Echo Class

by David E. Meadows

  TWO

  Thursday, June 1, 1967

  “CAPTAIN on the bridge!” the boatswain mate of the watch shouted as MacDonald walked through the port inside hatch that led from the combat information center.

  At the navigator table directly ahead of him, the signal-man on duty made a notation in the ship’s log.

  “What you got?” MacDonald asked, looking at the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Sam Goldstein, who was looking over the shoulder of the quartermaster, making sure the petty officer was making the proper notation. Goldstein was the Dale’s administrative officer and navigator.

  Goldstein smiled. “Sir, Admiral Green wants you to contact him. He intends to detach us from the battle group to lead an antisubmarine surface action group.”

  MacDonald nodded, crossed the bridge, and crawled up in his chair on the starboard side. “I know,” he replied. The combat information center watch officer told me on the way to the bridge.” From the darkness lit by blue light in Combat to the bright sunlight of the bridge. Enough to ruin your eyes. He crossed his legs. Give him the bridge any day to fight his ship, rather than this high-brow concept of where the captain hides in the darkness to launch his weapons.

  “Lieutenant Burnham has the watch,” MacDonald said, his voice slow and methodical.

  “Aye, sir. Does the captain want to go to general quarters?”

  MacDonald shook his head. “No, the captain does not want to go to general quarters. If we have a submarine out there two hundred miles from us, it will be tomorrow morning before we reach the vicinity of last sighting. What would our condition be if we kept the men at GQ for . . .” He looked at Goldstein. “Quick! Tell me how long we would have to keep the ship at GQ before we reached the area.” He put both hands on his hips. “Well, anytime this afternoon would be fine, Mr. Goldstein.”

  “Twelve hours, sir.”

  “Twelve hours is wrong,” MacDonald said calmly. “But it would bring us to within the horizon of where the suspected submarine was last seen.”

  “I was told the reconnaissance aircraft out of Guam saw it.”

  “Airdales see what they want to see. They have been known to be wrong, but don’t ever try to get one to admit it; it is like pulling teeth. Did I ever tell you about my niece who had a blind date with one?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Unfortunately, I lined it up. She came back from the date just shaking her head. Brenda met her at the door, wanting to know how it went. My niece said the first half of the date all the airdale did was talk about himself. Then, about halfway through dinner he said, ‘Well, enough about me, let’s talk about flying.’ ”

  Goldstein chuckled. “Aye, sir.”

  “Did we get any intelligence from the VQ-1 Willy Victor that overflew the submarine?”

  “Not much, sir. They sent an operational report, but the OpRep only gave the coordinates of the submarine with the direction in which it dived.”

  “We can expect the submarine came to a different course as soon as it was out of sight.”

  “They dropped some clappers.”

  “Useless piece of shit those clappers. I don’t think any submarine has ever been tracked or detected because of those cheap things. We drop them and somewhere on the bottom of the ocean are growing beds of clappers, clapping away as the current swifts through them. Keep this up, by the time you and I have grandchildren, we’ll have an ocean that’s transmitting a continuous cacophony of clapper symphony.

  “As for GQ, Mr. Goldstein, you keep offering advice when I ask it. If you don’t and I make a wrong decision and you knew the correct answer, then you will have let me and the ship down. Meanwhile, let’s keep the crew doing the day’s work.” He leaned forward, out of the shadow offered by the forward top bridge structure, letting the sun hit his face. “Might even be able to have the movie topside tonight if this weather holds,” he said, leaning back into the shadow.

  “Some new ones came aboard during the under-way replenishment yesterday, Skipper.”

  MacDonald pointed at the navigation table. “You need to have your watch work us a path out of the battle group. We’re going to be heading southwest toward the datum.”

  “Datum” was the naval term commonly used to identify the last known location of a submarine. Whatever happened to the good old terms such as “enemy,” “submarine,” “contact,” or even “sneaky bastard”? No. Somewhere there was an academic think tank laughing, drinking their martinis, and throwing all the dollars they’d made into the air, to let them rain down upon them because they came up with this new way of sinking subs. MacDonald sighed.

