Cold is the Sea

17

“Buck, that was simply beautiful!” said Richardson. “That vertical corkscrew you made in the ocean must have seemed like a solid wall to the little fellow’s sonar. So it drove into it and set off the detonator. Whatever made you think up that maneuver?”

“Maybe the air blowing was what actually did it, boss. We’ll never know. I vaguely recall somebody showing me how to do that when some bad guys were after us, a long time ago, on some old sub the name of which I now forget.”

“It was your spiral dive, Buck. That was what did it. I never saw a submarine handled that way before!”

“Actually, we’d practiced it. I was saving it to pull on you sometime,” said Buck, pleased. “But we never did it with that kind of speed before, nor with this good an excuse to show it off!”

“Well, it sure saved our bacon, old man!” Richardson put his hand on Buck’s shoulder. Then his smile faded. “How much farther to the Cushing’s plotted position?”

“Three miles by the dead-reckoning tracer. Good thing we marked the DRT and set it on automatic when all this started. You should see what it looks like!”

“I’ve looked at it. It’s wild, all right.”

“I wish we could go faster.”

“We mustn’t be detected.”

“I know. Do you really think the Russian may think we’re sunk?”

“I’d bet on it, Buck. The last he saw of us was when we took off with his fish in hot pursuit. He must have heard all that noise you put in the water, and right after the fish exploded you slowed down to nothing. It’s not like the two times he hit our decoys. So now he’s waiting there, taking stock. If Keith’s sunk too, we’ll hear him start up and go away; if not, he’ll be taking his time nosing around, because the Cushing would still be dangerous.”

“And we’re sneaking in, on the battery, running silent and at deep submergence, waiting for some kind of a false move.”

“We can’t leave Keith till we know for sure.”

“Agreed. I’m trying to think of what to do if we find our other playmate again.”

“The first thing is to find him before he knows we’re still alive. The second thing is to kill him.” Richardson’s words were said without expression, almost as if he were referring to a routine happening. But Buck knew better.

A slight reduction in the urgency of Manta’s situation was recognized by the two mugs of black coffee they held. Schultz, who must have lost ten pounds in unevaporated perspiration, had refused relief and was still at the sonar console. A large towel, with which he repeatedly wiped his face, lay around his heavy shoulders. Neither Buck nor Rich noted the fact that they were in a nearly identical condition. Buck had tucked the end of his towel under his belt. Rich’s was stuffed behind a wire cable in the corner of the sonar room.

The sonar room ventilation had been planned for only a single occupant, the man on watch. Apparently no one had considered that a skipper, accompanied by whatever superiors might be aboard, might choose to conduct vital ship control functions there also. Not that there was greater comfort anywhere else in the ship at this moment, for Manta had been running for several hours with all ventilation, and even the air-conditioning, shut down. The atmosphere inside the submarine was fetid, the heat unbearable, or nearly so. It was unbearable in the engineroom, where the temperature had at once risen to 150 degrees, and men had passed out. That compartment was now cooling, however, for its outer skin was not insulated. In the meantime an extra supply of salt tablets had been sent to the few men required to remain inside.

All metal portions of the submarine which in any way communicated to the sea outside were alive with condensation. It dripped off everything: pipes, stanchions, instrument foundations, light-fixture brackets, bulkheads. Everyone had sweat bursting out of his pores, even those few fortunates privileged to lie down somewhere for a legal snooze, and the puddles of condensed moisture on the decks made footing hazardous on the once polished linoleum.

But there were far more important things to think about, the primary one being how to remain alive.

Neither Rich nor Buck said anything for several minutes. Schultz brought both to his side with a simple factual statement: “I’m hearing something!”

“What’s it like?”

By way of response, Schultz flipped a switch, spoke into a microphone mounted on the face of his console. “JT, do you hear pounding on the port bow?”

“Affirmative! I was just going to report it!”

“Well, don’t you let me beat you to it again! You’re supposed to hear sonic noises before I do!” Turning to his skipper, Schultz said, “Pounding, forty port.”

Buck was already adjusting the spare set of earphones. Clamping them on his ears, he frowned with concentration and nodded his head at Rich. “Here!” He detached the left phone, handed it to Rich. Through it Rich could hear rapid intermittent blows of steel on steel, rhythmic for a short period, then spasmodic, then a flurry of hurried blows again. “Frantic” was the word that instantly came to Richardson’s mind. Several more blows, then silence.

“I’d say that’s someone hammering something with a hammer or mallet,” said Rich. “Fairly close aboard. He sounded in a hurry to get it done.”

“Repairing something, maybe?”

“My guess is it’s Keith.”

“Why not the other?”

“Keith was damaged. Neither sub would want to alert the other one. He might have had to do it.”

“What do we do now?”

“Nothing. We wait. If it was Keith, the Soviet will come over to investigate. Maybe we’ll be able to hear him.”

“Schultz,” said Buck, lifting one of the sonarman’s earphones, bending to speak directly into the exposed ear, “any estimate of the distance to the pounding?”

“Close,” said Schultz. He flipped his switch to activate the microphone connecting him to the JT sonic head. “JT, how far to the pounding?”

“Close. A mile, maybe. Sounded like it was being reflected from the ice.” The JT man’s answer came only into the earphones. Schultz had not activated the sonar room loudspeaker. Buck saw Richardson smiling at him.

“It could be Keith,” Rich said. “If we’ve ever been quiet and listening, now’s the time!”

Buck spoke softly into the telephone handset. “Silence, all hands. Absolute silence!” To Schultz he said, “Chief, we’ll make a slow circle to clear your baffles aft. Search all around for any other noise, and check the bearing of this one whenever you can.” Replacing the earphone, he felt, rather than saw, the short jerk of the sonarman’s head which was supposed to pass for a nod of understanding.

Again, the deep silence of waiting. Slowly, Manta described two complete circles. She was at maximum depth, far below the authorized test depth, as deep as Buck dared take her, sweating figuratively and literally both in her own hull and in the persons of her crew. The squeeze of millions of tons of Arctic seawater — over 300 tons on each square foot — pressed upon her body. All her machinery was stilled. Her battery, which kept her sonars functioning, her planes operative and her two propellers slowly turning, was totally silent. The occasional splash of a drop of condensate, too heavy to remain on the surface where it had congealed, was loud. The silence was that of death. An apt similitude, for death would probably come out of it. For someone.

The third circle was nearly finished. “We’ll steady on the bearing where we heard the pounding, run about a mile, and circle again,” said Buck.

