Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  "Don't know Sir, we'll toss a bathygraph buoy and find out."

  "Good answer. Arnagiri to stream for 350 feet." It was lucky, Vindhyagiri was the designated ASW command ship in the case of an ASW contact. The destroyer Ganges was the designated AAW command ship.

  "Rotodyne on its way Sir. Code sign Deeta-Three. Full autonomous ASW load. Julie, Jezebel, dipping sonar, MAD, six Crocodiles, four depth charges including one Mark Ten. No nukes. Say again. No nukes." The Weapons Officer paused. "May I live now, Sir?"

  A chuckle ran around the CDC. A nervous chuckle, not a humorous one. It was cut off abruptly by the ship's internal communication system wheeping. "Starboard lookout here, Sir. Viraat is making an emergency turn now, really swinging her bows around she is too. And two Rotodynes coming over in a great hurry. Really anxious they are, Sir."

  "Deeta-one and Deeta-two calling Sir. Requesting orders."

  "Backtrack those torpedoes, try to get an approximate fix. Then send all four Rotodynes to that point. They're to start a hunt there, fanning out from that point. Where are those torpedoes?"

  "Just crossing Viraat now Sir. First one is clear, second, third. Oh damn."

  Ops didn't need to say anything. The sound of the explosion was clearly audible though the hull. Viraat had evaded three torpedoes but the fourth had got her. In vengeance, four ASW Rotodynes and two frigates were converging on the estimated position of the submarine that had fired the torpedoes.

  Control Room, HIJMS 1-531 Shinoliara, South China Sea

  The seconds had ticked slowly by. The five minutes to the first torpedo intersection had come and gone, then the second and the third. Aki was just about to admit his gamble had failed when a dull rumble echoed through the submarine. The bridge erupted into brief cheers. They'd scored, the Indian carrier must have turned to evade the torpedoes but failed to get out of the way of the last one. Now, she was, at the very least, badly hurt.

  "Take her down. The layer is at 100 meters, get us below it, then rig for silent running and we'll try to creep out of this."

  Fairey Defender ASW. 3 Deeta-Two South China Sea. "

  The Rotodyne was hovering; its dipping sonar streamed into the sea underneath it. The Rotodyne was almost the perfect antisubmarine craft. It had the speed of the fixed-wing aircraft, the hovering ability of a helicopter and its size gave it a capable sensor suite as well as a formidable warload.

  "Nothing, Izzy, Nothing at all." The sonar operator watched his traces. "I thought I picked up a trace of something but it vanished again."

  "If it's a diesel-electric, there'll be sod-all to pick up. Not on passive anyway. We'll have to set up for a Jezebel search."

  ASW Combat Direction Center, INS Vindhyagiri, South China Sea

  "Deeta-Two is setting up for a Julie drop now. Deeta-One, Three and Four are setting up Jezebel lines around the estimated launch point." This was something a helicopter couldn't even begin to emulate, the sheer speed with which the Rotodynes could move to new positions and deploy their Jezebel sonobuoys. "Dropping now."

  The rumble of the Julie charges could be heard over the passive sonars. If there was a diesel-electric out there, the sound would reflect off her and be picked up on the Jezebel sonobuoys as well, with luck, as the Variable Depth Sonar fish now being streamed by the two frigates. The computers would isolate the sound signature of the reflections from the original explosions and give the contact. In theory, anyway. In reality, nothing.

  "Dead loss, there's nothing out there."

  "There has to be. Those torpedoes didn't come from outer space. The target must have gone below the layer, Tell Deeta-Three to drop a Julie pattern set for 360 feet. Deeta-One, Two and Four to listen using dipping sonar, set for 360 also."

  "Message from Viraat Sir. She's dead in the water. Torpedo hit forward, front 100 feet of the flight deck is destroyed, both catapults gone. Back is broken about sixty feet aft of the bow, what's holding the bows on remains unknown at this time. Serious hangar deck, flight deck and forward accommodation spaces fires. All under control. Flooding serious, ship listing 20 degrees to port, flooding perimeter established. Ship is not in peril of sinking at this time"

  "They said that about Shiloh."

