Sherry Sontag;Christopher Drew (5 page)

Three days passed, and Austin had still collected only a few Soviet voice transmissions. Benitez decided to make one more nighttime pass to give Austin a chance to find more. Austin would have been willing to sit for weeks. He was itching to nab the grail, to record some Soviet missile telemetry.

It was on this last evening that something began to come through. It didn't sound like a launch, but Austin had also been told to look out for equipment tests. Maybe that's what was going on. Maybe the Russians were tuning up their gear, getting ready for a show. He asked Benitez to order a turn, to try to position Cochino for a clearer signal. Even after that, Austin was still not sure what he was hearing, or even whether it was coming from land or from sea. This wasn't voice, that much he knew.

For a moment the frequencies seemed about right for a weapons test. But there wasn't nearly enough coming through-in fact, not anywhere near the wash of sound that would have signaled the telemetry from a missile test. Intelligence officials back home might have imagined that the Soviets were engaged in endless launchings, readying to take their missiles to sea. But if that were the case, the Soviets had taken a break just as Cochino came near. Austin's spy mission was a failure, at least so far. He was scheduled to get another try later, but for now, Cochino was going back to her initial mission. She was going to play hide-and-seek with Tusk so the two subs could learn like any young predators how to become hunters and killers.

By now, even Benitez was disappointed as he turned Cochino from the area. For all of the trouble Austin's orders had caused, the commander would have liked to have been able to go back and say, "Ah, we got something," to log in his patrol report that "we intercepted this or we intercepted that." Still, as he began ordering course, west and north, he was glad to be getting on to what he considered his primary mission. In fact, he was feeling quite light-hearted. It was Wednesday, August 24, a day before Cochino's fourth birthday, and Benitez had called for an early celebration.

The cooks were at work, preparing a large birthday cake and a steak dinner that even Austin had to agree was better than Spam. There were songs, jokes, and prerecorded birthday wishes set down that morning by some of the men eating in the mess. Later, Benitez would log, "It was a happy ship, and in the wardroom we expressed the wish that the next birthday would find us all together on board Cochino."

Early the next morning, Cochino spotted Tusk off her starboard beam. By 10:30 A.M. that Thursday, Cochino began moving ahead at snorkel depth. It was her turn to hide. Tusk had already moved away to perform the submarine version of counting to ten.

It was a gloomy day, misty and gray with rough seas. The radio room had earlier picked up a forecast of polar storms, and the winds had been blowing for hours. The waves rocked Cochino, and the planesmen struggled to maintain steady depth, as the crewmen braced themselves, grabbing chart tables and overhead pipes. Others lunged to catch sliding coffee cups and tools. The forward engine room got on the squawk box and told Benitez that water was pouring into the sub through the snorkel, which should have been automatically capped watertight by a valve designed to slam shut as soon as its sensors got wet.

Benitez sent Wright, his XO, back to investigate as the engines cut off for lack of air. Just about two minutes later, there was a muffled thud and the sub shuddered. Austin slammed hard against the viewer on the number 2 periscope. He was certain they had humped a "deadhead," a log, and just as certain that he'd have two black eyes to prove it.

But what was actually happening was far worse. An electrician saw sparks coming from one of the two compartments that each held two of the massive batteries that powered Cochino when she was underwater. The compartments were located toward the middle of the sub marine. The batteries in one of the spaces, the "after-battery" compartment, were on fire and smoke was filling the room.

"Clear the compartment," the electrician shouted, staying behind to try to find a way to put out the fire. Men began moving forward to the control room, bringing the news to Benitez.

"Fire in the after-battery!" someone gasped. Benitez answered with an order. "Surface!" Then he turned to one of the new devices they were testing, an underwater phone, and sent a message to Tusk. "Casualty. Surfacing."

The men blew ballast, and Cochino broke the surface within moments, rocking fiercely in the stormy seas, sixteen-foot waves crashing against her hull. The captain headed back to the conning tower. Then he opened the hatch and climbed out onto the weather bridge, a large protrusion off the sub's notched steel sail. From here he was well above the main deck, trying to scan for Tusk, his binoculars all but useless.

