“What happened?”
The sound of a shell whizzing overhead drowned any response. “I’ll have a full report, Skipper,” Bleecker answered as he dropped down the ladder.
“We’re in the narrows, sir!” Weaver shouted from the conning tower.
Shipley squatted. “Give me one ping for depth.”
A few seconds later, Weaver shouted up, “We have one hundred forty feet beneath the hull.”
Not much, Shipley thought, but it was enough to take the Squallfish off the surface. “Stand by to dive!” he shouted. He motioned the watches belowdecks, quickly following them, securing the hatch before dropping to the conning tower deck.
“Take her down to fifty feet.”
He watched and listened as Weaver gave the necessary orders. Chief of the Boat Boohan pulled open the hydraulic control handles. The sound of water rushing into the ballast tanks filled the compartment.
“Vents open,” Boohan said.
The planesmen spun the brass-nickel wheels. The chief of the boat watched the gauges above the planesmen from his position as the bow of the Squallfish slid beneath the waves.
“Bow planes rigged,” Weaver added.
“Trim forty,” Boohan said.
The planesmen turned the wheels slightly, easing the diving angle. Boohan pushed the control handles closed.
“I make our depth at fifty feet, Skipper,” Weaver said.
“Very well. Up periscope.” Shipley squatted and rode the periscope up, flipping the handles out and putting his eye against the eyepiece. It broke surface, taking a few seconds for the water to cascade off the lens. He spun the scope, catching a splash of a shell a couple of hundred feet off his port stern.
“They still shooting?” Arneau asked from the ladder as he emerged from the control room.
“Yep. They’re still firing, but I don’t have a visual on them yet,” Shipley answered. Why would they stop firing? By now they had a course and speed on the Squallfish. If he had to start evasive maneuvering in the narrows, he had no idea of the depth on either side of them. The clock read 0845 hours.
Anton fell forward against the bridge railing as the Whale shuddered. “What the hell was that?” he shouted.
“We don’t know!” Gesny shouted back.
The Whale picked up speed for a moment. It was in the channel leading into the facility. Another ten to fifteen minutes and Anton would have the Whale tied up alongside the pier.
“Give me time, XO. Ten minutes, that’s all we need,” Anton said.
“Yes, sir,” Gesny replied as an explosion shook the Whale and the normal sounds of an alive warship suddenly ceased.
Anton felt the drift of the Whale from its forward momentum. He bent over the mouthpiece. “Right full rudder.” Glancing down the hatch, it was dark in the conning tower. Then the emergency lighting system lit up. The noise of the water being pumped over the side ceased.
“What happened?” Anton shouted into the mouthpiece.
“Right full rudder,” Lieutenant Antipov replied.
“We are checking, Captain,” Gesny answered.
When a minute passed without an answer, Anton made a decision that haunts commanding officers who have made it for the rest of their lives. “Officer of the deck, prepare to evacuate the boat.” He could not use the words “abandon ship”; not yet. His throat would not let those words pass.
“Prepare to evacuate the boat,” Antipov repeated, more a question than a statement.
“Have the men not involved with damage control wrap up against the cold and prepare to come topside when so ordered.” It was only a hundred meters to the rocky sides of the channel. If the men had to swim for it, they had a chance. Most would not make it. Even this close to shore, the Arctic waters could suck the heat from your body in seconds.
“Aye, sir.” A second passed, then Antipov added, “Sir, without power, we are no longer able to pump water.”
He lifted the bridge-to-bridge radio and pressed the talk button, but no sound emerged. There was no power.
“Starshina!” he shouted to the sailor on the aft portion of the bridge. “Send a signal to the Soznatelnyy. Tell them we have lost power. Am grounding the Whale on the starboard side of the channel.”
The starshina grabbed the portable signal light and quickly sent the message to the destroyer trailing the Whale a hundred meters astern.
If that explosion was the water reaching the atomic reactor, then he was surprised. It should have been catastrophic.
Gesny’s head showed in the hatch. “Seems our electric motor has decided not to play with us, Captain. It is barely working.”
“The reactor?”
Gesny shrugged. “Apparently it is still okay inside the sealed engine room. But waters are quickly reaching the forward hatch to it.”
“Where is Tumanov? I sent for him nearly thirty minutes ago.” Gesny shook his head. “Who knows where Zotkin’s chief engineer is, sir? I can send someone to find him.”
Anton shook his head. “Should see him soon, XO. Let’s get the men up above the waterline and prepare them to”—he paused for a moment—“to evacuate the ship, if need be.”
“We have less than eighty meters of water beneath the keel, sir. Even if we settle her on the bottom, the bridge will be below the waterline.”
“We need to prepare for them to leave the boat.”
“I believe we still have some time, sir. I recommend we leave the men belowdecks, where we still have some warmth.”
Anton nodded.
“Is the skipper ready for me to relieve him?”
“Too close to the goal to do it now, Commander Gesny.”
“Sir,” the starshina said, “the Soznatelnyy asks what they can do. And they are closing us. They want to take us under tow.”
“Maybe we should flood the forward ballast tanks, Captain?” Gesny offered, his head emerging once again through the main hatch.
Anton looked at the XO for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I am thinking that if we shove the bow onto the rocks, the stern will settle on the bottom.”
“Are we sure it will settle on the bottom, or pull us off the rocks and onto the bottom with it?”
Anton shook his head. “Do you have another suggestion, XO?”
Gesny pursed his lips for a moment. “I do not, Captain.”
“Then let’s put the bow to rest on the rocks. As soon as I give the word, flood the stern tanks. That should settle it onto the bottom as the bow comes to rest on the rocks.”
When a few seconds paused between them, Gesny asked, “And then evacuate the boat?”
“If we are still above the waterline, we will evacuate the boat with the exception of minimum crew. The flooding should stop if we have a steep enough angle.”
“We could refloat it when repairs are done.”
“It will cover the aft escape hatch.”
“Skipper, we would have to do it through the main hatch here and possibly the forward hatch.”
Anton looked toward the bow of the Whale. Ice covered the deck. The approaching rocks lining the channel were less than fifty meters away. “We’ll have to do it through the bridge.”
“Speed?” Anton asked in the mouthpiece.
“Five knots and slowing,” Antipov replied.
Anton nodded and looked down at Gesny. “Make it so, XO.” He started to tell him to use the low-pressure air blower to pump air into the forward ballast tanks to complete the emptying of the ballasts. Without electricity, it would be hard to do. The normal engine room apparatuses limited atomic power to their limitations.