Excerpt: The Tigerfish Mutiny

The Captain went to an intercom near the engine room hatch. "This is the Captain! Now hear this! Blow ballast tanks one, two and four. But not three. I repeat. Blow balast tanks one, two and four."
A tinny voice answered: "Blow tanks one, two and four. Confirmation?"
"Confirmation? What the hell are you talking about? This is the Captain! Blow those tanks!"
"How do I know you're really the Captain? I mean, your voice sounds all tinny."
"Everyone's voice sounds tinny over this intercom, you twit! Blow the tanks!"
There was an extremely long pause. Well, it wasn't really all that long, but when you're five minutes from suffocating, any pause seems long.
There was a whoosh of compressed air. And the sound of rushing water. A cry of triumph went up.
"Shh! Don't cheer just yet, men. We ain't out of the woods," the Captain said.
Just then, there was a series of groaning, moaning, tearing and ripping sounds. The boat sounded as though it was tearing itself apart.
"I have a bad feelin about this," the engineer said.
"Nonsense! That's just the boat freeing herself from the muddy bottom," the Captain said.
Just then, a huge jet of water burst through a pipe valve.
"Holy crap!" The engineer was suddenly wide awake.
"The boat's moving!" The Captain got on the intercom again. "What's our depth?"
"Five hundred feet. . . three fifty. She's rising sir!"
The engineer looked grave. "But not for long if we don't get that leak plugged. The extra weight from the water will sink us sure. And for good, this time."
"Well, don't just stand there!" The Captain was getting agitated again.
A swarm of men armed with wrenches, tourniquets, wadding, clothing, canvas and what looked like huge wads of chewing gum, covered the pipe like the proverbial flies on excrement.
For several minutes, it looked as though the gushing would not stop. The boat hovered at 325 feet, then gradually the leak gushed less. With the addition of a final wad of chewing gum, the leak was stopped.
A bailing crew was ordered to flush out the considerable volume of water. At the same time, the air was becoming increasingly foul.
"Rebreathers!" Billy Bob shouted.
"We don't have enough for everyone!" someone shouted.
"Then give'em to essential personnel only! Hop to it!"
The masks were duly distributed. The teams worked on. Fifteen minutes later, the water was flushed out the toilet system. Billy Bob jury-rigged a toilet and they pumped all the water away.
With the several hundred pounds of water flushed away, the lightened boat began her slow ascent. Billy Bob belayed the scattered cheers.
"We ain't on the surface yet. Even surfaced, the boat could belly over and overflow the hatch. Get liferafts ready! If we do surface, we'd best be ready to abandon ship."
By this time, the Captain had regained the control room and was overseeing the ascent. He suppressed the urge to jump on the nearest table and dance when the depth gauge reached 60 feet.
"Periscope depth," a sailor recited.
The exec counted off the final feet. "Fifty feet, Captain. Now passing 45. . .40. . .--"
"Will you belay that!" the Captain said. "I can see the gauge, for pity's sake."
"But the crew--"
"I'll announce it to the crew when we're on the surface--"
The Captain suddenly was thrown violently across the room.
"Surface!" somebody said.
The ship rocked, yawed and rolled. Everyone who could grabbed a piece of anything stable.
"Captain, weather report says there's a full-blown typhoon outside."