Calling down the ladder to the control room, Benitez sent one of the sub's youngest officers, Ensign John P. Shelton, back to report on the fire. Other men ran to try to help fight the flames, but there was a terrible delay. The emergency breathing apparatus that should have protected the lead man from the smoke and gases wouldn't work. By the time he could send for another, the watertight door leading to the room was jammed, perhaps held by the pressures building from within or melted shut by the heat of the fire.

Inside, one battery seemed to be charging another, emitting highly combustible hydrogen gas as a by-product. Unless someone could break into the fiery compartment, unless someone could push a wrench against heavy switches to break the connections between the burning batteries, the hydrogen would build to critical levels and there would be another explosion. With a large enough blast, Cochino could be lost.

Benitez left the bridge and headed to the control room. There he checked the hydrogen detectors. They still read zero. For a moment he was thankful, but just for a moment. Then he realized the detectors simply weren't working. He knew there was only one option. Somebody was going to have to force their way into the battery compartment from the other side, from the forward engine room. Somebody had to try again to get in to disconnect the batteries. Just then, Wright phoned forward-he was going to try to do just that. He outlined his plan tersely and without an unnecessary rendition of the risks. Both he and Benitez knew that the battery space could explode at any moment, that any attempt to enter might prove fatal. They also knew that Wright had to try.

Worried, Benitez climbed back to the bridge to look for the only help nearby, the men on Tusk. He was there when he felt the second explosion, a blast that ripped off a flapper that had isolated smoke from the burning compartment from the rest of the ventilation system. Smoke and toxic gases were now pouring through to the forward part of the sub. Someone called up to the bridge. The men below were in serious trouble.

Benitez ordered an evacuation, calling topside anyone who wasn't manning a critical position or fighting the fire. The men began moving forward, any instinct to panic overwhelmed by the almost unbelievable magnitude of the casualty. One after another, some gasping for air, they made their way to the how, the very front of the sub, and climbed up the ladder leading to a topside hatch. Under captain's orders, they headed to the handrail at the lee side of the sail and lashed themselves to it.

It was bitter cold, and waves were still slamming down on the rolling boat. Some of the men had come straight out of the sack, wearing only socks, T-shirts, and skivvies. A couple were wrapped in blankets. Only a few wore foul-weather jackets. Among them, they had only a few life jackets, and no food, no water, no medical supplies. They were, for the most part, defenseless against the cold and pounding seas.

By now, there were forty-seven men lashed on deck. Another twelve had crowded onto the bridge alongside Benitez, though the space was designed to hold seven men. There were still eighteen men back aft, trying to regain propulsion and fight the fire. The captain looked down at his crew, then out at the horizon. Where was Tusk? The blaze had now been raging for half an hour.

Someone managed to restart Cochino's engines. Benitez began to have hopes that lie could drive the boat to shore when a wave came up and swallowed her stern. A cry emerged before the water receded.

"Man overboard! Man overboard!" It was Joseph Morgan, one of the mess cooks.

"Gotta go pick him up," Benitez mumbled, now entirely focused on moving his sub closer to Morgan, who was barely visible in the turbulent seas. Just then someone spotted Tusk off the starboard quarter. Austin had, by now, made his way onto the bridge beside Benitez. All of Cochino's signalmen had been gassed, and Austin was the only person left standing who knew enough code to transmit a message. He hadn't used semaphores since boot camp, but now he grabbed hold of two flags and raised his hands high.

Fighting the wind, he spelled out, "M-a-n o-v-e-r-b-o-a-r-d. D-e-ad a-h-e-a-d. X F-i-r-e i-n t-h-e a-f-t-e-r-b-a-t-t-e-r-y." It was 11:21 A.M.

Then there was a roar from within the sub that shuddered through her steel deck plating. Tusk was trying to move in closer, but Benitez kept his eyes on the drowning cook, aware that the man couldn't last much longer, not in waters this cold. Without prompting, Chief Hubert H. Rauch jumped in after Morgan and fought the choking seas to get to his side. By the time Rauch pulled Morgan alongside, the chief was too weakened by the 40-degree water to help lift Morgan onto the deck. Another of the ship's cooks unlashed his restraints and ran to help, leaning over the side of the ship to take Morgan from Rauch's arms. Others reached for Rauch while Morgan was carried to the bridge and laid down on a small shelf that was designed as a chart table. He was shivering uncontrollably, even as the men covered him with the few blankets they had. Two men stripped off their sodden clothes and sandwiched the freezing Morgan, trying desperately to warm him.

