The Chase: One Courageous Skipper Battling The Perilous Evil Out To Destroy Him. (Sea Action & Adventure)

by Herzel Frenkel

  “These small bays on the Turkish coast are deep enough for the Slavianka and the steep rocky walls surrounding the bay offer excellent cover from aerial or space reconnaissance. The rocks cast a shadow over the water in the narrow bay for most of the day. It should also obstruct our infra-red signature from any satellite above, except one which may pass directly overhead”.

  “I am sure there is no satellite monitoring this hole in the rock,” said the radio officer, his comment being more a moral support of his fellow officer than a considered opinion on celestial snooping.

  The navigation officer thanked him with a brief smile and continued –“but there are people. Turks. This coast is mainland Turkey. An uninhabited coast, yes, but still there is a chance of people. Shepherds, hikers, army troops on maneuvers, God knows who…”

  “It is mainland Turkey,” he repeated with emphasis. “On the other side, here,” he pointed at a couple of small islands a few miles to the west, “there is nobody. These islands are barren. No one lives here or, indeed, has lived here for centuries. One of the islands is Turkish territory. The other belongs to the Greeks. Unfortunately, however, they do not offer the protection of the bay.” He stepped deftly back as he finished his short presentation. The room was silent again for a while.

  A few officers offered their professional opinions. The chief engineer was worried about sand getting into the cooling system or clogging the ballast water pumps, thus favoring the Turkish rocks over the Greek sand. The radio officer then pointed out that their radio would be completely blocked, both in reception and transmission.

  They debated, weighing pros and cons. There were technical issues and tactical considerations. For a half an hour no one ventured a decision. That would have to come from the Captain. It was probably the first time they were glad to have one.

  The burden was inscribed on the Captain’s solemn, furrowed face. The strain was obvious. At 57, Captain Valerie Nickolaiev Poliakov was a tired and morose man. He had fought the Germans fearlessly, but never made it to the atomic-powered missile subs. He couldn’t match the drive and ambition of the young officers who were born after the war and educated in the best post-revolution schools. He was doomed to sail forever in hostile waters, never to achieve anything. Only retirement would save him. Now he had to make a decision, crucial to him and to the country, to his career and his crew… he abruptly snapped out of his gloomy train of thought and returned to the problem at hand.

  “Comrades,” they all silenced as he stood up, “We shall sail at periscope depth on first daylight. It will be not far from the Turkish coast. Our divers will go out and check the antenna tower. It is now past midnight and we have five hours to prepare men, equipment and weapons for the operation”.

  By 0600 GMT, 0800 local time, the first sortie of the divers returned to the submarine as she floated motionless, her tower barely under the surface. The black intimidating rocks were on their port side ten miles south of Bodrum.

  The divers, still in their dripping rubber suits, turned to the Captain: “Half of the antenna mast is gone. The whole left side is missing”. The shaken gaze of their comrades stopped them from adding unnecessary details.

  The Captain was tense, visibly stressed. Yuri Kovak, the chief ELINT officer was pale and astounded. The antenna mounted on the left side of the tower was the latest addition to the Slavianka’s snooping equipment. It was a dual frequency antenna designed to operate on the millimeter wavelength. It incorporated the receiver front-end and was capable of tracking and monitoring signals on the 34 and 94 Gigahertz bands. The antenna, indeed, the whole system was top secret. The fact that the Soviet naval intelligence was listening on these extremely short wavelengths was an even greater secret.

  By 0800 hours, there were fifty-four extremely worried Russians inside the Slavianka. There were two essential reasons for their anxiety. Firstly, no one walks free from a Soviet court of investigation. Even light charges may carry a punishment of a few years in some extremely remote and cold place. The second, more immediate, problem was that of surfacing. There are two things submarine crews fear above all – uncontrolled diving and unscheduled surfacing. The first one is usually brief in nature, ending, as it does at two hundred fathoms, when a pressure of twenty tons stresses each square foot of the hull, and the structure crumples like a tin can.

  Surfacing, while not quite fatal, renders a submarine extremely vulnerable. Even a small gunboat can destroy a surfaced submarine, which would have the maneuverability of a pregnant guppy.

