Shoal Hope, the sinking of the S-4
Ford takes up a vantage point in the Control Room wedged against the conning tower ladder. The crew prepares the S-4 to surface, Suck in my gut. An observer for the Navy Department. He's aboard S-4 as it completes test-runs after a refit, Done for today. Final notes penned in a meticulous hand, “Anomalous drain in series over 1,000 amperes per side. Check for frayed insulation on the main bus.”
Elbows tight against his sides. He caps his fountain pen, returning it to his inside chest pocket. He crams his notebook under his armpit. A trickle of sweat runs down his side, It’s hot. Stuffy in the control room. Residual heat pours off the engines, Still warm from our last run on the surface. The press of bodies would be enough to overcome the cold of the steel. Cold water all around, Oh to see daylight! Feel the blast of cold sea air sucked down the hatch when the engines start up as air rushes through the control room to feed their massive intakes. Cylinders the size of paint cans.
Back in the drafting room we call it the ups and downs of submarine life. Never get used to it. Read Jules Verne as a kid. Nautilus cruising the world’s oceans unseen. First submarine I ever saw was the Holland. Perched in a dry dock in Brooklyn.
First time. I found that my enthusiasm was rather theoretical. Always liked the idea of submarines. Still do! How they look. Complexity. Applied physics. It all appeals to me as an engineer. Diving? It's not what I expected. Verne’s Nautilus had giant portholes. Yea, I understand. His Victorian undersea conservatory would never work. But I wasn’t prepared for how blind you are down here.
Drastic pressure changes pop your ear-drums. Put your head in a vise! On the surface? The Diesels! The noise. The smell. Fuel. Hot lubricating oil. Sooty exhaust. On some courses, it pours up over the Bridge. Gets sucked down the Conning Tower hatch.
Subs have a sickeningly slow, deep roll. I'm always queasy on the surface. When I’m not downright sea-sick. As soon as the hatch is dogged and the main ventilation trunk valve slams shut, Thunk! My ears pop! At least then the engines stop; but they keep sending out waves of heat. The smell! Everything and everybody! Whew!
A sub keeps gaining air pressure in a dive. We're jammed in a can. Just knowing you’re under-water! Blind. I just can’t wait to surface! It starts as soon as I hear the dive Klaxon. A desperate urge hits me to get out! I fight it. It never goes away. Focus on my work; but as soon as the hatch opens I race the lookouts onto the bridge!
It's a good job, the drafting office. These dive trials are a point of pride. Bonus pay. Prestige! I'm Chief of the Drawing Office, Washington D. C.! Get to travel to Portsmouth, New Haven. But this dread…. It never lifts till I step off the boat. Can’t wait to get back to the base! I'm all smiles then. Shake hands with the captain, his officers. Like a trip to the dentist. Best not to dwell…. I'm glad when it’s over.
These skippers, So young! Makes sense. It's a young man’s game….
Might be time to delegate….
The Captain calls out, “Stand by to surface!” His order repeated by the XO. Called back by crew members as they complete their task, “Ship ready to surface Sir!”
“Blow safety!”
“Safety Blown, Sir!”
“Diving Rudders Full Rise!”
“Diving Rudders Full Rise, Sir!
“Up periscope!” Its chromed cylinder rises from its well. The Captain bends low to snap its handles into position. He backs into Ford. Bumps Lt. Comdr. Calloway, the other observer. They take up space. Spoil the well rehearsed routine of reciprocal shifts and well-timed adjustments. Practiced to the smallest fraction of an inch. Apologies go all around. The periscope is ignored. Everyone shifts to give Jones room.
A muted whine rises in the background. Masked by the noise of the periscope motor, Louder. It detaches itself from the other ambient sounds, Louder. High-speed propellers! A Doppler-shift. Approaching! Fast! Its pitch rises. Louder and louder.
The lookouts stand at the base of the periscopes ready to leap up the ladder to take their posts as soon as the Conning Tower clears the surface. Ford can hear swirling, splashing waves breaking against the tower’s sides. The sound amplified by the steel. He looks up, Light. Shining through a little thick-glass port in the side of the conning tower. Deep, dark green passes through a vivid pulsing emerald to bright frothy white, Sky!
