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Just a few feet away from him Jabo watched and worried. He wanted to help but his left hand was completely useless. The submersible pump would make a small difference in the overall rate of flooding. Their great depth worked against them in two ways: the massive sea pressure made the rate of flooding huge. And it slowed the rate at which they could pump water overboard. The water was well above the deck plates now, sloshing at their ankles, and Jabo realized that the ocean wasn’t trying to infiltrate their little world, like a parasitic invader. Instead,
they
were the invaders, the foreign body, and now the ocean was trying to consume them, the way a white blood cell surrounds and kills a bacterium. The second pump would help some, a decrease in depth would help a lot, and slowing the rate of flooding would help even more.

To that end, an array of damage control kits had been brought to the scene. Some consisted of wooden plugs designed to be hammered into place, designed for punctured pipes. Once in the hole, the wood would swell and seal it, and hammering a wooden plug into a gushing hole was a skill every submariner mastered.

Unfortunately, the flooding they faced wasn’t a round hole that could so easily be sealed. As far as Jabo could tell, the torpedo tube breech door had been deformed to form a hole the shape of a thin crescent. They’d tried to hammer wooden plugs into it, but it did little good.

The XO appeared at his arm. “What about the outer doors?” He had to shout.

“They’re fucked up!” he said. The XO nodded. He couldn’t hear him, the sound was too loud. They moved to the back of the space, Jabo still holding a conical DC plug in his hand.

“I’m assuming it’s fucked up,” said Jabo. “It must be or water wouldn’t get in. Whatever we hit fucked it up.”

The XO looked at the panel, and Jabo followed his eyes.

“I know—it indicates that all the outer doors are shut. The indicators must be fucked up too.”

“How is it doing in there, at the breech?”

Jabo waved his arms in frustration. “I’m getting nowhere with these plugs.” He threw the plug down. It bobbed on the surface of the water.

The XO stared at it, lost in thought for the moment. “Maybe the outer door is just fouled,” he said. “Jammed it in the dirt or something. Can we cycle it?”

Jabo shook his head. “The interlocks won’t let us because the breech door doesn’t indicate shut.”

“Hand pump it,” said the XO. “If it’s fouled we should exercise it, all the way open, all the way shut, maybe clear what ever is in there. Fuck the interlocks.”

“But what if…what if it makes the flooding worse? Opening that outer door all the way…”

“If that makes any difference, we’ll know as soon as we start cracking it open. And frankly, Jabo…” he looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot. He smirked at the DC plug that was bobbing in the water. “Frankly Jabo, I’m about fucking out of ideas.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” said Jabo. He looked over at Hallorann and yelled. “You’re an A-Ganger, right?”

Hallorann looked up from the second submersible pump which he’d just completed hooking up. He pushed the START button and raised his fist in exhausted satisfaction as it started. “Striker, sir. I’m an A Gang striker.”

“Close enough,” said the XO. “Get lined up to hand pump this door outer door. Pump it all the way open, then all the way shut. Do it as fast as you can.”

“Yes sir,” said Hallorann. He was already moving towards the rear of the torpedo room, where the hand pump equipment was staged.

“I’m going to go to control and brief the captain,” said the XO, and he too started moving aft. Jabo moved forward, back to the gushing water.

As they moved, a warm, acrid smell suddenly cut through the damp coldness of the sea. Jabo stopped and the XO froze half way up the ladder. Then, from an unseen corner of machinery one, there was a electric blue flash. The XO dropped to the deck, grabbed the 4MC, and called away the fire.

•   •   •

The XO got out F-10, the nearest fire hose. Once he had it out of the rack, he pulled an EAB from a locker under the diesel control panel and tightened the straps around his head. Smoke was already thick in the compartment. He looked up the ladder; no one was coming down yet and he couldn’t operate the hose by himself. Everyone was fighting something, the crew was at its limits.

He turned around, Jabo was at the door to the Machinery One, putting on his own EAB. The dead body of the navigator swung between them. Christ, this is getting awful, he thought. He waved Jabo over. “Get on the front of that hose!” he said, pointing.

Jabo trotted over and picked up the hose in a funny way, stuck the nozzle in his left armpit and put his right hand on the bail. He turned around and nodded at the XO who had his hand on the wheel ready to pressurize the hose. The XO unplugged his EAB and walked over.

“What the fuck are you doing Jabo?”

