D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground

by D. M. Ulmer

  Bea had no interest in details but her dad loved to go over them so she listened.

  “We got transformers and can provide shore power for all of ’em. Hell of a lot better than sitting alongside with reactors critical. Or worse, those noisy damn diesel generators.”

  Bea asked, “Aren’t Idaho and Newport due to leave?”

  Dave shook his head. “No secrets ’round here. Where’d you hear ’bout this?”

  “Common knowledge, Dad, Pitstop’s the biggest business in Grays Harbor County. Local prices rise and fall on that kind of news. Don’t think any of it’s shared with the Soviets.”

  “This is what we get for living in a free society.”

  “A lot better than the alternative. Am I mistaken or is this what the war and the shooting are all about? Yet you get plenty of security when you need it.”

  “I suppose you’re right, little girl. Now let me see what you got in those paper sacks.”

  “Feast your eyes, Dad. Then go fire up the grill and we’ll feast the bodies.” She held up a pair of Spencer rib-eye steaks for her dad’s approval; after Dungeness crab, his favorite food.

  Patting his stomach, Dave said, “Be sure to trim the fat off mine. Gotta get this middle under control so start watching what I put into it.”

  Bea thought, What’s going on here? First the exercise, now the diet. And a ‘lotta work at the Pitstop’ doesn’t hold up. She made a mental note to coax the truth from her father but not now.

  Dave fired up the grill then disappeared into the bathroom. He emerged a short time later, changed from the grimy sweats into jeans and a plaid shirt, his face scrubbed and shaven.

  “I’m honored, Dad. What’s the occasion?”

  “Oh, nothin’. Just felt grubby and thought I’d buff up some. How long till dinner?”

  “About half an hour,” Bea said, believing her father would use this to gage whether he had enough time for one or two glasses of wine.

  “Good. Gives me time to walk up and get the mail.”

  “Dad, the mail hasn’t been delivered since the war started.”

  Dave said with a deliberate nonchalant tone in his voice, “Person up the road agreed to pick it up and drop it by.”

  Bea went on with dinner preparations but wondered about her dad. Twenty minutes passed and he had not returned so she walked to the door for a look toward the mailbox. A woman who looked to be in her forties stood beside her bicycle and chatted with her father.

  Bea thought, So much for the Pitstop story.

  Captain Bostwick announced, “The last place they’ll expect us to exit is over the same track we entered by.”

  Brent knew the captain to be capable of sound thinking. He can be good when he has to. If only he’d be consistent. They knew the type and depth setting of the minefield and avoided it, another sound decision initiated by Bostwick.

  The executive officer conducted religious services for the two Denver seamen as they passed the site where they had died in battle during the minesweeper fight.

  Denver pushed out into the expanse of the Pacific and headed for home. The probability of a chance encounter with the enemy almost nonexistent, the men relaxed. The crew took time for reading, studying for advancement in rate examinations and reflection on the impact war would have on individual life game plans. They experienced emotions not felt by American submariners for nearly forty-two years: the constant pressure of being in a combat zone where at almost any moment, an enemy device could fracture their fragile cocoon and admit the deadly ocean. With all this behind them, it felt as though a great mantle had been lifted from their shoulders

  A man of his word, Jack Olsen could be counted on to defend Brent’s interests as he had promised so Brent gave a lot of thought to what the future held. But Bostwick, a clever man, would not be easily fended off. Destruction of Brent’s career had become a vendetta for Bostwick. Brent hoped Olsen would be successful.

  What of Brent’s relationship with Bea? The thought of seeing her again excited him. She had shared love with him like none before. Thoughts of having her by his side for the long pull pleased him. He had stored details of their time together in his mind for easy recapture.

  Beautiful Bea put up a halfhearted struggle against his efforts to fondle her breasts while riding back from Seattle on the dark fo’c’sle of a late ferry. It had been a great evening on the town together. They’d spent the night in an available room at Bangor BOQ. Before dawn they’d arose and hastened to the Zane home, before Dave awoke, to preserve appearances. Then, throughout the day, both paid the price for their sleep-robbed night. Brent’s daylong fatigue kept him mindful of the beautiful feeling growing between them and their need to acquiesce to it. These thoughts and others filled extra time afforded by the combat-free long transit.

