Cold is the Sea

15

“Keith,” said Richardson over the UQC, speaking softly with the transmitter set at minimum gain, “do you have our dispatch about towing procedure? Any questions? Before trying the hookup we want to look you over through the periscope. What is your heading and exact depth, and where’s your anchor?” The words reverberated out along the carrier wave, could be heard dying in the distance.

“Affirmative on the dispatch, and three cheers, no questions. We’re against the ice. Depth seven-three feet. Anchor’s housed. Ship’s head one-two-eight,” responded Keith Leone’s voice seconds later.

“Okay, old man. Just keep a zero bubble. We’ll pass under you with the ’scope up and take a good look. There’s enough light coming through the ice.”

“Roger. We’ll keep our anchor housed until you give us the word to lower away.”

“Roger. This won’t take long. Out.” To Buck, Rich said, “Finding Keith the second time was a lot easier than the first time. It helped a lot that he thought of reactivating the homing signals.”

“That’s true, Skipper,” Buck muttered, “but still this whole thing took too long. All together, it’s more than twenty-four hours now. You and I’ve been up the whole time. So have a lot of others. We’re already beat, and our real job’s just beginning.”

“Can’t be helped, Buck, but we’ll all get some rest once we have Keith moving out of here. What depth do we need so as not to hit him with the ’scope up?”

“The high ’scope will just graze him at one-three-five feet, if we go right under him. Recommend we make our first pass a few yards abeam at a hundred forty feet, and check for anything dangling below his keel. I’d sure hate to hit a piece of debris hanging there.”

“That sounds like good sense to me. Set him up on the TDC and conn us under him parallel and off to the side at minimum speed. If it looks clear we’ll go closer the second time, and then right under, if necessary. Once we get a good feel for it, we’ll try to hold in position for a careful look at that wrecked propeller.”

Manta slowly positioned herself in line with the Cushing’s heading, from ahead, as it turned out, this being the shortest distance, in the meantime rising to the prescribed depth. “The depth is critical, Tom,” said Buck to his engineer. “It’ll be tough to stay right on at the slow speed we’ll be making. Be sure we have experienced men on the planes and the ballast control panel — and maybe you ought to stay here in the control room yourself.”

“Aye,” said Clancy. “Deedee has the dive. Want me to relieve him? He’s about due for relief anyway.”

“Yes. We’ll be making only about one-knot speed; so you’ll practically need a stop trim.”

“Aye, aye. I’ll take over. Stop trim it will be.” Clancy conferred briefly with Deedee Brown at the diving station in the control room’s forward port corner, then announced to Buck at the periscope station and everyone else in the control room, “I have the dive.”

With Clancy making tiny perfecting adjustments to the trim, her propellers turning at creeping speed and Buck and Rich manning both elevated periscopes, the Manta swam slowly toward and beneath the Cushing. Raising the periscopes out of their wells against the sea pressure of only 140 feet had been a slow and laborious process for their hydraulic hoists, for they had been designed with periscope depth, less than half that, in mind. Great care would have to be exercised in lowering the periscopes when the inspection was completed; the pressure would drive them down correspondingly fast, with possible damage on bottoming. Both were much more difficult to turn than at normal depth: pressure was driving them hard against their support bearings in the hoist yokes.

Sonar and the TDC continuously reported bearing and range. Slowly the range shortened. The Cushing was nearly dead ahead. They would pass almost directly under her. “Losing her forward,” said Jeff Norton on the speaker from the sonar room. This was to be expected; the sonar transducer was located under Manta’s forefoot. “Last range, one-four-oh,” said Jeff. “Ten degrees off the port bow.”

“That checks, TDC,” said Deedee Brown from the starboard side of the control room, drinking deeply from the mug of coffee which was all he had permitted himself before manning his battle station. “Now it’s one-three-oh.”

“I figure we should see him in four minutes, Commodore,” said Buck, mindful that everyone in earshot was eagerly listening. Richardson did not answer, for the same reason. His own estimate was more nearly five, to allow for the additional distance from Manta’s bow to her periscopes.

“One hundred yards,” announced Brown.

“I wonder if sonar can hear any of his machinery noise, Buck,” said Richardson, his face still pressed against the rubber buffer of the periscope eyepiece.

“Ask them, Jerry,” said Buck, likewise immobilized against his own periscope. “Also ask the Cushing if they can hear us.”

Both heard the answers to Abbott’s questions directly. “Affirmative,” said Jeff Norton, using the ship’s intercommunication speaker from the sonar room. “He’s quiet, but we can hear a steady hum. We’ve had him ever since a thousand yards.”

