“We’re shoring up the patch and the structural member with braces, but they won’t hold up long.”
“All right then, do what you can and keep me informed.” Larkin’s voice was calm in the midst of Folsom’s own mental storm. “But as soon as you get the braces installed, I want you and the crew out of there. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, but if we stay, or one of us anyway, we’ll shave time to warn you and get out.”
“No,” Larkin said sharply. “You could not give me any more than a minute or so warning. The strain gauges will provide that. As soon as you are finished with the bracing, get out and report aft to the repair station. Is that understood?” Larkin’s matter-of-fact analysis of the situation and Rigsby’s almost suicidal offer to remain behind in the hull tank to provide the ship with a few seconds extra warning began to calm Folsom. He had never experienced this kind of paralyzing fear before, but he knew, as did every man who faces danger in situations over which he has little control, that eventually he would meet this shattering fear at least once before he died. He had seen men suddenly grow rigid before going into battle, or divers just before making a deep dive, veterans who had been through many engagements. It happened, and there was nothing you could do about it except hope that you could handle the situation when it did happen. He reached down and picked up the pencil that had dropped from his nerveless fingers and pressed it slowly onto the pad, willing his muscles to move again, to continue to draw the numbers indicating the course change required and the time they would have to lose at reduced speed to bring them to the rendezvous point on time.
Larkin flicked off the intercom and turned to Folsom. His voice was strong and full of command. “Mr. Folsom, get me an exact position fix, as close as you can. Then run the new course through the computer and alert the crew that we are coming about. Keep them at general quarters until We have straightened out on the new course… and make sure that Rigsby and the rest are out of that hull tank. Give them five minutes more. I’m going below for my foul-weather gear. You will take the conn while I am outside, but follow my directions.”
“Outside!” Folsom exploded. “Captain, you can’t go out there!” Larkin grinned. “Watch me. How else do you think we are going to get her around? You can’t see worth a damn through that screen. This ship is going to have to be steered around those waves like a tin can. That means we come about as we crest a wave — and only the right wave at that — and complete the turn before we hit the bottom of the trough or else we will roll over and go right to the bottom.” Folsom took a deep breath. “Captain, you. will freeze to death before we can come about.”
“Not if you hurry about it.”
Larkin turned away and hurried down to his cabin for his foul-weather gear. When he returned to the bridge a few minutes later, Folsom was just finishing his instructions to the helmsman. He looked up as Larkin came onto the bridge, zipping up his jacket. A marine came hurrying up with a nylon safety line and clipped one end to the harness already around Larkin’s chest.
“Listen for my count. As we come up the wave I’ll start counting backward from ten. When I get to one, be ready to put the helm over hard… and better keep the turbine engines idling up to speed as well. We’ll have plenty of need of an extra kick” Folsom nodded and Larkin turned away, jamming the helmet down over his head. He snapped the throat mike into place, tested it quickly, then pulled down the faceplate and left through the emergency hatch. Once outside, still in the lee of the bridge, he checked the microphone again, then buckled his safety straps to the railing. With the safety line trailing behind, he was now about as safe as he could possibly be… until the first good wave decided to wash him overboard. Against the power of those tons, of water the line would snap; or, if it held, would probably cut him in half. The plates of the catway leading around the top of the bridge structure were caked solid with ice. That ice, washed constantly by spray, was slippery underfoot, and he moved carefully to keep his footing. As he came out of the lee of the deckhouse, Larkin grunted in surprise as the wind cut through the nylon and electrically heated layers of foam padding as if they did not exist. Almost immediately his fingers and toes went numb. The temperature close to -20°, when combined with the 110-knot wind, gave a chill index of -98°. Unprotected, he would not last more than a minute before his heart stopped beating. As Larkin moved out onto the forward position of the weather deck, the wind pulled and plucked at him to send his feet sweeping away. He crashed against the steel wall of the deckhouse with stunning force, and for several minutes was unable to clear his head enough to get to his feet. The — forty-foot journey from the deck hatch, up the narrow ladder, and around the curve of the bridge was made, an inch at a time, on hands and knees. The wind was a solid wall of force through which he had to tunnel, and finally he was reduced to using his hands to pull himself from stanchion to stanchion along the railing. The stanchions were set every six feet, just beyond the grasp of his extended arm. He had to wait between each stanchion, arms stretched wide to hold the stanchion and the edge of the catway, resting, readying himself for the lunge to the next. Then, when he grasped it, he had to pull himself painfully up to the frozen metal and reach for the next. His task was made even harder by the fact that each stanchion supported a wedge of ice nearly two feet long to windward. His gloves froze to the ice and he had to pull them loose each time. If he lost a glove, he would also lose a hand. An uncovered hand would freeze into uselessness in less than two minutes. And Larkin needed the use of both hands to make any progress at all. Larkin stretched out full length on the ice-coated deck to reduce the amount of his body exposed to the wind. The wind was like a solid hammer of steel pounding away in rhythmic gusts, thumping him into the ice, and then, as it got under his body and lifted him clear of the deck, flinging him back against the safety line. The struggle soon became concentrated into forcing his Land out to grasp the next stanchion and pull himself along the deck. He had thirty-five more feet to go to reach the center of the catway.
The strain on Larkin’s shoulders was causing the muscles to scream, in-protest each time he reached for the next stanchion. Then it happened.
Between the fourth and fifth stanchion, his hand slipped off the ice-coated tube. The wind reached, slamming him back against the harness, and the line fouled. Another gust of wind caught him and almost pulled him through the railing before he got the straps cleared. Then the petulant wind smashed him back, cracking his leg viciously against the bridge plating as if it were alive and frustrated by the puny efforts of this unbearable, unnoticeable insect. For a minute Larkin lay crumpled against the bulkhead while the pain in his leg slowly subsided. Then by sheer strength of will he pulled himself to the next stanchion.