“The fish might still ignore it.”
“He doesn’t think so. He thinks it’ll work-then he can turn behind the noise of the explosion and get one off at us.” McCafferty walked over to the plot. The other new fish was running toward what was probably another Victor-class. The second target was maneuvering east now. The Alfa was also. The obvious tactical move: clear the danger area, turn, and begin your own stalk. While both were turned away, their sonar would be ineffective along the route of the advancing torpedo. Sonar called out.
“Captain, I have an explosion bearing three-five-four. We have lost contact with target Sierra-2. I don’t know if the fish hit her or not. The other two fish seem to be running normally.”
“Patience,” the captain breathed.
“Conn, sonar, we show some sonobuoys dropping aft.” The bearings were plotted. They were in a north-south line two miles aft of Chicago.
“One of the other boats got a message out to his friends,” the exec suggested.
“Good bet. These cooperative tactics’ll be a cast-iron bitch if they ever figure out how to do it right.”
“Sierra-2 is back, sir. I have a Type-2 machinery signature at three-four-nine. Some possible hull-popping noises. Sierra-2 is changing depth.”
The weapons officer commanded one of the running torpedoes to turn left a few degrees. McCafferty picked up a pen and started chewing on it.
“Okay, probably his sonar is a little messed up. I’ll bet he’s trying to get an antenna up to tell his friends where we fired from. All ahead two-thirds.”
“Torpedoes in the water bearing zero-three-one!”
“Do we have anything else on that bearing?”
“No, sir, I show nothing else.”
McCafferty checked his plot. It was working, by God. He’d spooked the Russians into moving east toward Todd Simms in the Boston!
“Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water aft, bearing two-eight-six!”
“Make your depth twelve hundred feet,” the captain said instantly. “Right full rudder, come to new course one-six-five. Our friend the Victor got word out to his airedale friends.”
“Sir, we lost the wires to both fish,” Weapons reported.
“Estimated range to Sierra-2
“The fish should be about six thousand yards out; it’s programmed to start pinging in another minute.”
“Mr. Victor made a mistake this time. He should have covered his ass before he went topside to radio the airplanes. Sonar, what’s the position of the torpedo on our stem?”
“Bearing changing—sir, I’m losing sonar performance due to flow noise. Last bearing on the Russian fish is two-seven-eight.”
“All ahead one-third!” McCafferty brought his submarine back to slow, quiet speed. In two minutes they realized that the air-dropped torpedo was well clear of them, and that their second shot at the Victor was close to its target.
By this time the sonar display was totally confused. Target Sierra-2 had picked up the incoming fish late, but was racing directly away from it at full speed now. Their shot at the other Victor was still running, but that target was maneuvering to avoid another fish from Boston. The Alfa was at full power heading due north, another Mark-48 in pursuit. Two more Russian torpedoes were in the water to the east, probably heading after Boston, but Chicago didn’t have her sister ship on sonar. Five submarines were racing around, four of them chased by smart-weapons.
“Sir, I have another decoy deployed on Sierra-2. Sierra-1 has one deployed also. Our fish is pinging on -2. Somebody’s fish is pinging on -1, and one of the Russian fish is pinging at zero-three-five-sir, I have an explosion at bearing three-three-nine.”
Dad wanted me to be an accountant, McCafferty thought. Maybe then I could keep all these damned numbers straight. He walked over to the plot.
The paper plot wasn’t much clearer. The pencil lines that designated sonar contacts and running torpedoes looked like electrical wire dropped at random on the chart.
“Captain, I have very loud machinery noises at bearing three-three-nine. Sounds like something’s broke, sir, lots of metallic noise. Getting some air noise now, he’s blowing tanks. No breakup noises yet.”
“Left full rudder, come to new course zero-one-zero.”
“We didn’t kill the Victor?”
“I’ll settle for a small piece of him, if it sends him home. We’ll score that one as a damage. What’s going on with the other two?”