  * * * * *

  By 1600 local time, the Slavianka sailed slowly into Barylia Bay, confined within the tall, black walls of the Gulf of Mandalya, on the western coast of Turkey. The sheer cliffs made darkness fall early inside the narrow inlet and the Russians didn’t waste much time. The submarine navigated slowly left into the northern fjord at the end of the bay. It was a tight dead-ended inlet well suited for their task.

  She surfaced at 1640, very slowly and silently. Tension was high and their breathing inside was heavy. As soon as the hatch cleared the water, thirteen sailors scrambled out into the gray air. Eleven of them, dressed in dark fatigues, slipped silently into the water and swam ashore, holding their Kalashnikov assault rifles up above their heads. It took them some twenty minutes to climb up the rocks and hold positions in the countryside above. Everything was clear and they waved to the submarine below.

  The two sailors who stayed on the deck of the still rising submarine were busy covering all the hull markings with yards of canvas.

  The technicians on the antenna mast had to work silently, professionally and expediently. Some microwave components had to be replaced, a few waveguide sections were damaged and the whole millimetric down-channel had to be sealed and secured to prevent further damage.

  Shadows covered the deep cove as the sun arched to the west. The soldiers on the hill were still in bright sunlight and all was clear. Not a soul was in sight, not even a rodent in the heath or a bird in the sky.

  A faint sound of a distant motor got everyone to a standstill like living statues. Someone called the Captain and he was out on the deck within seconds.

  “Get ready to dive,” he whispered hoarsely, but it was too late. A small fishing boat glided in from behind the bend, heading into their cove. It was still some five hundred yards away, but this left no time for the Slavianka to dive. They would have been seen for sure.

  “Forget the dive. Get ready to fire, everyone, on my command”.

  The boat was edging closer. A fisherman was sitting on the roof of the doghouse, facing the open sea while his son was at the helm. They were Greek from the island of Phrmako, East of Bargylia bay. The older man had been fishing near the Turkish coast for many years now, as did many other Greek fishermen. The catch was good and the Turks didn’t bother them much. He and his son had laid their fishing nets during the night before and now they came for a day shelter in the hidden inlet, as they had done many times each summer.

  The young son let out a short yelp of surprise as he saw the tower of the submarine in the middle of the cove. The fisherman turned his head toward the Slavianka, but, before he realized what it was, he saw the muzzle flashes. The sound of the shots reached his ears as he watched the bullets rip his son’s body to pieces. There wasn’t much left of the young body by the time it hit the water. “You don’t shoot people for fishing,” he shouted speechlessly as a barrage of bullets tore through him.

  The firing continued for another minute, until the boat was shredded to bits. The echoing gun blasts died a few seconds later and the bay was tranquil again.

  The rubber dinghy returned to the submarine after making sure that no evidence was left to tell of this violent encounter.

  By 1800 local time, the technicians finished all they could do for the antenna tower.

  The tower carried three independent systems. Up front, facing the plumb bow was a radar search antenna, which resembled a sail and was designed to search and lock on to aircrafts. It wa
s used to track NATO flights and was dubbed boat sail by Western intelligence. On the Starboard side of the tower there was a rectangular box with three round ports protruding from each side. It was a multiband static direction finder known by NATO as stoplight, and was part of the sub’s ELINT system.

  The technicians replaced two damaged subassemblies in the stoplight unit. The boat-sail antenna had a broken connector. They replaced the R.F. rotary joint too, just to make sure. The barren mounting plate, which, just twenty-four hours ago supported the millimeter-wave unit, was disassembled completely and carried down for inspection.

  By midnight the Slavianka dived again, just deep enough to submerge her tower and return her to the safety of obscurity. The watch crew was still ashore, securing the hills above the cove.

  The engineering officer examined the mounting plate in the machine shop, which was located just abaft the battery compartment.

  “Well, we must have hit a fiberglass yacht”. A large section of white, thick fiberglass was snagged on the mounting plate. It was about a square foot in size.

  By six o’clock that morning, he had finished his examination and reported to the Captain. There were six more officers in the room.

