Shadow Divers (40 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AN AUDACIOUS PLAN

C
HATTERTON’S FINAL PLAN
for the
U-Who
was audacious and lethal. He would swim into the diesel motor room with just a single tank on his back, not the customary two. He would then remove that tank and hold it in front of him—much as a child holds a kickboard when learning to swim—and push it through the narrow opening between the fallen fuel tank and the U-boat’s ceiling. Once on the other side of the diesel motor room, he would reattach the tank to his back and swim into the adjoining electric motor room, where he hoped to find identifying tags attached to boxes of spare parts. After recovering the bounty, he would swim back into the diesel motor room, pass it over the top to Kohler, again remove his single trimix tank, and slither back out the way he had come in. Only by carrying a single tank of trimix—and then taking it off—did Chatterton believe a diver could pass over the fuel tank that blocked nearly every inch of space between the electric motor room and the rest of the
U-Who.

The plan’s dangers were encyclopedic, a textbook on how to get killed inside a shipwreck. With just a single tank to breathe, Chatterton would have only twenty minutes on the other side of the obstruction.

“Forget it,” Kohler said by phone on the evening Chatterton revealed the plan. “That is the single most insane plan I have ever heard in my life. I’m not watching you die. I’m not participating in your suicide.”

“This is vision,” Chatterton said. “This can work.”

“This is lunacy,” Kohler said.

Kohler found a notebook and began scribbling a list of risks. Most of them ended with the phrase “then John runs out of gas and drowns.” The list read like this:

—  Chatterton could become entangled—in wire, pipes, fittings, fixtures, bent metal, anything.

—  Chatterton could be pinned under falling debris.

—  A piece of machinery could fall and block Chatterton’s exit.

—  Relying on a single gas supply eliminates the safety of redundancy—if a high-pressure hose or O-ring fails, Chatterton loses his sole breathing source.

—  The dive’s high risk will almost certainly cause Chatterton to breathe harder than usual, meaning he will burn through his already limited gas supply even faster.

—  The electric motor room will be packed with cables, wires, and machinery no diver has seen before, meaning that Chatterton will not have his usual chance to mentally diagram the room’s layout.

—  There is no way out the other end of the electric motor room, as its aft end has been crushed downward.

—  The water inside the electric motor room, undisturbed by divers or the ocean, has been stagnant for fifty years. Chatterton’s activity inside the compartment will disturb the dusty brown silt and reduce the visibility to zero.

—  Chatterton’s bubbles could disturb fuel or lubrication oil floating on the compartment’s ceiling, clouding his mask, blinding him, and seeping into his mouth.

“Any one of these can kill you,” Kohler said. “But you’ll be lucky if only one of them happens. More likely, a bunch of them will gang up on you and kill you even faster. And don’t forget maybe the biggest danger, John.”

“What’s that?”

“You will be alone inside that compartment. Even if I agreed to this outrageous plan, even if I waited for you on the other side of that obstruction, I can’t help you once you get into trouble. I can’t take my tanks off. I’ve got kids. I have mouths to feed. The most I can do is peer over that fuel tank and watch you drown.”

“We can’t stop now,” Chatterton said. “I have a plan. This is why I dive, Richie. This is the art.”

“It’s too goddamned dangerous.”

“I need you with me.”

“I’m bailing on this, John. I’m out.”

The divers hung up. Word spread throughout the local diving community about Chatterton’s plan. There were two schools of thought. Chatterton’s friends, including John Yurga and Danny Crowell, pronounced Chatterton “out of his fucking mind.” Those who knew him only in passing were more liberal: “If he wants to kill himself, let him,” they said.

For three days, Chatterton and Kohler did not speak. Kohler envisioned the dive from a thousand angles and it always ended up the same—with Chatterton slumped over drowned or pinned under some piece of fallen steel, Kohler helpless to move through the crack to save him. But he also found himself imagining another scene, this one of his first dive to the
U-Who.
While hanging underwater, he had been overcome with joy at the sight of Chatterton’s mesh bag filled with china, and had reached instinctively to take a closer look. Chatterton had snatched the bag away—the men did not like each other then, did not like what the other represented. For a moment there had been a standoff. Then Chatterton had seemed to look into Kohler’s heart. A few seconds later he’d offered his bag to Kohler.