  "There she is Sir!" Deeta-Three had dropped her Julie pattern and the VDS fish had picked up the echoes. They were fuzzy, indistinct contacts that only cleared slightly when the data from the dipping sonars on the Rotodynes was added. "She's further out that we thought. Her torpedoes must have been running for at least a couple of minutes before we picked them up." A brief pause while the comms system squawked. "All Deeta craft are repositioning around the new position. Deeta-Four will be doing the Julie drop."

  It took a minute or more for the Rotodynes to winch up their sonars, barely as much for them to move to their new position and another for their sonars to redeploy. Deeta-Four dropped her Julie charges about a hundred yards off the estimated position of the enemy submarine. The results were almost instantaneous; a bright red, sharp contact on all three dipping sonars and the two VDS fish. Almost immediately there was a roar as the two frigates each fired a pair of Ikaras at the estimated position. The lack of delay was hardly happenstance. Both ships had their Weapons Officers with their finger on the "fire" button, waiting for the fire control system to feed the coordinates to the launchers.

  The Ikaras arced upwards and glided towards the target position. The Crocodile torpedoes separated at the pre-determined moment. They hit the water, then started their long spiral downwards, sinking at 30 feet per second. Their homing systems were set to active for an ASW hunt. They pinged, hunting for the submarine they had been built to kill.

  Control Room HIJMS I-531 Shinohara, South China Sea

  The sharp crack of the Julie explosions was clearly different from the usual rumble of explosions and it left Aki with no room for doubt. The hunt was closing in on him, fast. The last set had been beneath him so the Indians had worked out that he'd dived through the layer. Against the Ozwalds, he'd have had a chance; their towed arrays would have been ineffective against a diesel-electric target this far down. The Indian frigates had variable depth sonars. VDS had less range but they could stream them a long way down. If they were dropping charges below the layer, it was a certainty they were streaming their VDS fish below it as well.

  Almost to confirm his thoughts, a new sound was added to the symphony being played for him. The sharp, high-frequency ping of a torpedo homing sonar. Or, to be more precise, the sharp pings of four of them. A complete pattern, probably the Ikaras on the frigates. There was a terrible temptation to run up above the layer and see what it was that hunted him. Two frigates certainly, but what else?

  "Four Crocs, Sir. They're all around us!"

  That was it. The silently-creeping away game was over. To dodge the torpedoes, they had to go to maximum speed. "Emergency speed. Make 22 knots, course 335." Flat out and between the two torpedoes that were the least threat. Force the others into a tail chase. A lot of their fuel had been used in diving down, they couldn't do a chase for long. Aki snapped his fingers as the Shinohara surged under his feet. She was one of the fastest diesel-electric submarines in the world, a direct descendent of the I-201 class.

  The German Type XXI had gained all the publicity but those who really knew submarines realized that the I-201 was by far the more advanced design. Now, the Shinohara would need all the speed she could give but giving it would run her batteries flat in less than 45 minutes.

  "Two torpedoes acquired, Sir. The other pair have missed us."

  "Fire decoys, full port rudder." A series of bubbling decoys popped out of the launch tubes under the Shinohara's bridge. At the same time, the submarine swerved hard, leaving a knuckle in the water. "Battery charge status?"

  "Seventy percent Sir." Make that 30 minutes, Aki thought grimly. Just what the blazes is up there hunting me?

  ASW Combat Direction Center, INS Vindhyagiri, South China Sea "Whoa, look at it move. That spooked it!"

  "Gan
ges and Godavari Sir. They have Ikaras up on their forward rails. They're holding Jab-1s on their aft rails, just in case."

  "‘Right, we have a solid fix now, no need for Julie. Get those coordinates over to Ganges and Godavari. All ships fire." Eight Ikaras around the fleeing submarine, that should settle her hash.

  Control Room, HIJMS 1-531 Shinohara, South China Sea "

  Torpedoes decoyed Sir, they took the bait.'"

  And forced us to move so fast even a deaf man in an American concert could hear us. Aki ran the permutations through his mind. The Indians must know his position now, they had to. They'd be plastering his position with torpedoes any second now. "‘Where's the bottom?"‘

  "‘150 meters."

  "Get us down there. We'll sit there, with luck their torpedoes won't pick us up."

