by Ian Slater
For the Sea Wolfs, the distance from the deeps around Spitzbergen to Moscow was farther than from some sub pens on Scotland’s west coast, but Yanov knew, as did all Soviet sub captains, that though Moscow was closer to the Scottish sub pens, the zhostkie—”hard”—strategic targets for Americans— the big sub bases on the Kola Peninsula — were much closer to the Spitzbergen Trench. Still, Yanov and his crew knew there was another reason for the lurking Sea Wolfs. The main incentive for the Americans to head high into the Arctic was not to hide their ballistic missile subs in the protection of deep water but to seek the protection of the ice cap. Of course, it was possible to blast the ice cap first, then send in depth charges and acoustic homing ASW charges, but such tactics were the theoretical dreams of the experts ashore. The reality was that blowing holes in the ice would make such a noise that before the Alfa’s antisubmarine missiles could reach the target, the enemy, alerted by the tremendous explosion of the ice blowing up, would have already begun countermeasures. No, Yanov knew that the only way was to find them as quickly as you could under the ice, and destroy them there.
It took skill and some luck, but Yanov had something else to help him: the benefit of the Soviet Union’s unprecedented developments in submarine warfare. Even the U.S. Navy had admitted that the Soviets’ increasing speed, higher reserve buoyancy, and titanium hull on the Alfa heralded an astonishing advance in Soviet submarine warfare capability. It was even more impressive given the fact that contrary to what many NATO commanders believed, the Soviet Union had not stolen most of her advances from the West but developed them herself. The exception was the spectacular KGB coup in obtaining Western technological breakthroughs in sonar detection and in “quietening” the sub’s prop — an intelligence coup made possible through the secrets sold to the Soviets by the Walker family spy ring in the United States.
Yanov took particular pride in the fact that, compared to the 360-foot-long, 42-foot-wide American Sea Wolfs and the Soviet Union’s tyfuns or “typhoons”—at twenty-five tons, the biggest subs in the world — his Alfa, at twenty-nine hundred tons and only 267 feet long and 31 feet wide, was so sleek, it was like a shark among whales.
Yanov’s Alfa, built in the Sudomekh Shipyard in Leningrad, had already proved herself many times. Yanov glanced at the three red combat efficiency stars mounted above the planesmen in Control. One of the stars, with the black letter “T” printed on its white center, was for torpedo excellence, the second, with “EM” at its center, was for propulsion efficiency, and the third, a red star within the four black lines, testified to superior antisubmarine warfare, awarded to Yanov personally by the Northern Fleet commander.
Most impressive of all, above the three stars was the gold-ringed white circle which contained the blue and white naval ensign of red star, hammer, and sickle. This told anyone who saw it — and they could hardly miss it in Control — that Yanov’s submarine had been acclaimed “Outstanding Ship of the Soviet Navy.” This was the reward for Yanov’s sub having sunk twenty-three NATO merchant vessels, each over fifteen thousand tons, and for the destruction of two NATO nuclear submarines, one a British Trafalgar, the other a French Rubis.
It was an enviable record, but one that Yanov was not satisfied with. What he wanted, what he yearned for — so much that it invaded his dreams — was to sink an American sub, and not just any American sub, but the best they had: a Sea Wolf II. Yanov’s progression from Kapitan to Kontra-Admiral would then be guaranteed.
The war, while bemoaned by so many others, had been a godsend for officers like Yanov — a chance for him to cut out of the herd before he was too old. If you retired from the submarine service as a Kapitan these days, you’d stay a Kapitan forever, as there were over eighty attack submarine captains alone vying for Admirals’ Row.
Yanov ran a check of his “sticks,” including the high-frequency mast, the park lamp DF loop, and the search-and-attack periscopes. The cluster of five sticks atop the Alfa’s streamlined sail was similar to that of the Victor-class nuclear subs, but there any comparison ended. Alfa wasn’t only the world’s fastest attack sub, it was also the deepest-diving, its titanium hull capable of withstanding the enormous ocean pressures to a depth of three thousand feet. In addition, the Alfa’s twenty-one-foot-long, twenty-inch-wide torpedoes, fired from the Alfa’s “covey” of six tubes, mounted forward, could reach forty-five knots, faster than most American subs.
