Firespill

by Ian Slater

  “Periscope depth,” ordered Kyle.

  “Periscope depth,” came the confirmation.

  At sixty feet the sub stopped rising. “Search periscope.”

  “Search periscope, sir.”

  The hydraulic motor wheezed softly, and the long, shiny steel column slid up through the control room. Hogarth started the defrosters and water pressure wipers to clear the high magnification lenses of any oil that might obscure the captain’s view. Even before the scope stopped, Kyle had flipped down its arms, and with the bill of his cap turned back he stood glued to the eyepiece, turning the column smartly yet unhurriedly through three hundred and sixty degrees.

  He saw a stretch of calm, oily sea end abruptly against a precipice of black smoke and blood red fire. Now and then he could see glimpses of fire-free sea beyond small breaks in the flames, but nothing more. He swung the scope around again. Still he could not see the boat.

  In the middle of the thick, pitch black night it looked as if the whole world were on fire. He stepped back quickly, snapping up the scope’s arms. “Down periscope.”

  The hydraulic motor wheezed again, retracting the steel column. “Slow ahead.” The telegraph rang. “Slow ahead, sir.”

  Kyle used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his eyes. “We’re in that calm area the fishing boat reported, but it looks like it’s been cut in half. Can’t see any sign of the boat, only fire and smoke. We’ll have to get closer in.”

  Hogarth had responded quickly and was already beginning to edge Swordfish towards the blip shown on the screen. Sparks’s voice was again slow and distinctive. “Four thousand yards and closing.”

  The captain moved to the chart table, speaking to O’Brien. “If there is a fire-free zone left somewhere inside that furnace, there’s no way they can come to us. There’s a wall of flame right round them. They’d go up like a piece of paper. We’ll have to clear a way for them so they can come to us.”

  O’Brien looked doubtful. “Their motor might be out…”

  Sparks interjected, “Excuse me, sir, but I checked that out on passive a moment ago. We do have a sound from the blip.”

  O’Brien was dubious. “You’re sure it’s the main motor, not just something else?”

  “No way of being absolutely sure, sir. Could be a smaller engine, but it’s certainly a motor.”

  The captain made his decision. “Their engine could be out, but we have to bet that it isn’t. And there’s no way we can send in the inflatable raft even if we do clear a way. Even if it didn’t stick fast in the slick, its outboard would be gummed up in no time.”

  O’Brien watched the blip on the screen worriedly. “I suppose we can’t risk going further in—under the fire wall—and coming up where they are? We need to recharge as well as get them out.”

  The captain shook his head. “No way. If there is a fire-free zone in there, it’s bloody small. We’d either capsize them or drive them into the fire with our wash. Besides, if we hit them with our fuel leak or puncture one of our fuel tanks, that’s it for everybody. No, we’ll just have to clear a way for them and hope to hell they can run for it.”

  “Three thousand yards and closing.”

  Suddenly O’Brien saw the captain’s plan. You had to hand it to the Old Man, he was good. Very good. And they had all thought he had spent too much time ashore!

  Kyle was watching the range. “It’s the only way,” he murmured to himself as he lifted the phone and called the forward torpedo room. “Grant, those fish ready to go?”

  “Yes, sir—short fuses.”

  “Right. Stand by.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Next Kyle rang the forward hatch room. “Jordan, when I surface I want that rescue team ready to go topside in a hurry. But don’t move till you get the word—and have fire extinguishers ready.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The thong of the echo was getting louder.

  “Two thousand five hundred yards.”

  “Search periscope.”

  “Search periscope, sir.”

  “Bearing?”

  “Zero five five.”

  The captain flipped down the arms and began to rotate the scope. He stopped and turned it back slowly two degrees. “I’ve got it.”

  Everyone except Sparks turned around. “Can you see them, Captain?”

  “Yes—just a glimpse. Damn, the fire’s closed in all right. They’re cut off.”

  O’Brien felt a surge of apprehension. “How big’s the clear area?”

