The Ship Is Sinking and no one Thought to Call Maintenance
“Will it be here soon?” I ask my guide.
He is a flawless man. His hair ends in a straight line above his collar. The creases in his trousers could cut paper. Even here, on the damp concrete beside the harbor, his shoes remain dry.
“Only a few minutes, Mr. Schafmann.”
My wife squeezes my arm. “Are you nervous?”
“Not at all.”
This is untrue, but she is too excited to notice. She has told everyone about the selection letter. Ten thousand applicants, one civilian passenger, seventy days beneath the Pacific aboard the newly commissioned USS Florida II. She has brought a camera and a bottle of champagne, though no one has provided glasses.
The harbor is calm until a broad patch of water begins to tremble. Waves divide. A black submarine rises bow first, streaming water from its hull.
It rises too far, lists to one side, corrects itself, and strikes the dock hard enough to shake the champagne from my wife’s hand.
Fireworks launch from tubes mounted along the deck. Three burst over the harbor in red and white. A fourth coughs smoke and remains lodged in its tube.
The guide applauds.
Several sailors appear on deck and applaud too.
“Congratulations, Mr. Schafmann!” one of them calls.
I am led across the gangway while my wife takes pictures. The sailors shake my hand. One has grease beneath his fingernails. Another is missing an eyebrow. They grin as though I have won something larger than a trip.
At the hatch, I turn to wave goodbye.
My wife blows kisses with both hands. “Have fun!” she calls. “Don’t worry about us!”
The guide waves beside her with equal enthusiasm.
I climb down.
Captain Benjamin Ailes waits at the bottom of the ladder in a white uniform yellowed beneath the arms. We stand face-to-face in a corridor too narrow for either of us to step aside.
“Welcome to the USS Florida II, Ohio-class nuclear submarine,” he says. “I am your captain.”
His breath smells of chewing tobacco. When he speaks, a small amount of spit lands on my cheek.
“Douglass Schafmann, reporting for duty, sir.”
“You are not reporting for duty.”
“No, sir.”
“You are our honored passenger.”
“Yes, sir.”
He stares at me, then smiles. “That’s the spirit.”
The main control room is crowded with men, pipes, gauges, and cans of food. The cans stand in rows along the floor: northern beans, barbecue pork, spinach, scalloped potatoes. I ask whether they are being inventoried.
“Storage issue,” Captain Ailes says. “Temporary.”
The rim of a can presses into my ankle as I watch him order the submarine away from port. The crew answers in practiced bursts. Numbers are repeated. Switches are thrown. Somewhere below us, metal strikes metal three times.
No one reacts.
The captain shows me the vessel.
The galley is smaller than my kitchen. The infirmary has one bed and two cabinets, one of which cannot be opened because a pipe has been installed across it. The torpedo room contains no torpedoes but several rolled carpets. My quarters are shared with the captain.
“You’ll take the lower bunk,” he says. “I’m rarely asleep.”
The mattress is five inches shorter than I am. When I sit, the frame squeals.
“Pressure changes,” he says.
I find a loose screw beneath the bunk and tighten it with my fingers.
“It should do for now,” I say.
The observation room is the pride of the Florida II. Long windows run along both sides, an innovation the captain claims required eleven years of research and the personal intervention of two senators.
“First of its kind,” he says. “Nice escape from the tube.”
Outside, the harbor water has gone green. Small fish scatter from the hull.
“You’ll want to come back when we’re deep. Exterior lights make quite a show.”
At dinner, the cook serves a hamburger, roasted vegetables, and french fries. The crew watches as I lift the hamburger. I assume this attention is ceremonial.
The center of the meat is green-gray and wet.
I gag and drop it.
One sailor laughs. The others wait for the captain.
“Preservation of fresh ingredients leaves something to be desired,” Captain Ailes says. “Quite common on these vessels.”
The cook replaces it with a frozen meal still cold in the middle. I eat the edges and return to my bunk.
Every time I turn, the frame squeaks.
At three in the morning, my wife’s photograph falls facedown from the shelf.
In the morning, the deck slopes toward the bow.
I place a marble on the floor. I carry one when I travel, a habit from childhood. It rolls beneath the captain’s locker.
“We’re sinking,” I tell him.
“We’re a submarine.”
“I understand that.”
“Then you understand the difficulty with your statement.”
He explains that we are conducting a controlled descent. The angle is slightly more aggressive than planned but well within the range of authentic undersea travel.
“Authentic?”
“You didn’t apply to sit in a hotel.”
He suggests the observation room.
The exterior lights flicker on. Two fail immediately. Beyond the windows, the water is blue-black. A fish with a pale mouth drifts into view, strikes the glass, and tumbles away.
The captain stands beside me with his hands behind his back.
