Scorpion in the Sea

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Are there any questions?” he asked.

  The officers continued to study the chart. There was not much to ask; the plan was straightforward.

  “This is a simple plan, but there are many things that can go wrong,” said the Captain, leaning back in his chair. “The weather, the schedule of the carrier, passing escort vessels, an equipment casualty here in the boat, interference from merchant shipping, both in the river tomorrow night and in the operating areas the next afternoon. We cannot plan for all of these things—we must simply be alert, aware, and ready to deal with the unexpected.”

  He looked around the table at his department heads, making sure he had their attention.

  “I want all of you to go through your spaces in the next twenty-four hours. Prepare the boat for battle. Prepare the boat for underwater damage, for silent operations. Prepare the men to fight. Review with them damage control procedures, isolation procedures, medical first aid. We did not come out here to die for the Jamahiraya; we came out here to exact justice from the Americans, to execute a smashing success against the American Navy, and to return as heroes to our homeland. The outcome of this battle shall be as Allah wills it, but if the enemy continues his sleep, we shall do all of these things. That is all.”

  The officers stood, waited for a moment to see if the Captain was going to leave, and when he did not, they filed past him. Their voices rose in excited tones as they scattered to their various compartments to make final preparations. The Captain put his head in his hands, his arms akimbo on the table. The silence in the wardroom was broken only by the sounds of fans and the air vents as the submarine loitered 300 feet beneath the surface.

  “Well, Musaid, we are nearly there,” he said, lifting his face out of his hands and rubbing his eyes. “How long has it been—six weeks?”

  “Nearly that, Effendi,” rumbled the Musaid, who remained standing behind the Captain’s chair.

  “I think we actually have a good chance to do this outrageous thing,” said the Captain. “The Americans are truly asleep. What we must watch for now is the chance thing, the unexpected thing, the hissing thing that emerges from a sand dune and strikes your foot while your eyes are fastened upon the horizon. We have had an abundance of good fortune so far; I fear for the day of battle that we may run out of it. Make your way through the boat for the next night and day. Sharpen the men’s edge, build their confidence. There are still those who think this is a suicide mission; make sure they understand that I do not feel that way and that I will make every effort to get all of us home.”

  “As you command, Effendi.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Mayport Marina, Wednesday, 7 May; midnight

  Mike parked the Alfa in the nearly empty marina lot; Diane’s white four door was parked up by the office, under one of the pole lights. The office was dark, as was Maxie’s forty two foot sloop, which he moored right next to the ramp leading down to the piers from the office. As Mike walked across the floating pontoons, the cool air from the river junction eddied around the boats, clinking the rigging on some of them, and making others bump and creak against their pilings. It was a clear night, with only a sliver of a moon. Only the sounds of the kitchen fans from Hampton’s disturbed the night air over the waterway. The Lucky Bag was also in darkness as he walked down his pontoon.

  He went aboard, and headed aft to the porch deck. Diane was in the chaise, her long figure draped demurely in a white bathrobe. She silently handed him a gin and tonic as he sat down on the foot of the chaise. He took it and set it aside, and then pulled her into his arms for a long kiss. She sensed that he needed strength more than loving, and held him against her for what seemed like a long time. He pulled away finally and kissed her again, and then recovered his drink.

  “I stink of ship,” he announced. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Be right back.”

  He went below and stripped down, pitching his khakis into the hamper, and headed for the shower, where he stood for a long time, trying not to think about anything. Diane joined him after a while and they made love awkwardly in the shower, laughing afterwards at how difficult a slippery, wet shower stall made everything. They dried off and went back out onto the porch deck. Diane gathered her robe tighter, as the light breeze after midnight was almost chilly. They sat together on the long, rattan couch at the back of the porch, completely in the shadows. Out on the waterway a lone Chris Craft motor cruiser rumbled south, all of its windows dark and only side lights reflecting across the light chop in the channel.

  “This is so perfectly—I don’t know the word,” Mike said at last, nuzzling her thick, damp hair. “If you’d come to live with me we could do this every night.”

