We climbed through the overhead hatch into the PTC, while Jimmy and Whitey stood by in the DDC.
"Ready, Mac?" Jimmy's voice sounded distorted and alien through the descrambler, as he prepared to run through his check-off list.
"Yeah." I turned to Harry and checked off his equipment as Jimmy went through his list. We had these things totally memorized, but it wouldn't do to miss something at a thousand feet with a 967-foot ceiling. We did it by the book.
"Suit."
"Check."
"Gloves."
"Check."
"Wrist retainers."
"Check."
"Come-home." He was referring to a small gas bottle that would get a diver back to the PTC in an emergency.
"Check."
"Harness."
"Check."
"Ankle weights."
"Check."
"Fins."
"Check."
And so on for both Harry and Bill, and then Harry did me.
Bill shut and dogged the hatch. "Let's rock and roll!"
"Control, PTC," I said into my throat mike, "we're ready to disconnect."
During our tedious check-off, the topside guys had been busy rigging the crane and SPCC for our descent. The boiler was up and running, to supply our suits with hot water so we wouldn't die of hypothermia. They checked our gas supply and backup, coordinating with the Dive Manifold Complex and Master Chief Harmon. Somewhere along the way, somebody also checked in with Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Lieutenant George Franklin and Doctor Joseph Lemwell.
Franklin was in charge of the operation, but he pretty much let the Master Chief do his thing, although I suspected he kept totally on top of the situation. The Doc was there just in case.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Chief Paul Struthers. He was in training for Master Saturation Diver, the guy who controls the dive. He worked directly for the Master Chief, and this was his final qualification dive. In other words, Chief Struthers would make the life and death decisions for the five of us, backed by the Master Chief and Franklin, of course, and the Doc if something went wrong.
After what seemed like forever, we heard the clanking of the PTC releases and then we swung free on the umbilical, up and away from the DCC. I exchanged high fives with Harry and Bill. Believe it or not, we were sweating up a storm. Even though the PTC was painted bright white, the sun was hot and we were getting more than our share.
Since the PTC has three ports, we each grabbed one. I wished I could have spoken to my buds without being overheard by Control, but without the descrambler we couldn't understand a word. So we said it with raised eyebrows and shoulder punches. This was the real thing; we were on our way.
Things went pretty well. Control lowered us into the water to about ten feet. I turned on the lights, and divers checked us out, looking for telltale bubbles or anything else wrong.
"PTC checks okay," Control announced. "Going down."
"Roger!" I acknowledged.
Harry reached into his tool kit and pulled out a small roll of thread. Bill started to speak, but Harry held a finger to his lips and winked. Then he pulled out his roll of duct tape and taped one end of the thread to the middle of the spherical bulkhead. He stretched it taut across the sphere and taped the other end to the opposite bulkhead.
"Cute." It was the Master Chief, observing on his PTC monitor. But he said nothing else.
"Passing one-hundred-fifty feet," droned Control.
I confirmed on the depth gauge inside the PTC. "Check, one — hundred-fifty feet."
We continued down. It got noticeably dimmer. We passed two-hundred feet.
Three-hundred.
Four-hundred.
At five-hundred feet we stopped.
"PTC, Control, check for leaks."
We did. There were none.
"Okay, guys, undog the hatch." This was no problem, since the internal pressure was much greater than the outside pressure. This way, when we reached a thousand feet, the hatch, located at the bottom of the spherical PTC, would release.
Six-hundred feet. Harry pointed to the thread. It showed a distinct catenary; it looked like it had dipped by at least an inch or so. I shivered as I thought about the immense pressure squeezing the round hull of the PTC.
Nine-hundred feet. We slowed our descent, and crept to the one-thousand foot mark. The thread had dipped nearly a foot.
By now it was pretty cold inside the PTC. Water temperature outside was just over thirty degrees, and it wasn't much warmer inside.
"Harry," I said, "turn on the hot water. It's going to be wet in here anyway."
"PTC, Control." It was Chief Struthers. "That isn't according to procedure…"
"Can it!" I heard Harmon's ringing voice in the background.
"PTC, Control, disregard my last."
We did, and the hot water flowing into my suit felt wonderful — almost as good as… well, you get the point.
Just then there was a slight pop, and the hatch moved off its seal. I reached down and pulled it completely open, assisted by the counter spring. The opening looked like a perfect mirror. Bill stuck his finger into the water.
"Damn! That's cold!" he said, jerking his hand back. Tinny laughter floated from the wall-mounted speaker.
"Can it!" Harmon was a slave driver.
"Okay — Mac and Harry, suit up."
No "PTC, Control," I thought. The Chief's loosening up. I helped Harry with his Mark 14 diver's hat. Shortly I could hear his rasping breathing over the electronic filters in my earplug. Bill assisted me, and a couple minutes later I gave Harry the thumbs-up.
"You ready, Pal?"
"Yeah."
It was much more difficult to understand him through the breathing noise and the helium talk. We donned our fins.
"Control, Red Diver." That was me.
"Control, aye."
"Control, Green Diver." Harry.
"Control, aye."
"Control, Standby." Bill.
Then we cross-checked with each other. Bill made a final check of our come-home bottles, and I stepped through the hatch, blithely unaware of the giant squids that were hanging out just beyond our visibility limit.
Following the coordinated giant squid attack, Master Chief Harmon brought the PTC to the surface in record time, ready to be hoisted aboard Elk River. Before we left the water, divers inspected us for any leaks, looking for telltale bubbles. Following their all clear, we were hoisted up and shortly found ourselves inside the chamber, our backs being pounded by Jimmy and Whitey.
Master Chief Harmon came on the circuit. "It looks like you guys were attacked by a group of Humboldt Squid. Pretty unusual. They're normally found off the coast of Baja, 'bout a hundred miles south of here. Never seen 'em here, ever."
Franklin spoke up. "The Doc decided to cancel the second dive for this cycle. You guys get some sleep, and tomorrow Bill will descend with Jimmy and Whitey. We'll winch into a slightly different spot. I don't think the squid will bother you again." He paused. "This was just one of those flukes."
The three of us stripped out of our suits while we tried to explain to Jimmy and Whitey what had happened down there. Harry did most of the talking, backed up by Bill. From time to time, he would look to me for confirmation. He showed them his suit shoulder and my left wrist, while I sipped hot coffee that Control had just sent in through the Medical Lock. It tasted like shit — I mean, it didn't have any taste at all, more like a cup of hot water. At a thousand feet you really can't taste anything except sweet, sour, and very spicy. Might as well eat cardboard and drink water.
"They was coordinating their attack," Harry said. "It was like they was herding us." He grinned at his friends. "Ain't never seen anything like it, that's for damn sure!"
The next morning, Bill climbed back into the PTC followed by Jimmy and Whitey. The dive was routine — they were pretty nervous, but the squid stayed away. They were cold and tired by the time the PTC returned to the surface. It took them about ten microseconds to bed down in the chamber. Struthers had set up a three-hour watch rotation for our three-day decompression, so they had several hours to catch up on their sleep, while Harry and I took the first two watches.