“Flooding all variable trim, aye!” came a pained response. Shortly, even as the hail continued, S-19 began to right herself. God, it was hot! Irvin could barely breathe. The panting of Lemurians was almost as loud as the roar outside. He looked at the status board. Mostly green now.
“Flood her down,” he said. “We’ve got to get her hull beneath the water before we cook!” He had no idea where they were, whether they were still in the depression they’d excavated around the sub or had been swept into the lagoon. Either way, they didn’t have any choice.
“We can’t take her to the bottom, sir,” came a coughing voice from behind him. It was Sandy Whitcomb.
“No, but we can take her down until the pressure hull’s under, at least.” The deck was almost level now, and he lurched for the Kingston valves. “C’mon, Sandy. Flood main ballast two-thirds.” He wiped blood from his eyes. Somehow, he’d conked his forehead. Maybe it had been the ’Cat that hit him? “We’re going to have to guess at this a little,” he cautioned. “She’s not trimmed at all, and I never expected to let water in her again! We just didn’t work on that stuff!” Theoretically, they should be able to partially flood the ballast tanks and hold the boat with the main deck awash, but with no reports from the rest of the boat, they had no idea if she was leaking or not. “Stand by to adjust the trim,” he added. He saw a ’Cat who seemed to be recovering her composure. “Get a report from all compartments,” he ordered. “See-” he started coughing and had to force himself to stop. “See if we’re leaking anywhere! Assemble damage-control parties. Damn it, this is the Navy! Shit like this happens!” He paused to consider the absurdity of his comment, but shook it off. “We’ve got injured in here! There’ll be injured everywhere. Tex? Where’s Tex?”
“Here, Skipper!” Tex appeared in the hatchway to the forward berthing space. “I got swept along with the tide. Jesus, what hit us? The whole boat looks like a stock trailer flipped.”
“Any leaks forward?”
“Torpedo room’s taking some water, but it won’t sink us. Everybody’s pretty banged up, but they’re shaking it off. Lots of injured. What hit us?” he repeated.
Irvin shook his head, wiping at his forehead again. He wished he knew. He hated not knowing what was happening outside. That was one thing about submarine duty in general that he’d never been keen on, but in this case, that limitation had doubtless saved their lives. It was still incredibly hot, but as the boat settled, she righted, and at least it stopped getting hotter. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. That wall of ash, sure, but it packed a hell of a punch.”
“What about Toolbox?”
“I don’t know,” Irvin said, but he was pretty sure. He coughed again and noticed for the first time a kind of haze filling the compartment. “Did Franks’s guys make it?”
“Some did,” Tex reported tonelessly. “Franks didn’t.”
Irvin nodded. He’d known that too, before he even asked. Sid Franks would have been the last down the hatch. He might have shut it himself.
“Okay,” Irvin said. “We’ve got work to do. We had three corpsmen-if they’re not casualties themselves. Try to get things squared away with the wounded and see if you can get some air moving in here.” He motioned to the ’Cat he’d been about to send to check the boat. “Lay aft and hurry back with a report. Check the comm in each compartment. After that, if you see anything you can fix that needs fixing, do it, and tell everyone else to do the same. We may be sitting here for a while.” He sighed. “I know you weren’t expecting it to be like this, but everyone aboard just became submariners today. That’s what we spend most of our time doing: fixing stuff.”
The wounded still cried out and others tried to treat them, but for the most part a quiet calm had settled over the rest of the panting ’Cats. Many were busy, mechanically performing repairs and other chores they’d been assigned. Others merely sat and waited. The boat was badly overcrowded and after almost six hours of being buttoned up, the hot air was growing stale. The “hail” had long since stopped outside and the roar had died away. Strange rumbling sounds, like a momentous stomach growling, still came through the hull from the island, propagated by the water that virtually covered them. Everyone had a fair assumption, based on their experience, of what had happened to everyone and everything not “fortunate” enough to have endured the hell aboard the submarine, but it was time to have a look. Irvin had put it off for a number of reasons, but he also believed the high-velocity ash and sand had actually begun scoring the periscope lens before he lowered the instrument. Now, the logy rocking of the hull and the comparative silence above convinced him it was time to take a peek.
