Collapse Depth

by Todd Tucker

  There was no graceful way to exit the tank. The petty officer handed Jabo his flashlight and rubber mallet, which Jabo placed on the deck before grabbing his outstretched arms and pulling him through. He got to his feet, took a deep breath, put his hands on his hips, and looked Duggan up and down.

  “You the new guy? Sir?”

  “That’s me,” said Duggan, trying again to strike a balance between confidence and modesty. He got the distinct impression that the enlisted man…Renfro, that was his name…was waiting for him to say or do something stupid that he could report back to an amused crew. Renfro had a pencil thin mustache and that muscular, small build that seemed characteristic of so many submariners, standard issue along with the hard, challenging stare. All three of them were wearing identical, insignia-free green coveralls for the occasion, not even a nametag among them. But no one observing the scene would have had any trouble picking out who among them was the respected lieutenant, who was the experienced petty officer, and who was the boot ensign.

  “You an Academy guy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmm,” said Renfro, nodding his head with disapproval. Renfro was “qualified,” a wearer (when in a normal uniform) of the coveted silver dolphins. This meant that despite the difference in their nominative ranks, Renfro outranked Duggan in an unofficial, but very important way. It would be months of non-stop work, study, and endless on-the-job training before the captain pinned dolphins on Duggan’s chest. (Closing out a tank was one of about two hundred “practical factors” he had to complete along the way.) Furthermore, Renfro was an “A Ganger,” a member of Auxiliary Division, the men in charge of the dirtiest, most important equipment on the boat: the diesel engine, the oxygen generators, all the ship’s damage control equipment. They made the claim, with much justification, that they were the Navy’s truest submariners.

  “You ready?” said Jabo.

  “Yes,” said Duggan. The dark tank didn’t seem all that inviting, but he suddenly wanted to get out from under Renfro’s hard gaze.

  Jabo went in first, somehow effortlessly squeezing his considerable frame through the manway. Duggan followed him, while Renfro stood watch at the entrance.

  “Don’t worry sir,” said Renfro as they descended. “I won’t let them start filling it up ‘til you’re half way up the ladder.”

  “We appreciate it,” said Jabo.

  Duggan climbed down the iron rungs, which were welded directly to the side of the tank. The side of the tank was also the concave side of the ship, making it tricky to reach the next slippery step as they curved outward, away in the darkness, most of his weight hanging from his hands rather than supported by his feet, until he was halfway down and the hull curved back.

  The darkness of the tank and the geometry of the ladder made it impossible to see how far he had to go; it was deeper than he imagined. He felt himself growing tense as he went further, thought about the single valve handle and the listless watchstanders that were the only things standing between him and thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. As he got deeper, the air in the tank grew thicker, harder to breathe, the smell a combination of diesel fuel and the sea, a more concentrated version of what permeated the entire ship. He kept his eyes on the manway above him, his only escape. It got smaller as he descended, like a full moon in a black sky.

  Jabo had navigated the steps deftly and waited at the bottom, swinging the flashlight on its lanyard, making the shiny walls of the tank seem to sway.

  “Okay, you know why we’re here?” said Jabo. His voice echoed metallically. Duggan realized that he still clung on to the bottom rung, afraid to lose contact with it in case Jabo dropped his light, or the batteries died. He forced himself to let go.

  “Duggan? Why are we here?”

  “To close out the tank.”

  “You know what that means?”

  “Make sure there’s nothing left down here?”

  “Like tools and stuff? Sure. Good answer. And?” He held up the mallet.

  “Sound shorts?”

  “Sound shorts, anything loose. We’ll bang on everything, make sure it’s all squared away. Because if there’s something rattlin’ around down here, it will be impossible to fix at sea. And remember, we’re a submarine…we don’t like making noise. Any time we empty a tank like this and do work, before we’re done, a qualified enlisted man closes it out, then an officer verifies. Do you know why this tank is empty?”

  “We did some maintenance, right?”

