aimlessly and restl?ssly about the control room; he knew I would be grateful for any distraction, for anything that would relieve my mind, however temporarily, of whatever it was that was troubling it. I wondered just how much that extraordinarily keen brain knew or guessed. But that was an unprofitable line of thought so I put it out of my mind and went along with Hansen and Mills. Mills was another like Raeburn, the navigation officer; he looked to me more like a college undergraduate than the highly competent officer he was, but I supposed it was just another sign that I was growing old.
Hansen crossed to a panel by the diving console and studied a group of lights. The night's sleep had done him a great deal of good and, apart from the abraded skin on his forehead and around the cheekbones where the ice spicules of last night had done their work, he was again his normal, cheerfully cynical, relaxed self, fresh and rested and fit. He waved his hand at the panel.
'The torpedo safety lights, Dr. Carpenter. Each green light represents a closed torpedo tube door. Six doors that open to the sea — bow caps, we call them — six rear doors for loading the torpedoes. Only twelve lights, but we study them very, very carefully — just to make sure that all the lights are green. For if any of them were red — any of the top six, that is, which represent the sea doors — well, that wouldn't be so good, would it?' He looked at Mills. 'All green?'
'All green.' Mills echoed.
We moved for'ard along the wardroom passage and dropped down the wide companionway into the crew's mess. From there we moved into the for'ard torpedo-storage room. Last time I'd been there, on the morning after our departure from the Clyde, nine or ten men had been sleeping in their bunks; now all the bunks were empty. Five men were waiting for us: four seamen and a petty officer, Bowen, whom Hansen, no stickler for protocol, addressed as Charlie.
'You will see now,' Hansen observed to me, 'why officers are more highly paid than enlisted men, and deservedly so. While Charlie and his gallant men skulk here behind two sets of collision bulkheads, we must go and test the safety of the tubes. Regulations. Still, a cool head and an iron nerve: we do it gladly for our men.'
Bowen grinned and unlatched the first collision-bulkhead door. We stepped over the eighteen-inch sill, leaving the five men behind, and waited until the door had been latched again before opening the for'ard collision- bulkhead door and stepping over the second sill into the cramped torpedo room. This time the door was swung wide open and hooked back on a heavy standing catch.
'All laid down in the book of rules,' Hansen said. 'The only time the two doors can be opened at the same time is when we're actually loading the torpedoes.' He checked the position of metal handles at the rear of the tubes, reached up, swung down a steel-spring microphone, and flicked a switch, 'Ready to test tubes. All manual levers shut. All lights showing green?'
'All lights still green.' The answering voice from the overhead squawk box was hollow, metallic, queerly impersonal.
'You already checked,' I said mildly.
'So we check again. Same old book of rules.' He grinned. 'Besides, my grandpa died at ninety-seven and I am out to beat his record. Take no chances and you run no risks. What are they to be, George?'
'Three and four.'
I could see the brass plaques on the circular rear doors of the tubes, 2, 4, and 6 on the port side, 1, 3, and 5 on the starboard. Lieutenant Mills was proposing to use the central tubes on each side.
Mills unhooked a rubberized flashlight from the bulkhead and approached number 3 first. Hansen said, 'Still no chances. First of all George opens the test cock in the rear door, which will show if there is any water at all in the tubes. Shouldn't be, but sometimes a little gets past the bow caps. If the test cock shows nothing, then he opens the door and shines his light up to examine the bow cap and see that there is no obstruction in the tube. How is it, George?'
'Okay, number 3.' Three times Mills lifted the test-cock handle and no trace of water appeared. 'Opening the door flow.'
He hauled on the big lever at the rear, pulled it clear, and swung back the heavy circular door. He shone his kam up the gleaming inside length of the tube, then straightened. 'Clean as a whistle and dry as a bone.'
'That's not the way he was taught to report it,' Hansen said sorrowfully. 'I don't know what the young officers are cornmg to these days. Right, George, number 4.'
Mills grinned, secured the rear door on number 3, and crossed to number 4. He lifted the test-cock handle and said, 'Oh-oh.'
'What is it?' Hansen asked.
'Water,' Mills said tersely.
'Is there much? Let's see.'
'Just a trickle.'
'Is that bad?' I asked.
'It happens,' Hansen said briefly. He joggled the handle up and down and another spoonful of water appeared. 'You can get a slightly imperfect bow cap, and if you go deep enough to build up sufficient outside pressure you can get a trickle of water coming in. Probably what has happened in this case. If the bow cap was open, friend, at this depth the water would come out of that spout like a bullet. But no chances, no chances.' He reached for the microphone again. 'Number four bow cap still green? We have a little water here.'
'Still green.'
Hansen looked down at Mills. 'How's it coming?'
'Not so much now.'
'Control center,' Hansen said into the microphone. 'Check the trim chit, just to make sure.'
There was a pause, then the box crackled again.
'Captain speaking. All tubes showing 'empty.' Signed by Lieutenant Hansen and the foreman engineer.'
'Thank you, sir.' Hansen switched off and grinned. 'Lieutenant Hansen's word is good enough for me any day. How's it now?'
'Stopped.'
Mills tugged the heavy lever. It moved an inch or two, then struck. 'Pretty stiff,' he commented.
'You torpedomen never heard of anything called lubricating oil?' Hansen demanded. 'Weight, George, weight.'
Mills applied more weight. The lever moved another couple of inches. Mills scowled, shifted his feet to get maximum leverage, and heaved just as Hansen shouted, 'No! Stop! For God's sake, stop!'
He was too late. He was a lifetime too late. The lever snapped clear, the heavy circular rear door smashed open as violently as if it had been struck by some gigantic battering ram, and a roaring torrent of water burst into the for'ard torpedo room. The sheer size, the enormous power and frightening speed of that almost horizontally traveling column of water was staggering. It was like a giant hose pipe, like one of the outlet pipes of the Boulder Dam. It caught up Lieutenant Mills, already badly injured by the flailing sweep of that heavy door, and swept him back across the torpedo room to smash heavily against the after bulkhead; for a moment he half stood there, pinned by the power of that huge jet, then slid down limply to the deck.
'Blow all main ballast!' Hansen shouted into the microphone. He was hanging on a rear-torpedo door to keep from being carried away, and, even above the thunderous roar of the waters, his voice carried clearly. 'Emergency. Blow all main ballast. Number 4 tube open to the sea. Blow all main ballast!' He released his grip and staggered across the deck, trying to keep his balance in the madly swirling already footdeep water. 'Get out of here, for God's sake.'
He should have saved his energy and breath. I was already on my way out of there. I had Mills under the arms and was trying to drag him over the high sill of the for'ard collision bulkhead and I was making no headway at all. The proper trim of a submarine is a delicate thing at the best of times, and even after those few seconds, the nose of the «Dolphin», heavy with the tons of water that had already poured in, was beginning to cant sharply downward. Trying to drag Mills and at the same time keep my balance on that sloping deck with knee-high water boiling around me was more than I could do: but suddenly Hansen had Mills by the feet, and I stumbled off balance, tripped over the high sill, and fell backward into the confined space between the two collison bulkheads, dragging Mills after me.
Hansen was still on the other side of the bulkhead. I could hear him cursing steadily, monotonously, and as if
