Petrov waited, holding his hand against the metal bulkhead of the capsule. It was a lousy way to monitor the rescue efforts, but the capsule had no sensors. He held his hand there, feeling the vibration, knowing the tugs were working, but the inclinometer never moved.
Soon after the explosions, he’d felt a jar that had passed through the deck, but the vibration had resumed quickly. It stayed constant, and he could only wait and hope and watch the needle as it hovered at thirty-six degrees.
After ten minutes, he pulled his hand away, but others took up his watch. He visualized the tugs, tried to calculate the forces, but his thinking kept trailing off into worries about his men, and what was taking so long.
After fifteen minutes, he started to look for reasons why the hull hadn’t shifted yet, but would. After another ten minutes, he confirmed that the vibrations were still there, but according to the inclinometer, they were not having any effect. Were the vibrations something else? If not the tugs, what? He decided he didn’t want to know.
The excitement of moving into the chamber and the explosions had passed. The crew waited patiently, and silently. There was no point in wasting air by asking questions. They knew as much as their captain. Most of the injured appeared to be asleep, or at least passed into a quiet state brought on by exhaustion and stress.
Petrov promised he’d wait until forty minutes had gone by, and then found himself looking for reasons to keep waiting. Waiting meant there might still be a chance. When he stopped waiting, and opened the lower hatch, it meant that yet another rescue attempt had failed.
He knew Borisov and Rudel and Lindstrom were probably calling on the underwater telephone. But they knew he and his men would be waiting here in the chamber, out of touch but ready to ascend the instant the sub rolled far enough to starboard.
Fifty-two minutes after the explosive charges had been detonated, the vibration stopped. He waited a full five minutes for it to resume, or for anything else to happen. Feeling like a failure, he unsnapped his seat belt and stood.
His action, final as a jail door slamming shut, brought moans and cries from his crew. A few wept as he walked to the hatch and unsealed it. Before descending, he turned to Kalinin and ordered, “Keep them here for a few more minutes while I call
Petrov left the escape chamber, heading for the underwater communications station and bad news.
28. FINAL PUSH
It took only a few sentences for Borisov to tell Petrov what the unmanned vehicles had revealed. No explanations were needed. They both understood exactly what it meant.
“What is your CO2 level?”
Petrov reported, “Fonarin did an analysis just before we boarded the capsule. It was three point two percent, and he says the chemicals, the cassettes, everything is exhausted. The physical activity of climbing in and out of the escape capsule has also produced more of the gas. We’ve all had headaches for some time now, but many of my crew are starting to complain of dizziness and seeing spots before their eyes. With all the regeneration cassettes depleted, there really isn’t much we can do. Dr. Balanov is attempting to administer another round of sedatives, but some of the men are refusing to take them.”
Borisov could understand men not wanting to end their lives in a drugged trance. “I understand. The Americans have another unmanned vehicle. They’ve offered to send you more cassettes.”
“No. Absolutely not.” At first, the strength of Petrov’s answer surprised Borisov, but then he realized it shouldn’t. One or two more days of lingering cold misery, and for what? To sit around and contemplate a fate that could not be changed? It would be his choice, if he were down there.
“My apologies, Admiral. I appreciate Rudel’s offer, but it wouldn’t matter. My Chief Engineer reports that we are almost out of reserve battery power. We can’t operate the air-regeneration system anymore, even if we had cassettes. I’m afraid we are just running out of time.” Petrov’s voice was remarkably frank, almost mechanical, as he made his report.
“We are not yet ready to concede, Captain. I must go now, to speak with Lindstrom and the others. Everything will be considered. We will speak again afterwards.”
“Thank you, sir. But, I fear it will be a short meeting.” Borisov couldn’t tell if Petrov was joking or not.
Captain Baker told his crew after the Russians tugs stopped pulling. Most of them already knew. When the tugs had whipsawed, and the escape chamber hadn’t appeared, it was obvious they’d failed. But Baker waited, like everyone else, hoping and praying for a miracle.
Patterson was with him, on the bridge, when he spoke on the 1MC. If the expressions of the bridge watchstanders were typical, the crew took it pretty hard. She tried to understand why the crew of
A short time later, they watched while workboats transferred the cables from the tugs’ sterns back to the buoys, freeing them to maneuver. Saving the cables was pointless, really, but nobody wanted to abandon that physical link to
More by mutual agreement than design, many of Patterson’s group had congregated in the wardroom, along with several of
Some talked of stretching the crew’s breathable air somehow. Others wanted to move the sub. Commander Silas actually suggested detonating a small nuclear weapon on the seabed. “It’s simple physics. Figure out how much force we want to apply to the hull, account for the transmission through the rock formation, and then drop the device far enough away Boom. The sub rolls upright and up they come.”
Unfortunately, the general consensus was that the resulting blast would still crush what was left of
Each scheme, no matter how harebrained, was inspected, measured, and eventually found wanting, either time or technical reasons, sometimes both. It was pointless, but there was nothing else to do while they waited.
They listened to the conversation between Petrov and Admiral Borisov over the underwater telephone. Rudel didn’t have anything to add; besides, he wasn’t part of the Russian chain of command. There’d be opportunities to talk later, when Petrov might need it more.
Most of
“The big mistake was getting too cocky,” Shimko declared. “We got complacent and assumed nobody was in the area, so we got sloppy in our searching when we were recovering the UUVs. We could have placed one in a position to cover our blind spot aft, to make sure we weren’t caught unawares.”
Jerry shook his head. “That would have meant less survey time for the UUVs on each sortie, and we have a limited number of sorties. We would have been out here longer, which would have increased our risk of discovery.
