I turned to Sandy Gallivan, standing at my side, and asked him what was going on. He looked at me, his face tense, his words strained.
"Problem with the Fish winch mechanism," he said quickly. "Gotta hold the boat in a down-angle or our Special Project operation is shot. Bates is keeping us steady at this depth with positive buoyancy, and we're moving real slow." He pointed in the direction of Joel Bates, the lanky ballast control panel operator, who was hunched over his chair, his eyes glaring at his depth gauges.
"Aren't we moving pretty deep right now, with the down-angle and all?" I asked.
"Even though we're about four hundred feet," he said patiently, "we're not changing depth because of the positive buoyancy. As we move forward, we float up by an equal amount, holding our depth steady. It is a delicate balance, and Bates is going crazy trying to keep us at four hundred. Mathews and Davidson are going topside to free the hydraulic lock on the Fish's cable reel. In about thirty seconds, we are going to surface."
"We're going to surface with a down-angle?" I asked.
"With a down-angle," Sandy confirmed, looking unhappy. "At least we're not dangling a Fish below us."
Mathews and Davidson rechecked the thick belts holding their rail chains and looked up the ladder at the control room hatch as Philip O'Dell grabbed the microphone to the loudspeaker system.
"Now, surface, surface, surface!" Chief O'Dell's voice bellowed from speakers throughout the submarine.
With the rapid movements of practiced experience, the men in the control center flipped the switches controlling the high-pressure ballast air system. As the roaring compressed air blew water out of our ballast tanks, we rapidly ascended-the bow of the Viperfish still strangely pointing down by about 20 degrees. We broke through the surface of the early-morning ocean, and the helmsmen immediately opened the control-room hatch connecting to the sail. The thin form of Gerry Young raced up the ladder in front of Captain Harris. Both men scrambled to the top of the sail, and two lookouts followed closely behind. Mathews and Davidson remained next to the ladder in the control center, as they waited for orders to move out of the Viperfish.
From sixty-five feet above the deck, Young's voice crackled over the loudspeakers in the control center.
"Con, Bridge, how do you read me?"
"I read you loud and clear, how me?" Chief O'Dell called into his microphone.
"I hear you same," the speakers replied.
For about ten minutes, the captain and the OOD studied the waves around the Viperfish in the early morning dark as she plowed through the heaving waters. The freezing rain and wind, occasionally carrying blasts of salt-laden sea spray, whipped around the cockpit and blew into their faces.
The boat rolled vigorously from the cross-wave activity. The lookouts watched for lights of any approaching ships. The dark shape of the Viperfish would not be visible to the crew of another ship because we were running without lights, and there was always a small chance of collision with some random freighter straying out of the shipping lanes.
Commander Young's major responsibility as the officer of the deck was to establish the best possible course for the Viperfish and head her directly into the driving seas. Swells hitting the bow of the boat were easily traversed, but those striking the superstructure from abeam could cause severe rolling. He ordered several course changes during the first few minutes to move the Viperfish into the best direction through the waves. As each wave rolled out of the dark with an almost predictable regularity and approached the bow, we lifted up smoothly to ride over the top.
The captain had a bigger problem. Chief Mathews and Petty Officer Davidson were about to leave the security of the boat to walk on a slippery submarine deck. Everybody was aware that we were more than a thousand miles from the nearest land, and there was nobody nearby to help if we had a problem.
Inside the control room, Mathews and Davidson climbed to the top of the ladder. Dragging their rail chains behind them, they stopped just below the open hatch to the sail. Again, they paused and awaited orders.
"Mathews, Davidson, lay topside, into the sail!" the captain's order finally crackled down from the control room loudspeakers.
The two men quickly disappeared through the hatch into the dark interior of the sail, their chains clattering behind them. Within the sail, they turned on their flashlights to light up the door leading to the outside of the sail structure. The chief yanked up on the handle and swung the door wide. As it slammed against the outside steel, torrents of rain and roars from the black ocean stunned the men.
"Jesus" was all Davidson said, softly under his breath. As the junior enlisted man, he would faithfully follow his chief into the hostile night. He would say nothing more but, rather, concentrate on the job awaiting them and ignore the energy hammering the world around them.
Waiting for their final orders from the captain, Mathews and Davidson clutched the bar inside the open door and tried to see out into the night. High above their heads, the captain, the OOD, and the lookouts continued to scowl at the powerful forces surrounding the boat.
The captain's deep voice finally rumbled down to the sail from the cockpit: "You're clear for the topside deck!"
The two men immediately stepped out through the sail door and clamped their short chains to the railing carved into the steel deck. Beginning to inch forward slowly and clutching the handrail on the starboard side of the sail, they dragged their chains behind them as they progressed toward the hydraulic pipes ahead.
"I can't see a goddamn thing!" Mathews growled to Davidson as he brushed the rain from his eyes and shined his flashlight into the night.
"Nothing to see but the goddamn freezing rain!" Davidson hollered back over the roar of the ocean. They rounded the front of the sail and prepared to move across the deck, Mathews leading the way in the direction of the hydraulic system's valves.
Without warning, a rogue wave loomed like a huge black mountain two hundred yards in front of the Viperfish and began rolling directly at the submarine's heaving deck.
The four men in the cockpit simultaneously saw the massive shape that dwarfed the boat and seemed to become increasingly larger. Driven by the winds and tortured by the forces of the sea pulling up into its face, the black wall of water roared in thunderous slow motion, the crest topped by foaming Whitewater higher than the top of the sail. The lookouts hollered their warning. The OOD and the captain immediately tried to save the men on the deck below.
"Get back inside!" Young's voice blasted urgently from the top of the sail.
"Get into the sail!" the captain hollered. "Get inside, now!"
Young grabbed the microphone communicating into the control center and hollered, "Come right 20 degrees!"
The helmsman in the control center instantly turned the Viperfish farther to the right. The bow, moving slightly to the new course, pointed directly into the wave that seemed to grow like a powerful creature, a living thing preparing to devour the vessel and the men who challenged its waters.
"Come right another 10 degrees!" Young screamed into the microphone, as he tried to point the Viperfish directly into the powerful wave so that she could bisect and ride over it.
"Right, 10 degrees, aye, aye, sir!" the chief of the boat called back, and the helmsman responded with the rudder change.
The men on the deck turned and raced for the safety of the sail. Davidson reached it first, his chain now ahead of the chief. He frantically unlatched his clamp and leaped through the door, while Mathews hollered, "Go! Go! Go! Go!"