“Right,” said Rich, indicating by his expression that he could think of no better action.

Manta slowly swam on the ordered course, began to circle, in the opposite direction. “For variety,” said Buck, with the familiar tight smile. For more than an hour, switching occasionally to relieve their arms and hands, Rich and Buck had held the spare set of earphones to their ears. They were beginning to think of themselves as Schultz, long since, must have subconsciously felt of himself. They were large, amorphous beings, spread-eagled in the ocean, with antennas stretching in all directions; antennas floating into the infinite reaches, gathering in all the droplets of information, of sounds modern and primeval, listening with every sense of their beings, waiting. Waiting with limitless patience. Waiting for some sign.

All three men heard the report from the JT receiver when it came. “More pounding. Quiet like. It’s above us, I think.” Schultz nodded vigorously, pointed to his own earphones. He, too, had heard something, although neither Rich nor Buck had noted it.

Buck flipped the switch Schultz had been using. “What’s it like, JT?”

“Sounds like a rubber hammer hitting something. Not iron. Maybe it’s hitting wood.”

“Keith!” said Rich. “He’s okay! They’re making repairs! It’s got to be him!”

And then Rich felt a blow on his hip. Schultz was pressing both earphones against his head. He was gazing at his sonar scope, but his eyes were far away, far out in the ocean, which, for him, was totally represented by this circular fluorescent tube.

“What do you hear, Chief?” But Schultz could not hear the question. They waited, agonizing, wanting him to speak, not willing to break into his concentration. Finally he put his finger on his scope, tapping it gently with the fingernail.

“I hear something,” he said. “About here!”

“Is it the Soviet sub?”

“I think so. It’s getting louder, but it’s still faint.”

Coached by Schultz, Rich and Buck were soon able to hear the noise themselves, and finally there came the verdict which made all the waiting, and worry, and discomfort, of the past few hours worthwhile. “It’s him. That’s the same signature we’ve been hearing.”

“Skipper,” said Richardson, “I’d give my right arm to be able to see up!”

“So would I, boss,” returned Buck, unaccountably pleased with the unexpected salutation. “We’ll raise the ’scopes as soon as the hoists can lift them against sea pressure.”

“Have you calculated the extra stress?”

“Yes. It’s well within the tensile strength of our hoist rods. The problem is that our hydraulic hoist cylinders don’t have the area to overcome sea pressure at our present depth. They can’t lift them below about two hundred feet. Maybe not then.”

“Well, it sure would be good to do this deeper, but let’s stop our rise as soon as the ’scopes can lift. I’d like to be under both subs, with them silhouetted against the light coming through the ice cover. If we can only see what we’re doing, we might be able to figure out something. We’ll only have one shot, you know!”

Buck knew very well. Once the enemy realized he had been fired on by the submarine he thought he had eliminated, there would not be another chance. Without speaking, Buck reached for the periscope hoist controls, put them both on Raise.

Plot and the DRT both indicated they were under the calculated position of the immobile Cushing, and Tom Clancy had been directed to bring Manta upward very slowly. A small air bubble in safety tank had started the ascent, and now he was judiciously venting it inboard — into the interior of the Manta—so that no betraying air could escape into the water. The enemy submarine, estimated to be a mile or so away, was approaching cautiously. A Mark Fourteen torpedo salvo, judged to have the best chance of being immune to whatever exotic defense system he had, nevertheless required point-blank range and a positive depth determination.

The torpedoes themselves had been modified to accept depth settings of up to one hundred fifty feet. A minimum setting of ninety feet would guarantee safety of the Cushing resting against the ice, even if she happened to be in the line of fire. But the vertical dimension of the enemy sub, except in the small conning tower and bridge area, might be as little as thirty feet. The depth setting chosen would have to be within this thirty-foot spread. And, of course, the torpedoes would have to be correctly aimed.

Manta had passed the two-hundred-foot mark before Jerry Abbott, at the periscope station, called his superiors from the sonar room. “ ’Scopes starting up!” he reported.

“Holding her at one-eight-five, Captain!” called Clancy. Jerry Abbott quietly slipped into the sonar room as Rich and Buck took his place at the periscope station. Both ’scopes were rising slowly.

“They’ll be mighty hard to turn when they’re up, Skipper,” warned Buck.

“Can’t be helped,” grunted Rich impatiently. He grasped the hoist rods with both hands, tried to force his periscope to rise faster. It did no good. The progress of the bottom of the periscope out of its well was excruciatingly slow. With his hands on the barrel or the hoist rods, he could feel the movement, but there was hardly any way to discern it in its shiny steel surface, which was the same from top to bottom. Lights had been dimmed in the control room because of the limited illumination expected in the water. Looking down into the well, Rich was gratified to see faint light shining out of the exit pupil, striking the oily surface of the narrow steel well. At least it appeared there might be enough to see by!

Buck had the shorter periscope, as was his right because its eyepiece would be the first out of the well and it had the greater light-gathering power. He fixed himself to it as soon as it came above deck level, slowly rose with it. Heaving it around with difficulty he said, “The bottom of the ice is almost white. It’s translucent. But there’s no black hull anywhere!”

One minute later Rich duplicated Buck’s action. It was much easier to swing the periscope while it was rising than after it had reached the top of its ascent. “The same,” said Rich. “Nothing in sight!” It was a disappointment, but Richardson told himself they should not have expected to see the Cushing immediately. Now would be the time for Keith to do more pounding, but they had not been willing to risk calling him on the underwater telephone. Either the intruding submarine or Keith’s would come into view sooner or later. Patience!

After two hours of lugging on the periscope handles, Richardson’s arms were sore. He suspected Buck’s were too. He would have liked to give up his vigil to someone else, Jerry Abbott, for instance. But he could not, would not. Neither would Buck, he knew.

A thought struck him. Not knowing Manta was there, if Keith were to get an unexpected sonar contact he might shoot a Mark Forty at it. Well, this risk would have to be accepted. Keith would not shoot unless sure of his target. He would keep on hoping Manta had survived, would know his friends would return if able, might even divine their stratagem. Because it was what he would have done. Then Rich’s thoughts took another tack. Cushing’s sonar was at least as good, and a great deal more modern, than Manta’s. If Manta could hear the approaching enemy, the Cushing should also — unless, this time, sound conditions right up against the ice were poor.

