Torpedo splashdown in the water, says Elizalde, and even though his voice is gentle I leap up as if I’d heard a scream. With the bunks dismantled, we sleep right on the floor, on top of whatever blankets or clothing each one can find and pile up in any available corner. Maximum depth, the CO orders, and evasive maneuvers begin. Fernández is ordered to eject an Alka-Seltzer to produce bubbles and disorient the torpedo, so he runs to the petty officers’ head, where the ejector is kept, but the door is closed, there’s someone inside; he bangs on the door desperately, some people whisper at him not to make noise, the torpedo searches out the noise, searches us out as if sniffing the sound, any tiny thing it might detect. Heredia steps out of the head buck naked, pulling on his underwear, his overalls down around his ankles; Fernández goes inside and starts maneuvers: he opens the ejector compartment, inserts the decoy into the tube, now he has to open the valve to fill the tube with water, but he decides to skip that step in order to save a few seconds; then he goes to open the air valve above the toilet so that the pressurized air injected in the ejector tube will propel the fake target, but he can’t, he applies pressure, tries with both hands, but the valve is stuck and doesn’t move a millimeter. Nobrega, who’s watching him, makes a sign toward the bow and also pops into the bathroom to help; Grunwald comes from the bow with a crowbar, uses it as a lever, and manages to open the valve. The decoy shoots out and starts to bubble; Heredia finishes pulling up his overalls, crosses himself, heads for the torpedo area; a mouthful of water enters through the ejector, which all the guys remaining in the head try to seal off; the three of them gush water as they listen to the enemy torpedo approach—its humming rotor spinning wildly—with greater and greater force; Linares clutches the rosary that dangles from his neck and moves his lips silently, he must be praying as the torpedo comes closer, closer, and I say to myself that maybe in the ship that fired it there’s someone imagining our explosion, the terrible hole in the sub’s armor that will increase pressure till it smashes us to bits, from the inside to the outside, each and every one of us, as if it’s inflating us and inflating us till it makes us burst. There won’t be time for anything, not even to scream or run away or hear or see, the blood will tint the water a crackling red that will be diluted little by little till it turns back into plain water. The lights flicker, our batteries are running low, the CO asks: Battery remaining? Twenty percent, they reply. The torpedo whizzes by to starboard. Remaining? Fifteen percent, and the torpedo continues on course, I hear it, it whizzes and keeps going, whizzes and keeps going. Remaining? Ten percent, the sub vibrates, the CO orders us to turn off the machines to conserve the batteries, an even greater silence falls, there’s no sound at all, we float gently and the transparent water goes back to red again, and the blood returns to our limbs and our limbs to our bodies and our bodies to the sub and the hole seals up and the metal plate is restored while the torpedo continues on course till we can’t hear its fucking little rotor blade anymore.
A crash, as if a giant piece of glass has broken, startles us. Depth charge at port, whispers Elizalde, and so the maneuvers to avoid the enemy begin again, an enemy we can hear but never see. A new depth charge shakes us even harder, we dive quickly, everything tilts, a jar of something rolls past my feet, I follow it with my eyes. Another depth charge, this time near the bow, jolts us; that’s three, says Heredia, nervously scratching his head; the jar has stopped by Grunwald’s feet, which are wrapped in several pairs of socks; Green peas? Grunwald asks Heredia, whose only reply is a shrug. We turn to port and another charge shakes us, though less violent this time; I look up toward the pipes, there’s a small leak, one of the other guys shows up with pliers, one of those pliers whose handles Heredia had covered so patiently; some people have started putting on their life jackets even though the CO hasn’t given the order; then comes the wallop of another explosion as we dive even deeper, now the jar goes rolling from Grunwald toward me; four more explosions, Heredia continues to count, the jar stops next to my feet, which are wrapped in several pairs of blue socks, one on top of another. Capers, the label says, they’re capers. Grunwald looks at Heredia: Relax, he says, it’ll pass. Another depth charge whips us, and another right after that one, each one feels like you have a metal helmet on your head and somebody’s hammering on it. Just relax, we’ll come out of this and go home, Grunwald says to Heredia, and How do you… ? but Heredia’s question is swallowed up by the noise of a new explosion and now there are no more questions or answers; no one’s talking anymore. Another charge stuns and shakes us, that’s eight so far, Heredia tallies. We dive even deeper, trying to dodge them, fucking choppers; nine anti-submarine charges, but this time no one says anything, not even Heredia; others imitate the first guys and put on their life jackets; now the jar rolls down to Heredia’s feet, as he watches its gentle rocking, like tremors; Capers, capers, he starts to read aloud, what’s this for? No idea, Grunwald replies; another new charge stuns us and shakes us, and why the life jacket, I wonder, if at this depth and with this pressure no one will be able to survive. Another charge, now the jar rolls past my feet and then, together with the new quake, a noise startles me, it startles the others, too: it scrapes the metal plate of the boat, it creaks as if it’s about to split open against the rocky ocean floor. Grunwald jumps out of his chair, a few of the others run toward the bow to add weight to the boat. Olivero desperately struggles to fill the tanks with ballast; most likely the navigation chart got messed up and we’re touching bottom, so Olivero—and now Grunwald—work to keep us from ricocheting and having the rotor blade break on us, keeping us trapped here on the bottom forever, those with life jackets and those without, all of us, the same, smashed to pieces. Another explosive charge falls, but this time it doesn’t seem so close; the jar shakes but doesn’t move. The CO orders all machinery stopped; the sub, heavy now, floats gently; everyone is silent and still, grabbing on to whatever they can to keep from falling while the boat carves a cradle in the ocean floor, which seems sandy now; it rocks a little, finds its place. The jar moves, I follow it with my eyes and see Soria rushing into the head, the door doesn’t shut: here at the bottom the boat compresses and now the door to the head, which was open when we started to dive, doesn’t fit in its frame anymore and won’t close all the way; another charge explodes but we barely move. The other guys’ faces look white, transparent, damp, we turn paler and paler, all of us, the others and, no doubt, me too, sort of moldy for lack of natural light, from so much breathing condensed in here. Another charge; it feels like they’re sweeping the area, most likely behind the choppers there are destroyers or aircraft carriers. And then another, this one jerks us with greater force, it feels like my head’s about to explode, the jar hasn’t come back, it’s stuck against a blanket that’s lying on the floor, all rolled up. The others look ridiculous with those life jackets that couldn’t save them anyway; the CO, however, hasn’t put his on; neither has Grunwald, but he