Jabo held up his hand. The bandages were soggy and had come undone, his mangled fingers dangling.

“Jesus Christ, that’s disgusting.”

“Missile compartment hatch, by MCC,” said Jabo, “slammed it shut on my hand.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Like a motherfucker,” said Jabo. He looked him over; his eyes were slightly glassy. The XO thought he might be going into shock from the pain.

The XO glanced over his shoulder, two other men were coming down the ladder, both in EABs. He couldn’t tell who they were, or even what rank they were. He saw by their reactions that one of them saw the navigator’s body, the other didn’t.

He shouted at them. “You two get on this hose…one on the wheel the other one get on this fucking nozzle!” He turned back to Jabo. “Go to Crew’s Mess, see the doc. You are of limited usefulness to me. At least get something for the pain.”

“XO, I’m fine…”

“Do what I fucking tell you, Jabo, go get fixed up. Your fingers are going to fall off and clog the trim pump.”

•   •   •

Jabo climbed the ladder one-handed and walked the short distance to Crew’s Mess. Master Chief Cote had turned it into a makeshift trauma center, with men laid out on each of the six small tables, IV bottles hanging from the pipes that ran overhead. Men with lesser injuries were seated in chairs, slumped over with the profound fatigue brought on by fear and pain. The bins of the small steam table, normally filled with mashed potatoes and green beans, were overflowing with medical supplies, bandages, tape, and gauze. A nylon case was rolled out, an array of shiny scalpels glinting in the fluorescent light. Beside it the ice cream machine had somehow been almost ripped in half; melted white soft-serve ice cream leaked into a bucket beneath it. Cote was putting a splint on the broken leg of a groaning petty officer. He looked up at Jabo.

“Where were you sir?”

“Torpedo Room. And Machinery One.”

“Don’t they need you down there?”

Jabo held up his hand, but tried not to look at it himself as his two fingers dangled loosely at a weird angles. “XO sent me up here.” He felt a little stupid presenting the master chief an injured hand; the room was filled with broken bones and what looked, to Jabo’s untrained eye, to be serious head injuries. But Cote put down the small scissors he was using and walked over to take a look. Jabo noted that the front part of the master chief’s poopie suit had been stained dark with the blood of his shipmates.

“Take care of these other guys first, master chief.”

“These guys aren’t going anywhere, Lieutenant. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to have as many people fighting this fucking casualty as I can. Maybe I can get you back in the fight.”

“Alright,” said Jabo. Cote took his hand.

“What happened?”

“Missile Compartment hatch got slammed on it.”

The master chief touched each one of his fingers in turn. “Feel that?”

“Not a thing.”

He squeezed another, and Jabo winced in pain.

“These two,” said the master chief, pointing to his middle finger and ring finger. “They’re pretty fucked up. The other ones look okay, although your pinky maybe broken too.”

“Can you tape them up or something?”

“They’re so mangled…and if you’re going back down there, the bandage will get soaked through instantly….”

“What do you think?”

Cote looked him in the eye. “We might have a better chance of saving them if I cut them off. Make it as clean as I can, get them on ice. Plus, that will probably make you more effective on the scene.”

“Do it,” said Jabo.

“You’re sure?”

“Yep,” said Jabo. “Cut them off and stick’em in ice.”

“Alright,” he said, “You’re the one with a college degree.” He walked over to the ice cream machine and grabbed his scalpels and a syringe that Jabo hadn’t notice before.

“Novocain,” he said. It’s all I’ve got. Well, I’ve got morphine too, but you won’t do us much good if you’re in la la land. Give me your hand.”

Jabo stuck it out and the master chief moved fast, sticking the needle in the middle of the back of Jabo’s hand, and depressing the plunger. There was a momentary sharp sting, bad enough to penetrate even the pain that was pulsing through him, but quickly a wave of relief swept through, so strong that he almost gasped. “Oh fuck that feels better,” he said. He hadn’t realized how bad he was still hurting until the drug made it go away. Jabo felt nothing when he removed the needle.

“Okay, tough guy, you still sure about this?” He’d selected a scalpel from the middle of the pack.

“Do it, master chief.”

Cote hesitated. “At least sit down. I don’t want you passing out and falling into the blade or anything.”

