Cold is the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  Timing of the second message had been exactly as Rich and Buck had surmised, planned so that it could go out while there was the best chance of reception on the east coast of the United States. The certainty that his first message must have galvanized his friends into tense attention awaiting his second had even translated into the likelihood they would try to intercept it direct, in Proteus’ radio room. And, just as Rich and Buck guessed, Keith was in his own radio room, earphones plugged into the circuit, while his second message was being sent out. There had been a perceptible thrill as he recognized the sudden, but not totally unexpected, interposition of a new station on the circuit transmitting his own wolfpack code.

  Setting up the single side-band radio was swiftly done. There was a rush of sibilant reverberation as the initial transmissions were made. Chief Radioman Melson had his fingers on the fine-tuning dial, rotated it ever so slowly. Suddenly, as though it were from a ship close aboard, instead of thousands of miles away, Richardson’s voice boomed over the radio room loudspeaker. “Buck is here, too. . . . How are you, old man?” There was a nuance of meaning in the words deeper than the mere formalities. In a guarded sort of way Richardson was asking how Keith—and his ship—really were.

  Keith had not thought about security. The order to go to voice communication was sufficient, so far as he was concerned, and only now, sensing Richardson’s own reticence at speaking out plainly, did the possibility of interception by unwanted listeners cross his mind. They would need special equipment, able to monitor the entire frequency spectrum, but undeniably it could be done if the need had been anticipated.

  Thinking fast, he said into his microphone, “This is Keith. I read you loud and clear. This is Keith. I read you loud and clear. How me? Over.” He said the brief message twice. It would not do to use the name of his ship over voice radio, but his own first name would be all right. Rich had done the same.

  The ship’s telephone rang in the radio room. Melson picked it up, answered, held it out to Keith. “For you, sir.”

  “This is the OOD on the bridge, Captain. We’ve got a plane in sight again.”

  “Keep me informed,” said Keith. “Be ready to submerge if it heads this way!” Keith dropped the handset. Richardson’s voice on the speaker was saying, “Can you stay up on voice? Over.”

  “Negative, Rich. There’s too much activity over the equator. . . .” Rich and Buck would understand. Maybe he was being a little coy, but there was no point in calling the attention of a chance listener to his position.

  Suddenly there were two loudspeakers going at once. Richardson’s next transmission was paralleled by the ship’s general communication system. Jim Hanson’s voice. “Captain, this is Jim. I’m on the bridge. That plane is closer than ever before. It’s on a steady bearing. I think it’s headed this way!”

  Rich was saying something about maintaining a watch on the voice circuit. Keith had already begun a reply. Perhaps the plane had a direction finder, was homing in on his transmissions! Hurriedly he closed out the conversation, speaking quickly. His voice, he knew, would transmit its own sense of exigency. Rich and Buck, for the time being, would have to be satisfied with that.

  The control room was but a step away, through a bulkhead. For the barest instant he debated going to the bridge himself. No. Jim’s presence was already increasing the load up there by one. If it became necessary to dive, another extra person would slow down the process of clearing the bridge and getting everyone below. Worse, encumbered as everyone was with heavy clothing, he might be caught in the hatch trunk and jam up the process inextricably. He picked up the periscope-station mike, pressed the button for the bridge. “Jim, I’m in conn. What’s it like now?” Jim would recognize his voice. No need to go through the obligatory call-up procedure.

  Jim must have had his hand already on the speaker switch, automatically overrode Keith when he pushed it. His amplified voice filled the control room as Keith was uttering the last few words. “It’s out of sight now. Still steady bearing, though. Maybe it’s not heading this way.” There was relief in Hanson’s voice, and yet uncertainty, too. The plane was still some distance away, perhaps still beyond the horizon, flying low. . . .

