by Peter Cave
Graham shook his head, his expression dubious. They had no way of knowing what was on the other side of the hatch, or how close it was lying to the door frame. An explosion – even a small one – was probably not a very good idea while there was anyone still in the water, and he was aware that Crewes carried only three-minute fuses. If the hatch had to be blown at all, then it would have to be done from the surface, by remote detonation. Short of using up the best part of another full day in placing the charge, decompressing and clearing the surface area, there remained only the option of trying brute force.
He dived to the floor of the sunken hull, scanning the various pieces of debris and wreckage with his torch for a suitable blunt instrument. A piece of broken metal spar about eighteen inches long looked ideal. Graham carried it back to the hatchway and jammed it behind the side of the wedged door. Getting sufficient leverage while free-floating in water was no easy matter, but with Crewes’ help and a great deal of effort, the door finally sprang open.
With a gentle kick of his flippers, Graham propelled himself through the hatch. As he had suspected, he was in the munitions storage area of the boat. Sweeping the area with his torch, he could see that damage was minimal here, although much of what would have been neatly stacked equipment had been strewn around the floor as the vessel settled on the bottom.
There was another corpse. It was undamaged, and still had shreds of rotting and tattered uniform clinging to the bones. A faint glint of metal reflected back the light of the torch as Graham swept the beam over it, and he moved in for a closer inspection.
The skeletal fingers were tightly clenched around something small and silvery. Curious, Graham reached down to inspect the object in greater detail. It was a small silver locket on a chain, its hinged face wide open. The photograph that it must have once contained was now dissolved away, but Graham had no doubts that the unfortunate seaman must have spent his final moments taking a last fond look at his wife or sweetheart, even as the waters rose to drown him.
Graham backed away from the skeleton, hovering in the water well clear of the floor and took another good look around the area. Unless there was anything else up on deck, it looked as though the vessel had more or less completed its task when the accident occurred, he decided. There were no mines to be seen, although there were perhaps a dozen unopened crates strewn around the floor which might merit further investigation. On balance, however, Graham considered it unlikely that the vessel still contained anything more explosive than shells for the pair of 40mm guns mounted fore and aft on deck, and they would now be virtually harmless. As the mine-laying mission had taken place in what was ostensibly peacetime, it was unlikely that the boat had been carrying any live torpedoes. All in all, it would seem that the sunken MTB posed no threat at all, considering the depth she was lying in. If the Greeks didn’t consider her worth salvaging, there seemed no reason why she should not be left where she was, to rust away. If nothing else, it gave the fish something interesting to look at, he thought wryly – like an ornamental stone at the bottom of the aquarium.
He flipped himself back through the hatch to summon Crewes. They’d get this body out and then conduct a search of the upper superstructure, he thought. The ship would have normally carried a complement of eighteen men, and yet so far they had found only three bodies. Unless there were any more trapped on the bridge or in the radio room, most of the crew on deck at the time of the disaster must have been pulled down in the plummeting vessel’s suction wave and dispersed to their individual fates.
Crewes nudged Graham gently, jabbing his finger at his watch as the retrieval net began to rise towards the surface, carrying the last of the seven bodies they had been able to find. Their diving time had expired; it was time to make their way up to their first decompression point at forty-five feet. The two scuba divers swam over to Sooty, who was using the rest of his time to search through the wreckage in a vain attempt to find the missing bones of the first skeleton. Communicating their intention to return to the surface, they handed him one of the torches, waved their farewells and left him to his self-imposed task.
A sense of great loneliness descended on Sooty as the two brightly coloured divers passed out of his field of vision. Even though there had been no communication other than by hand signals, their physical presence alone had given him a sense of comradeship and comfort. Now, with their departure, he was suddenly and acutely aware of that strange feeling of alienation again.
Lieutenant-Colonel Martin’s last words rang in his ears. ‘Just relax and enjoy the scenery, and don’t try to be a hero.’
At the time, it had seemed like good advice – as it was now. Sooty turned slowly towards the gaping hole in the stern, picking his way carefully over the twisted wreckage beneath his feet. He would get himself clear of the wreck and wait in open water until they were ready to start pulling him up for his own decompression sequence.
He stepped on the raised corner of a buckled deck plate, which moved slightly under his weight, dislodging two or three other pieces of debris which had been resting against it. The sudden and unexpected movement made Sooty look down in alarm, sweeping the floor of the wreck with his torch for anything else which might be loose and potentially dangerous.
Something white gleamed underneath the dislodged wreckage. Sooty bent down, grasping the upturned edge of the buckled plate with his gloved hands and trying to pull it sideways. It refused to budge. Shifting his footing, he moved to the other side, attempting to tear the plate loose from a different angle. It began to bend slightly, as though it was about to come free, then jammed again. Perhaps it would come free if he tried to pull it upwards, he thought. Changing his grip, and taking a firm hold, he gave the plate a sharp, vertical tug.