  Jabo nodded, and pointed his flashlight to a corner of the tank, where a pipe rose like a stalagmite, extending the full height of the space. The walls of the tank gleamed like glass in the beam, the steel preserved pristinely by the blanket of fuel that normally covered it. “We had to fix that: the level detector. You know how that works?”

  Duggan nodded. “No…sorry.”

  “That’s okay…hell, you just got here. The tank is always full. As we burn diesel fuel, we let in water. The fuel, being about fifteen percent less dense, floats atop the water. The sensor floats atop the water-fuel interface. So as the tank empties of fuel oil, the sensor actually rises. Keeps the tank full of something all the time, which helps shield the people tank from the reactor.” He knocked his flashlight against the aft wall of the tank.

  “Cool,” said Duggan.

  “Yeah, those fuckers think of everything. One more question: how much fuel does this tank hold?”

  “Thirty-five thousand gallons,” said Duggan, proud of himself for knowing the answer. Right before coming down, he’d seen the tanker truck on the pier, the hoses already extended, ready to send the cargo gushing into the tank where he stood.

  “Good job. You have any idea why we carry that much diesel fuel?”

  The question surprised Duggan. He hadn’t thought it was based on anything…it was just how much the tank held. He was struck by how many things there were to know inside an empty tank…and they weren’t trivial, either, they were actually important, capacities and specs developed by some of the finest engineers in the world. He contemplated how many hours he would have to spend at sea before he knew everything he was supposed to know about this giant boat.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” said Jabo. “It’s based on a theoretical casualty in which we lose all power except the diesel engine, and this much fuel would allow us to steam for a certain number of hours at a certain number of knots, enough hours to get us out of harm’s way. The theory goes.”

  “I’ll look it up.”

  “Then get back with me and I’ll sign your book. Will that be your first signature?”

  Duggan nodded.

  “Holy shit! What an honor. You owe me a beer when we get back.”

  Far above them, Renfro stuck his head through the hatch and yelled down. “Hey, topside wants to know what’s taking so long. Are you guys blowing each other?”

  “Yeah,” said Jabo. “But we’re almost done.”

  He handed Duggan the mallet. “Here, start banging on shit.”

  • • •

  The navigator sat huddled over a chart in a darkened corner of the submarine’s control room, frantically making revisions during the last few hours of the USS Alabama’s refit. He was a small man burdened with many secrets.

  For example: he knew the combination of the inner SAS safe, the safe-within-a-safe that held the sealed authentication codes that would allow the launch of a nuclear missile. That series of four double-digit numbers was so secret that he was not allowed to write it down, and he had nightmares about being summoned to radio at the start of World War III and being unable to remember it, his faulty memory removing Alabama from strategic service as surely as an enemy torpedo. And, as navigator, he knew the exact locations of their patrol areas, the vast swaths of ocean where Ohio-class submarines maintained their vigils, within missile range of their targets in China and eastern Russia. That kind of targeting information was so secret, classified beyond Top Secret, that even the name of the classification wa
s unutterable to the vast majority of the ship’s 154 man crew.

  He knew the ship’s top speed: not as fast as many novelists speculated, slower than a good speed boat, but impressive enough to those who understood how quietly their 18,000 ton warship could move beneath the ocean at that speed. And he knew the ship’s test depth, the deepest at which they ever operated, the depth at which their systems were tested against the maximum sea pressure they should ever face. More secret still, he knew the ship’s collapse depth, the depth at which engineers estimated that the hull would finally succumb to the pressure of the millions of tons of sweater that surrounded them. It was striking what sea pressure could do to the works of man at those depths, the way water could turn into a force as solid and destructive as any weapon. Their XO had a standard lecture he liked to give about the nature of submarining, how seawater was their only real enemy. Torpedoes and depth charges just allowed the enemy inside.

