Scorpion in the Sea

SEVENTY-TWO

The sonar Chief signalled for the Captain’s attention.

“Sir: the pursuit torpedoes are running hot, straight and normal, down doppler, no bearing drift. But, Sir: the destroyer is much closer; by ping stealing I estimate the range at around 8000 meters.”

The sonar chief held his earphones hard against his left ear, his better ear, while punching buttons rapidly on the sonar computer console with his right hand. The Captain bared his teeth.

“Attack director,” he ordered. “Enter 8000 meter estimated range on channel two. Course west, speed fifteen! Make ready tubes one and two for wire guidance on channel two. We—”

“Torpedo inbound! Torpedo inbound!” yelled the sonar Chief. “Electric, bearing 085! Up doppler, in search mode!”

“Right full rudder! All ahead full!” yelled the Captain. The helmsman punched out the order to engineering, and the submarine jumped ahead, and then leaned way over to port as the rudders took effect.

“Fire decoys aft! Fire both at once!”

The sonar operator armed the decoy tubes and punched out the firing orders. One hundred feet aft, two metal filled canisters were ejected into the sea and exploded almost at once, filling the water with a dense ball of air bubbles that grew into a maelstrom of broadband noise covering the search frequencies of the approaching torpedo, the boiling turbulence created by hundreds of pellets of gas-producing chemicals. The submarine turned off the approach axis of the homing torpedo, leaving the decoys to suck in the oncoming torpedo’s sonar.

“Captain! Recommend we change depth to 100 meters — at this speed we are too close to the bottom,” called the Musaid.

“No! Stay where we are; rudders amidships, slow to ten knots! Depth saves us, Musaid. He is not in contact. That was a reflex shot in response to the pursuit torpedoes. Maintain depth. Come all the way back to the east as soon as the speed comes down to ten knots.”

The torpedo was still too far away to be audible in the control room, but everyone stood rigid in silence listening for it. The sonar operator could hear it clearly, as revealed by the expression on his face, but the Captain had switched the speaker off, mindful of the panic the last time. Finally, after a tense minute, one of the officers spoke up.

“I hear it!” he said in a soft voice.

Everyone listened, and then they could all hear it, the sound like someone was outside, walking toward them with an electric drill going. The Al Akrab had circled rapidly all the way around, across the path of the approaching destroyer, and was now turning back east.

The whining noise was not getting louder. The Captain listened carefully. The decoys had it. Boiling away only fifty feet off the bottom, they would suck it down to the bottom. They waited, and there came the rewarding sound of the small, shaped charge warhead on the Mark 46 banging into the mud of the bottom. There were audible sighs of relief, and the Captain turned back to the attack director.

“Now,” he growled. “Status of our torpedoes!”

“All are still running, Sir.”

“Very well. Now: we must kill this destroyer. Attack director, as soon as we are steady on 090, we will fire. Make—”

But once again the submarine was hammered by the blast of a depth charge, followed by a second and then a third. Even at 8000 yards distance, the 500 pound depth bombs punched out a hefty pulse of hydrodynamic pressure into the sea, physically shaking the submarine. For one, heart-squeezing moment, her bow plunged downward, throwing everyone in the control room to the deck except for those strapped into their console chairs. Then there were three more explosions, even more violent than the first three. It was the sonar chiefs turn to arch back in his chair, screaming as he held his ears, the earphones dangling by his chair. The submarine had settled into a down angle.

The Musaid reached over the planesman’s shoulders and hauled back on the after planes in a frantic effort to keep her off the bottom. The bow jerked up and the Captain sprawled between the sonar console and the attack director, trying frantically to get back up, but was thrown down again when the submarine’s bow caromed off the mud bottom at a shallow angle and shuddered to bare steerageway.

Realizing what had happened, the Captain shouted an order to the Musaid.

“All engines stop! Blow after ballast! Instantly! Blow it! Blow it!”

There was rumble of compressed air aft as the after ballast tank was purged of seawater. This had the effect of making the stern more buoyant, and ensuring that the vulnerable propellers and the rudder stayed off the bottom even as the bow bumped softly along the mud bottom.

“All back together two thirds! Secure the blow!” ordered the Captain.

He was upright now, his eyes blazing in the gloom of the emergency lighting, his arms rigid against the periscope well as he tried to keep himself upright at the unnatural down angle. At first he had thought the destroyer had run into the spread of torpedoes intended for the carrier. Then he realized that his enemy had countermined the torpedoes with depth charges.

His face turned white with fury. The rumbling noise ceased as the diving officer slammed the air valves shut. The Al Akrab hung suspended, her bow pushed down into the silty mud of the bottom, her stern thirty feet off the bottom, the entire boat pitched down at a twenty degree down angle. He could hear men yelling and things crashing down off shelves in the forward part of the ship. Then the propellers took effect, and her bow came unstuck. With a great lurch she came off the bottom, but her bow remained pitched down as the screws backed her toward the surface, aided by the abnormal buoyancy in the after ballast tank.