There was a moment of resistance, and then the single half-rusted bolt which had been keeping the plate in place gave way under the strain. The plate snapped away abruptly, coming free in Sooty’s hands. Its unexpected release caught him unawares and off balance. He toppled backwards, the rear of his helmet making contact with something very hard and metallic which sent a wave of noise and vibration rattling through his brain. Slightly dazed, he was only dimly aware of his back crashing against an upright girder which lurched sideways with a shriek of tortured metal. Then it was beginning to topple away and Sooty was falling on to his back in slow motion, gazing up through his face-plate in horrified fascination as a pair of cross-members plummeted towards his head.
‘Oh shit!’ Williams screamed out at the top of his voice, commanding Martin’s and Willerbey’s concerned attention immediately. The shocked look on Williams’ face alone was enough to tell them both that his outburst was far more than a curse of mere annoyance.
Martin jumped across the deck towards him. ‘What the hell is it?’ he demanded.
Williams was trembling with shock. ‘I just got three fours on the safety line,’ he said, his voice breaking slightly. ‘And Graham and Crewes will already be on their way up. Sooty’s down there on his own – and he’s in trouble.’
The information seeped into Martin’s brain like an ice-cold draught, fanning it into mental overdrive. Four tugs on a safety line, repeated three times, was a clear, internationally recognized signal that a diver was in danger. It would only be used in a matter of extreme urgency.
‘What about the pressure? Is he getting his air?’ Martin snapped, voicing the first thought which came into his head.
Williams glanced at the pressure gauges on the compressor. ‘She’s reading normal,’ he confirmed quickly. ‘There’s no sign of any problem with the air hose or the suit.’
‘Then he’s either injured or trapped by an obstruction. Maybe both,’ Martin said, running through the next most likely possibilities. ‘Try to bring him up – very slowly.’
Williams started the winch, easing it into low gear very gently. It ran smoothly for several seconds, taking up the slack in the diver’s hose and safety lines. Then, as the lines went taut, the winch’s automatic safety clu
tch detected resistance and jumped into neutral, with the grating sound of slipping gears.
‘Shit,’ Williams yelled again. ‘What the hell do we do now?’
Willerbey was already stripping off his clothes. ‘I’m going down,’ he announced, crossing the deck and strapping one of the spare sets of air tanks across his naked back. ‘Crewes and Graham won’t be up for another thirty-five minutes, and they’d need at least another hour before they could make a second dive.’
Martin grabbed the man’s arm, restraining him. ‘There may not be anything you can do,’ he warned Willerbey. ‘And if you get trapped down there by the need to decompress, we’ll have blown every chance we have.’
Willerbey shook his head, disengaging himself from Martin’s grip. ‘I’m not going to be down there long enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll pull myself straight down Sooty’s air hose, check the position and head straight back up again. Two minutes, maximum.’
The man was not going to listen to any objections, Martin realized, so he didn’t try. Under similar circumstances, he knew that he would do the same thing himself. He stood back as Willerbey pulled on a pair of flippers and grabbed a spare face-mask. Otherwise completely naked, he ran across to the edge of the diving platform and threw himself into the sea.
Willerbey cleaved down through the water, pulling himself hand over hand straight down Sooty’s air hose while kicking out frantically at the same time. He reached Crewes and Graham, hovering at forty-five feet, in seconds. Pausing only for frantic signals for them to continue decompressing as normal, he flashed past them again, leaving the two divers exchanging puzzled and worried looks.
At a hundred feet the coldness of the water cut into his body like a knife, filling him with a very real fear that he would get cramp and not be able to carry on. He forced himself to think of lying out on a beach on a blazing hot summer’s day and continued to pull himself towards the hull of the wreck, which was now visible as a great black and shapeless blur. Then he was at the stern of the vessel itself, following Sooty’s air hose into the interior of the wreck and noting that it was wedged tightly into the top of a jagged V of torn metal. It was a good thing that the safety cut-out on the winch was so sensitive, he thought. A couple of pounds more pull and the hose would have been severed like a pruned sapling.
He pushed himself through the hole and located Sooty. The diver was lying on his back but apparently uninjured. Willerbey peered into the face-plate of the diving helmet to check if the man was conscious. Sooty looked frightened, but he managed a weak, almost apologetic smile.
There was nothing lying across his body, Willerbey noted at once. He was held down only by a couple of heavy spars which had glanced off the dome of the helmet, entangled themselves in the hose and lines, and dragged him down to his present position. The lines were still pinned securely to the floor, and one glance was enough to tell Willerbey that they were too heavy to lift away on his own. There was nothing he could do immediately, and no time to stop there to think about it. He tapped Sooty’s helmet briefly in what was intended to be a gesture of reassurance, then kicked himself clear of the wreck and struck out for the surface.
Both Martin and Williams were leaning over the side of the diving platform expectantly as he broke the surface and hauled himself up over the edge, spitting out his mouthpiece and snorting. There was liquid in his mask. For a moment, Willerbey thought it was leaking, but then he lifted the mask clear of his face and saw that the liquid was blood, and it was coming from his nose.
Ignoring it, he delivered a succinct appraisal of the situation, which Martin considered hastily.
‘How long can he last out?’ he demanded. ‘I mean, will his air hose hold good until we can get Crewes and Graham back down there to free him?’
