Page 25 of Twister

She was assigned to Neil as a partner, with Dagger and Twister acting as their protection. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to dive with David.

When she was ready, she donned her blue neoprene wet suit she used when diving in warm, shallow water. It was lighter and more comfortable than the thick rubbery suit that was needed when the water was cold or especially deep.

Sadie looked in the mirror and sighed. She loved her job—and was thankful thatKittiwakehad been repositioned from its resting place to this site and all its ordinances removed by their explosive ordnance disposal divers. She would be using an umbilical cord and a full-face mask, the same setup she used with her helmet with the same capabilities, including communication.

Sadie arrived at the platform just as Dagger was checking Neil’s equipment. Twister wasted no time and began checking her connections, and gauges, weights, and her hoses and tanks.

When he was done, Dagger did the same for him, and when the four of them were ready, they slipped to the dive deck and plunged into the ocean.

8

She dropped into her workplace,a cool, blue, barely mapped world filled with interest and danger. As the water closed over her head, she and the other divers started for the wreck, her mind on nothing else but the dive.

TheKittiwake, a Balao-class diesel-electric sub,loomed beneath them, once a fast-moving, sleek US Navy submarine, a state-of-the-art ship killer, hunting in these waters. The sub had an impressive kill rate, sinking Japanese merchant and warships alike without any fear of engagement, choking off delivery of vital supplies to the Empire of Japan, dealing a seventy-seven percent loss to their fleet.

But the sub had been taken out by a Japanese bomber going down with all eighty-five men on board—five officers and eighty enlisted. One of those young men had been her great-grandfather, Petty Officer Thomas Hampstead, a new husband and dad. Her grandmother had just been born.

Her family lived in Norfolk, Virginia. Her family’s commitment to Naval service continued when her great-grandfather served.

She and Neil were skilled and experienced divers, and so there was already a built-up sixth sense between them where body language was read as easily as a one-on-one conversation. She could sense that Dagger and Twister had the same kind of communication. Suddenly, she swam to Twister. Even though there was no conscious signal between them, she just knew there was something wrong. Dagger was just as in tune, but she beat him to the man who was as potent in the water as he was on land. She resisted that magnetic pull and kept her focus on the job they had to do.

When she faced him in the water, he nodded and pointed to the back of his tank. During the initial descent, a strap had loosened, and Sadie touched his shoulder, the neoprene of his suit spongey under her fingers, but the muscles beneath were as hard as steel. She located the strap and tightened it.

He gave her a nod when she looked at him for confirmation. She turned back to the first task at hand. Neil was filming, so she was free to take a visual view of the sunken sub.

It was clear that the crew never had a chance. The aft of the sub was missing. The depth charge had hit the engine room, consistent with the report from the Japanese bomber, who had noted that there was oil and bubbles in the water after the explosion. The blast blew open the tail section of the vessel, damaging the engines, propulsion system, ballast tanks, propellers, and the stern plane that was used to adjust the dive angle, including the balancing aft trim tank that worked in tandem with the fore trim tank to keep the sub horizontal in the water. With all of that gone, there was no way for the crew to stop the sub from nosing down into the ocean, although the watertight doors would have prevented flooding in the eight segregated compartments. The rest of the sub was untouched, simply resting on the bottom where the Navy had deposited her for easy access by its divers.

With the chaos inside, and the position of the crippled vessel, crewmen would have had a very difficult time getting to the escape hatch, and each second they sank deeper into the sea, hope of swimming free to reach the surface disappeared, dooming all hands.

A sharp, painful swell of sorrow filled her at the terror they all must have faced, her stomach twisting with a sickening sensation, an awful chill washing over her. Dying, trapped in their compartments, their last seconds experienced in the dark silence of the sea as air ran out.

Twister touched her shoulder when she didn’t move, effectively distracting her from the horror of those unsettling thoughts as she pushed the emotional ache away. Her great-grandfather, a handsome young man in a military uniform, only real to her in the grainy black and white photographs her great-grandmother, Amelia, kept in an old photo album, was lost to history, his death seventy-nine years in the past. But the way her great-grandmother talked about him was as fresh and impactful as the last day she’d seen her husband off to war.

But it was easy to think about him going about his duties as their chief radioman in the small, narrow communication station aft and directly behind the control room. She wanted to see every inch of this vessel where her great-grandfather had lived, worked, and died.

As they went deeper, she could make out the conning tower, soft corals stuck to the periscope tubes, the searchlight, targeting/bearing transmitters, and radar masts, all intact. A small school of fish swam past the forward long-range forty-millimeter Bofors autocannon. This model of sub also had two forty-millimeter short-range guns fore and aft of the conning tower, the aft barrel canted upward at a skewed angle. This truly was an aggressive war boat and had been instrumental in winning the fight against Japan’s formidable, and after PearlHarbor’s devastating sneak attack, almost uncontested armada in the Pacific.

TheKittiwakehad been constructed of an inner pressure hull, a tube that ran the length of the ship, sectioned into eight individually watertight compartments separated by reinforced barriers called bulkheads, each fitted with a special pressure-rated door. Wrapped around this core was an outer hull that housed tanks for fuel, ballast water, air, and other essential liquids and gases. A hollow superstructure was fitted to the length of the vessel as the main deck with a double long line of square openings called limber holes so water could flood or drain as needed.

Starting at the bow of the sub, the first compartment was the forward torpedo room, with the possibility of sixteen torpedoes, and was where a hatch was for the escape trunk with a ladder that allowed access to the bridge. The second compartment housed the officers’ quarters, the third compartment served as the control room with a radio room directly aft, and the fourth compartment housed the pump room used to control air, water, and fuel. That’s where her great-grandfather would have sat when he was working. From this compartment the crew accessed the conning tower, the main attack and navigation center for the ship, including double periscopes, one for observation and one for attack. A ladder led to a lookout platform outside the ship. The fifth compartment was the main crew area where they ate, slept, and engaged in recreational activities. This was where the main galley was housed. All the crew bunks and a ladder allowed access to the main deck. In the sixth compartment, the diesel-driven pistons generated all the power needed for the crew and the boat, and there was also a hatch to the outer deck. The motor room made up the seventh compartment with the maneuvering room for controlling allpropulsion for the sub, the eighth and final compartment housed the aft torpedo room.

Her heart squeezed when she saw the barely visible insignia on the side of the sail—an ocean-blue oval with an aggressive cat blowing fire from its nostrils.

ThiswastheKittiwake,where her great-grandfather had given his life for freedom. Bubbles rose from her mouthpiece in long, expanding reverse cascades as she swam down to the sub.

“We need to do a preliminary assessment of the hull,” Neil said.

“I’ll take the interior,” she responded immediately. She felt it was her duty and honor to be the first to enter the structure since it had sunk. They were always on the lookout, in this type of situation, for remains, personal effects that might have survived, and historical items. It was the Navy’s plan to take apart the sub and use any part of it that was salvageable for inclusion in their museum.

“Eager to see what’s inside?”

“Not exactly eager, more like awed and respectful of what happened here so long ago.”

“That’s what I like about you, Sadie. You’re so thoughtful and caring all the time. Hardly a harsh word for anyone.”

Aware that their communication was being recorded and listened to up top, Sadie said, “Thank you, Neil, but we better get to work before our shift ends. We only have so much time.”

“All right,” he said, subdued. “I’ll get to the hull, and you see if you can get inside.”

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