Spike moved to the air manifold and cranked a series of valves. He was trying to blow the flooded compartments. “We were hit, and we’re sinking. That’s what gives. The captain gave the order to abandon ship.”
Braddock glanced up at the secured hatch that led to the conning tower. “I take it we can’t get out that way.”
“The telephone talker opened the hatch to pass the order,” the COB told him. “The idea was to evacuate one compartment at a time and save as many lives as possible. A second later, the boat just dropped from the surface, and Noah’s flood slammed down on him. He secured the hatch, though. Saved our necks.”
Braddock looked up at the hatch again and shivered. He pictured the telephone talker and the rest of them up there, lungs filled with water, floating in the ocean’s eternal darkness. They didn’t deserve that. People were assholes just as he was, but not in death. They left the world as they entered it, innocent.
He said, “We should try to refloat the boat.”
Spike ran his grimy hand over his balding head. “The bow planes are on full rise. We’re blowing ballast. All I’m doing is making the old lady sink slower.”
“You’re blowing the flooded compartments. That might do it.”
“It’s not doing anything. Can’t you feel it?”
He was right. They were still heavy, getting heavier, slowly sinking.
“Why isn’t it working?”
“My guess is the air and hydraulic lines are all smashed aft.” He closed the air manifold valves. “All we’re doing is blowing bubbles and putting a big fat target on our heads for depth charging.”
“Give me some A-gangers, and we’ll get right on it.”
“The boat’s barely holding together. We’re still taking on water. We’ll be vertical soon. The captain was right to abandon ship. The seafloor is 5,000 fathoms under our keel. I can’t raise the boat, and if I could, the Japs would blow us out of the water. If we sink too far, this boat is going to be our coffin.”
Braddock braced himself for more cheery news. “How deep are we now?”
Spike jerked his thumb at the busted depth gauge. “You tell me.”
He looked around, still trying to think of a way to get the Sandtiger back on her feet. The COB was right. It was pointless. The boat was shot to hell. They had no choice but to abandon her.
Harrison had probably considered it a personal challenge to wreck the boat so bad Braddock could never fix it. Bash it up so he could look at Braddock and say, We need all repairs completed so we can take another crack at the Yamato. Oh, and you have eight hours to do it.
He chuckled at the idea. The sailors crowding the control room cast worried glances at him.
“That leaves Forward Torpedo,” Braddock said. “When do we get out?”
“I’d say now would be a good time.”
“You said the battle is still going on up there.”
“Face the Japs, or get crushed in the deep. Take your pick. Now or never.”
Braddock nodded. “Japs it is.” A bolt of rage surged in his chest as he scanned the faces of the terrified sailors. “What was the Old Man thinking?”
Spike bared his teeth. “What did you say?”
“You gamble enough times, you always end up losing.”
“Listen, you steaming pile of shit, the captain and a couple of outgunned tin cans charged the Japs to try to save our carriers from certain wipeout. He fought off destroyers, shot his wad at the Yamato, and actually drilled some holes in him. The last torpedo circled back and hit us.”
A circular run! Talk about your luck running out.
He said, “Okay.”
“Okay? Okay? You sure you’re done shitting on the Old Man? The man who respected you enough to give you your job?”
“I’m done.”
“Good to hear it. Now get out of my sight and do the job he gave you before I punch your ugly mug into next week. Get the men to Forward Torpedo. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to hold depth. We’re going down.”
Braddock returned to the crew’s quarters to round up the sailors for evacuation. God damn this war, where men had to die so others could live. And damn Harrison for going along with that lunatic math.
While Braddock had played the asshole to get through the war, Harrison had played it straight. He’d played the hero. He’d charged a battleship to save the poor slobs on a bunch of carriers.
It made him want to be a hero himself.
CHAPTER NINE
TOUGH MONKEYS
The sailors used blankets as stretchers to carry the worst of the wounded forward. Knowing the Sandtiger slipped deeper with each passing minute, Braddock yelled to keep them moving.
