One of the reasons they were good at it was because they enjoyed it. The rudder and engine orders came quickly and rapidly while the ship maneuvered itself out to sea, backing bells and reverses of the rudder in rapid succession. The orders were a language of their own:
Once the boat submerged and slowed, he too could relax slightly as the diving officer took control. The dive’s mission, immediately after submerging, was to get a “good one-third trim,” meaning that at a given depth, at five knots, and with zero degrees on all the control surfaces, the ship would maintain a constant depth. It was crucial to ship control, establishing a baseline of buoyancy, and ensuring that the ship was in good trim as it began its deployment. While he worked on it, the ship would stay on a steady, slow course, giving Lacroix and Diaz a breather.
“Pump from aft trim,” Crosby ordered the Chief of the Watch.
“Pump aft trim, aye,” he said. The Chief of the Watch, or COW, controlled all the ship’s tanks and pumps, moving water from tank to tank, and on and off the ship as necessary. As he pumped, the planesmen could reduce their angles little by little until the ship was neutral. There were complex calculations one could run to determine how much water needed to be pumped from where and how long to reduce an angle, but like all the good diving officers, Crosby did it by feel.
Diaz could feel it too… he lowered the angle of his planes to maintain the zero angle on the ship as the dive’s changes took effect. It felt almost like weight coming off, like he was holding the ship down with his planes, and as the dive corrected the trim he could release it, bit by bit, until ship rode flat on its own, with no effort by the giant control surfaces that were an extension of his hands on the wheel. He looked over at Lacroix, and saw that he was getting there too. It felt good.
Suddenly, just outside control: loud coughing.
“Jesus,” he said.
“Sounds almost like he’s puking,” said Lacroix.
“Mind your helm,” said Crosby, unhappy with the distraction.
Then: a clatter, and a crash. A thud to the deck, then the sound of running footsteps and shouting.
“What the hell?” said Diaz.
“Mind your helm,” said Chief Crosby again, but he was leaning over too, trying to get a look.
The OOD stepped up behind them… unlike them he was free to roam the control room. They could only see the shocked expression on his face, then he rushed back to the conn and grabbed the 1MC mike:
“Injured man in the forward compartment!”
“What happened?” said Crosby.
“Somebody passed out,” said Lieutenant Dwyer. “Looks like he smashed his head on the way down… blood everywhere. I don’t know… there might be two of them.”
“Two of them? Who is it?” asked Diaz.
“I can’t see,” replied Lacroix. He was leaning way over in his seat to get a look. The dive was looking too, everyone wanted to know what was going on. Diaz was irritated that from where he sat, the outboard station, he couldn’t see a thing. Everyone in control was trying to look, and everyone had a better view than him.
“What do you see?” he was frustrated that his friend wasn’t sharing any information, just leaning over. Way over.
“What do you see?” he asked Lacroix again. “Tell me.” He nudged him.
Lacroix’s glasses fell off his head, and onto the deck. He didn’t react.
He had passed out too.
Diaz stood up out of his chair then, and turned around to face the control room. All eyes were fixed on the passageway, where at least two men had passed out. He saw the quartermaster still face down on his chart. And now the helm was unconscious. He didn’t think anyone else had realized it yet: people were passing out all over the boat. There was something wrong with their air.
For the first time in his life, real panic began to well up inside him.
“Chief…” he said.
Crosby looked at him, startled to see him standing. Diaz pointed at Lacroix.
“He’s out too.”
“What the fuck?”
