Crush Depth

by Joe Buff

  Jeffrey relaxed. He told Kathy to put the contact on the speakers. New sound filled the control room, a rhythmic churning with an underlying constant hiss.

  Bell listened, then turned to Jeffrey. “It sure isn’t trying to hide, sir. Not making that kind of noise.”

  This diesel boat was an old one. It was running so shallow that the suction of its screws created tiny vacuum bubbles which popped as they collapsed—cavitation hiss. The revolving screws were swishing distinctly as each blade cut through the wake turbulence from the diesel sub’s rudder and sternplanes. This caused a steady, throbbing, syncopated beat—blade rate.

  “Can you identify it?” Jeffrey said.

  “Contact appears to be a Peruvian Foxtrot,” Kathy said.

  “No threat,” Bell said. “A thirdhand, third-rate, Third World neutral vessel. Obsolete sonars and fire control.”

  “Obsolete is the word for it,” Jeffrey said. Foxtrot was the old NATO code name for a class of Russian diesel sub. A handful still traded on the global arms market. “Maybe it’s here on a training cruise.”

  “Sir,” Kathy reported, “the Foxtrot is emitting now on superhigh-frequency active sonar.”

  “Curious,” Jeffrey said. “They retrofitted something fancy.” Only the latest equipment could handle the one-thousand-kilohertz band, forty times above the top range of human hearing.

  “Sir, the signal reads as a frequency-agile encrypted communications burst.” The digitized tones changed frequency thousands of times per second, to avoid detection by unwelcome guests.

  “Who’s he talking to?” Bell said. The fact that Challenger heard the message burst at all suggested the Foxtrot was using an Allied frequency-hopping format routine. Those protocols were highly classified.

  Jeffrey’s intercom light blinked. It was the lieutenant junior grade in charge of the secure communications room. The lieutenant asked for Commodore Wilson. Jeffrey was miffed.

  “Commodore, it’s for you.”

  Wilson took the handset and listened. “Very well.” He hung up.

  “Captain, bring your ship to one-five-hundred feet.” Fifteen hundred feet. “Prepare to send your minisub to rendezvous underwater with the Foxtrot.”

  Jeffrey and Bell had decided to send SEAL Chief Montgomery to pilot the minisub, with Ensign Harrison along as copilot-under-instruction. This would get Harrison started on qualifying as a minisub pilot that much sooner. David Meltzer was already a combat veteran in the ASDS mini, but he couldn’t be in two places at once, and Jeffrey needed Meltzer at the helm on Challenger.

  Wilson had ordered that no one else go in the minisub, to allow for the weight of cargo being brought back from the Foxtrot. It appeared that Peru, like Cuba, was willing to quietly violate its own neutrality to aid the Allied cause.

  Now, Jeffrey stood impatiently under the lockout trunk to Challenger’s streamlined in-hull minisub hangar. The mini had returned, and the docking procedures were almost complete.

  Finally the lockout hatch swung open.

  Jeffrey had a sudden awful feeling of hopeless longing and bitter regret. He realized he was dreaming, and was self-aware he was in the dream but couldn’t make it stop.

  It was a dream he’d had once before, a dream that left him drained and depressed. It was a wish-fulfillment dream, and he knew it, and the dream went on and he couldn’t make it stop.

  Standing in front of him, returned from the dead, was Ilse Reebeck. Not the real person, but a memory of her made real in his mind because of the weight of her loss.

  Ilse Reebeck, in actuality cremated to ashes, was standing in front of him, whole, seeming alive. It was all a sick illusion, and Jeffrey knew it.

  “What’s the matter?” the false shade of Ilse Reebeck said. “I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

  Oh God, please make this stop. Jeffrey knew he’d wake up any moment in his stateroom, bathed in sweat.

  “Jeffrey Fuller, what is wrong with you?”

  This time, Chief Montgomery also appeared in the dream. He was smiling, as if to rub it in. Jeffrey resented this intrusion, even knowing Montgomery too wasn’t real. Jeffrey wanted to be alone with the shade of Ilse Reebeck, and not have someone else there. He wanted the dream to go on forever, for Ilse to be there standing near him, alive and breathing and warm. He wanted this as badly as he wanted the nightmare to end.

