s fantastic new machinery has established is only one of that gentleman’s great gifts to the Navy and our country.

Among the operating instructions are a carefully calculated set of allowed operating parameters. Should any of these parameters be exceeded, there are in addition precise instructions as to what is to be done next. In some cases, all that is necessary is to change certain operating criteria. In others, we are required to shut the reactor down to find out what is wrong and are not permitted to start it again until the difficulty is resolved. In still other situations, there are automatic safety circuits which, when triggered, instantaneously shut the reactor down without further action by any person. This is called a “scram.” It is accompanied by a deafening siren and all sorts of whirring, grinding, and pumping of automatic machinery.

The trouble in our case came under the second heading. Les Kelly had instituted a system to log all the readings on the instruments in the machinery spaces periodically, and then the readings were carefully compared to detect changes. Several of the ship’s officers willingly participated in this check, and it so happened that Jim Stark, in poring over the batch of forms consigned to him, had noticed a slow but steady change in certain entries.

“So, what do you think it is?” I asked.

Jim and Don both started to talk at once.

“Don,” I said.

“Well, I can’t be sure, Captain,” said Don. “But here’s what the book says about it.” He showed me one of the manuals, his finger marking the place.

I read the paragraph carefully. It applied specifically to our situation, described what we were then experiencing, and stated in clear language the several possible causes. Two of the possibilities we could immediately dismiss. Two others, after some discussion, we were satisfied did not apply. But one, very clearly, applied only too well.

My stateroom was barely big enough for the three of us, and our impromptu conference became a rather packed affair when Pat McDonald unceremoniously opened the door and entered. I slid over on the padded bench beneath my folded-up bunk and motioned Stark to sit beside me.

Pat had a slip of paper in his hand. “Here’s a new set of readings, Don,” he said.

I reached for the paper and held it for both Fears and Stark to see. The new figures were not encouraging.

“Well, Pat,” I said. “It’s your reactor. What do you think?”

“We’re still in limits, Captain,” Pat replied, “but I don’t like the way this is moving. Of course, it could be …” Here Pat described an innocuous possible explanation which had occurred to all of us—“but all we can do is keep on checking.”

“Who’s checking?” I inquired. “You’re all in here with me.”

“We’re all into it, Captain,” Don said. “All our reactor technicians, all the officers. Everybody.”

“What do you think?”

“Well,” Don answered reluctantly, “we either have a problem or we don’t. If we do, it’s a lulu. We’ll know for sure in another couple of hours. We’re checking everything, naturally, and I should be able to tell you more pretty soon.”

“All right,” I said, trying to show an assurance I did not feel, “get with it. I don’t want to alarm the troops about this and take their morale down any further, unless we can’t help it. Anyway, it’s not as though there were any danger to personnel. I’ll not come back with you right now, but I’ll join you about the time you have another set of data readings.”

“Right, Captain,” Fears said, as he and Pat rose to leave. “If we go over limits, shall I shut down?”

“Of course. And when you do, say a blessing for Admiral Rickover and the few farsighted officers in the Pentagon who insisted on the development of a multiple reactor plant.”

Jim Stark made a move to follow the two engineers.

“Don’t, Jim,” I said. “One of your duties is radiological safety, you know, and having you be the one who spotted this in the first place is bad enough. If you continue to show interest, the men will think there’s a radiation hazard of some kind. We’ve got enough problems.”

Stark nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got Poole to worry about. Should check him right now, as a matter of fact.”

It took real will power not to go back into the engineering spaces myself right then, and I knew I shouldn’t be able to wait it out very much longer. Kidney stones, a fathometer that wouldn’t work, and now this—all in a single day! If anything could force us to give up our voyage, this latest difficulty would come closest.

The trouble was, so far, localized in the mechanism of a single reactor, and there was no reason to expect it to appear in the other. Catalogued as an improbable possibility by our manual, this had never happened before in any naval reactor. Could there have been a design error, a weakness undetected in all the testing, something which had at last slipped by Admiral Rickover’s vigilant group? Ergo, might we expect the same problem in the other reactor?

Triton was fortunate in having two. Indeed, it was precisely for this kind of contingency that Rickover had insisted on building her. The Admiral also wanted to amass the practical experience of operating such power plants, which might be installed in future surface ships and later-model submarines. The casualty facing us would have immobilized any other submarine, forced her to surface and radio for help. In our case, it only threatened to slow us down. We could still keep on with our mission, unless, by sad mischance, the investigation now going on would show both reactors to be involved.

But time spent in fruitless worry could do no good. Restlessly, I began to wander about the ship.

Almost the first person I ran into was Poole, up and fully dressed, his head buried in the innards of one of the radar receiving sets in Triton’s air-control center.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Fine, Captain,” he replied, “I feel swell. I think it’s all over now.”

I didn’t recall Poole as being a particularly placid individual, and something about his bearing, perhaps his half-shut, sleepy eyes, seemed not exactly normal. I found Jim Stark in the ship’s pharmacy and put the question to him.

