Attack of the Seawolf

CHAPTER 4

Commander Sean Murphy stood on the periscope stand looking at the traces on the sonar-repeater monitor, covered now with the streaks of broadband noise from the aircraft above, the curling lines showing that the plane was orbiting the Tampa’s position, keeping up with it. They were deeper now, as deep as the forty fathom channel depth allowed, making the top of the sail over a hundred feet beneath the surface. Still, it felt to Murphy like he was trapped in a tiny bathtub.

Murphy glanced aft of the periscope stand to the navigation chart, which showed their past track. The pencil line leading to their present position was a serpentine path, the result of Murphy’s speed changes and rudder orders, his attempt to wiggle on the way out of the bay to make the aircraft’s firecontrol solution more difficult. But the zigzagging was costing them precious time. Murphy longed to order up maximum speed, all ahead flank, which would give them forty knots, if they could control the ship in the shallow water at that speed. But at flank the ship’s wake in the shallow flat-bottomed bay would be so violent that the rooster tail from it would give their position away. Even so, despite Murphy’s evasive maneuvers, the plane stayed with them, never seeming to run out of sonobuoys, whose odd wailing noise in the water sent shivers down Murphy’s spine. At least the bastard hadn’t let loose with a torpedo, he thought, as his headset clicked, prelude to another report from the chief sonarman.

“Conn, Sonar, we have multiple diesel engine startups, one probable gas turbine engine startup and what sound like surface-ship screws bearing two seven eight.

At least four contacts. Designate Sierra One through Four.”

“Sonar, Captain,” Murphy said into his boom microphone, “do you have a classification on the contacts?”

“Yes sir. Contacts are all surface vessels. Warships.”

“Damnit,” Murphy muttered. The three destroyers and one of the patrol boats at Xingang must have gotten underway after a radio call from the aircraft, which meant the mainland knew he was here.

“Sonar, designate Sierra One through Four as Targets One through Four respectively.”

“Sir, the surface vessels are now making way at maximum revolutions, estimated speed, thirty-five knots.”

“Starting from Xingang, how long until they intercept our track?”

Tarkowski crouched over the aft end of the conn at the navigation plot table, grabbing the table’s dividers and a time-motion slide rule.

“Wait one. Captain,” he said, manipulating the circular slide rule in three rapid motions.

“Eighteen minutes, sir.”

“Conn, Sonar,” the chief in sonar called over the control room circuit, “we’re getting active sonar from Target Two, bearing two eight four. The pulse rate is set for long range.”

Murphy felt Tarkowski’s expectant gaze. What are you going to do now? it said. And what are you going to do to safeguard the one hundred and forty men aboard … Murphy stepped off the conn and leaned over the Pos One console at the attack center, where the Junior Officer of the

Deck, Lieutenant John Colson, sat adjusting the computer’s assumed target-parameters-the distance to the targets and their speed and course, which together formed the target “solution.” Colson’s solution showed the contacts on an intercept course, still closing at thirty-five knots. Murphy looked over at Tarkowski who stood at his right shoulder, likewise fixed on the console.

“Looks like they’ve got a lock on our position,” Murphy said.

“The aircraft, sir, that bastard had us dead-on with his sonobuoys.”

“He’ll run out sooner or later, then we can move off to the north or south—”

“No layer to hide under here, sir. I’d guess if the airplane runs out of buoys another will replace him on station.”

“How long to intercept, Colson?”

“Fourteen minutes, sir.”

Obviously running for the bay entrance would not work — at their present speed, or even at maximum speed, the Lushun/Penglai Gap, the entrance to the Korean Bay, was hours away, Murphy realized. Getting detected was bad enough. Letting the P.L.A navy direct weapons at them would not happen, not while he was in command. He turned to Tarkowski.

“XO,” Murphy said, using his acting title intentionally, “we’re going to try something … We’ll maintain this course and speed until the next pass by the aircraft. When he drops the sonobuoys we’ll clear datum from the buoys with the same course and as soon as we’re outside fifteen hundred yards we’ll turn to the northeast and head up toward Qinhuangdao. They won’t expect us to diverge that far away from a base course leading out of the bay.” He hoped.

