Cold Choices

Jerry came to lying on the deck, his head and shoulder throbbing with pain. QM1 Peters was kneeling over him, pressing something on his head and calling for the corpsman. The deck was pitched upward and vibrating badly as the main engines drove them toward the surface. It was dark in control. The lights were out and the emergency battle lanterns were providing the only illumination. Most of the flat-panel displays were blank; the few that were alive displayed reddish fuzz. The air smelled of smoke and burnt insulation. A lot of men were down, crumpled on the deck where they fell.

The XO was on the sound-powered phones taking in reports from all over the ship. “Personnel casualties in engineering! Sonar reports all systems are down.” As he spoke, the lights flickered, then failed. “Engineering reports there are numerous shorts in the forward compartment. They are trying to isolate the affected circuits.”

As Jerry’s eyes started to adapt to the low light, he could see that every face in control held the same horrified look. Seawolf had collided with the Russian and they were now fighting for their lives.

MM1 Bryan, the GQ chief of the watch, had hit the “chicken switches” for the emergency blow system as soon as the captain had ordered “Emergency surface!” High-pressure air blasted into every ballast tank on the boat, giving her an immediate boost of buoyancy. The diving officer, Master Chief Hess, had ordered, “All ahead full,” and then, “Full rise on bow and stern planes.” Jerry could hear Hess controlling the fear in his voice as the ship’s control party executed the well-drilled routine.

The helmsman repeated the order automatically, “Planes to full rise, aye,” but a moment later reported, “Bow planes are not responding.”

Hess glanced at the repeater, then the helm controls. Both were down and the bow planes had shifted into emergency, but nothing was happening. The helmsman had the wheel pulled all the way back, but the mechanical angle indicator still read zero.

The XO cut in again. “Chief Gallant has reached the engine room and is tending to the injured.” Seawolf didn’t carry a doctor, and Jerry prayed there was nothing that required skills beyond that of a chief hospital corps-man.

The sternplanes were still working, and Jerry felt the deck tilt even more as the boat clawed her way toward the surface. Just as Seawolf had driven herself under, she’d come up using her powerful engines. Normally they wouldn’t even bother blowing the ballast tanks completely dry with compressed air, they’d just drive on up and use the low-pressure blower. But this wasn’t a normal surfacing by any stretch of the imagination.

Jerry slowly climbed to his feet, despite his leading quartermaster urging him to stay down. He took the cloth and held it to the side of his head. It was warm, wet, and stung like crazy. Jerry could feel enough through the fabric to know he had an ugly cut. He wished for a mirror. On second thought, maybe he didn’t want to know. He motioned for the QM1 to go and assist the XO with the damage reports.

“Main Ballast Tank One Alpha is not holding pressure,” Chief McCord reported. That meant a leak, more likely a rip, in the forwardmost ballast tanks. “One Bravo is mushy, it’s holding pressure a little better. It probably has a leak as well.”

The diving officer acknowledged the report, but there was nothing they could do right now. There was no easy way to isolate the air to the leaking tanks; they’d have to rely on the two remaining forward ballast tanks to get them up.

Jerry looked for the speed and depth displays on the command console. Both were out. The backup mechanical depth gauge reassuringly showed they were going up. Seawolf had been hit forward. What else had she lost besides bowplanes and ballast tanks? The deck vibration was intensifying with the acceleration, and Jerry tried to analyze the unfamiliar sensation. Was Seawolf responding properly?

Suddenly, the boat started shaking more violently. A series of loud bangs and a grinding noise startled them all, even Rudel, and Jerry imagined pieces of the hull breaking off. He glanced again at the mechanical depth gauge. They were very close to the surface.

“It’s the ice,” Shimko announced with relief, and Jerry felt himself breathe again. He tightened his grip as the deck surged below him, then abruptly fell forward. For half a minute Seawolf bobbed up and down and rolled from side to side as their upward inertia dissipated. And then there was nothing but a gentle roll and silence. They were on the roof. They’d reached the surface.

