Submarine

The pressure was building up in his suit, pressing on his lungs; then he felt its automatic-venting compensating to prevent his lungs from bursting… but how long, oh God, how long? He closed his eyes with the pain, screaming, for he could bear no more of this agony. His mind began to swim as the roaring overwhelmed him, then there was a gradual lightening around him, paler, brighter.

He flew upwards, shooting from the surface like a fish, his lungs about to burst asunder. He felt the shock of the waves beneath him, heard their rhythmic music- and then he was on his back, turned over by his suit… just before he lapsed into semi-consciousness, he remembered to pull the toggle. The compressed air hissed. His survival suit inflated, blowing up like a balloon to keep the back of his head to the breaking seas. As he floated up on the crests, he glimpsed an off-shore fishing-boat, a canoe-sterned craft, chugging towards him, then another and another.

Chapter 27

HM Submarine Safari, 77 May.

With his navigating officer, Coombes was poring over the chart of the Barents Sea. The red and blue tracks, the Typhoon's and Safari's, had formed an elongated triangle, with its northern apex converging between Cape Mary Harmsworth and the shallow water to the eastward of Victoria Island. The Typhoon was still steering 335°, to which she had altered an hour ago.

'She's heading for the Nansen Deeps, sir,' Farquharson murmured. 'In an hour and a half she'll be under the polar ice.'

'Thank God the weather's moderated,' Coombes said, 'or we'd lose her. It'll be quiet under the ice in this calm.'

It had been a long chase since 0830 and by 2300 both men were feeling the strain.

'If she reaches Nansen,' Coombes went on, 'we're finished. She'll bottom on the edge and we'll never get at her.' He glanced again at the sounding lines: Nansen was over two and a half miles deep. The Typhoon with her titanium hull could reach four thousand feet. If Safari lost her now, she'd never pick up the monster again in that vast Arctic basin. Coombes reread COMSUBEASTLANT'S flash which Safari had received when she came up for the 2130 routine. The Typhoon was then a faint but definite contact at thirty-seven miles' range. Sonar had already confirmed that the quarry had reduced speed to twenty.

PRECEDENCE: FLASH

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET FROM: CINCEASTLANT

TO: SAFARI

INFO: SACLANT, COMSUBLANT, COMSUBEASTLANT, COMSTRIFOR, COMSTRIGRUTWo

DTG: 172130 (ZULU) MAY TYPHOON 80°19′ NORTH 41°02′ EAST. COURSE 360° SPEED 20. ALL OWN FORCES WITHDRAWN. YOU HAVE NO RESTRICTIONS. MESSAGE ENDS.

The day, one of frustrations and vacillations, was ending better than it had begun: the balls-up over the atmosphere specification was a mistake which Coombes certainly could have done without. He couldn't blame the watchkeeper for the failure of the oxygen generator during Safari's attack on the Victor II, but the momentary slackness had compounded trivial errors to a point where Safari's mission could possibly be jeopardized.

The oxygen specification had slipped too low before the defect was noticed. The resulting drowsiness among the ship's company had produced an over-correction in the proportion of oxygen: a fire broke out in one of the freon refrigeration machines. The buggeration factor then ensured that at the same time there should be a freon gas leak; the resulting small discharge of the killer gas, phosgene, had not been immediately detected during the Victor II drama. They had switched to the secondary life-support system while trying to rectify the atmosphere specification (the freon gas was automatically sucked up). Since the emergency, the atmosphere, though breathable, had become distinctly foul.

For Coombes, the life-support system in modern submarines was as great a miracle as that of the nuclear power — but whereas battery capacity was the Achilles heel of the conventional submarine, the provision of good atmospheric air was the worry always at the back of an SSN captain's mind. Coombes crossed his fingers, trusting that Safari would not be forced to periscope depth at this critical moment to recycle the air- though Safari would be in a mess if, once committed under the ice, he had not first got the air right.