“Affirmative,” said Keith over the Gertrude set. “We can hear you very loud. One pump especially. Sounds like your condensate pump.”

“Fifty yards,” said Deedee Brown. “Twenty-five yards. Ten. Five, four, three, two, one, mark! We should be passing under him now.”

“You must be about to pass under us,” said Keith’s familiar yet distorted voice over the UQC.

Suddenly, shockingly, a tremendous black mass swept into view, dead ahead. Startled, Williams grabbed for his periscope hoist control lever, nearly jerked it toward him, recollected himself just in time. “Wow!” he exploded, with a nervous expulsion of breath, returning his face to the eyepiece buffer and swiftly manipulating the hand controls.

To Jerry Abbott and the other anxious watchers in the vicinity, it was clear that both Rich and Buck had had a scare. The huge bulk of the other submarine, appearing so suddenly directly in their fields of view, must have seemed about to strike them, the mathematical calculations notwithstanding. But now both men had recovered, were tugging at their periscopes, operating the motorcycle-type controls in the handles, shifting from high-power magnification to low- and back again, elevating and depressing their angles of sight.

“Say, this is interesting,” said Buck Williams. “Keith’s sail is painted white! It sure wasn’t that color when he left New London! Wonder when he did that?”

“There’s a scratch!” said Richardson. “It’s a dent. A small one.”

“Where is it?” asked Abbott swiftly, pencil poised over the clipboard prepared for notation of observations.

“After end of missile compartment, port side, halfway between keel and waterline!”

“There’s the EPM! It’s dangling on a bent girder about fifteen feet below the keel!” said Buck. “It’s really mangled, too! Good thing we didn’t pass directly under — it could sure wreck a periscope!”

“Here’s another dent! A big one! Ten feet below the waterline, middle of the engineroom, I’d estimate! No doubt she was hit from the port side!”

“Right!” exclaimed Buck. “I can see a lot of dents all along the port side, from here on aft!”

Jerry Abbott was writing rapidly. “Can you see the propeller?” he asked.

“Here’s the port stern plane! It’s really bent! Folded right up against the side like an aircraft wing on a carrier hangar deck!” Buck’s excitement had transmitted itself to everyone in the control room. Only Tom Clancy and his diving station crew kept their eyes rigidly on their instruments.

“The rudder looks okay,” said Rich, “from here, anyway — no, it’s bent to starboard. The top rudder is okay. It’s got a lot of white paint on it, too. The lower rudder is bent to starboard, but maybe it’s still operable. The propeller is total. It’s a mass of twisted junk. Even if he could get the shaft turning, it wouldn’t give him any thrust at all. I’ve never seen one as bad as that!” He drew back from the periscope, saw Buck Williams looking at him contemplatively. “I’d like to go back and hover near the propeller and stern control surfaces,” he said. “Do you think we could balance right off her stern for a closer look, perhaps from right aft?”

With Buck’s nod of comprehension, he went on. “I don’t think there’s anything more to be gained by looking over the rest of Cushing’s underwater body, but we ought to have as good an idea as we can of how the situation is back there. Especially whether Keith can steer or not. Towing him will be a lot harder if he can’t. While you’re maneuvering around, I’ll get on the underwater telephone with Keith and tell him what we’re up to, and ask him to try to operate the rudder while we’re watching. Stern planes too, although that looks pretty hopeless.”

“Keith,” Rich said a few moments later into the Gertrude mouthpiece, “we’re dead astern of you. How do you read?”

“A little mushy, but clear enough, Rich. How does it look?”

“Not good. Several big dents, your port stern plane is folded up against the side and the rudder is bent. The propeller is useless, I’m afraid. We’re closing in for another look at your stern. Can you operate your rudder?”

“Affirmative. It moves slowly and we can’t go as far right as we used to, but I think it’s usable.”

“Good! That’s very good news. How about the stern planes?”

“We have a little travel in them before they bind, but not much. We can go from five degrees rise to three down.”

“Good,” said Rich again. “When we get into position I’ll ask you to operate the rudder and stern planes and maybe the propeller shaft. Can you do that?”

“Affirm. We know the shaft’s bent out of line. Max rpm is about twenty.”

“Roger. Back soon.”

“Roger.”

“Well, what do you think, Buck?” Rich and Buck were again at their periscopes, with Manta now balancing at a slightly shallower depth than before, directly astern of the Cushing so that the tips of her extended periscopes appeared to be only a few feet away from the mangled propeller of the disabled submarine.

