Ghostboat (39 page)

He went down the conning-tower hatch. Adler was on duty. “Captain’s in his quarters.”

“Thanks.” Cassidy started down the control room ladder.

“Uh, Chief... can we get moving again? Captain wants to make up lost time.”

“Sure. Just as soon as those men get below— Wait a minute! Don’t we have to dive?”

“Captain wants speed.”

He schucked his dripping jacket and went forward to the officer’s head. He borrowed a towel and dried himself off. The sound of irritated voices drew him to the corridor. They were coming from the CPO quarters.

It was Dorriss reading Hardy the riot act.

Cassidy winced. It was a disgrace. Dorriss was pouring it on, and there was no response from Hardy. A royal shit-kicking, he thought, and wished that the tables could be reversed, that he could outrank that skinny lieutenant, if only for five minutes.

He flung the towel back to Stigwood or Stanhill or whatever he was calling himself now, and knocked on the Captain’s door.

“Who is it?”

“Cas—” He hesitated. “Chief Walinsky to see you, sir.”

“Come in.”

Cassidy stepped in and waited for Frank to look up. The Captain was very busy composing a report. The fountain pen moved swiftly, spreading chicken scratches all over a sheet of paper.

“What is it?”

“The repairs, sir.”

“Oh, yes.” Frank looked up. “All fixed?”

“No, sir,” said Cassidy. “It’s not going to work that way. We should...”

“What?”

“Return to Pearl.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Walinsky. You know we can’t do that.”

“Then we’ll have to run with a bad tube.”

Frank leaned back and scratched his stomach. He seemed oddly composed for someone who had just suffered a setback.

“You’ll fix it, Mr. Walinsky. You will take your repair crew aft and fix it from the
inside.
Understood?”

“Sir, the best we can do is pull that fish out of there and seal it up. You can’t use it again—not on this—this patrol.”

Frank thought a moment, then nodded. “All right. Do that.”

“Look, Captain, in my opinion it’s the worst of a bad set of options.”

“Go on.”

“To work on that tube at all, we’re going to have to stay on the surface. Daylight’s coming, and the storm won’t last forever. We’ll be sitting ducks. The repair crew will drown trying to fix that damned tube. And another thing: If we don’t get it fixed right away, and you push this boat to the limit on the surface, there’s going to be an awful lot of pressure coming down that tube through that bad outer door. There’s no guarantee she’ll hold—”

“Goddammit, Walinsky!” Frank flew to his feet, eyes blazing. “That’s exactly what that bastard wanted! To force us into turning back. I will not! There is too much at stake, do you hear me? Too much!”

“Sir, it was an accident—”

“The hell it was!” Frank’s eyes narrowed. He advanced on Cassidy, holding two fingers up in his face. “For two years Hardy’s been a thorn in my side, and now I’ve had it! For the duration of this patrol we’ll just forget about Mr. Hardy. He can stay right where he is. I don’t want him interfering when things become crucial—”

“Crucial?” asked Cassidy. “How much more crucial can things get?”

Frank stepped to the door and held it open for him. “Get your ass aft and get busy on those repairs. We’ll lie to until you’ve finished. As soon as you have that fish out of there, notify Bates.”

There was nothing more to be said.

Cassidy moved away and went aft, ducking through the control room hatch and pausing there to think. Why risk everything over one tube? It was the delay that was costly to them, wasn’t it? And the fact that they might have to sit on the surface in broad daylight while repairs were effected.

No. There was something bigger afoot, and Cassidy knew he wasn’t in on it.

0440.

The
Candlefish
sat hove to in the Pacific over the area known on the charts as the Ramapo Depth. The squall had moved on, leaving the submarine dangerously visible in the center of a spreading dawn. Adler was on duty on the bridge, nervously shifting from port to starboard to cover the horizon with binoculars.

Down in the after torpedo room, Cassidy and the repair crew were sweating like pigs. The compartment was sealed off, the vents were closed, and water kept pouring in through tube number eight. What had been pumped out earlier had been rapidly replaced. They were up to their knees again.

They had chains attached to the aft fins of the torpedo jammed into tube number eight. Cassidy had tied off the prop blades so they couldn’t move again. There was seemingly no danger of the fish exploding, but no one was breathing easy.

They were attempting to pry the torpedo free by sheer manpower. Cassidy did not participate; he had already contributed his share of muscle. Now he was the brains of the operation.

“Oh, shit! My back!” The complaint came from Clampett.

“Come on, Corky, you lazy bastard—lay into it!”

So Clampett was now called Corky. Oh, well, thought Cassidy. Let ‘em call each other what they want He glanced at his watch, hoping the operation would take another hour. That would gain them the time Hardy had wanted.

But it was over in ten more minutes.

The torpedo gave an answering jerk and slid back in the tube. The men let out a yell of triumph. Using the chains as tackle, they hauled it back, foot by foot, and transferred it to the forward skid. When it was lashed in place, Cassidy told them to take a break. They drifted back out of the way.

Another surge of water came through the open tube, but nobody moved to close it. Cassidy was more interested in the damaged fish that lay on the skid at hip level. He leaned over to examine the crumpled warhead. The nose was dented, pushed back out of shape, as if somebody had clobbered it in a frantic basketball game. The paint had chipped off all around the head.

Then something very peculiar began to happen. Cassidy’s stomach reacted first, then his eyes, bulging—

The torpedo’s warhead returned to its original shape: The nose popped back, the dents disappeared, the paint smoothed back into place.

It was as if the damage had never occurred.

Cassidy turned to see if the other men had witnessed the transformation.

