“I can’t find the goddamned leak,” Kuhn said in disgust. He dug into his dungaree pocket with a grimy hand and pulled out a cigarette. He barely had enough room to do that, and if he had been claustrophobic he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in that tiny space.
Statz provided a light for Kuhn. “You bled the lines?”
Kuhn nodded in thought, going over a list of the actions he had taken. “Twice. Nothing. No air.”
“Cleaned and replaced the lines?”
“Yes,” he said, blinking heavily. “Give me that rag, will you?”
Statz found a clean work rag behind him and gave it to Kuhn, who wiped his face. The rank smell of oil and grease hung everywhere. It was the heady stench of machinery: steel and lubricants.
“Checked the fittings and gaskets. I checked the pumps last week so I know they are fine,” Kuhn said. As he drew heavily on the cigarette, Statz nodded, considering the alternative. He could feel Kuhn watching him. “Don’t you dare bring that shit Weintz down here,” Kuhn said. “This is my gun.” He was not a gunner from Division 2 like Statz; he was a mechanic from Division 8, but his job was to make sure that the guns operated properly; his guns, he often said, because he was just as possessive of them as the gunners.
“He might have some ideas.”
“He can keep his ideas to himself,” Kuhn snapped. He calmed and sat back against the bulkhead in thought. “There’s no wear on the lines. No drag on the trunnion.” He looked up at Statz from the dark recesses of the elevating cylinder well, white eyes smiling out of a grimy face. “Statzy,” Kuhn said, “why don’t you be a kind boy and ask the O.O.D. if you can take the gun up about twenty degrees?” They had known each other for over a decade and although Statz was his superior, Kuhn never seemed to let that get in the way of their friendship.
Statz knew what Kuhn had in mind. “You crazy bastard. Do you want to die down here?”
“It’s a hydraulic leak, Statzy. Suppose I get squirted in the eye? You’ll rescue me, won’t you? Look, it’s the only way that I can find the leak. I’ve got my light and tools. Take the gun up slowly and I’ll check out the cylinder and lines. When she’s at twenty, come down and check on me. If I’m dead, you can have everything I own.”
“The only thing you’ve ever owned was the clap,” Statz said. He thought it over. Kuhn was well clear of any moving parts, but Statz still did not like leaving his friend in the dark, cold confines of the cylinder well. It was too much like a grave.
“All right,” he said, mostly to stop the morbid thoughts. Statz climbed out of the well, passed the huge breech of the sixteen-inch gun, up the access ladder, and climbed onto the cramped gun controller’s platform. He turned aft and squeezed through the hatch leading to the range finder’s room in the after section of the turret — still bending low to keep from splitting open his skull on a dozen protruding wheels, dials, handles, and jutting, unidentifiable hunks of steel. He slid under the large range-finder tube between the port and amidships positions, around the squat analog gear computer, and found the telephone on the after bulkhead. He switched the black Bakelite knob to Bridge, and picked up the receiver. He heard a tinny voice say: “Bridge.”
“Bruno. Statz here. We’re trying to find a hydraulic leak on the starboard cylinder of Number One Gun. Request permission to elevate to twenty degrees.”
The Matrosentabobergefreiter at the other end replied: “One moment.” He would have to activate the electric motors to provide power to the pumps. After a moment he said: “Permission granted,” and then Statz heard the click of the receiver.
Cussing the superior attitude of the bridge watch, Statz made his way back to the gun controller’s station for number-one gun. He slid onto the small saddle chair and began opening the electrical circuits for the hydraulic fluid pumps.
“Kuhn!” Statz shouted over the edge of the platform. “Ready?”
“Hell yes,” Kuhn called back. “Let’s get this done. My ass is freezing.”
“Pumps on,” Statz said. He watched the needles climbing as the ready fluid exited the reservoirs. He switched on the reservoir release and saw the elevation indicator dial begin to rise. When the reservoirs were empty, the hydraulic fluid in the cylinders, when released, could be transferred to the reservoirs. The cylinder plunger fell, sliding into the cylinder with the weight of the breech, and the muzzle of the gun would rise. It topped out at forty-five degrees, but twenty degrees would give them an idea where the problem was.
“Five degrees,” he called out over the loud hum of the gun’s breech nestling deeper into its hold.
“Nothing,” Kuhn replied.
“Ten degrees,” Statz said and adjusted the fluid flow so that the gun would fall smoothly.
“Right.”
“Fifteen.”
“Statzy—”
There was a soft boom, like the noise of a distant firework. Nothing dangerous, nothing frightening about it. Just a sound that came to Statz from the starboard cylinder well.
“Kuhn!” Statz shouted. “Kuhn?” He quickly shut off the circuits and swung over the platform railing. He locked the insteps of his shoes to the outside ladder railings, gripped the railings with his hands, and dropped like a rock. He landed hard on the narrow deck that surrounded the cylinder.
“Kuhn?” He found the trouble light but it was out. He pulled a flashlight from the back pocket of his overalls and played it rapidly over the dark interior of the well. He saw the ruptured cylinder first. There was a two-foot slash near the bottom of the cylinder — hydraulic fluid dripped from it like blood from a wound. “Kuhn!”
Statz found Kuhn, jammed between two support flanges, cut nearly in half. Statz slumped to the deck of the cylinder well and sat in three inches of hydraulic fluid mixed with the blood of his friend, who stared back at him with sightless eyes. He must have been right next to the cylinder when it erupted — close enough for the pressurized hydraulic fluid to rip him apart.
When Kuhn was finally pulled from the turret and his body lay on a stretcher, there was more to be concerned about for the crew of D.K.M. Sea Lion than the fact that they had lost a friend.
Sailors are superstitious and they know that vessels are sometimes marked as lucky or unlucky. To those who never put to sea, it may seem childish and nonsensical, but life aboard frail vessels that dare the North Atlantic are governed by laws unnatural in any case, and unrelated in all cases to the land. There are complex regulations and statutes, known and unknown, put forward by the sea and enforced with absolute dispassion. Earth gives firmness and stability and seldom rises up to attack those who travel upon it. The sea is not so considerate and demands that all sailors be wary and all ships be prepared to submit to its edicts.
Now, in all of the sections and divisions aboard this remarkable vessel, old sailors shared similar stories while serious young sailors listened, about unlucky ships and unlucky crews, and they always came back to sailors dying.
Chapter 7
Louis Hoffman followed a butler into the bright sunshine and saw the short, stocky figure of Winston Churchill, cigar in one hand, brandy snifter in the other, comfortably enthroned on a cast-iron settee.
“Mr. Hoffman. How are you?” Churchill said, making no move to rise.
“I’m fine, Prime Minister,” Hoffman said, but he wasn’t. He’d been too long in England and he wanted to go home. He couldn’t get a decent meal unless he went to the embassy. Thank God Joe Kennedy wasn’t there to bore him to death. Franklin had recalled the former ambassador some time before because Kennedy had a way of making it sound as if he admired Hitler and the Nazis. That admiration didn’t mix well at dinner parties thrown by the English.