“I’m having Jerry swing us around to put our bow on the noise,” said Buck’s voice in his ear. “He’s drifting slowly right. Plot calls his speed at four knots, range no more than half a mile.” How could they know that? It must be a sheer guess. It did make sense — maybe because he wanted it to. “Jerry says Schultz gives it half a mile also.” Now, that was good news. Schultz, at least, had something to go on, and to him the sonar was an extension of his senses. Half a mile away, a thousand yards. How far could one see horizontally? Not far. A ship would have to be almost directly overhead for its hull to be outlined against the dull light through the ice. Where the devil was Keith? Why didn’t he start pounding again? And had he hauled up his anchor? If not, the chain would present an additional hazard.

Another hour passed; an hour and a half. Rich’s shoulders were aching with his unaccustomed straining. Following Buck’s instructions, Jerry had been slowly traversing the area where Cushing should be, keeping Manta’s bow whenever possible on the bearing of the enemy to reduce the possibility of detection. The Soviet submarine, also, must be searching. Probably in much the same way, and with no more to go on.

And then Jerry Abbott suddenly jumped on to the periscope platform. “He’s pounding again!” he whispered. “Very close!”

“Bearing?” said Buck.

“No bearing! Schultz says it’s right overhead! He and JT hear it all around the dial!”

“Even if we don’t see Keith, Buck,” said Rich, “that will bring our playmate over here.”

“We’re ready!” said Buck. “But we have to be sure which is which before we shoot!”

“What do you think I’ve been thinking about!”

Both men had kept their eyes to the eyepieces, faces pressed tightly to the face guards of their respective periscopes. And then Buck saw the Cushing. “I’ve got Keith in sight!” he said. “Bearing, mark! Almost straight up! As high as you can elevate!”

“Two-four-eight,” said the quartermaster, who had been hovering nearby, almost totally idle, for hours.

“Put me on him!” Forgetting he was not the skipper of the submarine, Rich had barked the order as if he were. No one seemed to notice, or think anything of it. He felt someone’s hands, the quartermaster’s, helping swing the heavy periscope. It was already at full elevation.

There, in silhouette, surprisingly near and quite distinct in outline, was the unmistakable shape of a U.S. missile submarine! He was looking from beneath, saw a fisheye view, but there could be no mistake. He searched the bow section, saw the thin line of the anchor chain hanging vertically down. Keith was snug against the underside of the ice pack. He might even be under a relatively thin place, for there seemed to be considerable light around him. Now where’s the other one? As he thought the question, he heard Buck ask it, and Abbott’s answer.

“Very close! On zero-two-three, coming in slow!”

“We may see him in a minute, Buck! I hope he’s shallower than we are!”

“He will be, boss! He won’t be able to raise his periscopes any deeper than we can. Probably not as deep. He’ll be coming in to look Keith over!”

“That’s the way I figure it, too. He’ll be checking for the damage his fish did.”

“You know what he’ll do if he thinks it’ll be too big a job to bring her in, don’t you?”

“There’s no doubt what his instructions are.” Rich spoke very quietly. The thought had been growing in his mind for the past several hours. Dead men tell no tales. Enough of life, treasure and national prestige had been risked in this operation already. A negative decision on the part of the foreign submarine skipper would dictate another torpedo, and one for the Manta, too, once her continued existence was inevitably revealed. The silence of the sea would claim yet two more victims, and no one would ever know what had happened under the silent white overlay which had, since before history, sealed the mysteries of the Arctic.

Some portions of the U.S. Navy, aware of Manta’s rescue attempt, would assume that it had gone too far, had been too unorthodox. Ergo, it must have resulted in disaster to both submarines — a comforting thought for the mediocre mind, illogical though it might be. Poorly informed speculation, nonetheless articulate, would suggest dozens of ingenious solutions of the mystery, some of them ranging into the occult. Some would even have both submarines transported through time warps, or black holes in space. Nowhere in the West, probably, except in some secret drawer of the U.S. National Security Council, would there be an accurate appraisal of what had most likely actually occurred.

Rich and Buck had kept their periscopes trained on the bearings given by Schultz, relayed by Jerry Abbott, and they saw the enemy submarine simultaneously.

She was moving very slowly, with three periscopes up, passing between the Manta and the Cushing at a depth roughly halfway between them. She had a very large bulbous bow, a small bridge structure well forward, a conical stern section and a large single propeller, barely turning over. She was larger than the Manta but considerably smaller than the Cushing. As she came into view what instantly struck both Americans was the strange structure wrapped around her bridge and forward portion. It looked almost like an afterthought to her design and added greatly to the outsize bulge of her bows. Massive, heavy, askew, deformed even — and then Rich realized what it was. Great steel beams and thick protective plates, built around the sleek basic form. The askew condition was due to some strong force that had bent and twisted them out of their original shape!

“That’s the damage he took when he hit Keith,” said Rich.

“Right, boss! I was wondering. That’s got to be it!”

“What depth do you figure him at?”

“He’s looking her over through his ’scopes. So he must be at about the same depth we were when we did. Keel depth a hundred forty or so. Thank goodness we’re well below him. It’s dark below. There’s no way he could see us.” Buck spoke rapidly, in a low tone suited to the dim light in the control room and the secrecy of their effort.

“Hear us, either, the way you’ve got this boat of yours silenced.”

“Ship. We’ve got her pretty quiet, all right. Damn good thing!”

“Ship. I was estimating his depth as a hundred thirty feet. We can hear him plain. Keith should, too.”

“Yes, but he’s been tied up with those emergency repairs.”

Rich and Buck had become growingly conscious of the noise level of the enemy submarine. Schultz and Abbott had been hearing it for a long time through the sonar equipment. So had the JT. The enemy skipper had evidently shifted to the silent mode, but he had his reactor running — heavy machinery of some kind, anyway — and there was a strong hum, a whine of high-speed gears, which was what Schultz had heard at first. Now, at close range, the sound of the gears was coming directly through the water into Manta’s hull, where it could be heard by all hands. The eerie feeling associated with the foreign noise, the noise which had done its best to destroy them, affected everyone.

“Keith’s bound to hear him now, but the bastard’s too close to shoot. When he moves off a bit Keith may try a shot. That’s a chance the Russian knows he’s taking, but he’s still got that thing that stops electric torpedo motors, and by now he knows it works. We don’t have it, and we’d better be on the other side of the Cushing when Keith shoots!”

“Listen!” A series of short, staccato whistles came over the Gertrude speaker. “Keith’s sending RI KE! There it is again! RI KE! He wants to know if it’s us!”

“Well, we can’t answer him! Not yet, anyway.”

