Attack of the Seawolf

As he reached the sail the ship was already submerging, the deck sinking into the sea. Morris hurried toward the forward deck, the water beginning to rise on the cylindrical hull until only a few feet of width remained. He glanced aft long enough to see that the after-deck had vanished into the water, which left only the forward deck exposed. He found the first of three forward vents and smashed the first, running from the spray, then hitting the second, the spray from it knocking him to the deck. He somehow regained his footing, smashed the third and let go of the hammer.

Morris now began the walk aft along the sail to climb back up, but by this time the ship had settled into the water so that only the sail remained above the waves. The water flow over the hull was only five knots but as the hull sank into the flow the water washed Morris off the deck.

He shouted up at Vaughn as the sail went by.

“Slow down. I’ve got to hand-over-hand the lanyard to get back to the sail.”

“I can’t! If I slow down we’ll sink. Our speed over the bow planes is all that’s keeping us up!”

Morris didn’t care what the reasons were. He pulled in on the lanyard, seeing the sail slip away from him, continuing to grow smaller as the ship drove on, still sinking.

The lanyard began to pay out. Morris spun in the water as the lanyard untangled itself from his shoulder, where he had coiled it as he had walked forward.

He decided to wait until the lanyard unwound so he could pull himself up on it. Even though it would be a two-hundred-foot trip to the sail, at five knots the hand-over-hand was not much … he had done this hooked onto a ship plowing through the water at twenty knots with a five-hundred-foot line testing a counterterrorist insertion method.

But when Morris saw the rudder approaching, only the top of the vertical surface showing, his confidence vanished. Being this close to the rudder meant that the screw was just a few feet astern of it, and the screw vortex from ascimitar-bladed submarine screw would suck him in immediately and grind him into shark bait. He grabbed his lanyard and pulled with all his strength, trying to avoid the screw. Hand-overhand he climbed, taking in the lanyard, thinking he was still going to make it — when the lanyard behind him caught in the screw and began pulling him toward it.

Morris saw the rudder coming up on him, the tail of the ship fast approaching as the screw pulled his lanyard in like a fishing reel. He knew he couldn’t fight against the horsepower of the screw. When the rudder went by he was dragged underwater. Now only a few feet from the screw, he frantically tried to detach his lanyard, searching his harness for the release hook.

He couldn’t find the lanyard release, he was about to go into the screw…

CHAPTER 25 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 1945 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

HANGU P.L.A NAVAL AIR FORCE STATION

0345 BEIJING TIME

Leader Tien Tse-Min spoke into a microphone as he looked out the tower window at the Nimrod antisubmarine patrol plane idling on the runway.

“You have orders to release weapons and sink the submarines. Any submarine contact you find will be a hostile target. Sink it. There are two subs, one crippled, possibly on the surface, the second submerged.”

The patrol craft’s engines roared from the end of the runway as the oddly shaped plane prepared to takeoff, its bulbous bow and stinger-tail making it appear ungainly.

“Understood, Leader Tien. We’ll search until we run out of fuel or weapons or both.”

The Nimrod released its brakes and accelerated, finally lifting off the runway and turning to the south, to search and destroy the enemy submarines.

USS TAMPA

“STOP THE SHAFT! STOP AND LOCK THE SHAFT!” the walkie-talkie blared in the maneuvering room. The throttle man at the steam-plant control panel slammed the ahead turbine throttle shut, spinning the wheel two turns until the poppet valves of the throttles seated on the casings of the huge main engines. He looked up at the panel and saw the steam box pressure falling to vacuum, then whipped open the smaller chrome wheel set inside the larger wheel.

The small wheel was the throttle valve for the astern turbines. By applying steam to the astern turbines there was a chance that they could counteract the momentum of the heavy drive train and bring the shaft to a stop. But the problem was control — the astern turbines had a tendency to be either shut tight or wide open. Not enough steam and the shaft would continue rotating — too much steam and the screw would begin to spin rapidly in the astern direction. The other problem with sticky throttle valves was that when they slammed open they could pull so much steam from the boilers that the reactor could overpower and shut down the entire system on a power-to-flow scram.

Then the shaft would certainly continue spinning in the ahead direction with no brake to stop it.