Chapter 21
Four decks below the bridge, Paul and Gamay had ended up in darkness.
They’d been working in the sonar room when the penetrators hit the ship.
This close to the waterline, they’d felt the impact of the first iron fish like the thud of a sledgehammer against the wall.
The second and third strikes were more distant, but they still reverberated through the lower decks in a manner that would not be detected above.
Gamay was thankful for the lack of a follow-on explosion complete with fire, shrapnel, and flying debris. But the sense of calm vanished when the alarms went off and the power went out.
First, the lights went off in a strange pattern of succession.
Mains in the overhead, followed by wall lights and then a few desk lamps.
The computer screens went dark a few seconds later, along with the LEDs that had been blinking and glowing all around them.
The final bastion of electricity resided in the computer towers, but they held only a few seconds of charge and once their constantly whirring fans wound down, the compartment ended up in darkness and relative silence.
Gamay spoke in Paul’s general direction. “Tell me you have a flashlight in that desk of yours.”
“Um…”
Before Paul could produce one, the battery-powered emergency light mounted high in one corner of the room blinked to life.
Across from her, Paul had been looking for a flashlight. He stopped. “It’s not exactly mood lighting,” he said, “but it’s better than nothing.”
Gamay laughed at the joke, but the laugh was hollow. The sonar room was right on the waterline, with very little freeboard between it and the sea. “Something tells me we’d better get out of here.”
They made their way to the compartment door, pushing it open and realizing instantly that the ship was already leaning. Stepping into the passageway brought on the additional sense that the ship was settling at the stern. It made sense, as two of the three impacts had occurred behind them.
“We’d better go forward,” Paul said.
They turned toward the bow, looking for the stairwell or ladder, but ran into a watertight bulkhead.
Turning back, they moved past the sonar room and through an open hatch to compartment four, which was almost amidships.
They closed the hatch behind them and dogged it down tight.
Here they found power, lighting, and the sound of air hissing.
As the water flooded inward and the ship’s weight pushed deeper into the sea, the air was being forced out through tiny cracks and other gaps in the fittings.
Continuing aft, they picked up the sound of rushing water.
“Do you hear that?” Gamay asked.
“Unfortunately,” Paul said.
They were obviously walking toward the low end of the ship. “Should we turn around?”
He shook his head. “The next ladder up is between four and five. With the forward bulkhead sealed, it’s the nearest way off this deck.”
They soon reached the ladder well, finding a crew member whom Gamay recognized as Gigi Cabrera standing beside it on one foot. Her raised foot was turned at an odd angle and visibly swollen.
“Are you okay?” Gamay asked.
“I think it’s broken,” Gigi said of her ankle.
“We can help you climb,” Gamay offered, pointing up the ladder.
“The hatch is sealed up above us,” Gigi told her. “Right now, it’s acting like a pressure cap. It can’t be opened, or the flooding will get worse.”
She pointed downward and then moved out of the way.
Gamay leaned forward to look down the ladder well. Water was surging along the deck below them like it was blasting from a fire hydrant.
“Anyone else down there?” Gamay asked.
“No,” Gigi said. “I was the only one. I came up as soon as the water started to come in. But if we don’t get that door closed, this section will flood as well.”
Gamay looked up. The hatch above would let them escape this deck, but with the water coming in and the air being forced out, this part of the ship would flood to the top, all but dooming the vessel.
She looked at Paul, who nodded. They had little choice. “How can we help?”
Gigi took a breath. “We have to go down into the water and reboot the door or shut it manually.”
“I’ll go,” Paul said.
“This is no time for heroics,” Gamay replied.
“Which one of us does the polar bear plunge every year?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” she replied.
“The water is freezing,” he said. “I’m larger and heavier. My body will retain heat better and I’ll be better able to keep my footing against the current.”
Not only was Paul a longtime participant in the insane winter ritual of plunging into the sea when it was at its coldest, he regularly swam in the Cape Cod waters during the fall and spring, when the water temps were in the fifties.
That was still twenty degrees warmer than what they’d find down below, but he was certainly more accustomed to it.
“Not a fan of you being so logical,” she said. “But I admit that you’re right.”
Paul could hardly believe he’d actually won an argument with Gamay. Thinking about the rushing frigid water he would face down below he wondered if he could really call it winning.
He stepped onto the ladder and began to descend. Gamay followed a few rungs above him.
Gigi lay flat on the deck so she could keep an eye on them and call out instructions. “The door is just aft of the ladder,” she told them. “Ten paces or so.”
Paul climbed down another couple of rungs. The rushing water hit his legs. Frigid did not do it justice.
Gritting his teeth, he ducked his head to look beneath the bundle of pipes and electrical conduits that ran along the ceiling of the corridor.
The watertight door appeared to be closed. He saw no gap between its sides and the bulkhead. Studying the churning water, he noticed it was erupting upward from underneath. “I think the bottom half of the door is off the track.”
“It’s a vertical door,” Gigi said. “It comes down from above. There must be something blocking it.”
“I’ll check,” Paul said. He stepped down to the deck, grunting audibly as the water surged up to mid-thigh. The shock hit instantly, as if spears made of ice were plunging into his legs. He exhaled and let out a loud cry to help shake it off.
The secret of a late fall swim, or even the polar bear plunge, he remembered, was walking around on the beach in nothing but your swim trunks until the chilly air had cooled your skin to the point that the water didn’t feel so bad. This was not that.
“Okay, okay,” he called out, the painful sensation retreating. “I’m good. Frozen, but good.”
“I hear ice baths reduce inflammation,” Gamay replied.
“Then I’m going to be critically low on inflammation,” Paul said. With his mind clear and a decided lack of feeling in his feet, he waded carefully to the door.
