Cold is the Sea (50 page)

“Tell our wives that we love them. No, Stew Mirklebaum says he's divorced. The rest of us. Mirklebaum says to find Sarah Schnee—Schneehaulder”—Keith spelled the name—“one of the fellows you've picked up will know who she is. Tell her he's
thinking of her. Jim Hanson wants you to tell Mary he loves her and little Jimmy. Larry Hollister sends love to Eleanor and says not to forget they'll meet by the first bloom of the lilac tree. Curt says Suzanne knows he's always hers. And tell Peggy and Ruthie for me”—here, Keith's steady voice broke for a moment—“tell them I love them, and would like to have been able to get Peggy that little garden in the picket-fenced yard that I always promised her. Someday we'd have had it, too. Tell her the Navy didn't let me down. It did all it could, and so did you and Buck. There's nothing more anyone could do than you did for us. Tell her we're not suffering, and aren't going to.”

The stricture in Richardson's throat threathened to suffocate him. “I've got it all, Keith. I promise, and so does Buck,” he choked out. “And there'll be a full report on how you carried out the best and finest traditions of the United States Navy, and how you told that foreign submarine, Soviet or whoever he was, by that last torpedo of yours, that you weren't about to give in to him or anyone. And we'll also tell how you stayed with your ship to the very last, giving your own life to save your crew and making sure they escaped, even though you couldn't.”

“I'm not the last, Rich. There's Jim and Curt and Larry and Stew, and we're all together now. Passing three hundred feet.”

Silently, Buck handed Rich a piece of paper. Richardson looked at it, frowned thoughtfully, did not speak for a full fifteen seconds.

“Rich, are you still on the line?”

“Rich, here. Yes, Keith. We've just got a report on your muster. For a minute I thought of lying to you, but I can't. All of your crew is accounted for except five. They didn't make it. They were in the last two groups, and didn't have the wet suits. Jim Baker, Howard McCool, Willson Everett, Abe Lincoln Smith and John Varillo. I'm sorry, Keith. They got up all right, but they died in the water before we could get them in the chamber. Also we lost one of our divers when the line carried away.”

“I'm dreadfully sorry, Rich, and Buck too. I meant to tell you, I saw him carried over the side through the TV when the line parted, but I thought he'd have no strain getting back on deck with his safety line—what was his name?”

“Cliff Martini.”

“I'm sorry, Buck. Tell his family for me. We're going down faster, now. Just passed four hundred feet. About the five of our men who died, they were all good men. John was a fine young officer and would have been a credit— I understand he was engaged to be married to a girl named Ellen Covina. She lives in New York. Look her up for him, will you? And also the next of kin for the other four— I don't know all the details—oh, we know. McCool's family is in Groton. So's Abe Smith's. Everett lived in Waterford. Baker was born and brought up in Norwich, Larry says. Passed five hundred while I was talking.”

“Okay, Keith. We've got it all. Wilco on all of it, old friend.”

“We're nearing six hundred. Mark, six hundred. I'll try to keep giving you the depths. That will be something the designers might like to know.” Keith's voice was growing fainter, and with the last speech he must have raised the output gain control. The time of transmission of his voice from the sinking submarine was lengthening.

Rich raised his own gain to full. What could he say to help Keith over these horrible last few minutes? What could anyone do? “Keith, remember our second cruise on the
Eel?
Remember how you rescued me from that fake sampan, and that sadistic character, Moonface? I'll never forget how you burst out of the water with our old ship and impaled that wooden tub on her bow buoyancy tank. That was beautiful!”

“Thanks, Skipper!” Keith's voice took longer to reach him. Perhaps he had not answered immediately. “I've often thought of it, too, and wondered how you managed to keep from finishing Moonface all by yourself when we got the upper hand.”

“I've wondered myself. It was partly because of Bungo Pete, I guess.” (There, the name was out again. Rich sensed Buck looking strangely at him.)