“With luck the plane’ll continue east and try to drop his next load of sonobuoys at our next expected position. If it works he’ll run out of sonobuoys and we get out with our necks. We keep going to the north of the bay and hide until the surface force gives up and goes home. If that doesn’t work and the plane keeps us nailed down with sonobuoys we’ll try to keep him guessing with course changes. The key is that airplane. The surface force alone, active sonar or not, is never going to get us. Once we ditch that plane we’re out of here. What do you think, XO?”

“I think, sir, he’s on us like white on rice. I wonder if he’s tracking us on magnetic anomaly between sonobuoy drops. He’s just too damned dead-on with those things. And if he runs out of sonobuoys he might just decide to drop a few torpedoes on us.”

“He’d have done that already if he had them onboard.”

Murphy sounded more certain than he was.

Tarkowski nodded and peered at the sonar-repeater console. The plane was nowhere to be seen. Murphy and Tarkowski waited, neither speaking until finally Tarkowski glanced at the Pos One display.

“Eight minutes to intercept. Captain. If the plane doesn’t drop a load in another sixty seconds we should be turning to the north to evade the surface task force.”

The chronometer’s minutes clicked by. In spite of the three air conditioners aft blowing frigid air into the room to help cool the electronics, the space had grown airless and hot. Finally, Murphy’s headset clicked.

“Conn, Sonar, aircraft approaching from the port side … we’ve got a splash bearing three five five … sonobuoys going active now.”

Sonar’s report was redundant with the splashes audible through the hull. Now the active sonar from the buoys began, the wailing whistles an eerie reminder that the Tampa might soon be under attack.

“XO, plot the distance to the splash and mark range one-five-hundred.”

“Aye, sir,” Tarkowski said, leaning over the tactical geographic plot board. Three minutes later Tarkowski called the range at fifteen hundred.

“Helm, all ahead full, left full rudder, steady course zero four zero. Mark speed twenty.”

The deck canted into a starboard roll as the ship came around with full rudder and turns for full speed.

Murphy could feel the vibrations from his feet as the main engines aft began to accelerate them through the water of the shallow bay, moving them away from the sonobuoys.

“Captain, steady course zero four zero, ship’s speed twenty knots,” the helmsman called from the ship control panel.

“Helm, all stop, mark speed six,” Murphy called.

“Downshift reactor coolant pumps to reduced frequency.”

Murphy looked over to Tarkowski at the geo plot.

“That’ll be the last sonobuoy that guy finds us with.” He hoped. Tarkowski said nothing.

“Captain, speed six knots, sir,” the helmsman said.

“All ahead one third, turns for six knots.”

“One third, turns for six, helm aye, sir.”

Murphy joined Tarkowski at the plotting table, seeing the plot of their drastic maneuver since the last splash. For several minutes nothing happened, the team in the control room silent as a funeral, waiting to see if their attempt to fool the aircraft above had succeeded. Murphy’s attention switched back and forth from the plot to the sonar display. Each minute without contact on the airplane was a plus.

“Seven minutes since the maneuver, Captain,” Tarkowski said.

“Sonar, Captain, any sign of the aircraft?”

“Conn, Sonar, we’re not getting him at all. No sign of him, sir.”

Murphy allowed a smile. Tarkowski’s frown stayed in place. Murphy turned to look at the display on Pos One.

“Colson, any speed or course changes by the surface force?”

“No, Captain. The previous intercept-solution is tracking.” As Murphy watched, a new dot in the dot stack on Colson’s screen veered off to the left, away from the neat rows of vertical dots that Colson had lined up by dialing in his solution course, speed and range.

“Sorry, sir, now I’ve got a possible target zig, Target Two.” Colson began lining up to find the new solution to the surface forces. Murphy chewed his lip, wondering if the skimmers had found out their new course and position.

“Conn, Sonar, the surface force is slowing down, turn-count dropping fast. Sounds like they’re doing a large-sector sonar search.”

