The Slip

The darkness that clouded his eyes started to clear, a voice not far away was speaking, something about corridor A4 and about him being hurt.

Suddenly Kowalski was beside him crouching down to where he was down himself on the deck. 'Skipper?

He was worried about something important. What was it? A message.

Kowalski's voice was calm, 'Easy. Don't try to move.'

The message was important he had to find it. He asked Kowalski if he had found it.

The answer told him things were as bad as he feared. He had to find that message, tried to get up. Kowalski's voice was calm, the voice of reason. 'Look, Skipper, you better wait.'*

Mr. Morton's steady, matter-of-fact, and deadly calm voice came over the intercom. He almost sounded bored, "Standby for Tuesday Drill." His demeanour disguised this terrifying gamble as a routine weekly drill. "All stations report when manned and ready." Manned and ready reports came in over the intercom, answered each time by Morton's exceedingly calm "Very well."

Nelson listened wondering what Morton meant. There was no indication that Crane even heard it. He was far beyond the reach of the intercom.

"Commence Tuesday Drill, on my mark, three, two, one, mark." All the crew glanced at their watches noting the start of the drill since time and timing were of the essence.

Things happened very fast. The trim and ballast tanks flooded or blew in carefully timed sequence from the mark as prearranged by Morton. The boat nosed down sharply and rolled hard to port. As men all over the boat started to tilt to maintain their balance, the boat continued to nose down and then some more. All the Seaview crew were prepared, knew what was to happen, and were already positioned close to the forward port walls of all compartments or braced at their stations and ready to stand fast. The hijackers were not prepared, lost their footing and slid on the decks as the boat continued to nose down at a seemingly impossible angle. Foley, Whelan and the others stumbled and staggered forward.

Lieutenant Commander Morton stood Seaview on her nose.

The man's feet slipped on the deck. Messer, who was aft of the man, slipped as well. Messer immediately realized that the crew were taking action against them and if he didn't act instantly would lose his kill. He was so primed for it now that the kill mattered more than the job. His feet slid and he dropped the truncheon as the deck dipped away and in a scramble to stop his slide, grabbed onto the man with his left hand as he slipped by. The truncheon slid all the way from where Messer dropped it down to land at the other one's feet.

In a lightning fast move that he had perfected over time Messer drew his knife and with a speed honed with much practice stabbed the man. He knew instantly he had not made an immediately fatal thrust as he felt the blade grate on ribs and deflect from the lethal targets. The movement of the sub ruined his aim, but the man was so close to death already that it was still a potentially killing stroke. To maximize the blood loss he pulled hard to yank the blade free at a different angle than the thrust. As the deck fell abruptly away Messer dropped the knife to grab onto the man with both hands to save himself from crashing down into the sudden 20-foot void opening below them. Then as Seaview tipped further both men swung free of the deck leaving them dangling, held suspended by the bonds on the man's wrists.

Crane's bound wrists took all his weight and Messer's. His arms and chest were stretched, muscles and tendons strained. It was beyond excruciating. He couldn't breathe. His will to survive triggered a sudden strength and he thrashed and kicked in raging desperation trying to get a breath. Trying to live. The sub continued to nose down. With a sudden all-out panicked effort to inhale, it was now or never, he wouldn't have enough strength to try again, he twisted and kicked wildly, loosening Messer's grasp. Messer slid down trying to keep his grip on Crane's legs. Crane writhed frantically in the effort to breathe. Messer lost his grip and fell to the deck below landing near Nelson. The Admiral kicked out at Messer's head and connected with a thud stunning him. Free of Messer's weight, Crane writhed and gasped in tiny shallow breaths. That's all he could get with his weight on his outstretched arms. Blood soaked his shirt.

Seaview kept nosing down, beyond the theoretical end point for this manoeuvre and then further, and further again, to the point of no return. At that tipping point, at what seemed the last possible moment before irreparable disaster for Seaview, Crane in desperation and fading hope for his men, his boat, never knowing he said it managed to voice a faint, forlorn, despairing, "Chip, trim the boat." That was the last thought he could give them.

Nelson just barely heard Lee's faint, hopeless words over the strange underlying silence and stress-induced creaking of the hull. In his own concern for the boat he also addressed the distant Exec a bit more forcefully. "Now, Chip, before the batteries shift!" If they did they were all dead.

Nelson looked up at Lee, dangling overhead, who was straining desperately now for his life, all efforts focussed solely on getting the next breath. Then in horror he saw the bloodstain spreading across the Captain's shirt. Time suddenly seemed to run away, the leeway for Crane was shorter than he had thought.

Chip almost left it too late. He ordered trim on his mark. As the tanks flooded and blew in careful sequence as meticulously calculated, Seaview hung poised to go either way, momentum trying to tip the scales the wrong way. The sub teetered, suspended in an eerie limbo, almost like a long pencil balancing on its point ready to drop in any direction, then at last she started to settle back. Seaview rolled back with several strong, abrupt, shuddering jolts as the ballast shifted in the tanks. With the boat's lurches, Crane's left arm bound so firmly to the rack and holding up his weight, reached its point of no return as well and with one of Seaview's jerking lurches fractured. With that Crane was done; the strength to pull himself up, to lift his chest, the strength to breathe gone.

