Lion Resurgent (38 page)

“Control. Hot landing, no flaps.”

“Understood XT-279.” The voice was unemotional.

Ahead of him the flight deck grew terrifyingly fast. Mullback was aware that he was sweating with sheer stress as he concentrated on the sweet spot between the stern round-down and the first wire of the arrester array. At the last second, he realized he was slightly too high and too fast but it was too late to abort and go around. He cut power and felt his Banana drop onto the flight deck, throwing him against his straps. For all the unconventionality of the landing, the sturdy Blackburn structure took the impact although the bounce caused him to miss the first wire. He hooked the second and that brought him to a halt, a few feet from the end of the angled deck. Behind him, he heard the squee noise as the wire was pulled back to its proper position.

The tractor was already hooking up and Mullback felt his aircraft being towed clear of the deck. “XT-279, confirm you have fragment damage to your flaps. Good landing, all things considered.”

CCA shut off and Mullback knew he had been forgotten. They were concentrating on the damaged Mirage. It was crabbing badly, the black smoke from its wrecked engine increasing in volume as the pilot neared safely. Mullback watched the wing on that side of the aircraft start to drop. The pilot didn’t seem to catch it but a few feet from the fantail, he surged power on his remaining good engine. The added speed straightened the damaged aircraft up and lifted the drooping wing. The speed bled away again almost instantly but by then the Sea Mirage was on the deck and catching the first wire. Incredibly, it had been a near-perfect landing.

Once towed off the angled deck, the cockpit on the Sea Mirage opened up and Mullback saw the pilot, Lieutenant Adams start to climb out. As he did, a burst of applause rang out from the Goofers Gallery. That caused him to stop and he made a theatrical bow from the steps to his cockpit.

The deck crews were already at work, striking the damaged aircraft down to the hangar for repair while undamaged birds were kept on deck. The maintenance crew would be working hard to repair the three aircraft that had serious damage to them.

Something caught Mullback’s eye. Over to his left he could see a signal lamp flickering from HMS
Griffin.
Instinctively, he read the message. “. . . . core? Query are all safe.”

The bridge replied quickly. “Clean Sweep. All aircraft safe. We counted them all out, and we counted them all back.”

Casa Rosada Presidential Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina

“Are you completely incompetent or simply in league with the British?” President Leopoldo Galtieri read the report in from South Georgia with near-disbelief. Two warships and a civilian auxiliary sunk by British air attack and the defensive positions on the Island bombed. To make it worse, there were still British troops loose on South Georgia. That threw the whole plan off-balance.

“We needed those ships to support the next phase of the operation, extending our grip southwards into the South Sandwich Islands.” Admiral Jorge Anaya wattled furiously at Galtieri’s gibes. “Need I remind you that we were to leave a garrison in place on South Georgia and establish another on Thule Island?”

“I know that. Do you think I forget details of these plans?”

“Then you must also understand that our troops cannot walk on water. They needed ships to take them south. Warships might be able to carry the men, but equipment to set up a permanent base needed a freighter. We were told there were a handful of civilians on South Georgia. Unarmed civilians we could round up and dispose of. Instead there were dozens of heavily-armed troops in the town. Their presence has meant that our troops have been hard-put to secure Grytviken and Leith Harbor. Only in the last few days have they started to get on top of the problems the British troops there are causing. So the ships were stuck in harbor waiting. It didn’t matter, so we thought. After all, you were the one who was so sure the British could do nothing while the Americans would do nothing. No resistance, you told us. We could execute the plans at our leisure.”

Galtieri slammed his hand on the table. “I will not tolerate such defeatism. Dozens of heavily armed troops? Not according to the reports your own men have made. There was one submarine came in and that was all. A dozen or so men at most. Your excuses are as feeble as the performance of your commandos. Since the British are on the move, we can be grateful we have good army troops in the Malvinas. They might be conscripts but they know their duty. We will concentrate our defenses there.”

‘And what about the troops on South Georgia? With the ships we had stationed there sunk, they can’t get back.”

“Then they can do what they should have done right from the start. They can fight. To the last man and the last bullet.”