  “Sir?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing, Mr. Goldstein.”

  “Sir, the admiral?”

  “Did you talk with him?”

  Goldstein’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir. He asked for you, and then asked for the officer of the deck.”

  MacDonald smiled. Green and he were old navy. When they wanted to talk with the senior officers, it was to the bridge they deferred.

  The assistant boatswain mate of the watch brought him his first afternoon cup of coffee. MacDonald grunted as he took it, sipped, and calculated the coffee was leftover in the urn from this morning. He grimaced as the tannic acid burned when he swallowed. He put the cup in the nearby holder. It would remain there until the watch changed and the BMOW tossed the coffee out—if it hadn’t eaten through the cup by then.

  “Did he say how many ships he intended to put into this surface action group?” Before Goldstein could answer, MacDonald raised the palm of his hand at the officer. “And did he say who would be in charge of the SAG?”

  “No, sir. He did not. He just asked to have you call him and for us to prepare to go after a submarine.”

  “Submarine? He called it a submarine?” MacDonald chuckled, his breath coming out more as a guffaw. It was nice working with Green again.

  “Yes, sir. He said probably submarine. Said the—pardon me, sir—he said, ‘the son of a bitch was targeting him.’ ”

  “Well, he is on the carrier. Can’t see a Forrest Sherman class destroyer like the Dale being the sub’s high-valued target.”

  One moment he was grabbing forty winks and the next he was going after submarines. If the ocean had as many submarines as Green thought it did, then the marines could walk to Vietnam across their backs instead of sailing there.

  He took a deep breath and let out an audible sigh. He knew Goldstein and the others on the bridge were wondering why he was waiting to return the admiral’s call, but it was good for the crew to see the “Old Man” act as if events of a non-routine nature were normal. He believed strongly that to act otherwise promoted a condition much like Pavlov’s dogs, where no one knew what to expect. It created a bedlam of confusion when your skipper was mercurial and unpredictable. He knew. He had served under such a man on his first ship as an ensign.

  Besides, when all was said and done, it was his goddamn ship and not anyone else’s. Might be his first. Might even be his last, if he screwed up this first command, but god damn it, it was his ship. He smiled.

  The Navy Red secure communications squawked overhead; the bagpipe sound of the cipher keys synchronizing screamed for a couple of seconds before the normal white noise of the radio band filled the speaker. Then the call sign for Commander Task Force Seventy came from the voice on the speaker to every ship in the battle group, cautioning them that the Kitty Hawk was changing course.

  Sailing with a carrier was dangerous. One wrong maneuver, one navigational error, and one ship’s engineering casualty became another ship’s navigational hazard, and a warship like the Dale would become fodder for the largest warship in the world—the American aircraft carrier.

  The navigational rules of the road on the open ocean seldom applied to an aircraft carrier. The unwritten rule was that when an aircraft carrier was maneuvering, all others stood clear. It was the law of gross tonnage, and MacDonald did not want his last sight in life being the bow of an aircraft carrie
r hitting the Dale as those aboard the carrier wondered what that slight bump was they’d sailed over.

  “How far are we from the Kitty Hawk?”

  “Sir?”

  “I said, Mr. Goldstein, how far are we from the Kitty Hawk?” he asked again, enunciating each word loudly and carefully. “A captain should not have to repeat himself.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Then how far are we?”

  The quartermaster leaned toward Goldstein and whispered something.

  “We are five miles, sir?”

  “We are not five miles, Officer of the Deck. We are ten thousand yards. Not five miles,” MacDonald rebutted. “Besides,” he added, “it’s five nautical miles, not five miles.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  MacDonald motioned Goldstein to him. When the young officer reached his chair, MacDonald leaned over toward him, putting his weight on his left elbow, resting on the arm of the captain’s chair. “If you want to be a good officer of the deck, then you must own the bridge. Not depend on your sailors to cover your ass, Sam.” He shook his head, his voice rising slightly. “Lieutenants should know the language of the bridge. Shit! I expect them to know the language of the navy. You should know . . . No—you must know everything about the condition of the Dale, and you must know every navigational detail about our destroyer and the ships surrounding it. Not wait until I ask you. Everything must be on the tip of your tongue. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Goldstein answered, his voice shaken.