A dark shadow blocks his peep-hole view of the world of light and life. The Captain calls out,“Full Reverse! Down periscope!”
Paulding’s knife-sharp stem strikes just ahead of the control room. The noise resounds through the hull, Clanging, screeching, tearing metal.
The periscope starts to retract. It stops. Shoved out of alignment by a glancing blow against the ship's prow. It jams. The handles still extended. Motors whine, unwinding its lifting cables until they go slack. With no place to go they snake about the compartment throwing menacing coils.
“Down Diving Rudders!” The skipper’s order buried in shouts. The roar of in-rushing water reaches them, From the forward compartment.
Ford hangs-on tight to the conning-tower ladder. Eyes riveted on that little circle of light. The submarine rolls deeply to port. Rights itself. Then noses downwards. Frothy white fades through emerald to a deep bottle-green, resolving to black.
Adjusting to the steepening angle of the deck Ford shifts his feet, Stepping on my notebook. My report! I'll finish it when we get back to New London. It's due the twenty first. Should be home by Christmas….
His face stuck between two rungs of the ladder, A crush of bodies. The lights flicker. The ladder presses against him, Cold and hard on my shins. My thighs. My belly. Oh, my throat! Closing his eyes, he's jolted by a vibrant image, A tiny circle of sky.
A high, Shoosh, I can feel it in my neck. Up behind my ears. Then a soft, thump. He's shoved against the ladder. His Adam’s apple presses against unyielding steel. The clamp of rising air pressure eases, We’ve stopped sinking. A semblance of order returns. Shouts fade away. The crew makes a concerted effort to stem the flow, Forward. The battery compartment? He feels a glow against his eyelids, The lights back on? He opens his eyes.
Where’s the skipper? Ah, there's his voice, “Blow all ballast! Set Diving Rudders to RISE!” His orders repeated and answered. A burst of compressed air. An ominous gurgle. The sound of rising bubbles tapers away to silence, No change. The same solid feel of sand below the keel.
Even in dry dock, rock steady feels wrong on a boat. It signals a loss of buoyancy. Every sailor’s nightmare, “We’re aground!” Aground. Yes. On the bottom. The dive meter reads, One hundred-and-nine feet.
“All Stop!”
“Motors all stop, Sir!” Water pours in through a small hole on the starboard side of the battery compartment, It's reaching over the door sill! The crew reacts like a man shot, Such a tiny hole. Such a little thing! Can this be my death? Jones calls out, “Evacuate the Battery Compartment!” A rush of men sloshes aft through the small hatch in single file.
“Shut the watertight door.” Two men heave their shoulders against it. Three more reach around them, grabbing for the latches ready to dog it shut against the pressure.
Ford stares at the depth gauge. Its large round face, Like a one-handed grandfather clock.
Another loud, Crash! A popping of rivets, twisting metal, The main ventilation trunk! A long, curved box, it snakes across the overhead to vent battery gases on the surface. It collapses into itself under the pressure. Breaks open. A muffled crump from the other side of the bulkhead. A rush of acrid vapor. A solid blast of spray and solid water shoots from its vent into the Control Room.
Ford holds onto the ladder. His eyes shut. There's shouting all around him. Jones’ voice is clear above it all, “Close Forward Ventilation Valve!” A machinist mate is already at the handle. He starts to answer, “Forward Ventilation Valve…” He's about to say “Closed.” His voice breaks. The sound sinks back in his throat. He strains against the handle.
Water rains down on the main electrical panel to a cacophony of pops and cracks. Blinding arcs shower orange sparks that shoot across the compartment. Smoke billows from behind the panel as the lighting fails for good. “Evacuate the Control Room! Everybody aft!”
The smoke. Ford opens his eyes to a hallucinatory stop-action lit by strobing flashes from the sputtering electrical panel. Someone grabs his arm. Pulls him from the ladder. Wrenches his fingers from the rung. Shouts in his ear, “Let go man! Let go! LET’S GO!”
