The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 66 Fish sub

Slepý Bobek opened the hatch of the little submarine just as the hill exploded.

"That was from reservoir!" Slepý Bobek said. "You bullock! If all that water comes down hill then we will end up near sea."

"I think you close hatch again!" Bláznivý Marek said , seeing that the chances of them outrunning the water were virtually zero.

"I never seen seaside you bullock!" Slepý Bobek remarked reflectively , "Seeing the sea is in my bucket list!" but he began to pedal fast anyway and he aimed the sub towards the oncoming flood to take the shock wave head on.

"I think that we would be better off with empty bucket to get rid of water!" Bláznivý Marek said sourly. "What you need bucket list for anyway you bullock. You're too young?"

"Simply I thought it was the law!" Said Slepý Bobek, "Every boy must have one!"

"Keep pedalling you bullock!" Bláznivý Marek said, thinking uncharitable thoughts about his brother's intelligence and general state of mental health.

Luckily even though the explosives had breached a substantial hole at the bottom of the reservoir, the rest of the rock wall above had held firm because the wolves had removed the wires from the detonators. This kept the main body of water from escaping immediately. Even so, such a huge quantity of water was leaving the reservoir at once that it surged out almost horizontally for the first hundred metres, in a raging white waterfall.

"Pedal faster!" Bláznivý Marek shouted, "In fact pedal very fast indeed."

The first tidal wave of water, erupted down the side of the hill, from the breech, as the reservoir started to discharge its twenty six million cubic metres of water. The deluge hit the hillside, sweeping everything from its path. The first obstacle in its path was the road where Spencer and Ivo had rendezvoused. The water gouged a deep chasm into the surface.

Shortly afterwards the surge reached the building site. The first victim was the control truck, which was crushed like a cardboard box, and then tumbled over and over down towards the water with electrical sparks and exploding batteries. It was fortunate that Elektra and Karlov were still in the mine so that the control truck was unoccupied, but as a result of the soaking it received all the autonomous trucks and machines went fell silent.

After that the torrent hit the levelling tanks, tree felling machines and drilling trucks themselves. The force of the floodwater scooped all of them up, and dragged them toward the lower slopes with many of them ending up upside down, and still being inexorably dragged toward the lake. The pressure of the torrent was so great, that it snapped the trunks of any tree left standing in its path, as if they were pencils and swept the lumber down the hill.The deluge continued to scour the hillside, sucking everything in its path into its watery vortex, and forcing it down the easiest path, to the wide flat previously calm expanse of water below.

When the flood hit the lake, it pushed a great wall of water and debris in front of it, ripping the boathouse from its muddy foundations. 

The little submarine, was now facing a fast approaching tidal wave and the jetty got carried away in the surge down the torrent of water, lumber, and general flotsam towards the river. Both boats were also washed down now that their moorings had vanished.

"I never thought that she could move so fast!" Bláznivý Marek said. "Did you?"

"I like moving fast!" Slepý Bobek said. "But not too fast and not backwards you bullock!"

"Keep her on surface. We take on water." Bláznivý Marek said. "Maybe we need to get hell out of here in hurry."

"Maybe be better to connect pedals to pump?" Slepý Bobek asked. "I say this because very soon we are moving fast without even pedalling."

"Sometimes even you have good idea little brother!" Bláznivý Marek said.

"Don't call me little brother," Slepý Bobek said. "you were only born a few minutes before me you bullock."

"I can hardly call you big brother, you bullock." Bláznivý Marek replied, "Simply you are too small!"

Bláznivý Marek pulled a lever that disconnected the pedals from the drive chain to the fins and allowed them to pedal just the pump instead. There was a terrible scraping of gears. Both of them pedalled furiously and soon the amount of water slurping inside the craft was diminishing.

The backwards ride was getting bumpier and bumpier. The little carp shaped vessel was getting battered from all sides by the accumulating flotsam and Slepý Bobek, though he had very limited view, could see several large pieces of timber heading their way. Granddad Carp  didn't help either.

"I say we dive and let whole lot go over us!" Slepý Bobek suggested now that there was adequate depth to do so. "How you doing with oxygen?"

"I have about ten minutes left on my mask and there is a bit in cabin so we can't stay down for long!" Bláznivý Marek replied, "How much you got?"

"I have fifteen minutes left so shall we dive?" Slepý Bobek said.

"Flooding tanks!" Bláznivý Marek announced.

Confirmation

There was a bibbly beep beep from Ruthers' Dudat and he read the message to himself before divulging anything to Sir Gilbert just as a precaution.

"Zhat impatient stupid fat bastard has detonated zhe explosives while zhe fishing party was still on zhe water. I hoping that he is truly satisfied." The count had written.

"Indeed it would have been fortuitous sir... if the explosives had failed to detonate but in this case regrettably not sir." Ruthers said, "I have just had confirmation that the detonation has just occurred sir!"

"Damn. Damn and triple Damn!" Sir Gilbert swore.

"Precisely sir!" Ruthers concurred. "I couldn't have put it more eloquently myself sir unless I had said broken dam, broken dam and triply broken dam!"

The count was worried. He had only counted five detonations. There should have been twenty four.

"But I checked connections meinself!" He muttered.

"Oh Vell zhere is nozhingk I can do about it now!" The count said to no one in particular. Normally he would be able to blame that dumkopft Basil, but Basil was missing presumed torn apart by wolves. "Five explosions vill haff to do."

The count checked the images from the static drones using his Dudat. His ears hadn't deceived him. Sure enough there had only been five explosions. He ran the clip several times before he even bothered to look at the results through the binoculars. Could this have been sabotage, on his sabotage of the reservoir? If so then this was a declaration of war.