“You won’t see that on a cruise ship,” he says.
On Day Four, the hot water fails.
On Day Six, the toilet in the forward compartment begins flushing continuously. The captain orders it welded shut.
On Day Nine, a chemical smell enters the ventilation system. The crew distributes damp towels and advises everyone to breathe normally through them.
Each morning a recorded voice plays over the loudspeakers.
“Congratulations, honored passenger. You are one day closer to the journey of a lifetime.”
The number of the day is never included.
On Day Twelve, we lose contact with the surface.
“Routine communications shadow,” the captain says.
On Day Eighteen, the floor is level again. I retrieve my marble and set it on the shelf beside my wife’s photograph, which I have not turned upright.
The captain assures me that leveling is good.
On Day Twenty, the floor tilts toward the stern.
The captain assures me that change is good.
I begin keeping a list of repairs on the back pages of the passenger pamphlet.
Observation light three.
Observation light six.
Forward toilet.
Hot-water system.
Galley refrigerator.
Ventilation leak.
Radio.
Bunk screw.
The list becomes difficult to maintain because the pens disappear. The crew uses them to wedge open valves.
On Day Thirty-One, I ask to see the maintenance officer.
Captain Ailes leads me to a narrow compartment beside the engine room. A brass plate on the door reads MAINTENANCE. Inside are two broken chairs, a mop bucket, and a sailor sleeping beneath a silver emergency blanket.
“This is Ensign Calder,” the captain says.
The sailor opens one eye.
“Mr. Schafmann has concerns.”
“Put them on the list,” Calder says.
“I have a list.”
“Then you’re ahead of us.”
He closes his eye.
The captain explains that the Florida II was commissioned before the final maintenance budget was approved. This is not unusual. Major systems receive priority. Cosmetic systems are repaired when convenient.
“Which systems are major?” I ask.
“The ones still working.”
On Day Forty-Three, cans are removed from the floor and placed under machinery to catch leaks. We begin eating the cans nearest the walls.
Most have lost their labels.
On Day Fifty, we hear something strike the hull.
It begins at the bow and travels slowly along the starboard side, a dragging pressure followed by a sequence of taps. The crew stops speaking. The sound reaches the observation room and pauses there.
Three taps.
Then three more.
Captain Ailes orders the exterior lights turned off.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Whales.”
“Do whales tap?”
“These waters are poorly documented.”
The dragging resumes and disappears toward the stern.
That night, the recorded voice congratulates me twice.
On Day Sixty, the captain announces that we have begun our return to port.
The deck is angled downward.
On Day Sixty-Five, the angle increases.
On Day Seventy, no one mentions the end of my voyage.
The crew eats twice a day, then once. The air grows warm and tastes of metal. Power fails in sections. The observation room goes dark. A sailor breaks the glass over an emergency flashlight and discovers the compartment is empty.
There are three flashlights onboard and fourteen crates of batteries that fit none of them.
The captain says this is a procurement issue.
On Day Seventy-Three, Jensen is assigned to guard the food.
During the night, we hear cans opening in the galley. Then another. Then another.
The crew drags Jensen into the control room. He has beans on his shirt and pork grease around his mouth. Captain Ailes asks him to explain himself.
Jensen begins to cry.
I return to my quarters and lock the door.
The shouting lasts eight minutes. The silence afterward lasts longer.
Someone scrubs the floor outside my room.
The next meal contains meat.
No one identifies it.
I do not eat.
The submarine settles with a deep, final groan. My marble stops moving. Somewhere far below, the engines wind down one by one.
For the first time since we left harbor, the vessel is still.
Captain Ailes knocks on my door.
“Douglass,” he says. “Open up.”
I do not answer.
“We have leveled out.”
The handle moves.
“The oxygen recycler is functional. Rescue will arrive within days.”
“How will they know where we are?”
A pause.
“Open the door.”
I hold the marble in my fist.
He knocks again, softer. “I don’t want to be alone.”
I open the door.
The captain carries one of the flashlights. Blood has dried in the creases beside his mouth. His uniform is open at the throat. Behind him, the corridor is black.
“We’re suspended,” he says. “Perfectly suspended.”
He steps inside.
“What did we land on?” I ask.
“We didn’t land.”
Something taps against the hull.
Three times.
The captain turns toward the sound.
I grip his hair and drive his forehead into the steel door. Once. Twice. On the third strike, the flashlight falls and rolls beneath the bunk. He collapses without a word.
I lock the door and sit on the lower mattress.
The frame squeaks.
Outside, something drags itself slowly along the submarine. The recorded voice returns through the speaker above my bed, stretched and faint.
“Congratulations, honored passenger.”
The bunk squeaks again.
I reach underneath and tighten the loose screw.
It should do for now.
