by Joe Buff
“What do we do?”
“Retreat. In the only direction we can. Northeast along the ridge toward Africa.”
CHAPTER 40
Still no sign of Challenger or her wreckage,” Stissinger said two hours later.
Instead of responding, Ernst Beck studied the live-feed laser line-scan video coming in from his off-board probes. He’d sent them ahead of von Scheer as expendable scouts in case Jeffrey Fuller survived and was waiting in counterambush for him nearby.
Beck saw piles of freshly broken boulders, a result of the avalanches triggered inside the Walvis Ridge mountain pass. The water was clouded with sediment and rock dust, kicked up by the nuclear blasts. He also saw fragments of dead sea creatures drift through the field of view from the probes: shredded deep-sea jellyfish, broken body parts from strange siphonophores—snakelike beings covered with thousands of stinging tentacles for capturing prey and dozens of small translucent stomachs for digesting. Some of the stomachs he saw were still intact and held food. Beck noticed a colony of blackened starfish, all unmoving on the bottom, charred by the radiant heat of the blasts. He saw demonfish, naturally black, with hideous faces and huge fangs that made them look like something out of a horror movie. Except the luminous barbs near the mouths of these demonfish didn’t glow, and they floated upside down—dead.
Von Scheer came out of the pass heading south. Beck gave helm orders to turn the ship northeast to avoid the antisubmarine perils of the wide-open and almost bottomless Cape Basin. He had the copilot use the remote-controlled probes to search the ridge terrain just northeast of the seamounts that guarded that side of the pass.
The wait for some report was tense and frustrating, but necessary.
Von Loringhoven came over. “You realize, don’t you, that if he decided to run, he’s getting away.”
“It isn’t about him, Baron. It’s about us. Whether we get to launch our missile salvos soon enough. If we’ve scared Jeffrey Fuller off, and we can get in range of the convoy safely and then make a good escape, so much the better. We’ll be free to concentrate on hunting and killing Challenger after that.”
“Agreed,” von Loringhoven said.
“But none of that has happened yet.”
“So what do you intend to do?”
“We need to continue up the ridgeline at a good pace. Let me show you what I mean…. Einzvo?”
“Captain?”
“Have Sonar take the conn for a moment. Join me and the baron at the navigation table.”
Young Werner Haffner took Beck’s seat. He seemed honored to have the duty at such an important time. Beck smiled to himself. Haffner’s boyish enthusiasm was a welcome tonic.
As he matures, if he survives, he’ll make a good submariner indeed.
Stissinger paced aft and stood with Beck and von Loringhoven at the plotting table. Beck explained to the navigator what he wanted to see.
A display appeared of the now-familiar land and undersea terrain in this theater: the western African coast, the Walvis Ridge, the Angola Basin, the Bight of Guinea–St. Helena chain of seamounts to that basin’s north, and the Cape Basin to the Walvis Ridge’s south.
An animation appeared, showing the convoy moving toward the shore of the Allied pocket in the Congo Basin.
Beck cleared his throat. “The convoy’s base course is roughly east. Our own base course, because of the ridge, has to be more like northeast. To converge on the convoy before it’s too late, we need to better the convoy’s average speed by almost fifty percent.”
The animation began again, with the convoy moving at twenty knots and the von Scheer making the same twenty knots. The icon of the von Scheer closed the range to the convoy as it moved up along the ridge on the chart—but not fast enough.
The animation repeated, with von Scheer doing thirty knots. Now a red circle around the own-ship icon showed the range of her Mach 2.5 cruise missiles—five hundred miles; a green line marked the atomic rules-of-engagement two-hundred-mile limit from land. At thirty knots, the red circle enveloped a big part of the convoy before the convoy reached the two-hundred-mile limit.
Von Loringhoven watched all this. “Very clear explanation. It seems at thirty knots, which I believe is your top quiet speed, we should achieve our goal.”