  An old memory clicked in Keith’s mind. The pupils of his eyes dilated as the impact sank in. The plane was flying low. There was malevolent intent in that. It might be on an attack run! “Clear the bridge!” he yelled into the microphone, the fingers gripping it suddenly clenched, the blood driven out of his fingernails. “Take her down!”

  With his other hand he pushed the handle controlling the hydraulic periscope hoist. As the bright metal tube slithered silently up from the periscope well he could sense the quick bustle of the control room crew standing up to their stations, their practiced hands waiting for the orders that would open vents, let air out of tanks and send the powerless Cushing deep into the icy sea.

  Two blasts of the diving alarm. Jim Hanson had sounded it from the bridge after making sure the heavily bundled lookout and the OOD had gotten into the hatch trunk. He would be the next-to-last man down, would render assistance as necessary as the Officer of the Deck dogged the hatch. Already the lookout, red of face (what could be seen of it), skin puffed from the cold, bulky in the heavy clothing under his white sheet, had appeared in the control room. A quick look to the left, to the ballast control panel. Its operator was in the process of flipping the last of the switches controlling the main vent valves.

  The base of the periscope appeared at the top of its well, dragging with it the big tubular radar section. Keith had chosen the radar periscope because of the superior optics its larger head-size accommodated. He grabbed the handles as they appeared, snapped them down, with a single smooth motion put his right eye to the eyepiece and swung the ’scope around to the previously noted bearing of the aircraft. The periscope height would permit him to see what the uneven ice denied to Jim Hanson on the bridge.

  Just as he had thought! The plane was flying as low as it could, almost brushing the ice, lifting just enough to give clearance to occasional hummocks and piled-up drifts. It was headed directly for the Cushing. Its two whirling propellers were plainly visible. So was the fixed landing gear, with large broad skis instead of wheels. Fortunately, the bridge watch had been alert. Possibly the plane had been sighted before beginning its run in. Whatever the sequence of events, and their cause, now it was down on the deck, headed directly toward him. There was only one way to interpret this hazardous style of flying. The plane was trying to remain concealed. Only a professional military pilot would fly this way, and only if his intentions were not friendly!

  Keith noticed that his periscope was lower, the ice surface nearer. He hazarded a swift look aft. Yes, the rudder had vanished, leaving a neat hole in the ice shaped to its cross section and the smaller hole his men had cut directly abaft it, which had not been visible as long as the rudder protrusion was in the way. He could not depress the periscope optics enough to see whether Cushing’s sail was still visible, and he did not try. The diving officer, or Jim Hanson, whom he could sense now standing beside him on the periscope station, would in any event report depths as the ship submerged, and he could calculate the disappearance of his sail by himself. The plane was closer, although he had been looking in another direction less than ten seconds. How long would it take to get here? How fast was it coming? How far away?

  Answers to all these questions were by guess and estimation only. Cushing, with no way on, was dropping very slowly. During the war Walrus and Eel had customarily dived in seconds, often in less than half a minute, using the combined full diving capabilities of speed, sharp down-angle, and a boat deliberately ballasted heavy. Cushing was four times the displacement of Eel, and she had no power. Even if she had, she could not have used speed to leave her niche in the ice. She was going down excruciatingly slowly.

  “What’s the depth?” he snapped, without taking his eye from the periscope. He would lower it as soon as the sail was under, but now that Cushing
’s presence had been detected he might as well use it as long as he could.

  “Forty-six feet.” Jim, answering instantly. He must have been watching the depth gauge. “Zero bubble. Forty-six-and-a-half—now it’s forty-seven feet. Four feet to go!” Good man. He knew what Keith needed to know. The Cushing went completely under at keel depth fifty-four feet. Allowing for snow buildup on top of the ice, her sail would be out of sight when her keel had reached about fifty-one. “Forty-eight feet,” said Hanson’s voice, speaking directly into Keith’s right ear.