Rich had been gradually training his periscope to the left, following the enemy submarine. So had Buck. He could feel Buck’s nearness, the smell of his sweat, the occasional foot in the way of his own. The intruder was slowly passing beyond the Cushing. Soon he would turn, probably, for another pass on her other side. “All right, Buck. I think this is our chance. You know what to do!”

The Manta swam slowly, silently, in the opposite direction, turned. Buck was using as much speed as he dared. At the depth, her screws were silent.

“We’re ready forward,” said Deedee Brown. “Depth set, one-two-oh feet. I need a range and bearing!”

“He’s turning toward,” called Schultz in the stillness, shouting from the sonar room. “He’s swinging to the right! He’s broadside to us right now! Shoot him! Shoot him right now!”

“Make haste slowly,” said Buck. “Make sure we don’t miss. Deedee, set in starboard ninety. He’ll go ahead emergency as soon as he hears us, so spread the fish forward to cover a ten-knot speed increase. Schultz”—he raised his voice to be sure the sonarman would hear—“can you separate the Cushing’s echo from the target’s?”

Jerry Abbott jumped back into the sonar shack. Unnecessarily. “Yes, sir!” Schultz, beseeching: “I’ve got them both! He’s the far one!”

“Very well,” said Buck. “Get me a single-ping range and bearing!”

A wail from Schultz. A cry of pain. “He’s fired! Cushing’s fired!”

“He’s not shooting at us!” Buck’s voice was loud in the dead silence. “Single-ping range! Now!”

The ping went out instantaneously, so loud that everyone jumped a second time. “We’re on automatic to Deedee!” assured Abbott.

“Set!” said Brown.

“Fire!” said Buck Williams. The word was an expletive.

Unlike the new torpedoes, which swam out of their tubes silently on their own power, the older ones had to be expelled, shot out by a blast of water. In the forward torpedo room the firing ram slammed back and forth four times, resounding loudly, masochistically, throughout the interior of the ship. Four massive water-hammer jolts shook her hull, ten seconds apart. Four times the compressed air returning the ram to battery snarled and snorted through its control valves and the vents at the end of the stroke. Four old Mark Fourteen torpedoes, each following ten seconds after its predecessor, evenly diverging to the right, roared out of their torpedo tubes. They headed directly for the Cushing. A few hundred yards beyond her was the enemy.

“He’s got his halo up!” Abbott, calling from the sonar shack. No pretense of silence now. There was noise in the water. Lots of noise. Manta had suddenly transformed herself into the noisiest submarine ever in the Arctic Ocean. She would have made a huge spike in every sonar within miles. And four old steam-driven torpedoes, lovingly overhauled but roaring like banshees because that was the way they had been built, were driving madly through the sea, their single-stage turbines blaring at high, clattering pitch. “Cushing fired a Mark Forty! It’s gone into the halo! … And, that’s it! It’s stopped! We heard the motor stop!” Jerry was at last excited. He could be forgiven. So could Schultz, after twelve hours of steady concentration on his sonar, watching an underwater game in which his own life was one of the pawns.

“That shot from Keith was his way of telling the Russian something,” said Rich. “Keith was hoping he wouldn’t have time, with the short range, to get up that halo defense of his.”

“At least, now Keith knows he’s not alone around here!” said Buck.

The enemy submarine’s captain heard the single-ping range being taken, instantly knew what it portended, instantly ordered emergency speed. The whine of her adversary’s madly cavitating propeller filled Manta’s sonar shack. Schultz later claimed he had also heard her rudder slam hard over against the stops. As it did so, the thin fan of torpedoes, now covering a spread of two ship lengths, passed under the Cushing, kept on going…

The intruder heard them coming, heard their roaring grow suddenly much louder when part of it was no longer screened by the helpless bulk of the big missile submarine. Her screw had begun to bite. Maybe she could get clear. She was moving ahead, but slowly, so slowly, and the torpedoes were so close…

The first torpedo, aimed to hit amidships in case the enemy did not move, missed astern by a large margin. The second missed by only a few feet. The fourth and last inevitably missed ahead, for the third one struck home, and exploded.

Whatever their shortcomings of modernity, Mark Fourteen torpedoes packed far more explosive than the newer, far more exotic, antisubmarine torpedoes. Their mission, after all, had been to sink big surface ships. For this, hundreds of pounds of the most powerful explosive were needed. If possible, the bottom of the target should be beaten in, her keel shattered, or her whole side torn off, from turn of the bilge to the main deck. By contrast, only a small hole, merely big enough to let in the sea, is needed to upset a submarine’s delicate submerged buoyancy and send it to the bottom forever.

Assisted by the rigid incompressibility of seawater and the poised pressure ready to squeeze everything together, invade every opening, the detonation of 800 pounds of torpex was cataclysmic. The entire middle of the enemy submarine disintegrated, blown into thousands of pieces, many of them tiny shards of metal with razor-sharp edges, all of them hurled with bulletlike velocity in all directions. Steel bulkheads — or portions of them still remaining — were penetrated by them. No life could exist near them; but all life anywhere near had been obliterated already. And the grenadelike fragments themselves did not travel far, for the waiting sea, in its instantaneous rush resembling a bomb exploding inward, swallowed everything up.

The two halves of the submarine, the propeller still spinning rapidly on the cone-shaped stern, were driven apart by the explosion. Then they upended and sank separately to the bottom of the Fletcher Abyssal Plain, 12,000 feet down.

“Keith,” said Buck softly on the turned-down UQC, “it’s Buck. Do you read?”

“Affirmative, old man! What a relief to hear your voice! I’ll never in my life forget that uproar when your firing ram started cycling over there behind us! I thought I’d faint! And then when we heard your fish coming right at us, well, I kept thinking it had to be you, but I had heart failure anyway, all over again!”

“Sorry we couldn’t warn you in advance. We had to let him keep thinking he’d sunk us. But how’re you doing? The boss wants to know.”

Keith’s exuberant voice dropped. “Not too good, Buck. That last fish of his hit in the double hull section, back aft. That was lucky because we’re not taking water very fast. But we can’t stop the leak. I’ve had to abandon the auxiliary machinery compartment. We’ve got everyone forward and the compartment’s pressurized. For now we can hold her by pumping our variable tanks, and then we’ll hold her with the main ballast tanks. But the leak’s in the overhead, and we can’t stop it with air pressure or anything! I’m afraid we’re done!” Keith had evidently placed his hand over his mouth so that his words would not be overheard.

“What’s the time, Keith? Rich is right here. Do you read me?”

