Submarine

Life now, at 1700, was bloody unpleasant, in spite of the destroyer captain's hourly efforts at jocular encouragement. Coombes was kicking himself for putting altruism before the safety of his men — but he was not to know how rapidly the air conditions were to deteriorate. Each breath was now an effort and everyone was suffering acute headache.

Fortunately, lying crippled on the ocean bed required little working of the boat; mens' minds were becoming fuddled, and it was too easy to report a valve shut when it was open, a dangerous symptom from which World War II submariners suffered when the atmosphere of their boats became pressurized, but lacked oxygen.

Coombes lifted his head wearily, met Trix's gentle smile from her photograph, and stared at the clock in front of him. 1709: in twenty minutes recovery should begin and that should be the beginning of the end of a rotten dream.

'Captain, sir?' Hamilton was leaning against the doorway, his chest heaving. 'The destroyer's asking for you.'

Coombes pushed the sheet of writing-paper from him and dragged himself into the control-room. Luke Wesley handed him the telephone.

'Commander?' The American was much easier to understand, the speech almost normal with improvement in the weather.

'How's things, commander?'

'Short of air. We're standing-by.'

'Commander, I hate to tell you: we've another problem.'

Coombes felt the surge of anger rising. 'What now, for God's sake?'

'Avalon's recovered the Russian survivors,' the voice from the surface said. 'The DSRV has been lifted back to Carl Vinson for a battery change.' The American sounded cagey.

'Yeah?'

'The swell's bad, commander. There's a sea running.'

'For God's sake,' Coombes muttered to himself, glancing at Hamilton, 'get on with it, man.'

'Avalon's undercarriage has been damaged during the lift — sorry, commander. We've signalled for spares, but delivery will take time.'

It was unreasonable, Coombes knew, to begin to hate that fruity, casual voice from the surface.

'How long for the spares?' He was trying not to shout. 'I can't hold out much longer — a few hours at the most.'

'Fifteen hours — mebbe.'

'Cancel the whole damn thing,' Coombes told him. 'Standby for my controlled escape.'

'The weather's not too good. The ice is jumping about — listen, commander, Goddammit, let me finish — '

'I've made my decision. I'll contact you when I'm ready for the first ascent. Out.'

He was handing back the instrument to Wesley when the American came in again, exasperated also, by the tone of his voice:

'You've gotta listen: the Russians are offering to help. They're steaming as fast as they can towards me: thirteen miles off now.'

Coombes battened down on his smouldering wrath. He asked stiffly:

'What do you propose, then?'

'As soon as the weather's okay, they'll let go two anchors close to you. Their divers and the two bells are jacked up, ready for lowering.'

'When are they starting? What's required of us?' Coombes was cooling down: they were doing their best up top and, if they were quick about it, it would still be more prudent to accept a bell escape, than to chance a free ascent.

'They have two six-man bells, commander, with an escape hatch fit.'

'Wait one, please.'

This time he'd rely upon no one's but his and his officers' judgement.

Since then, for the past three hours, Safari had been waiting, waiting while Coombes sat at his cabin desk trying to pass the painful hours. Number One was installed in the control-room chair, completing his patrol report. At 2245 they heard the first Russian anchor rattling to the bottom close alongside.

Coombes tried to ignore the excruciating ache pulsing in his forehead as he did his best to marshal his erratic thoughts. Breathing was a painful struggle: the deep inhalations of oxygen-starved air to the depth of his lungs were giving less and less relief- and he began to wonder whether he'd left it too late for a rush escape. If he hadn't stupidly exhausted the HP air during the emergency plunge, at least they would have had longer to live by using the emergency breathing system through the HP air ring main.

His own thinking was becoming hazy, so how about the others, those who'd put in more demanding physical effort? he'd endure another hour, then order a rush escape, before it was too late. Better to die under the open sky, sliced up, perhaps, by the ice than to snuff it out in this grisly fashion. He slashed a final line across the bottom of his patrol report: FOSM would have all the evidence, anyway — and now Trix, bless her, deserved the few lines he was determined to write her, just in case…