“Seven hundred! Forget Bungo, Rich! You've paid for that too many times! I'd have done it, too, and I'd not have worried about it after, either. What about this guy you and Buck sank today? He probably had a wife and kids at home, and so did Bungo, most likely—and so did I. Eight hundred!”

“I understand what you're trying to say, Keith, and I'll try.”

It took appreciable time for Keith's voice to make the return trip. “You've got to promise me, Rich. Don't let me down now.
Don't let any of that stuff throw you. Put it behind you. No matter who comes to you with it! No matter who! I mean it, Rich. Haven't been able to think of the words to say, got to try to get it in.” Keith's voice had risen in pitch, and was louder. “Buck knows what I'm talking about. Tell Peggy I love her, and for her to take the insurance and get that house and garden, far away from New London. But don't you talk to her, Rich. Not unless there's someone with you. Ask Buck! This is going to throw her, and sometimes she's—Passing a thousand feet. Missed the nine-hundred-foot mark. Sometimes she says things she doesn't really mean, or doesn't really know about but makes you think she does. Don't let her upset you, Rich. She's my wife, and you're my best friend, and I love you both, and it tears me to think of it. Be sure Buck or Laura is with you! That's all I can think of to say. The others are over in the corner talking by themselves. They said they don't need to talk to anyone. Eleven hundred. Going fast, now. I can hear the internal bulkheads squeezing. She'll last a bit longer, but not much. Twelve hundred. I can smell chlorine. The battery's spilled for sure. Took a long time, though. It's a good design. Thirteen. We're off the deep gauge. Give it to you in sea pressure. Where's a sea pressure gauge? I'm disoriented. Here's one. I can barely read it from where I'm sitting to get to this mike. It should be built with a long cord, instead of fixed to the bulkhead, which is now the floor—the gauge is showing seven hundred pounds. That's more than fourteen hundred feet. Now it's nearly eight hundred. I'll hold the mike button down with my foot and maybe I can stand up partway to read it—it's eight fifty. I'm shouting. Can you hear me? Don't answer. It doesn't matter, but I'll keep trying. . . .”

Keith's voice was changed with the distance and with his attempt to shout from a position closer to the sea pressure gauge. But it was still intelligible, still Keith. Rich felt Buck's arm around his shoulders, put his own arm around Buck's neck. Subconsciously, both of them felt the presence of other men, other members of
Manta
's crew, many members of the
Cushing
's crew. Rich felt Buck's quiet, shaking grief, knew his own was communicating itself to Buck. There were soft noises of anguish from others in the control room, but otherwise silence, except for many men, breathing as quietly as they could. Never had the silence been so absolute. Never had a packed control room,
packed with the crews of two submarines, been so still. Even the breathing was stifled, muted, kept shallow so as not to bother anyone. In the distance, a far corner, someone let out a tiny wail, “Oh, God—!” It might have been a prayer. It was savagely shut off. A vicious elbow in the ribs, or a firm hand over the mouth.

Keith had said not to answer, but Rich had to say something in the momentary silence of the UQC. He cleared his throat, swallowing the lump that was in it. “Keith,” he said. He had to force his voice to work. By sheer will he overrode the clutch in it. “Most of your crew is here with me. They're all blessing the best submarine skipper they ever had, and the best friend they ever had. Their hearts and minds are with you at this time. Those who traveled in deep waters with you are with you still.” He released the button, heard the strange traveling sound of the carrier beam as the message went out, attenuating, in all directions. But also down.

“. . . hundred pounds. That's amazing, Rich! Eleven hundred! Who could have thought—twelve hundred! Tell Peggy I love her! Tell Ruthie the last thing her dad did was to think of her. Thirteen hundred! Something's given way down aft! I think she's going! Good-bye! Thanks for all! Fourteen . . .”

