We also took aboard a couple of extra decoys, and the Skipper had two loaded in the forward tubes, ready to launch at a moment's notice once we were underway. I certainly had no objections — they had saved our asses once already.
All that remained was to attach the pod to our belly, and then to slip out of Apra Harbor. It turned out that the NSA spooks had actually given some thought to this process. The dry dock deck was still dry, and the spooks had already removed the missile parts we had lovingly deposited on the deck just inside the entrance, before we had moved forward to the blocks where we now rested. The sling still lay where we had left it.
Since this was our baby, the entire dive crew was present on the deck, wearing hard hats and steel-toed shoes, looking to Jack for directions. Ham stood to one side making sure nothing went wrong, and I stood up on the wall keeping an eye on the crane operator — one of the sailors from the Richland.
I got a thumbs-up from the crane operator, who had hooked into lift lines attached to a four-wheel dolly about four by six feet. I brought my Handi-Talki up. "She's coming down, Ham. You're in charge once the dolly hits the deck."
One of the things I had learned long ago was that one person should always be in charge of any kind of moving operation — and everyone needed to know who that was. No confusion about orders that way.
"Roger that," Ham said, waving at me. He said something to Jack, and got Jack's thumbs-up.
The crane operator knew his stuff, and a minute later, the first dolly was sitting in-line with the center of the sling, just in front of the sling closest to the sub. Thirty seconds later, Ham passed control back to me, and we hooked up the second dolly. It went like clockwork. A minute later the second dolly was at the other end of the sling.
"Ready for the pod, Ham?" I asked on the radio.
"Roger that," Ham answered, walking over to the twenty-foot-long pod resting on the deck below me near the wall.
The crane operator lowered the hook with four lifting straps, and Harry, Jer, Bill, and Ski each grabbed a snap-hook fitted strap and walked over to a corner of the pod, snapping the hook into a lifting eye. Whitey then made the rounds and checked each hook — not because he mistrusted the guys, but because Jack wouldn't let the lift happen until each hook had been checked. Jimmy was holding a guideline attached to the forward end of the pod and Whitey took the guideline at the other end.
On Jack's signal the pod swung up and over, and gently lowered until it rested in the center of the sling. The guys unhooked the straps from the pod and attached them to the four corners of the sling. On Jack's signal, the crane operator lifted the sling with its 12,000-pound load about five feet above the deck.
Harry and Jer rolled the forward dolly under the sling, while Bill and Ski rolled the after dolly into position. Then Jack lowered the sling and pod onto the dollies. While we were doing all this, another crane on the other wall had lowered a small forklift to the deck. Whitey indicated he would drive it, and since no one argued with him, he started it up and drove it around to the outer end of the loaded dollies. Under Jack's eagle eye, Whitey lowered and extended the forks on the truck, and pushed the entire contraption as far under the sub as he could without hitting the sub with the top of the forklift.
Then, while Bill and Ski attached a steel cable to an eye fixture on the front end of the front dolly, Harry and Jer stretched the cable under the sub to the bow where they were met by Whitey on the forklift. They wrapped a bight of the steel cable around the forklift's tow bar, and Whitey pulled the dolly load about half-way. The guys took another bight, and Whitey pulled it the rest of the way.
Using the same ratchet mechanisms they had used at the missile splash site, the guys then ratcheted the sling with its heavy load tightly against the hull. When they were done, Jack looked it over with a professional eye. I joined Ham, and he and I made a final inspection — just to be sure. Then I called up topside with the radio, had the watch inform the Officer of the Deck that we were ready for the Skipper's inspection.
It wasn't that the Skipper didn't trust us, but it just paid to be absolutely sure with something like this. I was only too glad to have the Skipper give our work his official okay — on one hand, to make certain that everything was as it should be, and beyond that, to transfer responsibility to him if anything went wrong. Not that I wouldn't stand up and take my comeuppance, but it never hurt to share the responsibility.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
One day before our scheduled departure, Dirk and his guys powered up the reactor, running with seawater pumped to the sub through large fire hoses. The rest of the crew settled into an abbreviated fast cruise, wringing out the various ship's systems, and getting themselves back in the groove of regular watch-standing.
Ham and I ran a couple of drills past our guys. Since they had never stepped very far down from their normal operational readiness, the drills were as much for the rest of the crew to see that we were part of the fast cruise as for anything else.
Underway was scheduled for 0100. Sometime before 2300, sailors removed the tarp over our topside, and the crane lifted away the gangway. Promptly at 2300, I joined the Skipper on the Bridge, and with minimum lighting focused onto the dry dock deck, the Richland began to submerge. We took it slowly, and a half hour later we were still resting on the blocks, but the water was halfway up our sides. The dry dock stopped flooding while Richland divers removed the coolant hoses and made a quick inspection of the hull areas where we had attached the skids. By midnight we were fully afloat, secured to the dry dock walls by four hawsers.
Before we moved out of the dry dock, we spent another thirty minutes running a complete check of our propulsion and power generating systems. Then, with the Skipper watching closely, I ordered shore power removed. At that moment, we became once again our own independent world
In a mirror-image reverse operation of when we arrived, Chief Warrant Officer Bridger pulled us out through the other end of the dry dock, using the capstans to move us and keep us centered. I noticed that he would glance at his watch from time to time as he moved us with deliberate slowness. The tug was standing by, but the Skipper and I had agreed that we would maintain control of our position with the thrusters this time.
Down on our deck, the COB had his guys outfitted with kapok life vests, the kind with the useless little flashlights hooked to them. The team on the afterdeck had already removed the lifelines and stanchions, dropped the cleats, and double-checked the deck openings to make sure they were securely tightened against their rubber seals. They dropped below through the after hatch just as our stern passed the dry dock entrance. The time was exactly 0100.
We didn't sound the ship's whistle as we normally would, because sound carries far over water, and this was a stealthy night departure. Bridger passed control of Halibut to the Skipper by radio, and the Skipper turned to me and announced formally, "You have the Deck and the Conn, Mac."
"Aye, aye, Sir," I said, and announced to Control on the comm box, "This is Lieutenant McDowell, I have the Deck and the Conn. Rig for dive, Control. We've got about an hour."
While Thornton's deck crew secured topside forward, I glanced around the sub with my binoculars. We were easing forward alongside the north end of the brightly lit Naval Supply Depot. All I needed to do was let her glide for a couple of minutes, and then ease the bow to port while giving her a little kick in the ass to keep her moving.