“Captain, JOOD,” Colson said, “I’m getting a solution with the surface force at fifteen knots.”

Murphy nodded, pleased.

“Sonar, Conn,” Tarkowski said to his lip mike, “any detects on aircraft engines?”

“Conn, Sonar, no.”

Only then did a smile break out on Tarkowski’s face.

“We ditched them. Skipper.”

“Conn, Sonar, we’re getting a faint detect on … helicopter rotors.”

“Helm, all stop!” Murphy said.

“XO, line up to hover.”

“Conn, Sonar, chopper’s getting closer.”

“Ship’s speed, a half knot and slowing, sir,” Tarkowski reported, “ready to hover.”

“Chief of the Watch, hover on the trim pump,” Murphy ordered, feeling the sweat on his forehead and under his arms.

“Ship is hovering. Captain,” Tarkowski reported.

“You think that’s an ASW chopper?”

“That’s exactly what I think it is. That son of a bitch is about to drop a dipping sonar set. If he does, when he does, we’d damned well better not be showing any speed through the water or his Doppler will snap us up.”

Murphy and his crew were well aware that helicopters were a lethal enemy to the submarine when they were equipped with a dipping sonar — the chopper could cover hundreds of square miles of ocean an hour with the dipper. It could dip and listen and move to another spot, dip and listen and go on until it located the submarine. All a good ASW chopper pilot needed was a sniff from a surface ship or an aircraft, just the slightest hint that a submarine was there, and after a few dips, get the target’s position down to within a hundred yards. Murphy silently prayed it wasn’t an ASW helicopter.

Pwiiiiiiing! The sound of a dipping sonar pulse coming through the hull, a whistling sound, very prolonged, perhaps four seconds.

“Conn, Sonar, that’s a dipping sonar, bearing one five five. Fairly distant …”

Tarkowski plotted the bearing to the dipper.

“Sir, if he sees us we’ve had it,” Tarkowski said.

“Range to the surface force?” Murphy, tight-lipped, directed at Colson.

“Thirty-five hundred yards, bearing two two zero, sir.”

“Damned close, if that chopper catches us, Captain,” Tarkowski said.

Murphy nodded. Still, he thought, hovering dead in the water should make it tough for the dipping sonar to find them. With no ship’s speed, the hull would not upshift the sonar’s frequency when it was reflected, and the sensor would have trouble distinguishing the return-ping from the water’s reverberations of the original ping.

“Conn, Sonar,” the sonar chief said, his voice distorted and loud in the earpiece, “we’ve got helicopter rotor noises, close aboard to starboard! Contact is hovering overhead!”

Murphy looked up at the sonar display above Colson’s panel. A broad, ugly, loud streak was forming on the red television monitor, the noise of the helicopter. PWIIIIING! The sonar ping seemed impossibly loud.

This close. Murphy thought, the dipper shouldn’t be able to pick out their ping from the return off the bottom. Right on top of them, and they’d be just so much bottom clutter—

“Conn, Sonar, the surface force is speeding up. Sounds like max revolutions again.”

“Colson?”

“Can’t tell without own-ship speed, sir, but when I dial in an intercept course the dots are stacking … I think that chopper just nailed down our position …”

“Conn, Sonar, up-Doppler on the surface force, thirty-five knots approach speed.”

Murphy leaned over Colson’s Pos One console and dialed in other solutions for the surface force. The only one that worked showed them coming on a direct intercept course.

“Time to intercept?”

“Two minutes, sir,” from Colson.

“Let’s clear datum, sir,” Tarkowski said, the urgency distorting his voice.

“They’ve got us pinned.”

PWIIING!

“Helm, all ahead flank and cavitate!” Murphy ordered.

“XO, man battle stations and spin up the torpedoes in tubes one through four.” They were going to have to fight their way out of this.

As Tarkowski prepared to arm the torpedoes, the deck began to vibrate with the ship coming up to thirty five knots. Murphy looked over at the ship-control team. The Diving Officer and bowplanesman were struggling to maintain depth control in spite of the odd effects of their rooster-tail wake aft and the shallow-bottom venturi force amidships. It was possible that depth control would get so difficult that the ship would leap from the water like a whale or dive into the bottom.