“Nothing anyone can do for that eggbeater out there, but maybe they can work the rudder and planes.”

“That’s what I think, too. Have Jerry ask them to work the rudder.”

“Wilco,” said the Gertrude set, and the rudder began to move.

“Nothing much wrong with that,” said Richardson with satisfaction. “At least Keith can steer! Now tell them to secure the rudder and go to the stern planes.”

Through the periscopes, both men saw the halting, painful movement of the horizontal control surfaces. “Tell him to secure that. The port plane is striking the hull, and that’s the most he’s ever going to be able to move it.”

They waited as Abbott transmitted the message and the movement ceased.

“Now tell him to try the propeller, building up slowly to whatever speed he wants.” The crumpled mass of bronze, once a beautifully curved, delicately balanced example of shipbuilding art, slowly began to rotate, and in the process its center could be seen describing an arc inches in diameter. “Tell him to stop!” said Rich. A moment later, speaking on the UQC himself, he said, “Keith, your propeller shaft is bent at least six inches out of line. I could see it making a foot-diameter circle as it went around.”

“I understand,” said Keith, after the barest suggestion of a delay.

“We’re going to get clear now and prepare for towing. We’d like you to drop down to one hundred fifty feet and hover there. Lower your anchor to the fifty-fathom mark and set your brake, but not too tight. We want it to slip a little as we take you in tow to help ease the initial shock. Be ready to tighten the brake as the pull begins, and secure it with everything you’ve got as it approaches the eighty-fathom mark.”

“Wilco,” said Keith.

“Let us know when you’re ready.”

“Wilco,” said Keith again.

To Buck, Rich said, “The only difference between what we’re having Keith do and what the Besugo did is that she had to rig her anchor from the forecastle before submerging and therefore had to set the brake tight at the beginning. This may help make up for the Cushing being three times as big.”

“Roger,” said Buck, looking steadily at his superior. Both of them knew the exchange was entirely for the benefit of their crew, for the procedure had been discussed in private many times.

“His anchor will be at four hundred fifty feet. We’ll make our depth five hundred, so there’ll be no chance of hitting it.”

“Roger, Commodore. When do you want to go to towing stations?”

“Whenever you’re ready, Buck. Which side do you want to use?”

“Makes no difference. Port side.”

“Very well.”

The stilted, official conversation was necessary for one reason only: Richardson and Williams had decided to make the real thing as nearly like the drills as possible. Chances of error would thereby be lessened, and crew confidence increased. Now Buck picked up the hand microphone for the ship’s general announcing system, spoke into it. “All hands,” he said, “rig ship for towing. Port side.” He hung the mike back in its bracket, turned away, then turned back and picked it up again. “This is the captain,” he said. “This time it’s for real.”

The only change Richardson saw in personnel stations was the arrival of the ship’s best helmsman, and separation of the wheel and annunciator controls from the bow planesman’s station to which, in the cruising condition, they had been cross-connected. Doubtless there was not a person on board for whom Buck’s final admonition was needed. Nevertheless, Rich was instantly aware of its effect. He himself felt like cheering.

Manta had departed from New London with her two sets of towing gear stored in the after torpedo tubes. The inner doors of both tubes had already been replaced by anchor billets. Getting ready to tow involved only opening the outer door of the designated tube, number eight, and ejecting the contents, a metal canister filling the entire tube, by a short jet of high-pressure air through a fitting on the anchor billet. The canister, merely a large galvanized iron can, slid out, split open and sank, releasing the paravane. This immediately began to rise toward the surface, carrying with it a short section of heavy chain on the near end of which was a large steel hook. The other end of the chain terminated in a swivel, from which extended a long length of beautiful white nylon hawser, now being dragged outward and upward from the open tube. The inboard end of the hawser also held a swivel, followed by another section of chain which entered the open torpedo tube door and was firmly attached to the anchor billet.

Several refinements had been added to the original device during the course of testing it: strain gauges had been the first; a large bolt in the billet, when unscrewed, now allowed the chain and hawser to drop clear, thus permitting the outer door to be shut and the tube to be restored to its original use. Most recently, the hook had been modified to slide easily down the anchor chain of the ship to be towed until it fetched up on her anchor, where it would snag fast, and an additional UQC had been installed on Manta’s stern to facilitate communication abaft the propellers. Just before departure, the hooks for both devices had been checked by actually testing them with a chain and anchor identical to the Cushing’s, intended for an identical submarine still under construction.