In addition to all this, the Alfa carried two-to-fifteen-kilohertz low-frequency towed sonar arrays and a markedly improved Snoop Tray radar. But technology aside, his Alfa, Yanov knew, had another distinct advantage over the Americans — one that not even Yanov’s colleagues in the other Alfa had. It was the experience of his forty-five man crew. Yanov’s crew had logged more time in Arctic waters than any other attack submarine in the Soviet navy. They were ice-trained, Yanov’s sonar operators having become extraordinarily sensitive to the sounds that emanated from the proximity of unseen but huge subsurface ice, creating the impression that an enemy sub was nearby when in fact it was not. But if you fired at that noise, you gave away your greatest weapon: your silence. And every enemy ship within a hundred kilometers would hear you and come homing in on you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After lunch, Cheek-Dawson rapped the bare table for attention. “All right, chaps — I’ve got an announcement. Bad news, I’m afraid. Sar’Major’s just received a radio message that the lorries aren’t at Abergavenny. Some cock-up at the regular army motor pool apparently. Always happens when you deal with outsiders. Let this be a lesson. We can only rely on ourselves.”
“You mean we have to walk all the way back to Senny Bridge, sir?” asked a sapper. “That’s fifty-odd mile.”
“Yes,” said Cheek-Dawson.
“Gawd blimey,” muttered one of the cockneys. “That’s diabolical, that is. Bloody diabolical.”
“You still plan on staying with the group?” Thelman ribbed Lewis.
“I know what SAS stands for,” said Lewis. “Special Army Sadists.”
“You told us that before,” said David.
The Australian stood up. “Sir?”
“Yes, Lewis.”
“Lot shorter back over the hill.”
“The Beacons?” a cockney voice shouted. “You’re off your Uncle Ned.”
Cheek-Dawson’s expression was fixed on Lewis. Finally he nodded, then shifted his gaze to the rest of the volunteers. “The member from down under has a point, gentlemen. Tougher going — but half the distance. That right, Sar’Major?”
“Easily, sir.”
“Very well,” announced Cheek-Dawson enthusiastically. “It’s back over the hill, then.”
“Very nice, Aussie,” said the trooper next to him. “Well done. Bucking for sergeant?”
But Cheek-Dawson noted the trooper’s mock derision of Lewis was only that, mock — nothing mean about it. And if it’s one thing the SAS, rated higher by NATO than the U.S. Seals or even the Israeli commandos, had learned during its long and distinguished commando years, it was that, contrary to the public’s Dirty Dozen view of such groups, a convivial sense of humor was essential.
As the men rose, checking their “Bergens,” as they’d already begun calling their SAS rucksacks, Lewis, tightening his straps, suddenly experienced a surge of intuition about where they were going. The rats were the clue, he told Brentwood. “The tropics!”
“You daft?” asked a Tommy. “Why ‘ave they got us in bloody Wales then?”
“Because,” retorted Lewis, “they’re bloody comedians, that’s why. Like to watch us suffer. Besides — doesn’t matter where they train us. It’s how, right? Now, the rats—”
“Rats are everywhere,” said the Tommy. “I don’t think even Cheek-Dawson knows where we’re going.”
“Yeah,” agreed Thelman. “You heard him last night. Said we’re ‘on call.’ “
“Not so fast, Thelma,” said Lewis. We haven’t qualified yet.”
“You know what I mea
n, Aussie.”
“You tryin’ to tell me they’ve got no idea where we’ll be going?”
“I didn’t say that,” answered Thelman.
“There you are then. I tell you it’s the tropics.”
“A quid says you’re wrong,” challenged the Tommy.
“You’re on,” said Lewis. “That’s a quid gone west, mate.” Lewis looked around. “Anyone else?”
Cheek-Dawson was standing by the door, opening the rucksack and counting out the requisite number of bricks, the sergeant collecting the first batch of those men who had failed and who would have to be taken back to Senny Bridge by the Land Rover. Buckling up the rucksack, Cheek-Dawson called David Brentwood over. “Your service record says you’re para trained.”
