Kilo Class (1998)

by Patrick Robinson

  “Yup. I was just thinking the same. Everyone okay down below?”

  “Fine. They’re both reading. No seasickness, yet. Laura says she’s never been seasick, but then some people don’t. But she’s only sailed a Scottish loch!”

  Boomer laughed. “Okay, Bill. I’ll go below, and you wanna arrange a watch change? Thwaites has early dinner for Roger and Gavin, who are then going to turn in. Jeff can come up here now, give me a hand, and take the wheel while we have dinner around 2000. And the boys can take over at midnight.”

  “Unless this gets a lot worse,” said Boomer. “Then we better get back here right after dinner.”

  Bill took over the helm, and as he did the wind seemed to come up fractionally, and there was a sudden chill in the air. “It’s backing around, right now,” he yelled. “STAND BY, JEFF! I’m gonna jibe onto starboard, get down on that winch and haul the jib sheets across, under control all the way. Then when she swings over, ease the starboard sheet to port…and stand by to let her go some more when I yell.”

  Bill turned Yonder a couple of ticks to starboard. The wind eased momentarily, then blasted around the trailing edge of the storm jib with a tremendous bang. Bill barked, “Right…now tighten it some…yeah, that’s good right there, Jeff…ease it a little…better…that’s real good. Hey, we just hit sixteen knots…shit, this baby flies, doesn’t she? Even on a storm jib.”

  Throughout the night the wind rose and fell back, twice shifting to northwest, bringing more rain, but each time returning to blow from the cold southwest. Boomer and Bill were in the cockpit intermittently all night, and when the wind gusted above force nine they debated whether to heave to, and ride it out with bare poles. Boomer thought the big sturdily built Yonder was doing so well they could safely charge on. Her storm jib, made of the newest liquid crystal sailcloth, gave him huge confidence even in winds like this. In the fourteen hours between 1600 and 0800 the following morning, Boomer calculated they had covered over two hundred miles.

  “How long will it take to Kerguelen?” asked Jo.

  “At this rate we might be there before lunch,” chuckled Boomer. “Right now we’ve been going for two days, and we’ve knocked off close to five hundred miles. Not bad. I don’t suppose this wind will last quite like this.

  “Matter of fact that last gust didn’t seem to have real conviction, did it? And it’s shifting round to the west. Still I don’t suppose anyone will mind a nice day, which is what I think we’re gonna get. Bill thinks we’ll be into the Roaring Forties late tomorrow, so we better make the most of it—summer’s very erratic down here. The weather never settles, but at least it never stays awful for more than a day or two without some kind of a break.”

  They fought their way through the capricious Southern Ocean in varying hard westerly breezes. Sometimes it blew a gale, sometimes more, sometimes not so bad. The sun occasionally came out, but mostly it stayed cloudy. But they never once hove to, and it was a sharp bright February 8, shortly after lunch, when Bill Baldridge announced, “I think we might see Kerguelen at around first light tomorrow. Right now we’re about a hundred and fifty miles out, the winds steady and west, and we’re making around ten knots. According to the GPS we’re on meridian 66.50E, and from what I can tell, there’s no seriously bad weather around.”

  “The boys are taking the helm tonight, so I think we might risk a glass of that good South African chardonnay,” said Boomer. “Splice the main brace, right? And let the boys have a glass each. We all deserve it. This has been a hell of a sail. And I hope you’ve all enjoyed it—I have. I needed it to take my mind off a few things.”

  “So did I,” said Laura. “And you’ve all been wonderful. I feel very American, and for the first time in months, I feel really well. I can’t wait to see this bloody island we’ve been talking about all week.”

  “Well, it’s not gonna be that long now,” said Boomer, pulling the cork out of a bottle of Rustenberg’s finest. “Here guys, lemme give you a splash of this.” He poured generous mugs for all four of them, so generous there was only about a drop left. At which point he went right back into the fridge and opened up another. “In the unlikely event anyone should want a bit more,” he chuckled.

  “By the way, if your divorce is through, Laura,” he added, “I’m a man of my word. I’m still ready to marry you and Bill, although I am drawn to the conclusion that you might be a bit too good for him.”

  Bill shook his head and smiled. “You coming to the wedding on May twentieth?” he asked. “It’s going to be in Kansas, since Laura and I are not welcome in Scotland. Her mother’s not speaking to us, and the Anderson clan would like us in some Highland dungeon for the rest of our lives.”

  “’Course we’re coming…how about your dad, Laura, is he coming?”

  “He told me he was,” said Bill. “And I hope he does. You’ll really enjoy meeting him, Boomer. He’s without doubt the most knowledgeable submariner I ever met. Funny, the President asked me a few weeks ago if Sir Iain was coming. He likes to talk to the Admiral. Says he’s coming himself; told me if it hadn’t been for him, Laura and I would never have met. And he’s right!”

  And so the night drew in. They finished their coffee and retired gratefully to their quarters. The purity of the southern air had made them very tired, and all those off watch crashed before 2300, warm in the bunks below with the dark, freezing hell of the South Atlantic rushing by beyond the hull.