The control room began to get crowded as watch standers filled the room for battle stations The geo plot that had been manned by Tarkowski was now taken over by two plotters and an officer. Another officer now sat at each console of the firecontrol system where only Colson had sat before. Other manual plots were manned along the aft bulkhead of the room. Within a minute of the initial call to battle stations the room’s population had grown from eight to twenty-one.

“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Murphy said to the assembled battle stations watch standers

“It’s clear that the surface force is alerted and prosecuting us at maximum speed, close range. The ASW helicopter above has gotten our position down so there’s no longer any benefit to stealth. We’re trying to withdraw at maximum speed and I don’t care that we’re putting up a hell of a wake topside. We’re only a few moments away from being attacked. It’s my intention to put four wake-homing torpedoes out astern of our track to target the surface force and to act as evasion devices.

If they connect with one of the surface ships, that may distract them long enough for us to make good our escape. If the skimmers detect our launch from the transient noises of the torpedo shots, that alone may make them break off their approach. Any questions?”

At first there was nothing but shocked silence in the control room, broken by the sonar chief calling them over the phone circuit.

“Conn, Sonar, we’ve got a rocket-launch transient from the bearing to Target Two—”

“What the hell?” Tarkowski mumbled, looking over at Murphy.

“Right fifteen degrees rudder! Steady course one four zero!” Murphy ordered, realizing too well what the report from sonar meant — a rocket-launched depth charge.

A tremendous splash sounded from above on the port side followed by a momentary silence. The deck rolled to port as the ship turned, the snap-roll robbing them of some of their speed but getting them away from the depth-charge splash. Murphy looked up at the chronometer. Four seconds since the splash, and nothing. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest. The chronometer seemed to have frozen, as did the watch standers in the control room, time somehow oddly slowing down to a crawl as Murphy waited for the explosion, the crashing roar that would breach Tampa’s hull and send them to the bottom of the bay.

And the worst of it was that the ship was helpless.

Once a depth charge was in the water beside them, there was nothing he could do except hope it was a dud and buried itself in the sand of the bottom.

When the violent explosion did come the deck jumped several feet upward, throwing the men in the room into the overhead, twenty-one pancakes nipped by a huge skillet. As Murphy lost his footing and was hurled into the periscope pole of the number-two scope he wondered whether the depth charge had broken the ship in half. He slid down the pole of the type-20 periscope, his chin crashing into the curb around the periscope well. A lump was rising from his jaw, the pain momentarily clouding his mind. He pulled himself to his feet, surprised he was still whole, and felt a moment of hope that the ship had likewise survived the explosion. But as the watch standers around him picked themselves up from the deck, something seemed very wrong … the deck wasn’t vibrating the way it should for an ahead-flank speed order.

Murphy looked over at the ship control console to the starboard display panel. The ship’s speed-indicator showed fifteen knots and slowing — they must have sustained a casualty in the propulsion plant. Murphy was turning and reaching for the PA. Circuit Seven microphone when he heard the Seven’s speaker rasp out Lube Oil Vaughn’s voice, harsh in the quiet of the room.

“CONN, MANEUVERING, REACTOR SCRAM, REACTOR SCRAM.”

Murphy clicked the button on top of the microphone and shouted into it.

“Engineer, Captain, what’s the cause?”

“SCRAM BREAKERS TRIPPED FROM THE SHOCK.”

“Engineer, take the battle short switch to battle short and restart the reactor and main engines with emergency heat-up rates and give me propulsion now.”

“CAPTAIN, ENGINEER, COMMENCING FAST RECOVERY STARTUP WITH EMERGENCY HEAT-UP RATES, BATTLE SHORT SWITCH IN BATTLE SHORT ESTIMATE FULL PROPULSION CAPABILITY IN TWO MINUTES.”

