Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

Using the Englishmen as guides, pack routes were established throughout the ship, and I organized parties to loot the various regions. It bothered me to be doing this without seeking the Blackpudlians' consent, but I kept reminding myself that it was not really their ship.

They looked a lot different once they had gotten cleaned up and trimmed their beards and hair. First, they were quite young, all under thirty. Second, though they were third- and fourth-generation citizens of the UK, all were ethnic Pakistanis-Reggie, for instance, was actually Rajeev Jinnah. Two of them were practicing Muslims. Much as he loved the Beatles, Commander Coombs was not pleased to have these aliens aboard.

Large cargo sledges were cobbled together from lifeboats and heaped high with goods. The mountains of booty included food and drink, bedding, towels, toilet paper (probably the most eagerly anticipated item), furniture, appliances, plumbing, electronics, building supplies, sporting goods (including a brace of shotguns for skeet), cookware, silver, fine china, clothing, bulk fabric, laundry supplies (also much awaited), freezer components to expand our cold-storage capacity, and medical supplies-including Cowper's Lanoxin. Diesel fuel, oil, and various other substances usable by the sub were also tapped, though our reactor, of course, required nothing.

Then the task was dragging this treasure trove to the boat and finding room for it belowdecks. The Big Room became something of a warehouse again, but at least this time with the promise of greater comforts to come.

The cold was our bitter taskmaster. With the sub wide open and tons of subzero groceries being stowed, heat was retained only in certain sections, and these were not the sections most frequented by civilians. A couple of barely adequate warming stations (heated tents) were set up for us, but my requests for more were answered with, The sooner you're done, the sooner we can close the hatch. The officers hated leaving the boat open like this-it was too vulnerable to attack. They wouldn't let us relax until we finished.

The only ones who did not seem uncomfortable were the four Brits. They actually requested to stay in the more familiar environs of their ship until it was time to leave, and could be glimpsed from time to time following their own routines like backwoods trappers encroached upon by modernity.

As it turned out, we left a bit sooner than expected. Four days after our first sight of the Northern Queen, and just as we were dragging our umpteenth sledgeload through a deep groove in the ice, the boys and I were shocked to hear the sub's deafening horn. We could see the crew up top rushing to replace the escape trunk.

"Holy shit!" said Julian. "We're under attack!" We dropped the lines and ran.

But it was not an attack, it was a leak. There was serious flooding on the liner-the boys stripping the carpentry shop had noticed it and flashed a signal to the officer on watch. The ship was sinking. It was not happening so quickly that there was any danger, but Coombs wanted to be sure the sub was in one piece and we were all on board in case of any ice upheaval.

The Blackpudlians-Wally, Phil, Dick, and Reggie-were the last to come below, lugging their instruments.

"Well, that's it then." Wally sighed, taking a final look at the ship.

"That's it, mate," said Dick.

"Feels like a lifetime we been on her."

"It does at that."

Turning to Mr. Robles, Phil asked, "How much longer d'ye reckon she'll last?"

"A little while," Robles said. "Few hours, maybe. Strange how she popped all her gaskets at once."

"Bloody mysterious," said Dick.

Robles shook his head. "I guess it's a miracle she's lasted this long."

"Hear that, Reg?" said Phil. "A miracle."

"Auld girl did right by us."

"And we by her."

We left the awesome, ghostly sight, shutting ourselves once more in the confines of the submarine. There was something melancholy about it, about turning our backs on that lost ship, and I was reminded of the times when my mother and I had taken walks along a pasture, bringing slices of Wonder Bread to a huge old horse that lived there. I was four or five, and the animal was wonderful and terrifying. My mother was always the one who did the feeding, holding each slice on her wide-open palm in such a way that the horse could nibble it off with its giant lips. She made it look easy, and the day came when I begged her to let me feed the horse. Are you sure? she asked. I swore I was, and she showed me just how to do it, palm flat. But when the great animal came at me I panicked, clutching the bread in my outstretched fingers so that the horse accidentally bit them. I screamed. My mother tried to soothe me, saying, Honey, look-your fingers are fine, but I was childishly hurt and petulant, crying, I never want to see that horse again! Promise me, Mummy! Promise me we'll never come here again! And as I said it, part of me prayed she wouldn't hold me to it, that she'd see me through the tantrum and give me a chance to make up with the horse. But she never took us back there.

"Sir?" It was sonarman Gus DeLuca. "I'm picking up sounds from the ship."

Coombs was impatient. "What kind of sounds?"

"She's foundering, sir."

"All stop."

"All stop, aye."

I sat back from my workstation, cocking an ear toward the sonar room. Everyone became very quiet. Coombs put on the earphones, tilting his head in concentration. Then he straightened up and gave the headset back. Crossing very deliberately to his station, he announced, "Gentlemen, I need a periscope sighting if you please." He seemed to be gritting his teeth.

We maneuvered around until we located a small polynya, just big enough to raise the periscope. Coombs broadcast the view over every monitor in the boat.

There was the Northern Queen, blue in the twilight. She was several miles south, but at full magnification, she filled the screen.

"Attention all hands," Coombs said over the loudspeaker. "I advise you to look at your handiwork."

A subterranean popping sound reverberated through the hull. It had been going on for some time, and I just didn't register it, dismissing it as pack-ice movement. Ice made a lot of peculiar noises, and this was similar: a groan like rope creaking under a great and increasing strain. Coombs put the hydrophones on the PA, turning the volume way up, and we could hear a harsh metallic grinding-a freight train screaming to a stop-and roaring water.

His voice muffled by the racket, Coombs said, "The tub's overflowing."

Perhaps the liner was listing at a more extreme angle than I remembered.

"Omigod, look!" Shawn said as the sleek whale's tail funnel atop the ship buckled and crashed down her side. An instant later we heard sheet-metal thunder. Icy clouds bloomed in the night, white as stage smoke. "Whoa," said Shawn, delighted.

The vast ship began to roll over.

Again the noise was very much like an approaching train, triggering a primordial instinct to flee. Feeling it in our marrow, we watched the many-tiered superstructure tip over with gathering force until it struck the patch of sea ice so recently occupied by ourselves. The sledges we had built were no more, lost in that tumultuous junkyard crash that went on and on until the ship was completely upside down… and even then it continued: dual cacophanies of ruptured steel and surging rapids that provided an awful accompaniment to the visible death throes we could see on screen. The gargantuan hull moved as if alive, a sea monster sloshing in a pond, rolling this way and that, spouting geysers high into the air, until at last it reared up accusingly and plunged out of sight.

I thought it was over. My hands were clinging, white-knuckled, to the console. But no-Coombs, like a demonic maestro, let us hear the whole ghastly works all the way to the bottom. It was like he was saying, This could be you.