'Sir,' Beck said, 'I should go down there.'
'Einzvo, get a Sea. Lion loaded, any way you can.), Eberhard eyed Beck meaningfully. The weapons officer stood in for Beck. Coomans returned from aft, waterlogged and breathless, blood oozing from a scrape on the side of his head. He joined Beck; both men dashed below.
When they reached the torpedo room it was a scene of frantic efforts amid the weapons on the holding racks. Crewmembers tried to repair the damaged port and starboard autoloading machinery, while others rushed to rig the chain falls — block and tackle — needed to load by hand. Still others struggled to free the trapped crewman, whose face twisted in grim agony.
Beck was almost thrown off his feet when Deutschland made another knuckle. He felt the ship begin to fishtail, just as she did on trials when Eberhard pushed the reactor to one hundred ten percent. 'Sir,' the local phone talker shouted, 'the captain indicates incoming torpedo will be in range in ninety seconds tops! You must reload a countershot or we'll be destroyed!' Beck assessed the situation quickly. The culprits were two big Sea Lions themselves, sitting on the jammed reloading guides. They'd been right on the weakest parts of the guides when Deutschland suffered those blast shocks. The eels became harmful dead loads, twisting the guides out of alignment, snapping the bearing pins.
'The captain orders you fire when ready on local control. He has entered his warhead arming code.'
The starboard gear was hopeless. The chain falls would never be ready soon enough. The port-side gear had just a chance. But the crewman's arm was trapped amid the robotic cams and actuators, and it would take forever to dismantle the equipment enough to pull him free. Beck looked at Coomans, then at the Sea Lion looming over the crewman. They had to get it into the tube, had to launch it at the inbound nuclear Mark 50. But there was no way.
How? In the name of God, in the name of an end to the war, how?
'Less than sixty seconds,' the phone talker shrieked. Beck could tell the youth was panicking. He eyed the worried faces all around the cramped compartment, and he saw the panic spread.
Coomans grabbed a sledgehammer and began to drive the autoloader guide back into alignment. With each blow the trapped crewman grunted like a Neanderthal, as Coomans's pounding tortured his mangled arm. Pain didn't matter, ultraquiet didn't matter, nothing mattered but getting that long, thick, oh-so-heavy bastard eel into the gaping hole, the tube. But Coomans couldn't get past the crewman's body to replace the broken bearing pin, and they couldn't run the equipment this way, even assuming it still worked.
Beck spotted the big red fire ax. He knew he had no choice. God forgive me. He grabbed the ax. The injured crewman saw what was coming. Through clenched teeth he urged Beck to get on with it. But Beck hesitated, appalled at what he meant to do. Again Deutschland fishtailed. Both errant two-metricton Sea Lions shifted more, and metal creaked. Hydraulic fluid oozed to mix with dripping blood. There was so little time.
Beck remembered what Eberhard said. Any way you can.
Beck swung the ax with all his strength. The crewman bellowed in animal rage. Beck tried to leave a stump — for a tourniquet — but he missed. The arm came off at the shoulder, the man fell away, and now the smell of blood was very thick. Beck reached into the workings, right past the severed arm, and held a replacement bearing pin in position. Again Coomans worked with his hammer, driving the bearing pin home. More precious seconds ticked away; men shouted for Coomans to hurry. At last Coomans grabbed for the power switch and then the port- side activating lever. With a sickening crunch the equipment ran past the jamming sinew and bone. The Sea Lion entered the tube, but the equipment refused to retract — it was broken now beyond repair.
Coomans leaned in headfirst to connect the arming wires, then slammed the breach door shut. Beck hurled himself at the weapons panel. He pulled his arming key off his neck so hard the lanyard snapped. He shoved it into the slot and turned and typed his password as fast as he could. But there was no time. Beck felt everyone's terror mounting; he fought hard not to wet himself in front of the crew. He flooded and equalized and opened the outer door, shouting at each step to give himself courage. He lunged at the tube and worked the emergency firing lever. The eel roared from the tube and into the sea. Beck grabbed the phone talker's mike. 'Tube six fired on local control.' Beck despaired he was too late; he dared not look at his watch. He and Coomans stared at the inner tube door, hearing the shrill hum as the fiber-optic wire played out. There was nothing more they could do. Beck wondered, if he somehow survived and was rescued by the Allies, whether he'd be shot for war crimes.