“The fish after Sierra-1 is pinging, and so’s Boston’s-I guess it’s from Boston.”
The slight abatement of the confusion lasted ten minutes. The second target put her stem on both torpedoes and ran northwest. More sonobuoy lines appeared across Chicago’s path. Another air-dropped torpedo was detected to the west, but they didn’t know what it had been dropped on-just that it wasn’t close enough to worry about. The torpedo they’d put in pursuit of the second Victor-class sub was struggling to catch a target running directly away as fast as it could go, and another fish was angling in from the opposite direction. Possibly Boston had fired at the Alfa too, but the Alfa was racing away at a speed almost as great as the torpedo’s. McCafferty reestablished sonar contact with Providence and continued north. Chaos worked in his favor, and he took maximum advantage of it. He hoped Boston could evade the torpedoes that had been launched in her direction, but that was out of his hands.
“Two explosions bearing zero-zero-three, sir.” That was the last bearing to the second Victor, but sonar detected nothing more. Had the fish killed the sub, the decoy, or had they homed in on each other?
Chicago continued north, increasing speed to ten knots as she zigzagged through the sonobuoy lines to increase her distance from the injured Providence. The attack-center crew was emotionally exhausted, as drained as their captain from the frantic tracking and shooting exercise. The technical aspects of the work had been handled well in pre-war workups, but nothing could simulate the tension of firing live weapons. The captain sent them in pairs to the galley for food and a half-hour’s rest. The cooks brought up a platter of sandwiches for the ones who couldn’t leave. McCafferty sat behind the periscope, eyes closed, head back against something metallic while he munched on a ham sandwich. He remembered seeing the cans loaded aboard. The Navy had gotten a good price earlier in the year on canned Polish hams. Polish hams, he thought. Crazy.
He allowed his crew to go off battle stations an hour later. Half his men were allowed to go off duty. They didn’t head for the galley and a meal. They all preferred sleep. The captain knew that he needed it at least as badly as they. After we get to the ice, he promised himself. I’ll sleep for a month.
They picked up Boston on sonar, a ghostly trace on the sonar screens due east of them. Providence was still aft, still cruising along at six knots, and still making too much noise from her battered sail. Time passed more rapidly now. The captain remained seated, forgetting his dignity and listening to reports of . . . nothing.
McCafferty’s head came up. He checked his watch and realized he’d been dozing for half an hour. Five more hours to the ice. It came up clearly on sonar now, a low-frequency growl of noise that covered thirty degrees on either side of the bow.
Where did the Alfa go? McCafferty was in sonar ten seconds after asking himself that question.
“What was your last bearing on the Alfa?”
“Sir, we lost him three hours ago. Last we had him, he was at flank speed on a steady northeasterly bearing. Faded out and he hasn’t come back, sir. ”
“What’s the chance he’s hiding in the ice, waiting for us?”
“If he does, we’ll pick him up before he picks us up, sir. If he’s moving, his engine plant turns out a lot of medium and high-frequency noise,” the sonar chief explained. McCafferty knew all that, but wanted to hear it again anyway. “All the low-frequency ice noise’ll ruin his chance to detect us at long range, but we should be able to hear him a good ways off if he’s moving.” The captain nodded and went aft.
“XO, if you were driving that Alfa, where would you be?”
“Home!” The exec smiled. “He has to know there are at least two boats out here. Those are awful short odds. We crippled that one Victor, and Boston probably killed the other one. What’s he going to think? Ivan’s brave, but he’s not crazy. If he has any sense at all, he’ll report a lost contact and leave it at that.”
“I don’t buy it. He beat our fish, and he probably beat one from Boston, ” the captain said quietly.
“You could be right, skipper, but he ain’t on sonar.”
McCafferty had to concede that point. “We’ll be very careful approaching the ice.”
“Agreed, sir. We’re being paranoid enough.”
McCafferty didn’t think so, but he didn’t know why. What am I missing?