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“Okay, almost done,” he said. Jabo was still looking away, but he felt gauze being wrapped around his hand, from about the wrist down, and then he heard tape being ripped off a roll.

“Can I look now?”

“Sure,” said the master chief.

The wrapping job was tight, neat and compact…it paid to have the job done by a man with thirty years experience. His three remaining fingers stuck straight out, and the gap in the middle was completely covered with clean white gauze. He looked like he was making the “devil” sign at a rock concert. He noticed a zip-lock bag of crushed ice in the master chief’s hand, some of it turning pink.

“Those my fingers?”

“Yes sir. We’ll keep them on ice, maybe get them surgically reattached when we pull in.”

“Don’t lose that bag,” said Jabo, getting to his feet.

“I’ll put your name on it,” said the master chief, already returning to the table and the sailor with the broken leg.

• • •

Hallorann had just grabbed the hand pump kit and was returning to the front of the torpedo room when he felt the bloom of heat on his back, as the motor generator exploded into a flash of heat and light. He turned briefly, squinting to see the XO disappear into the light, He fought the urge to follow, but he felt the weight of the canvas bag in his hand, knew that he’d already been given his orders.

He found his way to the front of the torpedo room, seawater now up to his knees, and acrid electrical smoke rapidly filling what was left of the space. The EAB fed him clean air but the smoke was growing impenetrable, a wall that he couldn’t see through. All the space’s battle lanterns had been turned on, and they shot beams of light through the smoke but did nothing to make the situation easier to understand.

Hallorann found the EAB manifold adjacent to the port torpedo tubes by touch, and plugged in. He had seen the hand pump rig in action exactly one time, and he’d never used it himself. He started pulling pieces out of the canvas bag. He would have liked to lay them out on the deck, but the deck was covered in water and he wasn’t about to lose some critical fitting in the deluge.

As quickly as he could, he hooked up the hoses and the pump. The parts were labeled but it was too dark to see them and the mask of his EAB was covered in mist from the flooding. He found the connections on the torpedo tube by hand, hooked up a hose to each. Behind him he could hear the stomping of booted feet, hose teams rushing to the fire, the crackle of water on fire.

He was not completely alone in the torpedo room. Two men still struggled to keep the submersible pump running. But no one appeared to be in charge. He had his orders, anyway, from the XO. The water was up to his knees now, he knew he couldn’t wait for a confirmation.

He removed the hand pump from the bag. It looked like a more rugged version of one of those large staplers used to fasten together hundreds of sheets of paper. There was a written procedure, he knew, but he’d never find it in the chaos, so he hooked it up by sight and feel, lining up what he knew were the inlets and outlets, lining up the pump to open the outer door.

A torpedoman showed up at his shoulder. “Hey! You’re lined up to open…”

“I know!” said Hallorann. “That’s the order. We’re going to pump it open, then pump it shut. They think it might be fouled.”

The torpedoman looked over his rig, verified it correct, and then threw open the two valves that aligned hydraulic fluid to the hand pump. As the hoses went slightly rigid, Hallorann began furiously pumping.

He watched alertly as he began to see if opening the outer door increased the rate of flooding. It didn’t appear to, based on the noise level, but the space was so full of water now it was hard to tell.

“How long?” said Hallorann to the torpedoman.

“A while longer til’ it’s fully open. Here.” They switched off while Hallorann caught his breath.

Twice more they switched. As the torpedoman was pumping, Hallorann saw a green circle light up on the torpedo control console. “It’s fully open!” he said.

The torpedoman quickly shut the two isolation valves and switched the positions of the hoses on the pump. He reopened the valves and began pumping. The green circle disappeared, as they were now pumping the door shut. His arms felt like rubber, but it was easier to get energized about closing the hole that was allowing water into the ship. He and the torpedoman switched off more frequently. When he wasn’t pumping, he stared aft, trying to get an idea of how the firefighting was progressing, but it was impossible to tell. There were still a great number of men in the space, that was all he could tell for certain, based on the noise, and the number of feet he could see illuminated by a single battle lantern as they descended the ladder.