The Golden U-Boat

by Richard P. Henrick

  No sooner did they step off the helipad when the roar of the chopper’s engines intensified. A deckhand in a silver fire-fighting suit stood alertly beside the foam gun, and Jon Huslid turned to watch the orange and white vehicle take off into the overcast sky.

  “Welcome home, NUEX,” broke a deep voice from behind.

  Jon pivoted and set his eyes on the rugged face and figure of their diving supervisor, Magne Rystaad.

  “Hello, Chief,” replied the photographer.

  “It’s good to be back, although if you would have just given us another day or so, we could have brought back one of the greatest treasures to have ever been pulled from Norwegian waters.”

  Not paying this remark much attention, Magne surveyed the deck area and inquired, “Where’s Knut?”

  Jon inhaled a deep breath and answered.

  “He’s back at Lake Tinnsjo, along with the first piece of salvage ever brought up from the ferry, Hydro” His voice betrayed his excitement.

  “We’ve got one of the sealed drums, Chief! And if all goes well, Knut will have the other thirty-two up by this time tomorrow.”

  This revelation commanded Magne’s full attention.

  “You mean to say that you managed to actually locate and begin salvaging the heavy water?

  Why, that’s fantastic news, lad! But unfortunately, a matter of even greater importance has come up that requires your immediate attention.”

  Stepping to the side, Magne briefly turned his head and beckoned forward a tall, lanky, bearded stranger, who was dressed in orange coveralls. He appeared to be about Magne’s age, and had his same no-nonsense expression.

  “Jon, I’d like you to meet David Lawton. David’s a friend of mine from Houston, Texas, who has his own group of oil-service divers to supervise.”

  As the two shook hands, Magne continued.

  “David was with me in the Falcon’s control room when Solo discovered a hazardous object on the seafloor, one that could very well jeopardize the entire Ice Field’s gas pipeline project.”

  “What in the world could possibly block the route of the pipeline?” asked Jon.

  “Especially in these waters.

  Why, with all the other pipelines that we’ve already placed here, the seafloor west of Utsira has to be one of the most carefully charted areas on the planet.”

  “I thought the very same thing,” replied Magne.

  “But as all of you know, just when you take the sea for granted, it has a way of surprising you. I learned this lesson once again two days ago, when we chanced upon a World War I mine that was supposed to have been long ago cleared from these waters. David arrived on the Falcon just as we were in the process of detonating the mine.

  “It was while Solo was inspecting the aftereffects of this explosion, that we discovered another military relic. This one is from World War II, and is a bit more complicated to get rid of than that mine. 283 meters below the hull of the Falcon, smack in the middle of the new pipeline’s proposed route, is a sunken German U-boat.”

  “It’s a Type XXI to be exact,” added David Lawton.

  “Such vessels only became part of the German fleet in the latter years of the war, and were the most advanced underwater vessels to have ever sailed beneath the seas in those days.”

  Magne nodded.

  “David’s our current resident expert in the matter, since as a U.S. Navy SEAL, he actually explored the wreck of a Type XXI that had been sunk off the coast of Georgia.”

  Not really too concerned with the nature of this obstacle, Jon Huslid questioned, “Can’t Noroil merely route the pipeline around this U-boat?”

  “That’s impossible, lad,” responded Magne.

  “Our safety margin on the pipeline’s corridor is only five hundred meters wide. To reach the main pumping facility at Karsto, it has to circumvent the boulder-strewn seafloor on this side of Utsira island, so this route has to be followed exactly. And since the laying barges are forced to haul themselves along on anchors, we have to make absolutely certain that there is no unexploded ordinance inside that sub’s hull” “Then I guess that’s why we’re here,” remarked Jon matter-of-factly.

  “When do we get started?”

  Magne looked at his watch.

  “The bell will be ready to go in another ten minutes. Since you left Knute behind, I hope you won’t mind taking along David in his place.”

