North Cape

The outside of the ballast tanks acted as an integral part of the hull. The tank itself was crisscrossed with steel bracing bars. Folsom stood up gingerly, riding with the slow rise and fall of the ship, and flicked on the flashlight. The strong beam sprang out boldly in the wet air, striking the ice-and water-coated sides of the tank to flash back as sparkles from millions of diamonds. He played the beam along the tank wall until he found the eight-footlong gash, high up above the water line. Carefully he examined the steel plates that had been welded over the gash, checking for signs of water seepage. He could find no major breaks, and with the ice and dampness it was impossible to spot small leaks.

Folsom stood uncertainly below the welded plates, playing the light around the sides of the tank. He would have felt much better if he dared order the tank flooded to capacity with sea water. Filling the tank would have eased the strain on the welded joints. But it might also put them far enough down into the waves so that they would never recover. Finally, after a long minute of helplessness coupled with frustration, he shrugged and turned back to the hatch, clicking off the light. Folsom carefully dogged the hatch shut and then made his way aft to the engine room, amidships.

Although the Robert F. Kennedy displaced 16,500 tons and was nearly seven hundred feet long, she carried a crew of only eighty men. With the ship standing to general quarters in the storm, most of this minimum crew was on duty or else snatching a few hours of restless sleep in the duty bunks scattered around the ship. A powered elevator took Folsom down to G deck and he walked aft another hundred feet, pushed open the engine-room hatch, and stepped into the softly lit, instrument-paneled room. The duty chief nodded to him and came over as he approached the master control panel.

"What's she look like outside, Commander?" Lieutenant Charles Barrows grinned as Folsom slumped down into the extra command seat.

"Rough. The seas are running better than fifty feet right now. How are your engines doing?"

"Better question would be how's the hull doing."

Folsom grinned. "I guess-it would be at that. I was just up there. So far no sign of any separation and no seepage… but, I don't know."

Barrows nodded slowly. "How about if I send a couple of boys up to put in some strain gauges, wired to the control room. Shouldn't take more than an hour or so." Folsom nodded. "Good. That's really what I came down here to see about. By the way, how is the overhaul on number three free turbine coming along?" Barrows turned and reached across the console for a check list and leafed quickly through the pages. "They are reassembling the bearings now. Should have it all back together and checked out in twelve hours."

"Twelve hours… Folsom made an elaborate face. "Way too long. Try and cut that in half.", Barrows turned a startled face. "In half! For God's sake, what do you think we are, miracle men?" Nevertheless, he reached for a microphone and roared, "All right, you half-witted slackers. The Exec wants that number three engine operating in four hours. So — get off your tails and move."

"Six hours…7 he mumbled.

"It is rather important We are going to come about at o400, and if the seas or the winds get any worse, we are going to need all the power we can get. I sure would hate to see this bucket swing into a turn and keep right on going — straight down. Which brings me to the next point. Isn't there anything you can do about the ice on the deck? We are carrying nearly four hundred tons right now and the ship is so damn low she looks like a submarine."

Barrows scratched his head. "I sure as hell don't know what it would be. I am squeezing every last calorie of heat out of the reactor now. The cooling system is shut down for the lower decks and I'm saving the reactor cooling system until we do come about. If I switch it off now, the reactor is going to overheat."

"Okay, I'll leave the details up to you. But the computer shows that if the ice-build-up rate continues steady, we are going to have about a hundred and fourteen more tons of the stuff on the deck by 0300. And that is going to make coming about very, very touchy."