Marshall McClintock

FIRST DIVE

The next day classes started for March and Stan and the other new officers going through the school. Expecting the most difficult and intensive of studies, March was a little disappointed in the first day’s work.

“Just ground work, I suppose,” he said to Stan at mess that evening. “They couldn’t start throwing the whole book at us on the first day.”

“I think they did pretty well,” Stan said. “I got a big dose of the history and development of the submarine and the construction of modern pigboats. Back in college we’d have taken a week to cover what we got in this one day. But, of course, you’ve read a lot of general stuff about subs. I was so busy studying engineering in college I didn’t look at anything else.”

“Yes, I have read a good deal about the underwater ships,” March said. “I always did think those first experimenters had a lot of guts. Imagine that Dutchman, Van Drebel, submerging a boat more than three hundred years ago.”

“Sure, and he stayed down two hours,” Stan agreed. “Made about two miles—with oars for power!”

“He must have been a clever guy to have those oars sticking out through leather openings sealed so tight that not a drop of water could come in,” March said. “But it was the Americans who really made submarines go.”

“Yes—isn’t there a ship named after Bushnell,” Stan asked, “the man who made that submarine during the American Revolution?”

“Sure, a submarine tender, naturally,” March replied. “Too bad his idea didn’t work better. It was a clever one.”

“I had never realized until today,” Stan said, “that Robert Fulton had anything to do with submarines. I thought inventing the steamboat was enough for any one man. But now I find out he invented pretty good submarines long before he did the steamboat. But he just couldn’t get anybody to listen to him.”

“Well, the sub really couldn’t develop into a reliable ship,” March said, “until electric motors and storage batteries came along. There were some pretty good attempts, of course, and John Holland and Simon Lake, the two Americans who really made subs that worked, turned out some fair ones driven by gasoline engines, steam engines, and compressed air.”

“And don’t forget the Diesels!” Stan laughed. “My sweethearts, the Diesels! They were the last things needed, after storage batteries and electric motors, to make subs really dependable and good.”

“I won’t forget your Diesels, Stan,” March said. “I’m going to have to learn plenty about them in the next few weeks, and I know almost nothing now. And you’ve got to learn plenty about other things, too.”

“Sure, it’ll be tough going,” Stan said. “But it’s a wonderful idea to have every officer, no matter what his specialty, able to take over almost any department on a sub if he has to.”

“Yes, if I get knocked cold just when we’re trying to slip away through some coral atolls to miss a depth-charge attack,” March asked, “won’t you be glad you really learned how to navigate?”

“Why, all Navy men know how to navigate,” Stan protested. “I know my navigation pretty well.”

“Maybe so,” March agreed, “but do you know it well enough to take a ship a few hundred miles under water without ever a chance to look at the horizon or shoot the sun or get a fix on some landmark? I know I couldn’t do it, and navigation’s been my main job so far.”

“Navigating a sub’s no bed of roses, of course,” Stan said, “but nursing my pretty Diesels is no easy task, either. When you’re workin’ on those babies, you pay attention and be good to them.”

“I’ll be good to your Diesels, all right,” March laughed. “But what I’m most anxious to learn about are all the new sound-detection devices. Pretty secret stuff, some of it, though we’ve had some of it on our surface ships.”

“I know,” Stan said. “You don’t feel so blind and lost in a sub any more, I guess. You can tell from the sound devices just how many ships are near by and even from the sound of their engines what kind they are, where they’re goin’ and how fast. But you know what I’m anxious to do—really get inside a pigboat and look around. Those cross-section charts are fine, but there’s nothing like seeing the real thing for yourself.”

“I think they’ll be taking us down for a dive within a couple of days,” March said. “Just for the ride, you know, and to see how we react. And it had better be pretty soon. That Scoot Bailey has probably been up in a plane half a dozen times at least and I haven’t seen the inside of a sub!”

The next morning they looked for an announcement that they would go down in one of the subs but there was nothing of the sort. They spent their time in the classrooms, and they began the really intensive work that March had been expecting.

“One day of preliminary stuff was enough, I guess,” he said to Stan at lunch. “They really put us to work this morning.”