  Boomer and Bill were awake by 0600, dressed, and up on deck five minutes later. And their disappointment was total. There was thick fog along the choppy water, and Roger was still holding their course, but no one could see anything. Bill noted from the GPS they were about twenty-two miles east-northeast of Rendezvous Island, the big rock that Cook named Bligh’s Cap.

  “We passed that a coupla hours ago,” said Bill. “I’m putting us about twenty-three miles due north of Cap d’Estaing. That’s the northern tip of the entire island, the place where Goodwin says the Cuttyhunk headed for shelter fourteen months ago. We should steer south now if we want to have a look…Just hope the fog clears in the next two hours. The wind’s out of the northwest now. How about getting the main back up, and reaching down on starboard.”

  “You heard what the man said,” Boomer told Roger. “We’ll come right to 180. I’ll take over as soon as you have the main up. Then you better go get some sleep.”

  Two hours later, the GPS put them three miles north of Cap d’Estaing, but the weather was still very murky. Boomer reckoned Kerguelen was under a blanket of fog from one end to the other. Without their radar they could go no closer.

  “Steer course 130,” said Bill. “There’s no sense going straight for the headland. We may as well sail down into Choiseul Bay, then if the wind gets up from the west or southwest and blows this crap away, we’ll have a bit of shelter and we’ll be able to see the island. If we haven’t found Cuttyhunk by lunchtime, we’re outta here.”

  “Our frigate didn’t find her in three months,” said Boomer. “So we’d better tell the gals not to hold their breath.”

  By 1030, Yonder was a mile off the entrance to Baie Blanche, and a northwester was rising. Bill held her on the starboard tack but could have sailed either side, since the wind was dead astern and still only force three. The fog was beginning to thin now, and the sun was not far away. The temperature was only thirty-eight degrees, and it felt very damp and cold on deck.

  When the fog finally cleared, it happened swiftly: one moment they were peering through a thinning shroud of tallow-colored mist, the next moment they could see the shoreline of Kerguelen across two thousand yards of bright blue, but freezing, water. The five-hundred-foot rise of Gramont, between the Baies of Blanche and Londres, was still snow capped, and a mile off the port bow they could see the more gentle rise of Howe Island. “We’re not going anywhere near that,” said Bill. “It’s kelp city in there.”

  In the distance, in this light, the mainland of Kerguelen looked spectacular, with its great craggy
mountains, desolate shoreline, and high remnants of the winter snows. Bill pointed out a jutting rock due north of Gramont Island. “According to my chart, that’s Cox’s Rock,” he said. “That’s where Goodwin found the life buoy from Cuttyhunk.”

  While Jo and Laura peered through binoculars, Boomer ordered the sails down and started the engine. “So we can chug around for a bit. I don’t want to leave much sail up—the katabatics round here are supposed to be horrendous, and apparently you don’t see them before they hit you. For Christ’s sake watch the chart and the depth for me, will you, Bill? It would not be perfect if we put this baby on a rock.”

  “That’s never been part of my master plan either,” replied the man from the High Plains. “We’re staying in deep water, don’t worry. If I even see a rock within two hundred yards I’m setting a course for Hobart.”

  Laura went below to fetch coffee. Jo wanted to drive. Boomer said, “Fine, so long as there’s no speeding, and you listen to Bill, and do exactly what he says.”

  “Not sure about that,” said Jo. “Not the way he’s been going on with Mrs. Anderson!”

  There was some levity as Jo made a great, lazy circle in the bay and headed slowly north. “There’s kelp beds all the way to starboard,” said Bill. “Stay close to the mainland, where it’s deep and clear.”

  Jo slurped her coffee and kept chugging. Laura miraculously produced a plate of hot buttered toast, and the four of them munched contentedly while Roger and Gavin continued to furl the big mainsail and Jeff sorted out the sail wardrobe under the foredeck.

  At 1140 Boomer went for’ard to give Jeff a hand and to make sure the storm jib was right on top of the pile should it be required in a hurry.

  At 1141 Bill Baldridge saw it. Two hundred yards off their starboard bow, slicing through the water leaving a V-shaped feather on the flat surface was…he could not believe his eyes…no it couldn’t be…a shark’s fin maybe.

  “BOOMER!!” Bill yelled at the top of his lungs. The Captain of Columbia thought he’d gone over the side.

  He swung around to face the cockpit to see his shipmate pointing out in front of him, still bellowing, “BOOMER!! BOOMER!!” Commander Dunning followed the direction of Bill’s right arm, and what he saw almost took his breath away. “JESUS CHRIST!!” he shouted as they both stared at an utterly unmistakable sight cutting across Choiseul Bay at about five knots, heading southwest.

  It was the raised periscope of a submarine—about three feet of it, pushing through the water.

  About twenty seconds later it vanished beneath the surface as swiftly as it had arrived. Neither Jo nor Laura had seen anything. But then neither of them were submariners.

  In the White House office of the National Security Adviser, Admiral Arnold Morgan was beaming with good spirits.

  “Well, well,” he was saying. “So you’re the fabled daughter of Admiral MacLean, the lady who captured this rascal’s heart—and also did us a thousand favors a year and a half ago?”