  He surprised himself with what he had just said. She felt him tense up as he waited to see what she would say, whether she would let it pass by as an offhand comment or address it seriously.

  “Did you plan to say that?” she asked, softly.

  “I think my subconscious just said what I didn’t have the nerve to say,” he replied. “I know it’s probably a totally impractical proposition, but I wish you would.”

  “I don’t think we could just set up house here in Mayport,” she murmured. “This is altogether a Navy town.”

  “Boats move,” he replied. “I could put an engine in this old girl and we could go anywhere it suited us to go. I’ve got plenty of money saved up; I wouldn’t even have to go to work for a couple of years. We could do the intracoastal, see a lot of the country from the perspective of something besides Navy orders. Whatever, as long as we’re together.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes shining, the features of her face indistinct in the darkness. He traced the line of her cheek with his fingers, seeing like a blind man, combining touch with memory to see her face.

  “I mean it, Diane,” Mike persisted. “I love you and want you. I’d really like to marry you if you’d consider it. I know we’re talking divorce and all that hassle, which is easy for me to talk about but a bitch for you to go through. But: I think your marriage ended a long time ago, and I don’t think J.W. Martinson gives a damn about anything but his career and occasionally his girlfriend up there in Norfolk. You don’t even have to marry me if you don’t want to, I’ll settle for just having you here, however you want to work it, I’ll—”

  She put her fingertips on his mouth to shut off his increasingly urgent flow of words.

  “OK,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear it.

  “OK? Did you say OK?!”

  He gave out a loud warwhoop, which echoed around the Marina. Diane clamped her hand over his mouth this time, but he was laughing and hugging her and kissing her all at once. She finally calmed him down, and then sat up on the couch to look him in the eye.

  “There’s a condition,” she announced.

  “Oh-oh,” he said, in mock fear. “She wants a church wedding. Her mother will have to live with us. She wants—”

  “Will you shut up,” she said. She ran her fingers through her hair for a moment.

  “My condition is this: I will handle the business of separating from J.W., and you will stay out of it until it’s a done deal. I know you’re going to want to help and be supportive and all that, but you’ve got to let me do it, my way, and my rules, OK?”

  “Whatever you say, Diane, but I’m not sure—”

  “Because if the Navy finds out that you and I have been seeing each other, you will get sudden orders out of here, that’s why. My husband and I can call it quits privately and discreetly, and the Brass’ll smooth it over. But if I run off with one of the destroyer Captains, there’ll be all hell to pay. So—my way, OK?”

  “You got it,” he said, wonderingly.

  A woman who thought ahead and who understood consequences was a new phenomenon in his life. God, what a catch. Diane felt another warwhoop coming on, and smothered it with a kiss. Mike was so happy he forgot all about the submarine.

  But it came back when they were nestled in bed below. It w
as a little past one in the morning, and Mike had set his alarm clock for 0600, which had brought the entire reason for their sundown departure tomorrow—today—back in a flood of concern. He lay awake, with Diane cuddled in the crook of his left shoulder. Her breathing indicated that she was asleep. Mike stared at the dark ceiling of the cabin as he worked through the possibilities of the next seventy two hours. Light from the channel buoys winked on and off the ceiling, first green and then red. The waterway made small noises under the transom of the boat.

  It would be a close run thing, as Wellington had described his adventures at Waterloo. On their side was an element of surprise, in that the Libyans probably thought they were undetected and might get a free shot at the Coral Sea. Just by showing up, Goldsborough complicated the submarine’s problem a lot. The water was not very deep, so Goldy’s sonar had a good chance of getting contact, as long as Mike managed to place his ship in the same part of the ocean the Libyan picked.