The classrooms and laboratories of the officer-students were in the same building as those of the enlisted men. Officers and men alike had gone through the same preliminary tests, but now their paths separated. March saw the men regularly, of course, in the halls and around the grounds. He stopped and chatted once in a while with Scott, the radioman, who struck him more and more as a pleasant and serious young man ideally suited to submarine work. He saw the pharmacist, Sallini, and also Marty Cobden, the fellow who had gone to pieces at the fifty-foot level in the escape tower. He was going at his studies like a demon, as if to make up in some way for his one failure to date.

March and Stan saw them that very afternoon again, when they reported, according to instructions, to one of the Chief Petty Officers at the sub base below the school buildings.

“Wonder what’s up?” Stan said. “Something for officers and men alike, whatever it is.”

“There’s only one thing left of that sort,” exclaimed March happily. “That’s our first pigboat ride! Come on, Stan!”

Stan noticed that there were only about a dozen enlisted men gathered together rather than the whole class.

“Why only some of them?” he wondered.

“Sub won’t hold many more, in addition to the regular crew,” March said. “And now these boys are really beginning to team up. You know how we’ve had it drilled into us already that teamwork is the most important part of submarining? Well, they’ve started to put their teams together. This bunch is a diving section—just enough men for one shift on a sub to handle everything that needs to be handled. They’ll work together all through the course, get to know each other, to work well together.”

“What if one of the men fails the course?” Stan asked. “There’s Marty Cobden, for instance. If he doesn’t manage to overcome that fear of the escape tower he’s through.”

“Then they’ll have to replace him,” March said. “But that will be just one man out of the section—or maybe two at most will not be able to make it. Well, the majority of the team is still intact. The new man can fit into a well-functioning team pretty fast.”

“Will they eventually go out on duty together?” Stan asked.

“Probably,” March replied. “When a sub gets three diving sections that have trained together, then it’s got a real crew. Of course, they usually try to put in just one new section with two old ones, men who’ve been through the ropes. The new section, already used to teamwork, fits in with the experienced men well, and learns so much from them that they’re veterans after one patrol.”

“What about us officers, though?” Stan wondered. “Maybe there’s a chance we’ll go on the same sub.”

“Maybe,” March agreed. “They may put two new officers on a sub with three or four veterans. Probably no more, though. Look, here comes the Chief!”

In a few minutes they were all walking down toward the docks where the old O-type submarines used as trainers lay bobbing gently in the waters of the Thames River. March saw that some of the crew were busy about the deck of one of the subs, to which a narrow gangplank led from the dock. As they walked, the Chief Petty Officer was talking to the students.

“When it’s in the water,” he said, “you can’t see much of a sub. The flat deck is just a superstructure built up on top of the cigar-shaped hull. You can see part of the hull itself where the superstructure sides slope down into it. But most of it’s under water, where it ought to be on a pigboat.”

March’s eyes were going over the long slim craft swiftly, not missing a detail. He saw the fins on the side at bow and stern, folded back now, but able to be extended so as to make the planes which could guide the ship up or down. He noted the looming conning tower which served as a bridge for the officers when the pigboat traveled on the surface. From there, he knew, a hatch led down into the center section of the ship. He saw, too, that the fore and aft hatches were open, one leading down into the torpedo room and another into the engine room.

“Look at the deck gun,” Stan said. “Wicked looking little thing.”

They Watched From the Dock

He pointed to the 3-inch gun mounted on the flat deck forward of the conning tower. It was tightly covered with what appeared to be a canvas cover. March knew that the crew could have that cover off and the gun in action in a matter of seconds.

March and Stan walked across the gangplank and looked up at the officer on the bridge of the conning tower. Saluting, they reported, and received a welcoming smile and the words, “Come on up!”

They scrambled up the ladder and found themselves on the crowded bridge with two other men.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Sutherland,” said the man who had greeted them, “Executive Officer.” He turned to the other officer on the deck. “Captain Binkey—Lieutenant Anson and Ensign Bigelow reporting.”

The Captain smiled as he returned their salute and then lapsed into his customary informal role.

“Glad to have you aboard,” he said. “First ride, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” March and Stan replied, feeling at ease at once in the old veteran’s presence.