  Unlike the ship’s relatively unimpressive top speed, its maximum depth would be striking to anyone knowledgeable about diving and submersibles, a very large number that was a monument to the engineering marvel that was a Trident Submarine. But, as the navigator knew and was reminded of every time he so much as glanced at the small, italic numbers that dotted every one of his charts: even that large number was very much smaller than the depth of the ocean almost everywhere that they operated. Another favorite monologue of the XO’s: he would hold his hand out at waist-height, the distance to the deck representing the depth of the Pacific. Test depth is here, he would say, pointing to a spot about four inches below his palm. The submarine could travel deep, but the Pacific was very much deeper, a kind of biblical abyss that was difficult for the mind to grasp, even the minds of men who’d spent their whole lives at sea.

  But the navigator had another, even darker secret, one more frightening than a forgotten safe combination or the depth at which a submarine becomes destroyed by a heartless ocean, a secret that tortured him as he tried to stay focused on the charts: he knew the ship’s mission. Along with the captain and the XO, he’d seen the new orders that he feared would doom them. Doom humanity. As navigator he not only knew about it: he had to help plan it, and plot their course right into the belly of the beast. He envied the rest of the crew in their ignorance, their hectic, boisterous preparations for patrol.

  “Nav, are you alright?”

  The navigator looked up, startled. The Duty Officer, Lieutenant Maple, was staring at him from the conn. He’d stopped signing the thick stack of red DANGER tags in front of him and stared with concern.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  The navigator looked where Maple was pointing. He’d been jamming the point of his dividers into his knee. He’d stabbed right through the fabric of his khakis, into his flesh. Blood ran down his leg into a dark red puddle on the deck.

  • • •

  The next morning, Jabo waited outside the Captain’s stateroom with his single-page letter of resignation in hand. He hadn’t wanted it to be this way, wanted a few more days to warm up to the task, but as with so many of his plans over the last nine years, this had been preempted by the needs of the navy. They’d been ordered to sea early for reasons that had not yet been revealed, and he had to get this letter in the captain’s hands before the final mail call, if he actually expected to get out of the Navy at the earliest opportunity: five years to the day after he received his commission from the ROTC unit at Vanderbilt. The ship was still on the surface and rolled gently in the five foot swell that was following them out to deep water. After three years at sea, Jabo knew intuitively that if the rolling was bad inside the protected waters of the sound, they were in for a rough transit to Point Juliet, the earliest they could submerge. The XO walked out of the Captain’s stateroom, a wry smile on his face, paused at the sight of him. Like Jabo, he had a letter in his hand, but his was printed on fine official stationary.

  “Danny have you heard anything about this girl baby shit?” he asked, waving the letter. The XO was short. But he was solid and spry, with a boxer’s build and attitude. His shaved, gleaming head enhanced his tough guy look. There were legends in the submarine fleet about his physical strength, tales of bar fights he’d broken up in Subic Bay and boxing matches he’d won at the Academy. He was a submarine officer of the oldest school, fluent in profanity, torpedo targeting, and dismissive of protocol. Jabo agreed with the consensus that they were lucky to have him.

  Jabo was startled by the question. “Sir?”

  “The rumor-of-the-month: that radiation on a nuclear submarine means you’ll only have girl babies. Have you ever heard this?”

  Jabo nodded. “Actually I have, sir. Last patrol in maneuvering they were talking about it, after Chief Palko had his third kid.”

  The XO furrowed his brow. “Yeah, that dickhead does have three girls, doesn’t he? I’ll have to get on his ass about that…it’s starting to be a problem. Somebody just wrote their congressman asking off the boat because of this bullshit.”

  “Palko’s not the only one,” said Jabo. “I remember them going through the numbers…something like eight out of the last nine babies born to crew members have been girls.”

  The XO grinned and stepped in closer. “So you believe this shit too Jabo? Think neutrons are doing something to kill off all your boy sperm?”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “You know Jabo, one of the things we ask of our junior officers is to not be stupid. So if you hear anybody contributing to this bullshit…help me put a stop to it.”

  “Aye, aye sir.”

  “What the fuck is that?” he said, suddenly turning his attention to the letter in Jabo’s hand.

  “Sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to show it to the captain first.”