  His second passion, undersea warfare tactics needed to get the war turned around. He frequently dueled with his favorite competitor, Dan Patrick and often engaged him for long discussions.

  Sitting in a tiny stateroom they shared with two other officers, Brent opened with, “Dan, how do you figure we oughta deploy the new Sealance? We gotta think it through ourselves. The war won’t let it get to the range so we can screw around with it there. Instead of practice rounds on fleet exercises, it’ll be the real thing, where we gotta get it right the first time.”

  “I haven’t thought that much about it, Brent. Captain says the DCNO, Submarine Warfare, OP-02, all but killed it. It’s a long-range weapon and the threat got too quiet to be tracked at those distances. He says a high-speed, short-range, quiet torpedo is needed. I think he’s right. We’d have a lot more scalps in our belt than the one Tango with a weapon like that.”

  “You’re right, Dan, and so is the captain, but we’ve painted ourselves into a corner where that can’t be done.”

  “How’d we do that?”

  “Look at our hull designs. We bought higher speed and lower radiated noise levels at the cost of greater volume. In thirty years we doubled the size of our submarine.”

  “I don’t see the point.”

  Brent assumed his lecturing voice. “Obvious. Submarine launchers haven’t changed in more than seventy years. While hull designers solved problems with greater size, the weapons crowd had to make do with the nominal twenty-one by two hundred forty-six inch launchers. It’s grown only three inches in diameter and added a mere twelve inches in length from one we started out with eighty-seven years ago. Great for anti-surface ship weapons where radiated noise doesn’t matter but definitely a factor when the target’s another submarine. After we assumed the ASW mission, the launcher size got a lot of lip service but no action.”

  “Great history lesson, Brent, but isn’t this discussion about Sealance?”

  “Just a little background on what created the situation.”

  Dan enjoyed his friend’s theories but he always thought it took Brent so damn long to make his point. “You got some ideas or you wouldn’t corner me on the subject.”

  “The OP-02 hypothesis is wrong. We do have a long-range track capability.”

  “You can’t revoke the laws of physics, Brent. The quieter they get, the closer they have to be for us to hear them.”

  Brent exclaimed, “Right! But we’re quieter. Suppose we make contact, like we have been. First hearing transients and next enough broadband noise to positively identify and track. We’ve shown we can get around to his baffles without being detected, right?”

  “Yeah but so far we’re still dealing with him at the same range. Detection range won’t change with a Sealance missile aboard.”

  “No, Dan, we get a new option. We get a good range and speed when the target passes so we can compute where he is even beyond effective sonar range. We’ll also know transients are from him and can use them for bearing spots. We let the range open till he can no longer hear our launcher noise and then let him have it. An MK-50 Torpedo drops in on him and he has no idea where it came from. And look what this does. To evade, he’s gotta incre
ase speed, gets noisy and we start tracking him again. We refine the range for a follow-on shot. If the MK-50 is dropped on the far side of him, he comes racing back toward us and we nail him with an ADCAP. Make sense?”

  “Yeah, Brent, but the current submarine mindset is don’t let a target get by.”

  “Right, but letting a target get by means we don’t let it get beyond effective weapon range. The Sealance extends that. We got a sales job in getting submariners to see it that way.”

  Dan grinned at his friend, “As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, ‘Why you say we, white man?’”

  Zhukov ploughed into the southwest Pacific, principal mission, shut down the flow of enemy war materials. Ships of many non-belligerent nations also used the sea-lanes; hence, this made problems. Would-be world conquerors shared a common problem throughout history. Success depended solely upon how well peoples of the world accepted the emergent regime. Now, with a favorable outcome approaching greater reality, the Soviets sought to mollify non-belligerents while concurrently snuffing out the ally’s ability to continue the war. Unrestricted submarine warfare against all merchant shipping in the Pacific would not achieve this end.

