Spy Sub: A Top Secret Mission to the Bottom of the Pacific

starring the United States Navy, titled Attempted Landings of Regulus Missiles, Using Jets.

We continued to move through the ocean toward our mysterious destination, the engine room pulsating with the power of a reactor running at nearly 100 percent to drive the propulsion turbines at top speed. From the plummeting temperature of the ocean water, it was apparent that we were moving in a northerly direction, but none of us knew whether we were heading west toward the Soviet Union or east in the direction of the United States. On the fifth day, that issue was settled as we entered the Domain of the Golden Dragon.

I had not heard of the beast. At the time of the first announcement, I was lying in my rack and studying a lesson related to the conjugation of a long list of French verbs. If I completed ten lessons before our return to Pearl Harbor, there was a good chance that I could soon finish the course and be one step farther along the tortuous pathway to a college degree. It would not be difficult, I reasoned-just conjugate the verbs, memorize the vocabulary, pull out my portable typewriter, and assemble the lesson for the professor in his office at Berkeley. Immediately after I memorized the fourth verb on the list, Chief Mathews made the announcement over the ship's IMC loudspeaker.

'Now, attention all hands! We have a sonar contact, bearing 275 degrees, one mile off the port bow, closing on the Viperfish at twelve knots!'

I slammed the book shut and yanked back the curtain covering the opening to my rack.

A sonar contact closing on the Viperfish? A torpedo? I stuck my head out into the passageway and looked around, half expecting to see men running to battle stations. Nobody was running anywhere, and the only sign that anyone else had heard the announcement was the presence of several other heads looking out from their racks. I reasoned that it must be some kind of torpedo fire-control drill.

Mathew's voice came out over the loudspeaker system again. 'Now, sonar reports the contact has attached to the boat! The contact has attached to the boat!'

This was getting weird very fast. It had to be a strange homing torpedo, I thought, or maybe a type of mine that was somehow attached to the Viperfish. I jumped out of my rack in a rush and began to dress quickly, as I listened for a call for surfacing, for battle stations, or for somebody to do something.

'Now, we have entry!' the chief's voice carried the urgency of the situation. 'We have confirmed entry of an unauthorized biological form into the wet bilge of the boat.'

The opening to the wet bilge, on the decking immediately next to my rack, was covered by a steel grating that spanned the hole. Unfortunately, at that moment, I was standing on top of the steel grating. I froze and slowly looked straight down into the bilge, my mind struggling with the concept of an unauthorized form somewhere below me. Standing at the bottom of the wet bilge was one of our enlisted men, Willie Washington, looking straight up at me, his eyes wide open and filled with fear.

Immediately, he began climbing up the ladder as fast as his arms and legs could move. He was shrieking, 'There's a biological something coming in! Lemme outa here!'

I held the grate open for him as he flew out of the wet bilge and disappeared down the passageway without looking back to see what kind of biological form might be chasing him. I lowered the grating and stood directly on top of it. Looking down into the hole, I wondered how anything attaching from outside our boat could migrate through the maze of pipes into the bilge.

And that was when Chief Mathews made his final loudspeaker announcement.

'Now, all skalliwags and non-quals, all pukes and others who have not crossed the 180th meridian, I am authorized to announce that the Golden Dragon has gained entry into the Viperfish! The Dragon will be immediately convening a golden tribunal in the crew's dining area. All non-quals and other pukes without a certified document granting entry to the Domain lay to the crew's dining area for determination of guilt and justice, according to the Honorable Code of the Golden Dragon!'

The line was long, the trial was short, and the justice was swift. We entered the darkened dining area, one at a time, to find ourselves staring at the face of a huge Golden Dragon with fiery illuminated eyes and a belly that looked remarkably like that of the nuke machinist mate, Joaquin Santos. Paul Mathews had been assigned as the Golden Assistant for the Dragon; there was no defense except useless whimpering pleas for leniency. The creature itself served as the honorable judge, the prosecuting attorney, and the jury; the Dragon's word was absolute and would yield to no appeal.

