Scorpion in the Sea

NINETEEN

Goldsborough swayed slightly as she cut across the afternoon ebb tide currents in the St. Johns river and pointed fair for the open ocean. The afternoon sunlight was a welcome relief from a weekend of rain. The beach sand gleamed in golden tones on either side of the river entrance. Seagulls swirled at the edge of the rip currents, and the rocks on the jetties along the base perimeter were spotted with fishermen in pursuit of flounder. The temperature was hovering in the mid-eighties, and everyone seemed to be in a better mood now that the rains were over and the ship was headed back out to sea.

Mike sat in his chair on the bridge, watching the Officer of the Deck conn the ship out through the river buoys. A warm breeze flowed into the pilothouse through the bridge windows, and the whine of the forced-draft blowers made a comforting sound after all the normal confusion of getting underway. He was glad to get free from the basin and all of its hectoring “support.”

Monday morning inport had been a zoo, with several stores trains appearing alongside, a visit from the Commodore and his engineering staff to take a look at the main plant, and the usual complement of last minute people problems that always seemed to crop up on a departure day. Some of the crew had acted as if the ship were going out on deployment instead of a week’s operations, and there had been a larger than usual complement of wives and girl friends on the pier when they pulled out.

Mike had still not briefed them on the details of their “mission”; he was not sure he had the right words together yet. The word was out in the ship that they were going after the mysterious submarine again, and that it was somehow connected to the sinking of the Rosie III. Make it look real, the Admiral and the Commodore had said. Appearances über alles. The ship put her nose down into the first Atlantic roller as she cleared the St. Johns bar, and the men up on the forecastle stepped back handsomely away from the sides in anticipation of a blast of spray, but none appeared. The sea surface was almost flat calm under a big Bermuda high building in the southeast.

Mike reflected on the weekend, savoring his, what should he call it, encounter with Diane. He recognized that he was firmly in lust; he feared that he might also be falling in love. It had only been two days, and he wanted her so badly that he almost hoped something else would break down so that they would come back into port early. His face reddened at this disloyal thought; he called for coffee. The boatswain mate jumped to rig him a cup. Acting just like any other sailor fresh from a good liberty, he thought. He wondered how many others in his ship had set sail this afternoon with the perfume of a woman lingering in their faces. The Chief of Staff’s wife, Dummy, the little voice in his head said. I know, I know.

He had brought Hooker aboard Sunday afternoon to avoid being too flagrant about having a pet aboard the ship. The crew joined him in a conspiracy of silence because having a parrot gave their Captain a little extra panache. He tried not to flaunt it, however, and always brought Hooker aboard hidden in his drunk box, and then only on weekends when there was a minimum number of people onboard. His cabin steward had told him that there was always a sudden increase in the number of visitors to his cabin when Hooker was onboard. Electricians needed to check the lights, A-gang snipes wanted to check the air conditioning, and the yeomen cleaned out his outbasket hourly instead of once a day. Hooker’s vocabulary was much admired, and Mike suspected that the sailors had expanded it somewhat during their visits.

“Sir, recommend we secure the special sea and anchor detail,” said the XO, who was also the ship’s navigator.

“Yeah, OK. Wrap it up. What’s the start point for this caper?”

“085 for eighty miles,” replied the Exec. “Then I propose we work a box, north and south along the Stream.”

He eyed the Captain for a moment, and then stepped closer to the chair, out of earshot of the bridge watch.

“You plan to brief the crew, Cap’n?”

“Yes, I suppose I must.”

Mike got down from his chair, and moved over to the chart table at the back of the pilothouse. The XO went with him, and they looked down at the chart for a long moment.

“Soon’s I figure out how to describe all of this without laughing out loud.”

The Exec nodded thoughtfully.

“It does seem strange,” he said. “I can’t quite get my mind around the possibility that there’s some kind of hostile submarine dicking around out here and whacking fishing boats.”

“Don’t spend a lot of brain fuel on it, XO,” Mike snorted. “What we’ll really need are some inventive sitreps to send back in which we show how hard we’re trying. I gave Ops an addressee list for the messages. First one ought to go out, say, 1800 tonight. Maybe put a general plan of intentions in it, hunh?”

“Yes, Sir. Any suggestions as to what our intentions are?”

“No.” Mike grinned down at the XO. “I’m waiting for my executive staff to tell me. You guys use your fertile imaginations. I’ll approve it, OK?”

The Exec shook his head.

“OK, yes, Sir,” he said.

Mike was silent for a moment, looking down at the chart of the Jacksonville operating areas.

“Maybe you ought to brief the crew, XO. I think if I do it, my attitude about this whole deal is going to show through. I don’t want to infect the crew with the way I feel about it. We have our orders, and we should carry them out, no matter what I think about it. You get on the 1MC and give ’em the word, with as many facts as we have. I’ll go down to my cabin and pout.”

The Exec laughed. “Pout, aye. I wish to hell we were going south.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Mike ruefully. “That’s the thing that really pisses me off. We’re up here doing this birdshit op while the real players go do Navy stuff. I almost wish there were a submarine up here so I could sink something and kill somebody.”

The Exec was mildly surprised at this uncharacteristic blast of bitterness from his normally upbeat CO.

“Other than that, Captain, did you have a good weekend?” he asked innocently.

Mike gave him a look. There was no way the XO …

“Yeah, other than that,” he said, “my weekend was just fine. Rain day and night, power outages to help the air conditioning in my boat, one of my guys gets creamed on a bike, yeah, all in all, terrific weekend. Aarrgh.”