Most of them were gone. They had left the compartment. The hatch was open—though no one had given the order. The vents were on; the pumps were going; the water was disappearing into the bilges. The few men who were still around were calmly smoking cigarettes and chatting.

It was as if
nothing
had occurred.

Cassidy pointed a shaking finger at the torpedo and was about to say something—but no one seemed the least bit interested.

Then something else struck him.

The tube.

The door to tube number eight was still open. But there was no water coming out.

Cassidy stuck his head in the tube, but he couldn’t see clearly. He turned and fumbled for a battle lantern.

The beam settled on the outer door. It was closed.
How had it closed?
There was a tiny, almost imperceptible movement: the rippling of metal, the spreading of paint. The dents were smoothing out by themselves—the paint reappearing over the damaged section—

Cassidy felt the breath constrict in his windpipe.

Was it happening to him now, too? Was he going crazy like Hardy? He managed to belch out a loud groan. His breath came back. He sucked in great lungsful.

The diving alarm came like a pair of shrieks in his ear. The klaxon roared twice. Then the Captain’s voice over the speaker: “Clear the bridge. Dive! Dive!”

He heard the rush of footsteps, then the
pfush
of compressed air escaping, the whirr and clank of machinery starting up. But he hadn’t even reported the repairs to the Captain!

Cassidy stumbled to the hatch and out of the after torpedo room. He was all the way up to his station before it got to him.

He gripped the overhead piping on main engine number one, stared at the bulkheads, at the shining, glossy gray paint, the curve of the overhead—and for the first time in his life aboard submarines, he felt claustrophobic. He lunged forward, and then so did his last meal—all over Brownhaver’s freshly swabbed deck.

CHAPTER 22

December 11

Hardy lay quietly in the gloom of his bunk. The drawn curtain blocked out most of the light He moved his foot and winced as sharp needles of pain shot up his leg; it was asleep. Gently he shifted his weight, rolling onto his side. The looped chain rattled as the links grated over the metal bunk frame, then grew taut, pulling on his handcuffs. Once again he felt the biting pressure from the steel clamped around both his wrists.

Voices filtering in through the closed cabin door distracted him. He couldn’t pick out words, but he did recognize Dorriss’s guttural chuckle. He strained to hear the conversation, but the door was too thick.

His eyes roamed upward, to the shadowy outline of Elena’s photograph clipped to the bottom of the upper bunk. He groaned and tore his gaze away, eyes circling and homing in on the calendar taped to the bulkhead at his side.

The first ten days of December were crossed off, leaving the circled eleventh day standing out like a silent scream.

Not much longer, he thought, taking comfort—not much longer...

The Captain glared at the two officers across the plotting table. His fingers rapped on the table surface like hoofbeats on a wooden bridge.

“What the hell is the matter with you people? It’s almost foolproof!”

“That’s what gets me, Skipper. The
almost
part.”

The Captain growled back at his Exec, tired of hearing the same objections repeated.

“Dammit, Bates,” he hissed. “There’s nothing left for us in this area—nothing up in the Kuriles either. I’m not going to waste any more time hoping for
them
to stumble over
us.
That’s not the way to win a war!”

A red flame flushed over the Exec’s face. “You’re the Captain, sir,” he said stiffly. “If those are your orders, well follow them.” Then the Exec thrust a finger down on the chart: “But I might remind you that charging into an unknown area can end as a one-way trip!”

“Sure—if they’re looking for us! But they think we’re sunk! They’ve been broadcasting it for days!” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled. “We can get in our licks and beat it before they even know what hit ‘em. Pearl Harbor in reverse.”

At that he leaned back and judged the effect on the other officers. “Of course, we
could
get killed.”

They all looked up at him, expecting him to assure them it wouldn’t happen. The Captain smiled again and announced confidently, “But that’s a risk you’re all sworn to take.”

Cassidy reached under the covers and dragged out the copy of Hardy’s log he had “liberated” from the locker in the aft torpedo room. He cracked it open and began to read.

It wasn’t until he was past the strafing that he began to feel the first faint stirrings of uneasy familiarity. Hardy’s neat handwriting, his concise wording, the parallels—everything that had happened to them was written down, and it had all been written before they had left Pearl. How could that be?

Tonight—today—let’s see... He flipped pages and froze on December 11th—the last entry. Latitude 30—there it was, a complete description, limited, of course, to the point of view of a man stranded on deck. But what he had heard! The sounds, vibrations, rolling and pitching. Cassidy’s hackles stood up.

Earlier, twilight, sometime before surfacing—an attack. MADs. Christ, if this log was right— He checked his watch.

He sat up quickly.

Any moment now. His heart started thumping.

Maybe all that stuff Hardy had screamed after the slug-test mishap wasn’t so damned insane.

The slug test!

Cassidy’s eyes raced over the entry for December 10th. Yesterday.

On that date in 1944, there was no slug test mishap—no slug test at all. No accident—no damage to the boat. Not a mention.

He closed the log and stared straight ahead, frantically trying to sort out the significance.

The log was complete, as Hardy had said it would be. Give the man one point. Therefore, he must have been there—thirty years ago? How could that be? But give him two points. December 11th and Latitude 30—yes, described in detail. But he didn’t know yet if it was true. A half point.

What else had Hardy said?

Check the quartermaster’s log. But why? He couldn’t remember why. Never mind—better do it. He pitched himself out of the bunk and quickly padded toward the control room.

The skipper was hunched over some charts, his face puckered with anger, growling at his officers in a low voice. Cassidy avoided the Captain’s gaze and slipped past, ducking into the quartermaster’s tiny cubicle. It was empty. He lifted the official log off the rack, opened it, and hurriedly thumbed pages.