Jerry took off his headset and walked over to tube three. So did Foster. As they were moving toward the tube, Emily said, “I was warned that the penetrations through the breech door might weep initially. As long as it is just droplets, it should be fine.”
Both Jerry and Foster looked at the very slow but steady drip from the seal around the penetration. Their instinctive dislike of any seawater entering the boat fought against Dr. Davis’ known engineering credentials. “Senior Chief?” Jerry asked hesitantly. Foster looked at his division officer with an equally questioning expression and shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea if this is normal, sir. But it doesn’t look too bad.”
“Okay, then, let’s continue the test,” said Jerry as he stood up. “Jobin, keep an eye on it. If it gets any worse, sing out.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Jobin.
“What’s next, Dr. Davis?” asked Jerry.
“It’s time to let Huey go for a short swim.” After pushing a few buttons and then pulling back on the joystick, Emily announced, “Detaching from the drogue.”
Jerry watched as Emily activated the forward-looking sonar and the video camera. Instantly, the sonar display showed the outline of
“Whoa! Way cool,” remarked Jerry softly.
Emily drove Huey about five hundred yards away from
Jerry nodded and called to control. “Control, U-bay. Preparing to recover the ROV. Request permission to flood down, equalize, and open the outer door on tube one.”
Permission was granted, and Moran proceeded to open tube one’s outer door. Normally it would not be possible to open both the outer doors in the same tube nest, but Foster had disabled the mechanical interlock. This was necessary since tube one contained a retractable arm that would be needed to assist in the recovery of the ROV into tube three below.
“Activating docking beacon,” announced Emily. The very-high-frequency acoustic beacon provided precise information on the drogue’s location to the ROVs navigation system. This enabled it to find the drogue and dock. As Huey approached the drogue, Emily tweaked the course with slight nudges of the joystick. Once the nose probe of the ROV edged into the drogue, mechanical clamps latched onto it and held the ROV securely.
Turning off the sonar, video camera, and lights, Emily reported, “Huey is docked and ready to be retrieved.”
“Very well,” said Jerry as he moved over to the retrieval arm station. He turned on the black-and-white video camera and lights and then extended the arm. “Winch operator, slowly reel in the ROV to my mark.” Boyd acknowledged Jerry’s order and began to reel in the cable. Jerry watched the video screen intently, waiting for the first sign that the ROV was near the outer door of tube three. He wished he had as clear a view as Emily did from her vehicle’s video system, but the arm used considerably less advanced technology. Soon the ROV’s form emerged from the shadows. Jerry shouted, “Mark!” and Boyd stopped the winch. He then tried to reach Huey with the arm, but the ROV was still too far away. It took a couple of tries before Jerry got a good grip on Huey’s hull. As Boyd started reeling in again, Jerry moved the ROV into place so that it entered tube three cleanly. As Jerry was stowing the retrieval arm, Boyd called out, “Breech ring contact.”
With a sigh of relief, Jerry ordered, “Launcher, close the outer door on tube three, drain the tube, and open the breech door.” He felt like clapping and Emily had a cautious smile. One down, one to go.
Jerry turned to Foster and said, “Senior Chief, have the men pull Huey from the tube and prepare Duey for its test run as quickly as they can.”
“I know what to do, sir,” replied Foster icily.
“Very well, Senior. Carry on,” responded Jerry casually.
The second test run went more smoothly than the first, and Jerry thought his guys were starting to get the hang of deploying and recovering the ROVs. After Duey was recovered, Jerry sent some of the division off to dinner while the others washed down the two ROVs. The first group returned to perform some of the required maintenance, under Emily’s watchful eye, while the others went to the second sitting.
Both Emily and Dr. Patterson were very pleased with the test runs, and both were confident that the ROVs would perform as expected once
All in all, Jerry thought, the day had gone remarkably well. The ROVs had performed to spec, Emily was happy with how things went, and both Hardy and Patterson had been civil. Foster was still a pain in the ass, but he had gotten the job done, and that counted for something. Jerry hoped that maybe, just maybe, this crew had turned the corner and that things would improve in the coming days. Jerry even dared to consider the possibility that this mission might not be as bad as he had originally thought. Only time would tell.
9. Drill Team
The obnoxious wailing woke Jerry from a dead sleep and for a moment he thought it was his alarm clock, but as he reached for it, he woke up a little more. It was loud, way too loud for his alarm clock. As his brain began to function, Jerry recognized the sound. It was the Collision Alarm. There was a flooding casualty somewhere on board the boat.
Berg and Washburn were already out of their bunks and pulling on their poopy suits. As Jerry got up, the alarm stopped and he heard the Chief of the Watch’s voice over the IMC announcing system. “FLOODING IN THE ENGINE ROOM! CASUALTY ASSISTANCE TEAM LAY TO THE ENGINE ROOM!”
Nobody in the stateroom slowed down, and Jerry rediscovered that quickly dressing in a cramped space with two other people took a lot of practice all by itself. He inflicted a nasty blow to Washburn’s rib cage when Jerry’s elbow stuck out a bit too far, and he almost put on Berg’s shoes. As he dressed, Jerry went over his assignment for the different emergency stations. For flooding, he was supposed to muster his division in the torpedo room.
Officers were pouring out of their staterooms like ants from a kicked-over hill. Jerry hurried toward the ladder and slid down the handrails to reach the torpedo room below. Most of the TMs and FTs were already there, including Senior Chief Foster. As he took stock of his spaces, Jerry thought to check his watch. It was 2:23 in the morning.
It was only a drill, of course, so there wasn’t a fountain of cold seawater endangering
Jerry was ready to sit tight and wait when Foster started grilling the torpedo gang. He pointed to the aft bulkhead. “Seaman Jobin, what do we do if water starts coming under that door? Petty Officer Boyd, how do we fire torpedoes if we lose the high-pressure firing air reducer?”
A door on the aft bulkhead led to a passageway on the lower level, but it wasn’t watertight, so there was little they could do to stop the flow of water. There were, however, emergency procedures for restoring high- pressure firing air, should the reducer fail.
As Boyd simulated setting up the starboard tube nest for a shot, Emily Davis came down the aisle between the torpedo storage racks.
“Is this your damage control station?” Jerry asked.
“What’s that?” Emily asked in return. She seemed nervous.
“The XO was supposed to assign you stations. Places where you’re supposed to go in an emergency,” he explained.
As he spoke, the lights suddenly went out. Battery-powered battle lanterns cut in automatically, creating cones of light filled with angular shadows. Jerry was a little startled, but Davis screamed and headed back toward
