by Joe Buff
S ix 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.
Because major reinforcement of the Central African pocket would be a big setback for the Axis, they had to do everything possible to prevent the convoy from getting through. This meant the Axis High Command could not preserve their war-fighting assets as a force-in-being, in order to menace the Allies indirectly or reduce the Allied side’s options; those assets had to come out and fight. In the bigger picture, this was good, so long as the military value of the U-boats sunk equaled or exceeded that of the convoy ships and escorts sunk—where the measure of value included human lives and weapon stocks. If the trade-off went the other way, and the value of U-boats lost was much less than the damage they inflicted, the Allies would suffer adverse attrition at sea, apart from the question of the fate of the Congo-basin pocket. Even now, with the passage of time having allowed Sonar and Fire Control to assemble more data, Jeffrey didn’t know who was winning and who was losing.
There’s a definite possibility, that the slaughter on both sides will be so extreme that in the end neither can claim to have won.
All this put Jeffrey in a black mood. He still needed to stop the von Scheer somehow. That ugly thought recurred: Maybe I just have to face the fact that Ernst Beck is better than me.
Jeffrey eyed the gravimeter. The Valdivia Seamounts loomed a short distance ahead, clustered like a drowned archipelago. Somewhere behind him, he knew, the von Scheer was coming his way—Beck could read the same charts.
“What gambit this time, Captain?” Bell asked.
Jeffrey forced himself not to sigh. “If we try the same thing three times in a row, I don’t know if that’s what Beck will expect or it isn’t what he’ll expect.”
“You mean, he might think you’d never pull the same tactic thrice when it didn’t work twice?”
Jeffrey nodded. “The point is the tactics didn’t work, twice. Both times von Scheer got closer to the convoy, and we risked irreparable damage with nothing to show for it but fewer weapons left in our torpedo room and more injured crew. I can see some other choices, but I like all of them even less.”
“Captain?”
“I prefer to keep my own counsel for now.” Jeffrey felt terribly alone, brooding over crushing facts he couldn’t escape.
“Sir, with respect, I need to understand your intentions.”
Jeffrey hesitated. “Okay.” He had other officers take the conn and fire control. He led Bell aft to his stateroom. They went in and shut the door.
Jeffrey glanced at himself in the dressing mirror. His eyes were sunken, with dark bags under them. His eyelids drooped, as if he’d been up late drinking or had a serious case of the flu.
Worse than either of those. I’ve been through two tactical nuclear skirmishes. My head hurts worse than from any imaginable hangover. My body aches worse than from any known flu.
“This’ll be easiest for both of us if we make it quick. You know I had a private session with Hodgkiss before you picked me up?”
Bell nodded tentatively.
“He told me we’re expendable in an equal exchange with von Scheer to protect the convoy…. More normal tactics now, with two ships and captains so evenly matched as we’ve seen, it’s a toss-up who’d win. The odds are unacceptable that the winner would be Beck. If Beck wins, the convoy loses.”
Bell looked at the deck and pursed his lips; Jeffrey proceeded. “A forced one-for-one exchange may be our only remaining alternative. We can’t let him get past us. In a regular fight, the odds are fifty percent we’re dead already anyway.”
“Trade the remaining half, the odds we survive, for a hundred percent odds that Ernst Beck dies? Mutual suicide?”
“I hate to use that word. But basically, yes. A knowing self-sacrifice in the line of duty, for greater good…Sometimes the calculus of war is very cruel.”
“There’s just one thing. Your combat tactics in the past. They’ve been extremely risk oriented, sir. They sometimes bordered on suicide, or you intentionally mimicked suicide, to defeat an enemy captain emotionally and then tactically.”
“Right. And we know Beck knows that firsthand.”
“The danger is you’re becoming predictable again.”
“There’s one important difference, XO. This time I mean it. This time I’m not bluffing. This time I think we really need to make the one-for-one exchange.”
