Red Ice

I followed the briefing with an extended calisthenics session in the troop compartment. Though the Koreans had added a snorkel, on occasion the sub ran on the surface at night with its vents open and at these times we could get enough fresh air for exercise. There wasn’t room for an orthodox PT session, so each man did his push-ups, sit-ups, and flutter kicks in his rack. Nine men running in place felt as insane as it looked to the crew of the Korean sub.

Then we practiced putting the five disassembled kayaks through the after hatch and assembling them on deck. Each kayak was designed for two paddlers, though it could be paddled by one alone. Each could hold three men comfortably, and in a pinch, four. But after tying on ahkios, skis, and other equipment, we found barely enough room to squeeze in two paddlers.

First we assembled the simple interlocking skeleton halves of Finnish ash. Then the skeleton halves were fitted into the rubberized-fabric skin. Dual inflatable sponsons running the length of the craft provided the locking tension that kept the skin in place. Under some circumstances, the skeleton could be pre-assembled in halves below decks. However, the beams of these kayaks were too broad for the hatches of this submarine.

It was dangerous work in this climate. Everyone above decks was required to wear a safety harness. A man lost overboard at night in waters like these stood little chance of recovery. Yet the harness and the tether lines were awkward, and despite my warnings more than once, I saw men detach their harnesses to get at a particularly obstinate piece of gear.

My stopwatch read ten minutes. Too long. The low-lying fog that enshrouded the decks could only serve as a partial excuse.

Time permitted only one kayak drill. The sub’s captain had said that we would be entering the Soviet radar umbrella very soon. This was one of the last times prior to launch that the sub would run fully surfaced. Since the sub had been modified with post-World War II snorkel equipment, it could run on diesel in moderate seas at periscope depth.

I favored this kayak technique over a lockout. One advantage to wet-deck launches was they could begin farther offshore and allow the sub to stay in deeper, safer water. Another advantage was that kayakers were less susceptible to currents and cold-water immersion. On the other hand, submariners like wet-deck launches as much as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Later that evening I drifted up to the conning tower for some fresh air. A freak front of warm air gave the waters approaching the La Pérouse Straits a singular appearance. The sky was clear and the stars bright, but a thin two- or three-foot blanket of fog covered the sea and concealed the deck of the submarine. The conning tower floated above it like a disembodied bandstand. Here and there the underlying ocean boiled through and then disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Occasionally a small cake of ice appeared in these glimpses of ocean. I wondered idly if in time these cakes would grow or melt.

For no reason I could think of, the expression “a snowball’s chance in hell” came to mind. The expression was all wrong. A snowball had a very good chance—in a frigid hell like this. Whoever first portrayed hell as full of fire and brimstone must have taken the quick tour run by the Chamber of Commerce. Surely he had not been shown some of the more esoteric variations and did not know the true agony of severe cold… the way a frogman did.

Someone had once described the frogman’s place in hell to me. The description involved that wizened old man, Charon, whose ferry plied the waters of the Styx carrying new arrivals to hell, or more properly, Hades. The surviving mythology has been vague as to the propulsion of Charon’s craft, and understandably so. Few would grasp its poetic justice. Charon’s ferry wasn’t poled, rowed, sailed, motored, or drawn by some clever pulley arrangement across the inky Styx. Such efficient methods—by above-ground standards—were worthless squanderings of resources in this strange underground world with a surfeit of labor… and time.

No, Charon’s ferry did not trifle with the conventional methods of its above-ground brothers who labored in the light of the sun. Instead, before it, harnessed in buddy pairs that stretched off into the low-lying fog where hot air met cold water, swam combat swimmers doomed to course the ice-water currents of the Styx for eternity.