“What you’re seeing, Captain, is the after-effects of the dope he’s been given during the last twenty-four hours,” said Jim.

“You mean he’s still hopped up? He looked just the opposite,” I said.

“No, what I mean is that the effects of the medication haven’t worn off yet. That’s why he seemed a bit strange. He’s not himself at all. But he feels fine, and maybe he’ll be free of the kidney stone attacks from now on. We can only wait and see.”

“Then what’s he doing up and working?” I said.

Jim grinned. “Well, Captain, I’m not very far away from him, and don’t plan to be.” Jim indicated a little tray containing a hypodermic needle and several small bottles. “All this stuff here is Poole’s.”

“Good man, Jim,” I nodded approvingly. “But why is he working? We don’t need him that badly, do we? Is it because all the other radar technicians are out working on the fathometer?”

“Nobody has put Poole to work, but he wants to. As long as he wants to be up and working and doesn’t overdo it, it’s the best thing for him. That’s why I’m sticking around.”

I nodded again. “I get it.”

As I left the pharmacy, I glanced into the air-control center once more. All I could see of Poole was a rear view. His head and forearms were deep inside the radar console in quest of some stray electron or grid voltage somewhere.

In the control room, I found that what had been the passageway was now a blueprint reading room. A long, blueprinted diagram of the sonar equipment had been laid out on the passageway deck, and grouped around it on their hands and knees were Lieutenants Rubb and Harris and Electronics Technicians Docker and Simpson. Had the blueprint been a green-felt cloth, I might almost have expected to hear the rattling of dice and low-voiced incantations soliciting the favor of Dame Fortune.

Despite their ridiculous posture, however, these four gentlemen were in dead earnest. Both ends of the compartment were marked, “No Passageway—Men Working.” Crew members needing to go from one end of the ship to the other were required to drop down a deck and pass through the crew’s mess hall immediately beneath the control room.

Jim Hay now had the dive, and he had crowded as close as possible to the planesmen in order to leave room for Beckhaus and McDaniel, who were apparently taking readings on the fathometer cabinet itself.

One of the unwritten rules in the submarine service is that men engaged in important work do not throw down their tools and snap to attention merely because the Commanding Officer happens around. Only Dick Harris rose to greet me.

“We’ve found out a couple of things, Captain,” he said, “and there may be more than one thing wrong with the fathometer.”

I nodded. This was about what I had expected.

“One thing is that the gear is running too hot. There’s a ventilation motor in it which is supposed to be running at all times, but it was hooked up wrong and apparently hasn’t been working. So there’s a transformer burned out and at least one, maybe two, crystals are gone. But I still can’t explain the reduced sensitivity in the fathometer head itself. That’s what has me worried.”

This was, of course, disturbing news; but compared to what was perhaps going on in the after part of the ship, where Don Fears and his engineers were wrestling with their problem, it was not the worst I had heard this day.

“Keep me informed, Dick,” I said. “Maybe we can at least keep the sound head from getting any worse.”

Dick nodded as I left, probably both relieved and surprised that I had not questioned him further. A glance at Jim Hay’s diving crew and the instruments before them showed me that Triton was rock steady at the ordered depth and still at ordered speed. Here, at least, things were under control.

Of all the urgent things on my mind at this moment, the condition of the engineering plant was the most critical. I could stay away from it no longer.

I can recall a feeling of resolution as I walked swiftly toward the engineering spaces; this was what Triton was built for. Even though we had to shut down one plant—even though we might have to keep it shut down for the entire remainder of our cruise—there was no reason why the other should have the same bad luck. We could and would carry on. This was the traditional Navy way, and it was, I knew, what Admiral Rickover would have had us do, was in principle what he had himself directed when the prototype of USS Nautilus, out on the flats of Idaho, had made that famous full-power simulated run across the Atlantic Ocean.

When I joined the engineer group, I could see that the news was not good. Don handed me the sheet of paper on which the latest readings had been logged. They were similar to the ones I had seen earlier, but higher.

“We can’t figure it out, Captain,” he said. “This just doesn’t add up, but here they are!”

“Were they taken by the same person?” I asked.

Don shook his head. “I thought of that, too,” he said. “These are an independent set taken by another man.”

Gloom deepened. Everyone fully understood the implications of the situation.

“What do you recommend, Don?” I said, knowing what it must be.

Don looked back squarely. “We’ve gone over every reading, every bit of the instructions, and all the prints. We’re logging another set of readings right now with a third man taking them. I would have taken them myself, but I wanted to stay here to check over what we’ve already got. We’ll just have to keep checking until we’re sure, until we know exactly what’s happened. We haven’t hit the limit yet.”

The whirring of the main turbine and the great throb of the reduction gears sounded as though nothing could ever disturb them. But this was not so. A minor dislocation somewhere else, in some important control circuit perhaps, down in the reactor space where we could not get to it, could still them at any time.