“It isn’t quite that simple. We need to allow extra time for appropriate caution and self-defense. And we need to allow for the flight time of our missiles. Even at Mach Two point five, hugging the wave tops, it takes about fifteen minutes to achieve their maximum range. Baron, in fifteen minutes a nuclear-powered supercarrier going all out can cover ten or more sea miles, wider than the lethal burst zone of our missile warheads. So we have to build into their flight paths autonomous searching-strategy patterns, unless we can receive good and accurate targeting data in advance. And those patterns looping and zigzagging after their prey use up even more time.”
“So why don’t we get the data?”
“We’d need a high-baud-rate radio link. To download firing solutions for a hundred-plus missiles is a complex and painstaking task. To get that link established, without a kampfschwimmer team on an island and an acoustic connection into the water to us, we’d have to come to periscope depth and raise a mast ourselves, well in advance of when we launch. The Allies already know we’re somewhere in the Walvis Ridge, thanks to the mushroom clouds above the surface marking our skirmish with Challenger. It’ll be bad enough with the datum we make as our missiles all take to the air.”
“You’re saying we need to fire our missiles half blind, to have the best chance to survive to fire them at all?”
“Yes. Thus we need to get as close as humanly possible to the convoy, and that burns up even more time.”
“What is your intention now?”
“I know Fuller well enough to know he won’t give up until one of us is destroyed…. Navigator, overlay the Subtropical Convergence.”
The navigator typed some keys. A broad and fuzzy yellow ribbon snaked along the map. It crossed the Walvis Ridge at an angle, three hundred sea miles northeast of the mountain pass that von Scheer had just left behind. Beck pointed to that spot, where the Subtropical Convergence intersected the Walvis Ridge.
“Fuller has the same information we do. He can read the same maps. His natural impulse and best strategy is to set up another ambush for us, here.” He tapped that spot on the chart. “The same confusing sonar and oceanographic conditions we used to our advantage as we crossed the South Atlantic from the Rocks to Mar del Plata apply at this point equally well.” In the hemisphere-girdling zone where frigid currents from Antarctica clashed and merged with warm ones from the equator.
“If he hides inside the convergence,” Stissinger said, “we might be able to sneak past him.”
“So he’ll either wait for us in front of the convergence, or behind it,” von Loringhoven said.
“The question is which,” Beck said, “in front or behind? Fuller needs to slow us down as much as possible. He knows, so far, that each of our direct encounters has been indecisive, a draw. The Rocks, and then this Walvis pass. Therefore, he’ll wait in the ridge terrain for us behind the convergence.”
“Why behind?” the baron asked.
“May I?” Stissinger said.
Beck smiled and nodded. He noticed that Stissinger had been following his lead for the past few days, accepting the baron’s presence without rancor—and allowing their passenger-guest to join in some command discussions as a useful third voice.
Stissinger really is the perfect einzvo: loyal and very capable, yet also keenly adaptable to changing conditions on the ship—responsive without being prodded as my own political thinking and the social dynamic evolve.
“If Challenger waits for us on the closer side of the Subtropical Convergence, Baron,” Stissinger explained, “Jeffrey Fuller runs a serious risk. If we break contact for just a short while, say using the extreme acoustic sea state of torpedo blasts, the convergence gives us sanctuary. It’s an ideal pl
ace for confusing sound-propagation qualities to offer us excellent cloaking, even from active pinging by a desperate Challenger. We’ll have gotten between Fuller and the convoy. But, if Fuller seeks to engage us next on the far side of the convergence, that sanctuary becomes irrelevant. If we try to use it then, we run the wrong way, farther from our priority target, the Allied convoy. And we still have to come back and fight our way past Fuller all over again.”
“Your logic seems inescapable,” von Loringhoven said.
Beck patted Stissinger on the shoulder. He had a selfish motive here, besides giving his XO well-deserved praise. He was showing the baron he ran a skilled and talented crew—and again, it was best for them all to close ranks in front of their seniors in Berlin about the South American mess. Von Loringhoven seemed to get the point: his aloofness and his arrogance appeared to be finally gone for good.
