her out and dredge a channel into the lagoon!”
“Okay, I can see it’s easier to dig her out, but how do we dredge your little canal?”
“Easy. Well, not easy, but simple, maybe. We securely moor the ships and use their anchors to dredge a trench! Actually, I’m sure one of you geniuses can come up with something better than an anchor-maybe a scoop or something. We scoop the sand, hoist the anchors, or whatever, into the boats, bring it back, and reposition it. Then we do it again.”
“We’ll have to ‘do it again’ a lot of times,” Danny mused, “but yeah, that’ll work better than if we had to relaunch her.”
“Everybody hold your horses,” Irvin said. The sun had touched the treetops at the jungle’s edge. “First, you guys, all but Danny, help get that stuff ashore.” He pointed where dozens of ’Cats were carrying crates from the boats to the beach. “Then we get to work tomorrow.”
“What are you and Danny going to do?” asked Tex, a little irritated.
“We’re going to climb up there”-Irvin motioned with his chin at the conn tower-“and crack the hatch.” He took a battle lantern out of the pack he’d been carrying. “You can go on all you want about refloating the old gal, and that’s swell, but the first thing I need to do is decide whether there’s any point.” He sighed. “Hell, fellas, all that banging around might have opened her up like a sardine can. She might be full of water, for all we know.”
Suddenly, the ground shivered perceptibly beneath their feet and they heard a dull rumble even above the surf.
“What the hell?”
“Mr. Laumer, look!” Hardee almost shouted. He was pointing southwest, toward the volcano. From where they stood, they couldn’t see the mountain itself-the coastal trees were too tall-but they easily saw the gray column of smoke and ash piling into the sky. It seemed to glow just a bit at the bottom, and Irvin wondered if the setting sun was causing it. With the wind now out of the south, they were likely to get some of that ash.
“I sure wish you’d quit doing that,” Whitcomb said through clenched teeth. “Think positive, Mr. Laumer. The only thing the matter with her was she was outta fuel. She took a hell of an ash-canning by a Jap tin can. If that didn’t open her up, a few little waves ain’t goin’ to.”
Irvin nodded and took his eyes off the tower of smoke. “Okay. I’m sure she’s ready for sea,” he said, a little sarcastically, “but Danny and I will make that decision and we’re going to make it fast. Tomorrow we’ll start work on one of two things: refloating S-19 or breaking her up. Captain Reddy himself ordered me- ordered me -to make that determination as soon as I laid eyes on her, and that’s what I’m going to do. If Danny and I come out of that boat and say we’re taking her apart, there won’t be any discussions or arguments. Tomorrow we start taking her apart. I know she means a lot to you guys-she means a lot to me too-but Captain Reddy’s right. We need what she’s made of a lot more than we need her. Is that understood?
A little taken aback by Laumer’s sudden transformation from an easygoing shipmate to an officer who expected his orders to be obeyed, all the submariners nodded. Lelaa nodded too, in satisfaction.
“That said,” Irvin continued, “it’s my genuine hope that we can get her out of here in one piece. It would be easier, I think, and then we’d have all of her and not just the stuff we can get at. If we have to break her up, there won’t be another trip to bring back more of her. Next time it might all be buried or gone and a lot will go to waste.” He shrugged. “And who knows, Captain Reddy might decide we still need a submarine for some reason.” He looked at Lelaa, then back at his men. “So now you know how I feel. One way or another, we will accomplish our mission and there won’t be any bitching.” He looked at the column of smoke. “And whatever we do, I think we need to do it quick. I have a weird feeling this island isn’t too happy to have us back.”
That went… okay, he thought as he and Danny made their way up the damp dune toward the conning tower. They’re all swell guys, but Captain Reddy’s right. Somebody always has to be in charge. Well, he might not be the best choice, but he was there. Now that the job was at hand and he was off Lelaa’s ship, the time had come for him to step up.