My face must have mirrored the gravity of my thoughts. A bell tingled. The telephone. Someone answered it, listened briefly, handed it to me.

“It’s for you, sir.”

The caller was Harris, with good news.

“We’ve found the trouble with the fathometer, Captain, and I think we have the right parts on board. We’ll have her going again in a couple of hours.”

This was, at least, a weight off my mind. We would be approaching shoal water shortly, and would need this piece of equipment.

“Good, Dick,” I said. “Tell your people that was a fine job, and I’m very much relieved and grateful.”

“Will do, Captain,” Dick said, sounding pleased.

I hung up. “Well,” I said, “that’s one problem solved. The fathometer’s OK, anyway.”

But our somber mood could not be lifted for long. Triton’s machinery was too well designed, her research engineers and builders too careful for anything to go wrong. And yet, the evidence could not be denied. Instinctively, I realized, we were all waiting for the check observations, even then in the process of being taken. But we all knew what the results must be.

The watertight door at the far end of the compartment opened and Pat McDonald entered. Immediately following him were Jack Judd and Harry Hampson, both Chief Electronics Technicians. Pat walked directly to Don Fears and handed him a slip of paper. “I took the readings myself this time, Don, just to be sure.”

Don scrutinized the figures, pursed his lips, silently handed the paper to me.

The readings had reached the allowed limits.

“Shut her down, Don,” I said. “As she cools off, get everybody back there and start making a thorough check as soon as you can get into the space. We have to get to the bottom of this immediately.”

Fears excused himself. In a few moments, the mighty beat of Triton’s huge propellers slowed.

The atmosphere of quiet gloom could be felt, as it settled over the ship. I could sense it in everyone’s attitude, in the subdued manner in which people went about their duties, in the care each man took that nothing he said or did would make matters worse.

Don came back in a moment, sober-faced. “Well, it’s done, but I still can’t believe it,” he said. “Let’s start over again at the beginning.” He pulled a sheaf of papers toward him. “The first sign of anything was when Jim Stark started to notice a steady climb in certain readings …”

We all looked on as Don went through the entire episode.

“An hour later,” he said, glancing at me, “we notified the Captain. “Then we went over everything again …”

Step by step, feeling our way, we reviewed the events of the past two hours. The strenuous training all of us had received during Triton’s precommissioning period was never more valuable than now, as we tortuously reworked the data.

Finally, Don struck the paper lightly with his index finger. “Here’s the crucial item, right here,” he said.

“That’s what it read, all right,” said Pat.

“Something wrong here,” Don muttered. “Your last reading is one-tenth of what they had the time before.”

McDonald compared the two sheets of paper, side by side. “I know mine was the right reading,” he said, “I read it off the dial myself. The decimal point is tricky, but this is correct.”

Hope suddenly flooded through my mind. The matter was more complicated than a simple misplacement of a decimal point. The readings we were required to take and record were sometimes to the millionth or ten-millionth of a gram or an ampere. A mistake in conversion was understandable.

“If this is right, Don,” I said, “we don’t have any problem at all. Could the readings have changed that much in this short time?”

Don and Pat shook their heads.

“Judd, who took these first two sets of readings?” Fears suddenly asked.

Judd told him the names. “They’re both good men, sir,” he said. “They know what they’re doing.”

“Well, what about this one, then?”

Hampson shook his head. “We saw Mr. McDonald take these readings, sir,” he said. “I know they’re right!”

“Let’s see the calculations again,” said Don.

They were put before him in a moment. Silently, we watched while Don compared one set of log readings to another and checked the three sets of calculated results. Pat McDonald did the same, alongside him and sharing his slide rule. I scratched them out too, on a third piece of paper.

After long minutes, Don looked up. “It looks as though we made a mistake, Captain,” he said. “The first two sets of readings were written down in a slightly different way from Pat’s here, but they made a mistake in working them out. Look, here it is.”

I guarded myself from being overeager to accept this sudden release. “This is too easy, Don,” I said. “You mean, while I’ve been standing here, after we’ve gone through all this flap, now you say there never was any problem?”

Don nodded. “Let me go through this whole thing once more very carefully, Captain,” he said. “It looks as though we have a couple of problems to straighten out, and I’ll be up making a report to you within the hour.”

“Very well,” I said, not knowing whether to be angry or relieved. “Have a fourth set of readings taken—you and Pat had better do these yourselves—I need to know exactly where we stand.”

Both nodded soberly.

“You may not have permission to start the reactor,” I told them, “until you report to me that you’re absolutely sure it’s all right and always has been.”

With a considerably lighter step, I made my way forward once more. We would be absolutely sure of the plant before starting it again, for the instructions were explicit, but it now seemed morally certain that our five hours of concern had been merely a mental exercise. I could feel my confidence in Triton resurging. With the fathometer fixed, the only problem now was Poole, and even he looked improved.

The first of March had been a long day, but we were snapping back. We were going to come out of this all right!