Bell went ashen. “Sacrifice the ship to save the convoy?”
“Those were my orders if I deemed it necessary in the last extreme. The Axis land offensive along the coast is a ticking time bomb. It’s a whole other issue besides the von Scheer. We eliminate von Scheer, at least we halve the problems for our seniors in command. It’d be a damn shame to lose Challenger, but the consequences if we put our own survival first…If we lose the pocket, then the Germans and Boers own all of two continents, and they grab a quarter-million U.S. and coalition POWs. With nukes in play and escalating, we’d never dislodge the Axis then. America would have to sue for an armistice, a dishonorable peace on enemy terms. We can’t let that happen, XO.”
Jeffrey glanced at the picture of his parents on the wall. I wish there was some way I could at least say good-bye.
Jeffrey thought of that photo of Bell’s wife and kids he’d seen him take from his wallet. Bell must be horribly torn inside. Never had the burden of command been so heavy. Jeffrey blinked and fought off the wetness that tried to gather in his eyes. Bell stared at the deck, lost in contemplation, regret etched on his face. At last he looked up and met Jeffrey’s gaze heroically.
“Sir, if you offer a one-for-one exchange with Beck and act suicidal, he’ll assume it’s one of your tricks. You’ll gain the ultimate advantage, because we know it isn’t a trick. It’s just, well, it’s just an ironic way to choose to become unpredictable.”
“Tragic, you mean.” Jeffrey had trouble talking; there was tightness in his throat. He thought of the 120 people in his crew he’d condemn to die. He thought of the widows and orphans they’d all leave behind.
Then he remembered the tens of thousands of people he’d be protecting, and the tens of millions he’d bring closer to release from under the boot of Axis tyranny. One side of the balance scale vastly outweighs the other: the unforgiving calculus of war…. I know what I must do.
“I’m—I’m with you all the way, sir…. What about our people?”
“They’ll do what we tell them to do. This is private.”
“We better get back to the control room, Captain.”
“One more thing. I’ll skip the corny crap; you know what I’d say and I don’t need to say it. Just make sure, for everyone’s morale, we don’t go in there like we’re on death row.”
Jeffrey was surprised how, once he’d made the decision, his mind cleared and he felt much less morose.
Sure, now I know I have no worries beyond my next encounter with von Scheer. No growing old and prostate trouble or arthritis, no more doing my income taxes, no endless hard work and competition as I try to climb the navy ladder. No more regrets I never married and never had kids. No on-and-off strange and strained relationship with Ilse Reebeck.
No more dentist appointments squeezed in b
etween long months at sea. No more weekly haircuts in spit-and-polish assignments in the Pentagon. No more anything at all.
Jeffrey’s intercom light blinked.
“Captain.”
“Radio room, sir. ELF message with our address.” Each entire sentence was conveyed by a very short letter-group cipher. “Come to two-way floating-wire-antenna depth. Imperative, no recourse. It says that last thing twice.”
Jeffrey acknowledged and hung up, then turned to Bell. “We’re ordered to two-way floating-wire-antenna depth.”
“Last-minute change of orders?” Bell asked.
Jeffrey could see the needfulness in Bell’s eyes.
“We have to find out,” he said noncommittally. His own emotions were swinging wildly too.
Jeffrey studied his charts. He gave Meltzer helm orders to bring Challenger shallow enough. Since he intended to remain acoustically stealthy, and also stay masked by the bulk of the seamounts around him, he told Meltzer to rise on autohover and pivot the ship to face south-southeast. This would aim Challenger into the Benguela Current, which ran up from South Africa.
Jeffrey told Meltzer to order just enough turns on the main pump-jet propulsor to hold the ship steady against the one-knot current. He told COB to play out the two-way floating wire antenna and let it stream behind the ship, into the current.
Jeffrey gave Bell the conn. He went into the crowded and dimly lit radio room.
The communications officer—the lieutenant (j.g.)—and the senior chief were in charge, as usual at battle stations.
