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Farris stumbled and fell, sprawling on the deck, taking Pitt down with him, but not before Pitt had smashed his leg just below the knee on the door sill and dropped the weapon. The sharp pain felt as though his leg had been suddenly hacked off. But it was not the pain that paralyzed him as he struggled to rise from the deck, but rather a numbing fear, the realization that he’d blundered by dashing headlong into the forward torpedo room. He groped frantically for the strange gun, knowing it was too late, knowing that either of the two men standing in the compartment could kill him with ridiculous ease.
“Pitt?” said the smaller of the two men.
Pitt was certain that his ears and his mind were deceiving him. Then he found himself gazing into the face of the Martha Ann’s helmsman.
Pitt blurted “You followed us?”
“Commander Boland thought you and March must be about out of air,” answered the helmsman. “So he sent us down with auxiliary tanks. We came in through the escape compartment. We never expected to find it dry.”
Pitt’s numbed senses were forging back now. “We haven’t much time. Can you flood this compartment?”
The helmsman stared at him. The other man, Pitt recognized as one of the deckhands, merely looked blank. “You want to flood . . .”
“Yes, dammit. I want to fix it so no one will be able to raise this ship for at least a month.”
“I can?
??t do it . . .” the helmsman said hesitantly.
“There’s no time to waste,” Pitt said softly. “March is already dead, and we will be too if we don’t hurry.”
“Lieutenant March dead? I don’t understand. Why flood . . .”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pitt said, staring directly into the helmsman’s eyes. “Ill take full responsibility.” Even before the words were out, the same empty, worthless phrase he’d given to March haunted him.
The other seaman pointed at Farris, sitting on the deck, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. “Who’s he?
“A survivor of the Starbuck’s crew,” Pitt answered. “We’ve got to get him topside. He needs medical attention in the worst way.”
If the seaman was surprised at meeting someone who should have been dead for months, he didn’t show it. Instead, he simply nodded at Pitt’s gashed and bleeding leg. “Looks like you could use some of that yourself.”
The leg had lost all feeling. Pitt was thankful there was no telltale lump that betrayed a fracture. “I’ll survive.” He turned back to the helmsman. “Flood this compartment!”
“You win,” the helmsman said mechanically. “But only under protest . . .”
“Protest it is,” Pitt said impatiently. “Can you do it?”
“No matter what we did, a good salvage crew could blow her out inside of two days. The escape hatch in this compartment is the only way anyone could get in from the outside, so that’s some help as long as the sub’s power supply can’t be reached. Best solution would be to jam the emergency valves closed to prevent blowing and jam the torpedo tubes open to keep the sea coming in. Then disconnect the extraction pumps in case whoever tries to clear the compartment plugs in an outside power source. Probably take them a day and a half to figure out what we’ve done, and then three or four hours to put everything back in order and pump out and pressurize the compartment.”
“Then I suggest you start by securing the door to the engine room.”
“There is another way to add a few extra hours,” the helmsman said slowly.
“Which is?”
“Shut down the reactors.”
“No,” Pitt said firmly. “When we’re ready, we won’t be in a position to afford the luxury of reactor start-up time.”
The helmsman looked at Pitt without expression. “God help us if you screw up.” He turried to the other seaman. “Disconnect the pumps and throw open the inner torpedo tube doors. I’ll handle the vents and the exterior tube doors from the outside.” He faced Pitt. “Okay, Pitt, the evil deed is about to be done. But if you’re wrong, we’ll be the oldest men in Uncle Sam’s Navy before we’re through paying for this.”
Pitt grinned. “With a little luck, you may even get a medal.”
The helmsman offered a sour expression. “I doubt that, sir. I doubt that very much.”
Boland knew how to pick his men. The two salvage men went about their business as calmly and efficiently as if they were mechanics in the pits at the Indianapolis Speedway on Memorial Day. Everything went off smoothly. The helmsman went out through the escape hatch to open the outer torpedo tube doors and jam the exhaust vents, and it seemed to Pitt that he had barely wrapped his leg with a torn piece of blanket from an empty bunk when the helmsman was giving the prearranged all-finished tapping signal on the hatch. Then Pitt hauled Farris up into the escape tube while the other seaman began opening the valves to let the sea into the lower compartment. When the incoming water had reached equal pressure with only an air bubble two feet from the ceiling, he dove down and unclamped the torpedo tube doors. He was amusingly surprised to see a blue parrot fish swim nonchalantly out of the tube and into the compartment.
Pitt had to force Farris to don the air tank and regulator, and he slipped the face mask over the uncomprehending eyes.