  The photographer didn’t like the idea at all.

  “With no offense meant toward Mr. Lawton, we’re a team, and NUEX works best by itself. The three of us can manage very well on our own.”

  Magne briefly caught the Texan’s glance before replying to this.

  “I understand, Jon. But I’d feel much better with four divers down there. This will be a bounce dive, so one of you is going to have to remain behind in the bell. The rest of you will only have an hour to get into that sub and give it a complete once over. I seriously doubt that two of you can do it. Since David’s already familiar with this class of U-boat, and has almost more hours at that depth than all three of you combined, I’d appreciate it if you’d make an exception in this instance.”

  Knowing very well that this was as close as Magne would ever come to actually coming out and ordering them to take along the stranger, Jon looked to his teammates for support. Arne didn’t appear to be too concerned one way or the other.

  And when Jakob merely shrugged his shoulders, Jon reluctantly gave in.

  “Very well, you can come along, Mr. Lawton. But please, no show boating

  The Texan looked to his host, and stifling a grin, responded to this request.

  “You don’t have to worry about any such behavior from me, young man. And by the way, I want all of you to just call me David.

  I’ve been in this game for more years than I’d like to remember, and I’ve got nothing to prove but my desire to stay alive.”

  Jon looked to Magne.

  “Then let’s do it, Chief. We’re going to need an assortment of tools to pry open those hatches, and some of those new mercury vapor torches to light our way once we get inside.”

  Magne explained just what equipment had already been reserved for them as he led the team of divers below deck. Taking up the rear of this group, David Lawton anxiously awaited his first bell dive in the North Sea. His host had previously briefed him on his diving companions’ backgrounds. As an outsider, David was anticipating some resistance, and true to form, the red-headed photographer expressed it. Yet this was a natural reaction. NUEX had been together as a team for over five years now, and it would have been totally out of character for them to welcome a stranger into their ranks with open arms.

  Formed originally as a social club, the Norwegian Underwater Explorers grew from a bunch of teenagers with a shared love of diving, to a moneymaking organization with a long list of projects to choose from. Magne had explained how the missing member of the group, Knut Haugen, had inherited his father’s dive shop in Oslo. His friend from the Telemark region, Arne Lundstrom, was called in to give him a hand running the business. Their future teammates, Jon Huslid and Jakob Helgesen, were customers, and it was in this way that they met and planned their first dives together.

  Jon’s love of photography inspired Knut to design several watertight housings for his camera equipment.

  The first underwater photos he took were just for fun, but all this changed when a picture he snapped of a sunken German fighter plane won first place in a nationwide photo competition. Fiber optics and ROV’s were not yet readily available in those days, and Jon was asked to initiate a photographic inspection of a newly installed North Sea oil platform. He brought along his teammates for help, and together they successfully completed their first professional dive job.

  The Norwegian oil-service business was a tight-knit group, and when it was learned that NUEX provided excellent, dependable work for a reasonable cost, other jobs followed. Many of these assignments took them to a depth of three hundred meters, the maximum their cu
rrent technology safely allowed. They accepted these jobs without hesitation, and were not afraid to go through the long hours of decompression that such depths necessitated.

  Magne hired them to do a hull inspection of one of Noroil’s many diving ships. He was satisfied with their work, saw their potential, and offered them a full-time job. They only agreed to sign on when they were told that their first assignment would be to document in pictures the wreck of the German heavy cruiser Bleche, that sunk in Oslo fjord in the opening days of World War II. The Bleche still held the corpses of over fifteen hundred men, and its rusted fuel tanks were beginning to leak oil into the pristine waters of the fjord. Noroil was called in to see what could be done about stopping this flow of pollutants.

  The resulting dive made international headlines.

  The pictures were excellent and made many a front page newspaper and magazine cover worldwide. Because of this notoriety, and the excellent publicity it generated for Noroil, it was agreed that NUEX would be called in whenever a difficult salvage job presented itself.