  The plane was close, now. A two-engine, propeller-driven, high-wing monoplane with fixed landing gear, rigged with skis for Arctic operations. Its presence in the Arctic could not have been spur-of-the-moment! Quickly he announced the description to Jim. “No insignia visible at this angle,” he concluded. It must be only a couple of miles away.

  “Forty-nine feet,” said Jim quietly. The plane was clearly not a modern attack or combat plane. The apparently nonretractable landing gear—with skis, to boot—marked it as an aircraft configured for supply missions over icy terrain. But what had brought it and its two mates to the middle of the Arctic Ocean just at this moment? The idea that the Russians had been able to mount a rescue effort for their own submarine in the very short time since the accident simply could not wash. Perhaps it was a coincidence, some operation, already planned, now doubtless diverted. Perhaps—the idea struck suddenly home—the three aircraft and the submarine which had done the damage were part of a combined operation. Perhaps their presence, and the collision, were not accidental!

  The plane was closer, perhaps a mile. “Forty-nine-a-half,” said Jim. Its underside was more clearly visible. Keith’s hand fell to the motorcycle-type elevation control, but there was no immediate necessity to elevate the periscope optics. The plane was not yet coming overhead. More of the underside was visible because it had suddenly assumed a climbing attitude. Now his angle of sight was distinctly below it. There were no insignia on the underside of the wing. A small object detached itself from the belly of the plane, between the skis, separated rapidly from it, grew swiftly in size as the plane zoomed upward.

  “Sound the collision alarm!” Keith spoke rapidly. “He’s dropped something! Looks like a bomb!” He turned the handle rapidly, keeping the plane in sight as the scream of the collision alarm and the deep thuds of watertight doors slamming throughout the ship reverberated in his ears. When he reached the limiting elevation he watched the plane go out of sight overhead, then spun the periscope completely around. “Put me on the reciprocal!” Jim Hanson’s hands were over his on the periscope controls, shoved the ’scope to the right bearing. “Passing fifty feet,” Jim said. The plane had abruptly increased altitude as it dropped its bomb, but there had been no discernible course change. It would pass over the submarine in one or two seconds and he would pick it up as it again came within his field of view.

  “Fifty-one feet,” said Jim as he waited. The sail must be nearly out of sight now; at least, buried in the snow and little pile of broken ice created when it pushed through. The bomb—if that was what it was—would be landing at any moment, no doubt before the plane reappeared in the periscope view. Perhaps he should have kept his eye on the bomb in its trajectory, instead of on the plane. Perhaps he should have lowered the periscope. He had consciously decided to risk leaving it up: if the bomb struck the sail, there was as much possibility of damage to the periscope whether up or down. If it missed, the ’scope was safe anyway, except for the extremely unlikely chance that the elevated portion might take a direct hit from an otherwise near miss.

  BLAM! The explosion came with shocking suddenness. A cloud of white—flying snow and ice, and the smoke of the explosive charge—filled the periscope view. The rubber eyepiece vibrated against Keith’s forehead, the ridge of his nose and his cheekbone. The plane had not yet come into view. Now it would be impossible to see anything for a few moments. On releasing its bomb the plane obviously had been climbing for altitude. A bomb dropped from a low-flying aircraft was often as hazardous to the bomber as to the target, because the bomb “flew” the same course and speed as the plane while dropping away from it. Its shock wave on detonation inevitably encompassed the space directly above, where, unless there were room and time to maneuver, the plane that had dropped it would be. This was why the plane had swooped upward. It had been flying too near the ice to risk the radical course change which was the normal postrelease tactic.

  “Fifty-three feet.” The reverberations of the explosion had died away, although to Keith’s hypersensitivity their vibrations, and the sympathetic tonal response of the submarine’s huge cylindrical hull, resounded in a lengthy continuum overshadowing his exec’s forced calm. Cushing was dropping faster, now. He had missed the fifty-two-foot mark. Most likely, despite his preternatural self-possession, Jim had missed announcing it as well.

