The torpedo from the Cherub had ripped a hole through the Nausicaa ’s electric motor room, flooding the rear compartments and turning the submarine on end.
Deker and von Berg managed to climb into the forward torpedo room and shut the hatch, sealing themselves off from the rest of the ship but not the water, which already swirled around their knees.
Deker could feel the blood pumping out of his shoulder. He applied more pressure with his other hand as he leaned against the vertical floor. That was when he saw the Flammenschwert device for the first time. The atomic bomb stood upright before his eyes and was in danger of slipping off its chains.
Von Berg was laughing. “We share the same tomb,” he said, a twisted smile crossing his agonized face. “The German and the Greek, the Nazi and the American, we all die.”
Deker didn’t reply. The water was up to his waist, and the Nausicaa ’s cracked hull was beginning to collapse like a tin can under the tremendous pressure. He searched for a way of escape.
“It’s no use,” von Berg said. “We’re trapped. This is your grave, and you share it with me. There’s no escape.”
Deker considered the four circular hatches above his head, the doors to the torpedo tubes. “How do I launch the torpedo tubes?”
“I must say, you’re full of ideas, Herr Andros,” von Berg replied, then started coughing up blood. “Unfortunately, the tubes are fired on the captain’s order from controls in the conning tower.”
“I suppose these manual controls are completely useless?”
“A precaution against electrical failure, that’s all.”
“So if I push this button…”
“I wouldn’t, Herr Andros.”
Deker pressed the button. It released a charge of compressed air that ejected the torpedo out of the tube and into the water.
Deker said, “And you said it wouldn’t work, von Berg.”
The submarine pitched violently, and Deker was thrown against the bulkhead by the shifting water.
“I told you,” said von Berg. “Without a diving officer in the control room, there’s no way to compensate for the weight change.”
Deker reached up and twisted the black handle until the torpedo hatch dropped open. More water poured in on their heads from the flooded tube. Then it stopped, and Deker hoisted himself inside.
“Crawl into your little tomb, Andros,” von Berg called out after him. “Another minute won’t save you from death. I’ll still be waiting for you on the other side.”
As he climbed into the tube, Deker could hear von Berg’s hideous, rasping laugh. It was all he could do to keep from slipping down the sides of the slick tube back into the compartment of water below him. He glanced down at von Berg’s bloody face before he pulled up the hatch, locking himself in a vacuum of darkness.
There was only silence in the tube, silence from the water, but it was black, and he had a little air left as he felt the whole sub sinking. He would get a proper burial at sea, at least, just like his forefathers.
The water rose slowly to his eyes, forcing him to lift his chin above the surface to breathe. Not a sound from the torpedo room below. Von Berg must be dead by now, but that thought did him little good. It would be only seconds before the salt water would swirl down his own throat and his body would sink like a lead weight.
And now he was choking on the water, coughing it up only to swallow more. He could feel the water filling up his lungs, could feel himself losing air and consciousness. As he sank to the bottom of the torpedo tube and the darkness overcame him, the last image of life that flickered in his mind was that of Aphrodite’s sad face watching him die.
And then he felt a blast of compressed air beneath his feet and he was shooting up through a dark tunnel, as if in a dream. At the end of it was a light, a wonderful light, and for a brief, flickering moment, he saw his mother’s face, and then everything faded to black.