“Standard Jax opareas, shallow water, some reverberation, a sixty foot layer, but not too much marine life, and a lot better than along the Stream, Captain. The bottom comparison program is working four-oh. If he’s out here, we ought to get onto his butt pretty soon.”
“All right. We’re keeping the courses random to maximize your chances for looking through a hole in the layer. Keep your powder dry, Linc. And listen carefully for hydrophone effects.”
“Roger that, Cap’n.”
There was a stirring in the CIC. “Hydrophone effects” was Navy parlance for the sound of incoming torpedoes.
Mike looked over at the operations officer. “How far away is that bird farm? And did we ever get comms with him on fleet common?”
“No, Sir. I guess we could try channel 16, bridge to bridge. They must have secured everything over there for coming into port. And he’s into thirteen miles now.”
“OK,” said Mike.
He keyed the bitch box again.
“XO, try bridge to bridge with Coral Sea, see if we can get comms, and see if he has anything to say to us.”
“XO, aye.”
There was a pause. The Exec came back on the bitch box. “Cap’n, I got her, and her CO wants to talk to you ASAP.”
“Shit,” muttered Mike.
He headed out for the bridge. The bridge to bridge radio was a VHF circuit set up for collision avoidance by the international rules of the road. In theory, any ship could call any other ship on channel 16 and get an answer, and settle any uncertainties about which way they were both going to maneuver to avoid collision.
Mike winced at the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows as the ship swung through a westerly heading. There was almost no sea breeze and it was stinking hot in the pilothouse. He felt for the watch members, who had to wear flak jackets in addition to all the other paraphernalia of general quarters. He walked over to the chair and picked up the microphone for bridge to bridge.
“Coral Sea, this is Goldsborough, Charlie Oscar.”
“This is Coral Sea, Charlie Oscar. Captain, did you receive a high precedence message about thirty minutes ago?”
“That’s affirmative, Captain. We are, uh, working that problem right now. Recommend you turn around ASAP, Sir.”
There was silence on the circuit, interrupted by a distant conversation in Spanish which clobbered the net for a full minute. Then Coral Sea came back.
“You mean this isn’t some kind of a joke?”
“Sir, we’re not positive, and I can’t explain it on this net. But you need to get your ship out of here, preferably to the east. At max speed. Now. I say again, now. And there’s been some kind of disaster at the river entrance, so I don’t think you can get in for a while, anyway. I strongly recommend you turn around now and buster out of here, Cap’n.”
“OK, I hear you. Request you meet me secure on 256.1 and maybe you can cut me in on what’s going on here. And I have no traffic on any problem in the river.”
“Roger that, Captain. We’ll come up 256.1 secure and I’ll have my XO brief you.”
Mike put his binoculars up to his eyes and trained them on the carrier. As he feared, the flight deck was empty except for what looked like a pair of SH3 anti-submarine helicopters. The carrier was also not yet turning. Mike decided to prod him.
“Coral Sea, this is Goldsborough, we have sighted what I believe to be floating mines ahead of you, over.”
There was a three second silence. Then the carrier came back.
“Did you say mines, over?”
“That’s affirmative. Strongly recommend you turn now, over.”
“Roger that. Message understood. Turning now. Out.”
“And, Captain,” Mike continued, “I desperately need an SH3 if you’ve got one on alert, over?”
There was another short silence before the carrier responded.
“We flew everybody off this morning at first light. I’ve got two heloes on deck; I can get one airborne with some buoys, but if you want him fast, he’ll have no weapons.”
“I’ll take anything I can get, Cap’n.”
“Roger that, and we’ll scramble him ASAP. I’m gone.”
“Captain,” called the Officer of the Deck, peering through his binoculars at the horizon. “Carrier’s coming left and making a bunch of smoke.”
“Very well, and about frigging time,” said Mike. “I’m going back into Combat. XO, I’ll have them patch that secure circuit out here; you give them what we know, and emphasize that they haul ashes AND get us a helo right fornicating now!”
