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“It’s not coming from the engine room,” Juan said. “Someone is still alive in the dry deck shelter.”
39
When Michael Bradley first heard the faint voices emanating through the hull, he thought he’d become delusional after spending days in the dry deck shelter’s decompression chamber, hoping to be rescued. Then he recognized a few words and realized with great relief that he was no longer alone.
Situation . . . Air . . . left . . . Hatch . . . Get . . . out . . .
There was a rescue team outside, and it sounded like they were talking to someone, which implied there were survivors in the stern section of the Kansas City.
He had to let them know he was alive as well. That’s when he picked up a wrench with his good arm and began slamming it against the wall.
He did that for fifteen minutes before he had to drop the wrench due to exhaustion.
When he first entered the chamber twelve days ago, he thought he had a few hours to live at most before his air ran out. He even wrote a good-bye message to his family and recorded the events leading up to the sinking in his little notebook.
But then something strange happened. The lights, heat, and air never went off. The KC was still feeding power to the DDS, so he actually had a chance to make it out if the Navy found him before the batteries died. He’d set his broken arm and secured it with duct tape to keep it in place before ransacking the decompression chamber for supplies. He discovered a small tool kit, as well as several Soldier Fuel energy bars and some bottles of water, in an emergency pack. Even with rationing, he had eaten the last bar four days before, and drank the last of the water six hours earlier that day, so he thought it really was the end until he heard the odd voices.
After a minute’s rest, he picked up the wrench again and beat it against the metal, tapping out the same message.
SOS. In DDS.
He didn’t get any response. The voices had disappeared.
But he wouldn’t give up. Not until his last breath was gone. That’s one thing the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training course had taught him. BUD/S was all about carrying on through pain, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and cold. Anyone who wasn’t up to the challenge could Drop on Request, DOR, which meant ringing a brass ship’s bell three times. The people who washed out were the ones lacking the will to go on in the face of agony and desperation.
If Bradley could make it through the Hell Week of BUD/S, he was not going to ring the bell now.
He continued banging until his muscles were on fire. He screamed to get through the pain.
Then he heard something and stopped, dropping the wrench to the floor. There was a mechanical sound, as if a hatch were opening.
He looked through the tiny window into the air lock and saw nothing but darkness. He used a flashlight and shined it on the hatch down to the Kansas City’s escape trunk, but it remained motionless.
Then he heard another sound and was amazed to see a light bouncing around in the SEAL Delivery Vehicle hangar. The wheel on the hangar hatch turned.
When it opened, a man in a black drysuit and yellow dive helmet entered. He was carrying a large dive bag with him. He saw Bradley’s flashlight and came over to the decompression chamber hatch. Bradley could see that his equipment included a rebreather for the heliox tank on his back.
The diver motioned to the air lock controls on his side. Bradley gave him the OK signal.
A few minutes later, the lock had drained and filled with air. The diver removed his helmet and twisted the hatch wheel until it opened. The man had a blond crew cut and blue eyes that glittered with intelligence.
“Hi, there,” he said in a high pitch that lowered as the helium left his lungs. “I’m Juan Cabrillo. Time to get you out of here.”
“Michael Bradley,” the man said, still stunned that he was free of the decompression chamber. “What ship are you from?”
“That’s a little complicated. I’m not in the Navy.”
“You’re not? Who are you, then?”
“Just a Good Samaritan. We don’t have much time before your crewmates start coming out and getting the attention of the Brazilian warship above us.”
“My crewmates? How many are still alive?”
“Twenty-six.”
Bradley was both elated that some of his fellow sailors had made it and heartbroken that it was so few.
“Only twenty-six,” Bradley repeated softly.