  That was the rub: the Libyan CO could hide anywhere, just lurk on the bottom or very close to it, and come in from any direction at all when the carrier hove over the horizon. Maybe, he reasoned, the Exec was right: Goldy ought to go out covertly, not pinging, quiet ship, operating on only one screw instead of two, and using only her commercial radar. Don’t turn into a destroyer until late afternoon Friday when we get radar contact on Coral Sea. But where? Where along that thirty mile long approach track to Jacksonville would the sub be? At the seaward end? If so, they had little chance—too much ocean to search. But then, the sub had the same problem. The only area where the sub CO knew he would find the carrier would be at the Jacksonville end of the approach corridor; the carrier could come from any direction, but she had to end up at the St. Johns river. The sub was going to get only one chance; once the carrier got into or even near the river channel, she was safe from torpedoes.

  What if the carrier ignored his warnings and kept coming? Maybe she would be safer if she did—if she turned away back to sea, the sub would get another shot at her, or as many as she wanted until Mike got lucky. It all depended on whether or not Goldy gained contact before the carrier first entered the torpedo danger zone. Maybe, he thought, maybe the thing to do is warn him to do a big zig zag around the “mines” and then continue into Mayport and safety. If Mike had the sub engaged, that might be the best maneuver. Yeah. Get Coral Sea inport or at least inshore and then it’ll just be Goldy out there. Alone in the open ocean with a submarine full of fanatics who’d just been cheated out of their primary target. He wondered how fast he could get Goldy into Mayport if that happened. Horseshit, you stay out there, find the bastard, and bag his ass. Right, John Wayne. And the rest of the Navy will be behind you. Way behind you, as they used to say in ’Nam.

  The other thing was that they had to shoot fast once they gained contact. This meant that he would have to break the conditioning of years of peacetime ASW practice. Any time a Navy ship was given a sub to exercise with, the objective was to gain and hold contact for as long as possible, to maximize training for the sonarmen and the CIC plotting teams. But in a real fight, you had to make your classification very quickly and then fire, before the other guy did the same thing to you.

  Fire. Fire what? The torpedoes would be next to useless in shallow waters. They’d go screaming down into the depths, turn on their homing sonars, and see the bottom. Oh, shit, they’d have to use depth charges! That meant Goldy had to literally run over the top of a maneuvering submarine that was hardly going to stand still long enough for him to drop depth bombs.

  He felt the urge to get up and walk around while he sorted out all the possibilities. Diane stirred in the crook of his arm, but then went back to sleep, which ruled that out. My God, she said yes! He thought about that for a while instead of the submarine. However this whole deal came out, she had said yes, she’d leave the jerk and come to live with him. He fantasized about taking his Navy retirement and spending a year or so wandering the coastal waterways with Diane at his side. Have to put an engine in the Bag. He considered the engineering details of that project and was soon asleep.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  USS Goldsborough, Mayport Naval Station, Thursday, 8 May; 1530

  Mike stood sweating in the control console booth of the forward fireroom, and listened to the satisfying whine of main feed pumps, forced draft blowers, and the underlying roar of 1B boiler making 1200-pound steam. The amplified intercom circuit between Main Control in the forward engineroom and the rest of the spaces blared intermittently with orders from the Engineering Officer of the Watch, abbreviated inevitably as “EE-OW” by anyone speaking on the circuit. The rush of air from the 16 inch ventilation ducts added to the noise level, but it kept the temperature at a bearable 95 degrees. The fireroom smelled of steam, lagging, fuel oil, and ozone in about equal proportions.

  “She came right up, Cap’n,” shouted the BT Chief over the noise of the machinery. “Nary a wisp of steam, either. First time we’ve had a dry hole down here in a long time.”

  The Chief Engineer stood behind him, a big grin on his face for a change.

  “Looking good, Chief,” Mike shouted back.

  So far, the main plant had come on the line like clockwork, almost as if the old girl knew she had a job to do. He had conferred with the Commodore earlier that morning, and they had discussed tactics and several what-if’s. The Commodore had explained the arrangements he was making to have someone on watch back in the harbor. Mike had promised the Commodore a call at noon to report status. He glanced at his watch.

  “Gotta go call my Boss, Engineer. Keep her turning and burning, but if something does pop, make sure I hear about it right away—don’t try to handle it on your own.”