Kohler called Chatterton.

“John, I’m scared to death for you,” Kohler said. “But we’re partners. I’m not going to bail on you now.”

“We are partners, Richie,” Chatterton replied. “Let’s do this.”

The first attempt was scheduled for August 17, 1997. Chatterton spent the weeks leading up to the mission rehearsing his moves in his office, in his garage, in line at the grocery store, a combination mime and ballerina practicing for a recital in which a single misstep would mean death. By this time, his divorce was nearly final. In 1991, when he’d discovered the
U-Who,
he had believed his marriage would last forever. Now Kathy did not even know of this daring plan for the U-boat. Some nights, he mourned the marriage so deeply he found himself unable to move. At those times, he told himself, “I must put everything out of my mind for this dive. I must focus absolutely. If I don’t, if I’m the slightest bit distracted, I won’t come back.”

On August 17, Chatterton, Kohler, and five other top wreck divers boarded the
Seeker
and set sail for the
U-Who.
No one said much during the trip. In the morning, Chatterton reviewed his plan with Kohler. He would use the first dive as a trial run to get a feel for taking off his tank, investigating the accessibility of the electric motor room, and learning the layout of the compartment. Kohler would hover near the top of the fallen fuel-tank obstruction, shining his flashlight as a beacon and waiting to take any artifacts Chatterton might pass through.

“Let’s make a three-of-anything plan,” Chatterton told Kohler as he pulled on his fins. “If I bang my hammer three times or flash my light three times or do anything three times, it means I’m in trouble.”

“Okay, it means you’re in trouble,” Kohler replied. “I still can’t squeeze through that crack in the top to help you. So three of anything basically means you’re dead.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Forget it.”

A few minutes later, Chatterton and Kohler were in the water. In total, Chatterton carried three gas tanks—the one he would breathe inside the electric motor room, plus two stage bottles for his trip down to the wreck and back. As the divers reached the
U-Who,
Chatterton placed his stage bottles on top of the wreck and began breathing from his primary tank.

The divers swam toward the fallen fuel tank that blocked much of the diesel motor room and the adjoining electric motor room. Chatterton removed the tank from his back and held it in front of him. Kohler ascended toward the gap between the fuel tank and the ceiling, through which Chatterton would pass. Chatterton kicked his fins and began gliding up and forward. He was now just a few feet away from pushing his tank through the gap and igniting this crazy plan, but he still had a moment to dip his shoulder and turn back, to U-turn on this mystery he had all but solved already. He never stopped kicking. A few seconds later, he pushed his tank through the gap—vigilant not to let it slip—and then sardined through himself. On the other side of the diesel motor room, he slung the tank onto his back. No diver had ever been in this part of the
U-Who.
He began to explore.

The path to the electric motor room was clear. Chatterton swam to the rectangular hatch that led into the compartment and passed through it. He was now floating inside the electric motor room, the place he and Kohler believed held proof of the wreck’s identity. Chatterton felt six years of mystery pushing him farther inside. He talked that instinct down. He had done well enough on this trial run. He had ten minutes of gas remaining. He would use it to become accustomed to leaving these compartments. He swam back up to the fallen fuel tank in the diesel motor room and again removed his tank. A few seconds later, he pushed the tank and himself back through the opening near the ceiling and landed on the other side. From there, he reattached the tank, glided to where his stage bottles lay atop the wreck, and switched regulators. He now had plenty of gas with which to do his decompression. Kohler shook his head in amazement. Chatterton had made a near-perfect trial run.

Bad weather blew out the day’s second dive. The next trip was scheduled for August 24, 1997. Kohler’s nerves settled a bit in the intervening week. If Chatterton could replicate his trial dive, he thought, the S.O.B. might just be able to pull off this so-called vision.

The plan would be the same as on the first trip, with a single exception: Kohler would pass Chatterton a video camera once he got past the obstruction and reaffixed his tank. Chatterton would thus be able to videotape the compartments for future study, if necessary.