Willerbey shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, boss. Air’s still getting through at the moment, but the stuff lying across the hose is pretty heavy and it could settle down even more. Besides, it looked as though there’s some other loose junk which could come down on him at any moment. We may not have enough time to wait for Crewes and Graham.’
Martin looked grim, ‘I don’t see that we have much choice,’ he said grimly.
‘There is one chance,’ Williams put in quietly, although there was a great deal of doubt in his voice.
Martin and Willerbey looked up at him hopefully, eager to seize upon the slightest note of optimism.
‘Sooty’s gear is about the best you can get,’ Williams said flatly. ‘That helmet he’s wearing is fitted with a highly sophisticated safety check valve on the air intake. If the air supply is cut off for any reason, it seals itself off automatically, leaving the diver with whatever air is left in the helmet and the rest of the suit. Even at that depth, it would probably give him three to four minutes before it fouled up.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’ Martin asked.
‘That we get a spare safety line down to him, slice through his air hose and lines, and pull him straight up,’ Williams said.
Martin shook his head vehemently as he said: ‘He’s been down there for over fifty minutes, for Christ’s sake. Bringing him straight up from that depth would kill him. His blood would be bubbling like a damn steam geyser.’
‘We’ve got the on-board decompression tank,’ Williams reminded him. ‘If we got him out of his suit and straight into that, he should have a reasonable chance of survival.’
‘Odds?’ Willerbey asked.
Williams shrugged. ‘Say sixty-forty on the plus side?’ he suggested, with brutal honesty.
Willerbey thought about it, trying to place himself in Sooty’s position as a fellow diver. Given the same odds, he’d probably go for it, he reflected. Especially when the only other choice was lying there helplessly with every second seeming like an hour, just waiting to be crushed or suffocated at any moment.
The other side of the coin, of course, was the sheer physical hell that Sooty would have to go through. As Martin had already pointed out, bringing a pressurized diver straight up from 140 feet would place an almost unendurable strain on his body. Willerbey had suffered a case of the bends himself once, after making an emergency ascent because of a faulty regulator. But that had been from only forty-five feet and after thirty minutes underwater. The intolerable pain of that experience would be only a pale shadow of the agony which Sooty would undoubtably suffer before they managed to get him into the decompression tank.
On balance, though, Willerbey felt sure that it would be Sooty’s choice, if he were given the option. He made a decision on the man’s behalf. ‘Then let’s do it,’ he blurted out.
Martin looked at him sternly. ‘You know I can’t let you go down again,’ he said heavily. ‘Two crash-dives in a row and you’re likely to pop both your eardrums, or even worse.’
But Williams had already darted over to the supply locker to break out a fresh coil of nylon rope and connect it up to the winch, and Willerbey was pulling his mask back into place. He looked up at Martin, grinning recklessly. ‘I think I must have done that already, boss. I can’t hear a fucking word you’re saying.’
Martin was powerless to stop him as he snatched the free end of the rope from Williams’ hands and jumped over the side again. He went down more slowly this time, knowing that a few more seconds were unlikely to make much difference. Once he had Sooty cut free and on his way up, he had a good forty-five minutes of air in his tanks. He could afford to take his time coming up again, decompressing as normal. Closer to the surface, the water would be considerably warmer.
He reached the stricken diver and realized that he had been right in his choice. Sooty must have moved his body slightly, disturbing the debris beneath him and allowing some of the heavier stuff above to settle down even more. The bulky cross-member had sunk down only a few inches, but it was already showing signs of kinking the pressurized air hose. The slightest degree of further movement and it would be starting to crush the hose, cutting back Sooty’s air supply and possibly triggering off the au
tomatic shut-down valve in his helmet.
Hovering above the man in the water, Willerbey reached down and pulled the heavy diver’s knife from Sooty’s belt. Watching his face carefully, he mimed out his proposed plan of action so that the man would have a rough idea of what was going on.
A brief flicker of anguish showed in Sooty’s eyes as he interpreted Willerbey’s gestures. An experienced diver, he was fully aware of the score. It would have taken a superhuman to face the harsh realities of the situation without showing some emotion. Finally, his expression softening to one of resignation, he nodded faintly, giving Willerbey his approval.
Gingerly, Willerbey pulled in the slack on the nylon rope until it was nearly taut, then looped it under the diver’s armpits into a makeshift harness and secured it firmly. Then, taking the razor-sharp knife, he slashed first through the old safety line and finally, after a momentary pause, through the air hose. The water around Sooty’s head seemed to froth and boil, suddenly, as the pressurized air gushed out in huge glittering bubbles. Giving a double tug on the rope, Willerbey guided the helpless diver through the water towards the hole in the stern as Williams started the winch to pull him back up to the surface.
Clearing the wreck, Willerbey followed him up for about sixty feet and then paused, treading water. He’d give himself a good fifteen minutes to decompress, he told himself. There was nothing else he could do for Sooty now, and his fate was firmly in the more than capable hands of Williams and Lieutenant-Colonel Martin. Looking up, as the diver continued to rise steadily towards the surface, Willerbey couldn’t help wondering if he had saved the man’s life, or merely sent him to a different, and more excruciating death.