Scorpion in the Sea

SEVENTY-FOUR

“Control, engineering! We have a chlorine alarm validated in after battery; there is seawater intrusion in the compartment. Request permission to secure after battery!”

“Negative,” shouted the Captain.

That was half his battery supply, and he had the boat going max submerged speed.

“We need one hundred percent power, you idiots: there’s a destroyer pursuing us, and we have no more torpedoes. Isolate the compartment; secure ventilation if you have to, but do not secure that battery!”

“Engineering, aye,” replied the engineer, sounding doubtful.

The Captain swallowed hard. Sea water in the battery compartment was a potential disaster. Any sea water that got into the cells would mix with the sulfuric acid electrolyte and produce chlorine gas. If it went on too long, the boat itself could fill with the deadly gas; they would have to surface or die of asphyxiation. He immediately thought he could already smell the chlorine in the boat’s vent system. He watched the speed indicator as the submarine maintained almost fourteen knots in his flight to the west, away from the destroyer.

He thought frantically. His men forward were attempting to reload tubes one and two; the other tubes were out of commission. He knew that he could not outrun a destroyer, although the sound of the pinging sonar did not seem to be getting any louder, and he wondered about that.

“Musaid, are we stable on depth?”

“Sir, we are at 100 meters, depth is stable.”

“What is the water depth?”

“Sir,” said the Deputy, who had regained some of his composure. “The water depth is 120 meters, but will shoal to 80 meters about 4000 meters ahead, or in nine minutes at this speed. Recommend we come up to sixty meters in five minutes, or turn out back to sea—”

The third operator to take the sonar console jumped up in his chair.

“Hydrophone effects, hydrophone effects. Mark 46 torpedo inbound, bearing 082! Starboard quarter, search mode!”

The Captain cursed. Somebody had forgotten to tell his opponent that antisubmarine torpedoes were useless in shallow water. Unless of course the torpedo got lucky, or he was shooting something new. Now he must hug the bottom. Once the torpedo looked down at the bottom, it would see the biggest contact of them all, and, hopefully, drive straight down into it.

“Make your depth 115 meters; all ahead slow, make turns for five knots; sonar, prepare decoys.”

“Sir: decoys ready.”

“Fire decoys. Left full rudder. Musaid, keep her level. We cannot afford to hit the bottom again.”

The control room crew tensed at their stations. The torpedo was not yet audible in the control room. The Captain held his breath, and watched the depth gauge out of one eye and the sonar operator out of the other. He saw the man’s knuckles whiten on the console controls. He could hear the torpedo. The Captain decided to add a knuckle in the water to the decoys’ noise.

“Now: right full rudder. Steady 270.”

The Musaid acknowledged, nodding his head in agreement with the Captain’s tactics. The submarine, which had barely started its turn, now steadied, and then began to swing back to the west, leaving a knuckle of dense turbulence in the water behind them that was strong enough to attract a homing torpedo if the decoys failed.

“Sonar, report!”

“Sir, the torpedo is closing, still in search mode. Doppler is up and high, amplitude increasing. Snake search.”

The fish should see the decoys soon, complemented by the knuckle created by the submarine’s full rudder turns; the decoys, blooming along the bottom, should seduce the torpedo into a dive straight down through the bubbling clouds into the mud. He grabbed the spare sonar earphones, unwilling to turn the speaker back on with his control room crew in their current unnerved state. The electric drill sound was clear, coming nearer and then drifting away as the torpedo did its snake search across the firing bearing 100 feet above their present depth. But then he heard a new sound in the background, a rapid pinging noise above the frequency of the running torpedo. He thought for a moment. The destroyer had turned its main sonar off momentarily when he fired the torpedo, so as not to confuse the torpedo’s homing sonar. This pinging was different.