While the football-shaped paravane was deploying upward and to port, where its vanes kited it, Buck was maneuvering the Manta into position two miles astern of the Cushing, waiting for the ready signal from her. It came in half an hour, about when expected, and Buck set the course. As before, the TDC and sonar were used to establish the proper relationship to the Cushing, so that Manta would pass parallel to, but not directly beneath, the disabled missile submarine. Calculations and drill both had showed that at three knots the paravane streamed, as planned, about one hundred feet above and fifty yards off to the side of the towing submarine. Manta was programmed to pass fifty feet below and one hundred feet abeam of Cushing’s anchor, so that her diagonally dragged hawser could not fail to intersect the vertically hanging anchor chain of her quarry.

“We’ll be abeam in five minutes, TDC,” said Deedee Brown. “Checking right in there, about thirty-five yards on her starboard beam.”

“Come left one degree,” said Buck to his helmsman. “Steer one-two-seven.”

“One-two-seven, aye aye” said the helmsman from his post a few feet forward of the raised conning station. His movement of the wheel was barely perceptible. An instant later he announced, “Steering one-two-seven, sir!” He had not taken his eyes off the gyro compass repeater in front of him.

“Mark your depth!” said Buck.

“Five hundred feet. On the nose!” This was from Tom Clancy.

Buck picked up the general announcing mike, waited, looking at the clock mounted nearby. “All hands,” he said finally, speaking deliberately into it, “we should start feeling it five minutes from now! Mark your clocks!”

Richardson glanced at his wristwatch. It was an involuntary movement, one he had made at precisely this point during each of the drill exercises. But his mind hardly registered the positions of the hands on its dial.

“One minute until abeam, TDC,” said Brown. “Thirty yards.”

“That’s about what I wanted, Skipper,” Buck said quietly. “She’s a fat ship and I want to be sure there’s plenty of overlap across her chain.”

Rich, sitting on the stool which had automatically been his station since the beginning of the drills, nodded his agreement.

“Two minutes till we might feel the chain!” Buck announced over the mike, looking at the bulkhead-mounted clock. To Clancy he said, “Remember, Tom, the chain will begin by pulling us up by the stern. Keep a zero bubble and let her seek her own depth. But when she starts taking on the weight of Cushing’s anchor gear back there, you’re going to have to pump out a lot more water than for the Tringa or Besugo. Don’t let her get an up angle, and don’t let the depth increase.”

“Roger,” said Tom Clancy, wondering why it seemed necessary to repeat these already well-rehearsed matters.

“Abeam to port! Twenty-eight yards!” announced Deedee Brown. “That checks with sonar,” he added.

Buck grabbed the mike, announced immediately, “We’re abeam! We’ll begin to feel the chain one minute from now!” Speaking quietly to Richardson he said, “Do you suppose there’s any chance Keith won’t realize he’ll have to flood forward trim when we take the chain, and that we want the Cushing to increase depth some?”

“That’s all in that long dispatch we wrote for ComSubLant to send. Anyway, he’ll know what to do while his ship is being towed. The Cushing’s not going to tow quite like the Besugo, you know. Setting up steady-state conditions will have to wait until we’ve got him hooked and underway.”

There was a tight grin on Buck’s face. “I know all that, and I’m damn sure Keith knows how to handle his ship. I guess I’m getting wound up a bit.”

“I know. It wouldn’t be natural if you weren’t.”

“One minute since abeam,” said Jerry Abbott.

“Silence throughout the ship!” ordered Buck on the speaker system. To the helmsman he said, “Stand by!”

The silence reminded Rich of a submarine during the war rigged for silent running and expecting the initial salvo of depth charges. In a way, it was an apt comparison, for the tenseness of the moment was equally great.

“Mark! A minute thirty seconds since abeam,” said Abbott, nearly whispering.

Rich knew that the first faint rubbing contact might be felt anytime after the one-minute mark, depending on the accuracy of the estimated distance to the anchor when passed, but most likely not until nearly two full minutes had passed. Indeed, the first contact, when the nylon cable would be merely rubbing against Cushing’s chain, might not be felt at all. More pronounced, though for a very short period, would be the links of the two chains rattling against each other; most noticeable of all would be when the hook had engaged the anchor chain and was beginning to pick it up. By careful calculation and actual experience, this must happen exactly two minutes thirty-six seconds after the anchor was passed abeam, although there might be a few seconds more before it was noticed. But if the hook did not engage the chain at that point, it would pass it, necessitating another try.

