Potts and Fromley stood alongside the fuel controls.
The intercom blared.
“Engine room here, CHENG speaking.”
“We’re taking her down. Switch to battery power,” came the voice of the XO.
“Roger.”
“Gledhill, make sure the snorkel is secured.” Before the leading petty officer could answer, Bleecker glared at Potts. “Potts, you and Fromley get your asses up to the forward battery compartment where you’re supposed to be and check those batteries once we switch over. Morgan and Garcia, don’t stand there staring at the overhead. Get your asses to the aft battery compartment and keep an eye on it for a while. I’ll be along as soon as the diesels are secured.” Without waiting for an answer, Bleecker pushed the sweat-matted hair off his forehead as he grabbed the microphone from the cradle. “Conn, engineering; we are switching to battery at this time, securing snorkel.” He hung it up when the new XO acknowledged the report. Garcia was the last of the four sailors to leave the engine room, securing the watertight hatch behind him.
Bleecker opened the hatch and stuck his head into the aft battery compartment. Morgan stood near the logbook, and Garcia had already started reading the charges on the battery cells. Forward of the aft battery compartment was the pump room. “Morgan, stick your head inside the pump room and give me a quick check.” Morgan spun the wheel and opened the hatch. The sailor stuck his head through the hatch, looked around the smaller compartment, and then drew back inside the battery compartment. “Everything looks okay to me, Lieutenant Bleecker.”
“Thanks,” he said, shutting the hatch and securing it again. Give him a diesel engine any day over batteries. Salt water hit the batteries, and the next thing you knew the whole submarine was a floating graveyard of dead and dying sailors as sulfuric acid air filled it. Nope, maybe this nuclear thing the Navy was playing with was all right, but he didn’t want to be below the waterline when they discovered they needed a diesel. He had seen the photographs of Hiroshima. He loved these engines.
“You think these nuclear submarines are going to replace diesels?”
Bleecker put his hands behind his neck, looked at Gledhill, and leaned back. He hated people who could read his thoughts. “Ain’t a snowball’s chance, Gledhill. Diesels are forever. This nuclear shit ain’t any good except for blowing up Japs and scaring the Ruskies.” He lowered his arms and leaned forward. Every sailor in the engine room looked toward him. “Besides, those nuclear submarines they building put too much noise in the water. What you think is going to happen when we finally have to fight them God-hating, Commie pinkos?”
After a few seconds Otto asked from the far end of the engine room, “What, CHENG?”
Bleecker put his hand to his ear, his eyes widening. “Otto, is that you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn, sounds like you finished your doughnut.”
“Ah, Lieutenant—”
He heard the slight hit of a slap and knew Gledhill had tapped Otto Lang on the back of the neck. He smiled. “They going to be able to find us without even rousting the crew to general quarters, we’re going to be generating so much noise. Then you never-been-to-war sailors are going to find out how much fun depth-charging is.”
He felt the silence and the slight tinge of fear. Better they know what to expect than find out all of a sudden.
“We are going to have Russian tin cans all over our ass, dropping depth charges, and scooping the bodies of you kids up with straining nets, trying to put the body parts back together.”
“I read in the Sun—”
“Page three, girl,” Andersen said from the port side of the number two engine.
“Ain’t so,” Otto whined.
“Hope you ain’t doing anything you ain’t supposed to in the rack above me,” Electrician Mate Max Brown said as he stepped through the hatch from the aft engine room. “Everything’s okay with engines three and four, Lieutenant. Both shut down.”
“We’ve switched power to the electric motor from diesel to battery, boss,” Gledhill said from behind Brown.
“Okay, leave Lang alone,” Bleecker said. “I don’t care how you bunch of grease-stained snipes spend your off time, but I do care when you’re in the engine room. Gledhill, get control of your crew.”
“You heard the lieutenant.” Gledhill made a downward motion with his hand. “You guys leave Otto alone. Every one of you is turning those Navy sheets into fantasy palaces. We’re going to be out for at least sixty days, and you don’t want to be rolling over and hearing the sheets break.”
Bleecker shouted over the engine room noise and the varied actions ongoing. “The rest of you, grab the 3-M checklists and let’s plan our preventive maintenance schedule for the voyage. Petty Officer Andersen, you’re the 3-M coordinator, so have you done any preliminary work schedule like I would expect someone with that duty to do?”
Andersen grinned, reaching up to wipe back a lock of blond hair that had matted to his steep forehead. “Yes, sir, Lieutenant. I have. I did it before we set sail.”
Bleecker grinned. “Andersen, you never cease to amaze me. Grab it and let’s go over it. Meanwhile, the rest of you grab some rags, go over these sweet Fairchilds, and clean up any oil, grease, or anything you see spoiling the virginity of my engines.”
After several minutes of going over the preventive maintenance schedule for the week, glancing at the monthly, and scrubbing for the umpteenth time the actions done the previous week, Bleecker blessed Andersen’s plan. “Good job. Just make sure it gets done.”
“Aye, Lieutenant.”
Bleecker stood, his T-shirt bulged across the chest where years of heavy work in the engine room had built sinewy muscles that seemed to ripple along the chest and down the arms. “I’m going to the forward battery compartment. Gledhill, check on Morgan and Garcia periodically while you’re overseeing the engine rooms.”
“Aye, boss.”
Bleecker ducked as he walked along the narrow passageway in the pump room. Being six-one on board a World War II-vintage diesel submarine made it cramped, but after twenty-two years of Navy submarine service, he had grown used to it. Submarines were not for the claustrophobic. The soft sound of the oil sump and the cycle of the bilge pump complemented the oily smell of the room. He knew the air was breathable, but being breathable did not mean being odorless. Bilge water was where excess waste, excess oils, and excess anything fluid eventually congregated. It was the twenty-four/seven job of the bilge pump to keep the stuff pumped off the submarine. The pumps were secured when they were at battle stations or avoiding antisubmarine forces, but until those moments, the continuous mechanical actions of the pumps worked to keep the submarine afloat.
Bleecker opened the hatch at the forward end of the pump room. The smell of ozone mixed with the ever-present tinge of sulfur burned his nostrils — a slight burn that served as a warning of what could happen to the air inside a submarine if salt water covered the batteries.
When Bleecker entered the forward battery compartment, he caught the exchange of glances between Potts and Fromley. Bleecker grabbed the bar of the watertight hatch and secured it. “Fromley, you go to the mess hall and see if Petty Officer Crocky has some fresh pastries.” Bleecker watched the sailor as Fromley closed the hatch.