Murphy tossed the microphone to the deck and moved over to the Pos One console. The ship was drifting without propulsion power, at least for the next two minutes, but the battery would still allow them to get some weapons into the water. And by the time he had some torpedoes on the way to the skimmers, the reactor would be back in the power range and with luck he could get the hell out of here.

“Weps,” Murphy said to the officer at the Pos Three panel. Lieutenant Chuck Griffin, the Torpedo/ Cruise Missile Systems Officer, “report weapon status.”

“Sir, tubes one through four loaded with war shot Mark 50 torpedoes, all tubes flooded and equalized, all weapons spun up and warm. No indications of problems from the shock of the depth charge. I reinitiated the self-checks. Self-rechecks are all complete, all torpedoes nominal.”

“Good. Open the outer doors on tubes one and two. Select active circler mode, surface-wake homing enabled. Set the astern-default solution for Targets One, Two, Three, Four, high-to-medium passive snake-search pattern.” And into his lip mike: “Sonar, opening outer doors, tubes one and two.”

“Outer doors open, tubes one and two,” from Griffin.

“Solution status, Pos One?” Murphy to Colson, the Pos One console operator.

“All four contacts are within a thousand yards of each other, sir, on the edge of the port baffles, range twenty-three hundred yards, solution quality fair from our course change.”

Murphy looked at the faces of the men surrounding him on the control-room floor below.

“Attention in the firecontrol team. Firing Point Procedures, tubes one and two, horizontal salvo. Targets One, Two, Three and Four.”

“Ship ready, sir,” Tarkowski reported from the aft part of the conn.

“Solution ready, sir,” Colson said.

“Weapons ready, sir,” Griffin called.

“Tube one, shoot on generated bearing,” Murphy ordered, full of the realization that he was about to shoot the first torpedoes in a combat situation since 1945.

“Set,” Colson called, pressing a variable-function key on the Pos One panel, locking in the latest firecontrol solution to the surface warships astern.

“Standby,” Griffin said, pulling the trigger to the STANDBY position. The torpedo in tube one was now seconds away from launch.

“Shoot!” Murphy ordered.

“Fire,” Griffin replied, rotating the trigger to the FIRE position.

A loud thunk sounded from two decks below, followed by a violent crash. The air-driven pneumatic hydraulic ram had just pressurized the water tank around the tube, blasting the weapon from the steel cylinder with a burst of water pressure. The first torpedo was on its way.

“Tube one fired,” Griffin reported.

“Lined up for tube two.”

“Conn, Sonar, own-ship’s unit, normal launch.”

“Tube two,” Murphy commanded, “shoot on generated bearing.”

Again the combat litany sounded in the control room. When Griffin pulled the trigger the second time the crash of the torpedo ejection sounded again, so loud that Murphy’s eardrums ached. He grabbed his nose, closed off his nostrils and blew until the pressure equalized. In the control room the men were doing the same.

“Conn, Sonar, own-ship’s second-fired unit, normal launch.”

“CONN, MANEUVERING, REACTOR’S CRITICAL, READY TO ANSWER ALL BELLS!” the Circuit-Seven speaker blared.

“Helm, all ahead flank, steer course one two zero,” Murphy ordered.

The deck began to tremble as the huge twin steam propulsion turbines aft came up to full revolutions, blasting the Tampa through the water at one hundred percent reactor power. The needle on the speed indicator climbed off the zero peg and rotated upward, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty knots.

A few moments later the ship was doing forty knots and heading toward the mouth of the bay and away from the surface task force.

“Cut the wires on tubes one and two and shut the outer doors,” Murphy ordered Griffin.

“Line up for tubes three and four.”

A distant rumbling explosion sounded, coming from astern. A second explosion.

“Conn, Sonar, we have two explosions from the bearing to Target One. Also secondary explosions … hull break-up noises. Target One.”

Tarkowski said, grinning, “We got two hits, Captain.”

“Sonar, Captain, any other activity out of the surface force?”

“No.”

“Maybe they’ll break off the attack, Skipper.”

“We’ll see.” Murphy addressed the entire room:

“Attention in the firecontrol party. Firing Point Procedures, tubes three and four, horizontal salvo. Targets Two, Three and Four.”