  Commander Poplavich addressed the Zhukov officers, his frequent speeches always long but never meaningful. Each pair of eyes rolled as the zampolit began, “Comrades, we must make the peoples of the world see the value of being freed from suppression of capitalism’s mantle. This cannot be achieved through inadvertent destruction of non-belligerent merchant ships. We have been given direction to attack only those belonging to, or known to be carrying contraband to the allies.”

  Captain Sherensky asked, “Will this prove to be difficult, Comrade Zampolit? Many allied ships fly foreign flags.”

  “You are right, Comrade Captain. The capitalist system strangles ship owners to where ships must be registered out of country in order to turn a profit. Identifying flags alone will not solve our problem. We have a list of American ships and the foreign flags they fly. With the help of this directory, conveniently provided by one of the Allied Nations, we can identify those ships.”

  Sherensky did not like the idea at all. It restricted operations to daylight hours, thus cutting valuable operation time in half. Their long-range missiles permit simultaneous attacks against widely dispersed targets and now this crucial advantage will be nullified for political considerations.

  Zhukov’s commanding officer thought, War and politics do indeed make strange bedfellows.

  The zampolit said, “Questionable ships will be stopped and boarded.”

  Astonished gasps spread among the officers. Vasiliy restrained from asking the obvious question, not wanting to further damage the view of him held by Poplavich.

  Another officer asked the question as though he had read Vasiliy’s mind. “But Comrade Zampolit, won’t this show the enemy exactly where we are? Under satellite surveillance, our position will be broadcast to the allies who will use this information to avoid us. This is to say nothing of sending his own submarines to the area to attack us.”

  The zampolit understood nothing about tactical problems and considerations that affected Zhukov’s ability to carry out her mission. His job, enforce political direction from the party and leave Sherensky to clean up the mess. Poplavich often muddied those waters by presenting his own tactical solutions then challenging party loyalties of those who questioned them.

  Poplavich rattled on, “We’ve already shown American 688s pose no real problem. As a safety measure, however, Zhukov will re-submerge after the boarding party is dispatched and then standby at a predetermined position and await a light signal to return and recover our men.”

  A knock at the wardroom door interrupted the meeting. A radioman entered and handed a message to Sherensky. While the zampolit continued his lecture, the Captain read the message, his face folded into a grave expression. He pocketed the paper and refocused his attention on the meeting.

  Vasiliy thought, This ridiculous scheme not only restricts us to daylight hours but also to sea conditions that permit operation of Zhukov’s flimsy life raft for the boarding party. Why are we concerned about sinking a few neutral ships? No country in the world is capable of resisting, so why not exploit it?

  Half an hour later, the zampolit closed with his usual party pep talk.

  The captain said, “Vasiliy, come to my stateroom, please.”

  Here it comes, Vasiliy thought, the zampolit has finally done me in. The fat now apparently in the fire, he regretted not having attacked this most recent party stupidity with full vigor. What did he have to lose?

  When they reached his stateroom, Sherensky said, “Please sit down, Vasiliy. I have grave news.”

  Sherensky read the message, which reported the death of Ekaterina Baknov during the American raid against Vladivostok. Also in the message the flotilla commander had added his personal condolences and stated all in the Motherland mourned the passing of this great artist.

  Setting his jaw tight, Vasiliy held back the tears. As Sherensky rose, the younger man stood with him.

  The captain placed a restraining hand on Vasiliy’s shoulder. “No, stay here a while,” then Sherensky left.

  Despite his best efforts, Vasiliy’s eyes flooded with tears and he wept. The tragic event fueled his hatred for Americans and helped him to regain composure. He remembered his last visit to the security vault and the likely name of the submarine that had launched the strike against Vladivostok, the USS Denver. He had forgotten the officers’ names save one. He’d seek out the man who launched the weapon against his mother and personally take the life of Lieutenant Brent Maddock.