  Shinohara lanced downwards. As her depthfinding sonar got disturbingly close to a zero reading. Aki pulled her out of the dive and settled her on the bottom. The bump and groan was only just in time for a barrage of eight torpedoes burst through the inversion layer and they started their hunt. Started and failed. Their high frequency sonars failed to pick up the submarine sitting on the bottom. The explosions as they ran out of fuel and self-detonated were far away. Aki breathed a sigh of relief but only a little one because he'd just played his last card.

  Fairey Defender ASW.3 Deeta-Two South China Sea.

  "Eight torpedoes and every one missed. She bottomed, had to. That leaves it up to us. Izzy, bring her around. Tell Vindhyagiri we propose going in with depth charges."

  "Vindhyagiri confirms. Says to use all the Mark IVs first then wait for results before dropping the Mark Xs. All Deeta craft to make Mark IV drop."

  The Rotodyne winched up its sonar; it wasn't really needed now that the two frigates were close enough to have accurate surveillance. The data came up on the ASCAC built into the Rotodyne's command center. Anti-Submarine Command Action Center, the equipment that meant a Defender could carry on its hunt without surface ships in support. ASW technology had come a long way since the convoy battles of 1944-46.

  The data received from the frigates showed the probable location of the Chimp submarine. Now the four Rotodynes would drop their depth charges around that location. See what came up, so to speak.

  Control Room, HIJMS I-531 Shinohara, South China Sea

  The explosions were close, but not deadly so. Aki had spun Shinohara around as she'd dived for the bottom. He guessed the Indians would try to project his position so he'd done something out of the ordinary. It looked like it had worked. Smashed crockery and blown light bulbs nothing more.

  ASW Combat Direction Center, INS Vindhyagiri, South China Sea

  "First salvo of depth charges down." Weaps wished for a moment he had an Australian frigate with him. They carried a Limbo launcher, a three-barreled mortar that was ideally suited to this situation. It was a giant bear's paw that smashed everything over a wide area. Just blow everything up, that was positively Septic in its subtlety. Indian frigates were too sophisticated for their own good sometimes.

  "Sir, we've got something!" The ship's computers had extracted something from the maze of explosions. They'd picked up reflections from the hull of the target. Perhaps they weren't too sophisticated after all. It was a hazy, imprecise contact but better than nothing. Closer than they'd expected. The sub driver must have done a U-turn as he'd dived for the bottom. Smart guy, it was going to be a pity to kill him. "‘All Deeta craft, on position transmitted, Mark X drop."

  Fairey Defender ASW.3 Deeta-Two South China Sea. "

  "Here we go." The attack pattern was laid out. All four Mark X one-ton depth charges were going down, surrounding the position located by the first attack. The Mark X, the most powerful depth charge in the world, one that was rated as effective as a whole 14-charge pattern of normal depth bombs. That would avenge Viraat

  Control Room, HIJMS 1-531 Shinohara, South China Sea

  The explosions were deadly, devastating. Water sprayed inside the hull through ruptured pipes, valves were blown open, electronic systems shorted out in cascades of sparks, the crew were hurled against bulkheads. "Captain, engine room. Sir, the battery compartment is flooding. Chlorine gas is entering the compartment.

  It was all over. Aki gave his last orders. "Get out of there. Blow emergency tanks, make for the surface. Abandon ship."

  Fairey Defender ASIV.3 ‘‘Deeta-Two " South China Sea. "

  "Look at her go!" Deeta-Two had plotted the submarine suddenly detach from the seabed and claw for the surface. She made it. Her bows soared into the air as she broke surface, her metal skin looked as if a gang of demented trolls had been pounding on her with war-hammers. The sonar operator reflected that he'd been playing Dungeons and Dragons too much before realizing that it was a reasonable description of what had happened to the submarine. Then, the Rotodyne rocked as 4.5 inch shells passed perilously near to her. Down below, the submarine was surrounded by shell splashes. The ASCAC operator looked quickly down; the submarine was settling fast by the stern and men were pouring off her into the sea.

  "Cease fire, repeat cease fire. They're abandoning ship down there, she gone, she's finished." Suddenly, now that she was dying, the enemy submarine had ceased to be an ‘it' and had returned to being a ‘she.' "Cease Fire."