“Ship ready.”

“Solution ready.”

“Weapon ready.”

“Tube three, shoot on generated—”

“Conn, Sonar, we’ve got two — no, three — rocket launch transients from Target Two … correction, four launches, sir. Probable SS-N-14 depth charges.”

Murphy’s jaw clenched. With four depth charges coming in by solid-rocket booster there was nothing he could do to evade, at least not until sonar reported the bearings to the splashes. After the last impacts four of the depth charges were sure to do greater damage, particularly if they all got close.

“Tube three, shoot on generated bearing!” Murphy ordered, his voice loud to overcome the inertia of the near-paralyzed watch standers

“Set ”

“Standby.”

“Shoot.”

“Fire.”

The crash of the torpedo leaving tube three slammed the eardrums of the crew a half-second before a violent splash sounded in the water above, followed by three more. Murphy waited for the report to come from sonar on the bearings. No report. Either sonar was slow to report or time had again slowed to an adrenaline-induced crawl.

“Sonar, Captain, report bearings to the splashes!”

“Splashes in the water bear zero one five, one two zero, two six five, and one astern in the baffles.” The sonar chief’s voice sounded distorted by stress. The depth charges had entered the water in a perfect pattern, surrounding the ship. The worst was the one at bearing one two zero dead ahead.

“Left five degrees rudder,” Murphy ordered, “steady course zero seven zero.”

At least that course, he figured, would bring the ship between the splash to the north and the one ahead. Not that that was much comfort.

With the first detonation the ship rolled hard to starboard, throwing Murphy into the conn handrail.

The second explosion came a fraction of a second later, blowing the ship back over to port. The lights in the overhead flickered, the firecontrol console screens winked out, the green glow replaced by dull-dark glass. The sonar repeater likewise blacked out. Murphy looked over at the ship-control panel, where the bowplanesman, sternplanesman and Diving Officer struggled with depth-control, fighting to keep the ship level. The speed-indicator needle was dropping fast.

Maybe the damn reactor had scrammed again.

And the third explosion came, a ripping sound following.

“CONN, MANEUVERING,” the Engineer’s tight voice said, the speaker of the PA. Circuit Seven crackling in the overhead.

“MAJOR STEAM LEAK REACTOR SCRAM …” Vaughn’s voice faded for a moment, the circuit clicking. The connection returned but Vaughn was no longer talking to the control room. Murphy strained to hear Vaughn’s voice shouting an order with a rushing sound coming over in the background.

“Shut MS-Two … load the TG’s and depressurize the steam headers…”

Jesus, Murphy thought, not just a reactor scram but a fucking steam leak — a ruptured main steam line had enough energy to roast everyone in the aft compartment.

It was probably a miracle that Vaughn had survived long enough to try to isolate the steam-headers.

But a steam leak meant more than just the possibility of roasting the crew — it meant the reactor, their ticket out of the Chinese bay, was dying. Murphy’s worries over the engineering compartment were interrupted by the fourth explosion, which seemed to come from the very deck beneath his feet, launching him and the other watch standers into the room’s overhead piping and valves and cables and hoop frames. This time the lights went out completely, all except the gages on the ship-control panel, which continued to glow eerily in the cavern like darkness of the room.

Murphy had been tossed up into the periscope hydraulic-control ring. He collapsed to the deck of the periscope stand.

Murphy realized that his face was touching something cool and hard. The room looked odd in the darkness lit only by the light of the ship-control panel gages. Someone turned on a battle lantern. Murphy could hear voices around him but couldn’t make out any of the words, just pieces of phrases: loss of depth control … can’t keep her down… jam rise on the bow planes … … losing speed, you can hold… coming up … broach depth, our sail’s coming … ballast tank vents are jammed shut … Captain? … must have blown gases into the ballast tanks … flooding in the forward … who’s reporting … goddammit … can’t get the vents open … manual override the … steam leak isolation … fuck the bow planes shift to emergency on the stern … we’re on the goddamned surface … Captain? …