  Magne had also explained to David the nature of NUEX’s current project in Lake Tinnsjo. The exploration of the Hydro sounded like an exciting adventure that took on additional dimensions when the heavy water was taken into consideration.

  Though Magne hated to call them away from this historic task, he had no choice in the matter. Hopefully, after a quick inspection of the submarine, the route could be cleared and the pipeline survey continued.

  Then NUEX would have plenty of time to return to Lake Tinnsjo and complete their work there.

  Curious himself as to the condition of the ferry’s special cargo after all these years, Lawton followed the team into that portion of the Falcon where the diving bells were stored. There were few words spoken as several attendants helped them into their heavy, black latex diving suits. Because these suits would not keep them absolutely dry, and since the water temperature at 283 meters was near freezing, hot water would be pumped into a network of tubes that lined the suit’s interior, conveyed by a rubber hose that made up part of their individual umbilicals.

  Also included in this lifeline to the ship above was the tube that carried their breathing gases, and that which allowed their communication topside.

  The diving bell that would convey them to the seafloor was an oblong, cylindrically shaped object that was painted bright yellow. It had an assortment of ballast tanks and air capsules welded onto its outside skin. And as Lawton was soon to learn, it was just spacious enough inside to allow the four of them room to stand upright, shoulder to shoulder.

  “You’ll be breathing a 96 % helium to 4 % oxygen mixture,” instructed Magne.

  “Of course, as during any bounce dive, the bell will be lowered and only then pressurized to your working depth. Once the lower hatch falls open signalling that the proper pressure has been attained, you’ll have sixty minutes to get into that submarine and see what it’s carrying.

  I suggest heading right for the sub’s forward torpedo room to determine its weapon’s load.”

  “What about its aft tubes?” quizzed Jakob.

  “It doesn’t have any,” answered Lawton.

  “The Type XXI is equipped with six bow tubes only.

  Thus all of its ordinance, whether it be torpedoes or mines, should be found in the forward portion of the boat.”

  Satisfied that their suits were properly fitted, Magne pointed toward the awaiting bell.

  “I’ll be in constant contact with you at the diving console. At all times keep me updated on your positions, and don’t take any unnecessary chances. If the vessel doesn’t look right to you, get the hell back up here and we’ll figure out another way to attack the problem.”

  As the members of NUEX solemly climbed into the bell, Magne took his special guest aside.

  “And that warning goes especially to you, David. I want you around so that I can collect on that chili recipe and Stetson that you’re going to owe me after this dive.”

  “Don’t worry, partner. As long as the gear holds up, it should be a piece of cake.”

  “Be gentle with my boys,” added the veteran diver as he guided the Texan into the bell.

  Lawton squeezed himself inside and listened as the hatch was tightly sealed behind him. He was able to lean back on a narrow ledge, and listened as the winch mechanism activated. The bell was then swung over the open moon pool and unceremoniously dumped into the gray waters below.

  As they initiated their descent, Jakob Helgesen pulled out a Sorry Walkman cassette player. The Lapp then clipped on a set of headphones, adjusted the Walkman’s volume control, punched its “on” button, and proceeded to close his eyes.

  “Odds are that Jakob’s listening to Pink Floyd’s, A Momentary Lapse of Reason,” offered Jon.

  “Lately, he never goes to depth without it.”

  “When I’m in the chamber, I like plenty of old-fashioned jazz,” revealed Lawton.

  “Have any of you ever heard Aker Bilk blow the licorice stick?”

  Neither Jon nor Arne had any idea what the Texan was talking about, and shook their heads to express this fact. David Lawton smiled.

  “Too bad. Old Aker and his Strangers on the Shore has gotten me through many a nasty decompression.

  And there’s the Professor of Brass himself, Dizzy Gillespie. That man can hit notes that even the angels in heaven can’t reach.”

