Lennox could see the hatches on the deck closing, and he could hear a dull metallic clanging from all over the boat. With the exception of the hatch from the bridge, which would be his responsibility to close, the boat should now be watertight.
"All hatches and watertight doors secured, Sir," the talker confirmed.
"Prepare to dive," Lennox ordered.
"Clear the bridge!"
"Prepare to dive," the talker repeated.
"Bridge being cleared."
"Dive!
"Lennox ordered "Dive! Dive! Dive! "the talker said, and dropped through the hatch. Lennox followed him, then closed the hatch after him.
The sound of the Klaxon hurt his ears.
"Take her to one hundred feet," the captain ordered, and put his hand out to steady himself as the bow of the Drum nosed downward.
Ten minutes later, the bow of the Drum broke the surface again.
The moment it did, Lennox started his stopwatch.
As soon as he was on the bridge, with water still spilling over the deck, he started issuing orders.
"Battle stations," he ordered.
The talker repeated the command, and the Klaxon went off.
"Man all cannon," Lennox ordered.
Submariners erupted from the hatches and went to the guns.
"All astern one-third," he ordered.
"Make her dead in the water."
The pitch of the just-started diesels changed.
It was time for another command, but there was nothing standard that Lennox could recall that fit the situation.
"Make all preparations to launch the rubber boats," he finally ordered.
As crewmen freed the rubber boats from the Bofors mount and handed them to crewmen on the deck, other crewmen emerged from other hatches.
The weapons and ammunition boxes were first placed on the deck in a line, then tied together with ten-foot lengths of line.
By the time the crewmen carrying the limp boats had reached the forward deck, others had air hoses waiting. It took what seemed like a long time for the boats to be inflated, and by the time they were, Whittaker, Hammersmith, and Radioman Second Joe Garvey had come onto the deck, wearing their gear, and were waiting.
The chief of the boat and the chief torpedoman put the rubber boat over the side themselves, lowering it with ropes until it touched the nearly horizontal section of the hull, then they jumped down onto it with ropes around their waists.
Then they pushed the boat off the hull into the water and raised their hands to help Whittaker from the deck to the sloping part of the hull and into the boat itself.
Whittaker jerked the starting rope of the outboard motor. When he had it running, he checked to see that the line tied to a grommet in the heavy black rubber was in place. Then he put the motor in gear, and the boat started off.
When the line tied to the grommet drew taut, crewmen slid the first of the two larger ammunition and weapons boxes (now wrapped with life preserver flotation packs) into the water, then skidded the line of small "film" boxes after it.
Then the process was repeated for the second boat, except that both Ham mersmith and Joe Garvey got into that one.