However, his usual charm failed to inspire the men now. Weighed down by fear and exhaustion, they plodded. When they’d been lying in their bunks, they could assure themselves the heroes were fixing the boat and would get them out of this mess. Moving meant summoning the courage to be heroes themselves because nobody was coming to save them.
To escape the dying submarine, the crew would have to swim for the surface.
“Get them out,” Spike said when they marched through the control room. “Everybody. You hear me, Braddock?”
“I can hear you, COB,” Braddock growled. “I’m right in front of you.”
“Then move your worthless ass!”
He stopped at his locker to stow his shirt, shorts, and sandals and change into swim trunks and a skivvy shirt. The water would be cold but survivable, and he didn’t want anything hindering his movement. Then he stuffed his beloved peaked cap, symbol of his rank and its status, in his shorts and strapped a bayonet to his leg.
Forward Torpedo was already crammed with men. Most sat on bunks and the empty torpedo skids, while the rest argued about how to use the Momsen lungs, which were underwater re-breathing gear. Braddock ignored them and found Dan “Guts” Buckner, the room’s chief.
“How do you want to do this, Dan?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” the chief said. “If you need a torpedo fired, I’m your man. Otherwise, I’m as lost as you are.”
“Who’s in charge then?”
Buckner gave him a quick once-over. “You’re hired.”
Braddock struggled to recall the escape procedures. Above the escape hatch was a cylinder-shaped chamber large enough to fit three men and a life raft. They’d be the first to make the dangerous journey to the surface.
“The first guys need to release a buoy and raft and tie them off,” he said. “Everybody else will follow the ascending line up in groups of four.”
“Don’t tell me,” Buckner said. “Tell them.”
“I’m telling you. I need you to lead the first escape party up to the surface.”
“Like I said. You need a torpedo fired, I’m your man.”
Braddock sighed and yelled, “All right, swabbies, listen up! We’ve been pounding the pooch down here for almost two hours. We are going to polish this turd by making the most daring escape ever made by a submarine crew. Got it?”
Sweating in the stale, hot, humid air, the sailors stared at him.
“I said, ‘Got it?’”
“Loud and clear, Chief,” they muttered.
“Good! Do this, and you’ll not only live, you’ll be a hero! When you get home, you’ll have dames climbing all over you against their better judgment. The COB volunteered me to get you sorry sacks off the boat, which means I’m last. I need three men to go up first. Who wants to be a hero?”
Nobody raised his hand.
He went on, “Don’t make me pick three guys.”
Nobody volunteered. It was useless. The sailors were brave, but none of them wanted to be first to attempt the swim to the surface. Nobody they knew in the Submarine Force had done this in a real combat situation. They hadn’t trained on it since Submarine School, and they feared failing their shipmates as much as confronting the ocean’s depths.
Braddock glanced at Buckner, giving him one
last chance, but the man looked away. At one time, the chief might have been called “Guts” for his courage, but the nickname had come to refer more to his expansive waist.
“Fine,” he raged. “I’ll go first. Who’s going with me?”
Most of the men raised their hands. So that was it. They wanted a chief to lead them. A sea dog with long years on the boats behind him, somebody who knew what he was doing.
He would have laughed if it weren’t sadder than it was funny. The chiefs had no better training or experience escaping a crippled submarine than they did. His brief stint in the escape training tank in New London felt like a lifetime ago.
This was what happened when you made men believe in you. He almost empathized with Harrison.
Braddock pointed at Gentry. “You there, tough monkey.” He spied Boatswain’s Mate Doug Whitley. “And you, Shorty. Get some lungs, a raft, and the buoy.”
“Aye, aye, Chief,” Gentry said and went to work.
“The rest of you work out three partners and get in line, nice and orderly. If you don’t remember how to use the lung, ask somebody. Otherwise, I expect to see you all topside. If I don’t, I’m coming back down for you, and I’ll be pissed off.”
