“What about the torpedo room,” Jacobs asked.
“Torpedo room, report in,” Seaman Karpinski spoke into the mouthpiece. He waited. “Torpedo room, report in.” He looked at Jacobs, “No response, Sir.”
The Massachusetts was starting to tip more toward the front. “We’re taking on water,” Jacobs said. He pointed to three men now standing in the control center. “You three, damage control, head below, do not open any watertight doors without checking through the glass first. Close doors behind you. Find out what’s going on in the torpedo room.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” they answered. They looked through the small glass window in the forward watertight door, rotated the wheel and cracked the door open. Stephanos was on the other side of the door.
He stepped into the control center as the three men went through. “Without power we can’t tell what’s working and what’s not.”
Jacobs turned to Seaman Karpinski. “Find Lieutenant Kent. Get him to the torpedo room, and find out how long before we get power from the reactor room and from engineering.” Seaman Karpinski talked into the Sound Powered Phone and listened.
“Reactor room is functioning, turbine spinning, generator is currently off line. They’re checking fuses. Engineering reporting multiple blown fuses, main distribution panel is damaged; main bus bars are shorted and fused together, rerouting wires to the auxiliary panel, estimate ten minutes before they can try to restore power, Sir.”
Tiffany watched as Hector held the medium round wood plug in his left hand and the drive mallet in his right. The two sight glasses in the torpedo tube door had blown out, leaving two oval holes in the door. As he tried to position the plug in front of the stream of water the force of the flow blew the plug out of his hand and sent it careening across the room. He looked up at her.
“The force is a lot stronger than in the training room,” she said. “We need to improvise.”
Caleb Johnson grabbed a pry bar and stuck it into the top sight glass hole and lifted up on the bar. The water blasted upward into his face.
“Plug the bottom half!” he shouted.
Hector took another wood plug and lined it up with the lower half of the sight glass hole, smacking it into place with the mallet. Johnson repeated the maneuver with the bottom hole. Hector slammed the plug into the hole — that cut the flow to about half of what it was but the water was still getting deeper in the torpedo room much too rapidly. The water was now knee deep.
“What about the wide crack wedges?” Tiffany asked.
Hector pulled a wide wedge out of the kit and lined it up with the hole.
“Too wide!” he shouted over the sound of the spray.
Johnson withdrew a pocket knife from his pocket and carved the edges of the wedge down. “Try it now.”
Hector drove the wedge in on top of the round plug. It held.
“More wedges,” Tiffany shouted.
Within a few minutes the flow of water had slowed, but the gaps between the round plugs and the wedges still allowed a continuous flow of water into the torpedo room.
Tiffany heard a loud banging from the watertight door. She rushed over and looked through the small glass window. She saw Lieutenant Kent on the other side of the door, worry etched in his face. He held up a Sound Powered Phone set. She nodded and snatched the device from the lower drawer of the tool storage drawers, put the head set on and plugged it into the connector.
“Open the door!” he shouted into the phone.
She shook her head. “Too much pressure.”
She heard, “Torpedo room, this is the control center, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Get the Captain on the phone.”
“Lieutenant, what’s going on?” It was Captain Jacobs’ voice.
“When our torpedo hit the incoming torpedo, Sir, the outer door was still open for the guide-by-wire. The explosion jammed the outer door. We can’t move it. The inner door on tube one is broken and we’re taking on water. We already have three feet of water in the lower level. Pumps are not working. We’re driving wood wedges into the holes in the door. It’s slowing the rate of water coming in, but we can’t stop it.”
“Can you evacuate?” Jacobs asked.
“No, Sir, too much air pressure on the door. The torpedo room has the largest volume on the boat. If it fills with water the boat becomes too heavy, not enough volume left to maintain buoyancy. We would lose the boat, Sir.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, we may have auxiliary power in ten minutes, that should give you power for the pumps. Maybe that will help.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Grimes said, “what is our depth right now? None of our displays are working.” She could feel the pressure increasing. Water pressure increases at approximately one half pound per square inch for each foot of depth.
“Passing 700 feet, lieutenant, we’re sliding down by the bow.”
“We’re too deep for anybody to get out of the sub, Sir, we have to stay in here and fight this leak. No choice, Sir.”
“Once we get power, we’re going to try to blow main ballast; see if that gets us up where we can get out. Hold tight Lieutenant.”
“Aye-aye, Sir.” She looked around the torpedo room. With the forward tip of the Massachusetts the damaged door was now three feet under water.
As the main power came back on, the lights in the control center flickered to life. “XO, blow the negative tank and the forward auxiliary tanks, leave the rear auxiliary tanks where they currently are.” The negative tank was centrally located and was used to control the internal volume of the submarine, which, in turn, controlled the buoyancy of the boat. A greater air volume inside the negative buoyancy tank displaced more water, which increased the buoyancy, making the sub float higher in the water. The auxiliary tanks were used to balance the sub front to back and side to side. Blowing compressed air into the tanks forced the water out into the ocean. The constant tilting of the sub toward the front slowed, as did the slide into the depth of the Pacific Ocean.
“Give me a three-second high pressure blow on all main ballast tanks. Let’s see how the boat responds.” Jacobs said. The sound of high pressure air rushing through the steel pipes echoed through the boat and then, at the three-second mark, abruptly stopped. It felt like being on an elevator as the Massachusetts started to rise. Then the sub began tilting strongly toward the front, and the rise quickly turned into a sinking motion.
“Front main ballast isn’t holding air, Sir,” Silverton reported. “Probable damage from the explosion.”
Jacobs pressed the button on the intercom, “Engine room, con, can you give me reverse thrusters?”
The reply came over the intercom, “Con, engine room — we’ll give it a try, Sir.”
“The Pulsejet Propulsar isn’t really designed to move us backwards very fast, Sir,” Silverton said.
“Well, going forward is only going to drive us deeper. Any other ideas?”
Silverton thought for a moment. “No, Sir,” he replied.
“Torpedo room, con, Lieutenant Grimes, how are you doing in there?”
“Pumps are running, Sir, water level looks stable, but everything has shifted forward, so it’s a little hard to tell exactly. We can’t work on the tube door, Sir, it’s four feet under water.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Jacobs replied.
The Massachusetts continued to tip toward the bow. Jacobs looked at the depth gauge. They were slowly rising. That was good news. Less pressure outside meant the water coming into the torpedo room would slow. It might give the pumps a chance to catch up and get more water out of the torpedo room. If that happened, they might be able to level the boat somewhat.