  MacDonald saw the sweat inching down the junior officer’s face, tracing a path across sunburn earned from standing the grueling four-hours-on, four-hours-off watches on the bridge. Shit! Couldn’t any of these new officers take a little criticism? “You’re doing well, Sam. You’re going to be one of my best. Not your fault you were a supply officer for a few years before seeing the error of your ways and switching to the surface warfare navy. But that also means you’re behind others of your year group in learning how to do battle group steaming.”

  “I am standing double OOD shifts, sir.”

  “I know. I think that is admirable and can only lead to improvements. Now, go back and get us a course safely out of this battle group toward the submarine’s last location and a course that will ensure we don’t get run over by the Kitty Hawk. Can you do that for the old man?” Thirty-seven and he was calling himself the “old man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  MacDonald picked up the red handset in front of him. He looked at Goldstein, who seemed riveted in place beside his chair.

  “Go,” he motioned away, and watched Goldstein hurry back to the navigation table. MacDonald turned his attention forward, leaning back in his chair, failing to see the silent glances exchanged among the sailors of the bridge.

  Maybe he was too rough on his wardroom. But at the academy they taught you that command was a lonely position. Better he train them while they had some modicum of peace with the Soviets, before the eventuality of having to fight them occurred. Who knew when and where the at-sea battle would begin with the Soviet Navy, but when it did he wanted his ship battle-ready.

  MacDonald pushed the small button in the center of the handset and listened to the cryptographic keys bagpipe synchronization with the secure network between the battle group ships. He glanced through the open hatch to the port wing. The USS Kitty Hawk was visible.

  Automatically, his nautical mind took in the angle of the carrier. The stern of the Kitty Hawk was only partially visible. He could see more of the bow. That angle meant the carrier was closing the distance to the Dale, if only at a slow approach. Another F-4 Phantom catapulted off the carrier, the loud noise of its jet engines filling the bridge. Meant the wind was blowing toward them from the Kitty Hawk. Launching aircraft also meant the carrier had steadied up on its new course.

  MacDonald glanced at the compass. Wind was coming from the north-northeast.

  “Mr. Goldstein! Has the carrier completed its course change?”

  Navy Red mounted over the angled windows of the bridge burst into life. “All ships, this is Alpha Xray; Corpen Romeo two-zero-zero.”

  Instinctively, MacDonald translated the broadcast. It was the Kitty Hawk announcing a course change—“Corpen Romeo” to two-zero-zero true.

  “Belay my last, Mr. Goldstein.”

  He looked at the compass on the stand near his seat. Dale was on course two-one-zero. They should be safe, unless Goldstein screwed up and did a port turn.

  “Make sure she isn’t going to run us over, please, Mr. Goldstein. And I’m still waiting for a course to get us out of here.” Then he mumbled, “And that course should take us away from this decreasing range to the Kitty Hawk.”

  The synchronization stopped and was replaced by a steady static, punctuated with a clear voice when someone on the other end pressed the “push to talk” button. Then several voices exchanged communication checks with one another. God, MacDonald thought, grant me the serenity to understand why radiomen believe they have to check every circuit just when everyone needs to use it. Nearly a minute passed before the ships, including the Dale, finished with the communication checks.

  When the circuit seemed to pause between transmissions, MacDonald pressed the “push to talk” button on the red handset and called for Admiral Green. Several seconds passed before the admiral came on the circuit. His deep New Hampshire accent, ending even statements as if they were questions, identified the man without Green ever having to say his name.

  MacDonald smiled when he heard the accent. Worst kept secret in the fleet was Green’s nighttime attempts to find watches less than alert. The admiral would call a ship and pretend to be someone else. Green confided to MacDonald that this was the way to truly discover how ready a battle group was. A little operational deception, a feint here and jab there, and you had a real picture of battle group preparedness.