It was clear to Benitez that his men weren't safe out in the open, not with the seas breaking violently over the deck ready to tear his freezing crew from their lashings. He ordered his men to crowd onto the narrow bridge. They stacked themselves, creating a human pyramid. He told others to move down into the forward torpedo room at the bow, just about the only area still somewhat habitable.

As all of this was going on, Benitez learned that the same explosion that had sent smoke and gases pouring through the sub had also left serious casualties. Wright had managed to force open the door to the battery compartment, but when he did, built-up hydrogen gas exploded in a massive flash throwing him backward. He had been badly burned over his hands, chest, legs-the entire front of his body, save for his face, which was protected by his breathing mask. Now he was in severe shock. Four other men had also been seriously injured. The wounded had been dragged to the after-torpedo room, the compartment farthest astern. They were separated from their mates by the fire. They needed medical help desperately, but the medic, Hubert T. "Doc" Eason, was up front with the rest of the crew. There was no way to get through the fire and gas from inside the sub. Doc could climb outside and go over the fire, but the hatch to the after-torpedo room was more than 50 yards away-50 yards of slippery wet steel on a sub bouncing through crashing waves that were so powerful they were pushing Tusk around like a twig as she tried to move in to help.

One young officer offered to race a line from the sail to the back hatch, a lifeline that Doc Eason could then hang onto. When the line was set, Eason crawled, fought the violent surf, and made his way back and down the hatch that led to the wounded. Austin picked up his flags and began to signal. "C-o-m-e a-l-o-n-g-s-i-d-e, w-e m-a-y h-a-v-e t-o a-b-a-n-d-o-n s-h-i-p." As soon as Benitez received Doc Eason's first reports, Austin picked up the flags again. "R-e-q-u-i-r-e m-e-d-i-c-a-l a-s-s-i-s-t-a-n-c-e. X F-i-v-e m-e-n i-n-j-u-r-e-d. X O-n-e b-a-d-l-y b-u-r-n-e-d."

The bridge had received Eason's diagnosis. Wright was critically burned and not expected to live. Doc's reports were so dire that Benitez soon took the sound-powered phone away from the enlisted man who had been relaying messages. The news was too bad to be broadcast to the enlisted. Morale was too crucial. An officer took over.

An hour and a half had passed since the fire started, and the men huddled in the forward torpedo room began to pass out from the gases. It was clear that everyone there was going to have to come back out on the perilous deck. As many as possible would crowd onto the bridge.

One after another, men were hauled up through the conning tower, as the captain watched, thinking that some of them looked more dead than alive. One man was dragged out unconscious and not breathing. His mates began blowing air into his lungs, pumping his chest.

Back aft, Wright was in agony. Eason pumped him full of morphine, then tried to treat the other men's burns with petroleum from his first-aid kit.

Meanwhile, Captain Worthington was trying to find a way to send Tusk's medic over to Cochino, perhaps on a rubber raft. His men began pumping diesel fuel overboard, more than sixteen thousand gallons, working to create a deliberate oil slick in an effort to calm the waves. Tusk shot a line over to Cochino. Men on both subs would try to hold onto the rope to create a lifeline through the water that could pull the raft forward. The first time out, Tusk's men lost hold, but on the next try, a new line held. Watching the waves, Worthington realized that it was still too dangerous to send a man over. Instead, Tusk sent the raft, unmanned, filled with medical supplies, including drugs and whiskey.

Benitez also knew the dangers, knew that anyone trying to cross the rough seas on that raft could easily be lost. But by 2:00 as he counted the continuing explosions under his feet, he had come to realize that he had no choice. He needed to tell the officers on Tusk just how dire his situation was, that Cochino's men might have to abandon ship. He needed to send more information than Austin could by fighting the wind to flag messages one letter at it time. Above all, he needed to see whether it was possible to use the raft to transfer his crew to the safety of Tusk.