  "Acknowledged. All ships, all Deeta craft. Cease fire. Repeat Cease Fire. Stand by to pick up survivors."

  Deeta-Two swept over the sinking submarine surrounded by the survivors struggling in the water. In the cockpit, Izzy lined up carefully and punched the button releasing two large cylinders from their bay behind the cockpit. Below him, Captain Aki thought they were bombs until they hit the water and expanded into rubber life rafts. Already his men were swimming over to them. The Rotodynes swung past again, dropping more rafts and Aki made for one, to be hauled on board by his men. Across the sea, two Indian frigates were already closing in, their 35mm BOER guns trained on the rafts. Reasonable, Aki thought, the Japanese didn‘t have a good reputation for surrendering. But this was different, it wasn't a war, this was an incident. Then he looked around. It had taken two destroyers, two frigates and four Rotodynes to get him. Some incident!

  On Highway A-19, South of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

  The divided highway that lead into Ciudad Juarez was one of the best roads in Mexico. Well-built, well-designed and carefully maintained, it was smooth and fast. So much so that it was up to the standard of I-25, the great ten-lane Interstate that headed north from the American city of El Paso. In fact, the standard of A-19 was so good, it was so much above the usual standard of Mexican roads, few people noticed the engineers had made a mistake. In the long sweeping curve that lead into the final run up to Ciudad Juarez, they'd got the camber of the curve wrong. It wasn't very much wrong, only a slight miscalculation. If people had kept better statistics in Mexico, and if Mexican drivers were better, then perhaps somebody would have realized that the prolonged curve had an unusually high frequency of accidents caused by people drifting out of their lane. But, nobody kept those statistics and the fault went unnoticed.

  This time around, the curve wasn't the only problem. Highway A-19 was a six lane road, three in each direction and this was where the signposts started for the junction with I-25 at the border. Like most long haul Interstates, I-25 had four carriageways; two in each direction. The left-hand carriageways contained two high-speed, limited access lanes. Trucks, vans and local, short-haul traffic weren't allowed on that carriageway. They had to use the three-lane right-hand carriageway, the local access road where the speed limit was 90mph, not 120 and where traffic from the towns and cities first entered the Interstate. That was the problem. There was no access to either Ciudad Juarez or El Paso from the limited access lane; the white truck had to use the right hand carriageway, even if it had qualified to use the left hand one. And that meant the driver had to make a lane change, if he was to get onto the extreme right hand lane of A-19.

  The driver of the white truck was the third fa
ctor involved. Miguel Garcia was not a well man. He was running a high fever and he had a blinding headache. To make matters worse, his skin was crawling with the sensation of thousands of ants digging into him. He'd been driving resting his head against the side of the truck. The truth of the matter was, he wasn't seeing very well. As a result, neither he nor his companion, who was feeling worse if anything, saw the first signpost warning them to get into the proper lane. They missed the second one as well. They spotted the final one very late and they had to make a very sharp, very sudden lane change to get lined up for the local access carriageway. When they finally did so, they were right at the point where the error in road design was at its worst.

  Garcia had to make that turn because only from the extreme right hand lane could he make the turn onto the feeder road leading into Ciudad Juarez. If he missed it, there was no other exit before the Mexican-US border. With twelve illegal immigrants in the back of his truck, an inspection by the US border guards was the last thing he wanted. Something was up; there were rumors that the Americans had troops on the border and there were dark whispers of the dreaded SEALs being loose in Mexico again. So he made the turn but, in his illness, he forgot to signal as he did so.

  The faulty camber on the road turned his lane change into a disaster. It snatched at his truck and turned a sharp curve into a lurching wrench that cut off the 32-tonner big rig behind him. The driver of that big rig was good, one of the best on the road. That didn't help anybody or anything. His rig was too heavy to stop quickly enough; the faulty camber of the road stopped him evading one way and the other would have sent him down the embankment. He could only sit and watch as the small truck swerved across the road and listen to the sound of crunching metal as his right-hand fender caught the truck just above the back wheel, flipping it out of control and spinning it across what was left of the road into the side.