  Thirteen feet of periscope still out of water. Perhaps ten feet of it still projected high enough to be useful, above the blocks of ice thrown aside a few hours ago when the sail crunched up from below. But he could not allow the Arctic Ocean slowly to close over its extended tip, as if his ship were in an ice-free sea. There might be some tiny amount of current down below, a slow-moving, imponderable shifting of the water beneath the ice cover, enough to cause the helpless Cushing’s great bulk to move as she descended into it. It need not be much; just enough to bring the fragile periscope tube into contact with the solid ice rimming the hole. Even though far thinner than the regular ice floes covering the area, the three-foot thickness of ice in the frozen-over lead could bend or snap off the periscope with ease. He must lower it soon, within seconds at most.

  Another thought impacted into Keith’s brain: barring the most extraordinary good luck in drifting under another lead, or polynya, once submerged there was no way he could get Cushing back to the surface again. From now on they were trapped, unable even to communicate.

  “Fifty-four feet.” Still impossible to see anything, although perhaps vision was very slightly improving. He dared not wait longer. Keith snapped up the periscope handles to signal for it to be lowered but he kept his face to the eye guard, his hands to the folded handles. His knees bent slightly, preparatory to riding the ’scope down until it dropped below the floor plates. Understanding, Hanson pulled the hydraulic control handle gently, sent the periscope down at half speed. Just before he had to pull his head clear, Keith thought he saw the plane, barely visible through the thinning smoke and debris still in the air.

  Afterward he could not be sure, but there was something different about it, something suddenly askew, not balanced as it should have been, something horribly wrong. On his haunches, he was forced to crane his head to the side and rear to allow the periscope yoke to pass between his legs and descend into the well, thus did not see the wounded wing spar give way, the wing collapse and fold back upon the plane’s fuselage.

  Aboard the William B. Cushing, only the audio frequency sonar watch-stander heard the muffled crash as the disabled plane shattered itself on the ice a quarter of a mile away. The ice was twenty feet thick, solid with the iron rigidity of a century of existence and covered with a two-foot patina of blizzard-derived snow. The sound, transmitted first through the unyielding ice and then through water, resembled nothing the sonarman had ever heard. He listened carefully for a repetition, heard none, and gradually relaxed. It was a much less frightening noise than the explosion which had blasted into his eardrums only moments before. Nevertheless, the ship’s standing orders for sonar watch-standers required him to write a description in his log of what he had heard, immediately following his notation regarding the bomb explosion. But the bomb explosion itself, preceded by the frighteningly unexpected collision alarm and the resulting activity, had happened too recently. He had not yet even reached for the ball-point pen with which he made his entries.

  There was no further underwater noise to note, and after a few minutes the sonarman took up his log book. It had all happened at th
e same time, 0612 according to the ship’s clock on the bulkhead. He began to compose a single laborious entry encompassing all the events of that confusing and scary instant.

  Not until the next day, in the insulated quiet of the frigid Arctic under its sheet of solid ice cover, as the submarine hovered powerless, unable to move, did the sonarman call his superior’s attention to the strange crunching noise—as he had described it—which he heard just as the reverberations of the bomb explosion finally died away.

  12

  Vice Admiral Murphy, ComSubLant, talking long distance from his headquarters in Norfolk, sounded at the moment like anything but the stodgy individual he was so well known to be. “Yes, they just brought me the message, Rich. I was about to pick up the phone to call you.” The note of uneasiness in his voice was unusual. “This will have to go to CNO right away, and he’ll probably take it to the Joint Chiefs this morning. The National Security Council and the President will have it this afternoon!”

  Keith’s message was obviously of major importance and Murphy’s disquietude therefore understandable, but the idea that the very highest authority would directly and immediately become involved produced shock waves in Richardson’s mind. Seconds later he was grateful for the indoctrination which had kept him silent. “How long has Leone been gone?” The admiral answered his own question immediately. “A little more than three weeks. He’s been up there a week.”