All the seats were taken by men hurting too badly for Jabo to ask them to move, so he sat on the deck, his back against the starboard bulkhead, and the master chief got on his knees in front of him. “Look away while I do this,” he said, and Jabo gladly complied. He couldn’t feel anything in his hand or fingers, but he felt the master chief’s grip on his elbow grow stronger as he cut through the fingers. He felt him tugging, turning his arm slightly, trying to saw through the broken bone. He was reminded, nauseatingly, of his father carving a chicken.

“Okay, almost done,” he said. Jabo was still looking away, but he felt gauze being wrapped around his hand, from about the wrist down, and then he heard tape being ripped off a roll.

“Can I look now?”

“Sure,” said the master chief.

The wrapping job was tight, neat and compact…it paid to have the job done by a man with thirty years experience. His three remaining fingers stuck straight out, and the gap in the middle was completely covered with clean white gauze. He looked like he was making the “devil” sign at a rock concert. He noticed a zip-lock bag of crushed ice in the master chief’s hand, some of it turning pink.

“Those my fingers?”

“Yes sir. We’ll keep them on ice, maybe get them surgically reattached when we pull in.”

“Don’t lose that bag,” said Jabo, getting to his feet.

“I’ll put your name on it,” said the master chief, already returning to the table and the sailor with the broken leg.

•   •   •

Hallorann had just grabbed the hand pump kit and was returning to the front of the torpedo room when he felt the bloom of heat on his back, as the motor generator exploded into a flash of heat and light. He turned briefly, squinting to see the XO disappear into the light, He fought the urge to follow, but he felt the weight of the canvas bag in his hand, knew that he’d already been given his orders.

He found his way to the front of the torpedo room, seawater now up to his knees, and acrid electrical smoke rapidly filling what was left of the space. The EAB fed him clean air but the smoke was growing impenetrable, a wall that he couldn’t see through. All the space’s battle lanterns had been turned on, and they shot beams of light through the smoke but did nothing to make the situation easier to understand.

Hallorann found the EAB manifold adjacent to the port torpedo tubes by touch, and plugged in. He had seen the hand pump rig in action exactly one time, and he’d never used it himself. He started pulling pieces out of the canvas bag. He would have liked to lay them out on the deck, but the deck was covered in water and he wasn’t about to lose some critical fitting in the deluge.

As quickly as he could, he hooked up the hoses and the pump. The parts were labeled but it was too dark to see them and the mask of his EAB was covered in mist from the flooding. He found the connections on the torpedo tube by hand, hooked up a hose to each. Behind him he could hear the stomping of booted feet, hose teams rushing to the fire, the crackle of water on fire.

He was not completely alone in the torpedo room. Two men still struggled to keep the submersible pump running. But no one appeared to be in charge. He had his orders, anyway, from the XO. The water was up to his knees now, he knew he couldn’t wait for a confirmation.

He removed the hand pump from the bag. It looked like a more rugged version of one of those large staplers used to fasten together hundreds of sheets of paper. There was a written procedure, he knew, but he’d never find it in the chaos, so he hooked it up by sight and feel, lining up what he knew were the inlets and outlets, lining up the pump to open the outer door.

A torpedoman showed up at his shoulder. “Hey! You’re lined up to open…”

“I know!” said Hallorann. “That’s the order. We’re going to pump it open, then pump it shut. They think it might be fouled.”

The torpedoman looked over his rig, verified it correct, and then threw open the two valves that aligned hydraulic fluid to the hand pump. As the hoses went slightly rigid, Hallorann began furiously pumping.

He watched alertly as he began to see if opening the outer door increased the rate of flooding. It didn’t appear to, based on the noise level, but the space was so full of water now it was hard to tell.

“How long?” said Hallorann to the torpedoman.

“A while longer til’ it’s fully open. Here.” They switched off while Hallorann caught his breath.

Twice more they switched. As the torpedoman was pumping, Hallorann saw a green circle light up on the torpedo control console. “It’s fully open!” he said.

The torpedoman quickly shut the two isolation valves and switched the positions of the hoses on the pump. He reopened the valves and began pumping. The green circle disappeared, as they were now pumping the door shut. His arms felt like rubber, but it was easier to get energized about closing the hole that was allowing water into the ship. He and the torpedoman switched off more frequently. When he wasn’t pumping, he stared aft, trying to get an idea of how the firefighting was progressing, but it was impossible to tell. There were still a great number of men in the space, that was all he could tell for certain, based on the noise, and the number of feet he could see illuminated by a single battle lantern as they descended the ladder.