Scorpion in the Sea

FIFTY-TWO

The Captain wiped the rain out of his face and tried to clean the optics on his binoculars. He was wedged into the conning tower cockpit, bent low behind a makeshift plexiglass windscreen which did very little to keep the weather out of his face. The two lookouts perched above and behind him on the periscope shears were shapeless bundles of raingear in the dark. A warm wind streamed over the conning tower as the submarine plowed steadily through a heavy chop, the air redolent with the scents of the shoreline ahead. He had decided to bring the Al Akrab in partially flooded down after all, so that the usual shape of the bows and the foredeck ahead of the conning tower were missing, revealed only when larger waves broke over the black, rounded hull like the roils of water in a river over barely submerged rocks. The rain came in intermittent sheets, followed by slack periods when the night sky opened to reveal a large thunderstorm booming its way out to sea to the south. The lights of Mayport and the naval base were visible as an orange glow against the base of the low flying clouds up off the port bow.

The Captain was grateful for the shield of the foul weather, but he knew that the Deputy, as Navigator, would be not so grateful. He could hear the periscope swivelling in its tube as the Deputy in the attack center attempted to take bearings on the navigation aids ashore. The Captain peered again through his Russian binoculars. The lighthouse at Mayport was clearly visible, beaming a strong flash of white light every twenty seconds from atop its man-made hill on the base. But he had not yet detected the two river range lights. Without radar, and without those lights, their position was essentially a guess. They knew that they were somewhere on a line of bearing from the lighthouse, but the all critical factor of range from the river’s entrance was missing. They had to find at least one more light for a cross bearing. He felt a tightness in his gut as the submarine advanced inexorably on the darkened shore at four knots.

“Navigator, Captain,” he growled into the intercom box.

“Sir,” replied the box, barely audible over the noise of a new squall of rain and wind rattling on the plexiglass shield.

“Can you see the river range lights?”

“No, Sir. Not yet. We are searching on high power, but there is too much weather.”

“When was our last good fix?”

“Uh, some time ago, Sir. We have now only an estimated position. We are using a dead-reckoning plot, bearings from the lighthouse, and the depth sounder. The range to the river’s mouth is estimated at ten thousand meters, and there is sixty feet of water beneath the keel. We need—”

“Yes, yes, I know what we need — another light!” the Captain said. He brought his binoculars back up to his eyes and continued to sweep the shore, or at least the sector of the horizon ahead where the shore ought to be. He realized that the navigation team was doing the best it could. The wind was from dead ahead, but the local currents along the Florida coast set northerly. With the submarine flooded down, the current’s effect would predominate over the wind, and the nearest shoal waters were to the south of the channel, away from the direction of drift. He glanced at his watch. If they could not get a fix within the next twenty minutes, he would have to break it off. He needed one accurate fix to give him the intercept course to the sea buoy; after that they could buoy hop their way into the channel. He scanned the shore again, starting with the lighthouse and moving right, to the dark sector to the right of the naval base lights that had to be the river, and then searching inshore of the river’s mouth. One of the lookouts gave a low shout.

“Stay on it!” ordered the Captain, craning his neck to see which way the man was looking. The man’s binoculars were trained well to the right of where the Captain had been looking. He put his glasses up to his eyes, swept right, and saw the blinking red light, down low on the surface. A buoy. They were going to pass it close aboard to their starboard side. Very close.

“Left full rudder!” he shouted into the intercom box. “Navigator, we have a buoy close aboard to starboard!” He watched as the rudder angle indicator dial, a green blur on the rain soaked instrument panel, swung left. The boat ploughed on for a few heart stopping moments before finally answering the helm. He looked up anxiously as the buoy came down the starboard side, only some thirty feet away. They could hear the metallic clank of its buoy bell as it bounced in the windswept chop.

“Shift your rudder,” he ordered, to swing the stern and the screws back away from the buoy now that the boat had begun to swing. “Steady 270.” He yelled to the lookouts to get the buoy’s number if they could.

“Two,” called the starboard lookout, as the submarine’s head swung slowly back to the west.

“Mark buoy number two abeam to starboard,” yelled the Captain into the intercom. His whole body listened anxiously for the rumble of a propeller hitting the buoy’s anchor chain, but they slipped safely past. The wind whistled around the conning tower, as if in appreciation. The rain suddenly stopped in a final sweeping gust of wind, and moments later the periscope stopped swinging.

“Contact on the river range,” called the Deputy from below. “Stand by for course recommendation.”

The Captain straightened up as the Al Akrab came out of the squall line, and let out a long breath. There were many lights suddenly visible ahead as the air cleared; they were closer in to the shoreline than he had thought. He scanned ahead to find the range, aligning his binoculars with the glass face of the periscope, and found it almost at once. They were to the right of the range. As he prepared to make a course adjustment, the intercom sounded off.

