Ice Station Zebra (5 page)

      "The for'ard torpedo storage room." Benson's voice was lowered, for at least half of the sixteen or so bunks that lined the bulkheads or were jammed up close to the torpedoes and racks were occupied and every man occupying them was sound asleep. "Only six torpedoes, as you can see. Normally there's stowage for twelve plus another six constantly kept loaded in the torpedo tubes. But those six are all we have just now. We had a malfunction in two of our torpedoes--the newest and more or less untested radio-controlled type-- during the Nato exercises just ended, and Admiral Garvie ordered them all to be removed for inspection when we got back to the Holy Loch. The _Hunley_--that's our depot ship--carries experts for working on those things. However, they were no sooner taken off yesterday morning than this driftstation operation came our way, and Commander Swanson insisted on having at least six - of them put back on right away." Benson grinned. "If there's one thing a submarine skipper hates it's putting to sea without his torpedoes. He feels he might just as well stay at home." -
      "Those torpedoes are still not operational?"
      "I don't know whether they are or not. Our sleeping warriors here will do their best to find out when they come to."
      "Why aren't they working on them now?"
      "Because before our return to the Clyde, they were working on them for nearly sixty hours non-stop trying to find out the cause of the malfunction--and if it existed in the other torpedoes. I told the skipper that if he wanted to blow up the _Dolphin_, as good a way as any was to let those torpedomen keep on working--they were starting to stagger around like zombies, and a zombie is the last person you want to have working on the highly complicated innards of a torpedo. So he pulled them off."
      He walked the length of the gleaming torpedoes and halted before another steel door in a cross bulkhead. He opened this, and beyond, four feet away, was another such heavy door set in another such bulkhead. The sills were about eighteen inches above deck level.
      "You don't take many chances in building those boats, do you?" I asked. "It's like breaking into the Bank of England."
      "Being a nuclear sub doesn't mean that we're not as vulnerable to underwater hazards as the older ships," Benson said. "We are. Ships have been lost before because the collision bulkhead gave way. The hull of the _Dolphin_ can withstand terrific pressures, but a relatively minor tap from a sharpedged object can rip us wide open like an electric can opener. The biggest danger is surface collision, which nearly always happens at the bows. So, to make doubly sure in the event of a bows collision, we have those double-collision bulkheads--the first submarine ever to have them. Makes fore and aft movement here a bit -difficult, but you've no idea how much more soundly we all sleep at night."
      He closed the after door behind him and opened the for'ard one. We found ourselves in the for'ard torpedo room, a narrow, cramped compartment barely long enough to permit torpedoes to be loaded or withdrawn from their tubes. Those tubes, with their heavy hinged rear doors, were arranged close together in two vertical banks of three. Overhead were the loading rails, with heavy chain tackles attached. And that was all. No bunks in here and I didn't wonder: I wouldn't have liked to be the one to sleep for'ard of those collision bulkheads.
      We began to work our way aft and had reached the mess hail when a sailor came up and said that the captain wanted to see me. I followed him up the wide central stairway into the control room, Dr. Benson a few paces behind to show that he wasn't being too inquisitive. Commander Swanson was waiting for me by the door of the radio room.
      "Morning, Doctor. Sleep well?"
      "Fifteen hours. What do you think? And breakfasted even better. What's up, Commander?" Something was up, that was for sure: for once, Commander Swanson wasn't smiling.
      "Message coming through about Drift Station Zebra. Has to be decoded first, but that should take only minutes." Decoding or not, it seemed to me that Swanson already had a fair idea of the content of that message.
      "When did we surface?" I asked. A submarine loses radio contact as soon as it submerges.
      "Not since we left the Clyde. We're close to three hundred feet down right now."
      "This is a _radio_ message that's coming through?"
      "What else? Times have changed. We still have to surface to transmit but we can receive down to our maximum depth. Somewhere in Connecticut is the world's largest radio transmitter, using an extremely low frequency, which can contact us at this depth far more easily than any other radio station can contact a surface ship. While we're waiting, come and meet the drivers."
      He introduced me to some of his control-center crew--as with Benson, it seemed to be a matter of complete indifference to him whether it was officer or enlisted man--and finally stopped by an officer sitting just aft of the periscope stand, a youngster who looked as if he should still be in high school. "Will Raeburn," Swanson said. "Normally we pay no attention to him but after we move under the ice he becomes the most important man on the ship. Our navigation officer. Are we lost, Will?"