  It also only takes a strong accent to identify who’s on the other line, regardless of what he calls himself. So everyone played along, but called their skipper as soon as the admiral’s voice was recognized.

  Yesterday, his XO, Joe Tucker, had told him of a radio transmission to the CIC watch officer by Green pretending to be a chief petty officer. “Joe Tucker,” MacDonald said aloud. The name “Joe Tucker” rolled easily off his tongue. Few ever called the XO “Joe.” Peers and seniors alike referred to him as “Joe Tucker,” as if it was one word. MacDonald chuckled over the thought.

  “Skipper, this is Admiral Green. You got my orders, why haven’t you changed course?”

  “Sir, we were waiting for assignment of the other units to the SAG.”

  “What other units, Commander MacDonald? There are no other units. You are a one-ship SAG. Your job is to get out there and keep that goddamn Soviet submarine submerged and away from my battle group.”

  MacDonald reached down and pushed the mute button. Green’s voice was still in his ear, but the admiral could not hear him. “Officer of the Deck, bring us onto course two-two-zero and bring our speed up to twelve knots.”

  “Aye, sir,” Goldstein replied.

  Behind him, MacDonald heard the scurry of activity as Goldstein relayed the commands to change course and speed and the navigation team started recalculating the distances to the other ships.

  MacDonald returned to the voice on the other end.

  “You got all that?” Green asked.

  MacDonald unlocked the mute button. “Aye, sir. We are heading toward the datum, even as we speak.”

  “Don’t kid me, Danny. If I hadn’t chewed your ass, you’d still be steaming along placidly like another sheep in the herd waiting for someone to tell you to do it. You haven’t become one of those rear-echelon desk jockeys, have you? So cautious you’re waiting for your navi-guessers to come up with a safe course out of the battle group. I thought by now I would have taught you to act first and worry about the ankle biters—”

  “Like safety?”

  “Danny, don’t get smart-ass with me,” Green r
eplied with a chuckle. “Don’t forget I’m the admiral and I know what is going on. You’re just a kid-commander listening at the knee of your mentor—that’s me”

  MacDonald smiled. Even when Green was chewing your ass, you had to remember that he was one of the few officers still on active duty wearing World War II ribbons and medals. “Aye, sir. And I appreciate your direction.”

  “Danny, one day someone is going to gangster-slap the shit out of you.”

  MacDonald nodded and felt his face blush. “Sorry, Admiral.”

  Green laughed. “It’s too late, Danny me boy. If you want to get off my shit list, bring me the side number of that Soviet submarine. I’ve always wanted a photograph of one of these Soviet nukes for my office wall.”

  “I will try my best, sir. But if I follow your orders to keep it submerged, that’s going to be hard to do.”

  “Skipper, that’s not my worry.”

  “Are we sure it’s a Soviet submarine?”

  “Well, here’s the reasoning of an old sailor, Danny. First, the tattletale has to be targeting. Second, the tattletale is Soviet. Third, there are no threat surface units in the area. And, fourth, we’d already know if Soviet Bears were airborne and heading this way. Fifth, the Chinese submarines are afraid to leave the shadow of their coast. And, most important, the Willy Victor has a visual on her. Ergo . . .”

  MacDonald imagined the admiral raising a slim finger into the air when he wanted to make a point. He had seen that finger raised too many times to count, when Green was the chief of staff for Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet back in Pearl. Only a couple of years ago, but it seemed as if it was only yesterday.

  “. . . It is a Soviet submarine.”

  “Are we sure going southwest is the right direction?”

  “Soviet tactics is for the tattletale to be aligned with the inbound missiles. If they fly over the head of that fucking Kashin, then they’ll hit the Kitty Hawk. Do you know how pissed off I’m going to be if I have my afternoon coffee upset by a missile hit?”

  Not too much, if your coffee is like the cup sitting here. “Very much so, sir.”