  “The yacht that hit us is basically white, though her bottom is coated with red antifouling over a brown epoxy base. From these pieces I’ll say the hull is about one centimeter thick at the waterline. This would put her at around 12 meters long. She was hit just above the waterline because this is where our antenna is, or was”. He paused hesitantly, “so, while she may have taken on some water, the chances are she is still afloat. She is quite modern; there are traces of unidirectional glass lay-up used in her construction. That technique is not older than five or six years. This also means that she may have sufficient floatation built into her to keep her afloat even if full of water. You see,” he answered their looks of utter puzzlement, “empty internal volumes would be filled with plastic foam just for this purpose. It is sometimes used on modern yachts”.

  “Her builder used a black back-up layer to improve inspection of the fiberglass lay-up, essentially a British technique, and definitely a privately owned boat. This construction is too expensive for the charter fleets”.

  He straightened his weary back, glanced over the faces around the cabin and added, “Oh yes, and she is a sailing yacht”.

  Captain Poliakov raised an eyebrow and the chief added quickly, “Otherwise we would have picked her up in our sonar, wouldn’t we?”

  “So, unfortunately the antenna is lost”, the Captain interjected, before details of the Western yacht’s construction was discussed once more.

  “Not so sure”, the chief said hesitantly. “You see, comrade Captain, our tower is designed to extend some ten inches above the water – the bare minimum required for the antenna to work. There are two water-level sensors and a servo control system that lowers and raises the tower, maintaining the right level”.

  The Captain was growing impatient with the technical details. Belatedly, the chief noticed and changed tack, “This means the tower hit the yacht about a foot above the waterline. The fiberglass there is as thick as the hull”

  "Comrade PLEASE…” The Captain interrupted loudly.

  “There is a strong chance that the antenna is still lodged in her bow”.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Avri Keren rose slowly from the cold floor of the cockpit. There was no blanket over his head, just pitch-black skies with stars twinkling coldly down at him. There was nothing wet covering him either, only the chilly night air. His limbs moved slowly, each seeming to weigh a ton. Lurching slowly, like a monster from the golden era of cinema, he shuffled towards Galatea's dark cabin. He sat down at the dining couch, very slowly. The pounding in his head was heavy, resonating throughout his body.

  This headache is at least half a bottle of Vodka's worth of hangover, he thought to himself sourly, though pleased he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

  He flicked on a small fluorescent light and the cabin flooded with white glow. He reached slowly for the galley on his right, and found the small coffee pot, holding it by the black handle. One of the advantages of the tight confines of a boat is that nothing is too far away. He only had to raise himself a couple of inches off the seat to put the coffee pot on the stove and turn on the gas, the amber flame warming the cold fluorescent light.

  As he waited for the coffee to boil, the gears in his brain started turning, gathering momentum, spinning faster and faster. Like a precision Swiss set they hummed in an ever-increasing pitch up to a whine that would fade into total silence once the wheels reached their normal operating speed.

  First of all, the boat had not sunk yet, he thought, relieved.

  He could not hear any water gushing through holes in the hull, nor sloshing about in the bilge.

  This means she is also not about to sink. So, the things to do now are to wait for the coffee to brew and take care of this damn pain in my head.

  He was half through his second cup of very black and sweet coffee when the thought occurred to him - the boat is sailing all by herself. She might go aground, and I don't even know where I am. He bolted up into the cockpit like a lightning in a storm. He didn't have to see what he was doing; he knew it all by heart. He disengaged the wind pilot, pushed the tiller hard to Port and tightened the jib sheet. The Galatea turned gracefully into the wind and beyond. The jib sail caught the wind on its backside. Avri didn't let the sheet go; instead he secured it to the cleat and watched the boom swing around. Pushed by the easterly wind, it came to rest on the Starboard side. He pulled the tiller all the way and tied it there. This position, known as heave-to, is the closest thing a sailboat has to a parking brake. Apart from a very slow drift, she would hold her position in the water.

  Back in the cabin he took the logbook from a small bookshelf above the navigation table. The cover was a light green soft leather -like plastic. Kostas’ twelve-year old daughter had painted a large grinning fish on the front cover. He opened the logbook at the marker and started retracing his voyage.

