Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

"Thank Christ for that." Coombs suddenly became alert, listening, and we all felt it, too: a queasy change in velocity. We were slowing down. It seemed to bring him to his senses. "Oh my Lord," he said. "Cowper! I have to get down there!"

Cowper just stood up in disgust. The dreadful news that Exes were in the sub swamped everything-after what we'd been through, it was the final cosmic straw, our great escape debunked. There was no weeping or wailing, just helpless incomprehension. Limbo. Then Albemarle started laughing. For a long moment, his lone cackle was a kite in the void.

Finally, he said, "Join the club."

"How many men are down there?" Cowper asked.

Coombs hesitated, and Sandoval said, "Forty-two. Just the NavSea team."

This caused a rustle of amazement-I gathered it was a shockingly low number. Later, I would learn that it was less than a third of the normal crew complement.

"That's privileged information," Coombs retorted. He squinted in the dark, noticing Sandoval for the first time. Sandoval shook his head as if to say, Don't ask.

"And you couldn't fit these kids in?" Cowper asked. "Jesus H. Christ."

Coombs began to reply, "Since when do I have to justify my orders-" but was interrupted by yelling from the stern. I could hear, "Stand clear, stand clear!" over a lot of nervous chatter. There was a heavy clunk.

Coombs said, "Missile compartment hatch," and began shoving his way through the crowd, followed by Cowper and others.

Meanwhile, someone new was coming forward, demanding, "Who's in charge up here? Where's Fred Cowper?" The parties met in the middle, and the new man-an officious-looking crew-cut type-seemed relieved to find Coombs.

"Commander! You're safe! We thought everyone forward amidships was gone!" He raised a walkie-talkie, and said, "Found the CO unharmed, over." The reply was a crackling garble.

"What's the status, Rich?" Coombs asked impatiently. He seemed embarrassed to be found.

"Yes, sir-well, we secured the forward bulkhead, and it looks like everything aft of the CCSM is clear. I ordered all stop and station-keeping, and the men are rigging for auxiliary control right now. It's a miracle we're not aground, but that could change when the tide goes out. I don't think anyone but Mr. Robles and I made it aft, and no one's reporting from anywhere in the forward section now. No one made it out with you, did they?"

"No."

The other man lowered his voice, ill at ease sharing this information with us. "Then that's twelve officers missing," he said.

"All right," said Coombs, nodding furiously. "Well, we have to get back in there. Assemble a team, and we'll do an armed sweep."

"But that's the problem, we-" He caught himself, eyeing us suspiciously as he amended, "I'll talk to you below."

"Speak up, Lieutenant," Coombs said with resignation. "You might as well forget OPSEC. We're all in the same boat, so to speak."

"Okay then, we can't spare the men. They're spread too thin to run the boat and fight at the same time, and we sure as hell can't afford to lose any more."

"I wish we had a choice."

Cowper stepped forward. "Don't stand on ceremony, Mr. Kranuski," he said, offering the man a handshake. It was ignored.

"You dirty traitor," Kranuski said softly, eyes burning with loathing. "I hope you're happy."

"I'll be happy when these kids are all below drinking bug juice. Until then, I'm just trying to survive, Rich. But there's no reason our survival should be incompatible with your mission. In fact, I think it's safe to say that at this point you need us as much as we need you."

"You're a disgrace to that uniform."

Coombs stepped in. "That's enough. We don't have time for this. Fred, if you're offering us extra hands, I accept. Assemble your best conners and have them meet us below. They'll be reporting to Mr. Robles. The rest of you stay up top until you get the all clear. No shenanigans!"

Down the hatch. I never gave a thought to that expression before. It was rather forbidding, that bright hole in the sea, like a volcanic vent. Suddenly, the cold deck wasn't so bad. Others were feeling it, too: The eagerness I had seen in these boys back at the hangar seemed to have been cured by recent events-there was certainly no Alamo-like rush to volunteer.

It was worked out that twenty of our guys would go: ten technical people and ten big boys running interference. This was thought to be the biggest number we could field without creating a logjam below. "You gotta have enough room to fight and still keep in sight of everyone else," Cowper explained. The technical ones were all older men who had served aboard subs at one time or another-Cowper and Ed Albemarle among them-and they were quick to step forward. The boys were another matter, since the only ones who really wanted to go were relatives of the men who were going, and the men refused to bring these. The deadlock was broken when Cowper announced he would take me, "just to shut everyone up."

"If we don't pull this off," he said, "we're all goners anyhow."

People looked to see my reaction, but if the choice was to stick by Cowper or remain on deck as everybody's scapegoat, I wasn't about to complain. The arguments sputtered out, and a tenth boy was picked (presumably to make up for my inadequacy), bringing our total number to twenty-one. Blackjack.

Peering down that rabbit hole, I think even the seasoned veterans must have had second thoughts. Not that it was dark or creepy-it was a glowing chimney, what they called the "escape trunk," a cream-colored vestibule with a shiny ladder leading to a second hatch just below. And if you pulled open that inner hatch? All of us had seen enough by then to picture an unspeakably vivid Pandora's box.

"All the times I did this shooting studs, and all I was afraid of was a little inert gas," said a bushy-bearded man, climbing down.

"Argon'll kill you just as fast as those things," Albemarle replied. "Think of it that way."

"But they don't kill you. That's the problem."

I could no longer see past the ring of intent spectators banking the light like cavemen around a fire, but I could hear the lower hatch open. A second man went down. Then a third. The boat rocked gently, waves lapping at its sides. No one made a sound.

Some of the teenagers started to go down, and I was pleased to see the chipmunk boy among them. I should have known he'd volunteer, I thought. Then it was Cowper's turn, and I followed along on his heels, pushing through the press of bodies. Someone gave me a shove, so that I barely kept from falling, bowling into the legs of several adults. Albemarle turned with an expression of pained surprise-I had hit his injured back.

"Sorry," I said, mortified. "I tripped."

"This is no place for games," he said flatly.

"I know, I'm sorry, excuse me."

Cowper was concentrating on finding his footing down the ladder. At bottom I could see a mustached man in khakis waving us down. In my ear, Albemarle said, "He doesn't come back, you don't come back." He handed me a big sticky hammer.

I nodded, climbing as fast as I dared.

It was like entering a pool. As light and warmth surrounded me, I experienced a brief, primal surge of relief-my animal instincts going, Ahhh, shelter. I was helped down the last few rungs to an institutional-looking Formica floor in a room like a well-lit basement. It reminded me of the boiler room at the Y. Though hardly exotic, the insulated plumbing and perforated acoustic tile were a dramatic change from the blustery ocean above. We were underwater! The guys already there motioned me aside, and I joined Cowper by the wall. Albemarle came down last, wincing in pain.

Once everyone was present, the man who had given us a hand down said, "Welcome aboard. Hi, Ed. I'm Lieutenant Commander Dan Robles, among other things, and I'll be your guide today." He was a dapper-looking, pudgy man with a faint Spanish accent and an air of weary contempt, though not necessarily for us. I could tell he accepted me as just another in a series of disasters that fate was delivering upon him, and as such, unworthy of special attention. I liked him immediately. Brandishing a pistol, he asked, "Any questions before we get started?"