Again the muffled voice, hand still guarding it. “I get you. We can hold out for two or three hours more, I guess. Not much more. I’m putting a down angle on her right now, to get the stern up and reduce sea pressure. But that can’t last. The ballast tank around the compartment is wrecked, too, of course. We’re running the drain pump but the water’s gaining. Finally we’ll be hanging on our forward ballast tanks with an up angle, and when she gets heavy enough she’ll drift away from the ice.”

Richardson and Williams conferred hurriedly, then Rich picked up the mike. “Keith, how many wet suits have you?”

“Four, I think — yes, four.”

“We have six. Three qualified scuba divers. How many do you have?”

“Two. Some others have done it for recreation.”

“All right. Listen. Stand by to transfer your men to the Manta through the escape hatches! Get your scuba experts suited up, and one of the amateurs. We’ll do the same. Our boys will bring our extra suits and tanks over to you. Buck is bringing the Manta up alongside you right now. We’ll rig a line between us, as close as we can snub it. The divers can guide the men across the line and into our hatch, and then cycle the gear back to you. First thing you do is rig one of your deck cleats, and then rig your forward escape chamber so you can use the lower hatch and keep an air bubble inside. Can you handle that?”

“Affirmative! You bet!” Keith had taken his hand away from his mouth. He was letting everyone in the control room hear. “Our heading’s two-eight-three on the grid. We’re steady, not drifting. Been like this since we stopped coasting. That was quite a ride you took us for just before the line broke, by the way. We coasted for nearly twenty minutes! I’ll start briefing our people right away. Be ready for you as soon as you can get alongside!” There was a pause, then Keith said, his voice again muffled, “You sure you can do this okay? That’s taking a big risk with another sub to bring it alongside in midocean submerged like this!”

“We’ll worry about that, Keith! Don’t you bother! The water’s still, here under all that ice, and we’ll come up real slow and easy, until we’re floating against the ice too. It’s worth a few scratches and dents if we touch. Go and get your crew lined up. Four men at a time will take a while, and the scuba men will have to be changed off, too.”

Tired as they were, Buck Williams’ crew showed their professionalism by the way they handled their submarine. Buck positioned her exactly where he wanted her, assisted by periscope angles, Schultz on the sonar, and even an extraordinary solution done on the torpedo date computer — which, however, came too late for use except as a check. Then Tom Clancy and his diving control group caused her to rise slowly and gently, adjusting for gradually reducing salinity of the water as he did so. The Cushing’s underwater television camera, with its lights, illuminated the entire scene and enabled Keith to help by coaching Buck.

When it was finally necessary for Buck to house his periscopes for fear of striking the ice, the two submarines were on nearly opposite headings, bows overlapping by some fifty feet and twenty feet apart. Manta, because of her smaller size and the missile submarine’s down angle, came to rest with her deck about ten feet higher than the Cushing’s, but that was of little moment. As soon as all relative motion ceased, the hatches on the two submarines opened, and a black-rubber-suited figure with silver tanks on his back appeared on the deck of each. Each man had a line attached to his middle, which he clipped to the safety track on desk, and another on the large deck wrench he carried. Someone inside the open hatches of each ship was assisting, and after some difficulty, in both cases an extra man had to swim out to assist with the cleats. In their condition of near weightlessness it was impossible for a single person to place sufficient leverage on the wrench, a situation anticipated by the experienced divers.

Then a heavy line was brought out from the Cushing, fine four-inch white nylon, weightless in water and strong. The eye spliced into one end was looped around the opened cleat in Manta’s forecastle, the standing part snubbed securely and then belayed to the one on Cushing’s rounded bow. Buck had maneuvered the Manta so that the two escape hatches were virtually abeam of each other. Then one of the Manta divers carried a sack of scuba equipment over to the Cushing and handed it into the open hatch.

“Our men say two will be enough to monitor the transfers,” said Keith. “That will give us more suits, and we’ll be able to transfer more men per group.”

“Maybe, but we still have to carry back the empties to you. The extra scubamen can stand by, over here, and we’ll shift them when they get tired. Let’s start with three monitors,” said Richardson. It was a conservative decision he was later to regret deeply.

Slowly, seven men at a time, the transfer began. Seven men, with their tanks, filled the Manta’s escape chamber to capacity, or nearly so. Then it was necessary to close the outer door, quickly release the pressure, and open the lower door into her forward torpedo room. The procedure was speeded by permitting great quantities of water to dump into the room instead of the more tidy, but slower method of draining it through the drain valve, and aboard Manta there were many hands available to strip the newcomers of their scuba equipment, bundle it hurriedly into sacks and prepare it for the return journey to the Cushing.

The water was cold, several degrees below the freezing point of fresh water, but not uncomfortable with the suits on, the Cushing men said. Not, certainly, in comparison with the discomfort in store for them otherwise! The regular scubamen, trained and aware of what to expect, said only that it was “not too bad.” Enthusiasm for the work they were doing, frequent forced rest stops inside a relatively warm rescue chamber while the next transfer was being readied or suits being switched around made it easy, they said. Whenever feasible, they took another turn on the rope stretched between the two ships, to keep it taut and to prove that moderate effort, extended over a reasonable period, could actually move something as big as a submarine.

Rich finally had to order the divers to shift their jobs after an hour in the water. This was the limiting time according to the instruction manual, and he also had them stop pulling on the line between the ships. Manta had rigged in her bow planes, so there was no danger to them from possible contact with Cushing, but there was no need to force the two ships to touch when things were going so well.

But seven men per transfer, opening and shutting hatches, and changing equipment for each group, took time. One hundred twenty-seven men, Cushing’s actual complement counting her skipper, would take eighteen trips, with one man left over. At ten minutes per group, the fastest time achieved, eighteen transfers would take three hours. A nineteenth transfer would be necessary for the one man still aboard the Cushing. Richardson knew well who would be that last man.

Nor would he ever be able to forget the sinking feeling in his chest when one of the resting scubamen reported the Cushing to be higher in the water, her bow now conveniently level with the Manta. This could only mean that she was no longer able to maintain the down angle Keith had programmed to reduce the water pressure, and hence the force of the leak, in the damaged compartment!

Eleven transfers had been made. On the UQC Rich told Keith to hurry, that he would authorize eight men per trip, with only two monitoring topside. Keith’s voice told him what he was afraid to hear: the ship would not last more than half an hour longer.

Then more disaster. Two of the scuba tanks ran out of compressed air. They were recharged immediately, but it took time. Then one of the mouthpieces, too anxiously taken from one of the transferees, dropped and was damaged. Unusable. More time lost.

