Collapse Depth

Jabo was at the scene for another thirty minutes, overhauling the fire and setting the reflash watch, the whole time sucking air in his EAB as the smoke remained thick and the air unbreathable throughout missile compartment. Finally he was relieved by Lieutenant (j.g) Retzner, who Jabo knew, after his one patrol, was qualified enough to supervise the recovery efforts, even without dolphins on his chest. Once he got through the bulkhead to the forward compartment he was allowed to remove his tightly-fitting EAB, to his profound relief. In Crew’s Mess he sat for a moment and drank two glasses of water, parched and exhausted from the fire. He noticed the tips of his shoelaces had burned down to the knots.

MS1 Straub approached him, wiping flour from his hands. He’d already begun to prepare dinner. “Lieutenant? You’re wanted in the wardroom.”

• • •

The captain, the XO, and Lieutenant Maple, the Damage Control Assistant, all sat around the table. A large pitcher of ice water sat between them, and they let Jabo drink another glass before they began. The smell of smoke clung heavily to his clothes, and he wondered again if they were going to be without an operational laundry for the next two weeks. The wardroom’s bearing repeater showed they were slow at 160 feet, executing a wide turn to the left. Clearing baffles, he knew, preparing to go to periscope depth so they could ventilate the smoke from the ship.

“Good job at the scene, Danny,” said the XO. “I’m glad you were there.”

“Thank you sir.”

“What do we think happened?” asked the captain.

Lieutenant Maple spoke up. “It sounds like a dryer was overloaded with cleaning rags, and then secured without cooling. It got overheated as it sat there. In addition, there was a book inside the dryer. That’s probably what caught fire first.”

“A book? In the fucking dryer?”

“Yes sir. We’ll find out whose book during the investigation.”

“I already know,” said Jabo with a sigh. All eyes turned to him. “It’s Howard’s. I saw him reading it on my pre-watch tour. In the laundry.”

“And the fucking genius decided to stow it in a clothes dryer,” said the XO. “Wonderful. You saw this on your pre-watch tour?”

“That’s right.”

“Well then, this brings us to our second problem. I guess you didn’t notice that Mike Six was pressurized in its rack.”

Jabo shook his head. “I thought someone turned it on too early during the firefighting, in the heat of the moment.”

Maple shook his head. “We talked to everyone at the scene. They said it was pressurized in the rack when they got there, before the fire even started.”

“And I don’t suppose you remember looking at the hose during your tour and seeing otherwise?”

Jabo shook his head. Fuck, he thought, he’d been standing right there. “No, I didn’t look at it. I like to think I would have noticed if it was pressurized like that, but I can’t swear to it. I talked to Howard for a few minutes and moved on.”

“Alright then,” said the Captain, putting his fists on the table. “Training opportunities for all, officers and crew.” The captain’s X1J phone, a direct line to the conn, buzzed beneath the table. He spoke briefly to the OOD and hung up. “Looks like we’re ready to go to periscope depth and get the smoke off the boat.” He left the wardroom with Maple in tow.

When the door shut behind him, the XO smiled. “You fucked up Danny. You should have seen that hose.”

“I know sir. I fucked up. It won’t happen again.”

“And Howard fucked up too.”

“Yes sir, it looks that way.”

“I’d like to take that fucker to mast right now, but the fact is, we need him on the watchbill. We’d be port and starboard in machinery two without him. So we’ll wait, until either we pull in and get a new A Ganger, or until someone else qualifies machinery two. You’re going to handle the investigation. Do it during all of your spare time.”

“Yes sir.”

“No point in telling Howard about this — I don’t want him to know helping somebody qualify will get him to mast faster.”

“Good idea sir.”

The XO leaned back in his chair, sighed, and cracked his knuckles over his head. “You think he pressurized that hose, too?”

Jabo was a little shocked by the question. He’d assumed that someone had thrown open the valve in the excitement of arriving at the scene, a stupid, but somewhat understandable, mistake. But if the hose had been pressurized in the rack before — the XO was asking if Howard had done something much more serious than fuck up a load of laundry. “I don’t know…you think he’d fuck around like that?”

“Just asking the question.”

“Sir, Howard may be a fuck up. But he’s no saboteur.”

“Well let’s hope that this was just a pure act of stupidity then. And God help the sailor who did it when I find out who he is. Get up there to control and see if you can help, Hein has been on the conn forever. Relieve him at periscope depth”

“Relieve Hein at periscope depth, aye sir.”

• • •

When Jabo walked out of the wardroom, Howard stepped out from behind the ladder to control, looking worried.

“Howard. We were just talking about you.”