      "We're just there, Captain." He pointed to a tiny pinpoint of light on the Norwegian Sea chart spread out beneath the glass on the plotting table. "Gyro and sins are checking to a hair."
      "'Sins'?" I said.
      "You may well look surprised, - Dr. Carpenter," Swanson said. "Lieutenant Raeburn here is far too young to have any sins. He is referring to S.I.N.S.--Ship's Inertial Navigational System--a device once used for guiding intercontinental missiles and now adapted for submarine use, specifically nuclear submarines. No point in my elaborating: Will's ready to talk your head off about it if he manages to corner you." He glanced at the chart position. "Are we getting there quickly enough to suit you, Doctor?"
      "I still don't believe it," I said.
      "We cleared the Holy Loch a little earlier than I expected, before seven," Swanson admitted. "I had intended to carry out some slow-time dives to adjust trim, but it wasn't necessary. Even the lack of twelve torpedoes up in the nose didn't make her as stern-heavy as I'd expected. She's so damned big that a few tons more or less or here or there doesn't seem to make any difference to her. So we just came barreling on up--"
      He broke off to accept a signal sheet from a sailor, and read through it slowly, taking his time about it. Then ho jerked his head, walked to a quiet corner of the control center, and faced me as I came up to him. He still wasn't smiling.
      "I'm sorry," he said. "Major Halliwell, the commandant of the drift station . . . You said last night he was a very close friend of yours?"
      I felt my mouth begin to go dry. I nodded, and took the message from him. It read:
      A further radio message, very broken and difficult to decipher, was received 0945 Greenwich Mean Time from Drift Ice Station Zebra by the British trawler _Morning Star_, the vessel that picked up the previous broadcast. Message stated that Major Halliwell, Officer Commanding, and three others, unnamed, critically injured or dead, no indication who or how many of the four are dead. Others, number again unknown, suffering severely from burns and exposure. Some message about food and fuel, atmospheric conditions and weakness in transmission made it quite indecipherable. Understood from very garbled signal that survivors in one hut unable to move because of weather. Words "ice storm" clearly picked up. Apparent details of wind speed and temperature, but unable to make out.
      _Morning Star_ several times attempted contact Drift Station Zebra immediately afterward. No acknowledgment.
      _Morning Star_, at request of British Admiralty, has abandoned fishing grounds and is moving closer in to Barrier to act as listening post. Message ends.
      I folded the paper and handed it back to Swanson. He said again, "Sorry about this, Carpenter."
      "Critically injured or dead," I said. "In a burnt-out station on the ice cap in winter, what's the difference?" My voice fell upon my ears as the voice of another man, a voice flat and lifeless, a voice empty of all emotion. "Johnny Halliwell and three of his men. Johnny Halliwell. Not the kind of man you would meet often, Commander. A remarkable man. Left school at fifteen, when his parents died, to devote himself to the support of a brother eight years younger than himself. He saved, he scraped, he sacrificed, he devoted many of the best years of his life to doing everything for his younger brother, including putting him through a six-year university course. Not till then did he think of himself, not till then did he get married. He leaves a lovely wife and three marvelous kids. Two nieces and a nephew not yet six months old."
      "Two nieces--" He broke off and stared at me. "Good God, your brother? _Your_ brother?" He didn't, for the moment, seem to find anything peculiar in the difference of surname.
      I nodded silently. Young Lieutenant Raeburn approached us, an odd expression of anxiety on his face, but Swanson abruptly waved him away without even glancing in his direction. He shook his head slowly and was still shaking it when I said abruptly: "He's tough. He may be one of the survivors. He may live. We must get Drift Station Zebra's position. We _must_ get it."
      "Maybe they haven't got it themselves," Swanson said. I could see that he was grateful for something to talk about. "It _is_ a drifting station, remember. The weather being what it is, it may have been days since they got their last fixes, and for all we know, their sextants, chronometers and radio direction finders have been lost in the fire."
      "They must know what their latest fix was, even though it was a week ago. They must have a fairly accurate idea of the speed and direction of their drift. They'll be able to provide approximate data. The _Morning Star_ must be told to keep transmitting non-stop with a continuous request for their position. If you surface now, can you contact the _Morning Star?_"
      "I doubt it. The trawler must be the best part of a thousand miles north of us. His receiver wouldn't be big enough to pull us in--which is another way of saying that our transmitter is too small."