“Yes, sir.”
“HALO as well as regular?” By HALO he meant high-altitude, low-opening jumps — high-altitude to avoid AA and radar detection in free fall, low-altitude-opening for steering to a pinpoint landing. It was the kind of thing sky divers did, except they didn’t carry the enormous load commandos were required to. The difference was like that between one man swimming in a pair of trunks, the other in full gear and rifle.
“Only regular chute training,” replied David. “At Camp Lejeune. With Thelman. No HALO.”
“Not to worry. Shouldn’t take you too long once you’ve had the basics.” He paused, shifting the weight of his pack. “If you’re game.”
“When do we start?” said Brentwood.
“I admire your confidence,” replied Cheek-Dawson, zipping up the nylon storm suit. “But you have a few hoops to pass through yet.”
David said nothing. The truth was that, despite his bravado in front of Cheek-Dawson, he had a blister on his left heel that was about to burst. If he was to get back over the Beacons in the snowstorm, with a windchill factor of at least minus ten, it’d be a pure case of mind over matter. When Cheek-Dawson opened the door, flurries of snow flew through, stinging his face.
“If this is phase one,” said Thelman, slinging his rifle, “I’d hate to think what the next five are like.”
“So would I, mate,” said Lewis. “And it’s not five more.”
“Thank God,” said Thelman.
“It’s six!” said Lewis.
Cheek-Dawson looked back at the fifty-five men who had earned the right to more pain. “First man back gets free beer!” he announced heartily.
“That’s me!” shouted Lewis.
“Oh ja?” It was a West ranger commando. “I was the champion drinker in my Einzelkämpf unit.”
“Einzel—what?” said Lewis, winking at Brentwood and Thelman. “Sounds like a flamin’ disease!”
“You want to bet on it, Aussie?” asked the German.
“Aw, don’t waste your dough, Fritz. You’ll need it for an oxygen bottle.” There was some hearty laughter despite the impending trek.
“Never mind,” said the German in correct, if heavily accented, English. “I will bet you twenty marks.”
“All right, Fritz,” rejoined Lewis. “But let’s make it real money. Dollars. U.S.”
Gambling was strictly against Queen’s Regulations, but Cheek-Dawson and the RSM were quiet on the matter. What Major Rye had in mind for this lot — those who were left at week’s end — would require more than top physical fitness. Their morale, as the U.S. Marines were fond of saying, would have to be “outstanding,” and if a wager here and there helped, so be it. Some of them would never get to spend it.
* * *
By 2200 hours that evening. Major Rye watched them straggle in after the killing pace set by both the German ranger and Cheek-Dawson, who had led most of the way as well as checking for stragglers. Rye noted there were seven more, three U.S. Marines and four British, who decided it was too tough for them. Rye spoke gently to the seven, as he had to the “cot cases” brought in earlier by the sergeant major in the Land Rover. Rye not only thanked them all for coming but spoke individually to each man as he signed out, asking the failures what they thought had been the hardest part of the trek for them and telling every one of them that they were welcome to reapply for SAS at anytime. Confidentiality, he told them, would be assured. Apart from their respective commanding officers, as far as their regiments were concerned, they had merely been seconded for other duties for a week. Major Rye then told them he had failed in his first attempt. It softened the blow visibly.
“What did you in, sir?” asked Lewis, out of breath but with his usual bluntness intact.
“Cross-country march,” answered Rye without hesitation. “Full pack and weapons. Somewhat heavier than you’re carrying now, I should add. Forty miles — rough terrain. Timed us at twenty hours.”
“When do we do that, sir?” asked Thelman.
“Oh, early on. Phase two.”