Anaya settled back and thought about that. Given how much Astrid knew, his unit fighting to the last man and the last bullet could solve a lot of problems.

Control Room, HMS
Collingwood.
145 nautical miles south of the Falkland Islands

“She’s a freighter, Sir. Heading is one-three five; direct course from Port Ushuaia to Stanley.”

“Any identification?”

“No, Sir. We’re picking up sound signature for two diesels and two screws but that could make her anything or anybody’s.”

Captain Paul Wicklow nodded. There was only so much an acoustic signature could tell a lurking submarine. “No sign of an escort?”

“No sound signature of one, Sir. That freighter is all alone out there.”

“Cheeky bastards. I suppose they thought we wouldn’t really sink a freighter.” Wicklow paused, his thumbs were prickling fiercely. “I don’t like this. Beware Greeks bearing gifts and all that. Load a Mark Two into tube one, three Mark 22s into tubes two, three and four and squitters into five and six.”

“A Mark Two, Sir?” Mark Two was a British-built 22.4 inch electric straight runner. It had replaced the older Mark One when British submarines had shifted from 21-inch tubes to 22.4s. It might be unguided but it had a ferociously heavy warhead. Ideal for killing a merchant ship from ambush. Since it was merely an enlarged and improved version of the old German G7e, that was hardly surprising.

“When that eel goes, I want it out and on its way. There’s something out here; I can feel it. Bring the boat up to periscope depth.”

Collingwood
angled upwards, her decks tilting with the movement. She was moving very slowly, keeping her sound signature to an absolute minimum. Wicklow took a deep breath. “Up scope.”

What followed next was a virtuoso demonstration of how to use a periscope. The mast broke surface, the slow speed and rough water combined to make the feather hard to spot. Wicklow knew exactly where to look and what to look for. He didn’t need the bow identification number to confirm his opinion but everything came in useful. “Argentine flag, bow number B4.”

He snapped the words out while he did a quick scan. “No other contacts.” The scope was down less than ten seconds after breaking surface.

“Argentine naval auxiliary
Bahia San Bias.”

“Right, we have an Argentine naval ship well inside the exclusion zone and on course for Stanley. That makes her a legitimate target. I can’t see how the Septics could complain about this. Plot, prepare firing solution and enter into the computer.”

There was a delay while the fire control system took in the target course and speed, compared them with the characteristics of Torpedo, 22.4 inch Mark Two and came up with a solution that would put both together at the same time and place.

“Solution set, Sir.”

“Well done, Weaps. Fire One.”

There was a pause while the fire control computer made a minor adjustment, then
Collingwood
rocked slightly as the torpedo left the tube. It was wakeless, so the only warning the target was likely to get would be the initial uplift as the eel exploded under her keel.

“Impact in five....four....three....two....one....“

There was a pause that seemed to have taken hours, then the ramble of an explosion echoed through the boat.

“Periscope up.”

Wicklow seized the scope and focused on the target. He had missed the spectacular under-the-keel explosion itself but its effects were obvious. The freighter had broken in half. Her bow section was already rolling over while the stern was sinking fast. Worst of all, the ship was under a pyre of black smoke, the sea around her in flames.

“Down scope.”

“We get her, Sir?”

The question was verged on the redundant but Wicklow’s nod of answer still caused a cheer that stopped suddenly with the comment that followed it. “She must have been carrying fuel. She’s burning like a torch out there. So is the sea around her; the crew must have had it.”

The control room was silent. The men there were trying to imagine the efforts of the survivors trying to abandon ship in a world where everything was burning. “Anything we can do, Sir?”

Wicklow shook his head. He was about to speak when the sonar room cut in. “Sir, we have a contact; something stirring. Slow revs, single screw, very low frequency machinery noise, 50 hertz. I think we have a diesel-electric boat on our tail.”

“Damn, I knew this was too good to be true.” It was a well-put together ambush. A juicy target to make the submarine expose herself, a diesel-electric lurking to take the shot. “Any bearing on that threat?”

“Due west Sir. My guess is she was behind the freighter and below the layer.”