“Aye, Sir. They know it’s a submarine problem, then?”
“The message warned them of a sub, but since he wanted to talk instead of maneuver, I gave him the mine story. That did it. But you brief the sub problem.”
Mike turned to the rest of the people on the bridge.
“And you guys who aren’t doing anything, get out on the wings and watch for torpedo tracks. If this guy is out here, we’ve just spoiled his whole show and made ourselves the only available target.”
Mike hurried into CIC, and instructed the communications console operator to patch the secure circuit into the bridge. He called for an anti-submarine air controller to set up shop on a radarscope and wait for a helo.
“When you get one, I want an active buoy pattern put in 5000 yards ahead of and to the west of wherever we happen to be at the time.”
“Active, Sir? Without contact?” asked the air controller.
“Yes; I want to add another distraction to this guy’s picture, hopefully before he shoots something.”
Mike stared down at the plot, noting the absence of the red lines that would indicate contact. He now had a stone cold, certain feeling in his gut that there was a submarine down there, and that they were very close to getting some proof of that.
“Ops, exaggerate the course changes from the search pattern; I want big, wide changes from here on out. And activate the fanfare noisemakers,” he ordered.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the operations officer, turning to the ASW phone talker.
“Talker, tell sonar to activate the fanfare. Captain, if you really want to put some shit in the game, we could roll one depth charge. We’re not going to hit anything, but it would shake up ’em down there; maybe spoil their solution if they’re setting up on us.”
Mike stared at him for an instant, and then nodded. He keyed the bitchbox to sonar control.
“Linc, in addition to having fanfare on, I’m thinking of rolling a depth charge. I have this feeling we’re in somebody’s gunsight, and I want to fuck with his mind. The carrier’s clearing out now, so it’s just us and our phantom left to do business.”
“Aye, Cap’n, just give the word.”
Mike walked back over to the plot. The carrier’s plot was tracking in broad data points now as he opened to the east. His speed track was showing 27 knots. I’ll just bet he’s making smoke, thought Mike. Coral Sea was even older than Goldsborough.
He thought fast. By making his course changes more radical, it would be harder for the submarine to set up a firing solution on Goldsborough. By turning on the towed torpedo decoy noisemakers, he introduced yet another sound line into the submarine’s passive command and control system. A beacon, for sure, but something else to think about. A depth charge would frighten his enemy, and maybe provoke him into doing something that could lead to contact.
The radio messenger came hustling into Combat again, waving a message form. Mike took it, read it, and shook his head in wonder.
“The system absolutely slays me sometimes. We’ve been designated a Task Unit and told to defend Coral Sea from possible hostile submarine attack. And, get this. Help is on the way. Two Spruance destroyers will be out here in two to three hours, depending on whether or not tugs can get the remains of the Toyota carrier out of the channel junction. One of the Spruances will have ComDesRon Twelve embarked, who will then relieve me as Commander of the Task Unit …”
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br /> He threw the message on the deckplates.
“Fuck it,” he declared. “Let’s go fishing, backwoods style. Weapons control, roll one depth charge, depth setting two hundred feet, now.”
“Weps, aye, rolling one on standard setting. Now.”
Mike grabbed the 1MC microphone.
“All hands be advised that we are rolling one depth charge as a distraction device. Brace for shock.”
Everyone in CIC grabbed on to some standing part of the structure, and waited. Finally there was a large thump that resonated through the ship all the way up from the keel, rattling the loose equipment in CIC, followed by a roaring noise astern as the plume broke the surface. The Exec’s voice came in over the bitchbox.
“That was a pretty impressive blast, Cap’n, even at 200 feet. We trolling?”
“Yeah, XO, Georgia fly fishing. Throw some dynamite, see the fish fly. I’ve activated the noisemakers, too. Once he figures out that the carrier is outbound, we ought to get a sniff. And by the way, we’re now officially a task unit. I guess they’re believers back on the beach. They’re sending some Spruances out.”