“Boss,” said Keith over the underwater telephone, “we have a full outfit of regular escape breathing gear, with hoods. If we leave off the tanks, we might be able to reduce the suiting-up time.”

“Try it with half of the men!” The stratagem was successful, the men with the hoods being helped by the others, and the next time all but two used hoods instead of tanks. But now Cushing was floating with a noticeable up-angle, and its gradual increase could be seen by the scubamen topside.

“We can’t hold her, boss! Depth’s increasing! I’m going to let out a group without waiting for the wet suits!” Richardson and Williams, without the underwater TV, could only imagine the scantily clad men, wearing nothing but their regular clothing, a breathing bag with oxygen, and a yellow, Plexiglas-faced hood over their heads, being herded out of the Cushing’s airlock. The scubamen would help them to the now tightly stretched nylon line which was beginning to take some of the negative buoyancy of the missile submarine, and along it into Manta’s airlock. The change in procedure caught the operating crew in Manta’s torpedo room as they were opening the lower escape chamber hatch, getting the previous group out of the chamber. The instructions received only minutes before had been to bundle the suits quickly into sacks, forgetting the tanks, and give them immediately to the waiting scubaman, who would take them back into the airlock. Not till then would the lower hatch be closed. Of course, the upper one could not be opened for the same period. A small confusion, quickly straightened out — but at the expense of another vital minute or two.

The men came in, nine of them, faint with the cold, gasping, but alive.

“Twenty-three men left, Rich! We’re putting ten of them out this time! It’s all our hatch can hold! Stand by to grab them!”

There was no way to communicate with the men topside, except through a hastily generated system of pounding on the hull. The situation had been explained, however, the last time a scubaman appeared in the escape trunk. The number of bangs on the hull indicated the number of men to be found in Cushing’s trunk when the hatch was opened. As the tenth bang resounded, the rope connecting the two submarines was extending downward at an appreciable angle. The action of the line was causing the sinking Cushing to drift slowly under the Manta, or pulling the Manta over her, which was the same thing. The line was stretched to its uttermost, a fact the divers recognized. Hurriedly, they urged the men onward and up the line. The escapees pulled themselves up rapidly along it. Then, near the Cushing, but with a snap audible also inside the Manta, the line broke.

The released nylon snapped backward like the rubber band it had virtually become, but the vicious whiplash was subdued by the water. Even so, the short end of it struck the scubaman on the missile submarine’s rounded foredeck, knocking him off. At that instant the two submarines touched, Manta’s keel scraping across the bullet-shaped bow of the Cushing. Pulling himself back by his safety line, the scubaman found to his horror that the line was jammed in its slot on Cushing’s deck, where the Manta’s scraping passage had crimped the recessed track. He could feel the pressure rapidly increasing in his ears. Frantically, he struggled with the belt around his middle. It seemed jammed too. He let out all his breath, tried to force the heavy web belt over his hips. It would not move. The buckle was suddenly too complicated to operate. Desperately, he tried to shove it over his shoulders, but this, too, was impossible. He had forgotten about the tanks on his back, and now he had lost his mouthpiece. A huge dark shadow, the Manta, and safety, was just above him. He could almost reach it with his hand! He grabbed for his mouthpiece, found it hanging down on its hose, jammed it into his mouth. His lungs were tight. There was pressure on his chest. No air in his lungs. No help for it; he would have to inhale water, swallow it. Then he could get air! But, instead, a violent coughing fit seized him. He lost the mouthpiece again. He could not release himself from the Cushing. With a last convulsive effort, he managed to yank the toggles which inflated his life jacket. The rubber-impregnated fabric closed around his chest, lifted him to the limit of the tether still connecting him to the sinking submarine. But now he could not move. He was like a kite on the end of a string, floating above the slowly descending Cushing. Despairingly, he saw the shadow of the Manta receding. He reached for it with both arms, and knew that he was doomed.

Three of the ten hooded men had got into the Manta’s rescue chamber before the line broke. Two more were nearly there, managed to get in on their own. The remaining scubaman got two more in, but three floated away, lifted up against the ice cover by the air in their hoods. Heedless of his instructions, he released himself from his safety line, swam after them. Grabbing the nearest one, he motioned downward. Seventeen feet below, the submarine’s dark upper works were visible. The man nodded, tried to paddle downward in a vertical, upright position so that the air would remain in the hood. He could not. The scubaman squeezed the hood, forced a bubble of air out, but it immediately expanded again with air from the breathing bag. He tried wrenching the hood off, tried improvising instant buddy-breathing technique with his single mouthpiece, but the man could not, or would not, understand.

Anxiously, the scubaman swam down, tried to enter Manta’s rescue chamber. It was closed. The men inside were transferring into the interior of the sub. He banged on the deck with the hammer tied there for the purpose, heard the answering sledgehammer thump. The door opened after an interminable time, and he entered. Minutes later, he emerged again, this time with an assistant, not dressed, who would remain in the airlock. He carried a length of line with a buoy on the end. Swiftly he knotted the line outside the open outer hatch, released the buoy, followed it up, riding with the line under his arm. He was not far from the men in the hoods, who were floating quietly with their heads against the underside of the ice. He reached the nearest, gripped his arm — and recoiled in horrified dismay. The arm floated downward limply, remained hanging at a small angle with the rest of his body. The man was dead.

So were the other two. But as the scubaman was investigating them, two others appeared, and then four more, floating up swiftly from below the Manta. Rapidly he swam to each, dragged him to the buoyed line, indicated he should haul himself down it. Gratefully, worriedly, they obeyed. The next to last got only partway down, then stopped, his hands and feet desperately gripping the line. The man above was forced to stop also. When the scubaman finally was able to turn his attention away from the others to go back and clear the tangle, he had to pry both bodies free. Two more yellow hoods appeared below him, coming from deep beneath the Manta. Helplessly, fatalistically, he let go of the stiffened body in his arms, let it float away, lunged for the newcomers. He intercepted one before he had reached the ice, was able to get him to the buoyed line, start him down. The other hit the ice, but he was able to get the buoy to him, and he accompanied him partway as he haltingly pulled himself down.

There were five dead bodies floating in yellow, Plexiglas-faced hoods, up against the ice. The scubaman swam to each, felt him carefully, then on to the next, repeating the procedure. Finally he left them and swam down to the submarine. The two men he had just sent down were holding the knotted end of the line near the closed hatch. They were still alive, moving feebly. They could not last long in this temperature. He banged on the hatch, banged again. Finally an answering thump, and a minute later it opened. By this time both men were unconscious. He shoved them inside, yelled to the suited diver waiting for him with head above the waterline in the chamber, “Watch for more guys coming up! I’ll be right back, but these guys may have had it!” Then he pushed him out and shut the door.