“Stone the crows!” said Lewis, but before he could say any more, Cheek-Dawson was telling the forty-eight men remaining that in half an hour’s time, he wanted them in four-man troops, or “fire teams, as you Americans call them.” Two men were assigned to be on the “blackboards” as each of the eleven four-man troops was to submit a plan of attack against the hypothetically heavily defended chapel at Merthyr Tydfil, whence they’d just come. Apart from judging initiative and organizational abilities on short notice, the purpose of this exercise was to have each group’s plan “rubbished” by three regular SAS NCOs from the air services’ oldest regiment: the Twenty-second, based in Hereford. In the main, this consisted of picking the plans apart and ridiculing each group’s suggestion as either “daft” or “bloody stupid,” while the men were mentally and physically exhausted, many of them disoriented by the sudden shock of the total immersion of the Beacons “caper,” as it was known in SAS. If they couldn’t stand having, in the lexicon of the SAS, “the piss taken out of ‘em,” then they were dropped. In SAS’s experience, bad temper was as fatal to an operation as bad planning. A line unit could put up with misfits, but misfits in the SAS had to “fit” together.
“You owe me twenty dollars,” the tall German ranger said, approaching Lewis, Brentwood, and Thelman, the four of them forming one of the four-man troops.
“What’s your name, sport?” Lewis asked the German.
“Wilhelm Schwarzenegger.”
“Yeah, well, listen, Willie. I’m a spot short now. Fix you up on payday.”
“Ja, ja. Sure, no problem.”
“Hey — you any relation to Arnie?”
“Who?”
“You know, old Arnie Schwarzenegger. Used to be a big movie star years ago. Muscles like chickens’ insteps.”
“No. I do not think so. Maybe way back.”
“So, Aussie,” David interrupted. “How we going to take the chapel?”
“Ah,” said Lewis, putting his rifle on his bunk and then walking back to the group. “Like Willie here says. ‘No problem.’ Piece o’ cake. Bracket the bastards with a mortar, and while they’ve got their noggins down, move in. Not too wide a front, though — we’d end up shooting one another.”
“Lewis!” Everyone stopped talking, the regimental sergeant major’s voice echoing, bull-like, through the barrack.
“Yeah?” said Lewis.
“Yes, Sergeant Major!”
“Yes, Sergeant Major?”
“In this regiment you may hate your mother, you may not pay your taxes, but you are never—I repeat never to be out of reach of your weapon. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major.”
“Carry on.”
Sheepishly Lewis walked over, got his rifle, and returned. For the first time since he’d met him, David Brentwood saw that the Australian was embarrassed — though he wasn’t at a loss for words. “Old fart! I’m never out of reach of my weapon.”
“You were then,” said Thelman.
“I mean my cock, Thelma!”
“Jesus, you’re rude.”
“Okay,” said David. “What size?”
“My cock?” said Lewis. Wilhelm was shaking his head.
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“The mortar!” said David. “Can’t be too heavy. Eighty-one-millimeter weighs a hundred pounds, shells around fifteen. Not very effective, Aussie. Most we could carry is six rounds.”
“I meant a light job,” explained Lewis. “Sixty-mill. Fifty-pound barrel. Rounds weigh in at less than ten.”
“You must be joking!” said one of the SAS NCOs wandering among the groups. “Snowing to beat the band and you’re talking about mortars! You’d get moisture in the barrel and— poof! Unless you’re a good infielder, mate, you’ll end up with your family jewels blown across five acres.”
“We’re not that stupid,” said David. “We’d make sure the barrel was—”
“No?” cut in another NCO. “You fire a mortar round and next minute you’d be on their infrared scopes. Big blobs against the snow, you’d be. You blokes might as well hang out a shingle — tell ‘em where you are.”
“Stop screwing around with mortars,” said the British NCO. “Go in fast. Don’t give ‘em time to think China!”
“We have any artillery backup?” asked Thelman.
The British NCO exchanged an incredulous glance with one of the American NCOs. “Pathetic, isn’t it? Absolutely pathetic!” He squatted down next to Thelman. “If we had artillery that close, you ning-nong, we wouldn’t need Special Air Service, right? Christ — what did you blokes have for lunch? Fairy floss, was it?”
Thelman glowered at the British NCO. David quickly cut in. “You’re assuming they’ve got infrared scopes,” he put to the NCOs.
“What we’re assuming,” said the British NCO, “is that you blokes don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. Artillery! Jesus! Self-reliance, amigos — that’s what it’s all about. No one else there but you.”
As the two NCOs moved on to the next group, Thelman was still steamed. “What the hell’s fairy floss?”