dolphins on his chest, Frankâs proudest moment aboard. So he fancied himself as something of an expert.
The memory gave him a brief stab of guilt about the captain. The man had always been good to him, and he obviously knew the submarine better than any man aboard. Hell, he had designed the thing. But Moody said that he was a traitor, and heâd seen it himself. Somebody was giving them away, and with an enemy boat behind them, this wasnât a time to screw around. He was taking his orders from Moody now, and he was comfortable with that.
He reached for the bound yellow book of torpedo room procedures, thumbed through it until he found the correct one, and reviewed it carefully, a thick index finger pointing to each step as he slowly read it. He remembered the way Moody had raised an eyebrow at him in the wardroom, the doubt in her voice: he was determined not to screw this up.
Three of the four tubes had small signs hanging from their breech doors: WARSHOT LOADED . The lower port tube was empty; that would be the one he would use. Everything on the submarine, Frank knew, was controlled by switches and valves. Therefore switches and valves were everywhere, and, amazingly to Frank, every one of them had a specific purpose, a reason for being. He went through the initial lineup in the procedure, verifying the positions of valves and pushing buttons until he thought he was ready. But when he tried to open the big breech door of the lower, port tube, it wouldnât move. He knew from his practice down there that when things were properly aligned, everything moved with a liquid, well-engineered ease. But when something was amiss, the strongest guy in the world couldnât make it budge. He studied the panel, trying to figure out what was blocking his progress. An interlock prevented it, he saw, because the muzzle door was open; the shipâs designers logically made it impossible to open both the muzzle and the breech simultaneously. Somehow heâd skipped that step in the procedure, so he backtracked, pushed a button to close the muzzle door, and tried again. Still the breech wouldnât open.
He sat down and reread the procedure again, starting to get nervous. He was stuck in the middle of it, and if he had screwed something up, he didnât know how to recover, how to back out, how to start over. He remembered Captain McCallister talking to him two years earlier as he nervously attempted the procedure. âYou canât sink the ship from here, Holmes,â he said. âDonât worry. Torpedo tubes have been around for over a hundred years, and theyâve pretty much idiot-proofed them.â
But Frank wasnât worried about the quality of the shipâs idiot-proofing. Rather, he was worried about the ship proving that he was an idiot. He imagined telling Moody that Ramirezâs body was still cooling away on the torpedo room deck. Or stuck in the breech door. Or jammed in a tube. No, he couldnât face her with that kind of news.
Reading the procedure for the third time, he noticed a warning on the bottom of a page that cautioned not to open the breech door until the tube was fully drained. In fact, yet another interlock prevented it, so that a thousand gallons of seawater wouldnât gush from the tube onto the deck of the torpedo room. He eagerly found the drain valve for the port tubes and opened it. At first he was alarmed to hear so much water draining from the tube. Submariners were conditioned to worry at the sound of gushing water. But the noise soon diminished as the tube emptied, a yellow warning light went off on the console, and he approached the breech door once again.
As if he had spoken a magic spell, the locking ring turned smoothly, and the door swung open with barely a tug. He bent down and looked inside, peering into the tube with the small flashlight he kept on his belt. It was polished smooth, still damp, and smelled of the sea. He rejoiced for a moment,
The memory gave him a brief stab of guilt about the captain. The man had always been good to him, and he obviously knew the submarine better than any man aboard. Hell, he had designed the thing. But Moody said that he was a traitor, and heâd seen it himself. Somebody was giving them away, and with an enemy boat behind them, this wasnât a time to screw around. He was taking his orders from Moody now, and he was comfortable with that.
He reached for the bound yellow book of torpedo room procedures, thumbed through it until he found the correct one, and reviewed it carefully, a thick index finger pointing to each step as he slowly read it. He remembered the way Moody had raised an eyebrow at him in the wardroom, the doubt in her voice: he was determined not to screw this up.
Three of the four tubes had small signs hanging from their breech doors: WARSHOT LOADED . The lower port tube was empty; that would be the one he would use. Everything on the submarine, Frank knew, was controlled by switches and valves. Therefore switches and valves were everywhere, and, amazingly to Frank, every one of them had a specific purpose, a reason for being. He went through the initial lineup in the procedure, verifying the positions of valves and pushing buttons until he thought he was ready. But when he tried to open the big breech door of the lower, port tube, it wouldnât move. He knew from his practice down there that when things were properly aligned, everything moved with a liquid, well-engineered ease. But when something was amiss, the strongest guy in the world couldnât make it budge. He studied the panel, trying to figure out what was blocking his progress. An interlock prevented it, he saw, because the muzzle door was open; the shipâs designers logically made it impossible to open both the muzzle and the breech simultaneously. Somehow heâd skipped that step in the procedure, so he backtracked, pushed a button to close the muzzle door, and tried again. Still the breech wouldnât open.
He sat down and reread the procedure again, starting to get nervous. He was stuck in the middle of it, and if he had screwed something up, he didnât know how to recover, how to back out, how to start over. He remembered Captain McCallister talking to him two years earlier as he nervously attempted the procedure. âYou canât sink the ship from here, Holmes,â he said. âDonât worry. Torpedo tubes have been around for over a hundred years, and theyâve pretty much idiot-proofed them.â
But Frank wasnât worried about the quality of the shipâs idiot-proofing. Rather, he was worried about the ship proving that he was an idiot. He imagined telling Moody that Ramirezâs body was still cooling away on the torpedo room deck. Or stuck in the breech door. Or jammed in a tube. No, he couldnât face her with that kind of news.
Reading the procedure for the third time, he noticed a warning on the bottom of a page that cautioned not to open the breech door until the tube was fully drained. In fact, yet another interlock prevented it, so that a thousand gallons of seawater wouldnât gush from the tube onto the deck of the torpedo room. He eagerly found the drain valve for the port tubes and opened it. At first he was alarmed to hear so much water draining from the tube. Submariners were conditioned to worry at the sound of gushing water. But the noise soon diminished as the tube emptied, a yellow warning light went off on the console, and he approached the breech door once again.
As if he had spoken a magic spell, the locking ring turned smoothly, and the door swung open with barely a tug. He bent down and looked inside, peering into the tube with the small flashlight he kept on his belt. It was polished smooth, still damp, and smelled of the sea. He rejoiced for a moment,
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