Stissinger continued. “So long as Challenger is believed to have survived, Allied antisubmarine forces are hobbled. In the difficult terrain conditions within the ridge, they dare not attack any very deep contact, lest it be Fuller and not us.”
“You mean,” von Loringhoven said, “so long as Fuller is alive, that keeps us safe from Allied bombardment?”
“Precisely,” Beck said. “We use Fuller’s mere existence for our own purposes, for now.”
“And then what’s your intention?”
“Move quickly to the convergence. Turn Fuller’s ambush plans against him yet again, from there.”
It was ten hours later. Jeffrey released the crew from battle stations a few at a time so they could use the head, drink coffee, and eat. He had black coffee and a ham sandwich brought to him at the command console. He thanked the messenger, gulped everything down while the youngster stood there, and handed back the empty mug and plate.
Jeffrey returned to his harrowing vigil, waiting for the von Scheer to pierce the Subtropical Convergence as Beck moved his way along the Walvis Ridge.
He glanced at the picture of Ernst Beck on his screen.
Well, buddy. Soon one of us is gonna die. I intend for it to be you.
The crew around Jeffrey were tired and tense. But they all knew well from training drills, and from at-sea full-scale tactical exercises fought against U.S. or Royal Navy subs before the war, that waiting at battle stations—doing nothing yet not relaxing for hour after endless hour—was sometimes a vital part of a submariner’s job—even if the submarine he was on was called a fast-attack.
Jeffrey flipped through his menu screens. His last two off-board probes were positioned to the southwest, one on each flank of the Walvis Ridge, to listen for von Scheer to emerge from the sonar forest formed by the Subtropical Convergence. Jeffrey had Challenger hovering, with her bow also aimed southwest, to launch his fish in Ernst Beck’s face with the least possible delay.
Bell cleared his throat to get Jeffrey’s attention.
“Yes, XO?”
“Why don’t we send a few fish out in front, to loiter and get a better first crack at him?”
“Not a bad idea, but their fuel only lasts so long. And even loitering their engines make noise. We’d just waste ammo, or give ourselves away.”
“Understood.”
“A good question to ask, though,” Jeffrey said. He stretched. “Overall, I do like this setup. As you said, XO, I need to do the unexpected, be unpredictable for me.”
“How does this accomplish that, sir?”
“I’m using the exact same tactic as before. Ambushing Beck from behind a major hydrographic feature. Before it was that mountain pass. This time it’s the convergence. Doing the same thing twice, especially when the first time failed, is what Beck will least expect.”
Jeffrey and Bell returned to their waiting game. More hours passed.
“Torpedoes in the water!” Milgrom screamed. “Four inbound torpedoes held by passive sonars on each off-board probe!”
“Range? Bearing? Speed?”
“Range ten thousand yards from Challenger.” Five nautical miles. “Bearing two zero five.” South-southwest. “Closing speed seventy-five knots! Sea Lions, Captain!”
“They came right out of the convergence, sir,” Bell said. “Von Scheer guessed where we were all over again.” He sounded dismayed.
All over again is right. Jeffrey was really angry with himself.
Jeffrey ordered nuclear snap shots launched in self-defense from six tubes. He had the tubes reloaded, with more Mark 88s armed. He ordered more nuclear snap shots—some against the inbound torpedoes, some into the convergence to find the von Scheer.
He knew that scoring a hit against the von Scheer—inside the convergence eddies and conflicting currents and chaotic temperature and salinity horizontal layers and vertical cells—was unlikely.
More Sea Lions could come tearing at him any moment.
“Beck suckered me good,” he said under his breath.
“Captain?”
Jeffrey needed to make a rushed decision. For his ship to take much more punishment, and suffer serious damage, would leave the convoy wide open to devastation by the von Scheer.
Supplies of crucial spare parts, and layers of systems redundancy, were severely depleted in the previous skirmish. More of this abuse, and something Challenger can’t do without will break beyond repair—and then we’ve had it.