  “About the size of a duck pond from here—radius maybe a quarter of a mile at most. Probably less.” Kyle stepped back from the scope. “Hold position. Down search scope. Up attack scope.”

  Hogarth’s response was terse and precise. “Position holding, sir. Down search scope. Up attack scope.”

  As the longer attack scope rose, Hogarth took the sub down another ten feet to compensate for the scope’s extra height above the water. A few seconds later Kyle bent forward, draped his arms over the attack scope’s handles, and called for the range.

  “Steady at two thousand five hundred yards, sir.”

  Through the scope it looked to Kyle as if the fishing boat, blurred by the heat, were changing position every few seconds, but he soon realized that it was an illusion caused by the constant dancing of the flames. “Bearing?”

  “Zero five seven, sir.”

  O’Brien cut in. “Sorry, sir—but why can’t we surface and fire in the clear area above us?”

  Kyle swung the attack scope to zero five seven. “Because if they’re alive, they might see us and try to make a run for it—straight into our line of fire and the firespill wall. I want to blow out a hole for them, not blow them out of the water. Stand by. Bearing—mark!”

  “Zero five five.”

  “Shoot!”

  “Set.”

  “Fire one!”

  “Fire one,” repeated O’Brien.

  “Fire two!”

  “Fire two. Number one and two fired and running, sir.”

  A shudder passed through the sub as the torpedoes blasted out of their tubes, streaking towards the fire wall at fifty knots.

  “Down scope.”

  “Down scope, sir.” As the attack periscope withdrew into its protective sheath to prevent blast damage to the delicate optical system, O’Brien, his fingers above the console firing button, counted off the seconds to detonation. “Five—four—three—two—” He pushed the button and gripped an overhead pipe. The boat shook violently, heeling hard to starboard, then to port, flinging the crew about like toy soldiers, as the two almost simultaneous explosions ripped convulsively through the red black sea, hurling tons of burning slick into the poisoned sky.

  As the sub came back on an even keel, Kyle ordered, “Prepare to surface.”

  Hogarth checked that all compartments were closed off. “Ready to surface, sir.”

  “Surface!”

  Hogarth swung round to the auxiliaryman. “Blow one, two, four, six, and seven.”

  There was a hiss as the compressed air forced its way into the tanks. “Blowing one, two, four, six, and seven, sir.”

  The moment Swordfish’s nose broke through the black surface, Kyle instructed Hogarth, “Secure the blow-open upper conning tower hatch.” He rang the forward hatch room. “Rescue party on deck.” Remembering the chief engineer’s report of the ruptured diesel tank, he added, “And two men to see where we’re leaking fuel.”

  By the time O’Brien, taking over as officer of the watch, had given the all clear and stationed the lookouts, the captain was standing behind him on the bridge.

  Kyle saw immediately that the gap made by the torpedoes was too small for the sub to risk passing through, particularly with fuel spilling from its tanks. But he had to give them the best chance he could. He rang for slow ahead, wishing he could have had time to fire more torpedoes. The telegraph answered, and the sub started to edge towards the gap. The rescue party and the standby crew clambered throu
gh the forward hatch and breathed the air gratefully. It was hot and fume-laden, but it was air nevertheless and better than they’d had for the last twelve hours.

  While the sailors readied their lines, Sparks, down below, was receiving another message from H.Q. in Esquimalt, informing the commander of Swordfish that the spill had expanded far beyond earlier estimates.

  Three-quarters of a mile away, the Vice-President and Harry, gagging from smoke inhalation, did not see the explosions although they heard them and felt them as the underwater shock waves punched into their bodies, doubling them up and knocking them to the surface like stunned fish. After Elaine had partially recovered from the blow, her ears ringing and her vision still distorted by the impact of the blast, she strained to see through the clouds of sulphurous smoke.

  Before the concussion hit Harry, he thought that the noise had come from above the fire, and now, his brain dull from lack of oxygen, he gazed dumbly skywards. Then they heard what sounded like the popping of small firecrackers, barely audible through the crackling and sputtering of the fire, which was now no more than four hundred yards away. Harry squinted again into the red black sky and saw the green starburst. It lasted only a few seconds. “It’s a flare,” he gasped hoarsely. “It’s a flare! There’s someone—the sub! The sub—it’s here!”

