McCutcheon formally exchanged information with Lieutenant Dwyer, his counterpart in the control room: the ship’s course, speed, and readiness for diving. With that, Dwyer took the watch below, and McCutcheon finished preparing the bridge for submerging. As a final step, he began happily pounding away on everything in sight with a rubber mallet, ensuring that everything was tight, and that there would be no rattles or sound shorts in the sail that would give them away. Even among their peers, the
“We’re almost there,” said the captain.
“Twenty minutes to the dive point,” said McCutcheon, pausing from his hammering, a little breathless.
“How beautiful is that?” said the captain. “An hour from casting off lines until the dive point. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back.”
“Not like that in Bangor, sir?”
“Takes almost a day to get through Puget Sound,” he said. “In rough weather, usually, dodging Washington State Ferries and salmon fisherman the whole way.”
“Captain, I believe we’re ready to go below now. The bridge is rigged for dive.”
“You sure? You look like you’re having fun with that mallet.”
McCutcheon smiled. “It’s one of the few times they let an officer get his hands on a tool.”
“Let’s go then,” said the captain. He turned to climb down the ladder. Behind them, he caught a glimpse of Tripler on the hill. He hoped Dunham was doing alright.
When McCutcheon climbed into control, he announced, “last man down from the bridge.” He closed the watertight hatch behind him and sealed it tight. A light illuminated on the Chief of the Watch’s panel, and He announced it.
“Captain, the ship is rigged for dive,” said Dwyer.
“Very well,” said the captain. “Submerge the ship.”
He noticed that Dwyer still wore a .45 pistol on his belt, a vestige of their time in port. They’d gotten to sea so fast that he hadn’t time to check it back in to the small arms locker. This pleased the captain, in part because the bookishDwyer looked so odd with the big gun at his side.
With the shutting of that hatch, the ship became completely sealed. Air re-circulated from compartment to compartment, and from man to man. The ship’s atmosphere control equipment only removed three things from the air. One, carbon monoxide, was produced by combustion. In normal times the only combustion on the boat was that of cigarettes. Secondly, the ship monitored and removed carbon dioxide, a product of respiration produced every second of every day by living men. Thirdly there was hydrogen, given off by the ship’s gigantic acid-filled battery as it stored and released electric power.
The ship only added one thing to the air: oxygen, which they created themselves by using high voltage electricity to tear molecules of sea water into their constituent parts. On a submarine men shared everything, including the air they breathed.
The ship soon descended to periscope depth, then deeper still. Dwyer lowered the periscope.
“Ahead one-third,” he ordered.
“Ahead one-third, aye sir.” The helmsman rang it up, and the engine order telegraph dinged as the engine room acknowledged the order. The ship slowed.
Chief Crosby, the diving officer, leaned forward to concentrate as the two planesmen in front of him allowed themselves to relax. It was his show now.
Those two young men were Petty Officers Diaz and Lacroix. Between them they operated the three control surfaces that actually made the ship move: the rudder that turned the ship right or left, the stern planes at the back of the ship and the bow planes at the front, both of which drove the ship up and down. Diaz found that sometimes his friends and family back in Colorado didn’t believe him when he explained that he, a mere nineteen year old, actually controlled the movements of a billion dollar submarine. He didn’t even attempt to explain that as a member of the maneuvering watch ship control party, he was judged to be one of the best at that job on the boat. Diaz and Lacroix had developed instincts and a god-given ability to react instantly and accurately to officer of the deck’s orders, to the point that when they were on watch, they became an extension of his will.