“Make oh-nine-oh. Speed six knots.” That was
Collinwood’s
creep speed, the maximum speed she could make before her noise levels started to rise. “Single screw. An Italian-built Manta class?”

“I think so Sir. The CBs say she’s got an average passive sonar set but is very quiet. Small too; designed for the Med.”

“She knows we’re here, that’s for certain. Bearing still two-seven-zero?”

“Yes, Sir. Sir, we’re losing her. I think we picked her up as she came through the layer, now we’ve lost her again.”

Wicklow drummed his fingers. “We’ll separate. Make speed 32 knots. Give her a tailchase. She can make 20 knots, but that’ll run her batteries flat in a few minutes. Ready all decoy systems in case she tries for a shot.”

Collingwood
lurched slightly as her screw bit into the water. The three members of her class were known as the Ferraris of the fleet, fast and loud. The problem was at that speed, her sonar coverage was very poor.

“Sir, we have torpedo launch. Two torpedoes coming in fast from astern. American, Mark 37s.”

“Full left rudder, take her down. Launch bubble decoys and fire a squitter. Reload tube with same.”

The “squitter,” more formally known as Decoy Mark 27, was basically a torpedo loaded with the electronics necessary to simulate the sound signature of a submarine.
Collingwood
was turning hard and diving to create a knuckle in the water that would block sonar pulses. Two foam generators had been planted in that knuckle to improve the effect. The squitter was running ahead. Hopefully the Mark 37s would track it and ignore the submarine that was already far down and out of their tracking cone.

“We’re through the layer, Sir.”

“Slow down to six knots. Lurk and listen.” Separating from the diesel electric hadn’t worked too well. It had to be a gutsy skipper in that diesel-electric to chance two torpedoes on a tail chase against a nuke boat.

The seconds ticked by and turned into minutes. Eventually the sonar operator shook his head. “I think he’s out there, Sir. Can’t pick him up. There’s just little hints.”

“He can’t be getting anything better. Come back to oh-nine-oh and we’ll do a creepy-creepy away.”

Collingwood
had barely started her turn when her hull rang with the pulse of an active sonar system. “She’s got us, Sir. That was way above threshold value.”

“Give a bow pulse.”
Collingwood’s
own bow sonar slammed out its signal and a bright contact light exploded on to one of the sonar displays. “Launch two Mark 22s as soon as the target is dialed in.”

It was a race against time to get their torpedoes off.
Collingwood
won, just barely. Her Mark 22s were swim-out launched, another advantage of the larger-than-usual size of her torpedo tubes. That made the launch as near silent as made no difference. It didn’t hide the torpedoes themselves as they started their run towards the Argentine submarine. They were well on their way when the report from the sonar room came in. “She’s fired again, Sir. Two Mark 37s, coming straight at us.”

“Fire all decoys, take her down, turn and go to maximum revs.” The Mark 37 was a lot faster than the Australian Mark 22. Wicklow watched the two lines speeding out from the sonar contacts. Each represented a pair of torpedoes hunting their prey.
Collingwood
had the advantage of launching first; it paid off. The trace of the Argentine submarine vanished in a blaze of light on the display. He could picture what was happening; the Argentine boat had probably been hit on or near the bows. The Manta only had one watertight bulkhead in the whole submarine. It was unlikely that would save her. Her nose opened up, she would be heading down until she dropped to the point where the water tore her apart.

“Decoys have filtered off one of the Mark 37s. The other one is still coming for us.” The report was neutral, calm and collected.

“Shut all watertight doors, rig for collision.” Wicklow paused for a second.
To head for the surface or not?
“Take her up.”

Collingwood
started to rise but it was too late. The Mark 37 had been about to run out of fuel when it struck the nuclear-powered submarine’s screw and exploded. The shaft whiplashed from the blast, then ran out of control as the mutilated propeller started to shake itself apart. The shaft seals and bearings ruptured, causing flooding throughout the whole machinery space.
Collingwood
never got to make it to the surface. Her stern flooding and her machinery gone, she was already sinking fast. The control room crew had time to scram the reactor before the hull collapsed under the pressure. In the space of less than half an hour, three more ships had joined the long list of wrecks at the bottom of the Drake Passage.