“Getting a slow bearing change here. Going left-to-right, bearing to target is now three-four-two . . . fading out a little bit. What’s this?” The chief looked at a new fuzzy line on the bottom of the display. “Possible new contact bearing zero-zero-four.” The line faded out and stayed out for two minutes, then came back on bearing zero-zero-six.
McCafferty debated whether to go to battle stations. On one hand he might need to engage a target very soon . . . but probably not. Wouldn’t it be better to give his crew a few more minutes’ rest? He decided to wait.
“Firming up. We now have two possible submarine contacts, bearing three-four-zero and zero-zero-four.”
McCafferty went back to control and ordered a turn east, which would track his towed array on the new targets, plus give a cross bearing on each from which to compute range. It gave him more than he bargained for.
“Boston is maneuvering west, sir. I can’t detect anything out that way, but she’s definitely heading west.”
“Sound general quarters,” McCafferty ordered.
It was no way to wake up from needed sleep, the captain knew. In berthing spaces all over the boat, men snapped instantly awake and rolled out of their bunks, some dropping to the deck, other climbing upright in the crowded spaces. They ran to stations, relieving the routine watch-standers to head for their own battle stations.
“All stations report manned and ready, sir.”
Back to work. The captain stood over the plotting table and considered the tactical situation. Two possible enemy submarines were astride his course to the ice. If Boston was moving, Simms probably had something also, maybe to the west, maybe aft. In twenty short minutes, McCafferty had gone from coolly confident to paranoid again. What were they doing? Why were two subs almost directly in his path?
“Take her up to periscope depth.” Chicago rose slowly from her cruising depth of seven hundred feet. It took five minutes. “Raise the ESM.”
The slender mast went up on hydraulic power, feeding information to the electronic-warfare technician.
“Skipper, I got three J-band aircraft search sets.” He read off the bearings. Bears or Mays, McCafferty thought.
“Look around. Up scope.” He had to let the periscope go all the way up to see over the wave tops. “Okay, I got a May bearing one-seven-one, low on the horizon, heading west–she’s dropping buoys! Down scope. Sonar, you have anything to the south?”
“Nothing but the two friendly contacts. Boston is fading out on us, sir.”
“Take her back down to six hundred.” The Russians are supposed to depend almost exclusively on active sonobuoys, dammit. He ordered a turn back to the north once they reached the ordered depth, and slowed to five knots. So they’re trying to track us passively now. They must have gotten a twitch somewhere . . . or maybe nowhere. Passive sonar tracking was technically very demanding, and even the sophisticated signal-processing equipment in Western navies made for many false contacts . . . On the other hand, we’ve pretty well telegraphed our course. They could flood the area. Why didn’t we try something different? But what? The only other passage north was even narrower than this. The western route between Bear Island and the North Cape of Norway was wider, but half of the Soviet Northern Fleet had a barrier there. He wondered if Pittsburgh and the rest had escaped safely. Probably. They should have been able to run faster than Ivan was able to hunt. As opposed to us.
This is how we hunt the Russians, McCafferty thought. They can’t hear our passive buoys, and they never know when they’re being tracked or not. The captain leaned against the rail surrounding the periscope pedestal. The good news, he told himself, is that we’re damned hard to hear. Maybe Ivan got a twitch, maybe not. Probably not. If they heard us for sure, we’d have a torpedo in the water after us right now. But we don’t, so they don’t.
“Bearings are firming up on both forward contacts.”
In open ocean water, they’d have a layer to fool with, but there was none here. The combination of fairly shallow water and the overhead storm eliminated any chance of that. Good news and bad news, McCafferty thought.
“Conn, sonar, new contact, bearing two-eight-six, probable submarine. Trying to get a blade count now.”
