Blue Fish: The War Beneath Read Online Free PDF Page B

compartments."
    "At least we have destroyed our enemy," I raised my voice.
    "Nobody will speak about it. This act will never get acknowledged by higher authorities. The attack you are proud of will never make it into the books of Indian history."
    "Sir we should do something now before it's too late," said Prathap.
    "The only way is to wait for a search party," I said.
    "It will be too late for us to survive. By then we will run out of oxygen in the compartment," Kamal said in an exasperated way.
    Kamal had a plan to escape. His idea was to get into the torpedo tubes and escape through it. I said no to it. If we did so, then the possibilities of rescuing any survivors were low. Even this compartment will be filled with water. I did not want to take any chances on this. I felt that we shouldn't be thinking about our lives, but the plan should be to look for any survivors in 'S21'.
    "I will stay here and will try to check if anybody is alive out there. Do you want to leave and go? Then you all can escape through the torpedo tubes. I will pull this lever and you all can escape one by one," I said.
    "You want to stay here – for how long? Or search for survivors for how long?" Kamal said.
    "I don't know."
    Everybody was visibly angry with me. We had a chance to escape but I chose to instead stay in there and search for other survivors. I walked to the side and sat on top of one of the torpedoes.
    Prathap got angry, he rushed towards the intercom and tried to reach the other compartment but silence was the answer again because intercom needed electricity to function. So Prathap tried his luck with the telephone, but to no avail.
    Taan Singh smiled, which cheered the rest of us up as well. We were all resting and were waiting for a miracle that would get us out of this rut.
    And suddenly, the lights completely shut down. It was pitch dark and only our breathing could be heard. Taan Singh grabbed a torch.
    "Looks like we are all very tired," I said.
    "How I wish we could sleep for some time,” Prathap murmured like a tired child.
    "You can get some sleep, if you want."
    "Sir, are you sure that our accomplishment will never be acknowledged?"
    "Prathap, let’s not talk about this now.”
    "I just want to get out of here," Kamal despaired.
    We were all trying to divert our minds and were hoping to see a ray of hope.
    "How did you end up in the Navy, Prathap?" I said.
    "Nothing special, Sir. I was searching in dailies for employment and found this Navy Ad highlighted in big words ‘SERVE THE NATION’ and here I am."
    "What about you Taan Singh?"
    "Sir, my father served in Army, and I applied to the Navy," Taan Singh said.
    "I don’t see the link Taan Singh – what has your father being in army got to do with you getting into Navy?
    “It’s a long story. I used to make a lot of paper boats in my children. My father noticed my love for water, and I ended up here. But my son is in Army training school.”
    "How old is he?"
    "I am not sure Sir, I never asked him."
    "Do you miss him?" came an inquiry.
    "No Sir, my duty never gave me any time to miss my family" was an affirmative response from Taan Singh.
    "This is our 18th day inside. Now we get the time to talk about this. I wish someone in the other compartments are talking like this too.”
    "And I hope they don't forget where they are...," Kamal said in a disapproving tone.
    There was a sudden movement acted upon all of us. Our compartment shook a bit. This was apparently because of 'S21' getting buried into the seabed.
    Torch light on the walk path rolled and all of sudden, our compartment shuddered.
    "Hold tightly," I yelled out.
    Because of the impact one of the pipes burst, and this led to water flushing into our compartment.
    "Fix the pipe," I shouted.
    "We don't have the fixing tool. We need to get that from the other compartment," Taan Singh said.
    "But, where is the pipe's vault?"
    "It's behind that hatch, in the second compartment Sir."
    The water level was quickly