“All stop. All ahead together, one third. Musaid, get her level!”

The old chief had jammed his stool between the two terrified planesmen, and directed them urgently as they fought to get the boat under control. The diving officer partially flooded the after ballast tank again, and she finally came level. As the confusion in the control room died down, they heard the destroyer’s sonar again, without the speaker, this time in directional ping. The Captain listened carefully. The American was in contact!

“All stations, report damage to Control!” he ordered.

The compartments reported in. Engineering reported no damage to main propulsion other than two leaking pipes, but they were investigating two chlorine alarms from after battery. Forward torpedo reported that the outer doors on tubes one and two were not responding to control signals.

“Attack director!”

The Captain’s voice was frantic, close to screaming.

“Prepare to fire tubes one and two. Prepare—”

“Sir! I cannot. The outer doors were open. The tubes are surely filled with mud. We cannot—”

“Yes! Yes! We will! We must! This cursed American must die. He has cost me the carrier. I must kill him. Then we shall pursue the carrier! Do as I say! Report your solution!”

The weapons officer was aghast. If the tubes were choked with mud, the torpedoes might not leave the tubes. But once the firing key was closed, they would start. Once started, the screws turned. Russian torpedoes armed themselves by counting screw revolutions. After the first few thousand turns, the warheads, including their magnetic detectors, would energize, under the assumption that the torpedo was well clear of the submarine. If the torpedoes were still inside the submarine’s tubes when the magnetic detectors energized, they would sense the boat’s own magnetic field and blow the front of the submarine off.

“Sir, I cannot!” screeched the weapons officer. “The torpedoes will arm in the tubes if they do not launch. We must not do his!”

“Report your solution!”

The others in the control room were frozen in fear. The weapons officer hesitated for a fraction of a second, swallowed hard. and then looked down at his console. The sonar was still sending in bearing data, locked onto the Goldsborough’s sonar. He needed a range.

“I have no range data. Course and speed are unreliable. No solution!” he shouted.

The Captain scanned the sonar console himself; the sonar Chief had joined his mate on the deck, ears useless after the multiple underwater blasts. He would have to provide an estimate.

“Estimated range 7000 meters. Enter! Now!”

The weapons officer reluctantly punched in the data.

“Course and speed data unreliable,” he repeated.

“Course is west-270; speed is fifteen! Enter!”

The green solution light came up. The weapons officer shook his head, pushing back from the console.

“Sir, we must not—” he began.

The Captain jumped over to the weapons console, lifted the plastic protectors over the glowing lights for tubes one and two, and pushed one, then two. To everyone’s horror, there was only a half-hearted thump from the bow, not the full discharge reaction. A red icon flashed onto the control screen over tube one, and then over both tubes. The icon showed a torpedo in the tube, with its propulsion end red hot. The white-faced weapons officer sat frozen in his chair, staring at the icons.

“Recharge and fire them again, Effendi,” shouted the Musaid. When the Captain, himself momentarily frozen in shock, just stood there, the Musaid jumped over to the weapons console, shoved the paralyzed weapons officer aside, and punched the button for the torpedo compartment intercom.

“Forward torpedo room: cross connect HP air to tubes one and two; fire both tubes as soon as the pressure reaches one thousand pounds. Instantly! Or we all die!”

Once again the submarine lurched downward as one of the planesmen overcompensated, and the Musaid clawed his way back to the diving station. The Captain stared at the red icons, holding his breath, the tactical picture above totally forgotten. Finally there came a pair of thumps, these sounding normal, and the icons blinked out. The ring of the destroyer’s sonar grew louder. The Captain grabbed the shaken weapons officer by the shirt collar, and shoved him back in front of the console.

“Guidance, you idiot. Operate the guidance! Kill the destroyer before he is upon us!”

The weapons officer grabbed the joystick that sent rudder angle and dive angle orders through a thin, tungsten wire that should have been unreeling from the torpedoes’ propeller hubs as they roared through the water in the direction of the Goldsborough. Then he realized that the torpedoes had been fired on a bearing of 087, but that the sonar was holding the destroyer’s sonar now at 095. He jammed the joystick to the right. Nothing happened on the readout. He looked over at the feedback panel. The lights showed nothing but digital eights. Horrified, he realized what had happened. The initial attempt to fire the torpedoes had jarred them forward in the tube, and the wire had probably begun to deploy, but with the spinning screws right there, it had been cut into a million pieces. He tried to report, but could not get the words out. The Captain was shouting at him.

“Status! Why are those bearings different?!”

“Sir: the wires — I have no control over the torpedoes. They are straight runners! We should have set a pattern, but—”

“May Allah curse you to the pit!” screamed the Captain. The destroyer was in contact, and he was out of torpedoes. There was no time to reload.

“Left full rudder, flank speed!” he shouted. “Make your depth 100 meters! Course west!”

He would have to maneuver quickly to get away from the approaching destroyer; they could not stand a depth charging close aboard. And then he remembered the mine.