by Andy Lettau
"Oh God, that's not a rock. There's something out there ... another boat."
Somebody called out his name, but O`Brian just stared at the controls, switches and the keys on his equipment and tried to get the echo back in.
Once again he heard it, the perfidious pling! For a fraction of a second. It left behind a green LED impulse, which for a short time burned into O`Brian's retinas. Then it fell silent.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. He reached for the microphone, took a deep breath and spoke directly to the bridge: "Sonar room to bridge. This is O'Brian speaking. One of our pieces of dead equipment has just sprung back into life. I have - I had contact on the port side."
Whatever was happening on the bridge, it was Captain Hudson himself who answered calmly with all due thought for his vessel:
"What did you say? For heaven's sake man, are you drunk?
"No, sir. Something has just rammed us."
"And you're sure it wasn't a rock or some piece of débris floating in the water?
"I'm pretty sure, sir. I had only two or three signals on the screen - but they were pretty close to each other."
"Good God!"
"Captain, we've got to do something straightaway. At the moment the sonar is down again and I can locate nothing. At the moment ... no ... wait, there it is again ..."
"What?"
"The signal is coming back ... I mean, ah, the thing is coming back."
"What kind of signature do you see?", Hudson pressed him.
"Difficult to say, sir, the signal is not clear ... not a hundred percent because ... HMS, VDS, TAS – I'm working here with a pile of crap, I can't possibly ..."
"Is that out there one of our ships or one of Charly's?", the Captain interrupted gruffly.
"Sir, I can't ans ..."
"Okay, let me know as soon as there is a change of status."
O`Brian had not been there to hear how the commandant issued orders on the bridge and listened to hectically spoken status notifications. If they really were going to be attacked, Hudson had to act quickly. Completely on the surface the USS George W. Bush offered a target that was difficult to miss. But if they were to go down blind, the risk of a collision would be great. Even if 'down' meant that one had several thousand feet of water in the most optimal places under the keel and it could be quite a long time before there was a collision.
"Oh", said O`Brian, as a green light reflection moved across the monitor. He told the bridge immediately, but this time he got the First Officer.
"Sonar room to bridge: Have contact, repeat, have contact. We are being attacked from Bearing ..."
While O`Brian have the coordinates, Pinky all of a sudden began to bark. The animal instinctively felt the danger.
"What's up down there?", the First Officer wanted to know.
"Nothing. The dog's acting crazy."
Short pause. The First Officer understood. "How far to go?"
"About 800 yards, the echo is getting stronger."
"Damn!"
"600 yards, still on course for us, full amidships. Done a complete turn after the first strike.
"So it's a sub?"
"Looks like it. But not a particularly big one, if the parameters in the display are anything to go by.
"Can you detect active torpedoes?"
"Negative."
O`Brian was too focussed on the display in front of him to wonder whether water was coming in as a result of the first strike.
"Status?", the First Office insistently wanted to know. "The Captain needs an appraisal, quickly!"
"500 yards, then another strike."
"Damn, that's all we need."
Seconds later Hudson initiated procedures for emergency diving. Judging by the din there were complications. But O`Brian couldn't stop to listen. He had enough to do. Anyway the First Officer wanted a running appraisal of the situation, which was more than dramatic.
"Distance?"
"Under 400 yards, prepare for strike any minute now."
"Okay, the Captain knows what to do."
"Let's hope so."
Just at the moment Hudson's voice came over all loudspeakers. "This is your Captain: This is NOT an exercise! Everyone remain at your battle station. This is an alarm triggered by enemy contact. We have been attacked and there will be another attack in a few seconds. We are going to perform an emergency dive. Prepare for a violent maneuver. End."
Anybody who was not already in a place where he could hold on tight soon found one. You could read the tension on all the faces of those involved.
"Distance, O’Brian?"´, the First Officer wanted to know.
"Only 100 yard, with a slight swing to stern."
"What?"
"Attention, now!", screamed O`Brian.
It struck.
But with more force than the first time.
As if the Fist of God had struck.
The sound of bending steel was creepy, formidable, evocative of watery death. It sounded like a monster eating its way invisibly through the entrails of the USS George W. Bush.
Without any warning all the lights went out. All of a sudden it was pitch black. High-pitched screams, then silence, not a peep. Everybody on board was silent for three seconds.
These three seconds seemed to most of them like a whole hour. Everybody got ready for a second blow to follow the first one, which had ripped through the boat - brutal, unchained primeval force.
'Why aren't we diving?' O`Brian suddenly thought. We've got far too little pitch.
In a chain reaction, accompanied by an infernal grinding noise, in which the rush of incoming water could be heard, the engine room and the drive shafts were almost dismantled into their component parts.
While all the men were fighting for their lives and the Captain was feverishly urging them not to give up the section at any price, O`Brian once again sat on the floor. He was deathly pale and crossed himself. He could imagine what had just happened. It must have caught the rudder. And with it inch-thick steel, that had been ripped off leaving a gap through which half the Atlantic was rushing in.