Buck, trying to look confident, was succeeding much better than his slight, taciturn exec, Rich noticed. It might not have been the height of wisdom on the part of BuPers to put two such similar nervous-energy types in the same sub — but then no one had ever accused Buck of being taciturn, and he did have a sense of humor which Rich had not yet noticed in Jerry. He wondered how well he was concealing his own nervousness.

“Two minutes!” whispered Jerry, holding up the same number of fingers.

Sitting on the stool, Rich tried to keep his emotions contained. This was, of course, the moment of truth, but as had happened occasionally, something might have gone wrong. Well, if so, they would try again, passing nearer to the anchor, and there was always the other rig, unused, in number-seven tube. Perhaps, because of the ever melting layer of ice on its surface, the Arctic Ocean salinity was less than that off New London, even if Tom Clancy hadn’t noticed it, and therefore the paravane might have less than the calculated buoyancy. But Tom would have noticed the difference in Manta’s own trim. In fact, come to think of it, he had reported the need to pump out several tons of water from the trimming tanks, but no one had felt it was a really significant amount… Still, if the paravane floated noticeably lower, the nylon hawser could conceivably pass under the anchor… But this was absurd. It could not be that much lower. The nylon itself floated. If anything it would bulge upward, instead of down.

“Two minutes thirty!” Jerry whispered, with a look of doom. Buck, Rich noted, was again eyeing his own stopwatch. Good man! At the thirty-six-second point he intended to stop, as planned, regardless of whether the chain had been engaged or not.

But all of Richardson’s worries were forgotten at that instant, when sonar reported on the speaker, “JT hears the chains!”

“All stop!” barked Buck. The helmsman twisted his annunciators to Stop, watched the follower pointers from the engineroom match him.

“All stop, answered!” he said.

Again, the wait, but now it was for realization of, and reaction to, the next step. The hook would begin to drag the chain, in the process initially seeming to lift the Manta, and then at some point, having led the chain forward of the Cushing, the hook would begin to slip down toward the anchor. The noise of this would be very clearly heard, even though it would be happening in the sonar baffles dead astern. Somewhere in this process, perhaps not until the hook had engaged the anchor itself, Manta would begin to feel the weight of Cushing’s anchor. Cushing, at the same time, would feel the loss of weight. Keith must, nevertheless, permit his ship to drop down to approximately Manta’s depth, whatever that turned out to be, and Manta must be allowed to rise even as she picked up the added weight.

“Speed through water?” Buck demanded.

“Two and a half knots,” said Jerry. “Dropping fast. Now it’s two knots. One knot. Touching zero.”

Buck had the mike in his hand. “Maneuvering, make turns for two knots!”

“Maneuvering, aye, aye!” said the speaker.

“Conn, sonar,” said the speaker. “JT reports hook slipping! We can hear the links!”

“Great!” said Buck. Jerry Abbott, typically, said nothing, but the grin on his face did it for him. Everyone in the control room wore a broad smile.

“Cushing should be feeling it by now, don’t you think, Skipper?” said Buck, forgetting his protocol. “Permission to try them on the after Gertrude?”

“By all means,” answered Rich, letting his own gladness show.

Buck flipped a toggle switch under the UQC set mounted nearby along with a profusion of other instruments, put the mike to his lips, said, “Northern Lieutenant, this is Flat Raider, submerged tug, at your service, sir. Do you feel my pull?”

Instantly the speaker came back. Keith’s voice, as before, lacking something in the quality of the reproduction, but unmistakable. “This is Northern Lieutenant. Affirmative your last. You’re wonderful! We’re watching the brake and our trim. Over.”

“We’re going to build up to three knots for starters,” said Buck over the mike, “and try for a steady-state pull. Course-, depth- and speed-changes will be very gradual, and announced in advance. The first thing is to get a common depth, maybe three hundred feet. Once we get settled down we’ll increase speed to four knots, or even five if the strain gauges show the rig will take it. Probably you should tow a little above us because of where your chain is, but the main thing is to get to a ‘hands off’ condition where that big fat tub of yours will just follow along naturally. Over.”

“We roger for all that and your insults, you little pip-squeak, but we’re cheering for you all the same. Listen!” Rich and Buck could hear the sound of cheering over the speaker. “You guys have no idea how tough it’s been just sitting here for weeks like this. Thank God you’ve come! And super thanks to whoever it was invented this towing idea!”

Buck was about to speak, glanced inquiringly at Rich, who make a cutting motion across his throat. “That’s about all for now, Keith. Talk to you later. Out.”