  Chapter 16

  Positions of each hydrophone in Dutch Meyer’s array along with the location of the Sealance missiles showed on an old IBM PC screen. A computer wizard from USS Newport worked up a systems program and now enjoyed his achievement by tracking Newport through the approaches to Zane’s Pitstop. Radio transmitters and receivers added by Meyer converted the austere Blockhouse into a top-notch command center.

  A radioman transmitted to Birdman Four, the radio voice call sign for an S3A Viking pilot en route to a coded position designated as Springboard with serpent assigned as the code name for the submarine Newport. “Estimate time on top of Springboard in two minutes. Have serpent for you, over.”

  The airman responded, “Springboard in two, Bottom.”

  Bottom identified the command center Blockhouse.

  Dutch Meyer wanted the plane to drop a small explosive charge to fix its position in order to vector it on top of Newport.

  “Roger, Four, request boomer on top, over,” said the Blockhouse radioman, referring to the explosive charge.

  Birdman Four responded, “You got it, Bottom.”

  Two minutes passed then the message came from Birdman Four, “Boomer away at Springboard, one-five-one-three-three-zero Zulu. Let us know how we did.”

  The transmission relayed a worldwide date-time-group used by the United States Navy with numbers 1 and 5 meaning the date, 1330 the twenty-four hour clock and Zulu meaning Greenwich Mean Time. All U. S. military units use this time code system as a standard to avoid confusion when combat and training operations are conducted within various time zones throughout the world.

  A short time later, the PC screen displayed an explosion close in to Springboard and the computer immediately generated intercept data for transmission to the aircraft. A series of coded numbers, giving the time, distance, course and speed of Newport, accompanied the message.

  “Now give us a boomer on the serpent, Birdman Four.”

  “Roger, Bottom, tell ’em to watch their ears.”

  Forty seconds later, the boomer signal merged with Newport’s position, winning a cheer from all in the Blockhouse.

  The watch officer, a submariner, exclaimed, “This beats all! Never believed I’d help zoomies drop trash on one of our pipes.” He radioed the S3A, “Great job, Four. Put a scalp in your training log.”

  “Roger, Bottom.
Now find me the real thing.”

  “Soon as we do, you got ’em. Four released to dry feet.”

  Bottom then cleared Birdman Four to return to base.

  The watch officer thought, Wow! Somebody sneaks in here and we bang ’em with a Sealance. Then Birdman comes out and drops the kitchen sink on ’em.

  Days later and with the first Pitstop refit completed; Newport had patrol orders in hand.

  CLEAR SEAWAY FOR IDAHO DEPARTURE. UPON COMPLETION, PROCEED TO SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AND ATTACK/DESTROY ENEMY ASSETS.

  Everyone turned out to see Newport off. Commander Phil Reynolds, looking more like he should be leading his company onto the parade ground at the Annapolis Naval Academy rather than taking a warship to sea, personally thanked each person with a hand in getting his ship ready for war. This involved a good number but he didn’t miss anyone.

  The Pitstop’s informality did not include provisions for a band but a temporary public address system played recordings of Sousa marches in the background.

  Phil Reynolds’ sense of humor revealed itself in the form of a large pasteboard box near the gangway. It bore a sign,

  ALL WHO’D GIVE THEIR LEFT ARM TO BE GOING WITH US — PLEASE DROP THEM HERE.

  At their pre-sail meeting, the commodore commented to Newport’s skipper on his youthful appearance. Then Reynolds reminded the commodore that as a Lieutenant, Danis was two years younger than Reynolds at the time he took command of his first submarine.

  Danis then congratulated the Newport skipper. “You did a superb job, Phil. You know Captain Zane wrote Newport off as a box of spare parts when you showed up here, but you sure turned that around. Your ship is the first distinguished graduate of what we hope will be a long list from Pitstop.”

  “Captain Zane says a lot of things, sir, but his bark is much worse than his bite. He can resist anything but a challenge. We’re very lucky to have him, sir.”