The Seaview continued to settle into trim. The Admiral saw that Crane, consciousness almost gone, was still suspended even though the boat is levelling and he could begin to get purchase for his feet. But Crane had stopped struggling and was stifling. It would be catastrophic, with Morton taking action, after kicking off Messer, and after all he had survived for Crane to suffocate now. Thinking quickly, Nelson called out in his loudest, most commanding, angry and authoritative naval voice, "Captain Crane! On your feet! On the double … "

Through heavy darkness that was quickly overcoming his consciousness, clouding and dulling his senses, Crane still heard. Heard as though muffled and from a great distance his commanding officer's voice yelling an order. Angry. His mind cringed; he had failed the Admiral. Overwhelmed by that shame, his mind told him he deserved that anger. Distantly he heard Nelson still barking out the same direct order.

" … Captain Crane! Stand up!"

This order seemed so far away, remote. It couldn't be done, but it named him. Something pressed him insistently to act, to fulfill it. Naval training required this discipline. He had lost himself at the edge of death, listening for the first note of that alluring, inescapable, siren song. The Admiral's voice reached him instead, commanding he turn from that fearsome end and obey. In a faltering scrabble, Crane got his feet under himself as the deck finished levelling out. But just as his legs started to bear him up, the boat rolled, just slightly, and in desperate weakness he stumbled and sagged.

Nelson was frantic. It had to be now or it would be too late. He urgently ordered again in that angry commanding voice, willing it to be forceful, compelling, obeyed, "Captain Crane! Stand up! Now!"

Crane answering to discipline only now, all other reasoning or caring was gone, somehow found the grit to stand for his Admiral. Some weight was off his arms. Drawing a life-giving breath with the last of his will he answered, but so faintly no one could hear, more a movement of the lips than of the vocal cords, giving the correct response to the order. "Aye, sir."

Breathing was stabbing pain but he gasped for air, for life. He sucked in life despite the racking torment. He stood. Unsteady, swaying, he stood, tensing his right arm to control the agonizing movement as much as he could.

Nelson saw and heard Crane gasping in each breath of air, and felt some faint hope. Crane wasn't dead yet. Each breath the Captain took was a new reprieve, each buying a few more seconds of life, if only Morton could get help to him in time.

Nelson heard a commotion at the hatch, but he couldn't take his eyes off Lee. He watched each breath in an agony of fear, his own breathing mirroring Lee's. Seeing the stain broadening terrifyingly on Crane's shirt the Admiral willed Lee to stay on his feet despite the blood loss so the air could get down into his lungs. Every breath keeping body and soul together, while the men of the detail flung the hatch open and rushed into the compartment.

Out in the passageway the men stationed there had been checking their watches intently, knowing they had only three minutes to get to the officers and more that two had already gone by. The first group of four men entered, took on the intruders subduing and cuffing them. They called out loudly, "Clear." Kowalski and Riley heard the call, and as arranged, entered next and ran to the Skipper who was swaying on his feet, eyes half closed, instinctively using his bound right arm to stabilize his stance.

The Captain was adrift; all strength, purpose, and hope of his own beaten from him. Only his Admiral's last order held him upright.

Kowalski stepped up close to the Skipper, appalled at what he saw, but intuitively knowing to speak, to tell the man on the brink, lost in deadly shock and a labyrinth of pain, the way home. He spoke in a reassuring, calm, measured tone completely at odds with his pounding heart and the intense urgency he felt. "Skipper, it's Kowalski, I am going to stand behind you and put my arms under yours, sir, to support you while Riley unties your hands." Kowalski stepped behind the Skipper. His shocked mind blocked comprehension of what he saw there. He braced the Skipper and directed Riley, "Do his left hand first, he's favouring it. Let it down real easy. Careful, careful now."

Riley cut the bonds with haste and with both of his own arms and hands disentangled and supported the Skipper's arm with unaccustomed, attentive, gentleness as he lowered it down. The Skipper moaned. Hearing this, Riley spontaneously exclaimed in contrition, as if his care had been wanting. Then he sprang over to the Skipper's right arm and in frantic speed but with exquisite care cut it free and lowered it gently down.

The freeing of the arm he had been stabilizing with, along with Kowalski's steady support and reassuring words, prompted Crane to give way. His battered muscles called it quits. He had nothing left, vigour bled away like his lifeblood. He dropped limp into Kowalski's arms. Trust if ever there was, assured Ski would catch and hold his battered body safe. Kowalski, suddenly burdened with the Skipper's full weight, staggered but held him fast while he continued to calmly tell the man what was going on. "Easy, Skipper, we won't let you fall. We're going to lay you down on the deck, sir. Easy does it, don't worry, Skipper, we've got you. We'll put you down gently, sir." Together the men lowered him to the deck, carefully trying to give him ease.

* The Traitor