  “Just what I was afraid of: a resignation letter. Another JO heading for the fuckin’ beach. I take it Microsoft was impressed with your resume?” He nodded his head toward the Captain’s stateroom. “Go on in, Jabo.” He stomped down the passageway, whistling loudly and cheerfully.

  Jabo knocked on the open door. “Captain?”

  “Come in Danny.” A captain could call a junior officer by his first name, but the reverse was never true. The fatherly Captain Shields was calming contrast to the XO, the two complementing each other as they led Alabama to its place at the top of all the squadron’s rankings. He had salt and pepper hair and a perpetual twinkle in his eye. Unlike the XO, he’d acquired no legends about his physical strength, although he had been an All-America swimmer at the Academy. But he had built a rock-solid career, culminating with his command of Alabama, on steady leadership and his almost freakishly comprehensive knowledge of submarine nuclear power. While sailors told stories about a push up contest the XO had won against a Marine Corps General, the captain was of a different caste. He looked like a man who not only could solve quadratic equations in his head; he looked like he was doing it all the time, effortlessly.

  Jabo shuffled in and sat on the only other chair in the stateroom. “Captain, I’ve decided to resign my commission.”

  The captain nodded thoughtfully, waited a beat, and then took the letter from his hands. He took his time reading it, and then handed it back. “I refuse to accept this.”

  Danny waited, not knowing what to do, hoping the captain was joking.

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t understand Danny—you’ve always seemed like you enjoy your job to me.”

  “I do like my job. And I love this ship.”

  “So why get out? You can keep the fun going for twenty years or more, just like me.”

  “I’m not sure it’s as much fun if I stay in. I like standing watch and driving the boat. Not writing training plans and filling in spreadsheets.”

  “You think that’s what I do all day, Danny?”

  “Not you, sir—but the department heads, frankly, yes. And that’s what I’d be doing next if I stayed in.”

  “Believe it or not, Dann
y, being a department head can be fun too.”

  “Like the navigator?”

  The captain grimaced. “Come on, Danny. The nav isn’t a particularly good example. He’s at the end of a very demanding tour, five patrols as a navigator is a very long time.”

  “It’s just…”

  “So you’re afraid you won’t have as much fun as a department head? That’s the reason?”

  “Captain, if you’ll read my letter, you’ll see that it’s not. I also wonder sometimes what we’re doing out here.”

  “You don’t think what we do is important?”

  “That’s right, captain.” Jabo felt ashamed to say it, but it was true. “We’re still running a platform that was originally designed to lob missiles at a nation that no longer exists. I feel like we’re just shadow boxing out here.”

  “Listen carefully, Danny. Driving this boat and keeping it safe is important—maybe the most important thing you’ll ever do, certainly more important than chasing the next bonus at Microsoft.” The boat had lost their last two junior officers to Microsoft and it clearly irked the command. “And, if you don’t like our mission, get on an attack boat for your next tour—they’re in the fight.”

  “Not really. I mean, I know they may get to go more places than us, support battle groups and ops like that, but it’s no different. Our enemies use box cutters now—you can’t really fight them with a nuclear submarine.”

  Shields sat back in his chair and looked Jabo over. He was smiling. “Are you sure there’s nothing else going on here?”

  The junior officer and his Captain looked at each other for a minute. Unlike the navigator, Jabo often felt like he had no secrets—it was something about the tight-knit community of shipboard life that he had never quite gotten used to. And, for the past six weeks, he’d had a big secret: his wife, Angi, was pregnant. If the captain had somehow intuited that pregnancy, than perhaps he had also intuited Jabo’s strong desire to not have a Navy family, to have his child be a Navy brat. He’d seen far too many screwed up families in the Navy, and no matter what he said in his letter of resignation, that was one of the best reasons he could think of for getting out. His wife was just starting to show the pregnancy on her slender frame, and she’d already entered the Byzantine world of military medicine, Champus, Tri-Care, and the navy hospital. Jabo wondered, as he looked at the Captain, if the secret was out.