He was getting too old for this. Submarining was a young man’s game. Maybe after this exercise, it was time for him to retire and find that nice warm beach on the Black Sea he had been promising himself and his long-suffering wife for so many years.

The sudden blast ripped the covers off Tschierschkey and flung him violently upward, into the bottom of the bunk above him. For a few seconds he was knocked senseless. Then the unmistakable roar and rush of seawater under pressure revived him.

It was a submariner’s worst nightmare: ice-cold seawater pouring in, the bilges already full, the boat sinking by the stern.

There was no time for panic. He pulled himself out of his bunk and fell hard against the after bulkhead.

Water was already waist deep, and bone-numbing cold.

Tschierschkey knew he had no hope of reaching the hatch and getting out of the compartment now. Even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to lift its massive weight to shut it all by himself.

The sailor didn’t have to ponder the situation. He was already a dead man. No retirement, no sitting on a beach on the Black Sea with his wife and children.

He would do what he had to do in order to save his boat.

Tschierschkey dove beneath the chilling water and fished around until he found the big red hydraulic handle that was mounted on the aft bulkhead. When his fingers located the handle, he yanked at it, but lost his grip as his cold, unfeeling fingers refused to obey the orders from his brain. He tried again, jerking it upward, forcing hydraulic oil into the piston for the emergency closure system.

The hatch slammed shut.

Rudi Tschierschkey floated there and waited as the compartment filled with water. Tears blended with the inrushing seawater as he thought of his wife, of his two boys, of the warm sand on the Black Sea beach that he would never feel beneath his feet.

The sudden explosion threw Sergei Andropoyov to the deck and slammed Pishkovski into the depth control station. The commander lay stunned and horrified for a moment as he felt the stern of his new sub begin to sink lower. He could see the depth gauge as his boat rapidly slid down into the depths.

Pishkovski was unconscious, slumped over, his body caught on some piping. Bright red blood streamed down from a gash on the first officer’s head, dripping onto the slanting deck.

Andropoyov pushed himself erect and climbed over to the main propulsion control station. He did his best to cling to stanchions and pipes to keep from being slammed against the after bulkhead.

The michman who should have been sitting at the propulsion control panel was gone. Andropoyov spotted his limp form resting against the after bulkhead, where the blast had tossed him.