“Sutherland will show you around after we get started,” the Skipper said. “I imagine you’ll want to stay up here till we’re under way.”

Sutherland turned to them. “You probably know from your studies what most of this is about,” he said. “Just a matter of seeing and feeling it to be at home. I know I don’t have to tell you every little detail the way the Chief down there is pointing out every steel plate to those ratings.”

March and Stan glanced down to see that the Chief had led his enlisted men on to the deck of the submarine, where they were mingling with the regular crew who were preparing to cast off when the Captain ordered.

“Whenever you want to know anything,” Sutherland went on, “just ask me and I’ll try to give you the answer. I imagine we’ll be casting off in a minute.”

They saw the Chief Petty Officer leading his students down the torpedo-room hatch to the interior of the submarine, and for a moment March wanted to join them.

“That will come later,” he said. “It’s important to see them cast off.”

And that operation came without delay. At a word from the Captain, the executive officer began barking orders to the crew and to the enlisted men who stood at the controls on the bridge. The gangplank was taken away by men on the dock, the electric motors began to turn in the ship far below them, and lines were cast off. Slowly, trembling slightly beneath their feet, the pigboat slid back into the river away from the shore, churning up the water only slightly as it moved.

Then suddenly, with a roar, the Diesels caught hold and white smoke poured from the exhaust vents on the sides of the boat. Stan grinned as he heard them, and March said, “Makes you feel at home to hear them, doesn’t it?”

“Oh—is he a Diesel man?” Sutherland asked.

“He dreams about them,” March replied. “I think he’s going to marry a Diesel some day!”

The pigboat was now in the middle of the river and swinging about to head downstream. On the deck below there remained only a few men of the regular crew needed for duties there. March looked around, feeling the thrill of pleasure that always came when a ship set out. The cool breeze fanned his face, and he looked at the shore slipping by, then the buildings of the city. It seemed only a short while before they were in the choppy open water of the Sound. Here there were almost no other ships, and the waters were deep. Soon they would dive!

Below, he knew, the regular crew were at their stations, with the students looking on—each specialist observing the work he would one day do himself. Engine men were in the crowded engine room, peering eagerly at the huge Diesels which powered the ship on the surface. Scott, the radioman, would be standing beside the regular radioman, and Sallini would be going over supplies and equipment of the regular pharmacist, while keeping his eye out for everything else he could learn, too. Every crew member had his special duties, but every one had to be able to take over the duties of any other in an emergency. That was one of the reasons they all liked submarine work, officers and men alike. They learned so much, in so many different fields, in such a short time!

“Rig ship for diving!” said the Captain quietly, and Sutherland, who served also as diving officer, spoke the order into the interphone on the bridge. Throughout the ship below, March and Stan knew, men had sprung to their stations in every compartment. The cook was “securing” the sink, stove, pots and pans. Men at the huge levers controlling the valves of the ballast tanks tested them. The diving planes were rigged out. Below on the deck, the last of the crew slid down the hatches and made them fast from the inside.

Then the reports began to come back over the phone that all was ready inside the boat. An officer in the control room below heard the different rooms of the submarine check in one by one.

“Torpedo room rigged for diving!”

“Engine room rigged for diving!”

When all rooms had reported, the officer below phoned to the Captain on the bridge that the ship was rigged for diving.

“All right, Mister Anson and Mister Bigelow—down you go!”

March quickly moved to the opening and slid down it, his feet reaching for the steps of the straight steel ladder. He was followed at once by Stan and then by Sutherland. Next came the enlisted man who had stood at the controls on the bridge, and finally the Captain himself. The hatch was made fast behind him and everyone was inside the boat.

March glanced around him quickly. And despite the number of drawings and pictures he had seen of the control room of a submarine, he gasped. Never had he seen such a myriad of instruments and wheels and levers and dials! Everything in the entire submarine was really controlled from this one central room. Beside him, in the middle of the room, were the two thick steel shafts which he knew were the periscopes. Their lower ends were down in wells in the deck and would not be raised until after they were submerged and the skipper wanted to look around.