“Recommend come left to 267 to regain track,” said the Deputy. “We hold ourselves 7200 meters from the turn point, and we have a good fix.”

“Very well; come left to 267,” replied the Captain. He turned around to the lookouts. “We have found the river range; search now for small boats coming down the river; look for running lights.”

The lookouts acknowledged, and the Captain resumed his own surveillance of the river’s entrance. He could see the pattern of red and green buoy lights now that the rain had passed, and the channel into the river was clearly marked, even against the brightening backdrop of the shore lights.

“Depth beneath the keel?” he asked of the intercom.

“Depth is forty five feet beneath the keel and conforms to the charted depth,” replied the box. Behind the conning tower the rumble of thunder and lightning was diminishing in the distance as the storm cell passed out to sea. The wind had freshened in its wake, veering around to the submarine’s starboard quarter as she approached the shoreline, returning to the normal on-shore breeze pattern after the squall line. The submarine was dead quiet, running on the battery with electric propulsion.

“Turn on the navigation lights, dim position,” ordered the Captain. If there was radar surveillance, the only substantial echoes would be returned from the conning tower, as the rest of the submarine’s shape was awash. The dim navigation lights, red and green on the sides and one dim white light on the front of the sail, would look like a fishing boat to any watching eyes. So far, the electronic surveillance console had reported no radar signals sweeping across the Mayport approaches. He continued to watch for several minutes while the submarine thumped and bumped its way through the choppy waters.

“Based on a good fix at time 24, range to the turn point is 4200 meters; recommend come back right to 271,” spoke the box.

“Very well, come right to 271,” replied the Captain. Another buoy was shaping up in the darkness, to port this time, its green light winking comfortably in the rapidly clearing night air. The squall seemed to have scrubbed the coastal atmosphere; all of the lights ashore were now unnaturally bright. The Captain suddenly felt very exposed. He could make out the red aircraft warning lights atop the masts of the ships bunched together in the Mayport basin. He could even make out the vast bulk of the aircraft carrier moored to the bulkhead pier along the river. It was incredible: they were within a few miles of the American Navy’s largest southern naval base, and operating on the surface with total impunity. The Captain felt a surge of pride at their achievement.

“Look at them,” he mused aloud. “Dozens of destroyers, all asleep even as we bring our scorpion to their very doorstep.”

The lookouts grunted their acknowledgement, surprising him. With the wind no longer blowing in their faces, the Captain’s every word could be heard at the top of the conning tower. The Al Akrab pressed on, even as the shimmering rays of amber light from the sodium vapor streetlights on the base began to reach out for them across the surface of the St. Johns river.

“1500 meters to turn point,” spoke the box.

The Captain detected a note of apprehension in the Deputy’s voice that penetrated even the fuzzy sound of the intercom. He imagined what it looked like on the chart below, as the submarine crept into the outer channel along a series of small, pencilled X’s on the chart. He could see in his mind’s eye the tight knot of officers surrounding the plotting table in the red light below, looking fearfully at the chart’s depiction of the naval base. Into the lion’s den. He scanned the river range through his glasses, and saw that they were back on track. At 1000 meters he would come right to allow room to make the turn in the river entrance.

A mile and a half ahead to port lay the junction between the St. Johns main channel and the dredged channel into the Mayport naval basin, which slanted off to the left in a Y intersection with the river. The junction that was the target for the mines. The Coral Sea had to turn left into that basin channel at precisely the right time to avoid the sandbar just upstream of the junction. He would plant the three mines in the river channel just downstream of the turn; they would tear the bottom out of the carrier and send her careening across the channel to run aground on the opposite shore, thereby blocking the entire river exit. Perfect.

“950 meters to turn point; recommend come right to 280 to offset for the turn.”

“Very well,” replied the Captain. “Navigator is to take control of the conn in the attack center and position the ship to make the turn; use power for standard speed to twist the boat.”

The Deputy acknowledged; with their navigation plot now accurately updated by the half-minute with buoys, the range lights, and the lighthouse, they had a much better picture on their chart than the Captain did perched in the darkness at the top of the conning tower. They could shoot bearings with precision through the periscope, determine their exact position on the chart, and maneuver the boat to come right into the mouth of the river, turn sharply, stop, back up if they had to, simulate firing the mines, and start back out. The submarine began swinging to the right.

The Captain looked at his plastic, Japanese watch; the lights from the shore were almost bright enough to read it without hitting the light button. 0155. An excellent time for this night’s work. He wished he could fire the mines tonight, but they still did not have a precise arrival time from fleet intelligence. He studied the layout of the river approaches, the lights, and the position of the stone breakwater. He had noticed the long wake each buoy was carving through the water, a wide V pointing upstream, indicating a stiff current from the river. They would have to note that current when they put the mines down; it would not do to have them shoot out the stern torpedo tubes and go only twenty meters in the face of the current.