As before, Chatterton’s tank maneuvering was seamless. The video camera he had taken from Kohler, however, would not work. Frustrated, he swam to the top of the compartment to hand it back through the gap to Kohler. By now, however, he had reaffixed the tank to his back, and he found that the equipment made him slightly too bulky to reach the gap. Chatterton spotted a massive steel beam near the ceiling, a piece he could use to pull himself closer to Kohler. He grabbed the beam and pulled. The steel shook for a moment, then gave way, crashing into Chatterton’s lap and hurling him against one of the diesel engines. His heart pounded. He ordered himself to control his breathing. He looked at the beam—its ends had lodged in the surrounding machinery. Chatterton slowly reached to remove the steel from his lap. Its weight was enormous, at least two hundred pounds out of water. Still, he managed to begin lifting it. His breathing rate increased. His gas supply dropped. He lifted harder. The beam moved just an inch before stopping cold, the mirror image of an amusement-park roller coaster restraint. Chatterton pushed harder. The gauges on his tank moved lower. The beam would not budge. Chatterton pushed with his legs to get free. He could not move. He was trapped.

Chatterton began to talk to himself.

“Panic is how guys die,” he thought. “Take thirty seconds. Take a little break. Collect yourself.”

Kohler looked into the gap. Silt had billowed everywhere. He could see nothing. He presumed Chatterton was going about his dive.

“Deal with this problem,” Chatterton told himself. “Guys die because they don’t take care of the first problem. Don’t let the snowball roll.”

Chatterton’s gas gauge crept downward.

“This thing got onto me,” he thought. “It’s just a matter of figuring the way it landed on me, then reversing the process. Stay calm. Don’t make more problems. Just reverse the process.”

Chatterton used his mind’s eye to replay the collapse of the beam. For five minutes, he gently tried to push the steel in the opposite direction. The object would not move. He continued to concentrate, replaying the accident in his mind over and over. Another five minutes passed. The object would not budge. Primal instincts raged in Chatterton’s head, begging him to thrash and flail and scream and lunge. He ordered his instincts to wait. He had five minutes of gas to breathe. He would watch more film.

With just a few minutes of gas remaining, Chatterton again reached to move the beam. There would be no more time for movies if this attempt failed. He pushed up and felt one end clank free. He pushed on the other end. The beam collapsed forward and pivoted away from his lap. Chatterton pushed himself off the diesel engine and swam swiftly but not wildly toward the gap near the ceiling. His gauge needle dipped farther into red. He removed his tank and pushed it through, then kicked his fins and wriggled out of the compartment. Kohler moved to join his partner, but he backed off when he saw Chatterton head directly for the tanks he had left on top of the wreck. A moment later, Chatterton had switched to one of his stage bottles. The gauge on his primary tank was near empty. He likely had exited the diesel motor room with less than a minute of air remaining.

Topside, Chatterton told the story. Danny Crowell, who had captained the boat that day, shook his head and turned to another diver.

“Any other diver in the world and we’re calling the Coast Guard for a body recovery,” he said.

Kohler turned white. He’d had no idea that Chatterton had experienced any trouble.

“Forget it,” Kohler said. “This is too dangerous. This whole plan was a big mistake. John, you gotta reconsider. This is really bad.”

“Let’s get that video camera working,” Chatterton said, reaching inside a cooler for a soda. “I’ll want to shoot lots of film on my second dive today.”

Kohler walked away.

“Crazy bastard,” he muttered.

A few hours later, Chatterton was back inside the diesel motor room, Kohler hovering outside and waiting again to be helpless. This time, the camera worked. Chatterton moved through the rectangular hatch that led into the electric motor room. A half century of silt exploded in clouds around him. Chatterton pointed the camera to where his research indicated the spare-parts boxes and their identifying tags should be—the camera could always see better than the human eye underwater. When the visibility fell to zero, Chatterton exited the electric motor room and swam back up toward Kohler, then passed him the camera. He removed his tank—a move with which he was becoming comfortable—and made his way out of the diesel motor room. He had not recovered any artifacts. He had almost lost his life on the first dive. But now he had video. Topside, as the divers undressed and the boat headed back to shore, he thanked Kohler for his support.