  When Elaine looked up, she could see nothing, but gradually the gap which had been punched out of the fire wall by the torpedoes became visible. It was almost a minute, however, before Harry realized that the sub had stopped on the other side of the gap and was no longer coming towards them. He clambered aboard the boat frantically, pointing. “There—there, through the gap. It’s not coming to us—no room. We’ll have to run for it. Quick—get aboard! They’ve blown a path for us.”

  Elaine tried to pull herself up the short ladder but fell back, splashing into the water, now strewn with dead sea life amidst the oil. Harry put out his arm. She grabbed it and slipped from his oily grasp back into the sea, swallowing a foul-tasting mixture of high octane and crude. Harry reached down, grabbed her neck and dragged her aboard. She screamed as her injured arm brushed against the poker-hot gunwale. Harry stumbled forward to start the boat’s motor, shouting, “Hang on! I’ll have to give her full throttle to get through.”

  The motor roared into life, and the boat surged towards the gap.

  On the sub’s bridge, O’Brien wiped the oily slick from his face—he had opened the top hatch as they surfaced—and watched the rescue team standing by somewhat awkwardly under the eye of P.O. Jordan. They could do nothing to help until the fishing boat crossed the gap. The Swordfish’s diesel generator was now running at full speed, sucking in what air it could in the short time they had. O’Brien shook his head. The scene around him was like a medieval painting of hell. Everywhere he looked there was fire and smoke. The life-jacketed crew, twisted and distorted by the leaping flames, seemed like demonic invaders waiting anxiously for some charred and ruined prize from the fire storm around them.

  Unable to take the sub in any closer, the captain had been watching the boat approaching the gap through his binoculars. A hundred yards or so on the other side of the open space, it stopped and began to rock helplessly in its own wash. He shouted through the bullhorn, “Their engine’s cut! Get the raft overboard!”

  Aboard the fishing boat, Harry worked frantically at the controls.

  Kyle asked O’Brien, “Have they found that fuel leak yet?”

  The first officer turned about, nearly losing his footing, and spoke to the men rigged with safety lines proceeding carefully along the deck, searching for the telltale trace of diesel. They shook their heads.

  The gap in the fire was closing. At its widest, it had offered only a narrow channel. Kyle swallowed and raised his binoculars again. The boat was moving, but only at about quarter speed. “Too slow, too slow,” he murmured. “Must be clogged to hell and gone with muck.”

  Harry had the throttle all the way down. He too saw the gap closing. “We’ll never make it like this,” he yelled to Elaine. “We’ll have to jettison weight. You steer?”

  Before she realized what was happening, Harry had pulled her under the canopy and put one of her hands down hard on the throttle and the other on the wheel. “Whatever you do, just steer straight ahead at the gap. When we get near the sub, push the throttle up. That’ll cut the motor. Got it?”

  Elaine nodded feebly while Harry made his way quickly but as carefully as he could towards the stem and the heavy water pump. The sea was choppier than before, and he fell heavily on the deck. Elaine looked around. He was on his feet again, yelling above the fierce roar of the fire, “I’m going to get rid of the pump. That’ll give us more speed. How far are we?”

  Elaine peered through a small hole in the smoke. “About two hundred yards.”

  As the boat sluggishly approached the closing gap, Harry grappled desperately with the pump. He fell several times, gasping for air before he mustered the energy to drag the heavy little engine over the distorted planking and up to the gunwale so that he could push it overboard.

  The gap was now only about fifty yards wide, and the fire was closing even faster than before. There was a heavy, dragging noise, the sound of Harry cursing and coughing, then a loud splash. The boat’s nose lifted slightly. Then Happy Girl pushed forward with a new vigor and leaped for the gap. The clear space was almost sealed now, and long tendrils of flame rolled greedily across the open water. Elaine pushed down on the throttle with all the strength she had, but still the fire enveloped her. For a moment, she thought the boat had stopped; flames were licking round her and the canopy was on fire. Then she realized that the fire wall was behind her. Tears streaming down her face, she shouted, “We did it! Harry, we’re through!”