“You and your crew were absolutely marvelous, Buck. Here we are at last, towing the Cushing at four and a half knots, safe and sure at four hundred feet, and we haven’t a care in the world. We could even probably speed up over five knots, but I agree with you, what’s a few days more now that everything’s going so well. Once we snake them out from under the ice, we can come to periscope depth to send our message, if we want to. ComSubLant might send a regular tug and bring them in in the normal way, but he won’t need to. It’s a lot easier to tow submerged. We may as well bring them all the way home, and I think that’s what I’ll recommend.”

Rich was having dinner in Manta’s wardroom, surrounded by most of the officers. The feeling of success, the gladness and pride of achievement, were everywhere. In celebration of the occasion, the cooks had prepared the best meal of which they were capable, and a holiday spirit prevailed throughout the ship. In the crew’s mess the same meal was being served, and similar happy sentiments were being voiced. Doubtless the same thing was happening aboard the Cushing.

“I know you’ve been up a long time, Commodore,” said Buck, “and I’ll bet you’d like to turn in. So would I; but do you think before you do, you could go back aft and say a few words to the crew? I know they’d appreciate it.”

“You just bet I will, Buck. When do you want me to do it? Right now?”

“Finish your dinner first. But maybe after coffee.”

“Fine. Maybe you’d better brief me on who your special people were, so I’ll not pass up anyone who really made a big contribution.”

“Well, there’s the sonar gang, you know about them. Especially the JT operator. Incidentally, they came up with an idea why we didn’t hear the chain and hawser rubbing. The Cushing’s a new submarine, so her anchor chain was new and freshly painted. It didn’t have anything like the resistance of the old rusty chains of the Tringa and Besugo!”

“Well, I’ll be damned! That might have made the difference, all right! We should have thought of it!”

“And, of course, there’s the torpedo gang. Deedee Brown’s people on the TDC, and particularly the men in the after torpedo room. Matter of fact, they’ve got the biggest job, because they’ve got to monitor that strain gauge from now on, all the way to Connecticut.”

“Yes.”

“And the engineers. The throttlemen have been controlling speed ever since we got to the steady state. They’ve got a special telephone hookup with the after room lads, and they’ll slow down without orders anytime the strain exceeds the reading we’ve set for them.”

“Yes,” Rich said again, but he was beginning to think that Buck’s enthusiasm would result in his citing the entire ship’s company. At this moment, however, the arrival of a messenger from the OOD changed everything, and it was never the same again.

“There’s a sonar contact!” the young lad said.

“The JT picked it up first,” said the scared-looking sonar watch-stander. “He had it on sonic. Then it came in closer, or got louder, and I could hear it on the big set, the BQR. It’s staying on a steady bearing, a little abaft our starboard beam.”

“What’s it sound like to you?” asked Buck.

“Can’t tell, sir. Sounds like a ship is all I know. JT thinks so too. That’s why we reported it.”

Decisively, Buck seized a pair of shielded earphones hanging above the sonar receiver, plugged them into a spare jack. His face contorted as he listened, then, without a word, he handed the earphones to Richardson. As soon as he adjusted the earphones over his head, Rich could hear it. Distinct machinery noises; the sound of a pump running, gear whine — that would be the reduction gears — the sibilant swish of water past an unyielding hull.

“It’s louder now than when we reported it,” volunteered the sonarman.

“How does it sound on JT?” asked Rich.

By way of response, Buck reached for a hidden switch on the bulkhead. The sound of muted machinery noise filled the tiny sonar compartment. “That’s what he’s hearing up forward with his sonic ears,” Buck said.

“Is it only on that bearing?”

“Yessir! I was searching all around, like Mr. Norton told me. I can hear the Cushing back aft in the baffles. She’s pretty faint, but I can hear her. Everything else is all clear all around.” The sonarman was torn between fear of his superiors, whose grave demeanor might mean they blamed him for not detecting the contact sooner, and fear of the unknown contact itself.

“I wonder if Keith has this same contact,” said Richardson.

“We can ask him on Gertrude.”

“Can you give it to him on your wolfpack code?”

“Yes. I’ll get the book.” Buck dashed forward, snatched the pamphlet from his desk safe after failing the combination the first time, ran back to the sonar room.

Richardson had switched off the sonic sound repeater. “What does QS ss mean?” he asked. “First he sent RI KE — that means Rich from Keith — then QS ss.”

“It means Rich from Keith, that’s the first part, all right,” said Buck, almost breathlessly, flipping the pages of the thin booklet. “Where did that come from?”

“From the Cushing, just now, on the UQC. He sent it in Morse, with his whistle.”

