D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground (16 page)

After what seemed an eternity, though only a minute had passed, the torpedo room watch reported, “One and two ready with the doors open.”

“Recommend shoot, Captain,” said Brent, fresh from a dressing down for doing just that. 

The captain found his voice.  “Gyro angle and range.”

“No time, sir.  It’s now or never.  He might be inside minimum enable range already.”

Bostwick hesitated. 

Brent ordered, “Fire one!”

Denver
gave her customary shudder as the torpedo left the launcher.  The wailing, high-pitched sound of an accelerating ADCAP could be heard clearly through the ship’s pressure hull. 

The captain ordered,  “Fire two, Brent.”

“Aye, sir.  Fire two in a minute-thirty seconds.” 

Brent gritted his teeth at having to correct the Captain, but construed lack of a reply from Bostwick to be his assent. 

Bostwick asked, “This course good for the wire?”

Brent thought,
Wire’s not a factor with the target this close.
  He let it pass.  “Good heading, Captain,” he responded. 

Apprehension shown in Hansen’s voice as he announced, “Conn, Sonar.  Torpedo running down the bearing line.”

“Want to check fire on two, Captain.  If this guy’s close and we get him with one, number two might not see him and start looking for us.  I’ve got Doppler Enable out,” a feature that accommodated attack against a motionless target.

The captain ordered, “Check fire tube two.”

Brent said, “Henri, give me a mark at one-plus-sixty seconds.”

The steady Henri repeated, “Mark at one-plus-sixty in fifteen—”

An ear-splitting explosion obscured the rest of Henri’s sentence. 

So much for the eager bastard’s Order of Lenin
, Brent thought
.

Silence for a second after the explosion then a chorus of cheers resonated throughout
Denver
.  They had finally drawn Soviet blood. 

Capitalizing on the moment, Brent turned to the captain and extended his hand. “Congratulations, sir.  You got the son of a bitch.”

Bostwick hesitated an instant then with some uncertainty, he took Brent’s hand, shook it and smiled.  “Why thank you, Brent.”

The others joined in expressions of congratulations with flurries of handshakes and back pats. 

Brent ordered the torpedo room over the 21MC, “Close the outer door on two, drain down and secure.” But being the eternal skeptic, he directed sonar to monitor the target. “He might still be dangerous, Sonar.  Report everything.  Listen for launcher sounds or running torpedoes.”

Hansen responded, “Aye, sir.  There’s too much reverberation from the explosion but not enough to blank a torpedo.  We don’t hear any.”

“Let’s hope we don’t.”

Hansen reported, “New noises from the target sir.  It’s a groaning sound.  Like—”  He stopped in mid-sentence deciding not to make the analogy to
Utah’s
demise.  “I think she’s gone, sir.”

An air of sobriety replaced the excitement in the Attack Center.  The enemy submarine yielded to the common foe of all submariners, the relentless ocean depths.  The ocean crashed in and drove the hapless
Tango
ever downward.  Tremendous pressure crushed the hull like an eggshell and snuffed out the lives of her crew.

The tactical margin between the victor and vanquished is extremely narrow.

Dave Zane relayed the message from Eric Danis that
Denver
had survived.

Bea threw her arms about her father and began to sob. 

He comforted his daughter. “Why ole Brent’s likely conducting patrols in the Pacific and having a fine time.” 

“Oh, Daddy, I’m so … so grateful.  God, I’m so grateful.  I thought the worst.”

“Hell, Bea,” he said, releasing her and smiling into her eyes as he had done throughout her life, “nothing them damn
Sovies
got measures up to a 688.  Brent will be back before you know it and likely with a couple of Red scalps in his belt.”

Bea recomposed herself.  “Thanks, Dad, but I’m still worried.  Be sure to tell Eric how much I appreciate the message.”

Dave took the opportunity to probe for what future she saw for Brent.  He knew of her bruising from the disastrous affair and couched his words in terms easy for her to evade. 

Looking away and scratching behind his left ear, a gesture that signaled meaning beyond his spoken words, he asked, “What’s in store for Brent after
Denver
?  His tour must be just about up by now.” 

Her father’s giveaway quirk betrayed his intention to exploit her good mood and she responded, “Brent and me … where do we go from here, you mean?”

