“Ready ... lift!” Morgan shouted.
In unison, the three teams of men pressed the tips of their spars against the hatch cover eight feet over their heads and pushed up with all their might. To everyone's surprise, the hatch cover burst open several feet, letting in a spray of muted light from the deck lights, before its weight shifted and the heavy cover slammed back down.
The forlorn man at the top of the ladder froze an instant before trying to insert the block wedge and was too late. The hatch crashed down about his head as he tried to shove the wedge into the open gap, the lip nearly taking off the fingers of his right hand. The shaken man took a deep breath, then nodded at Morgan that he was okay to try again.
“All right, let's give it another try,” Morgan commanded as water now swirled about his knees, the salt water stinging his open leg wound. “One ... two ... three!”
A loud crack ripped through the hold as the top joint on one of the spars broke clean in two, the loose section falling into the water with a splash. Mcintosh waded over and examined the damaged end piece, finding the grooved joint had broken completely off.
“Not good, sir,” he reported. “Will take some time to repair.” “Do what you can,” Morgan barked. “Let's continue with two spars ... Heave!”
The remaining men shoved at their spars but it was a lost cause. There was no way of getting enough manpower behind the two spars to apply enough leverage. Additional men crowded in to try and help, but there was simply not enough room to put more hands on the timbers and push. Twice the men strained with the additional force and were able to pry the hatch open a few inches, but it was not nearly enough to block it so that a man could escape. The surging seawater was now up to Morgan's waist and he could see in the faces of the crew that the terror of drowning was about to incite panic in the hold.
“One more try, men,” he urged on while somewhere in the back of his own mind he morbidly calculated the estimated duration it took for a man to drown.
With adrenaline pumping, the men jammed the two spars against the hatch cover one last time with all their might. This time, they seemed to find their strength and the lid began to creak up. But just as they pressed their leverage, another crack echoed through the hold. A second spar splintered at the joint and the hatch cover clanged back shut. Somewhere in a darkened corner a voice blurted out, “That's it, we're finished.”
It was enough for a trembling cook standing near the gasoline drums to lose his nerve.
“I can't swim, I can't swim!” he cried out as the water level inched up his chest.
In a frightened panic, he grabbed onto the iron rungs that ran to the vent hatch and scurried up into the shaft. Reaching the top rung in darkness, his frenzied terror continued and he began pounding on the small round hatch cover with his fists, crying to be let out. In a state of complete shock, he suddenly felt the hatch give way under his hands and drift open. With his heart pounding in disbelief, he squirmed through the hatch and stood on the deck beside the moon pool dumbfounded. It took nearly a full minute before his racing pulse began to slow and he regained composure over his senses. Realizing that he wasn't going to die just yet, he scrambled back into the hatch and down the ladder a few steps, then shouted into the hold at the top of his lungs.
“The hatch is open! The hatch is open! This way, everybody!”
Like an army of angry fire ants, the panicked crew swarmed to the ladder, crushing one another to escape. By now, most of the crew were treading water or clinging to the bulkheads, while a few drifted about the hold clinging to the now-floating rubber Zodiac. The small ROV also drifted freely, casting its bright lights in a surreal glow about the hold.
“Ladies first,” Morgan shouted, deferring to the traditional rule of the sea.
Ryan, who stood near the ladder on his toes chin high to the water, tried to restore order amid the chaos.
“You heard the captain. Ladies only. Back off, you,” he growled at a pair of male biologists clamoring to get up the ladder. As the female crew members rapidly scurried up the vent and out the hatch, Ryan succeeded in maintaining some semblance of order with the dozens waiting their turn. Across the hold, Morgan could see that the water level was rising too fast. There was no way everyone was going to get out in time, assuming the ship didn't suddenly sink from under their feet to begin with.
“Ryan, get up that ladder. See if you can get the main hatch off,” Morgan ordered.
Ryan didn't take time to answer, following a ship's nurse up the ladder as fast as his legs would carry him. Squirming through the hatch and falling to the deck, he was shocked at what his eyes beheld. In the early dawn light, he could see that the Sea Rover was sinking fast by the stern. Seawater was already washing over the sternpost, while the bow poked up toward the sky at better than a twenty-degree angle. Scrambling to his feet, he saw a young assistant communications officer helping others move to a higher level on the ship.
“Melissa, get to the radio room and issue a Mayday,” he shouted, running past her.
He climbed a short stairwell to the rear hatch, his eye catching the sparkle of a light in the far distance to the north, the cable ship heading off over the horizon. Jumping up onto the hatch, he allowed himself a second to let out a brief sigh of relief. The rising waters off the stern had not yet lapped over the edge of the hatch nor had inundated the aft crane. In their haste, the commandos had even left the crane's hook-and-boom assembly attached to the hatch.
Sprinting to the crane, he hopped into the cab and fired up its diesel engines, immediately shoving the hand controls to raise the boom. With unbearable slowness, the boom gradually rose into the air, lifting the massive hatch cover up with it. Ryan wasted no time rotating the boom a few feet to starboard before jumping out of the cab, leaving the hatch cover dangling in the air.
Rushing to the edge of the hold, he found more than thirty men bobbing in the water fighting for their lives. The water level had already risen to within a foot of the hatch. Another two minutes, he figured, and the men would have all drowned. Reaching his arms in, he began tugging and grabbing at the men one by one, yanking them up and out of the hold. With those on deck helping, Ryan had every man out within a matter of seconds. He ensured that he personally eased the final man out of the water, Captain Morgan.
“Nice work, Tim,” the captain winced as he wobbled to his feet.
“Sorry that I didn't personally check the vent hatch in the first place, sir. We could have gotten everyone out sooner had we known it was actually unlocked.”
“But it wasn't. Don't you get it? It was Dirk who unlocked it. He knocked on the door for us but we forgot to answer.”
A look of enlightenment crossed Ryan's face. “Thank God for him and Summer, the poor devils. But I'm afraid we're not out of the woods yet, sir. She's going down fast.”
“Spread the word to abandon ship. Let's get some lifeboats in the water, pronto,” Morgan replied, stumbling up the inclining deck toward the bow. “I'll see about sending a distress.”
As if on cue, Melissa the communications officer came scrambling across the deck half out of breath.
“Sir,” she gasped, “they've shot up the communications system ... and satellite equipment. There's no way to send a Mayday.”
“All right,” Morgan replied without surprise. “We'll deploy our emergency beacons and wait for someone to come looking for us. Report to your lifeboat. Let's get everybody off this ship now.”