When Rita finished, Claude said, “I wondered what the hell—? I wanted to help subdue him, but Pete shoved the lamp into my hand and pushed me out of the way. I suddenly feel as old as I am.”
“You’re not even sixty.”
“Then I feel older than I am.”
She said, “We’re going to continue the descent. I’ll take that lamp back to Pete.”
“Is he all right?”
“Yes. Just a bloody nose when the mask was pulled up over his head. He’ll make it.”
“Something’s wrong with George.”
“Shock, I think. Harry’s explaining to him about Roger.”
“You’ve got tears on your cheeks,” Claude said.
“I know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Harry’s alive.”
11:39
As he followed Claude Jobert down the wire once more, Franz thought about what he would say to Rita if they reached the other side of midnight.
You handled yourself well. You’re amazing. You know, I once loved you. Hell, I still do. I never got over you. And I learned a lot from you, whether it was ever apparent or not. Oh, I’m still an asshole, yes, I admit it, but I’m slowly growing up. Old attitudes die hard. I’ve been acting like a total idiot these past months, quarrelsome with Harry and distant with you. But that’s finished. We can never be lovers again. I see what you and Harry have together, and it’s unique, more than you and I ever had or ever could have. But I’d like to be friends.
He hoped to God he lived to say all that.
11:40
Brian swam down along the wire.
He wasn’t worried much about the ticking bombs overhead. He was increasingly convinced that he and the others would reach the submarine and survive the explosions. In the throes of the obsession about which Rita had warned him, he was worried instead about the book that he intended to write.
The theme would definitely be heroism. He had come to see that there were two basic forms of it. Heroism that was sought, as when a man climbed a mountain or challenged an angry bull in one of Madrid’s rings—because a man had to know his limits, heroism sought was important. It was far less valuable, however, than heroism unsought. Harry, Rita, and the others had put their lives on the line in their jobs because they believed that what they were doing would contribute to the betterment of the human condition, not because they wanted to test themselves. Yet, although they would deny it, they were heroes every day of the week. They were heroes in the way that cops and firemen were heroes, in the way that millions of mothers and fathers were quiet heroes for taking on the ominous responsibilities of supporting families and raising children to be good citizens, the way ministers were heroes to dare talk of God in a world that had come to doubt His existence and to mock those who still believed, the way many teachers were heroes when they went into schools racked by violence and nevertheless tried to teach kids what they would need to know to survive in a world that had no mercy for the uneducated. The first brand of heroism—heroism sought—had a distinct quality of selfishness, but heroism unsought was selfless. Brian understood now that it was this unsought heroism, not the tinsel glory of either politics or bullrings, that was the truest courage and the deepest virtue. When he had finished writing the book, when he had worked out all his thoughts on the subject, he would be ready to begin his adult life at last. And he was determined that quiet heroism would be the theme.
11:41
The technician looked up from the surface-fathometer graph. “They’re moving again.”
“Coming down?” Gorov asked.
“Yes, sir.”
The squawk box brought them the voice of the petty officer in the forward torpedo room. It contained a new note of urgency.
Taking the neck of the overhead microphone as gingerly as if he were handling a snake, Gorov said, “Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a lot more than a couple ounces of water on the deck now, Captain. Looks like a liter or two. The forward bulkhead is sweating all the way from overhead to deck.”