There are two channels that cut under a ship. One fore and aft. They're called Cross flooders or Cross flooding passageways as the correct term goes. These could fill with water as ballast or discharge or flood entire compartments port & starboard. A little over a foot high in the narrowest straight and flanging to a foot and a half at the ends. Summoning me was not unusual in my division. It was not because I had any great knowledge, however, I did possess a knowledge of fear and how to manage it in certain circumstances. I've often thought this was a virtue, and it may well be, but, it could also be plain stupidity if I studied it. Being a thinker and waiter were not in me. With a knowledge of the lesser known functioning parts of the ship and a body of small stature with sufficient strength, I went down to the fifth or sixth deck where the steel covers for the screw shafts were located, one in storeroom "P" and the other in storeroom "O". These shaft covers were approximately six or seven feet in diameter and it felt like you were climbing onto an elephant's back when you slid over one. I went over the steel cover and down lower yet into a small space the size of a void, where I could climb in to the passage upside down, so entering would be head first. A small flashlight held in my mouth and a rope around my ankle were my support in case of problems. I had previously had the pleasure of this experience due to low ranking status and the ability of being able to swing a paint brush. Crawling by using my finger tips and muscles in my back, I was a quarter the way through. Sweat rolled off of me and felt like oil as I crept, lying on my back, through this wet, dark, tunnel. At the half way point I was still at myself and was in total control. I felt no claustrophobic tendencies or other fears but knew never to stop to think of these things in this kind of situation. Fear will make you change your mind to better or worse, and do the same to anybody around you also. I begin believing this was really an exciting adventure. There was no "order" given to on this assignment and like the rookie I've always been, I volunteered. I thought, "anytime this passageway could flood with me in it!" One great swoop of water and the only thing to save me was a rope on my ankle and some striker at the other end trying to hear if it was flooding. I was at the bottom of the ship in a tunnel that was no more than three or four inches from an ocean of water that could flood this small hole in a blink of an eye. Who could have possibly dreamed up such a device and make it so impossible to get to? Still I inched along with only one thing to occupy my thoughts. This was taking too long and I had to get there! Finally, covered in sweat and grease and dirt I reached the other side of the ship. I crawled out head first chest up. I pulled with more strength than I needed to clear the shaft cover. Over the opposite screw shaft alley I jumped entering a locked storeroom with no light. The light switch for this storeroom was outside the hatch and no one had thought to turn them on before I started the journey. I stopped to rest and remembered why I had been asked to come through the cross flooding passageway. Someone had locked the master key inside of this compartment (let me mention that master keys to a storekeeper is absolute integrety and should'nt have been signed out to anybody but the Dept. head). I sat thinking for awhile calming myself. I lit up a cigarette, relaxed and smoked and enjoyed this absolute time to myself, then I snuffed out the cigarette on an angle iron and commenced to climb back over the shaft and through the passageway for my return trip. Far into the hole there came a dreaded sound. Clang...Clang...The valve was giving to the pressure! Sound passing through steel is fast but through water it's faster than you could imagine. This compounded the effect and made me move almost as quickly. I heard the pounding water inches from me on the other side of the hull. I was at the very bottom of the ship and I could hear water, water probably two, three miles deep, gurgling as the giant twin screws churned sea and air and sent it sliding down the hull pressuring the flood valve that lay halfway between the cross flooding passage. Move! Move doggone you...get out of here!!! Water was making it's way in, inside where I was! It began to flood! Slippery, rushing, rising and covering everything as fast as gravity let it. It took twice the effort to push and manuever on my finger tips. It was that or give up. I pushed and shoved and moved my back, sliding and crawling and slipping deeper into the dark water filled hole. I had to go deeper before I could start rising out of the tunnel at the other end. All, while knowing this could be that great last moment that people talk about coming when darkness takes you and then gives way for the light that carries you home. Last moment!? Give up!? No, not now! My cheek, and forehead were bloody. My chest scraped and rubbed against the rusting ceiling of the twelve inch high water tunnel. What if this valve goes all the way? What if I don't get there? "Pull!... Pull the line!" Then I thought,..they can't on the return trip. The rope was tied to my ankle and I would have to be turned completely around to be pulled out. I pushed and kicked and tried to breathe the wet air just at the ceiling of the small passageway. It became cold under the water as I fought and moved and twisted, kicking and hoping that would help move me faster. Get away! A fierce desire to beat this fate flared and I became much stronger and calmer than I thought I could be. Go, go, go... Hands thrown out swimming and kicking and lunging, I was white knuckled when I grabbed the lip of the escape hole and pulled myself out with one muscular lift. Dripping wet and wore I breathed huge gasps like a whale might do as he surfaces from a deep dark dive. Electrically fast, moving and twisting and bending to fit the curves of the steel, I was scraped and bloodied and worn out from the conflict. I finally, slowly climbed once again over the shaft cover. I untied the rope from my ankle with the keys still clipped to my belt loop never worrying where the flashlight or my cigarettes had gone. I did worry greatly though about the invisible line between the here and there that can never be seen until it's crossed. Almost gone I stood knowing what the passageway was like. The passageway that hugs to the belly of the ship and that last, long and lonely passageway, so close, so final to the infinite and forever, that can only be experienced and not just discussed. I knew that it's not a place to work or to use or to send a man for any reason. With the storeroom keys in hand I reached them to the Chief. I knew well that doing the job expected of you garnerned no praise or award and should be that way. There would be no "Thank You" or Good Job." I remember the cross flooding passageway and gained the knowledge that I could tell a younger soul, "do this.", knowing that I wasn't telling them to do something I had not done myself."