      "The B.B.C. have -plenty of transmitters that are big enough. So have the Admiralty. Please ask one or the other to contact the _Morning Star_ and ask it to make a continuous send for Zebra's position."
      "They could do that themselves direct."
      "Sure they could. But they couldn't hear the reply. The _Morning Star_ can--if there's any reply. And she's getting closer to them all the time."
      "We'll surface now," Swanson nodded. He turned away from the chart table we'd been standing beside and headed for the diving stand. As he passed the plotting table he said to the navigator: "What was it you wanted, Will?"
      Lieutenant Raeburn turned his back on me and lowered his voice, but my hearing has always been a little abnormal. He whispered: "Did you see his face, Captain? I thought he was going to haul off and sock you."
      "I thought the same thing myself," Swanson murmured. "For a moment. But I think I just happened to be in his line of vision, that's all."
      I went forward to my cabin and lay down in the cot.
3
      "There it is, then," said Swanson. "That's the Barrier."
      The _Dolphin_, heading due north, her great cylindrical bulk at one moment completely submerged, the next showing clear as she rolled heavily through the steep quartering seas, was making less than three knots through the water, the great nuclear-powered engines providing just enough thrust to the big twin eight-foot propellers to provide steerage way and no more. Thirty feet below where we stood on the bridge the finest sonar equipment in the world was ceaselessly probing the waters all around us but even so Swanson was taking no chances on the effects of collision with a drifting ice block. The noon-day Arctic sky was so overcast that the light was no better than that of late dusk. The bridge thermometer showed the sea temperature to be 28°F., the air temperature--I 6°F. The gale-force wind from the northeast was snatching the tops off the rolling steel-gray waves and subjecting the steep-walled sides of the great conning tower--"sail," the crew called it--to the ceaseless battering of a bullet-driven spray that turned to solid ice even as it struck. The cold was intense.
      Shivering uncontrollably, wrapped in a heavy duffel coat and oilskins and huddled against the illusory shelter of the canvas wind-dodger, I followed the line of Swanson's pointing ann; even above the high, thin, shrill whine of the wind and the drum-fire of the flying spray against the sail, I could hear the violent chattering of his teeth. Less than two miles away a long, thin, grayish-white line, at that distance apparently smooth and regular, seemed to stretch the entire width of the northern horizon. Fd seen it before and it wasn't much to look at but it was a sight a man never got used to, not because of itself but because of what it represented: the beginning of the polar ice cap that covered the top of the world, at this time of year a solid, compacted mass of ice that stretched clear from where we lay right across to Alaska on the other side of the world. And we had to go under that mass. We had to go under it to find men hundreds of miles away, men who might be already dying, men who might be already dead. Who probably were dead. Men, dying or dead, whom we had to seek out by guess and by God in that great wasteland of ice stretching out endlessly before us, for we did not know where they were.
      The relayed radio message we had received just fortynine hours ago had been the last. Since then, there had been only silence. The trawler _Morning Star_ had been sending almost continuously in the intervening two days, trying to raise Drift Station Zebra, but out of that bleak desert of ice to the north had come nothing but silence. No word, no signal, no faintest whisper of sound had come out of that desolation.
      Eighteen hours before, the Russian atomic-engined _Dvina_ had reached the Barrier and had started on an all-out and desperate attempt to smash its way into the heart of the ice cap. In this early stage of winter the ice was neither so thick nor so compacted as it would be at the time of its maximum density, in March, and the very heavily armored and powerfully engined _Dvina_ was reputed to be able to break through ice up to a thickness of eighteen feet: given fair conditions, the _Dvina_ was widely believed to be capable of battering its way to the North Pole. But the conditions of the rafted ice had proved abnormal to a degree and the attempt a hopeless one. The _Dvina_ had managed to crash its way over forty miles into the ice cap before being permanently stopped by a thick wall of rafter ice over twenty feet in height and probably more than a hundred deep. The _Dvina_, according to reports, had sustained heavy damage to its bows and was still in the process of extricating itself, with the greatest difficulty, from the pack. A very gallant effort that had achieved nothing except an improvement in East-West relations to an extent undreamed of for many years.