“It means, ‘Sonar contact to starboard, believed to be submarine.’ ”

“That’s what I think it is, too, Buck. It’s a ship, all right; so it’s got to be a submarine!”

“What’s it doing?”

“Nothing. Just keeping up with us. Maybe it’s closed in some, because the sound’s a lot louder than when sonar picked it up.”

“Could it be the same sub that rammed the Cushing?”

“Whoever, it is, Buck, he’s looking us over. That seems pretty clear. What he might do about it is something else.”

“We’re stuck, too. Towing the Cushing like this, we can’t change speed or course, at least not fast enough to mean anything. How far do you think he is?”

“I asked that while you were getting the code book. We’ve had the sonar in the passive mode, so it’s not been echo-ranging. As a guess, he’s within a couple of miles.”

“Shall we take a ping range?”

“Wait. He doesn’t know he’s detected yet. Did Keith tell us how much chain he has out?”

“Yes. Seventy fathoms.”

“Have somebody break out that set of his general plans you were smart enough to bring along, and figure out the exact distance between his sonar head and ours.”

Buck’s face showed instant comprehension. “Right! Our JT head is a little aft of the BQR 2, so I’ll get both numbers!” He left the sonar room, was back in minutes. “Jeff and Tom are getting both plans, ours and the Cushing’s, and laying the whole thing out on the wardroom table. We can tell Keith to give us his bearings in the wolfpack code!”

“That’s lucky. Our friend over here is listening to us. He probably knows everything that’s gone on up to now.”

“Yes. God damn him anyway!” Buck swore with deep feeling. “I was afraid we were talking too much. It’s all because of that message we had to send! If they were monitoring the area by sonar they heard it once that way, and then a while later they heard us send the same message by radio. So they had to know another sub’s arrived up here, and this bastard was sent to investigate. He’s probably recorded every Gertrude transmission we’ve made!”

Richardson had put down the earphones he had been wearing since entry into the sonar room. He and Buck were hunched in a corner of the room, their heads together, their voices lowered. The sonar operator, heavy sponge-rubber earpieces over both ears, was seated at his console, oblivious of them. Rich glanced down at him uneasily, then, reassured, turned back to Buck. He moved his head closer to him, spoke in an even lower tone. “I’m afraid you’re right. I don’t like this at all. Keith obviously doesn’t either. That’s one reason he used the wolfpack code and the whistle instead of talking.”

“I thought of that, too, Skipper. At least, we’ve not been blathering like idiots over the phone. I guess both of us figured to save that until we were more clear. Good thing, too.”

“The cat’s already out of the bag, but anyway, you’d better give instructions that no one, OOD or anyone else, should use the UQC without permission. Keith’s probably doing the same thing.”

“I have already. I was going to tell you.”

“Good. Maybe he’s only watching us to see what we’re up to. When he realizes we’re hauling the Cushing out of here, he may go away.”

“I sure hope so!”

“In the meantime, how do we tell Keith what we want him to do?”

Buck fished the little code book out of his pocket. “Easy. We start with his initials and yours, his first, this time. Then we send the group for triangle or triangulation, and then the one that means, ‘Request enemy bearing.’ Keith will know exactly what we’re doing. We can send him the bearing from us in the code, too, but there’s no way we can tell him the baseline length.”

“Let’s give him the bearing anyway. He might know where your sonar dome is, and that message from CNO tells him the towline length. When we give him the range he can work the problem backward, and that will correct his baseline if it’s not right.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

For two more hours the Russian submarine (for such it could only be) remained in the plotted position: approximately 5,000 yards, two and a half nautical miles, on Keith’s starboard beam. Then it grew more distant, and finally faded out altogether. With almost a corporate sigh of relief, for Rich and Buck soon realized the entire ship’s company had become very much aware of the situation and its possible implications — magnified, no doubt, by their imaginations — a gradual but sweeping course-change was executed. As an additional precaution, silent running for both submarines was ordered, with particular attention to the condensate pump, and then Rich and Buck gratefully climbed into their bunks for their first rest in nearly thirty-six hours.

Still uneasy, however, or perhaps because he sensed that the situation had not come to any definite conclusion, Rich flopped on his bunk fully clothed, only removing his shoes for greater comfort. He was instantly unconscious.