“Spruances?” said the XO. “No aircraft? Ships will take a couple of hours to get out here.”
“My guess is that, having ordered the carrier out of the area, the problem’s not so urgent.”
“I hope they’re right about that. I wonder what the hell changed their minds.”
“That car carrier blowing up in the channel probably influenced their thinking, but there must be more to it than that. Anyhow, keep alert. Let’s see what that depth charge produces.”
“So far, a helluva lot of dead fish. I’ll bet those fishermen over there are going ballistic.”
Mike sat back down in his chair. That depth charge would blank out a sector of the underwater search scene, so he had taken a chance letting one go. He focused his mind on what to do next. Keep searching for the sub. The carrier was outbound, and unless the sub were east of Goldsborough, between the destroyer and the carrier, Coral Sea was getting safer by the minute. Goldsborough had already swept those waters with her sonar, so the sub should not be there. Should. If they had really guessed wrong, the carrier could be running like hell right into the jaws of a trap. But Mike didn’t think so.
What to do next. We’re still headed west. Hopefully we’re between where we think the sub is and the carrier, right where we should be. We have weapons ready. We’re making a large zig zag pattern, which should make it very tough for a sub to set up a solution. Unless he’s got wire guidance. A chilling thought.
“Sir, the secure circuit is up with Coral Sea, and the XO is transmitting.”
“Very well.”
OK, so the carrier’s skipper would be getting the picture. Probably add a knot or two to his departure.
“Ops, what course is the carrier tracking?”
“Sir, Coral Sea is going due east, 090.”
“Tell the XO to break in and recommend he come left to 060.”
“060, aye, Sir,” said the operations officer, relaying the message out to the bridge via sound powered phones.
Why did I do that, Mike mused. Something about torpedo geometry and woods sense. He couldn’t put his mind right on it, but he knew that a steady course away was still a steady course. The Libyan would carry Russian torpedoes, which could go for miles and miles in pursuit of a target. A steady course made for an easy shot. So make the carrier turn. Instincts. Don’t stand still in the woods. The feel of crosshairs on his back.
His stomach was churning, although outwardly he just sat there in his chair. You should be doing something. What’s the next step. Search, evasive steering, decoys active astern, weapons ready to go, a random depth charge to fuck with the guy’s mind—can’t do that again; not enough depth charges left. He stared hard at the backs of his people around the plotting table. This isn’t an inspection, man. What if that bastard wasn’t here—could he be east of them instead of west?
SEVENTY
The Submarine Al Akrab, 1630
The Captain sipped his tea, not tasting it, hardly feeling it in his mouth. His eyes were intent on the depth gauge. He held his face immobile, while trying to still the seething tension in his stomach. He watched the depth gauge as the Musaid directed the planesmen into a smooth level transition at 125 meters. The pinging sound from above was grating on everybody’s nerves, the incessant pinging physical evidence of their enemy’s acoustic energy field advancing through the black depths, probing for them, reaching out to touch just once the steel hull of the submarine that was now slipping south a bare fifty feet off the ocean floor. The depth was not extreme, but neither was it comforting. The old hull made occasional soft popping sounds, and the compression mist was beginning to form around the overhead of the control compartment.
“Sir,” announced the sonarman from his console. “Coral Sea’s doppler has changed.”
“What?! Are you certain?”
The Captain threw the mug of tea into the trash can as he moved quickly to the sonar console.
“Sir. Yes. It is certain. The propulsion noises are about the same, perhaps louder. Screwbeats are up, too. But the doppler line has changed. He is moving away from us. It is certain.”
The Captain’s face tightened. The mission was dissolving in his face. He had one option left.
“Attack director, set tubes three, four, five, and six to slow speed, long range. Prepare to fire on bearing only. We will make a pursuit shot.”
