Before the diving officer could convey this directive, Ensign Lockhart frantically called out for all to hear.
“Sonar reports that Sierra three has broken the layer directly above us, Captain. If we ascend now, we’ll smack right into them!”
“Belay that order to surface!” cried Slater.
“Secure all watertight doors and get those pumps working.
XO, I want you to get down to the galley and size up the situation. The TDU hatch has a manual backup that can be closed if all else fails.”
“Aye, aye. Skipper,” said Bressler, who quickly rushed out the aft passageway.
Slater turned his attention back to the helm.
“How’s she handling?”
“Sluggishly, sir,” reported the senior planes man as he struggled to pull back on his control yoke.
Immediately beside the helmsman, the watch officer anxiously surveyed the gauges of his console.
“If we take on much more seawater, we’ll never be able to pull out of this dive, Captain,” he warned.
“Stand by to blow emergency,” instructed Slater.
“If the TDU can’t be sealed in the next couple of minutes, we’ll just have to take our chances with a collision.”
Back in the galley, Homer struggled to pick himself up off the soaked deck. The water was halfway up to his knees, and continued to pour out of the ruptured hatch with a frightening velocity.
“Damn it. Homer! What in the hell did you do?” shouted Chief Cunnetto from the flooded galley.
To be heard over the crash of the onrushing seawater, Homer had to scream his response.
“I’m sorry, Chief. All I did was shoot the trash.”
“You idiot! I never gave you permission to activate the TDU,” returned the enraged chief.
“And now we’re gonna pay for your incompetence with our lives!”
A knot formed in Homer’s gut as he realized the seriousness of their predicament. Though he could have sworn that he had heard his superior order him to empty the TDU, excuses meant nothing now. All that mattered was stopping the flow of water before the chiefs grim prediction came true.
While Homer was wondering what he could do to dam the flow of water, the XO arrived in the galley.
Lieutenant Commander Bressler carried an emergency breathing apparatus and headed straight for Homer. The ever-deepening water made his progress difficult, and his knees were covered by the time he reached his goal.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Homer, his voice cracking from both fear and the cold.
Tim Bressler ignored this apology, focusing his attention instead on the column of seawater that poured through the ruptured hatch. The TDU itself would soon be covered, and the XO looked over at Homer and asked a single question.
“Can you swim, sailor?”
Homer shook his head that he could, and Bressler continued.
“There’s a hand crank located alongside the right wall of the TDU. By turning it clockwise you should be able to close the ball valve and reseal the hatch.” “I can find it, sir,” said Homer anxiously.
“Then go to it,” returned the XO, who handed Homer the emergency breathing apparatus.
Known as an EBA for short, the device was comprised of a rubber mask that was connected to a small oxygen tank by a hose. It was designed to provide up to thirty minutes of air, and Homer readily strapped it on.
“I’m going to call in an update to the captain. Good luck, sailor,” offered the XO.
Thankful for this second chance to prove himself, Homer proceeded at once to the ruptured hatch. With the assistance of the EBA, he ducked beneath the wildly spraying water and reached the bulkhead where the TDU was located. Trying his best to ignore the water’s numbing chill, he extended his right arm into the hatch and blindly groped for the hand crank.
Pete Slater received his XO’s optimistic update while perched beside the sub’s helm. Bressler estimated that the opening to the sea could be closed in another couple of minutes, yet Slater wondered if they could hold out that long.
The depth gauge had fallen below seven hundred feet, and continued to drop. Though the Lewis and Clark’s hull was designed to survive over twice this depth. Slater dared not put it to such a demanding test. “I’ve got the results of our latest sounding,” informed the navigator.
“We’ve got a good thousand feet of water below us, putting us well within the mouth of the Andros Trench.”
“The pumps are operating at full capacity,” reported the officer of the watch.
“They just can’t handle all that volume.”
The hull seemed to moan in protest as they dropped below seven hundred and fifty feet. Slater’s grip on the ceiling-mounted handhold instinctively tightened.
Their angle of descent was well over thirty degrees now, and he could feel the pull of gravity pulling them ever downwards on this dive into oblivion.
“To hell with that Russian sub!” cried Slater.
“Blow emergency ballast! We’re heading topside no matter what lies above us.”
It seemed to take an eternity for Homer to locate the hand crank. By the time he did so, he was completely submerged. As instructed, he turned the crank in a clockwise direction, and slowly but surely the valve began to close.
The current of water that had been surging from the hatch lessened, and Homer turned the crank until the flood ceased. He was in the process of pulling himself out of the water when the deck began vibrating wildly beneath him. Thrown backwards by this unexpected movement, he sank beneath the five feet of seawater that had accumulated on the deck below.
The forceful vibration continued to affect him even underwater. By tightly gripping a submerged portion of pipe, he was able to keep from being smashed up against the madly shaking bulkhead. Fearing that his mask would be jarred loose. Homer listened as a bubbling roar sounded in the background. It got louder and louder, until it was almost deafening. The wildly shaking waters, and this ear-shattering sound, had an almost delirious effect on Homer, and his thoughts went back in time to his adolescence, and the day he had almost drowned while in the midst of a float trip.
His canoe had overturned in the middle of a particularly nasty set of rapids, and he had found himself pinned beneath the aluminum vessel, with his body jammed up against a huge, partially submerged boulder.
This was as close to death as Homer had ever come, and he survived only through an unwavering faith in a Lord he was just discovering, and a strong will to live.
Only by summoning these same qualities did Seaman Second Class Homer Morgan regain his senses.
And as his thoughts returned to his present predicament, he fought off the urge to let go and die. Oblivious to the gut-wrenching vibration, and the demonic shriek that penetrated the very depths of his soul, he managed to reach upwards and grasp the iron rail that encircled the TDU. And he began the short journey out of his watery sarcophagus.
2
It took the better part of two days for the Hari Maru to reach the rich fishing grounds off Iwo Jima. Soon after setting sail from Okinawa, the crew of nineteen began sewing together a drift net, over three miles long. Stored on a pair of massive, stern-mounted rollers, this translucent, monofilament net was fitted with a series of corks on the top and with weighted line on the bottom. The net would create a floating barrier thirty-five feet deep, whose sole purpose was to catch squid.
The sun had yet to rise on the third day of their voyage, when the ship’s air horn sounded three times. This signal called the fishermen from their bunks. Hurriedly dressed in blue oilskins and white boots, they assembled on the foredeck, where the vessel’s fishing master, or sen do instructed them to release the net.