“Aye aye, sir.”
They watched him closely as he went through the routine with his set. Just as he was about to duck under water, under the edge of the trunk, he remembered that he might need a wheel-spanner for the vent in the hatch. There was one hanging from an air-pipe behind Payne: Tommy pointed at it, held out his hand, and Payne quickly passed it across.
He didn’t want to duck down and miss the trunking, come up into the light again in the circle of anxious faces: he stood right against the side of the trunk, grasped the bottom edge before he ducked. He wondered whether or not he should open the exhaust valve on his oxygen bag: what had the instructors said, at Blockhouse? He couldn’t remember; he decided to leave it shut. After all, he’d be in the air again when he came up inside the trunking, until he got the valve open in the hatch. That would be the time to open the exhaust, shut it again when he returned to the compartment.
He ducked into the dark water, holding the edge of the trunk: forced himself down hard, edged forward until he felt the edge of the trunking pass over his head. Then he stood up inside the trunk, his hands on the ladder: he climbed up, his head in air not water, but still breathing oxygen. He held the side of the ladder with his right hand: his left, holding the wheel-spanner, he held up over his head to feel for the hatch. He hadn’t counted the rungs as he climbed, and now he thought, I must be nearly at the top. His hand found no ceiling in the dark, though, and he climbed another rung. His goggles had already leaked, salt water stung his eyes. Still that hatch was not in reach: he took another upward step, and the wheel-spanner clanged loudly on the inside of the hatch. He braced himself with both feet on the same rung, his back supported against the upper part of the twill trunk, and he transferred the wheel-spanner to his right hand. With his left he found the little T-bar on the vent, and he fitted the knuckles of the spanner across it, pressed anti-clockwise: his hands were almost numb from the cold water. The vent didn’t move; he rested, began again, and his stiff fingers slipped, dropped the spanner.
He heard it clang off a rung of the ladder, somewhere in front of his face, and he heard another clang as it hit the deck. He began slowly climbing down, feeling for the rungs below him at each step. He thought to himself, Take it easy, now: there’s no hurry. As he went down into the water, pulling himself down into the icy blackness right down on to his knees at the bottom of the ladder, he felt the pressure in his breathing-set increase until it stopped him breathing out. He breathed in, easily, but he couldn’t force his breath back into the bag. For a moment panic flared in his mind, then he remembered, opened the exhaust valve: the pressure fell away at once and he could breathe again. He began to grope around on the deck.
It wasn’t there. He thought, I can’t go back into the compartment without having the job done. Still he couldn’t find the wheel-spanner: he started a new, systematic search, covering the deck area under the trunk methodically, strip by strip. He could only use one hand, because he needed the other for holding himself down. The wheel-spanner was not there. He paused, and his brain gave him the clue: it shouldn’t have clanged, not if it hit the deck! He ran his free hand over the lower rungs of the ladder; almost immediately he found it, hanging from the second rung by its hook. Slowly he began to climb back to the hatch, congratulated himself when he remembered to shut the exhaust valve before he came out of the water.
This time he went one rung higher on the ladder: stooped as he was, it gave him a better purchase on the spanner. He pressed hard, and felt the vent begin to open. A minute later the water was rising, a tearing sound in his ears as the trapped air rushed out through the tiny aperture. When he knew that the trunking was flooded, he began numbly to work at the hatch. The pressure fought his breath again, and once more he opened the vent at the bottom corner of the bag, once more felt the relief of being able to breathe comfortably. His arms felt heavy, pain working up from the wrists: he could only just feel with his frozen fingers. He wondered how long he’d been working, whether they’d be getting worried in the compartment: he could imagine Payne preparing to come up and drag his body out of the way of the hatch.
The hatch was free; he braced himself on the ladder, got his shoulders under the hatch, head bent forward, and he forced himself upwards. The hatch rose: he shifted, got the palms of his hands under it, pushed hard: it clanged back and over his head there was grey light filtering down from the surface, the black streak of the jumping-wire a quivering line across it. He thought, I must remember to warn them about that: when men let themselves go fast, straight from the hatch, they could hit the wire and either knock themselves out or have their sets torn off. He began to climb slowly down the ladder, rung by rung: felt the bottom of the trunking, eased himself under it: and rose to his feet in the dimly illuminated compartment.
They looked as much surprised as relieved to see him back. When he had shut the valves and pulled the mouthpiece out of his mouth, he said, “Everything’s fine. The hatch is open, and we can’t be very deep. It’s quite light, when you look up. Remember to watch out for the jumping-wire: get on to the side of the casing before you let go, and use the apron on your sets to slow yourselves down.”
He spoke in jerks, panting from the exertion. Looking at his fingers, he was surprised to see that they still belonged to him, connected with bones and flesh: he couldn’t feel them. There was no skin on his knuckles, the flesh showed pink and bloodless.
“Right, Higham: you first. I’ll point at each of you in turn after that, at two-minute intervals. Payne, you’ll be last, except for me. All right?”
They all nodded. He was keeping Payne to the last as a useful hand in case one of the others bungled it, got himself stuck.
“Start breathing from your sets.” He watched them as they began to go through the drill. Then, a minute later, he nodded at Higham, pointed at the trunking. Higham vanished under the edge of the trunking. Every two minutes, Tommy sent another man after him: be checked the timing carefully, by counting.
Last of all he nodded across at Payne. Payne grinned, held out his right hand: cursing the waste of time and the film-like gesture, Tommy shook hands with him. Then he withdrew his hand, pointed at the trunking. Payne nodded, lowered himself into the water.
Tommy, alone in the compartment, made himself wait twice the interval of two minutes before he started. While he waited, there was no sense of success in his mind: outside the hatch, in the hatch, there could be a solid block of tangled bodies.
For the second time, he lowered himself into the still black water: the lantern still shone quietly in the false and temporary breathing-space. He found the ladder, climbed: with an effort he made himself look up. The hatch was clear: he held the rungs with his hands curved under them, holding himself down from the upward rush that could kill him in the hatch.
Grasping the edges, he rose through the hatch, stopped in the gap in the casing while he opened the valve on his oxygen bottle: the breath came more easily, and he wondered why at this, of all times, the goggles were keeping the water out of his eyes. He had never been through the practice tank without them leaking. He knelt on the casing, his fingers straining to keep him down, locked in the holes, and he edged to the side so that when he let himself go he’d miss the wire that stretched over his head. At other times, he had leant on that wire while he chatted in the sunlight.