He was in time, Manta’s doctor assured him, though barely. But when he got back outside there was no one in sight except the scubaman who had taken his place, and the five hooded bodies above, against the ice. In vain they searched for the missing diver who had been on the Cushing’s deck. He was an experienced, qualified scubaman. He would not have panicked, would have found means to free himself from the sinking missile submarine’s deck. But he was nowhere to be seen. Ten minutes, fifteen, they waited. No more yellow hoods came up from the depths below. No welcome dark-suited comrade appeared. The five bodies overhead stood watch, dangling upright against the ice, their hoods slightly flattened against it, their bodies hanging loosely, limply, arms slightly away from their torsos. They had so nearly made it! Their heads were on the same level as the top of the Manta’s sail. One could so easily swim the few yards up to them, grab their feet, and pull them down…

Disconsolately, the two scubamen reentered the escape trunk, closed the door, and made ready to report that there was no further action topside.

“Rich,” said Keith, speaking over the UQC in a quiet, yet tense voice, “we got everybody out but four. Jim Hanson and Curt Taylor are with me still, and chiefs Hollister and Mirklebaum. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ride her on down, boss. I hope all the others made it!”

“Five, Keith. You didn’t count yourself!”

“That’s right, five. Did you get all the rest?”

“I’m sure we did, Keith. We’re still taking a muster with your list. Howie Trumbull is in charge. And I have your ship’s log and your unfinished report. You can rest easy. All your men are okay!” Richardson was far from sure of the truth of this, for although he could not see, he had been receiving frequent reports and had an excellent idea of the struggle taking place outside the hull, only a few feet from where he stood in Manta’s control room. “Is there anything at all you can do, Keith?” he could not refrain from asking. “Is all your variable water out? Safety and negative and everything? How about your anchor and chain? Could you try a big bubble in main ballast? Couldn’t that boost you up for one final escape? One more time would do it.”

“Come on, old man, we’ve done all that. We all tried to pile in the hatch the last time, but the ship upended, and everybody fell down against the bulkhead. They were trying to make it back up, but there wasn’t time, so I had to slam the hatch on the two that were in already. Now we’re at two hundred feet, and I’m back in the control room sitting on the bulkhead to reach the UQC. It’s down between my feet. We can hear the air bubbling out of number-one main ballast through the flooding holes. We’re making our last dive, and it will be a deep one.”

Richardson felt something salty in his face. More than one submariner in a sinking submarine had closed the hatch that might have led to escape over his own head, thus closing the trap upon himself as well as the shipmates trapped with him. This was precisely what Keith had done, with life prolonged at his option, with two men, destined for survival, already in the escape chamber and waiting. Rich knew without its being said that Keith had been handling the lower hatch himself, had had it yawning open above; or perhaps, since Cushing had upended, was now vertical in the water, it had been by that time alongside of him — and had consciously chosen not to enter it. In fact, since he had personally shut the hatch himself, he must actually have entered the escape chamber, taken hold of the hatch, and pulled it shut behind him as he backed out! Captain of the ship, he could not leave so long as there were men for whom he was responsible still aboard. Faced with his life’s climactic decision, and only seconds to make it, he had chosen instantly. Or, possibly, he had firmly made up his mind before.

What to do? What to say? What to say to one’s own deep, personal friend, now about to be stilled forever? Rich felt his eyes stinging. There were tears there. His nose hurt. There was a knot at its base, at the top of his mouth. He gripped the mike to control himself, strained with both hands to squeeze it away, finally said in a voice he could not recognize, “We understand what you’re saying, Keith, old friend. Buck’s here too. All that we’ve heard will be reported fully, and believe me, there’s going to be some truth told when we get back. We’re sorry, Keith. Believe me, we’re so terribly sorry. What can we do for you and the fellows with you? Tell me. Anything. It’s a promise!” Something like a vise was closing down Richardson’s throat.

“Tell our wives that we love them. No, Stew Mirklebaum says he’s divorced. The rest of us. Mirklebaum says to find Sarah Schnee — Schneehaulder”—Keith spelled the name—“one of the fellows you’ve picked up will know who she is. Tell her he’s thinking of her. Jim Hanson wants you to tell Mary he loves her and little Jimmy. Larry Hollister sends love to Eleanor and says not to forget they’ll meet by the first bloom of the lilac tree. Curt says Suzanne knows he’s always hers. And tell Peggy and Ruthie for me”—here, Keith’s steady voice broke for a moment—“tell them I love them, and would like to have been able to get Peggy that little garden in the picket-fenced yard that I always promised her. Someday we’d have had it, too. Tell her the Navy didn’t let me down. It did all it could, and so did you and Buck. There’s nothing more anyone could do than you did for us. Tell her we’re not suffering, and aren’t going to.”

The stricture in Richardson’s throat threathened to suffocate him. “I’ve got it all, Keith. I promise, and so does Buck,” he choked out. “And there’ll be a full report on how you carried out the best and finest traditions of the United States Navy, and how you told that foreign submarine, Soviet or whoever he was, by that last torpedo of yours, that you weren’t about to give in to him or anyone. And we’ll also tell how you stayed with your ship to the very last, giving your own life to save your crew and making sure they escaped, even though you couldn’t.”

“I’m not the last, Rich. There’s Jim and Curt and Larry and Stew, and we’re all together now. Passing three hundred feet.”

Silently, Buck handed Rich a piece of paper. Richardson looked at it, frowned thoughtfully, did not speak for a full fifteen seconds.

“Rich, are you still on the line?”

“Rich, here. Yes, Keith. We’ve just got a report on your muster. For a minute I thought of lying to you, but I can’t. All of your crew is accounted for except five. They didn’t make it. They were in the last two groups, and didn’t have the wet suits. Jim Baker, Howard McCool, Willson Everett, Abe Lincoln Smith and John Varillo. I’m sorry, Keith. They got up all right, but they died in the water before we could get them in the chamber. Also we lost one of our divers when the line carried away.”

“I’m dreadfully sorry, Rich, and Buck too. I meant to tell you, I saw him carried over the side through the TV when the line parted, but I thought he’d have no strain getting back on deck with his safety line — what was his name?”

“Cliff Martini.”