Beck saw the status indicator on the weapons panel change. The unit from tube four had detonated, but was it far enough away? Would it stop the much bigger warhead of the 50, or would the next eruption send Deutschland to her grave?
The concussion, when it came, was smashing… but they were alive. Men laughed and congratulated each other, but Beck knew their little victory was fleeting. Deutschland had been localized, pinned down by the enemy. More torpedoes would be coming at her very soon. 'Sir,' the phone talker said. 'Captain requires you in the Zentrale at once.' Beck nodded wearily. Eberhard, this battle, this war — they were relentless. Beck wiped the injured torpedoman's drying blood off his hands with a piece of cotton rag. The corpsman reported the man was dead, of shock and cardiac arrest. In a real way, Beck had killed him. How many others have I killed today, so far? How much blood is on my hands? What do I do, deny they were human beings?
Beck forced himself to stay focused. Eberhard worked Deutschland deftly through the latest whiteouts at top quiet speed, to recover lost ground against the convoy. He offered no thank you to Beck for helping save the ship, and no condolences to Beck for his latest crewman who had died.
Fresh Honeybees showed barely twenty merchant ships still floating — from the original fifty — all steaming northwest, slowly gaining distance from the burgeoning forest of mushroom clouds. The half-dozen surviving frigates still hunted the Axis sub, pinging and launching ASROCs.
'Sir,' the copilot reported several minutes later, 'torpedo room reports tubes one through seven reloaded manually by chain falls.'
'Finally,' Eberhard said. He and Beck armed the weapons. Beck reminded himself he'd volunteered for submarines — but never dreamed it would lead him to such tormenting madness as this.
'Copilot,' Eberhard said, 'deploy a short length of the starboard towed array. I want to hear up and behind us.' Eberhard seemed unaffected by everything around him, the slaughter, and the crew's fatigue or grief or fear — after all, some of his men were close friends of the four aboard who'd died.
Coomans returned to the Zentrale, looking disheveled. He snuck Beck a halfhearted wink, and resumed as pilot.
'Achtung,' Eberhard said. 'Nuclear Sea Lion salvo, tubes one through six, maximum yield. Target as perimeter bursts against surviving convoy formation.' Beck, beyond exhaustion, relayed the orders.
'Tube one, los!' Eberhard ordered. 'Tube two, los!' One by one all six weapons were fired. 'We'll save the unit in tube seven as insurance.'
'New sonar contact,' Haffner said. 'Enemy frigate, constant bearing, signal strength increasing.'
'It heard us,' Eberhard said.
'Weapon transients. ASROC motors igniting!'
That frigate's captain is a brave man, Beck told himself. If we had our normal rate of fire his ship would die for sure.
'Torpedo in the water!' Haffner screamed. 'Second torpedo in the water! Third! Fourth!
Four ASROClaunched Mark fifties, inbound, overtaking.'
'Flank speed ahead.'
'All inbound torpedoes on constant bearings, signal strength increasing fast.'
'We can't possibly hit them all with just one nuclear eel. Einzvo! Reload more Sea Lions, now.'
Beck, stung, issued commands. 'Sea Lions aimed at the convoy have gone to full attack speed…. They're too far ahead to double them back to intercept the inbound fifties.' The frigate pinged on maximum power. One good echo would give Deutschland's depth, too deep to be any German sub but Deutschland.
Eberhard cursed. 'We're losing our stealth.' Once the enemy had Deutschland identified, they'd stop at nothing to destroy her. 'Achtung, snap shot, tube seven, at the incoming frigate. Los!'
The frigate launched an antitorpedo ASROC. Beck saw its aim was perfect…. 'Unit from tube seven is destroyed.' The blast shocked Deutschland hard. Her tubes were empty again, with four enemy nuclear torpedoes closing rapidly. Eberhard ordered Coomans back to the torpedo room, and Coomans reported from there — the reloads would never be ready in time for effective countershots against the inbound 50's. The nearest frigate pinged again. Beck spotted yet more rocket plumes, from the frigate's stern this time, launched in a fan to port and
