Ghostboat (38 page)

Something Hardy had said was nagging at him, surging back and forth in his mind. One moment he was sure the Captain was right, that Hardy was going nuts; the next moment he wasn’t even sure of his own identity. What the devil had Hardy said? Something about Cassidy having built the boat and Walinsky having served aboard her. How could the same man have done both?

Hardy had told him he was Cassidy—not Walinsky.

But the Captain had called him Walinsky.

All certainty seeped out of him; convictions departed like dust through a sieve.

He asked Cookie for two cups of coffee. Then, almost automatically, he started for the control room—and stopped himself He was on his way to tell the Captain—yet here he was holding two cups of coffee, one for himself and the other intended for Hardy.

Why the goddamned hell couldn’t he make up his mind? What was turning him around and around?

He never got the chance to make a decision. There was a loud thump from somewhere aft—a familiar sound—followed by an unfamiliar one: an explosion! Cassidy’s feet almost went out from under him. The two cups of coffee went flying. He grabbed the radio room bulkhead for support. Someone yelled, “What in holy shit—?”

The collision alarm went off: great whooping snorts of the klaxon!

“Aft torpedo room!” Giroux yelled from the radio room.
 

Cassidy’s eyes bulged. He jumped up.

Hardy!

Hardy stepped into the aft torpedo room. There was a small watch detail on duty: four men. And they were all the way aft, working around the tubes with rags. No officer.

Hardy frowned at the racks of torpedoes in the bays, then at the tubes. The giant brass doors were shut He couldn’t tell if they were loaded or not. He pushed away from the hatch and walked with as much confidence as he could muster down the line to the tubes.

“Fellas... gotta shoot some water slugs.”

“Now, sir?” said one of the men, surprised.

“Right now. Let’s hop to it. Any of these things loaded?”

“Number eight is surface-ready, sir.”

“Eight, huh. Okay, we’ll start with number seven. Let’s go.”

He moved to one side to man the firing keys. The torpedomen acted swiftly, preparing the tube for a routine slug test.

Hardy eyed them silently. They activated wheels and switches, closing the outer door on tube number seven and opening the inner door. Hardy gazed at the door indicators: Both inner and outer doors on tube number eight were shut. He smiled grimly. The torpedomen charged up the impulse tank for tube number seven, then lifted the safety interlock.

“Outer door closed, sir... inner door open... impulse tank charged... safety interlock set, sir. We’re ready.”

“Okay. Stand back there.”

Three of them moved. The fourth man looked at Hardy, puzzled.

“I said, stand back!”

He moved. Hardy’s hand swooped off the key for tube number seven and jabbed the one marked EIGHT. In the same movement, he leaped four feet down the deck, heading for the exit. He was followed by a thump and a sharp jolt.

The torpedo in tube number eight shot toward the closed outer door and crumpled it like cardboard. At the same time, the inner door was blown open.

The sub’s collision alarm went off with loud shrieks of pain.

Water poured in through the damaged outer door and rushed past the stalled torpedo and out into the compartment, a cascading flood blowing the torpedomen back as they tried to reach the door to close it.

The torpedoman who had hesitated was the first to collect his wits. He whirled and raced down the deck after Hardy.

Cassidy dropped the second mug and scrambled through the galley. Cookie looked up in surprise, clutching a batch of stew that had threatened to christen his freshly swabbed deck. The men in the mess flew to their feet at the sound of the alarm. The Captain’s voice came over the intercom: “This is the Captain. All compartments report damage!”

A chorus of answers came off the speakers as Cassidy made his way aft. “Forward torpedo room all secure, sir!” “Wardroom secure, sir.” “Forward battery secure—”

Cassidy raced down the forward engine room and on through the aft engine room. He seemed to be flying— why? Of course! The deck was starting to tilt aft. “Down by the stern!” he heard Roybell’s voice over the speaker, reacting to the inclinometers in the control room.

“Stern compartments—report damage!”

Cassidy knew it was the aft torpedo room. Why didn’t somebody—Hardy at least—call the Captain?