  “Captain,” Montgomery said. “Captain!” The chief grabbed Jeffrey’s shoulders and shook him, and Jeffrey realized it wasn’t a dream.

  Jeffrey opened and closed his mouth but words wouldn’t form. He leaned back against the corridor wall, and punched the bulkhead with his knuckles to make sure the metal was real and the pain in his fingers was real.

  Jeffrey stared at Ilse. “I…Jesus, I thought you were dead.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They told me you were dead.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Who’s they?”

  “Commodore Wilson.”

  “Commodore Wilson?”

  “Ilse, I think you better come to my stateroom.”

  They walked down the passage together, leaving Montgomery to supervise unloading the cargo from the minisub. It seems he decided to leave it to me to tell Ilse she was “dead.” Montgomery’s warped sense of humor hasn’t mellowed any.

  They came to Jeffrey’s cabin and went inside. Jeffrey was slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the bed.

  “Why are you in the captain’s stateroom?”

  Everything began to sink in. Jeffrey felt delight and affection and other emotions he couldn’t name. He also felt anger—no, rage, real rage that he’d been lied to by Wilson.

  “I’m captain of Challenger now.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Ilse gave Jeffrey a hug, a friendly hug of congratulations. Jeffrey pressed Ilse close and soaked in her body heat and felt her softness and smelled her hair—he also noticed the unmistakable reek of diesel, lingering on her from being in the Foxtrot. Ilse broke away.

  “Why would they say I was dead? Oh…I think I know why. Jeffrey, after you and I were split up at the Pentagon, someone from Naval Intelligence told me the Axis is after me.”

  “And your death was staged,” Jeffrey stated, explaining it to himself out loud. “It was all an act, to get the enemy off your tail.”

  “Nobody told me a thing about it,” Ilse said. “I sure hope it works.”

  “Lord, it’s good to see you again.”

  Ilse gave Jeffrey a light kiss on the lips, but there was something too sisterly about it. There was nothing erotic, no inviting passion.

  “How do you like my uniform?” she said.

  “You’re passing as a lieutenant?”

  Ilse looked insulted. “I am a lieutenant. I have a commission in the Free South African Navy.”

  Jeffrey hesitated, pleased and happy for her, but also disturbed by her distance. “You always wanted something like this, didn’t you, Ilse? Official recognition, being a genuine part of things in other people’s eyes?”

  “Obviously the admirals had a bunch of stuff in motion that they didn’t tell us about.”

  “That puts it mildly.”

  “I’m sorry I was cross with you at the Pentagon. I had time to think things over while I was training in the Aleutians.”

  The Aleutians? Jeffrey didn’t like Ilse’s tone and the look on her face. His heart began to pound and he felt crestfallen.

  “Jeffrey, I decided things between us weren’t working.”

  “But—”

  “No. Let me speak. I can’t get serious with someone unless I think that I could love them permanently. Not now, not anymore, not with this war. I’ve had too much hurt already, and my own feelings need to come first.”

  “But I thought—”

  “No. Just listen. You and I are from completely different worlds, on different continents. If we ever do win this war, I’ll go home to South Africa, to help rebuild. You’re a U.S. naval officer first and foremos
t. You’ll want to continue your career, as an American.…You’re good at what you do, Jeffrey. I’ve seen the way you come alive under fire, how there’s a drive and purpose in you when the bullets and torpedoes fly, and it keeps you from inner peace in quieter times…. I want to have children someday. I want, I need, the father of my children to be someone stable and sensible, not a man who loves the smell of gunsmoke and has something close to a death wish in him in battle.”

  Jeffrey stood there, living a different sort of waking nightmare. Ilse had come back, only to reject him. The worst of it was, everything she said made sense.

  “Now I need to go. I need to hit the head and freshen up. We shouldn’t even be in here alone together like this. People could talk. I’m a naval officer too now, for the duration of the war, and I’m a member of this crew, and you’re my captain…. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  WILSON GLARED AT Jeffrey. “How dare you come in here and speak to me like this?”