The weapons officer hastily entered the settings. The “slow” speed for the big, Russian torpedoes was thirty five knots, but the twenty knot speed differential allowed them to run for almost twenty miles. They still had no accurate range information on the carrier, but they had a chance of a hit if they fired now and let the big fish rush down the bearing as the carrier hauled away to the east, transmitting a clear beacon of sound back to the submarine’s sonar and the torpedoes’ own guidance systems.
“Torpedoes are set; tubes are ready, Sir!”
“Very we—”
The Captain’s order was interrupted by the sudden rattling, buzzing noise of the destroyer’s torpedo decoy noisemakers. It was a sound none of them had ever heard, including the Captain. The Deputy panicked.
“Torpedo!” he yelled. “They have fired a torpedo at us!”
“Silence, you fool,” yelled the Captain, whirling on him. “That’s not a torpedo! Sonar, quickly, what is the bearing?”
“Sir,” shouted the sonarman. “The bearing is coincident with the destroyer.”
“Steady bearing!” croaked the Deputy, his fingers in his mouth. “It comes straight for us!”
The Deputy was clearly unnerved, and the Captain could see that the Control room crew’s composure was shaken by the loud buzzing noise erupting over the speaker. The speaker! He reached up and turned it off. The buzzing noise stopped, and he leaned down again to look at the trace on the sonar. It was broadband noise, loud, deliberate. But definitely not a torpedo. He had heard the sound of American destroyers’ electric torpedoes at the Soviet ASW school. They sounded like an electric drill, but nothing like this. He put his hand on the sonarman’s shoulder to steady him, and was about to order the release of the pursuit torpedoes when the depth charge went off.
The underwater blast was huge, hammering the submarine violently, knocking all the lights out for an instant as switches were dislodged, and producing a cloud of dust and small debris in the control room. Several men screamed in panic when it hit, only to look around sheepishly once it was over. The only real casualty was the sonarman, who was disabled, his ears ruined by the huge audio overload, his face in tears from the pain. The chief sonarman pulled him off the console at once and took the phones himself. At the diving planes, the Musaid held onto the shoulders of both planesmen, urgently coaching them to hold the depth level.
The sonar showed a massive blur of amber light to the east of them as the depth charge plume broke the surface and generated yet more noise
into the water. The Deputy was yelling again.
“It was a torpedo! It was a torpedo! It hit the bottom instead. We are—”
He was silenced by a wicked, backhanded slap to the face from the Captain, the force of which sent the Deputy off his chair and sprawling onto the deckplates. The Captain towered over him amidst the confusion in the control room.
“Control yourself, or I will put you in a tube and fire you into the sea! That was a depth charge, you idiot. The old destroyer carries depth charges. Her torpedoes cannot work in shallow water.”
He straightened up, his face dark with rage.
“But mine can. Attack director, verify the settings on the pursuit torpedoes. Musaid, get damage reports from engineering!”
“Settings verified. The system is in order!” yelled the weapons officer.
“Fire tubes three, four, five and six in pursuit mode, on channel one fire control data. Prepare to fire tubes one and two on wire guidance. This destroyer needs to die!”
The submarine jolted once, twice, and twice more as the fish were fired by water impulse into the sea. The Captain reached up and turned the sonar audio speaker back on. Above the buzzing decoy noise everyone in the control room immediately heard the harmonic whine of steam turbines spinning up as the torpedoes came alive instantly, surging forward and up towards the surface as the guidance systems took control, turning left in great arcs to the bearing of the target, the carrier to the east.
The giant steam fish were not stealth devices, which was why submariners called them screamers. Once fired, they broadcast approaching death in a howling whine to anything listening in their path. Four thousand pounds going at nearly forty miles per hour, they were capable of smashing a ship even without their one ton warheads.
“Bearing to the carrier!” barked the Captain, crouching over at the sonar console. The plot was forgotten now.
“Sir. Bearing is 095. Fish appear to be in pursuit; no circle runners,” reported the chief.
The young sonarman with the best ears, what had been the best ears, huddled next to the console, rocking back and forth on his haunches. A medic had been summoned to give him demerol against the pain shrieking in his head.
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