  “Got a time bind, do we, Cap’n?” shouted the Chief, with a knowing grin.

  Mike looked at him for a moment. “Yes, we do, Chief.”

  He climbed up the short stub ladder from the lower level to the upper level, where the temperature was approaching 105 degrees. The water check-man saw him from across the upper level deck gratings and waved; Goldy’s snipes were an informal bunch when they had their boilers on the line. A fireroom was hardly the place for saluting. Mike waved back and then climbed up the twenty foot, stainless steel ladder to the main hatch, eased his bulk through the hatch, and headed for the more reasonably angled ladder-stairway up to the 01 level and his cabin. He went into his tiny bathroom and washed the sweat off his face. The air conditioning in the cabin felt like a winter breeze after the fireroom. He dialed the Commodore’s number, and was answered by the Chief Staff Officer, who put him on hold. A minute later, the Commodore picked up.

  “OK, Mike, whatcha got?”

  Mike gave him a quick update on the success of the repairs, and was able to report that Goldy was lit off forward and aft and that, so far, everything was holding.

  “Good. Very good,” grunted the Commodore. “Better than we all expected, given the past history of some of those problems. What time you want to go?”

  “I’d like to let her steam for the afternoon, Commodore, make sure we’re tight and right, and then get underway about 1630. I just need one tug to pull us away from the nest, so the pilots can’t claim overtime.”

  “OK, do it. Coral Sea is still due in tomorrow, in the basin at around 1900. Now, as we discussed: I’m going to post an operations watch in the Deyo starting at 2000 tonight. I’ll have a watch officer and one enlisted on watch in the Deyo’s CIC. He’ll be joined by the CSO at daybreak, and I’ll be onboard at the first sign you have something. I’ve told the CO that I’m running a command and control test with you and Coral Sea. I’ve also asked him to have his passive electronic warfare suite manned up. Deyo’s gear is more sophisticated than what you have there in Goldy; if this gomer pops a radar, you’ll have another set of ears on the air. He can give you a bearing, although that won’t be too much help, coming from Mayport. My guy will be up on a secure UHF freq, and my comms Chief will contact you with callsigns and backup frequencies before
you take off. OK?”

  “Yes, Sir, sounds good. Did the I.V. seem curious?”

  “A little, but I told him that you were going to combine a sea trial with a little exercise with the Coral Sea, and he seemed happy. Your crew figured out something’s going down?”

  “Yes, Sir, some of the Chiefs have. The weapons groom for a possible inspection story didn’t wash; I think the Squadron chiefs were less than convincing.”

  “I’m not surprised. Some of my guys are giving me funny looks. I suspect Chief Mackensie may have said some things. I wish Goldy had a unit commander’s cabin, because I’d be coming along if you did. But you’re gonna have to handle this one solo, Cowboy. You said you were sick of peacetime routine.”

  “You heard it here first, Commodore,” said Mike with a grin. “But is there any chance of having a helo or two on alert thirty tomorrow, like around 1500 onward?”

  “Yeah, CSO and I talked about that, but the problem is weapons: the only weapons they can carry are torpedoes, but their torpedoes will have the same problem your torpedoes are gonna have: bottom acquisition. And if we set them with a real shallow floor, they’re as liable to lock on Goldsborough or Coral Sea as they are the sewerpipe. Neither of you need that kind of problem.”

  “Yes, Sir, but I was thinking, if they came out loaded with buoys instead of weapons, they might make a crucial difference in my localization search, especially if they could localize any sonar contacts we gain on the 23. Once the bird farm shows up, I’m not going to have much time to localize and whack this guy.”

  The Commodore thought about that for a moment. A request for forces outside of the destroyer force would have to go through channels—from the Cruiser-Destroyer Group to the local Air Wing commander. He would be very hard pressed to explain why he wanted a helicopter to go out and play with Goldsborough when Goldy was supposed to be on an engineering sea trial. He was already amazed that no one at Group or higher up had stumbled onto what they were doing.