Collapse Depth

Just a few feet away from him Jabo watched and worried. He wanted to help but his left hand was completely useless. The submersible pump would make a small difference in the overall rate of flooding. Their great depth worked against them in two ways: the massive sea pressure made the rate of flooding huge. And it slowed the rate at which they could pump water overboard. The water was well above the deck plates now, sloshing at their ankles, and Jabo realized that the ocean wasn’t trying to infiltrate their little world, like a parasitic invader. Instead, they were the invaders, the foreign body, and now the ocean was trying to consume them, the way a white blood cell surrounds and kills a bacterium. The second pump would help some, a decrease in depth would help a lot, and slowing the rate of flooding would help even more.

To that end, an array of damage control kits had been brought to the scene. Some consisted of wooden plugs designed to be hammered into place, designed for punctured pipes. Once in the hole, the wood would swell and seal it, and hammering a wooden plug into a gushing hole was a skill every submariner mastered.

Unfortunately, the flooding they faced wasn’t a round hole that could so easily be sealed. As far as Jabo could tell, the torpedo tube breech door had been deformed to form a hole the shape of a thin crescent. They’d tried to hammer wooden plugs into it, but it did little good.

The XO appeared at his arm. “What about the outer doors?” He had to shout.

“They’re fucked up!” he said. The XO nodded. He couldn’t hear him, the sound was too loud. They moved to the back of the space, Jabo still holding a conical DC plug in his hand.

“I’m assuming it’s fucked up,” said Jabo. “It must be or water wouldn’t get in. Whatever we hit fucked it up.”

The XO looked at the panel, and Jabo followed his eyes.

“I know — it indicates that all the outer doors are shut. The indicators must be fucked up too.”

“How is it doing in there, at the breech?”

Jabo waved his arms in frustration. “I’m getting nowhere with these plugs.” He threw the plug down. It bobbed on the surface of the water.

The XO stared at it, lost in thought for the moment. “Maybe the outer door is just fouled,” he said. “Jammed it in the dirt or something. Can we cycle it?”

Jabo shook his head. “The interlocks won’t let us because the breech door doesn’t indicate shut.”

“Hand pump it,” said the XO. “If it’s fouled we should exercise it, all the way open, all the way shut, maybe clear what ever is in there. Fuck the interlocks.”

“But what if…what if it makes the flooding worse? Opening that outer door all the way…”

“If that makes any difference, we’ll know as soon as we start cracking it open. And frankly, Jabo…” he looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot. He smirked at the DC plug that was bobbing in the water. “Frankly Jabo, I’m about fucking out of ideas.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” said Jabo. He looked over at Hallorann and yelled. “You’re an A-Ganger, right?”

Hallorann looked up from the second submersible pump which he’d just completed hooking up. He pushed the START button and raised his fist in exhausted satisfaction as it started. “Striker, sir. I’m an A Gang striker.”

“Close enough,” said the XO. “Get lined up to hand pump this door outer door. Pump it all the way open, then all the way shut. Do it as fast as you can.”

“Yes sir,” said Hallorann. He was already moving towards the rear of the torpedo room, where the hand pump equipment was staged.

“I’m going to go to control and brief the captain,” said the XO, and he too started moving aft. Jabo moved forward, back to the gushing water.

As they moved, a warm, acrid smell suddenly cut through the damp coldness of the sea. Jabo stopped and the XO froze half way up the ladder. Then, from an unseen corner of machinery one, there was a electric blue flash. The XO dropped to the deck, grabbed the 4MC, and called away the fire.

• • •

The XO got out F-10, the nearest fire hose. Once he had it out of the rack, he pulled an EAB from a locker under the diesel control panel and tightened the straps around his head. Smoke was already thick in the compartment. He looked up the ladder; no one was coming down yet and he couldn’t operate the hose by himself. Everyone was fighting something, the crew was at its limits.

He turned around, Jabo was at the door to the Machinery One, putting on his own EAB. The dead body of the navigator swung between them. Christ, this is getting awful, he thought. He waved Jabo over. “Get on the front of that hose!” he said, pointing.

Jabo trotted over and picked up the hose in a funny way, stuck the nozzle in his left armpit and put his right hand on the bail. He turned around and nodded at the XO who had his hand on the wheel ready to pressurize the hose. The XO unplugged his EAB and walked over.

“What the fuck are you doing Jabo?”

Jabo held up his hand. The bandages were soggy and had come undone, his mangled fingers dangling.

“Jesus Christ, that’s disgusting.”