There was a bottleneck in the maneuvering room. The controllermen were manning the watertight door, the entrance to the aft torpedo room, ready to close it if the order came.

“Lemme through!” Cassidy yelled.

He plunged past the controllermen and dove through the hatch, landing splash on the deck in four inches of water. He slid six feet and banged his head on one of the skids. They were down at the stern, all right. He got to his feet, and that was when he saw what the struggling was all about: Two crewmen were trying to hold Hardy down. The other two were fighting to close the tube door against a terrific flood of water.

Cassidy jumped for the battle phone and pressed the switch. “This is Cassidy. After torpedo room—taking on water.”

The order came back right on top of his own words: “Seal off all stern compartments! Close all vents!”

The two controllermen pulled the watertight door shut and spun the wheel. Cassidy saw a face pressed to the sight glass, anxiously watching his next move. He called through the phone again. “Captain, it looks like an accident with tube number eight.”

Captain Frank screamed down the hatchwell: “Blow main ballast tank number seven and the after trim tank! Blow it!”

Roybell complied.

Air blasted away around them, and Cassidy lost his balance again as the stern Whipped up out of the sea. “Stop all engines!” Cassidy hollered back into the phone. Then he jumped to help the two torpedomen. The water stopped coming in for a moment, and they got the door shut. He thought he heard a funny metal click as they did.

“Son of a bitch! He did it on purpose!” One of the torpedomen had Hardy in an armlock. The Professor’s head was whipping from side to side. Cassidy ran back to the battle phone. “Aft torpedo here. We’re secure.”

“On my way,” the Captain hollered back.

It wasn’t more than ten seconds before the dogs on the watertight door spun and it popped open. Captain Frank stepped through.

“What happened?” he asked.

The torpedoman nodded at Hardy. “Slug test—fired the wrong tube—tried to blow up the damned boat, sir!”

Suddenly Cassidy knew what that click was.

“Jesus!” he yelled, and reached for the inner door on tube eight. He pulled the locks. The door blasted open and more water rushed in, accompanied by a blast of steam. Cassidy swung to one side and pulled himself up on the tube until he could get his head down and see into it. Through the sheets of water and the blinding steam he could see the stern of the torpedo.

The prop blades were spinning madly, churning up the water—the steam was escaping gas.

“The blades are running!” he yelled. Frank looked ‘ stunned. “Tell Roybell to keep blowing ballast! Get me a crowbar!”

Those blades only had to spin the equivalent of four hundred yards and the torpedo would be fully armed. He could assume that the torpedo’s nose was pressed up against the damaged outer door. That meant the warhead was already making contact. If this thing spins four hundred yards, he screamed to himself, the whole ass end of this boat will go sky-high!

So that was Hardy’s great plan!

You son of a bitch! He cursed him out in his mind, then screamed for the crowbar again. A torpedoman ran forward and flung it to him.

Fighting the water, he pushed the crowbar into the tube and tried to shove it between the blades to disrupt the revolution mechanism. He knew he had only seconds. He missed. He jabbed again and again—he couldn’t see through the churning water—then he heard another click. The water stopped churning.
 

But that crowbar would never stay. He needed something smaller. “Pair of clippers and a wrench!”

Cassidy strained all his muscles holding the crowbar in place until the torpedoman returned. “Hold the bar,” he told the torpedoman, who grabbed it and stood right behind the open door. Cassidy clutched the wrench lengthwise in the jaws of the clippers. Then he squeezed part of his head and shoulders over the top of the tube and into it. He extended the wrench and the clippers inside, attempting to jam the wrench in where the crowbar was.

The water came back as the stern crashed down into the sea. With his free hand Cassidy clutched the tube.

The torpedoman yelled; he was caught full in the face by a stream of water. Cassidy took a chance, jabbed in the wrench, and felt it drop into place.

“Pull the crowbar!”

Gladly the torpedoman yanked. The wrench snapped in—there was a metallic crunch—and the props were still.