“Can you see anything?” Gamay shouted.
The water was too frothy and dark, the corridor too poorly lit. Paul couldn’t see through it. Steeling himself for the next ice bath, he dropped down on one knee, pushed himself forward into the churning water, and stretched his long arm out while turning his head away.
His hand found the door. He slid it downward and discovered the edge.
Moving his rapidly numbing fingers along the bottom of the door, he soon hit something.
With no real sensation in his fingers, he couldn’t tell what it was, but the shape was jagged and uneven.
Like a small tree. He guessed it was a piece of the hull, or part of an inner support structure torn off by the penetrator.
He couldn’t identify it with any confidence, nor could he tell if it remained attached to anything on the far side.
He found a place to grip the object and pulled hard. It didn’t move. He tried pushing it the other way, but without any success.
Letting go, he pulled back from the door and stood.
“Paul, your hand,” Gamay shouted.
He looked down. Blood was streaming from a gash in his palm. The numbness was so instant and complete, he would never have suspected. With his other hand, he removed a flattened piece of metal as sharp as a razor blade.
“There’s a hunk of bent metal jammed in there,” Paul said, tossing the offending shard into the water behind him. “I can’t work it free without raising the door. Where are the controls?”
“Right side of the door,” Gigi told him. “Push the yellow button to reset and hold for three seconds. Then you’ll be able to use the red lever to raise or lower the door.”
Grabbing a notch on the bulkhead to provide stability against the rushing water, Paul pulled himself toward the controls. The yellow reset button was the size of a baseball; it couldn’t be missed. He pressed and held it. After three long seconds the lights on the panel began blinking.
He grabbed the sturdy red control lever and pushed it upward.
The door rose a few inches. The water flow surged through the gap with increased fury and force.
He gave it another second and then moved the lever to the middle, stopping the door in its tracks.
Dropping down into the swirling liquid, he found the intruding length of steel and shoved at it again.
It rocked backward several inches, but as soon as he released it the obstruction returned to its original position.
“I can’t move it,” he shouted, standing once again and holding on to the bulkhead.
“I’ll come down,” Gamay insisted.
“No,” Paul said. “We need more than another set of hands. Anything down here I could use to give it a shove?” They were smack-dab in the middle of the engineering space. There had to be tools available. He looked up at the injured crewperson. She would know what might be handy.
“You could use the lifter,” she replied, shouting down to him. “It’s a small forklift we use to carry around heavy equipment. It’s in the forward part of the compartment.”
Paul left the door and waded back into the engineering compartment.
It was easy moving this way, the flow of the water pushed him along.
He found the lifter parked beside a wall.
It was smaller than Paul had expected, narrow and long like an airline drink cart, but like all forklifts it was heavily weighted.
It had four large rubber-clad wheels, a power pack, and a set of hydraulic struts that allowed it to raise and lower heavy items. Paul climbed onto the tiny platform at the back, started it up, and brought it into the corridor.
On its own, the lifter weighed perhaps three hundred pounds, but with Paul on board the weight was over five hundred. Enough to keep it firmly planted on the deck even as he drove it into the onrushing water.
Pushing through the deluge he brought it up against the door, lowered the lifting forks, and brought them together into a single ram. Pushing the controls forward once more he bumped into the object that was blocking the door, backed up, and then went forward at full power.
The motor whined, the wheels moved an inch or two and then spun against the deck. Paul pulled back farther and came at it once again, this time from an angle. The forks hit the blockage, shoved it sideways and out of the way.
The lifter backed against the half-closed door.
The impact jarred Paul’s numb hands off the controls.
He fell forward, one foot slipping off the platform.
The surging water grabbed his leg and dragged him back, pulling him off his perch.
Unprepared for the sudden force of the current, Paul crashed face-first into the surging water and was swept down the corridor like a man caught in a raging river.
Gamay shouted Paul’s name as he vanished into the rushing water. But it was no use. She scurried down the ladder into the flood and was almost washed away herself.
“Close the door,” Gigi shouted from above.
She was right, Gamay thought. Wading forward against the current she realized how dangerous the rushing water was, and how right Paul had been to go instead of her.
Shorter and lighter, she could barely keep her feet.
She grabbed the wall and used an insulated conduit to help pull herself forward.
She slid her feet instead of lifting them, keeping both boots in contact with the deck.
The closer she got to the door the more powerful the current.
It knocked her legs out from under her, but she held on to the conduit like a lifeline.
She hauled herself through the water, then up and out of it, wedging her feet onto a small shelf in the bulkhead.
From here she could just reach the door.
She lunged for the yellow button. Hitting it and holding it down. Three agonizing seconds went by before the activation lights began blinking.
Pulling the red lever down, she had to wait an additional ten seconds as warning chirps warned any crew in the area to get away from the closing door.
Finally, the slab of reenforced steel began to descend. The power of the hydraulics and the door’s own massive weight were enough to force it down through the water. It passed its previous sticking point, closing tighter and tighter.
The water turned into a furious spray, becoming pressurized as it was forced through an ever-smaller gap. And then suddenly it dwindled and ceased as the door hit bottom and locked into place.
Green lights appeared on the panel. White froth spread out along the corridor, heading to the front of the ship and diminishing as it slowed. The dark water went still.
Convinced that the door was sealed, Gamay jumped into the water and headed down the corridor looking for Paul. She found him making his way back. He was limping a bit, his hand was still bleeding, and he had a knot over his right eye where he’d hit his head on something.
“Thanks for shutting off the flood,” he said.
“You did the hard part,” she said. “Now let’s get topside so we can put our life jackets on in time to abandon ship.”
Paul groaned at the thought. But it was a distinct possibility.