“Surface contact, bearing 350 relative,” sang out the port lookout. “I have running lights, and a red over white combination on the mast; contact is coming downstream.”

The Captain cursed, and then informed the Deputy.

“Begin the turn now,” he ordered. “We have company.”

Almost at once the submarine steadied, and then began her turn to port, although it seemed to the Captain to be exceedingly slow. Ballasted down as she was, and in shallow water with a river current on her head, Al Akrab seemed reluctant to swing through the turn. The Captain was reaching for the intercom when he felt the sudden rumble of a propeller shaft as the navigator increased the power on the opposed shafts to bring her around. He scanned ahead again with his binoculars, and finally picked out the dim red and green lights, low on the surface of the dark river ahead of them, upstream of the naval base. The boat was coming quickly, her speed augmented by the downstream current; her top lights indicated a fishing boat. Someone had waited to get underway until after the squall lines had subsided.

At long last the submarine began to swing with authority, as the current caught her starboard bow and shoved her around. After another minute and a half, she was pointed seaward.

“Increase speed to twelve knots; turn off all running lights,” ordered the Captain. “We will simulate the mine firing at high speed.”

He wanted very much to get away from the fishing boat that was bearing down on them from behind. The boat looked to be about two miles distant, enough distance to cover them, although her skipper might be curious about the contact coming upriver that had suddenly turned around. He had decided not to back up into firing position; having seen the current, he knew what he would have to do next time.

The Al Akrab began to move out now, her ballasted hull pushing up a large bow wave that revealed her forward decks intermittently. The Captain noticed that the submarine was also beginning to porpoise a bit. The planesmen were trying to counteract the effect of the ballasted down hull as it met the incoming swells from the sea.

“Blow ballast tanks to full surface condition!” he ordered into the intercom.

The last thing he needed was to inadvertently dive in only sixty feet of water. He moved over to the side of the conning tower cockpit and swept the river behind them with his binoculars. It was very hard to make out the fishing boat’s lights against the glare of the base lights.

“ESM reports commercial radar set on the air, bearing 271,” spoke the box.

“Very well,” replied the Captain.

The fisherman had turned his radar on as he approached the sea channel; they would hold contact on the Al Akrab, but there would be no lights. He felt the submarine lighten as the ballast tanks were blown clear. The submarine stabilized on the surface with a rumbling rush of compressed air and sea foam along the sides as the bows and foredeck rose clear of the swells rolling in from the east.

“Increase speed to fifteen knots,” he ordered.

He knew that the fisherman would not be making much over eight knots at best, with some additional knots of push from the current; fifteen would open them handsomely. He looked back at the dim running lights behind them, and wished for a radar. There was no telling how far the lights were behind them. They should have mounted a commercial radar in place of the distinctive Russian submarine radar set.

The Al Akrab was throwing up a good wake now, a wide V of white water standing out from her sides, creating a broad wake astern which was clearly visible from his vantage point. He wondered if the fishermen would also see it, or if the lights behind them would put the submarine’s wake in shadow.

“Range to the shoreline is now 3500 meters and opening,” reported the box. “Sir: do you wish to light off the diesels — we can make almost twenty knots.”

“Negative,” the Captain replied. “Stay on the electrics; I want to turn south off channel axis as soon as we clear the last channel buoy; once the fisherman goes by, we will bring up the diesels and recharge the battery while we move offshore. Turn off all the lights.”

The Deputy acknowledged. They both knew that running at fifteen knots on the battery was draining precious amps at an alarming rate. But the Captain did not want a trail of diesel exhaust to combine with the radar contact held by the fisherman and thereby confirm to the fishermen that something was out there ahead of them. He would slow and disappear into the darkness along the south shore, and then use the fisherman’s engine to mask their own main engines. He looked at his watch again.

“Time to run out of the channel?” he asked of the box.

“Time remaining on this leg is nine minutes, Sir.”

The Captain nodded in the darkness. Ahead of them the thunderstorm rumbled and glimmered on the distant horizon. He looked back at the fishing boat, whose lights were dimmer now as she was left behind by the submarine’s urgent burst of speed. He had momentarily forgotten all about the mining exercise, but thought now that the practice run had been well worth making. They had not considered the weather sufficiently during their planning. The rain squalls had made for excellent cover, but they had almost caused them to abort the run into the beach. They would need to allow more time to make their approach, and they would need to find other reference points to help with the navigation problem.

“Six minutes to turn point,” spoke the box.

The Captain looked again behind them, but the fishing boat’s lights were no longer visible against the backdrop of the lights ashore.

“Very well,” he said. “Turn on time, and prepare to light off the mains; we will run offshore on the diesels and recharge while we open the coast.”

Farewell for now, Mayport naval base, he thought. We shall return soon, and turn your river into a charnel house.