“I’m sorry, Buck. Tell his family for me. We’re going down faster, now. Just passed four hundred feet. About the five of our men who died, they were all good men. John was a fine young officer and would have been a credit— I understand he was engaged to be married to a girl named Ellen Covina. She lives in New York. Look her up for him, will you? And also the next of kin for the other four— I don’t know all the details — oh, we know. McCool’s family is in Groton. So’s Abe Smith’s. Everett lived in Waterford. Baker was born and brought up in Norwich, Larry says. Passed five hundred while I was talking.”

“Okay, Keith. We’ve got it all. Wilco on all of it, old friend.”

“We’re nearing six hundred. Mark, six hundred. I’ll try to keep giving you the depths. That will be something the designers might like to know.” Keith’s voice was growing fainter, and with the last speech he must have raised the output gain control. The time of transmission of his voice from the sinking submarine was lengthening.

Rich raised his own gain to full. What could he say to help Keith over these horrible last few minutes? What could anyone do? “Keith, remember our second cruise on the Eel? Remember how you rescued me from that fake sampan, and that sadistic character, Moonface? I’ll never forget how you burst out of the water with our old ship and impaled that wooden tub on her bow buoyancy tank. That was beautiful!”

“Thanks, Skipper!” Keith’s voice took longer to reach him. Perhaps he had not answered immediately. “I’ve often thought of it, too, and wondered how you managed to keep from finishing Moonface all by yourself when we got the upper hand.”

“I’ve wondered myself. It was partly because of Bungo Pete, I guess.” (There, the name was out again. Rich sensed Buck looking strangely at him.)

“Seven hundred! Forget Bungo, Rich! You’ve paid for that too many times! I’d have done it, too, and I’d not have worried about it after, either. What about this guy you and Buck sank today? He probably had a wife and kids at home, and so did Bungo, most likely — and so did I. Eight hundred!”

“I understand what you’re trying to say, Keith, and I’ll try.”

It took appreciable time for Keith’s voice to make the return trip. “You’ve got to promise me, Rich. Don’t let me down now. Don’t let any of that stuff throw you. Put it behind you. No matter who comes to you with it! No matter who! I mean it, Rich. Haven’t been able to think of the words to say, got to try to get it in.” Keith’s voice had risen in pitch, and was louder. “Buck knows what I’m talking about. Tell Peggy I love her, and for her to take the insurance and get that house and garden, far away from New London. But don’t you talk to her, Rich. Not unless there’s someone with you. Ask Buck! This is going to throw her, and sometimes she’s — Passing a thousand feet. Missed the nine-hundred-foot mark. Sometimes she says things she doesn’t really mean, or doesn’t really know about but makes you think she does. Don’t let her upset you, Rich. She’s my wife, and you’re my best friend, and I love you both, and it tears me to think of it. Be sure Buck or Laura is with you! That’s all I can think of to say. The others are over in the corner talking by themselves. They said they don’t need to talk to anyone. Eleven hundred. Going fast, now. I can hear the internal bulkheads squeezing. She’ll last a bit longer, but not much. Twelve hundred. I can smell chlorine. The battery’s spilled for sure. Took a long time, though. It’s a good design. Thirteen. We’re off the deep gauge. Give it to you in sea pressure. Where’s a sea pressure gauge? I’m disoriented. Here’s one. I can barely read it from where I’m sitting to get to this mike. It should be built with a long cord, instead of fixed to the bulkhead, which is now the floor — the gauge is showing seven hundred pounds. That’s more than fourteen hundred feet. Now it’s nearly eight hundred. I’ll hold the mike button down with my foot and maybe I can stand up partway to read it — it’s eight fifty. I’m shouting. Can you hear me? Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter, but I’ll keep trying…”

Keith’s voice was changed with the distance and with his attempt to shout from a position closer to the sea pressure gauge. But it was still intelligible, still Keith. Rich felt Buck’s arm around his shoulders, put his own arm around Buck’s neck. Subconsciously, both of them felt the presence of other men, other members of Manta’s crew, many members of the Cushing’s crew. Rich felt Buck’s quiet, shaking grief, knew his own was communicating itself to Buck. There were soft noises of anguish from others in the control room, but otherwise silence, except for many men, breathing as quietly as they could. Never had the silence been so absolute. Never had a packed control room, packed with the crews of two submarines, been so still. Even the breathing was stifled, muted, kept shallow so as not to bother anyone. In the distance, a far corner, someone let out a tiny wail, “Oh, God—!” It might have been a prayer. It was savagely shut off. A vicious elbow in the ribs, or a firm hand over the mouth.

Keith had said not to answer, but Rich had to say something in the momentary silence of the UQC. He cleared his throat, swallowing the lump that was in it. “Keith,” he said. He had to force his voice to work. By sheer will he overrode the clutch in it. “Most of your crew is here with me. They’re all blessing the best submarine skipper they ever had, and the best friend they ever had. Their hearts and minds are with you at this time. Those who traveled in deep waters with you are with you still.” He released the button, heard the strange traveling sound of the carrier beam as the message went out, attenuating, in all directions. But also down.

“… hundred pounds. That’s amazing, Rich! Eleven hundred! Who could have thought — twelve hundred! Tell Peggy I love her! Tell Ruthie the last thing her dad did was to think of her. Thirteen hundred! Something’s given way down aft! I think she’s going! Good-bye! Thanks for all! Fourteen …”

A smashing roar came over the UQC speaker — Keith had been holding the button down — and then it was silent. But everyone in the Manta heard the awful, shattering, crushing implosion when the fantastic sea pressure, at whatever depth Cushing had reached, burst the stout, unyielding, high-tensile steel into smithereens. Embrittled under pressure, yet standing rigid, firm against millions of tons of overpressure, when finally it gave way the thick, armor-quality steel split into thousands of pieces, ranging in size from tiny fragments to tremendous solid plates weighing tons, all of them driven inward with velocity beyond comprehension. And the sea followed instantly, with a voice like thunder, compressing the air to one one-hundredth of its previous volume and raising its temperature high into incandescence.

Keith, Jim, Curt, Larry and Stewart did not suffer, nor did they even feel pain. Awareness ceased instantaneously, when their bodies ceased to exist.

Great sections of steel curved in various shapes to fit the exigencies of Cushing’s designers, now broken in every conceivable way but still curved, fluttered down through the black water like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. When they came to rest they covered a wide expanse on the bottom of the Fletcher Abyssal Plain. Under them, deeply buried in the ancient ooze of the bottom, were the resting places, for all time, of the two halves of the Soviet nuclear submarine Novosibirsky Komsomol, and the Cushing’s reactor, which sank swiftly in one piece because of the immense pressure it had been built to contain.