Gentry handed him a Momsen lung. The mouthpiece connected to an inflatable rubber bag using two hoses, which had one-way valves for breathing in and out. A can of soda lime scrubbed carbon dioxide from the air, so it could be recycled. The same stuff the men were now throwing down on Forward Torpedo’s deck to give them more time before the air became unbreathable.
He barely remembered what to do with the damn thing. It promised to work at depths up to 300 feet. He’d trained for eighty feet. If he made just one little mistake, he could suffer oxygen poisoning, anoxia, and decompression sickness. He could lose the line and end up floundering in the deep.
He didn’t want to do this. He felt like a guinea pig in some egghead’s lab.
“Good luck,” Buckner said.
“I’ll take balls over luck any day,” Braddock replied. “Keep the men moving, Dan. It’s on you now. Our last man taps the hatch, you drain the trunk and close the door, and then you send the next four up. Keep it moving. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Help Doc with the wounded. They’re gonna be a problem.”
“We’ll be all right here.”
“Good, because I can’t do everything. I’ll see you topside.”
He took one last look around at the terrified sailors packed into Forward Torpedo, and his heart twisted in his chest. They were the same animal as him. Assholes to the last man, the lot of them. Tough monkeys. And yeah, innocent.
They were counting on him. He feared he’d never see them again.
Braddock mounted to the escape trunk. Gentry passed up the life raft, which he pushed to the side. Next came the buoy and ascending line, battle lantern, and hand tools. Then Gentry and Whitley squeezed in and dogged down the hatch.
The escape trunk’s bulkheads surrounded the cramped space like a metal coffin. The 225-pound air supply valves were unlocked and tested. The oxygen lines blown. The regulator set at sixty pounds over bottom pressure.
Braddock knelt and undogged the trunk door that separated him from the endless ocean outside. The sea’s pressure kept it sealed.
“Goddamn hero,” he muttered, angry with himself.
Then he opened a valve to flood the chamber.
CHAPTER TEN
ASCENDING LINE
Cold seawater swirled around his feet. It rose to his knees and then his chest. As it compressed the air, Braddock breathed in and out to equalize the pressure in his lungs.
Gentry pinched his nose and blew to prevent ear block. “The water’s at the top of the door, Chief.” His voice sounded high-pitched in the increased pressure.
Braddock closed the valve to stop the flooding. Packed like sardines in the partially flooded chamber, the other men pressed against him, all elbows.
“Why’d you bring your bayonet?” Whitley said. “Are we fighting Japs?”
Braddock pulled his goggles over his eyes. “Sharks.”
The sailor chuckled then frowned. “Do you think I could go back to—?”
“No.” Braddock breathed deeply and held it, saving his Momsen lung for the ascent. He dove and shoved the trunk door. With the pressure roughly equalized, it opened with little resistance.
A murky and dark twilight world opened before him, and fear washed over him as he thought they were deeper than he’d guessed. A whole lot deeper.
It didn’t make sense. If they were that much deeper, the door shouldn’t have opened as easy as it did.
Then, here and there, he saw light beams brightening patches of water in his field of view. If he could see sunlight, the Sandtiger was within 650 feet of the surface. More like 200 feet from the looks of it. Must be cloudy topside. That or, more likely, black smoke had filled the sky.
He came up for air.
“How is it out there?” Gentry said.
“Freezing my nuts off.” Braddock grabbed the buoy and spool of ascending line, and submerged again.
This was it. He was going to leave the submarine.
A rush of terror stole his breath, and he ran out of air quickly. He came back up coughing. He gasped, filling his lungs.
“You want me to go first, Chief?”
“Shut up, Gentry,” Braddock growled and ducked into the water.
One thing at a time. Release the buoy, done. Pay out the line until it goes slack. Cut the line. They’d forgotten to bring up a diver’s knife. He slid the bayonet from its scabbard and sliced it. Good.