  A bit doubtful as to the sanity of this lanky American, both Norwegians seemed relieved when Magne’s steady voice broke from the bell’s p. a. speakers.

  “Hello, gentlemen. You’re presently breaking the fifty meter threshold. How do you read me?”

  “Loud and clear, Chief,” answered Jon.

  “And how are you doing, David?” added the voice of Magne.

  “It’s a walk in the park,” replied Lawton.

  “You know, I forgot to ask you, Magne, but what do you have planned to keep me occupied during decompression?”

  The supervisor of Noroil’s diving operations hesitated a moment before responding.

  “You’ll have to give me some time to work on that, David. I’ll spread the word and see what the crew is holding in the way of English books and magazines.”

  “I appreciate that, partner. And if any of the crew has any jazz tapes, send them along, too. It’s time my fellow divers down here got a dose of some real music.”

  “I copy that, David. I’ll do my best. You’re presently breaking one hundred meters.”

  Lawton yawned wide to clear his blocked eardrums.

  Other than the alien pressure in his ears, there were no other physical symptoms of the great depth that they had already attained.

  “What kind of depths were you working with during the job that you left for this one?” asked Lawton in an attempt to break the ice.

  “Our initial sonar contact with the sunken ferry was at 415 meters,” answered Jon.

  “So needless to say, we were able to keep our feet dry for most of the project, and let our ROV do all the work for us.

  “How did we ever do it without those ever-loving ROV’s?” reflected the Texan.

  “Our teammate, Knut, who’s the technical genius of NUEX, says that in a few years, with all the electronic advances in robotics we’re seeing, that human divers won’t even be needed anymore” offered Arne.

  “I seriously doubt that,” said Lawton.

  “But I must admit that we’ve got ROV’s doing things that we never dreamed possible just a couple of years ago.”

  “You’re breaking 150 meters,” observed the calm voice of Magne from above.

  “Continuing pressurization.”

  After clamping shut his nostrils and blowing out hard to clear his ears, Lawton added, “Of course, when I started in this business, just a dive to our current depth would have been unthinkable. So who knows, maybe ROV’s will progress to such a stage that the really deep, dangerous work can be handled solely by the machines. Though as far as I’m concerned, nothin
g will ever beat having a real live diver on the job.”

  “I’m with you, David,” broke the voice of Magne.

  “You’re all starting to sound like a bunch of ducks.

  Approaching two hundred meters.”

  Magne was referring to one of the aftereffects of breathing almost pure helium, the phenomenon known in the diving industry as “Donald Duck” voice. Inside the bell, the four divers weren’t aware that they sounded any different than normal, and instead found their main concern being to keep the pressure on their eardrums equalized.

  At 250 meters, Lawton found it a bit more difficult to catch his breath. But like someone who lives in a mountainous region, his lungs soon became adjusted to the new gas mixture, one quite different than that found at sea level.

  “You’re at target depth,” said Magne as the bell gently jerked to a halt.

  “Initiating final pressurization”

  For one last time the divers were forced to equalize the pressure on their eardrums. By the time this task was completed, the bottom hatch popped open, signalling that the pressure inside the bell was the same as that outside.

  At this point, Jakob neatly stashed away his Walkman and began gathering his diving equipment.

  Both David Lawton and Jon Huslid also reached for the tools of their dangerous trade. Their bell man helped each one make the final adjustments to their masks, which entirely covered their faces. Arne would remain inside, with his own gear close by ready to leave the bell should one of the others need his assistance.

  “Getting ready to leave the bell,” said Jon, his mouth now covered by his mask.

  Magne’s tinny voice broke from the mask’s small recessed speakers.

  “I read you. You now have sixty minutes and counting to complete your work and get back to the bell.”

  With his umbilical held carefully in his right hand, Jon climbed down through the hatchway. Before leaving the bell altogether, he put on his fins, switched on his mercury-vapor torch, and grabbed the canvas sack full of tools that Arne handed him.