There was a space between the four-inch-fifty and the conn tower that was free of sand, for the most part, and he eased onto the rotting strakes. They actually seemed to give a little beneath his weight. Somewhere beneath the sand was the top of the pressure hull but he saw none of it. He hoped it didn’t look as bad as what he could see of the conn tower and the exposed areas of the gun. Apparently all the paint had been blasted away and everything was an almost uniform reddish brown. They’d sealed the gun as best they could before they left and he hoped the seal still held. He hoped the submarine’s seals still held, for that matter, but his heart began to sink.
“Here,” he said, pointing at the gun access hatch on the front of the conn tower, “let’s see if we can get in that way.”
“Sure,” said Danny. The hatch was a new addition, not originally built with the sub, but like many of her sisters, S-19 had been upgraded-a little. Kind of like Walker and her Asiatic Fleet sisters, S-19 was literally generations behind the state of the art. They’d had so many accidents with the S-boats, however, many of them fatal, they’d been forced to make a few modifications over the years. The hatch was one. It was intended as a means to pass ammunition to the gun’s crew, and as an emergency escape outlet. The ability to escape the dangerous boats had been deemed an important feature. Besides the infamous Squalus incident, Irvin remembered hearing about several S-Boat accidents. In one case, the sub sank, leaving nothing but her stern poking out of the open ocean and her surviving crew had to be cut out. Another sinking of a different boat had left the bow exposed, and the crew escaped through a torpedo tube! Regardless how many “escape hatches” the boats now had, far too many of the class had gone down with all hands before the war even started.
“Damn, it’s stuck!” Irvin said, trying to undog the hatch. “Give me a hand!”
Danny moved to join him, and together they strained with all their might. No go. “Must’ve rusted shut,” Danny said ominously. Irvin glanced up at a sound and saw Lelaa standing there.
“Let me help.” Awkwardly arranged around the small wheel, the three of them gave another tug. To Irvin’s consternation and Lelaa’s delight, the dog finally spun.
“See? You just needed ‘girl help.’ I didn’t really do anything but touch the handle. You Amer-i-caans say that ships are ‘shes’ even when you give them ‘he’ names. Maybe you’re right. Girls always listen better to girls.”
Danny made a rude noise and spun the wheel to its stop. Looking at Laumer, he raised the hatch.
After the better part of a year exposed to fresh open air, they weren’t prepared for the stench that wafted out. It was ungodly, even to Danny. His submariner’s brain instantly categorized most of the smells, however, and even as he almost retched and stepped quickly away, his mood brightened a little.
“Aggh! People live in that?” Lelaa gasped.
“No!” Irvin insisted. “At least… not this bad. We used to vent her out every day. She spent most of her time on the surface, not all buttoned up. There’s months of stink down there that’s been baking in the hot sun!”
“A little more than that, Mr. Laumer,” Danny said. “There’s mold and mildew and other things, but she doesn’t smell any gassier than she did when we sealed her up.”
Irvin looked thoughtful. Scampering up the rungs to the top of the conn tower, he tried the other hatch, and it spun freely. It had been the one they used most often when they were here before. It clanked open against its stops and he peered into the dark hole. Remembering the battle lantern, he shone it down.
“Doesn’t look that bad,” he murmured noncommitally. “Smells nasty, but what do you expect? No more gas, so water hasn’t gotten to the batteries again.”
“Are you going inside?” Lelaa asked. Irvin seemed to consider.
“Well, at first I figured we’d let her air out overnight. Even if it rains, it won’t hurt anything, not really. Why?”
“I want to go inside,” Lelaa announced. “All I can see is this little thing poking out of the sand. I want to see inside!”
“Okay…” Irvin hedged. “It is nasty. And it’s hot in there too. Maybe not as hot as it used to be when it was in full sunlight. ..”
“Hell, let’s go,” said Danny. “You told the fellas we’d start to break her or get her out tomorrow, one or the other. They deserve an answer!”
Irvin nodded. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”
One at a time, they descended to the control room below. The smell was ghastly and it felt like breathing a putrid soup, but eventually they grew accustomed to it, even Lelaa. Irvin shone the light around until he settled on the switch he was looking for. It activated the red emergency lighting Spanky had turned on months ago. To Irvin’s surprise, the lights still came on, but just barely. There wasn’t much juice left at all.