Crinkling his face into a squint-eyed grin, he said, “Well, seeing as you brought it up, the thought did enter my mind.”

“I’m very fond of him, Dad.  And I believe he feels the same way about me.  He’s a sensitive man and a good catch.  We’ve made no plans, but he discusses the future often.  It’s always in terms of us.  He wants children.”

Dave exclaimed, “Damn it, you know my dream is to bring a grandson up here!  How long do I have wait?”

“Till you stop being so cantankerous.  From my seat, that could take awhile.”

“Okay, okay.  I get the message.  What else is coming down with Brent?”

“Before the war started, we planned for me to join him for a month in San Diego.  Brent expects orders and would take some leave before the next duty station.  He wants to know if it’s okay by me for him to request the east coast.”

“Asked?  That’s the kind of question a naval officer asks his wife, not his girlfriend.  Likely that’s another damn thing that’s changed since my day.  How do you feel about this?”

“Would I marry him?  I’m not ready to say that.  We’ve got some distance to run. You know he has an ex-wife and a son.”

“Didn’t his wife remarry?  You’ve got no competition there, Bea.”

Dave’s hopes for Brent and his daughter showed clearly. 

“Can’t you see there is, Dad?  I can’t compete with a ghost, and sometimes, that’s how his ex comes across to me.”

Chapter 9

Captain Bostwick entered the
Denver
wardroom, where his officers had assembled for a war conference.  The ship meandered along at one-third speed, all unnecessary machinery secured to reduce radiated noise.  This all but eliminated the probability
Denver
would be detected and improved her own ability to detect enemy ships.

The captain smiled a greeting.  “First, let me say how proud I am about the way you’ve handled things.”

Brent tried unsuccessfully
to capture Bostwick’s eye.  The young officer sought reassurance that his conduct during the
Tango
kill vindicated him in the eyes of his commanding officer.  He also felt that the captain’s apparent surge of self-confidence might evaporate in the next crisis.

The captain said, “We’ve given our countrymen something to cheer about … God knows, they need it.”

Brent liked what he heard, but not the implied message.  He felt the captain had unusual ideas on what comprised success.  They had failed in their mission to screen
Utah
and crossed the entire Pacific Ocean with little to show for their efforts, only a diesel-electric submarine.

Bostwick went on, “We’ve been hit, but not hard and have a fair understanding of the damage.  Fortunately, we had no personnel casualties.  Now, I want to review the facts and identify available options.”

Jack Olsen spoke.  “The engineer thinks we can fix it.”

Raising his eyebrows Bostwick asked, “Fix it?  We’re banged up outside the hull.  We can’t make that repair submerged.”

Nodding toward the operations officer, Jack said, “Dan.”

“We can do it on the surface, Captain.”

An astounded Bostwick questioned, “On the surface?  In the middle of the Pacific with enemy control of the air?” 

His tone hung like a pail of ice water about to be doused on the plan.

Dan spread out one of the charts obtained by Quartermaster Henri on the eve of their departure from Bremerton.  “Not in the open sea, sir.”  He pointed to their present position.  “We’re a hundred twenty-five miles southeast of this small cluster of islands in the Kuril chain.  We can approach submerged, then anchor on the leeward side of one of them.”

His impatience blatantly apparent, Bostwick demanded, “And then what?”

Dan made his voice steadier than his conviction.  “Surface after dark, anchor, and conduct the repair.”

The captain countered, “Are you out of your mind?  The soundings on this chart alone are not reliable.  How good are they?”

“My guess is not very good at all.  But we have a Fathometer.”

“What about the mine field?” 

The captain clearly wanted no part of the idea.

Brent jumped in.  “They’re probably MZ 26s, sir, moored at thirty-six meters.  We can avoid that depth by running shallow.  We have to anyway in order to make landfall at periscope depth.”

 “We’ve run checks, Captain.  The noise threshold from the damage is acceptable at six knots.  At five, we can be there in little more than twenty-four hours.”

The captain’s arguments quickly diminished and he grasped for straws.  “What about Magnetic Airborne Detection equipped aircraft?”

“MAD range is a thousand feet, okay for localizing, but not for search.  It’s even worse in shallow water.  You would not believe how much junk sits on the bottom that will distract it.”