"Let's hope the poor bastards back there can plug it," he murmured as he mechanically held on to the dog's neck. Pinky had his head in O'Brian's lap, looking for protection and gently whimpering.
There was a violent explosion that made the hull shake again, and O'Brian corrected himself. "Hope? Let's pray."
Something then struck him on the head and the lights went out.
When he woke up next morning in the hospital ward, O'Brian had a violent headache. The world around him was just a blur. Voices kept pressing into his ears but he couldn't organize them. The fragments of conversation slowly came together like a puzzle.
He was lying on a camp bed and saw a half dozen wounded men, some seriously, some not. They were all wearing bandages and plasters, two had plaster casts on their arms and legs, but nobody seemed to have been fatally injured. The doctor and his assistant were more or less finished with their work.
The doctor, Dr. Ray Wright, a George Clooney type with friendly eyes and prematurely grey temples, spotted O'Brian and went over to him.
"What happened, Doc?" O`Brian wanted to know. "Were we attacked by Russians? Is the war over? Is this heaven? God, my head feels like someone is beating it with a sledgehammer."
Wright was a man of few and simple words. He always remained matter-of-fact and hardly ever gave away what he was thinking about. The raising of the eyebrows could have meant everything or nothing.
Wright removed a bandage and took his time answering O`Brian's question. "This might hurt a bit.
"Ouch!"
Two of the other patients look briefly at O`Brian. He ignored them.
"So, what happened? How long have I been here?"
"A couple of hours," replied the doctor, expertly touching various parts of his head. "And now look into this!"
The weak light of a small flashlight hurt O`Brian's eyes. He turned his head irritably. T
he doctor shrugged his shoulders and ignored him.
"As I thought, only a slight concussion, no more. I've taken out all the glass splinters you got from the neon light that broke. And I've put twenty stitches into that cut. I'll put a clean bandage on it, and that's it."
"Was that a light that fell on my head. Was I unconscious? I can't remember anything," said O'Brian, amazed.
Dr. Wright took his time with the dressing and when he was finished took a small transparent plastic tube from his white coat. "Two of these every five hours, if the headaches don't stop. But I think you can go back to work."
O`Brian nodded slightly. "And are you to fill in my memory lapses. Or do I have to make sense of what happened?"
Wright cleared his instruments away and took off his plastic glove. While he was disinfecting his hands at a washbasin, he summarized the last few hours.
"Our rudder was hit by another submarine. During the emergency diving the drive shaft was hit. It's had it. The turbine was also hit, or at least part of it. Basically, the whole drive unit is out of commission. The engine room is totally flooded, we lost a few men there. Apparently two ballast tanks and the desalination unit have been affected. Anyway the trim is defective and can't be used for the torpedoes because of the tail-end weight. Unless we want to shoot at the moon. The status quo is that we are in the Atlantic without engines. Doesn't look good, not good at all."
O`Brian tried to concentrate. What the doctor had just told him sounded anything but positive. As it looked at the moment they couldn't go forwards or backwards, let alone dive.
"Is the reactor OK?"
"Yes."
"And the sonar?"
"Completely dead. At least the last I heard."
"So, we're like a blind harpooned killer whale."
"That's about the size of it, yes."
O`Brian got up. His mouth dropped. He was still a bit dazed, but he knew that would get better. He wanted to thank the doctor, when he thought of another question. He formulated it as casually as possible, because he didn't really expect an answer. Whoever had wanted to sink their submarine still had a good chance of doing so after the first successful attempt.
"And we still don't even know who rammed us. He's probably well away by now. Maybe it's one of ours who's just too cowardly to admit it. Anyway, whatever, if we get our baby afloat again, we've got plenty of time to track him down. Apart from the two of us there can't many who have survived, can there?
Dr. Wright put a towel to one side and rubbed his tired eyes. "He is right next to us and has been observing us for hours. But he hasn't made any attempt to contact or attack us. Apparently his technological capability is very limited."
O`Brian did not understand a word. "What did you just say?"
Almost apologetically Wright shrugged his shoulders. "He must be crazy. He's bobbing up and down in a dinghy out there and has hoisted the North Korean flag."
O`Brian looked as puzzled as Pinky, who had just trotted in and looked at his master quizzically because of the white headwear.
"Say that again please, Doc."
"You heard me right the first time. Outside is a North Korean submarine."
Before O`Brian could understand the full significance of these words, the doctor reminded him that officers and important weapons system personnel, some of whom were among those injured but were by no means operationally fit, were to come into the wardroom, where the President wanted to discuss with them what was to happen next.
O`Brian received the information with a nod and went off to the officers' mess. The dog followed him obediently.
The wardroom was a deck lower than O`Brian's present position. The 700 something square feet area radiated a certain domestic charm and was not so clinically equipped and technology dominated as the other work places on board. Comfortable armchairs in dark blue leather around a few tables of cherry wood, various military objects hanging on the walls along with framed pictures and photos. In two glass cases there were trophies of crew competitions and victorious maneuvers on show, there was a small kitchen with bars and stools, as well as flip-charts at the head of the room and a huge digital sea-chart, on which tactics could be demonstrated visually. In the walls were flat screens and other necessary communication electronic devices. Two shelves with predominantly nautical literature adorned the space next to the entrance door.
