During their roller-coaster ride back to the ship, the rib was swamped by the raging sea non-stop. Shouting into the wild wind only served to freeze their teeth with air so cold it brought tears to their eyes. Nick and Jeremy knew better than to let go the hand holds, but Wolf almost went overboard when he wrapped his arms around his body instinctively to shield himself. His head slammed into the centre console and he floundered on the floor, but safe.
The Platypus loomed ahead riding on her huge anchor, fighting to stay in position, thrashed by themist and spray leaping off the ocean. Nick’s mind flashed back to Tahiti and the warmth they had left behind two weeks ago.A man must be bloody mad, he thought. ‘We’ll have to move quick or we’ll be crushed against the ship.’ He shouted.
Onboard Platypus the crew wearing tethers lowered ropes and the gangplank. Confused waves battered the small boat against the side of the ship unrelentingly, while the crew member battled to keep her steady. Nick immediately fastened a rope to his waist and turned, just in time to see Jeremy about to fall overboard. He lurched forward, grabbing Jeremy’s arm just as he went over the side, holding desperately as the boiling sea tried to wrench his body from the rib.
‘Wolf, grab his other arm!’ Nick yelled. Struggling together they pulled Jeremy’s flaying body from the angry foaming turmoil, all three falling soaked and exhausted back into the rib. Nick secured one of the swinging ropes around Jeremy’s waist and yelled above the roaring sea. ‘Christ Jeremy! Thought y’were a gonna that time.’
Jeremy regained his footing and gratefully slapped Nick’s shoulder.
‘Too easy, mate. Off you go!’ Nick said.
Jeremy nodded and poked his thick glasses back from the tip of his nose, then with trembling bravado started up the swaying gangplank. Nick and the crew member held the rocking rib while Wolf followed, his big feet sliding several times, threatening to toss him from the slippery gangplank at any moment. Nicked leapt from the rib seconds before the crew member gunned the motors and swung away from the ship to escape the danger. Nick paused to watch the rib as he roared off toward the stern where the davit waited to pluck the rib from the boiling sea.
An hour later after the men recovered from their ordeal, they got under way toward the Aleutian Trench. The ship pushed into a strong northerly wind with white-water breaking profusely over the bow, surging up through the hawser pipes and cascading down the forecastle, covering her foredeck with a constant spray of snow white foam. Sam watched the ship’s heading on the Gyro compass, while gratefully appreciating the climate control inside the Navilon hood isolating them from the raging wind. The clear-view screens set into it’s surface worked swiftly, their centrifugal motion throwing off the continuous spray that lashed with fury at the hood covering the foredeck.
The blazing light of the Scotch Cap Lighthouse drew their attention. ‘That lighthouse isn’t the original.’ Wolf said. ‘The first one was hundreds of feet below it. They never knew what hit them when a hundred foot wave smashed into it. April Fool’s Day 1946, about 1.30 in the morning I think. That wasn’t all.’ Wolf continued. ‘There were more bigger waves, and four hours later a fifty-foot wave smashed into the Waipio Valley in Hawaii, thousands of miles away at the same time that another one wiped out nearby Hilo.’
Sam whistled. ‘I heard about that. Didn’t know it started here though! They made paths up to the hills after that so people have an escape route if it happens again.’
‘Ya, there’s been many quakes here since then. None like that though. I hope I’m wrong but I think the next one could be bigger.’
Nick noticed Wolf’s German accent becoming stronger. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling Wolf. I think you’re right.’
The three men spent the rest of the journey in glum silence. Great foaming waves tossed themselves violently over the bow as they neared their destination.
Wolf insisted on accompanying Nick and the others on board the Bunyip, despite warnings of discomfort. The men had boarded before Nick, before the big gantry that supported the Bunyip slid on it’s skids to position her at the edge of the stern, where she would be slung out over the thrashing sea below. Satisfied that all was in place and ready to go, Nick climbed on and gave the crew the thumbs up before he squeezed through the hatch, locking it securely in place behind him.
The morning had opened with a dark green sky with unrelenting wind and snow and the wind howled around the sodden bodies of the crew as they lowered the sub into the churning sea. Turbulent waves lashed the Bunyip, spinning her in giddy circles as they sank below the dark surface.
Inside Bunyip all sense of movement retreated as they began the hydrodynamic shaped spirals to the seabed, the gyro compass their only means of knowing they were descending.
After the half-hour journey straight down they went swiftly into action dropping instruments onto the sea bed. The readings followed the same pattern as those they had recorded in Hawaii, but were stronger in intensity. The depth sounder read eight hundred feet.
The space for human occupation, although designed to carry eight men, was not much larger than an elevator, and two-thirds of that space was taken up by instruments and equipment. Their Navilon body suits kept out any cold the air conditioning failed to stop, while they constantly checked navigation, life support and other systems.
They edged slowly Northward away from the Aleutian Islands where the bottom shoals very rapidly to seventy-five metres. The seismic disturbance was leading them farther north like an underground highway. The Platypus steamed behind, their lifeline and support.
It was midday on their first day out and they were at thirty metres when Nick angled his eye to a fisheye. The Bunyip’s search lights cut a yellow path through dark green water. ‘Visibility’s good here but there’s no sign of sea-life. Like you said Wolf. Wolf?’
Wolf removed the headset he had found on board. ‘Eh? What did you say?’
‘No sea life out there.’
Wolf pushed aside the headset. ‘Sorry. All the pings and racket of the instruments bothers me. How d’you put up with this all the time Nick?’
‘Arh… It’s like many things, you get used to it.’ Nick jotted into a notebook and glanced back at Wolf. ‘That’s a nasty bruise on you head. You look a bit tired. Are you okay?’
‘Ya. I’m getting lessons every day. Last night was bad.’ Wolf patted his chest. ‘All that rolling and pitching kept me awake.’
‘I must admit I’m not loving this trip either. What I miss most is the sun, it’s so bloody bleak here.’ He looked at Wolf’s white face and then his watch. ‘We’ve been down four hours, enough for today, take her up Beau.’
Chapter Four
They had travelled through the Bering Straight and were entering the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic circle. It was almost a week since they’d left Unimak Island and apart from overnight breaks on board the Platypus, they had spent six hours every day crammed into the three-metre pressure-sphere.
Lethargy had blunted the men’s sharpness, so they were caught off guard when the Bunyip suddenly shuddered and nose-dived to the sea bed, tumbling over several times as she dropped. Wolf fell and hit the other side of his head and Jeremy crashed against the side of the bulkhead smashing his left arm. The Bunyip’s engine died, and with it the seven powerful search lights around her hull. The men lay dazed in the darkness where they had fallen for several seconds, until the emergency lights in the sphere flickered into action.
Instantly a barrage of loud bangs on the titanium hull echoed through Nick’s brain and instinctively he covered his ears for a moment. The crashing only lasted briefly, then there was silence. He wiped his eyes and another large gash oozed blood from his hand and ran down his face.