“Come left to three-four-eight. Belay that!” McCafferty changed his mind. Better to be cautious than bold here. “Come right to zero-one-five.” Then he ordered Chicago down to one thousand feet. The farther he got from the surface, the better the sonar conditions he would have. If the Russians were near the surface to communicate with their aircraft, their sonar performance would suffer accordingly. He’d play every card he had before committing to battle. But what if-
He faced the possibility that one or more of the contacts were friendly. What if Sceptre and Superb had received new orders because of the damage to Providence? The new contact at two-eight-six could be friendly, too, for that matter.
Damn! No provision had been made for that. The Brits said they’d leave as soon as the boats reached the pack, that they had other things to do-but how often had his orders been changed since May? McCafferty asked himself.
Come on, Danny! You’re the captain, you’re supposed to know what to do . . . even when you don’t.
The only thing he could do was try to establish the range to and identity of his three contacts. It took another ten minutes for sonar to work on the contacts.
“They’re all three single-screw boats,” the chief said finally.
McCafferty grimaced. That told him more about what they weren’t than what they were. The British submarines were all of a single-propeller design. So were the Russian Victor and Alfa classes.
“Machinery signatures?”
“They’re all running at very low power settings, skipper. Not enough for a classification. I got steam noises on all three, that makes ’em nucs, but if you look here you can see that we’re just not getting enough signal for anything else. Sorry, sir, that’s the best I got.”
The farther we go east, McCafferty knew, the less signal his sonar would have to work on. He ordered a turn to reverse course, coming to a southwesterly heading.
At least he had range. The northerly targets were eleven and thirteen miles away respectively. The western one was nine miles off. All were within range of his torpedoes.
“Conn, sonar, we have an explosion bearing one-nine-eight . . . something else, a possible torpedo at two-zero-five, very faint, comes in and out. Nothing else in that area, sir. Maybe some breaking-up noises at one-nine-eight. Sorry, sir, these signals are very weak. Only thing I’m really sure of is the explosion.” The captain was back in sonar yet again.
“Okay, Chief. If it was easy, I wouldn’t need you.” McCafferty watched the screen. The torpedo was still running, with a slowly changing bearing. It was no danger to Chicago. “Concentrate on the three submarine contacts.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
You’d think with all the practice I’ve had that I would have learned patience by now.
Chicago continued southwest. McCafferty was stalking his western target now. He thought it the least likely to be friendly. The range closed to eight miles, then seven..
“Captain, classify the target at two-eight-zero as an Alfa-class!”
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir. That is an Alfa-type engine plant. I have it clearly now.”
“Set it up! We’ll run one fish in deep, dogleg it at low speed, then pop it up right underneath him.”
His fire-control crew was getting better by the day. It almost seemed that they were working faster than the computer support.
“Skipper, if we shoot from this deep, it’ll take a lot of our reserve high pressure air,” the exec warned.
“You’re right. Take her to one hundred feet.” McCafferty winced. How the hell did you let yourself forget that?
“Fifteen-degree rise on the planes!”
“Set-solution set, sir.”
“Stand by.” The captain watched the depth-gauge needle turn counterclockwise.”
“One hundred feet, sir.”
“Fire-control?”
“Set!”
“Match generated bearings and shoot!”
“Two fired, sir.”
The Alfa might hear the air blast or he might not, McCafferty knew. The torpedo moved off at forty knots on a heading of three-five-zero, well off the bearing to the target. Three thousand yards out, a command sent down the control wires told the torpedo to turn and go deep. McCafferty was being very cagey with this shot, more than he would have preferred. When the Alfa detected the incoming fish, it would be from a bearing that Chicago wasn’t at-if he fired a return shot, it would not come toward them. The disadvantage of this was the increased chance of losing the control wires and getting a clean miss. The torpedo was running deep to take advantage of the water pressure that reduced cavitation noise, hence reducing the range at which the Alfa could detect it. They had to play some extra angles on this because the Soviet sub had a top speed of more than forty knots and was almost as fast as the torpedo itself. Chicago continued to move southwest, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the torpedo.