  Names and places, dates and comments brought the journey back in living color:

  - June 26, 0915, sailing out of Kos, home to that first doctor of them all, Hippocrates. Nothing new, prices going up, skip on further cruises.

  --

  --

  - June 24, 1720, Kalimnos. Papantonio's wife died. He runs the taverna with his daughter-in-law now. The food is still good. Skip the fish - they smell oily now.

  --

  --

  - June 17, past midnight, Datcha. Too drunk to write. Adam likes my pepper-flavored Vodka too.

  His boat ledger was a crossbreed of a standard nautical logbook and a travel diary. He thought it more useful this way for future cruises. "It may be nice to read when I'm too old to sail,” he thought to himself.

  The last entry in the book was purely naval -

  - June 16, 1605, DR position 37º43'N, 27º31'E.

  BARO - 1016 steady

  Main + 110% Genoa

  Course 345º MAG W.V. Automatic

  "That's it,” the memory finally clicking into place. "I hit something. I got hit myself!” He touched the top of his head. There was a nasty lump covered with matted hair. A thick crust of dried blood covered the left side of his head. He traced it down, behind the ear over his neck down the shoulder to his chest. "Hey, I better stop before I discover I have actually bled to death," he muttered, disturbed by the seemingly huge quantity of blood that had gushed from the wound.

  He got up slowly and, carrying the torch in his left hand, pulled himself to the shower. The mirror on the bulkhead above the sink did not reveal anything new. There were no injuries except for that nasty bump on the head, the one he had already gotten used to.

  His watch pointed to twenty minutes after four in the morning. It will be light in less than an hour. He took a brief shower, being careful not to disturb the wound. He changed into fresh clothes, not unlike the ones he wore before, and put on
a new pot of coffee.

  At this latitude, daylight precedes the sunrise by almost an hour. The sun was still low behind the Turkish mountains when Avri stepped out onto the bow, looking for traces of last night’s incident. He passed the forward hatch, holding onto the portside stainless steel standing rig. The wind on the Starboard was steady and moderate, blowing onto the inverted jib as the Galatea rode the gentle swell heaving-to.

  This was when he first saw the antenna - half buried in the forecastle bay, wedged into the smashed Port side of the hull. It was a most unusual piece of hardware, but even a brief glimpse was enough to recognize it as a radar antenna feed hardware.

  He used a piece of cord, which he took from a storage bin under the left cockpit seat to secure this new addition onto a deck cleat.

  He wished he had never hit the thing but now, once the damage had been done, there was no sense in losing it.

  Sunrise was imminent. He went back to the cabin, took the sextant out of a polished wooden box and stepped back out to the cockpit. When the sun peered over the hazy horizon, Avri was ready for it. He took a compass bearing to the rising sun and noted the reading. He then waited for a while until the sun was well into the sky.

  Looking through the eyepiece of the sextant, Avri picked up the glowing orb in the sky and slid the instrument's arm until the sun's image touched the surface of the Aegean Sea. Then, slowly rocking the sextant left and right and gently adjusting the micrometer screw, he made sure the red ball just skimmed the top of the water. This was the right sighting of the sun. At this moment he noted the exact time. Now he had all the data he needed to determine his new position.

  He went down to the navigation table and calculated his location - 37º10'N 27º8’E. This, he noted, would put him 5 miles west of the coast of Turkey, about 15 miles south of the Greek island of Samos. He plotted the course to the lower part of the island and set the cursor on the cockpit compass to this heading - 320º. He untied the tiller, eased the jib sheet and pulled in the other one on the lee side. The Galatea, released from the heave-to constraints picked up speed sailing south, her sails full again with the easterly wind. As soon as she passed the two knot mark, Avri turned her again. He pushed the tiller gradually all the way into the wind, turning the boat 180º through the eye of the wind. He then adjusted the helm gently until the compass pointed 320º and locked it on to the wind vane. The jib fluttered rapidly at the leech and the main developed a slight bulge at the center. A couple of smart adjustments took care of both sails and the Galatea sailed once more on her course, in perfect harmony with the wind and sea.