Bostwick had to hear the plan out, though he searched his mind for reasons to disapprove.

Next, the engineer spoke, “If we keep the hole above the waterline, the job should be fairly
simple.  We’ll burn off the jagged edges and then weld a piece of plating over the hole.  Grinders will smooth it up.  We’ll rig blankets around and over the worksite to keep the bad guys from spotting weld flashes.”

Bostwick’s hostility to the idea became more open.  “What about airborne radar?”

Several officers showed understanding expressions for the captain’s point of view.

Dan replied, “It’s useless once we’re close in.  There’s so many other land targets, we’d never be picked out of the clutter.”

The captain quizzed the chief engineer for more details on the repair plan and then retired to his stateroom for a private conference with Jack Olsen. 

Bostwick closed the door and gestured menacingly
at his executive officer.  “For chrissake, Jack, why the hell didn’t you nip this stupid idea in the bud before it came to me?”

Jack hesitated, recognizing the Captain’s tone and knew the going would be rough.  “I’m not sure it’s such a bad idea, sir.”

“You’re right.  It’s not a bad idea.  It’s a shitty idea, and we’re not going through with it.  Now dammit, Jack, we got our ticket home.  A war wound, and in spite of it, we went on to kill an enemy.  Nobody expects any more from us.”

An overpowering personality had earned Bostwick a perfect track record for getting Olsen to knuckle under.

Out of character, Olsen responded, “Captain, I disagree.”

“Disagree?”

Bostwick had never heard these words from his executive officer.

“Yes, sir, the plan is sound.  Risky, but sound.  The way I see it, we collect a salary all our lives not for what we do in peace but for what’s expected of us in war.  We’re capable of doing much more than we have so far.  We’ve got to do it, or we live a lie.” 

Olsen astounded even himself with the passion of his response.

Denver’s
captain bristled.  “Dammit! Jack.  Now I see it—first Maddock and now you.  Well let me tell you, Buster, I’m in command of this ship and if you care about your future in this man’s Navy, get back in that wardroom and work up a plan for getting us back to the States.”

“Are those your orders, Captain?”

“You goddamn betcha.”

“I’ll carry them out, sir.”  Then Jack astounded himself again by saying, “But I will insist on including transcripts of this meeting and the wardroom meeting in our patrol report.  It will describe in detail recommendations from the officers and your decision.”

“That includes you?”

“It does, Captain.”

“You son of a bitch.  You’d really
do that?”

Jack’s threat struck the captain at his most vulnerable spot.  “I will, Captain.  And, if I may, the remotest possibility of cowardice in the face of the enemy all but rules out your flag chances.”

Bostwick snarled, “Get the hell out of here.”

Jack Olsen knew he’d won one. 
About time,
he thought.

Eric and Eve Danis sat in the tiny backyard of their rented house in Ridgecrest, California.  The town grew up in the Mojave Desert with the Naval Weapons Facility and housed the people and businesses that supported the activities there.  A spectacular sunset concluded a clear day and now they conversed beneath a brilliant canopy of stars.

“Eve,” Eric said, breaking the silence, “it’s downright embarrassing how I’m letting this desert grow on me.”

Twenty-two years of marriage had brought them to near perfect harmony.  They could sit for hours without talking and still derive great pleasure from just being with each other.

“It would be embarrassing if it didn’t,” Eve replied.  “I’ve always wondered how people who live out here could stand it.  Now I know why they never want to leave.”

“I always thought we’d only
settle near the ocean in retirement.  Now I’m not so sure,” he said.

Retirement?
 Eve had not heard the word mentioned before now.  “Is this an announcement?”

He replied, “Announcement?  Oh, no, but then maybe so.  Every now and then, my brain pops out things that I’m not sure I’m ready to say.  This job is up in three months and there are plenty of young bucks who’d like to push me off this springboard.”

Eve felt a surge of pity for her husband.  The road to this point in his career had been a long and hard one with seventeen years at sea, running the gauntlet of junior officer assignments, executive officer and then command.  He had served six years in the latter capacity, four as captain of a 688 class SSN and two in a Trident.  Sixty percent of his years found Eric at sea and away from his family.