  A black cloud lifted, and there was the sub—dead ahead. She cut the throttle and tried to swing the boat about. Too late. Happy Girl glanced off the Swordfish’s starboard quarter and slid along the side of the sub, the flames from her canopy spreading to the sub’s oil-covered fiberglass casing.

  One of the standby party in the inflatable raft, which had narrowly escaped being punctured in the collision, managed to leap aboard the boat, grab the Vice-President, and jump overboard with her while his shipmates tried desperately to fend off the burning wreckage. O’Brien had an extinguisher on the casing fire within seconds, but the flames continued to spread, racing about the bridge and sail. Kyle grabbed the bullhorn. “Get her aboard fast. Everyone else clear the decks. Let’s get out of here!”

  Petty Officer Jordan, wielding a long boat hook, had grabbed the sailor who held the Vice-President and dragged the two of them to the edge of the sub just as the fishing boat’s gas tanks exploded aft of the bridge, showering Swordfish with burning gasoline. In the flash of the explosion, Kyle saw that the man in the water with the Vice-President was Lambrecker. Kyle had no time to ponder whether the mutineer’s action had been motivated by bravery or expediency. He would have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  In a few more seconds the rescue team were lowering the Vice-President down the forward hatch. The moment he saw her head disappear from view, Kyle ordered, “Clear the bridge.” The lookouts scrambled below and Hogarth in the control room heard the captain’s order come over the intercom. “Dive the submarine!” -

  Kyle, drawing down the upper hatch, recited the litany of the dive. “Upper hatch shut. One clip on—two clips on. One pin in, two pins in.” He pushed the Klaxon alarm twice. On the second raucous blast, the ballast tanks’ vents opened and giant bubbles broke the surface of the burning sea. The control room watchkeepers were still securing the lower conning tower hatch when the captain instructed O’Brien, “See if the Vice-President is okay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At an angle of ten degrees, the sub was diving to a leveling-off depth of sixty feet. The captain would have liked to go deeper to avoid the danger of tar balls, but from H.Q.’s last report, together with what he had just seen, it was now clear that the fire
spill had spread well beyond the maximum distance the sub could attain on her two remaining hours of battery power. Kyle cursed. If only Swordfish had had time to recharge on the surface!

  Kyle now realized what O’Brien had feared just prior to the rescue, namely that without the admiral’s “all possible assistance,” Swordfish could not escape. He rang the engineer. They would have to stay at sixty feet, the minimum distance from which the sub could transmit a direction-finding signal. “Damage report, Chief?”

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  “Can we run at sixty feet?”

  “We can—just. She’s sprung a few wee leaks after that last bang. We’ll have to watch her bloody closely.”

  The captain sent a message to Pacific Command that the Vice-President had been rescued and that Swordfish would need help. Though what could help her now God only knew.

  Down in the sick bay the Vice-President, near complete exhaustion, was asking for Harry.

  Seventeen

  Informed within minutes of the rescue that the Vice-President was aboard Swordfish, the President hastily adjourned his pollution meeting with congressional leaders in the Green Room and hurried down with General Oster to the Operations Room.

  He still did not know about the extreme precariousness of the sub’s position, and his face, though gray with the strain of the long vigil, broke into a wide grin as he strode past the marine guards, barely giving them time to glimpse his I.D. Entering the Operations Room, he saw Jean Roche, haggard-looking, dwarfed by a series of large-scale aquamarine-colored maps of the Northeast Pacific. “How is she?” he asked.

  Jean had just received the post-rescue report from Canadian Pacific Command. “A little shaky, some first-degree bums apparently, but otherwise okay. The sub’s making a run for it now.”

  “Well?” said the President happily, looking around at Henricks and the others, the tension draining from his shoulders as he took off his crumpled suit coat and let it fall on a chair. “That’s great. There’ll be a nice big thank-you when that sub docks, I can tell you. Does the press know?”