  Laura smiled. “That’s me, Admiral. And I believe I have to thank you for the very mixed blessing of throwing Bill and me together.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the Admiral. “This office is actually just a front for my famous dating service.”

  Bill could hardly believe his ears. Arnold Morgan making small talk? Chatting to a lady? “Jeez,” thought Bill. “Politics are turning him human. The President better watch that. The Admiral might lose his edge.”

  But the former Lion of Fort Meade was warming to his task. “Laura, I’m delighted to meet you at last. I’m a great admirer of your father’s, have been for many years. And between the three of us in this room, your insights during the Jefferson crisis were invaluable.

  “I often wondered what you might look like. You have captivated two thoroughly outstanding Naval officers, after all, and now I know I’d trust their judgment…not just on submarine warfare.”

  Laura laughed. “You’re too kind, Admiral. I’m actually very ordinary—at least I was until you sent your inquisitor across the Atlantic. Now I’m just very lucky.”

  “So’s he,” chuckled the Admiral, nodding in Bill’s direction. “And I’m very glad you called me. We’re staying here for lunch in one of the private dining rooms. The President and Bob MacPherson both intend to stick their heads round the door to say hello. After that my driver’s going to run you both out to the airport. I can’t wait to hear about your sailing trip with Boomer; it must have been great.”

  Bill smiled at him. “I’ll tell you about the journey during lunch. Meanwhile there is something I want to tell you about—it might be significant.”

  “What is it?”

  “Arnold, we took a little side trip down to Kerguelen, just to see the island. Boomer is really interested in that Woods Hole ship that vanished, the Cuttyhunk.”

  “Yeah. I’ve talked to him about that. He is interested…I guess everyone from the Cape is interested…You didn’t find it did you?”

  They all laughed. “No, we didn’t find it. But something happened on the morning of February ninth, just before midday.”

  The Admiral nodded at the precision of Bill’s words, the way he stated only what he knew to be absolutely correct, the dead giveaway of the former Intelligence officer.

  “I looked over the starboard bow and I saw the periscope of a submarine. It was a couple of hundred yards away, making about five knots. Boomer saw it as well.”

  Admiral Morgan looked up sharply. “Are you certain about that?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “But there couldn’t be a submarine down there. There’s nothing to be down there for. Not even aircraft fly over the place. It’s a military desert for thousands of miles in all directions. There’re no shipping lanes even, never mind ships—except for a few dingbat researchers from Woods Hole.”

  “It was a submarine, Admiral,” Bill said calmly. “No ifs, ands, or buts. There is no doubt in my mind.”

  “Did Boomer see it at the same time, or did you tell him it was there?”

  “No. I did not. I just shouted his name, three times. And pointed.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He actually yelled, ‘JESUS CHRIST!’”

  “Then what?”

  “Boomer shouted, ‘That’s a goddamned submarine, or am I dreaming?’ I told him I knew it was a submarine. There was not, and is not, one shred of doubt. And you have to believe us. We both saw it, clearly and definitely.”

  “Did you see it, Laura?”

  “No. I was looking the other way. But I heard Bill shout, and I heard Boomer say it was ‘a goddamned submarine.’ It’s very quiet down there. I should think about three billion penguins heard him as well.”

  The Admiral made some notations on a small pad on his desk. Then he picked up the telephone and issued the command he had issued so many times before. “Get me Fort Meade. Director’s office,” he said crisply. “Hurry.”

  “Is Admiral Morris there? Morgan, Arnold Morgan. Hey George, how ya been? Yup,…fine…I wonder if you could run a check for me…Yeah,…now. Can you find out if there was any submarine that could possibly have been on patrol around the island of Kerguelen in the Southern Ocean around midday on the morning of February ninth? Yeah, I realize it’s the ass-end of the earth, George, that’s why I wanna know. Run the checks on everyone. Lemme know every submarine unaccounted for on that morning, including all the friendly nets, then gimme a call back. I’m in my office; the switchboard knows how to reach me. Thanks, George.”

  He turned back to Bill, and said carefully, “Lieutenant Commander, as well as I know you, and as much as I trust you, if you had come in here alone with no corroboration for this story, I would not, could not, have believed you. And precisely the same thing applies to Commander Dunning, who I happen to think is the best submarine commanding officer in the US Navy. I would not and could not have believed him either.

  “I also know you two could not both have it wrong. I am very certain of that. I
believe there was a submarine down there, but what in the name of Christ was it doing there? There’s nothing to do down there, except feed the penguins and count the ice floes. But someone’s down there, or at least someone has been down there…and in the next couple of hours I’m hoping Fort Meade will enlighten us. C’mon guys, let’s go find some lunch.”

  The small private dining room was elegantly set for three. Before the first course of smoked salmon had been served, the President of the United States stopped by to visit Bill. He walked through the door, smiling. “Don’t get up, Bill, good to see you. Arnold, holding back the enemy, right? And you must be Laura. I am a particular admirer of both your father, and your future husband, both of whom I count as friends. I’m not quite so sure, however, about one of your ex-boyfriends!”