Pulled clear. Dragged aft. A pile-up in the narrow corridor. Someone shoves him. His head is pushed through the hatch. Its sharp flange grazes his temple. His knee bangs against the sill. Sharp pain. A flash. Tearing cartilage. One last push propels him through. He's passed from hand to hand. He hobbles to the side. Lays himself across one of the engines.
Battery acid reacts with salt water. Acid fumes and chlorine gas swirl out of the broken ventilation trunk and mix with the harsh smoke of burned rubber and sharp ozone from the electrical fire. The men rush aft. This foul brew goes with them. The five-hundred-pound steel door is pulled shut against the rising water, It cuts off the fumes. Along with all access forward. What’s it like in the bow? Anyone left in the torpedo room? No one knows. More noise. Yelling. Coughing. Some of the men are crying.
Ford is draped over an engine, My knee. He's shot through with the pain, Can I put weight on it? He tries. Winces and fails. He pulls himself up over an array of protruding injector tubes, A little farther. The machinery presses against his ribs. Across his belly, At least I can breathe.
My lungs ache. The smoke. My larynx feels blistered. A throbbing heaviness weighs on my chest. He pushes against a worsening wheeze to find room to take in another breath, The air’s contaminated. He holds his breath. His body rebels. He has to take a deep gasping breath. It triggers another spasm of coughing, I'm exhausted. His mind can't consider anything beyond his agonized lungs. His heart is racing, It’s dark. He closes his eyes. He has one last, sharp, clear vision of fragile December daylight seen through the thimble-port in the conning tower.
The Captain calls for quiet. The Chief gets his men to settle down, “Hodges, light a battle lantern there!” Got to sound as normal as I can. He thinks, wheezing.
Hodges strikes a match. It lights in slow motion with a dopey slow-sizzle. The lantern’s wick ignites. A flickering flame casts a dim glow in the crowded compartment.
Through the open hatch Jones sees the faint glow of another lantern in the Motor Room. Faces peer through the narrow passage. Bodies silhouetted against the light. Some men are down, sprawled on the grating or leaning against the bulkhead. Some aren’t moving. Easy to guess some of these must be dead. The living heave their shoulders, coughing and wheezing.
“Stern-man! Break out the oxygen cylinder! Let’s have it up here!” The crew pass the heavy cylinder from man to man. Set it on the grating between the engines in the middle of the compartment. “Crack the valve!” A sailor passes a wrench to the chief. He turns the valve smoothly. Everyone can hear a hiss of gas. They relax. The sound of breathing slows. More regular. Jones counts thirty seconds. Orders the valve shut. “Take the cylinder aft to the Motor Room.”
The cylinder clatters, scraping and banging its way aft. Everyone stops. All heads turn, looking up. They can hear a steady, Bang. Bang. Bang. The noise reverberates through the hull. Jones’ heart lifts, Rescue? No. Too soon. What is it? Who is it? “Silence!” He cranes his neck. Where’s it coming from? Not easy to tell. The pressure hull, stressed by the weight of water above, Rings like a bell. Reverberates to every vibration. The sound seems to come from all around.
Jones climbs the ladder to the Engine Room Hatch. His head directly under its metal vault, The deck. It’s right there. No, we’re a hundred feet down. He resists the urge to turn its wheel. He places his palm flat against the flange, Can feel each blow through my fingers.
Sliding down the ladder with his hands outside the stanchions, his shoes scrape on polished steel to slow his descent. Pushing his way forward to the bulkhead by the Control Room Door, he puts his head against its smooth casting, pressing his ear to the metal, It's louder.
“Lt. McGinley, Take a wrench and beat an answer!” McGinley swings around. Someone hands him a large, flat spanner. He climbs on the starboard engine. Swings the wrench to beat a hole through the soft cork insulation, widening it until he’s striking against the bare steel of the hull. The sound of his blows changes from a soft, Thunk, thunk, to a sharper, Bang! He settles on a steady rhythm, BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jones motions for him to stop. McGinley sinks down. His hands braced on his knees, taking slow deliberate breaths. His wheezing is the only sound.