  “Sir, you lied to me. You told me someone whom you knew I cared about was dead. You let me suffer for days, and you knew all along that Ilse Reebeck was alive.”

  “Yes, I knew. And no, I didn’t tell you. Your behavior right now is perfect proof of why.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “See that dressing mirror? Look at yourself.”

  Jeffrey’s face was red and his fists were balled and his posture was antagonistic.

  “What do you see?”

  “I’m angry. I have every right to be. You violated the code of honor between naval officers, sir. You lied to me.”

  Wilson took off his reading glasses. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you right now, Captain Fuller? I see someone who can’t control his emotions when he needs to. I see someone who cannot grasp the larger picture. I see a commander who if he keeps this up is going to stay in that rank for however much longer he survives.”

  Jeffrey balled his fists tighter, and dug in his feet. Anger helped—it filled the hollow aching in his heart. He knew it wasn’t smart, showing such anger to Commodore Wilson, and Jeffrey fought to calm down. He saw it was too late—he’d really set off Wilson this time.

  Wilson lectured him sternly. “For once, will you please look at things from the whole navy’s point of view? Do you think I’m some kind of sadist? Do you think I kept the truth from you for the fun of it? And goddamn it to hell, do you think it was easy for me to see your grief and have to keep quiet?”

  “No, Commodore, I’m sorry. I just don’t get it.”

  “Captain, Captain, Captain. The Axis had to believe that Ilse Reebeck was dead. We owe that much to her for what she’s done for us already. We owe it to ourselves because her skills have become irreplaceable to this vessel, including her intimate knowledge of Jan ter Horst’s mind.”

  This hurt Jeffrey a lot, hearing ter Horst’s name, Ilse Reebeck’s lover for two years. Jeffrey remembered that that love affair had ended only because of the war, when ter Horst betrayed Ilse’s family. The same Ilse dumped Jeffrey, after barely two months, of her own accord. The worst of it was, Wilson had no idea what Ilse had just said to Jeffrey. “So you set me up.”

  “Yes, if you want to be that crude about it, I did. Commander Fuller, you have the world’s worst poker face and you’re an absolutely terrible liar. These traits make you an ideal leader in undersea combat, because the crew respects and trusts you implicitly, and inside our own hull the enemy cannot read your face. But if you had known while we were still in New London that Miss Reebeck was really alive, there is no way you could have behaved convincingly as if she were dead.”

  “But—”

  “Be quiet. We have no idea how badly New London is penetrated by spies.”

  “Okay. Okay…Then why didn’t you tell me after we’d sailed?”

  “Christ, do I have to spell it out for you at every step? I already told you there was the constant danger we might suffer a mechanical casualty, or be damaged in combat, and need to do an emergency blow and abandon ship and be picked up by God knows what neutral ship or Russian spy trawler.”

  “I—”

  “Miss Reebeck would still have been safe, and she could’ve done for another American submarine what she will do for us.”

  Jeffrey shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. What about you, sir? What if you’d been picked up by the Russians or Germans and tortured? You’re most senior, they’d single you out.”

  “If I deemed the situation warranted it, I was to make sure I wasn’t taken alive, because of all the things I know, not just about Miss Reebeck…Unlike you, Captain, I have a wife and three young children. So how do you think I felt about that part of my orders?”

  Jeffrey took a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. “I feel pretty dumb, Commodore.”

  “You should. And that’s the other reason I didn’t tell you Ilse was okay. You needed to learn the hard way that you simply must get a better handle on your emotions. Just because an enemy like Jan ter Horst can’t see your face underwater doesn’t mean he cannot read your mind. He’s met you in combat before, and I’ll guarantee you he’s read a full report on your action against the Germans.”

  “But how—”

  “A few men got off in their minisub.”

  “I didn’t realize that, Commodore.”

  “You didn’t need to know, and now you do. In your very aggressiveness your battle tactics are becoming predictable. You’re so predictable I knew before we left New London you’d storm in here the minute you found out Ilse Reebeck was alive.”

  Jeffrey felt himself blushing.