“We have a message relayed from Norfolk, sir,” the senior chief said. “Authenticators check out. Commander, Atlantic Fleet, wants to talk to you.”
The lieutenant and senior chief seemed worried, and confused. Challenger was being ordered to break radio silence in the middle of a major battle. Jeffrey didn’t like it either.
Have the people in Washington or Norfolk lost their minds?
Has some unified commander or carrier-battle-group admiral with no grasp whatsoever of the realities of undersea warfare made an insistent but stupid request? Jeffrey felt disgusted, betrayed—but orders were orders, to the last.
He put on a communications headset and positioned the lip mike. There was a switch on the wire, past the alligator clip meant to attach the wire to his belt. If he pressed that switch, he’d be live on the air, transmitting.
Jeffrey heard Admiral Hodgkiss’s voice in his earphones. The voice was flat and scratchy from the encryption processes, and there was heavy background noise—hissing, sirens, buzz-saw sounds—because of attempted enemy jamming.
“Challenger, respond,” Hodgkiss ordered impatiently.
Jeffrey pressed the switch. “This is Challenger, over.”
“I’ll make this fast and you aren’t going to like it. The Axis land offensive to pinch off the pocket shoreline has begun. The Boers are making a strong drive up the coastal strip, with armor. Our exhausted troops will soon be overrun.”
“Why do I need to know this, Admiral?”
“The situation is desperate. The convoy is taking a beating. The escorts and the air force are running very low on high-explosive land-attack cruise missiles, and from their current positions the transit times to launch and impact would be too late. I think the Boers know this too; that’s why they’re doing what they’re doing where and when they’re doing it…. With Lieutenant Reebeck’s help, we’ve been following your tactics and actions, and watching the string of mushroom clouds between you and the von Scheer. We knew you’d be in the Valdivias now. Your location is ideal, you’re much closer to the crisis area than our forces guarding the convoy from farther north. Your conventional-warhead ammo load-out is perfect. You are hereby ordered to conduct an immediate Tactical Tomahawk strike against the advancing Boer forces…. You’re our best hope.”
“Sir, this will completely compromise my stealth.”
“The survival of the pocket has to come first. Warships exist to inflict loss on the enemy by taking risks. The Valdivias put these emergency coastal targets well within your Tomahawks’ fifteen-hundred-mile maximum range.”
“The von Scheer will hear my launch datum.”
“The same way the convoy is lure for other U-boats, Challenger is bait for von Scheer. You absolutely must stop the von Scheer. Beck might not have figured out where you are. This will bring him to you, positively. I’m trying to do you a favor…. And we simply can’t let Boer tanks break into the pocket.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I remind you that your ship is expendable in an equal exchange with von Scheer as a last resort. You have very little time to launch your Tomahawks and sink the von Scheer. Fail, and everything in this theater will come apart at the seams. Let that happen, we’ve lost the war. Good luck to you, Captain. Out.”
Jeffrey went back to the control room. He ordered Meltzer to bring the ship to periscope depth. He told Bell to stand by for a Tactical Tomahawk land attack. The XO was speechless.
“Everything’s happening together,” Jeffrey said. “The pieces interlock. Convoy, von Scheer, land offensive—they’re all part of one whole. For now we play network-centric warfare.” Firing weapons using real-time targeting and sensor data from distant platforms.
Meltzer called out when Challenger reached periscope depth. Jeffrey ordered COB to raise a photonics mast; mounted above the optical scanners on the mast was a small passive signals-intercept antenna. Bell quickly reported no visual threats on imagery coming down from the mast; the outside world showed on monitors in the control room. Via the sigint antenna, the Electronic Support Measures room gathered data from the ether above the surface, and analyzed it with special receivers and software. New contacts came onto Jeffrey’s tactical plot, showing the range and bearing to far-off hostile radars. Safe enough. Jeffrey told COB to raise the two-way high-baud-rate antenna.
