Houston slowed at four thousand yards. Reed intended to give Imperator plenty of room to maneuver when she prepared to dive. At three thousand yards, he checked on the underwater telephone to determine how much longer they’d have to wait.
At almost the precise moment Houston secured engines, one of the sonarmen cried out, “Torpedo… port quarter… closing fast.” Up to that moment, with the raucous sounds they had been emiting themselves, coupled with the ice rattling off Imperator’s hull, there had been no chance to identify anything else. It had seemed so dangerous that Reed commented only seconds before to Ross that this was the perfect time for an attack. At this recognition of the fact, he’d stopped the propeller to listen — and they’d been greeted by the most terrifying report a submarine could hear.
“More than one… two definite… both range gating… three-second intervals…”
While the Americans had been creating their own sound effects, Abe Danilov observed Lozak with pride as the captain eased Seratov into a perfect position. There had been more than enough time to creep stealthily the last few thousand feet. The only errant noise had been the flooding of the tubes and the muzzle doors snapping open, but that had taken place during their approach while Houston was still making noise. Abe Danilov even commented to Sergoff that it was the simplest of firing exercises designed for cadets in their first year — one had only to hit a standing target! Two torpedoes had been fired. A third and fourth were ready for emergency use while the other two tubes were being reloaded. There was no need to dive. It was an old-fashioned straight shot.
Houston’s choices were limited. The high-speed Russian torpedoes gave them less than ninety seconds to evade from the moment they left the tubes. Yet she was unable to turn adequately in either direction, and her speed was limited! It seemed that any maneuver would just offer the torpedoes more opportunity. Houston was just below the ice, perfectly trimmed, ready to move into position to surface. Reaction time was negligible.
With reports of the closing torpedoes ringing in Reed’s ears, the realization came to him that there was nothing — nothing at all — they should be doing. Flooding the ballast tanks would just be an assist to the Russians; they would sink a little faster. “Blow your main ballast tanks, Ross… quick… give it all you’ve got.”
“I don’t—”
“Never mind… no way we can get away now… collision alarm,” Reed shouted as he switched on the PA system. Somehow, he had to get to Imperator! “We are under torpedo attack. We will try to surface. Prepare to abandon ship.”
The crew in each space heard the last words repeated over and over again. Most were unable to understand his meaning. No one abandons submarines! Either everyone survived or everyone went down with the ship. But no one abandoned…
The first torpedo hit aft, blowing a hole directly into the reactor compartment. Seawater shorted out the electrical system. Only those on the upper deck survived the blast or flooding. The second one hit low, bursting into the torpedo room. Water flooded through the vast rupture in the hull. The last torpedo malfunctioned at the final moment, diving erratically beneath Houston, mercifully prolonging her final agony.
Houston had been rising toward the ice as water rushed from her ballast tanks. The second blast lifted her more quickly. The bouy pointed gradually higher from the weight of the water flooding aft. Then her nose crashed through the ice at an awkward angle. Houston resembled an immense sea lion as her entire bow struggled to climb up on the ice. Then she slid backward until less than the first fifty feet poked from the water; a section of her sail appeared above the surface, gracelessly canted to one side.
Inside the hull, fear and darkness were eased by emergency lights. The force of the blasts flung the crew about the confined spaces like so many rag men. The luckiest had been hurled into each other. Many others were unconscious or dead from violent contact with heavy and sharp-edged equipment. Ross had been thrown sideways into the first fire control console. He lay in a heap, his forehead crushed, blood flowing from his mouth and ears.
Reed lunged for the interior phone. “Engineering… can you give us any power?”
He was greeted with silence.
He tried other spaces… but there was no answer from any of them. The interior communication system was dead.
Then Houston rolled another ten degrees to starboard, slipping further backward. She was being dragged down by the rapidly increasing weight of sea water flooding her spaces.
Supporting himself on a railing, Reed recognized the quartermaster gripping the chart table, his eyes fixed on Reed. “Abandon ship,” Reed called to him, pointing at the 21MC speaker behind the man. “All stations…”
The quartermaster stared dumbly, wiping blood from the comer of his mouth before the concept dawned on him that the admiral was giving an order. He turned slowly, as if in a dream, and called in a husky voice over the ship’s general announcing system, “Abandon ship… abandon ship…”
There was little time to do more than scramble as Houston again slid backward. There were four hatches in a 688 class, but only the forward one and the sail were above the water. There wasn’t a soul who escaped the engineering spaces.
It was light near the pole during the wee hours of the morning, but the temperature remained below zero. Sailors leaped toward the ice dressed only in dungarees and T-shirts. Some fell back in the icy water, struggling against instant numbness for a handhold. The injured men lucky enough to be near the forward hatch were passed out to others on the slanted deck who were forced to push them into the water, hoping someone would get them to the edge of the ice. Houston, groaning against the weight of her rapidly filling hull, was again wrenched violently backward until water first lapped at the edges of the forward hatch, then cascaded through the opening.
One of the last to emerge was Andy Reed. The sail seemed at an impossible angle when he struggled through the tiny hatch and leaped into the open sea. He thrashed through the numbing water to the edge of the ice, where grasping hands reached to pull him out. He was half dragged, half carried away from the open water as the submarine’s bow pointed higher into the air. When they were no more than fifty yards away, Houston lurched once more. This time she pointed her nose directly at the clear sky above, before slipping rapidly backward. Huge air bubbles erupted on the surface. Floe ice crashed about with a roar. And then there was nothing but surface debris among the chunks of ice.
Seratov—Abe Danilov — had been rewarded for patience.
Snow slammed his fist against the metal side of the sail. Come on — get tough, he wanted to shout. But he couldn’t, not with the XO staring in wonder at his captain’s outburst. Why the hell was he giving in to his emotions now? He pressed the button to the control room and bawled into the speaker: “Break out one of those helos forward, on the double. Tell Colonel Campbell he’s in charge of Houston survivors. No time to arm… just get the closest one on deck and into the air. I’ll have orders for the crew by the time they’re warmed up.” An involuntary shudder coursed through his body. Why was he having second thoughts?