Rudel slowed the sub to five knots, and the control-room watch busied themselves closing ballast blow valves and balancing Seawolf’so she would stay afloat on an even keel.

A subtler banging and grinding started, and Jerry imagined ice floes, some weighing tons, rubbing against Seawolf’s sides. He also felt the deck rolling under his feet, and wondered what the sea state was. Normally, he took antiseasickness medicine if they planned to operate on the surface, but this had caught him unprepared.

Jerry was still holding the cloth to his forehead and, experimentally, he gently dabbed the wound. It still hurt, and he could feel a good-sized lump forming. Peters had a first-aid kit, and after treating another sailor who’d gashed his hand, he treated Jerry’s cut with antibiotic. Jerry had only thought the cut stung, but it did feel better once Peters had taped a gauze bandage over it.

The overhead lights came back on, and Lavoie reflexively checked the breaker panels in the control room. Many of the displays were still dark, and he asked IC2 Keiler, the General Quarters auxiliary electrician forward, to reset the panel. He did, but the breaker popped almost immediately.

“Head up to the electronics equipment space and find out what’s wrong,” Lavoie ordered. Keiler left in a hurry. Jerry knew that much of the boat’s electronics were in two rooms one deck above control — directly overhead. The control room had the displays, but the number-crunching guts of the gear were in those spaces.

Rudel turned to the XO. Jerry never heard what the captain intended to say, because Keiler reappeared at the forward door. He’d barely had time to climb the ladder to the deck above. Keiler took a breath, and Jerry could see him fighting for control. He swallowed, almost a gulp, and said, “Fire in the electronic equipment spaces! I opened the door and everything’s wet! There’s smoke and sparks everywhere!”

“I’m on it,” yelled Shimko.

The XO headed forward at speed, with Keiler behind him. Oddly, Rudel was silent, almost immobile.

Lavoie shouted, “Tell engineering to secure power to the electronic equipment spaces. And pass the word of fire in the forward compartment. All hands don EABs.”

The chief of the watch attempted to use the 1MC announcing system, but it was dead, not surprisingly. All the interior communications circuits were housed in the electronics rooms above. Grabbing the sound-powered phone, he spoke carefully into the mouthpiece. “Fire in the electronics equipment space, forward compartment first level. Away the casualty assistance team! All hands don EABs!”

Jerry scrambled over to the fire-control consoles and started pulling the bags with the emergency air breathing masks from the overhead. His head began throbbing again as the rapid motions aggravated his wound.

Fighting the dizziness that welled up every time he turned his head, Jerry and others worked feverishly to get all the bags down. Rapidly and efficiently, they yanked the masks from their bags, checked to see that the regulators worked, and then slipped the masks over the faces of their unconscious shipmates. A slight gray haze started to roll into control and Jerry could smell the acrid scent of burning rubber insulation.

Peters tossed Jerry an EAB mask and he pulled it quickly over his face. Immediately, he felt an intense stabbing pain that almost caused him to lose his balance. Just my luck, thought Jerry, as he felt the edge of the mask run right over his wound. Gingerly, he tried to adjust the face mask. But after a few more stabs he decided it was best just to leave it alone. Synching down the straps to get a good seal brought tears to his eyes.

Seawolf was still rocking in the swells. If anything, they had grown stronger, and Lavoie, thinking of the casualty team and the water sloshing about in the spaces above, shouted, “CAPTAIN, WE NEED TO GET ON A SMOOTHER COURSE.”

Rudel nodded silently, and Jerry tried to remember what the weather was supposed to be. Blowing up to a storm, winds from the northwest? In any case, their course would be westerly. Jerry took a deep breath and yanked his hose from the air manifold. He walked over to the plotting table on the other side of control, plugged his hose into another manifold, and started working the charts with QM1 Peters.

The chief of the watch had taken over as the phone talker and he kept up a running commentary. “CHIEF