The digital handshake was made with a command vessel in the convoy escort group, via satellite. Data began to pour in. Detailed targeting information and route way points were sent for every Tomahawk launch. The data gave precise three-dimensional mapping of land topography each missile should follow by using its built-in look-down radar. The data also included visual and infrared video of the targets, whether tanks or artillery batteries or formation-headquarter vehicles or hasty bunkers. It all took many megabytes…. The download was complete.
Jeffrey ordered the antenna mast lowered. Bell and Torelli went to work with the combat-system specialists to preprogram each missile for the emergency strike. Challenger had twelve high-explosive Tomahawks in small individual silos in her vertical launching system, built into the forward ballast tanks. She had eight more in the torpedo room on the holding racks. One Tomahawk was quickly loaded into each torpedo tube. Now comes the scary part.
Jeffrey decided to fire the torpedo room’s missiles first. They could all be in the air in less than two minutes. They would make a god-awful racket, and be utterly conspicuous as they launched. Each was subsonic, as fast as a jumbo jet, with a range of about fifteen hundred miles—this put Jeffrey in striking distance of the African coast, even though von Scheer’s faster but shorter-legged supersonic missiles couldn’t yet reach the convoy at sea.
Jeffrey issued orders to shoot. He watched a periscope monitor. One by one, the missiles broached the surface, riding a solid-fuel booster rocket. The flame was bright yellow against the blue sky. The exhaust smoke was dirty brown. The rocket noise came through the hull.
The first cruise missile’s wings unfolded. The rocket got the missile up to speed, then dropped away. A jet engine in the Tomahawk took over. Bell called out every step of each launch. Soon all eight Tactical Tomahawks disappeared beyond the horizon. They could be redirected in flight by other Allied platforms, such as fighter-bombers or recon drones or satellites, via radio. Enemy units on the attack, on the move, would thus have much more trouble decoying or spoofing the warhead final-homing sensors.
Now for the vertical-launch-system salv
o.
The launch noise was louder now. One by one, twelve more Tomahawks rocketed into the air, dropped their spent boosters, and transitioned to level flight. When the last one was away, before it even reached the horizon, Jeffrey ordered the photonics mast lowered. Torelli and the fire controlmen expressed proud satisfaction in their work despite the risks involved: that everything should have gone just right, that twenty out of twenty missiles made fully successful takeoffs, said much about the Weapons Department’s months of training and constant hard work on equipment maintenance. Jeffrey gave them a heartfelt “Well done.” Cluster minelets, fuel-air explosives, bunker busters were all on their way to the enemy. And now we reap what we have sown. “Helm, emergency deep.”
Meltzer acknowledged and down the ship went, fast. Jeffrey needed to dodge the supersonic cruise missiles he was sure would be inbound from von Scheer. Her passive sonars had to have heard those Tomahawk-missile launches. From the first launch, enough time had passed for Beck to order von Scheer shallow in relative safety, enter good firing solutions, and send nuclear missiles after Jeffrey at Mach 2.5. Those missiles would have plunging warheads, designed to survive a hard impact with the surface and go off underwater.
Then there was the unknown factor: In what form would retaliatory fire come from other Axis forces on land or at sea? Cruise missiles, subsonic or supersonic? Torpedoes from diesel U-boats?
Jeffrey ordered evasive maneuvers among the seamounts in desperation.
But nothing happened.
He realized the Axis forces must have other priorities, or were afraid they’d damage the von Scheer by mistake, or were simply out of position for an effective counterattack.
“Why didn’t Beck shoot?” he asked Bell after a while.
“Protecting his stealth? Saving all his missiles for the convoy, maybe? Figures he can get us with Sea Lions alone?”
“He’s an awfully confident SOB if he thinks that.”
“There’s one other factor, sir.”
Jeffrey nodded. “Missiles could easily miss, and badly muddle acoustic conditions in this whole area. Beck wants good clear water for his final tangle with us.”