Jeffrey ordered Bell to retarget his latest salvo entirely for self-defense, and set them to blow by timer in case he lost the wires to those fish. He wrote off the last of his off-board probes. In the edgy silence before all his fish would blow, Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to turn Challenger onto course zero three zero: north-northeast. He called for top quiet speed.
Once more Challenger retreated, farther up the ridge.
Behind her Bell’s snap shots detonated. The ocean erupted as it had before. Blast forces from aft arrived and punished the ship. Noise and shock fronts bounced off terrain to the sides and in front of Challenger, and punished her more. The ride was terribly rough, acoustic conditions impossible. More damage reports poured in, jury-rigged emergency repairs were made in haste, and Jeffrey fretted. My ship’s margin for survival is wearing too thin…. The contest with Beck is as much about good damage control as it is about smart fighting tactics.
Still fleeing northeast, up the Walvis Ridge toward Africa, Jeffrey ordered flank speed. Maybe Beck is better than me.
“No sign of him, sir,” Stissinger reported. Off-board probes had scouted well ahead and thoroughly.
“He retreated again.” Beck knew he was stating the obvious.
“What now?” von Loringhoven asked.
Beck rested his head in his right hand, with his upper lip cupped in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. His elbow leaned on his console top, taking the weight of his forearm and head. He stared into space and thought over everything he knew.
“He has to stand and fight sooner or later. The closer to the convoy we get, the more all the time pressure passes from us onto him. He obviously used my own trick from the Rocks. A wall of nuclear blasts as a screen to mask his escape.”
“What if he used all of our tricks?” Stissinger said. “Including doubling back? He might be behind us now, planning to take us from the rear.”
“We’d’ve heard him,” Beck said. He had von Scheer holding between the convergence and the nuclear disturbance near Fuller’s last hiding place. As ordered, Haffner’s sonarmen were pinging on low power to both sides, where directional acoustic paths were clearest. This ensured that Challenger didn’t do what Stissinger said she might do. “No, Einzvo, he ran ahead again.”
Beck called a nautical chart onto his console. He had it repeat on Stissinger’s screen. “The next significant terrain feature is here,” Beck said. As von Loringhoven leaned over his shoulder, he used his light pen. “The Valdivia Seamount complex. Seven or eight major peaks all grouped together, after a long stretch of very deep ridge terrain. That’s…another three-hundred-sea-mile leapfrog ahead. Some of these seamounts are so shallow, t
heir tops are only fifty or a hundred meters deep. The way they’re clustered, the paths between them form a maze.”
“Is that good?” von Loringhoven asked.
“For us? Yes. In the maze we can try to get lost. Fuller can’t afford that. He also can’t afford an action somewhere between there and here. The odds of him succeeding in a one-on-one, in deep water where neither ship has a terrain or sound-propagation advantage, are around fifty-fifty.”
“You think he won’t gamble the convoy with odds of fifty-fifty?” Stissinger asked.
“No. Not even to be unpredictable. Not even to take us by surprise just for the purpose of surprise. The convoy is simply too important for him to risk on the flip of a coin…. So, his next move will be to hit us just before the Valdivia Seamounts while he gets concealment on their edge and we have to come at him through open water.”
“Head for the Valdivia Seamounts?” von Loringhoven asked.
Beck nodded.
CHAPTER 41
Six hours later, Jeffrey felt as if his ship had been at battle stations forever. Challenger worked her way along a stretch of the Walvis Ridge that was very rugged but deep. A depth gauge read 9,850 feet. Even so, the basins to both flanks plunged quickly to 16,500 feet; Jeffrey was hugging the Walvis at more than a mile above the surrounding ocean floor.
Sometimes, when old volcanic extrusions or ledges didn’t block the path of sound, the port wide-aperture array could clearly pick up noises from the continuing convoy battle. The battle seemed slightly less violent than before. Jeffrey suspected this was because of the reduced number of platforms on both sides that had survived to keep up the fight. The convoy still had a long way to go to reach its destination and achieve its crucial strategic purpose. But in the meantime it was serving another use: as flypaper for the U-boats and enemy land-based antiship threats.