I was found guilty of all charges. General malfeasance, corruption, multiple gestures of disrespect to the Golden Dragon, and other compelling but undefined improprieties were included, and the sentencing occurred immediately. A quick swig of the Golden Brew was the punishment, a matter ably attended to by the Golden Assistant, Chief Mathews, who provided me with a ladle filled with the foulest, greasiest, oiliest soup I had ever tasted. As I gulped the solution, large quantities spilled onto my dungaree shirt, leaving me with a musty rotting odor unknown to the civilized world. My stomach immediately rejected the entire mess. With cheers from the crew and an identification card certifying me to be now worthy of the Golden Dragon's domain, I was ordered to leave the court before the tribunal reversed its honored and lenient decision. I returned to my rack, where French books took second place to a quick but thorough shower and a change into clean dungarees.

After moving through the Golden Dragon's 180th meridian, Chief Mathews expanded my education in naval lore with his story about the Golden Dragon. Since the time that Greek and Roman sailors guided their fragile vessels on the high seas, the benevolence of mythical gods was believed to be essential for survival and success. As the centuries passed and science advanced, the improved understanding of the challenging forces at sea- weather, waves, and unsettled shiftings within the human mind-diminished the importance of the gods. Only two remain in control of these elements today. Although King Neptune continues to dominate sailors crossing the equator, the more fearful Golden Dragon of the international date line, the supreme serpent controlling the 180th meridian in the mid-Pacific Ocean, generates greater respect from sailors entering its waters. Stretching thousands of miles east of the Kamchatka Peninsula and north to the Aleutian Islands, the violent and turbulent seas within the control of this mythical creature are known by all men of ships and submarines as the Domain of the Golden Dragon.

Continuing our presumably westward journey to enter the icy waters of the Soviet sector, we pushed through the ocean with wide-open throttles for several more days. We finally approached a destination of sorts, somewhere, I guessed, near the Kamchatka Peninsula. The announcement came with an abrupt change in our bell, the first new propulsion order in more than a week, that bolted Marc Birken to attention with the order, 'Slow to one-third! Do not cavitate! Do not cavitate!'

Marc rapidly cranked his throttle wheels nearly shut as everybody sitting in the maneuvering area of the engine room looked up at the cavitation indicator lights. The noise from the tiny bubbles spinning off the screw made a cracking noise that could be heard for miles. It was essential, if we were to avoid detection by others, for us to slow the screws and rig the ship for silence.

Since 'do not cavitate' was now a standing order for the engine room, it was apparent to me that the captain suspected that somebody, out there in the ocean, might be listening for us.

The captain and executive officer also spread the word for us to do everything possible to maintain silence. Although we could talk, watch movies, and move around the Viperfish in a relatively normal manner, we were careful to avoid slamming the steel hatches separating the compartments and to avoid dropping anything on the decking.

Of greatest importance was the garbage. Any light bulbs in the debris ejected from the Viperfish would implode with a bomb-like detonation that could be heard for hundreds of miles. Silence was imperative. Garbage bags were checked and double-checked. It was almost as if we had started tiptoeing through the dark spaces of a stranger's house because somebody, probably armed with an arsenal of lethal weapons, could be nearby-awake and listening for the sounds of an intruder.

We shifted in the chairs of our watch stations as these thoughts penetrated our consciousness. The unknown nature of the listening force added to its ominous nature and made it seem more powerful and frightening. Moving slowly and silently through waters that were likely within the Soviet sector, we could almost feel the presence of something or someone above us or around us — listening, waiting, ready to take action against us if we were detected. The crew's morale, already burdened by the problems of the society we had left behind, was further weighted by this new threat. Nobody speculated about what would happen if we were detected, but the subject persistently haunted us while we concentrated on the cavitation monitor and silence.

Chief Morris obviously felt it as much as the rest of us. That evening, he snapped at one of the crewmen,