Then with a start he realized what it was. A sonobuoy. An active sonobuoy. The buoy, floating on the surface with its own hydrophone suspended on a thin wire fifty feet below the surface, had joined the hunt like an acoustic robot. Sonobuoys meant an aircraft. The accursed destroyer had help. They were now in real trouble, and he could do nothing until his forward torpedo room crew reloaded their two operational tubes, which they had better be working on frantically. He longed for the torpedoes he had thrown away to accommodate the mines. With a helicopter up there, he now had little choice. It was time to let the crazy French mine that wanted to kill the first thing it saw have its day in the sun. He spun around and fixed his gaze on the still trembling weapons officer.

“You! Go to after torpedo, make ready tube eight. We will use the mine! Put a mask on, there’s chlorine in after battery. Report when you are in position. Go!”

He turned back to the sonar console, as the operations officer relieved the weapons officer as Attack Director.

“Sonar, report!”

“Sir the torpedo appears to be going aft of us, to the decoys.”

“Good, remove your headphones: I need your ears intact.”

They could hear the torpedo now, first strong and then weak as it snaked back and forth along its search axis. Moments later, the electric drill noise ceased. They waited for an explosion, but none was forthcoming. End of run. The Captain nodded in satisfaction. As long as he could put out decoys and hug the bottom, the enemy could not get to him with their torpedoes. But they must be farther away from the destroyer than he thought. The destroyer’s main sonar pinging resumed.

Now he had to avoid depth charges and the bottom itself, while positioning himself to use the mine. He had to lure the destroyer right over the mine. Two choices: slow way down, deploy the mine, and let the destroyer overrun him, taking a chance on being depth bombed if the American did not set off the mine. This would take time, but it was a safe move. The mine would probably destroy the surface ship before he could get to his depth bomb release point.

But then he remembered the helicopter, whose presence had been announced by the high frequency pinging. Slowing down would make him easy meat for the helicopter. So: the second choice — turn around, run right at the destroyer, head to head, deploy the mine at the right instant, and turn off axis at the last minute. The destroyer would keep coming, certain that the submarine had made an error, and run right over the mine before she could detect the submarine’s turn off axis. And the helicopter could do nothing because her torpedoes might endanger the surface ship. Risky, but quicker. He made his decision.

“Left full rudder, come left to 090, slow to ten knots. I want to run right at him. Attack Director, how long on tubes one and two?”

“Sir, they report difficulty with tube one. They could not line up the reload trays with tube one. They have switched to tube two as the reload tube. It will be several minutes.”

Useless. They had lost valuable time trying to load a tube that would not load. The torpedo tubes would never be ready in time. He had made the right decision: the bold maneuver, something quick, decisive, and very soon, before the forces above combined to overwhelm him, or the slowly rising chlorine gas problem drove him to the surface and ignominy. Run under him and stab him from below, as befits a scorpion.

As if in response to his thoughts, the destroyer’s sonar switched to directional, again ringing its message of death through the submarine. The Captain looked around the control room at their taut faces.

“This is my plan,” he announced to the control room, speaking in a loud voice to make them listen to him and not the pinging. They looked at him fearfully. There was desperation in the air. He stared at each of them in turn, steeling them with his hard and confident expression. The Musaid sat up straighter when the Captain looked at him.

“We are turning back east. To the west is shallow water. Above us is a helicopter. To the east is the destroyer. He will be attempting to depth bomb us, since his torpedoes are defeated by the bottom. He must pass over top of us to use his depth bombs effectively. I will permit him to close us by running straight at him at ten knots. Just before he is in position to drop his depth charges, I shall accelerate to maximum speed right in front of him, release the last mine, turn and go out from under him. If Allah is with us, he will detonate the mine before he can react to our turn or release his depth charges. If not, well, so be it. We are out of time and options.”

The Deputy spoke up from behind the central plotting table.

“Sir: that mine is too large for this — the warhead will damage us as well as the surface ship!”

The Captain stared at him in exasperation. Yes, the man might be correct. But there were no other options.

“Effendi.”

It was the Musaid.

“Effendi, make the maneuver. A hard right turn immediately after launch of the mine will separate us and minimize our aspect to the blast. Climb towards the surface as we turn. It will work.”

The Captain looked at both of them. As long as he did not wait until the destroyer was too close, it should work. The range was the key.

“I shall proceed with my plan. Prepare yourselves.”