A smashing roar came over the UQC speaker—Keith had been holding the button down—and then it was silent. But everyone in the
Manta
heard the awful, shattering, crushing implosion when the fantastic sea pressure, at whatever depth
Cushing
had reached, burst the stout, unyielding, high-tensile steel into smithereens. Embrittled under pressure, yet standing rigid, firm against millions of tons of overpressure, when finally it gave way the thick, armor-quality steel split into thousands of pieces, ranging in size from tiny fragments to tremendous solid plates weighing tons, all of them driven inward with velocity beyond comprehension. And the sea followed instantly, with a voice like thunder, compressing the air to one one-hundredth of its previous volume and raising its temperature high into incandescence.

Keith, Jim, Curt, Larry and Stewart did not suffer, nor did they even feel pain. Awareness ceased instantaneously, when their bodies ceased to exist.

Great sections of steel curved in various shapes to fit the exigencies of
Cushing
's designers, now broken in every conceivable
way but still curved, fluttered down through the black water like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. When they came to rest they covered a wide expanse on the bottom of the Fletcher Abyssal Plain. Under them, deeply buried in the ancient ooze of the bottom, were the resting places, for all time, of the two halves of the Soviet nuclear submarine
Novosibirsky Komsomol
, and the
Cushing
's reactor, which sank swiftly in one piece because of the immense pressure it had been built to contain.

18

T
here was a new compulsion in the
Manta
as she raced for the edge of the ice pack, where the ice would be thinner, the probability greater of being able to break through to send a message. For the better part of a day, Rich and Buck labored over its wording. They must report the loss of the
Cushing
, give the names of the men lost with her, tell of the battle with the intruding submarine, and describe their suspicions that there was some sort of a Soviet base, not far away, near enough for the submarine they had sunk to have gone there for instructions. The
Cushing
might well have been originally very near it, since Keith had reported seeing aircraft apparently orbiting just over the horizon, and landing and taking off.

The message, encrypted in the highest classification code available on board, ended with terse naval jargon,
UNODIR PROCEEDING RECON GUARDING VLF ONE HOUR NOON GREENWICH
: Unless otherwise directed,
Manta
would try to locate the base and discover its nature and purpose. Once a day, at noon Greenwich Mean Time, she would come to as shallow a depth as possible, at minimum speed, to listen to the very-low-frequency
radio circuit for any instructions. Otherwise, the
Manta
would most likely be at deep submergence and unreachable by any means of communication.

Thirty hours were required to find an area where the ice cover was thin enough to break through. Buck directed his course to pass as nearly as possible through the same spot where the relayed message from the
Cushing
had been sent, but it was not found. Doubtless they passed within a short distance of it, but there was no indication of any thinning of the ice pack on the upward-beamed fathometer, nor any sign of discontinuity of the ice pack as the
Manta
cautiously circled the area with her periscopes up. Finally, it had been necessary to punch through ten feet of cover with the submarine's bow, elevated at a steep angle so as to take the shock of the contact with her strongest ice-breaking capability. Then
Manta
came back around and, more gently this time, shouldered her way through the shattered slot in the ice with her sail. When the message was at last cleared—it had carried the highest possible priority prefix—she went deep and headed toward the place indicated on Jerry Abbott's plot.

Buck Williams, sitting at the head of the wardroom table, was wagging his head. He and Richardson had adjourned there to study Jerry's work, leaving the exec free to continue the incredibly complicated task of organizing living, sleeping and messing arrangements for an influx of nearly double the crew of the
Manta
.

Jerry had plotted backward every known movement of the enemy submarine, as Buck had instructed, but he had had to make a number of assumptions, some questionable at best. And there had been no opportunity to get anything from Keith. Fortunately, Keith had given an estimated position of the aircraft he had seen in his last message, the one transmitted via the
Manta
. How long ago had that been? Less than two days. A decoded copy lay on the table.

“I hate even to look at this,” growled Buck, clutching one hand into a fist while he tapped the paper with the other. “This little piece of paper cost Keith his life! I hope they choke on it down in Washington! Do you really think Admiral Donaldson will get it across how much this has cost? Will he ram it into the people responsible?”

“If I know him, he certainly will. The lives of eleven damn
good men, not to mention a brand-new submarine, is a stiff price tag. He won't let that pass easily. But, of course, all they can do is be sorry.”