  “Get predictable in battle and you’re going to get yourself and me and this ship and your whole crew killed. Worse, such continued impulsiveness will keep you from being a proper team player. My flagship captain had better be a team player!”

  Jeffrey stared at the overhead. After I made the connection between my relationships with Wilson and my father, I swore I’d take the chip off my shoulder and stop second-guessing authority figures. I swore I’d be a good subordinate and show them proper deference.

  Now I’ve gone and made a total mess of it.

  “I take it you have nothing further to say?”

  “No, sir, except to apologize.”

  “Good. And if there is the slightest feeling in you that this is some kind of macho contest between you and ter Horst over Ilse Reebeck, push that far down in the back of your mind and put a huge mental boulder over it and leave it there forever, because otherwise such thoughts will cloud your judgment fatally.”

  “Understood, Commodore.” If Wilson only knew.

  Wilson looked Jeffrey right in the eyes. “I’m not sure you really do understand…. How do you think the Allies are going to win this war?”

  Jeffrey was taken aback. “Sir, that’s much too open-ended a question to respond to meaningfully.”

  “Commanders who think that way don’t make full captain. How are we going to strike at the seat of German power, in the heart of Europe?”

  “We need to send in ground troops. I suppose another landing eventually, like D-Day.”

  “With nuclear-powered U-boats exercising sea denial against us in the North Atlantic? With enemy tactical nukes poised to wipe out any amphibious force that tries to cross the English Channel?”

  “It’s a very difficult question to answer, sir.”

  “The answer, Captain, is that we do not go across the Atlantic, and do not attempt a force buildup in the U.K. that would be a sitting duck. Our only prayer of bringing the Germans to their knees without risking mutual nuclear annihilation is to come at Berlin from the opposite direction.”

  “Another eastern front? But Russia’s pro-Axis, Commodore. They’d never come in on our side. We’ll be lucky if they stick to the phony neutrality they’re practicing so far.”

  “Did I say Russia?…Think about coming in under Russia, well south of Russia. The old Spice Trade route. Stage
troops first to Australia, then send land armies through Malaysia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, then Turkey. Advance with well-dispersed divisions, along a very broad front, with Allied navies protecting the flank on the Indian Ocean coast. Use tanks and personnel carriers equipped with bulldozer blades, so they can dig themselves giant foxholes quickly and escape the heat and blast of battlefield atom bombs…. Drive up into Imperial Germany that way.”

  “But most of those countries are neutral, or hate us, or are at each other’s throats.”

  “Now you see what’s really at stake here. Now you see what Voortrekker’s push really means. If she cuts America’s shipping lines of communication to Asia, then the Hindu and Moslem nations along the Spice Trade route will not be very inclined to help us, and may well be tempted to join the Axis to share in the spoils of our defeat…and we’ll have no way to ship our troops and vehicles over there anyway.”

  “But won’t Voortrekker just run out of ammo? Ter Horst will be declawed.”

  “Once again Commander Fuller does not use his head. How did we cross the canal?”

  “Okay…. If we can do it in Prima Latina, the Axis may have clandestine tenders too.”

  “If we had forever to work with, Voortrekker’s thrust wouldn’t be such a decisive threat. But time, the initiative, the psychological edge, are all on the enemy side here. Building on their recent string of military successes, Axis attachés and sympathizers will press Asian countries to get off the fence very soon, before we can recover any strategic equilibrium. If they penetrate the SOSUS net in the ANZA Gap somehow, and then outflank my undersea battle group, all may be lost at the outset. Just one more grand gesture by ter Horst, say an attack on Pearl Harbor, might be all it takes…. Now do you see what I mean, Captain, that you need to do a better job of grasping the big picture and keeping your cool?”

  “Yes, Commodore.”

  Wilson rubbed his eyes, then looked at Jeffrey very sternly. “Remember, I too have a boss, and he has a boss, and he has a boss, all the way up the ladder. You need to have more faith in the system. You ought to know by now that things always happen for reasons, as obscure as the reasons may seem.” Wilson paused, then got nasty. “Have I gotten through to you this time?”