A pot-bellied man wearing a khaki belt around the expanse of his blue cotton jumpsuit swiveled his chair at the chief-of-the-watch station towards his captain. “Sir, do you want me to pump the forward trim and drain tanks?”
The Indiana’s commander thought about it. With the forward spaces about to flood, he agreed with keeping the compartment as light as possible. “Yes. Pump the forward trim and drain tanks to sea. Also, blow the forward sanitary tanks.” He twisted his torso towards the charting table. “Navigator, what’s the water depth?”
“One hundred and eighty-two feet, sir, with a slight downward slope to the west. Verified on the fathometer.”
Causey called out to the seated man who controlled the ship’s depth. “Make your depth one-seven-zero feet.”
Reaching the shallow depths proved quick and simple for the Virginia-class hull.
As the deck steadied from its gentle angle, the radio operator declared the satellite communications buoy launched and floating to the water’s surface with its message about the bottoming plan.
Causey released two more men. “Radio operator, go. Navigator, go. Take the local paper charts with you.”
The liberated men departed.
Stooping his short frame over a console but ready to flee, the sonar operator trembled with adrenaline. Holding one muff of a headset against his ear, he faced his commander. “I heard the communications buoy hit the surface.”
“Very well. How about the torpedo?”
“Unchanged. I’m tracking it at ninety-eight seconds away, but it’s a guess at this point since there’s no bearing rate. It’s just a tail chase.”
“Very well. You’re free. Get out of here.”
The supervisor darted aft.
With three men seated at the controls of the ship, the Indiana’s commander stepped to the pair seated in the forward-most station. “I only need one of you.”
The younger petty officer looked up over his shoulder. “I’ll stay, sir. I’m single. He’s got a wife and three kids.”
Causey tapped the father on the shoulder. “Go. That’s an order.”
After thanking his colleague, the man marched away.
Starting a mental countdown, the Indiana’s commander tallied eighty-five seconds before impact. “Are you ready for some abnormal driving?”
The single sailor sounded scared but compliant. “Yes, sir.”
Considering an untested scenario beyond the dreams of the Indiana’s builders, Causey visualized his final moves. Once he envisioned the steps in sequence, he instigated them. “Right full rudder.”
The deck angled during the turn.
Ninety degrees later, the Indiana’s commander pushed his ship to its limits. “Rudder amidships.”
“My rudder’s amidships, sir.”
Causey tapped a button. “I’m ringing up back emergency.”
Laboring in violence against its flank-speed momentum, the ship shuddered, and a digital display showed its speed plummeting.
Causey’s mental clock gave him fifty seconds. “Left full rudder.”
“My rudder’s left full, sir.”
“Set me up to talk to the engine room directly.”
The sailor tapped a button. “You’re on an open circuit with maneuvering, sir.”
Causey spoke into a microphone. “Maneuvering, control room. Do you hear me?”
He recognized his engineer officer’s voice issuing from a loudspeaker. “Control room, maneuvering. We hear you, sir.”
“Take local control of the rudder. Once we’ve reversed course from our evasion course, set the rudder amidships. Got it?”
“Set the rudder amidships after we’ve settled on the reverse course of our evasion course. Understood, sir.”
“Also, take local control of the stern planes and use them to keep us level. Start with ten-degrees rise.”
“Rise, sir?”
“We’ll be going backwards and we’ll be light forward. I’m having the forward compartment trim and drain tanks pumped dry and sanitary tanks blown.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll take local control of the stern planes and start with ten-degrees rise to keep us at a level deck.”
“Then once the torpedo hits, bring us to all stop and go silent.”
While hesitating in his response, the engineer revealed his uneasiness with running backwards from an incoming weapon and stopping after it would detonate next to the hull. “Uh… once the torpedo hits, come to all stop and go silent, aye, sir.”
“That’s it. We’re heading aft now.”
“Sir, do you want us to isolate the engine room electric buses from the forward compartment?”
The Indiana’s commander appreciated the question. With the rapid pace of ideas, he’d forgotten to separate the sections of his submarine’s power grid that would remain dry from those awaiting immersion. “Yes.”
“I’ll include the main battery, sir. Except for systems with local battery backups, you’ll be completely in the dark.
“I know. Make it happen.”
“I’ll have the engine room buses isolated, sir.”
Causey stood and glanced at the single sailor and then the portly chief of the watch, who pumped weight out of the forward compartment. “Go. Both of you. Grab a flashlight. I’ll follow.”
The crewmen stepped across the control room and ducked through a door.
As the Indiana’s commander followed them through the galley, he heard the incoming torpedo’s seeker pinging off the hull. Compounding the assault on his senses, the compartment went dark.
The single sailor ahead of him illuminated his light, and a cone of white cut the blackness.
Causey withdrew a small flashlight from his belt and aimed it at the deck plates. When he reached the open door to the reactor compartment’s tunnel, he scurried through it and helped the nearest sailor shut it. With the watertight boundary sealed between his crew and the spaces he expected to flood, he studied the men jammed into the thin corridor.
Their faces showed fear, and the air stank of body odor.
Causey shouted. “Brace for impact! Grab something! Bend your knees!” He obeyed his own order while clutching the watertight door.
Like death, the torpedo’s seeker pounded the hull with a haunting shrillness. Like death, the warhead exploded with a deafening thud. Like death, the deck shook and rattled.
Like salvation, the reactor compartment held.
Causey regained his footing. “To the engine room. Everyone. Go!” He took several steps behind his filing men, but curiosity compelled him to reverse course. When he backtracked to the watertight door, he stooped and looked through the porthole.
Suggesting heightened humidity, droplets clung to the window, but the compartment appeared dark and dry.
Hoping the pressure hull had somehow retained its integrity, Causey realized his desire’s folly as the deck dipped. With water filling half the submarine and rotating its football-field-length, the bow plummeted twelve feet and into the mud. The deck lurched, and the Indiana’s commander stumbled. After recovering, he watched rising water shimmer and reflect the scant light from his portal, and then he retreated into the engine room.
Confused sailors blocked his path.
“Make a hole!” Causey pushed through his people to reach a ladder ascending to the submarine’s upper deck. He climbed and then reached the engineering room’s sealed control center, maneuvering. Among the watch team and the engineering officer, he found his second-in-command. “We’re bottomed. XO.”
“I assumed so, sir. Our speed fell off abruptly to zero.”
“Head out into the spaces and get a status of any injuries. Also, spread the word that we’re in ultra-quiet mode, and get a command center set up for the officers.”