Blue Fish: The War Beneath Read Online Free PDF

more torpedoes towards us. Sharma, knowing this changed the path of 'S21' like earlier. We were sure that the enemy torpedo will not hit us under Sharma's planning.
    But this time the situation worsened.
    "Sir we are in the mid of underwater hills," Ramana said.
    It was certainly bad news for us. "Underwater hills!! Crew - prepare to close all compartment hatches. Make emergency rise 100 meters," Sharma ordered.
    Suddenly, we heard a huge blast.
    "We destroyed our enemy Sir." Ramana reported proudly.
    There was a clear sense of pride among all of us. We could figure out that the enemy was destroyed. But they were still behind us. It was still pursuing 'S21' and we were still at peril.
    Sharma ordered for us to go full speed ahead, 'S21' thus recorded a quick ascent in its trajectory. As a result, the enemy’s torpedo was blasted just a few inches away.
    Prathap, Kamal, Taan Singh and I were in the first compartment. We were neither rejoicing nor were we scared about the aftermath of this mission.
    It was all over, for a moment I thought, but I was wrong. We were still in the midst of the hills. Before Sharma or Mann Vijay Singh or Ramana could figure it out, 'S21' hit a giant underwater hill. It had a tremendous impact. I quickly went to the hatch of the first compartment, looked at Sharma and other officers were falling down in the third compartment - I fastened the hatch.

THE FOUR OF US
    'S21' lost its momentum and was sliding down the underwater hill at a high speed.
    The four of us were holding on tightly to the walls of the compartment. It struck me that we were in an enormous amount of danger, because of the catastrophic damage to ‘S21’ amidst underwater hills. The worst part was that there was no amount of human effort that could’ve saved us.
    We had experienced a great fall. Accidents take mere seconds to occur, but their impacts last forever. We still didn’t know the impact of this fall.
    'S21' came to a standstill. We knew that we were stuck.
    I looked up, and a strange silence enveloped us.
    I rushed towards the hatch to open it. I tried to turn the latch, but it wouldn’t turn. It was stuck because there was apparently an airlock in the compartment.
    Water finally found its way into our submarine and not quietly. It was terrifying. When Nature’s agitated, there won’t be much for us humans to do about it. So even we couldn’t do much about it. The water was gushing in from every place possible, and all our efforts to open the hatch were in vain. All the electric circuits slowly started to dilapidate and that snatched away the light in the compartment. Within minutes, we were scared for our lives and for the rest of the crew.
    "Try to contact the control room," Kamal shouted.
    "Yes Sir," Prathap said and he went to the intercom. He tried to contact the control room, he repeatedly tried contacting the control room but to no avail.
    "It seems like water has filled up the other compartments," Kamal said, worried.
    "Sir, I don't think anybody is alive out there," Prathap despaired.
    "There should be somebody alive in other compartments," I was hopeful.
    "What shall we do?" Prathap said.
    "It's too late to do anything now. Had anybody taken my advice seriously, we wouldn't have been in this situation. Darn it!" Kamal said.
    "Had we chosen to follow your initial advice, then the enemy would have attacked the Vishakhapatnam port and hundreds of fisher men would have been dead by now," I said.
    "There would have been forces stopping the enemy from attacking us."
    "Like?"
    "It's up to the government to think about it. Why should we be here? We had orders of being in Passive mode - not to attack but to locate the enemy activity and report it. But we chose to be on active mode. We never had the authority to attack."
    "I don't know about the authorities but I am proud that we have destroyed our enemy submarine."
    "And this is the outcome. We are trapped and not sure if anybody is alive in other