Bang! Bang! Bang! A tattoo beaten back to them passes through the hull. Jones presses his ear against the door. Intent. His eyes closed, reaching out with his hearing, willing himself to see the space around them through sound, Like hydrophones. A stereoscopic listening device like a big-gun’s range finder. Two microphones. One on either end of a long crossbar on top of a squat Tee that extends a foot above the forward deck. Turning it, he can tell whether the sound is from the right or left. Pin down its direction, Why didn’t I call for a sound sweep before we surfaced?
No time for that! He says in a low voice, “It's from forward.” A hushed silence broken only by wheezing and intermittent coughing. Fits begin with one man. Spread in waves. Lt. Weller comes to his side. “The Torpedo Room?” He asks with a mixture of relief and disappointment in his voice, Glad there’s life forward. Sorry the banging doesn’t signal a diver outside.
Jones answers him before taking his ear away from the door, “Think so.”
“McGinley! Hit it again!” The officer sets himself. Pivots back on his hips to swing the wrench underhand, Bang! Bang! Bang! Answering blows join his in an unsteady syncopation that settles into an even beat and counter beat. Jones calls for the Lieutenant to stop. The answering blows skip a beat. Go on for a few more and then stop.
Jones turns to his men. Says in a louder voice, “It’s the Torpedo Room. They’re alive.” Looking around, “We need to sit tight and wait for signs of rescue. Someone knows we’re here. Whoever hit us must have noticed something!” He forces a smile, looking for a response. A few eyes shine back. Most of the men look down, concentrating on their breathing. Checking his watch, straining to make out the time by its radium glow, “Night out there. We need to hold on until morning. Won’t take long for Falcon to get here. They’re always fussing about somewhere!” Just a few faces look up, Not getting anywhere with mild assurances, “Look men! We can do this! We have the oxygen cylinder. Scrubbers. We can last!” Looking around, finding most eyes are on him.
“Lt. Weller, gather the casualties. Set them up so they’ll be more comfortable.” Weller touches a few men on the elbow as he zigzags along the engine room grate, “You. You. You. Get those men. Bring them aft. Here. O’Shields, pull a tarp out of the locker there. Get them to help.” They gather the worst-cases. Anyone who doesn’t respond to his name is carried aft. One man on each arm. One holds his feet. They shuffle aft. It's slow work. Exhausted sailors have to squeeze aside to let them pass. The grating is just two feet wide.
Ford, the Navy Board man. Cold and limp. Dead? No point making a fuss in front of the others. The three communicate through glances. They carry on. They collect fifteen men. Line them up two by two. Head to foot with as much overlap as they can manage. O’Shields and his men spread the tarp to cover them. They’re delicate at their work. Gentle. Squeamish, Shrouding the dead? They prop up the corners of the heavy, oil-cloth. Clambering over the engines, reaching down to make sure there’s an air-space over each face.
“OK men. Let’s all find the most comfortable position. Let’s not have any unnecessary movement. We need to conserve our air. You all know that. So, let’s keep calm and quiet. Officers will maintain a watch. You men sleep if you can. I’m sure we’ll all know as soon as there’s a response from out there.” Looking up.
Jones gathers his officers and the Chief. “You all know it’s pretty bad. We have a chance….” He must pause every few words to huff a few deep breaths before he can continue, “Let’s take turns sitting up. — Every 20 minutes, — the man on watch — should get up, — bang on the hull. — We change. — I’ll take the first. — J.A. you — go after me.” He looks around in the weak light of the sputtering lantern. “Should blow this out. — When we do. — Not sure — we’ll be able — to light it — again….”
He nods to Weller. Who reaches for the lantern, stretching across the laps of two intervening sailors. He swings it onto his lap with an effort. Raises the globe. The flame splutters. His three fellow officers look at each other and around the compartment at the lives they hold in their charge. In each others eyes, they see a stark conviction, These are the last things, the last faces, I’ll ever see.
Jones takes another breath. Darkness closes in, “We’re in — God’s hands.”
Wow. Vivid, alive. How the hell did you learn enough about life in a submarine to write this?