The ventilation blowers had been turned off in the silent condition, and he was perspiring heavily when he awoke. Jerry Abbott’s clock told him he had been asleep for about five hours. Something was not right. Something was permeating the boat, an aura, a feeling that something — an emergency — was afoot. The cobwebs in his brain were only peripheral. Groggily, he searched for his shoes, put them on, but all the while an instinctive part of his mind was probing, gearing itself. There was a quietness, an atmosphere of worry, even of dread, permeating the ship. It could only be one of two things: either there had been some casualty — to the Cushing, the towline or the Manta—or the Russian was back.

He stepped quickly across the passageway, looked quietly into Buck’s room. It was empty. So was the wardroom. He started for the control room, had to wait for an instant because the control room messenger was coming through from the opposite side of the bulkhead door.

“Commodore! I was sent to get you, sir! There’s distant pinging, coming closer!” The young sailor’s face was flushed, his eyes showed white completely around the pupils. There were beads of sweat on his cheeks and upper lip. Of course, it had been hot in the control room without the ventilation…

“Thanks, son,” said Richardson, trying to demonstrate a calm he did not feel. He ducked through the watertight door, headed for the sonar room.

Jeff Norton and Buck were already in it, as was the chief sonarman. Tom Clancy, Deedee Brown and the chief of the boat (now called “chief of the ship”), Chief Auxiliaryman Mac McClosky, were standing in the passageway outside the aluminum-framed door. Those in the passageway made way for Richardson, but there was not room to enter the sonar room. He stood in the doorway, craned his neck into the darkened space, listened.

“I heard distant pinging first,” the sonarman at the console said. “So I reported that. Chief Schultz came running in, and then Mr. Norton, but by that time it was already getting louder. He was pinging all around. I think he was searching. Then he started to beam it right at us. I think he got contact right then. That’s about the time you came in, Captain. He’s pinging right on us now, on long-range scale. He’s not searching anymore.”

“That’s right, sir,” said Palmer Schultz, serious-faced. “When I first heard it, the pinging was sort of general, all around his dial. While I was here I heard him bounce a real solid ping right off us, and that was the ball game. He’s got a solid contact now. He’s too far for us to hear any screw noises, but he’s not getting louder quite as fast as he was. So I think he’s slowed down.”

“Does JT have any engine or screw noises?” Buck asked.

Schultz spoke softly into a microphone. “Do you have anything besides pinging on two-two-eight?

“Affirmative,” said the JT speaker. “I hear distant machinery noise. It just started to come in. I think he’s pinging, too. I can hear the clicks.”

“Okay,” said Schultz. “We’ve got it here, too. Keep on it and report any changes. Get us a turn count as soon as you can hear the screws.”

“Okay,” said the voice.

“Did anyone get the commodore?” Buck asked, without turning his head.

“I’m here, Buck.”

“Put the BQR return on the speaker, Schultz. We may as well all hear it,” said Buck.

The pings transported Richardson backward in time. They were exactly the same as they had been during the war, with but a single difference. The intention behind them was unknown. There was also another noise, a high hum, emanating from the same bearing. “I think we’re beginning to pick up his machinery,” said Schultz. “Pretty soon we may hear his screws.” He spoke into his mike. “Can you hear his propellers yet?” he asked.

There was no answer. Schultz gently replaced the mike in its cradle.

“Turn count, one-two-oh!” said the speaker suddenly. “It’s a single-screw ship!”

Helplessly, the crowd around the sonar shack heard the alien submarine close in and resume its former station. “He’d never get away with that if we weren’t immobilized with a tow,” said Buck angrily. “What does he think he’s doing, anyway?”

There was no answer. After a minute, Buck spoke again. “I don’t like this at all, Commodore. I think we should go to battle stations.”

“I think you should, Buck,” said Rich, steadily. “Does your code have a signal for telling the Cushing to do the same?”

“We can tell Keith that we’re doing it. We never thought of putting anything in the code for telling another skipper how to run his ship.”

“Well, tell him we are. He’ll know what to do.”

“Jerry,” said Buck, “are you out there?”

“Right here, Skipper,” said Jerry Abbott’s voice behind Rich.

“Sound battle stations. Here’s the code book.” He slipped the book out of his pocket and held it behind him. “Use the whistle at minimum gain on the after Gertrude. At least that one’s partly directional because of the baffles. Tell her we’re going to battle stations.”

“Wilco,” said Abbott. Rich took the book from Buck’s hand, passed it behind him, felt it taken from him. In a moment the musical chimes sounded through the general announcing system. It was the first time in sixteen years that Rich had heard them except in drill, and again he felt himself driven backward in time. They ceased, and Rich could hear the whistle slowly and precisely sending the Morse code letters AS. The letters were repeated twice, but they were less audible over the bustle of the crew dashing to their stations.