Facing the bow of the ship, March saw the forward bulkhead of the control room. Yes, there was the huge steering wheel with the helmsman holding it lightly. It seemed strange for a helmsman to be looking at a wall, or instrument panels on a wall, rather than at the open sea over which he steered. March knew that the controls were electrically operated by the wheel and thus easy to handle. But every man was made to steer it by hand on occasion—and that took real strength!—in order to be ready for that emergency that might come when the electric current failed.

Forward, also, were the wheels controlling the angles of the diving planes. There was the gyro-compass dial, and near by the little table at which the navigation officer sat.

“Some day that’s where I’ll be,” March said to himself.

He didn’t have time to look carefully at the many other dials against this wall, but he knew they showed the ship’s depth under water, the pressure, and other essential data. Along the sides were still more dials showing the amount of fuel in tanks, the number of revolutions per minute being made by the propellers. He recognized the inclinometer, which showed just exactly the angle of tip assumed by the boat in diving or coming up.

On another side were the long levers and wheels controlling the big Kingston valves which flooded the ballast tanks with sea water when the ship was to dive, the air vents, the pumps, and other equipment used in diving and surfacing. The regular crew stood tensely at their posts without a word, and the students who stood near by were completely silent.

March glanced at the Skipper and saw that he was looking at a huge panel on one wall. Yes, this was the “Christmas Tree!” It was a large electric indicator board covered with red and green lights. It showed the exact condition of every opening—hatches, air induction vents, and all—into the ship. Everything having anything to do with diving had its indicator there on the board. March saw that most of the lights were green, but many were still red. He knew that every light had to be green before the ship could dive.

“Stand by for diving,” said the Skipper in a quiet voice.

Sutherland, standing behind him, sang out, “Stand by for diving!” The telephone orderly repeated the order over the interphone to all parts of the ship and March jumped as the klaxon horns blared out their raucous warnings. For a moment their sound reverberated in the small steel room, and then Sutherland barked new orders.

“Open main ballast Kingstons!” March saw the men move the levers as he repeated the order, and a few lights turned to green on the “Christmas Tree.”

“Stop main engines!” The order was repeated over the phone to the engine room. March felt the trembling of the ship stop as the Diesels were shut off and the electric motors switched on again, taking their current from the huge banks of storage batteries under the deck of the ship. At the same time other lights turned to green on the board.

“Open main ballast vents!” called Sutherland.

One after another the necessary orders were called by the diving officer, they were carried out with precision and reported back at once. Finally, the last red lights on the board winked out as the main air induction valves were closed. Then Sutherland ordered, as the last test, that air be released from the high-pressure tank into the interior of the ship. March watched him look at the dial indicating air pressure within the ship. The hand moved up a little, then held steady. This showed that there was no leakage of air from the boat.

Sutherland turned to the Skipper. “Pressure in the boat—green light, sir.”

“Take her down!” said the Captain with a nod.

When the diving officer repeated the order the klaxons blared again their final warning before the diving officer called out one order after another. March had been able to keep close track of everything up to this point, but suddenly, just at the crucial moment, there was too much going on. He heard an order that sounded like “Down bow planes!” and felt the ship tip forward slightly. But at the same time he heard the roar of water as it rushed into the ballast tanks between the inner and outer steel hulls of the ship, the rush of air forced out of the vents by the inrushing water, and the whine of the electric motors.

Sutherland gave an order about the trim tanks which March did not catch, then heard the Skipper say, “Steady at forty feet.”

As the order was repeated, March found the dial which indicated the ship’s depth and saw the hand approach the forty mark. There the ship leveled out again. The sound of rushing water and bubbling air had ceased and the only sound was the steady hum of the motors.

“We’re down!” Stan muttered, almost to himself. March had almost forgotten his companion’s existence, but now he turned to him.

“That’s right!” he said. “I was so intent on what was happening I almost forgot about that. There’s nothing special about it, is there? I mean—being here in this room where you can’t see outside—it doesn’t make much difference whether you’re on top of the water or underneath it.”

“Only when I heard the water rushing into the ballasts,” Stan answered. “Then I had a little sensation of going under water. It was fast, wasn’t it?”

“So fast I couldn’t keep track of everything,” March replied. “I wonder how long it took from the time the Captain ordered the dive until we leveled off at forty feet.”

Sutherland overheard him. “Just sixty-eight seconds!” he said.