The incredible, deafening sound of rushing water stopped. They stood in it to above their knees, but they stood there, alive, all breathing hard, and regarding each other with the look of survivors who know at last what a brush with death means. “Okay,” said Cassidy. “We’re secure now.”

Frank had a tight look frozen on his face.

Hardy was still in the torpedoman’s grip. His eyes met Cassidy’s, and his lips parted to speak. He couldn’t. He was still afraid. His hand went out and touched the Captain’s arm. “It was an accident.”

The silence became as deafening as the rushing tons of water had been. There was only the slop-slop against their knees.

Hardy quivered with frustration. Cassidy stared at him blankly. And Frank? The Captain shriveled him with a sneer, then whirled on Cassidy.

“Damage?”

“Uh... the fish is stuck in there, but she’ll hold. We can pull her out later and dismantle. We’ll need a repair crew topside to fix that door—probably two guys in rubber suits.”

“You’re in charge,” Frank barked, then turned back to Hardy. “You’re relieved. Confined to quarters,” said Frank. He stepped to the battle phone and pressed the switch. “This is the Captain. The aft torpedo room is secure. Start the bilge pumps, switch on the vents, secure from emergency, open all compartments. Repair crews will be formed under Chief Walinsky.” He paused, then glared right at Hardy as he spoke: “We have sustained a damaged torpedo tube. The fault lies with Mr. Hardy. He has been relieved of duties and confined to quarters.”

The watertight door had swung open. Dorriss stepped through.

“Mister Bates, I want this man manacled to his bunk with a twenty-four-hour guard.”

Dorriss nodded, and the torpedoman holding Hardy gave him a yank and dragged him through the water to the exit. Hardy stumbled to stay on his feet. He flung: a look to Cassidy—a plea for help. Cassidy stood rooted to the spot. Hardy threw him a blast: “Someone’s got to help me! You can’t
all
be crazy!”

As he was pulled through the hatch, Dorriss gave him a grin of satisfaction. “You’re all washed up, Jack.”

Cassidy’s hand shook as he pulled out his sopping kerchief and wiped his brow. He was sweating.

He had heard the Captain refer to him as Walinsky, and he had known the difference—because Hardy had told him.
I know who I am.
He stared at the men around him:
Do they know who they are?
He realized the truth:

He was an island of sanity in a madhouse. Even Hardy had finally gone around the bend. Cassidy could hear him screaming obscenities at the crew as he was hauled back to his quarters. He listened to the voice diminish.

I know who I am, he thought. And I’m alone.

0330 hours.

Nothing was going according to schedule. Cassidy coughed into his jacket and rubbed his hands. He ignored the sweeping sheets of rain and the unsteady plunging of the afterdeck. He gripped the antenna-cable stanchion and watched the repair crew at work around the stern vanes. The engines were off; the screws were not turning. The
Candlefish
rolled in a surging sea, taking a powerful buffeting every few seconds as the squall roared around them.

Two motor machinist’s mates had donned rubber suits and jumped off the stern; they had been bobbing up and down around the vanes for the last forty-five minutes. Three more motor machinist’s mates were lashed to the vanes, passing tools down. But Cassidy could tell it was fruitless. The outer door on number eight tube should be taken off, sent to a forge, and straightened. They would never be able to effect repairs from topside.

One of the divers popped up and grabbed the vanes. He ripped off his mask; his nose was bleeding.

“What’s the matter?” Cassidy shouted.

“It’s the altitude,” the man gasped. “Can’t take the heights.”

Cassidy shook his head grimly. “It’s too dangerous. Get your buddy and get below.”

Cassidy went forward, letting go the antenna cables and striding uncertainly up the center of the top deck.

He would have to report to the Captain. And it was a good excuse to bring up the matter of Hardy; an appeal of some sort was worth a try. He climbed to the cigarette deck and glanced toward the first wisps of dawn. Soon the submarine would be visible, if anybody was looking. He would promise the Captain to have a crew at work tonight when they surfaced again, but they would work from within.