Submarine

'I'll give her a kick ahead, chief,' Farge told Foggon. 'Port 15 — and try to hold her, cox'n. I'll turn while there's still sea room, so that we're heading out of the bay.' He caught Prout's eye. Ten minutes later, Orcus had turned and steadied on 070°, the way coming off her.

'Depth under the keel?' Farge asked.

'Forty-seven feet.'

'Stop port. Bottoming.' He glanced at Foggon. 'Carry on, chief.'

The MEO reached up and flicked the pump order instrument to 'flood for'd', the command being relayed to the ballast pump watchkeeper in the engine-room.

'Ballast pump, flood two hundred gallons into Ms,' Foggon ordered over the intercom. He nodded at Grady on the panel, 'Pump three hundred gallons from aft to for'd.'

And so, slightly negatively buoyant and with a bow-down trim to keep her shafts and propellers clear of the bottom, Orcus' forefoot scraped gently on the gravelly bottom of Lodeynaya Bay.

'Open Q tank main line suction and inboard vent,' Farge ordered. 'Flood into Q tank.'

There was a hiss as the foul air from the emergency diving tank vented into the submarine.

'Stop flooding Q.'

With Q half filled Orcus was now anchored for'd by the weight of three tons of seawater.

It was 0459: five hours of battery power consumed since Orcus had stopped the charge.

The chiefs' mess was above the coxswain's store and next to the wardroom bulkhead. For Orcus' cox'n, sitting at the table with his messing accounts spread before him, this was the longest day he had ever endured during fifteen years' service in submarines. He shared the mess with his three companions, the Chief MEA; Joker Paine, who was the Sonar Chief PO and known as 'Chief Ops'; and the Chief RS. They had been cooped in there since bottoming at 0500. Bill Bowles had just returned from accompanying the First Lieutenant on a tour of the boat. Morale was good, the nonchalance of those who had been this way before having a steadying effect upon the remainder. It was the doc who was causing despondency; he had pronounced Adams, Pinkney and Robertson sick: flu and high temperatures.

The boat had been at watch-diving since bottoming, but the sound-room had been watch-on stop-on, listening to the traffic up top. Sonar conditions were difficult because the beach was so close: rumbling and squelching background noises were intermittent and irregular between the steady crashes of the swell on the shoreline.

Lodeynaya Bay was open to the north-east; with the wind from that direction the scend lumped into caves at the foot of the cliffs of Pushka Point, half a mile north of Orcus. The boat was rocking on the gravel, and the scraping against the hull was getting on their nerves — both M tanks had been flooded to make the boat bodily heavy, in the hope that this would anchor her. At the back of everyone's mind was the unpleasant feeling that she was being remorselessly swept by the swell on to the beach only four cables under their lee. The navigator was running the depth recorder every fifteen minutes, beaming it to the surface: during the last half-hour, Orcus had crept towards the twenty-metre line — and, according to the chart, the beach shelved steeply. During the last few minutes, Bowles was sure that the unnatural movement had increased. The captain had been huddled over the chart with the navigator during the past hour, and looked strained when Bowles had a word with him on passing through the control-room.

Bill Bowles began to sort out the bumph in front of him as his mess-mates, disturbed by the change in the rhythm of the boat's movement, began stirring in their shallow slumbers.

'What's the time, Bill?' croaked the Chief MEA, his grizzled head appearing from behind his bunk curtain. 'I could do with some scran.'

'1745. Supper's in a quarter of an hour.'

The air in the compartment was becoming stale: to conserve amps the captain had shut down the life-support system at 1000. For Bill, the ability of modern submarines to provide breathable air was as big a miracle as the provision of nuclear power in the SSNS and SSBNS: Orcus could survive for several days on her own air supply, but the cold and the consequent condensation was becoming unpleasant.

There was a tap on the door frame and Able Seaman Riley, their messman, entered with the tea, cold spam and bread.

'Big eats, 'swain,' Riley said, his thin face expressionless. 'Hope it don't choke yer.' He nipped out again before Joker Paine could reply. Riley lacked the social graces but was a good messman.

The three senior ratings talked quietly, feeling the food doing its stuff. They were all now thoroughly sick of the continuing topic of Windy-Gault; even if Bowles and his messmates deliberately avoided talking about it, the worry persisted.