Attack of the Seawolf

Vaughn stepped to Morris’s console and snapped to the up position six toggle switches — the solenoid valves to the main ballast tank vents. He then reached into the overhead and rotated a handle on a communication box and the ship’s klaxon horn blared throughout the ship its OOH-GAH OOH-GAH. Vaughn raised a microphone to his lips and ordered, “DIVE, DIVE” on the Circuit One, expecting to hear a cheer from the crew in the middle level, but there was no sound except the growling of the ventilation system.

Vaughn watched the ballast control-panel vertical console waiting for the indication that the ballast tank vents had opened. But in the next seconds, no red telltale circles appeared; the old green bars remained lit. Vaughn stepped up to the conn, took hold of the grips of the periscope, trained it forward and aft. No sign of any venting from the tanks.

Vaughn told Lennox: “Damned vents are stuck shut. Still frozen from the depth charging.”

“What now?” Morris asked.

Vaughn reached into a toolbox built into a bench box against the starboard curvature of the hull, back behind the attack consoles. Inside was a sledgehammer.

He handed it to Morris, who looked at him in disbelief.

“What now? Why, we hammer them, of course. XO, grab all the lanyards from the first lieutenant’s locker and a harness.”

Lennox walked forward and came back with a pile of tangled canvas straps. Vaughn had undogged the lower hatch to the bridge-access trunk, opened it and latched it in the up position. He looked over at Morris.

“I need a volunteer, someone with some balls who’s not scared of a little water.”

Morris looked at Vaughn.

“Let’s go.”

“I figured.” Vaughn walked to the pile of straps and untangled a harness.

“Put that on. The XO will show you how.”

“I know how to put on a harness.”

“XO, link the lanyards together. We’ll need about twenty of them.”

Vaughn took the periscope, searching the water around them. There were no other ships visible, and no aircraft in the impenetrable clouds above. He looked for another periscope but saw nothing but the faint line of demarcation between bay and sky.

“Ready, OOD,” Lennox called, handing Morris a coil of canvas, the twenty lanyards linked end to end.

Morris, suspecting what was coming, latched one end of the long tether to his harness and tossed the coiled lanyard over a shoulder, stuffing the sledgehammer into one of the straps of the harness.

“Good,” Vaughn said.

“XO, take the radio and make sure my speed and bow plane orders are followed.”

Lennox nodded. Vaughn and Morris walked to the hatch of the bridge.

At the top of the sail Vaughn opened the clamshells and looked out again into the blackness of the sky.

Only two hours till dawn, he thought. He looked at the sky, hoping there were no airborne patrol craft on the way. All he could hear was the noise of the bow wave below. Vaughn spoke into his lip mike.

“All ahead one third!”

The radio crackled its acknowledgement and the bow wave died down, its roar quieting to a whisper as it lapped against the sonar dome forward. Vaughn took one end of Morris’s lanyard and tied it to one of the steel rungs set into the side of the sail and looked at Morris.

“Okay, Commander, here’s the drill. You climb down the ladder and go aft to the ballast-tank vents, the shiny metal plates in pairs along the centerline.

See them? Get the ones furthest aft, then work your way forward.”

“What do you mean ‘get them’?”

“Smash them with the hammer. Hard. Hard as you can. Get your face away from the vent once it opens,” Vaughn said, “or else it’ll be like staring into Old Faithful just as it’s erupting. And hurry it up because once those vents start venting the ship is going down.”

Morris climbed over the lip of the sail and lowered himself down to the cylindrical deck of the ship, then walked back aft. Vaughn watched Morris work his way aft, letting out his tether as he went, until he was at the far aft-point of the hull where it sloped down into the water. Morris then hit the first vent-valve with an overhead smash.

Nothing happened. Morris raised the sledgehammer again, high over his head, and brought it down in a rapid arc, his muscles straining.

The hammer hit the vent-valve plate with a solid thunk, and a tremendous spray of water roared out of the opening, knocking Morris down to the deck and nearly washing him overboard. The water sprayed out like a firehose, rising over forty feet above the deck.

Morris got to his feet on the wet deck and moved forward to find another set of vents further forward.

He repeated the action, smacking the valve as hard as he could. Another spray of water blasted out of the vent. He continued forward to the last set aft, opening it, then headed forward.