“Up scope number one,” he said at last, and when the eyepiece rose, he looked first to the south, now almost directly astern. Judging by the compass, “south” was no longer on the port beam, and that had been his first confirmation that the boat’s position had been radically altered. He was stunned to see an almost clear sky where the black shroud had been before. The brisk prevailing wind had swept away the atmospheric evidence of Talaud’s catastrophic but apparently brief spasm, as if the fit had gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. Irvin somehow doubted that was the case. The blast had to have been loud enough to be heard in the southern Fil-pin Lands, at least. Still, the now evening sky seemed to have returned to normal, for the most part-if one didn’t count the smoke and streaming clouds of ash disappearing downwind of the moonscape that had once been a lush tropical island.
“God,” he whispered. The lens had definitely been etched, but he could still see well enough to experience a stab of vertigo, looking at the now utterly alien landscape. Literally, the only remaining landmark was the eerily altered outline of the now naked mountain. Absolutely nothing remained between his scope and the volcano but millions of stripped, smoldering tree trunks lying in ordered ranks, radiating outward from its flanks. In some places, the ash was heaped so deep that the trees resembled rebar beneath an incomplete pour of cement. No single living thing could be seen-no creature, no bird, no tenuous speck of greenery.
Hesitantly, he followed the scope around to where the bearing Toolbox should have lain and was again stunned-this time to realize how far across the lagoon the boat had been pushed. Judging by the gray, dusty, billowing hump of land he saw just a few hundred yards away-it was impossible to judge distances accurately anymore-S-19 now wallowed near the spot where Toolbox had last been seen. Sick, he thought he saw the smashed, smoldering skeleton of their tender high among the splayed trees of the north point. He couldn’t imagine any way any of Toolbox ’s fine crew could possibly have survived. He gulped, realizing he’d done one thing right, purely by accident. Besides the heat, he suspected flooding her down was the only thing that had prevented S-19’s blackened, half-buried corpse from joining Toolbox back on that other beach. His eye stung and he spun the scope back to the south. “Get a load of this,” he said huskily, backing away and letting Tex have a look while he wiped his face with his bloody T-shirt again.
“Looks like the damn moon,” Tex whispered, mirroring Laumer’s own thoughts. Tex quickly relinquished the view to Hardee, who was cradling his left arm. The ’Cats in the control room went next, taking quick looks, their tails swishing rapidly in agitation.
The phone beside Irvin made its curious, distinctive, whirring whoop. Evidently they had internal comm again and he recognized the motor room circuit. He picked up the heavy Bakelite device and held it to the side of his face.
“Give me some good news, Sandy,” he said.
“This no Saan-dee,” jabbered the excited voice of the female ’Cat he’d sent aft so long ago now. “Maa-chin- ist Mate Saan-dee up to aasshole an’ elbow in hot water and no pitch hot for devil!”
“… What?”
“Staar-board shaaft bearing packing pop cork, spew guts, blow chow
… we wet! Motors wet soon. We go up soon? Saan-dee say we need go up soon… now.”
Jeez. “We go up now,” Irvin assured her, unconsciously mimicking her pidgin. “Maneuvering watch, resume your stations,” he commanded loudly. “Blow main ballast! Prepare to open main induction.” He paused. “Belay that! Stand by to vent main induction with high-pressure air.” He peered through the scope again. “Tex, assemble a topside detail, bandannas for the ash. Take them up through the aft crew’s berthing compartment with brooms- whatever you can think of. Make sure all other hatches and vents are clear before we open up the boat!”
“Aye, aye, Skipper.”
S-19’s tortured hull groaned around them as it lifted itself fully from beneath the protective water of the lagoon.
“Jesus H. Christ, Skipper!” Tex gasped, joining Irvin on the conn bridge. He’d finally removed his bandanna and the contrast between where it had been and the previously exposed skin was shocking. His eyes were red and
