The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran by Beck Noah

Author:Beck, Noah [Beck, Noah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 2012-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23: An Accident by Enemy Waters

Ordinarily, a submariner works on his shift for eight hours a day, with 16 hours off for sleeping, eating, hygiene, studying new information or materials relevant to his department, conducting any repairs related to his duties, and relaxing with cards, movies, books, letter-writing or other activities. With a normal amount of work and relaxation, crewmembers typically sleep from five to eight hours in an average 24-hour period. But Boutrous had ended up working about 20 continuous hours. After finishing his shift as navigator, he had to help update the submarine’s maps and fix two different problems that arose at different times in the same 16-hour period when he was supposed to be off-duty: the echo sounder failed to obtain any readings and the GPS wasn’t receiving any signal. In some cases, the solution involved finding and changing a defective circuit board card, and, in other cases, there were software applications that had to be employed to repair and test the systems. Eitan, Boutrous, and the third seaman on the Dolphin’s navigation team worked around the clock to minimize the time that these mission-critical systems were down or performing unreliably. But even the fatigue that followed the extraordinarily long shift compelled by these additional chores was not enough to bring Boutrous any rest when he finally lay down in a bunk.

Notwithstanding his long and taxing day, for the first time ever, Boutrous had difficulty falling asleep on board. Despite what he had told his mother about how easily and soundly he slept on the submarine thanks to the exhausting work hours, this time his mind was too troubled to sleep. The grievous fate of the Leviathan haunted his thoughts, as he kept imagining what the scenario must have looked like. Because Boutrous had never met anyone from the Leviathan, each time he envisioned the disaster he actually saw himself and the rest of his crew on the sinking ship. Occasionally, he would also imagine Shmuli, the extra short sailor from Eitan’s “Life Vest” story – an anecdote that made Boutrous feel as if he actually knew one of the submariners who was killed. Circumstances conspired to exacerbate his wakefulness: after three hours of tossing and turning in the little borrowed bunk, and just as Boutrous had finally started to feel himself falling asleep, his commanding officer came by.

“Sorry, to wake you up for your shift so early,” Eitan said in a weak, whispering voice, gently tapping Boutrous and waiting for him to get oriented. “I threw up while navigating. Feeling very sick.” The most junior sailor on the boat rubbed his eyes a bit, looked at his watch, and saw that it was 0400 hours, two hours before his shift was supposed to start. Boutrous got out of the bed so that his officer could crawl into it.

“What’s wrong, Eitan?” he whispered, so as not to wake the other sleeping submariners nearby.

“Not sure…I was feeling nauseous the last few hours, and then I just couldn’t

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