Then he knotted the end around a pad eye at his feet. Perfect. He’d secured the buoy to the boat.
His triumph faded as he remembered the boat was still sinking. He’d given the line a few feet of slack in case he had to come up for air before he got it tied off, but he should have let it out farther.
Too late now. He wondered what else he’d done wrong or forgotten that was going to get him and everybody else killed. No wonder nobody else had volunteered for this lousy job.
He surfaced again, gulped air, and plunged back down to tie the raft line around the ascending line. This done, he released the raft. The bulky yellow package floated toward the surface on its own buoyancy.
Then he swam back up again.
“Everything’s in place,” he said. “I’m going up. Don’t follow too close. I don’t want to end up kicking you in the face.”
“You’ll float to the surface at a steady one foot per second,” Gentry the eager beaver told him. “The men should be paced ten seconds apart.”
“Sounds fine,” Braddock said, good and terrified now. “I don’t care.”
At 200 feet, a rate of one foot per second meant three minutes and twenty seconds before he breathed fresh air again in sunlight. It promised to be the longest three minutes and twenty seconds of his life, but he could do it.
He had to do it. He had no choice.
Gentry pulled a hose from the air manifold, connected it to a valve on the chief’s Momsen lung, and filled it. The bag expanded to a rigid block in front of Braddock’s chest. Gentry closed the valve, checked his gear one last time, and patted his shoulder. He was good to go. Behind his goggles, Gentry’s eyes were big and watery and wild.
The kid was terrified. The stupid idiot wanted to be a hero.
Braddock bit down on the mouthpiece and splashed under again.
After a few test breaths on the re-breathing apparatus, he hugged the line, remembering to drape his feet around it as well. His natural buoyancy started to take him up like a human elevator.
He floated to the first knot six feet up then the next. At each knot, he was supposed to breathe in and out to adapt to the pressure and prevent decompression sickness.
He wasn’t breathing at all.
He blew hard into the mouthpiece, almost spitting it out. A cloud of bubbles burst around him. Holding his breath too long while ascending was
a terrific way to make his lungs explode. Who was the stupid idiot now?
Stay calm or die. That’s what the instructors had told him back in New London. A simple enough statement, but there was something seriously wrong with it. If he went up too quick, he’d be dead. Too slow, dead. In the wrong position, yup, dead.
If his gear failed, if he lost his mouthpiece, if he let go of the line…
Stay calm. Sure thing.
In and out. Six feet. In and out. Six feet. Hail Mary, full of grace.
The groans of rending metal stirred the sea around him. Somewhere out there, a ship was going down, and the ocean’s colossal forces were tearing it apart. Its death howl reverberated like an angry, departing soul searching for the Locker.
A strange, warm sensation crawled down his leg.
He was pissing himself in terror.
Anything to make your ride up more pleasant, Gentry, he thought and took a deep breath in and out in place of laughing.
So close now. The water above like a wavy sheet of liquid glass. He reached up—
And broke the surface. Still laughing as he tore the re-breather off.
Now using the inflated Momsen lung as a flotation device, he needed to swim aside without losing the buoy, or the current would sweep him away. He grabbed the line anchoring the raft.
And breathed deeply, inhaling fresh air, floating on sunshine.
Then a touch of decompression sickness hit him. His skin prickled everywhere as if covered in ants. His guts heaved, and he vomited into the water, which he splashed away with disgust.
Gentry came up next.
He’d panicked and lost his re-breathing gear. Decompression had burst every capillary in his face, covering it in a sheet of blood.
The kid started screaming.
Braddock reached out as the current carried Gentry away. Thrashing, the kid went under in a swirl of bubbles.
Braddock couldn’t let go of the line to try to save him. If he did, he’d die too. Instead, he howled with frustration and fury as a squadron of planes roared overhead.
“You stupid idiot,” he raged. “You see what happens to heroes?”
Over the Hill: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 6) Page 3