When O`Brian entered the room, it was full, unlike in other meetings. He looked for a place where he could stand in a corner unobtrusively and tried to look to the front. The President had obviously gathered his advisers around him and was in the middle of a lively discussion, which apparently was coming to an end.
"So, gentlemen, we do not know if the North Korean dictator is on board the enemy sub. There is no evidence in favor of it or against it. But as long as there is a theoretical possibility, we have to ensure with all the means at our disposal that this person does not become the ruler of the planet. Even if it is just for a few days or weeks."
"Mr. President", the Captain wanted to add, "we are happy that you see it in the same way that we do. Everyone on board would like to retaliate for this cowardly attack. The enemy is still quiet, probably because he too has problems. But the longer we wait, the more likely it is that there will be another attack. Our aircraft weapons of course cannot be used - their firepower could actually endanger us because of the relatively short distance, but our Seals could mine the hull of the enemy vessel without being noticed, assuming that this bastard doesn't slip away beforehand. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, perhaps the last one in our lifetime. At exactly midnight the fireworks will commence."
After initial hesitation the murmur of approval turned into unmistakable applause for this suggestion. Even those who had remained silent and wanted to await the reaction of the President, stood up from their seats using their hands to in order to signal their agreement.
With a statesmanlike gesture President Johnson let it be known that he considered the suggestion an appropriate one. Hudson reminded everyone once again of the dangerous drinking water situation and the alcohol ban.
Shortly afterwards the meeting broke up. On their way out a few shipmates asked O`Brian how he felt as they passed him.
"Couldn't be better," he replied curtly. Then he retired to consider what was going to happen shortly. Pinky did not budge from his side.
When the deep black, starless night finally drew itself over the two submarines whose fates were intertwined, the Captain deployed a squad of twelve Navy Seals with limpet mines to the DA BAK SOL. So that the North Koreans would not hear anything a part of the crew had to make a lot of noise in the steel hull of the USS George W. Bush by banging vigorously with hammers. If the Koreans were to listen on their sound detection devices, it would probably blow their heads off.
O’ Brian didn't hear the noise because of his iPhone. The sound of "Highway Star" by Deep Purple took him back to the time when he used to drive his disgracefully expensive Ford Mustang, which he couldn't afford, at full speed along deserted highways. What he would give to drive along Route 66 with Mariam, the wind taking her breath away, her blouse seductively half-open.
Deep Purple was followed by Harry Nilsson singing "Living without you", and this made him feel even sadder. The song had long been a favorite of theirs. It was also the one to which he had proposed to her. When Mariam had wrecked the Mustang shortly after the wedding, they had both found comfort in Jack Radic's song "No matter".
Not not ever, life has never been better
It don`t matter, life has never been better …
After two hours O`Brian had his heard all his favorites twice and put the MP3 player to one side. At the same time the hammering stopped. The Seals had obviously delivered their lethal present.
"Let's get something to eat in the mess," he said to Pinky and got up from his bed. The dog wagged his tail, as if he understood the words. They set off together to fortify themselves. After the meal was over, they made their way to the sonar room, which
by now looked like the cannibalized entrails of a giant computer. Somebody had decided to break down all the equipment into its component parts and rebuild it from scratch. O`Brian couldn't for the life of him imagine that this would help to speed things up. The brief contact with the North Korean submarine anyway was probably the last that they had received.
Towards evening he decided to go on deck. He wore a protective suit and stared into the darkness. There was emotional sounding music being wafted over the sea by the wind. The melody sounded strange and martial and would have been irritating, if one had had to listen to it for long enough. If the Koreans intended to wage psychological warfare, then it was clearly having some effect with some of the crew. Another officer also on deck pulled his weapon and fired pointlessly at the enemy, who was well out of range. "I can't stand this mindless crap of yours. But you'll see. Tomorrow at noon you're all going to hell!"
Captain Hudson by chance came on deck and disciplined the officer. "Stop that. Or do you want to create the impression that our nerves are beginning to go?"
The man, defeated, dropped his head and put his weapon away. Then he disappeared below deck without a word. O`Brian could not help but notice the worry lines on the Captain's face. As their eyes met, O`Brian managed to get a question out.
"Sir, what do you think? Was it really the right decision to mine the boat over there to provide New Year's fireworks entertainment?"
Hudson turned away and stared at the calm sea, as if the god of the seas were about to whisper some advice in his ear. After what seemed like an eternity the answer finally came.
"I consider you to be an intelligent man, O`Brian, so I won't pretend with you. To be honest, I can't give you an answer. Normally the boat over there would have no chance. We could have destroyed them with a simple ramming maneuver. But fate dealt them a lucky hand, and now we're the ones unable to move. If they had weapons, they would have used them by now."
"Yeah, sure, but ..."