“Uh, yes, Sir. Got the picture. We’ll call you when we’ve worked up the search plan and the first sitrep.”

“Thanks, XO.”

At 1900, Mike was in his cabin giving Hooker a head scratch when the Exec knocked on his door and came in. Mike looked up.

“Evening, XO. Got the plan?”

“Yes, Sir. Plan, first sitrep, and some notes on what I’m going to tell the crew.”

“OK, lemme see. Back on your perch, bird.”

Mike flipped the parrot back onto the wooden A-frame perch standing next to his desk. Hooker complained and gave the XO a dirty look, and then began to sharpen his beak on the perch. The XO handed over the folders, keeping his distance from the bird; he did not care for birds. Mike read through the general plan for the search, and then the draft of the first situation report, nodding his head as he skimmed the material.

“OK, this looks good.”

He initialled the release line on the message draft and handed it back to the Exec.

“You’re opting for a southern orientation, which is as good as any, I guess.”

“Yes, Sir, six of one, half dozen of the other. One thing the ASW officer pointed out: we should map the bottom of the areas we search, you know, record the wrecks, pinnacles, and things like that. We’ve got a bottom contour chart, but we ought to tie the sonar picture we see to each anomaly in case we ever have to chase this guy around the area.”

“This guy? Careful, XO, you’re gonna have yourself believing this fairy tale.”

The Exec grinned self-consciously.

“Well,” he said. “I guess I’m getting into character. Seeing as I have to brief the crew …”

“Yeah, yeah, OK. Somebody has to be Joe sincere. Might as well be you. And I agree with that business of building a bottom chart. The mine hunting guys call it bottom conditioning — they work over harbor areas and the approaches to our major naval bases all the time, and map and map and map — everything on the bottom that sticks out. That way when some bad guy lays a mine out there, they can pick it up because it’s new. Takes time, though.”

“Yes, Sir, but Linc’s got that computer program, remember? He’s got a PC up in Combat that we can use to generate the maps; he’s been dying to use it for something, and this seemed like the perfect deal.”

“I agree. Then we can write it up and put him in for a tactical improvement program award. Kid’s pretty sharp.”

“Yes, Sir. Now the other things have to do with the watches: I can’t see putting the ship at ASW condition two for something we both think is a figment. We’re going to be doing this for at least a week, and we’ll exhaust the watch officers pretty quick if we put them up on port and starboard, six on, six off, watches. We get a contact that looks like something, well, then we set the 1AS detail. Otherwise three-sections on the bridge and in CIC. That sound OK?”

Mike swiveled in his chair and thought for a moment. The Exec’s reasoning made sense, as long as the premise was correct, namely that there was nothing out there. Out here, he corrected himself. But if they did turn up something, and this mythical submarine started a fight, the ship would be less prepared to defend herself than if a fighting watch was posted. A Captain could be forgiven many things, but being surprised was not one of them. The staffies at Group would just love to see the trouble-maker of the Goldsborough get caught with his operational pants down.

“Let’s do this, XO,” he replied. “I’ll grant you the three section watch instead of port and starboard, but I want the torpedoes and the depth charges ready to go, and enough people in sonar and CIC to execute a snap defensive move if something happens, OK?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s no problem,” nodded the Exec. “The sonar people are going to be six on, six off anyway to do that bottom mapping. We don’t have enough sonarmen to do a three section watch. And it’s no big deal to have the weapons consoles lit off and ready, as long as we don’t have to man up the tubes. It does mean having charged flasks in the torpedo tubes, and initiators in the depth charges, though.”

Mike nodded his head.

“I know, and I’ll sign the weapons fuzing sheet. We’ll also have to brief up rules of engagement pretty thoroughly — tell the guys no shooting unless I say so, and either positive ID or a hostile act before we let something go. I’d hate to whack a transiting U.S. sub, or a Soviet, for that matter. I just want to have a brick or two to throw back if something comes our way. Not that it will.”

“Yes, Sir, but something got the Rosie III.”

“I know, but I’m damned if I believe it was some frigging submarine. It just doesn’t compute. Submarines don’t fool with fishing boats; they like big stuff, like carriers and super tankers.”

“Unless part of its mission is to stay hidden; then it might whack a fisherman.”

Mike turned to look at his Exec.

“You are beginning to think there might be something to all this, aren’t you?”

The Exec rearranged his stack of papers for a moment. Then he met the Captain’s eye.

“It’s like what they always teach about intelligence, Cap’n,” he said. “You go on capabilities, not intentions. It is possible that there is a hostile diesel-electric boat operating out here. We’ve had a sighting, guy who saw a U-boat in the big war called this thing a U-boat, and an unexplained accident with a commercial fishing boat with indications of violence — as you know, the cops confirmed that that was a bullet hole. On the surface, the brass think enough about it to send out a ship, for a week, if necessary, to have a look. It’s just, well, it’s way out and all that, but it is possible.”

The Exec’s expression was serious. Mike frowned.

“You weren’t at the meeting with Admiral Walker, XO, but I will spot you the feasibility part of it. Yes, they’re sending us out, but they haven’t told Norfolk — it’s all for local PR consumption. Anyway, let’s play it straight, and I’ll keep my opinions to myself so you can fire the guys up to do a good job. Let’s do it.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” the Exec replied, gathering his papers.

Mike caught the note of relief in his voice, along with his unspoken request to at least act like he took it seriously, because if the wardroom and the crew thought otherwise, they would blow it off.

“I’ll get on the 1MC in a couple of minutes and brief the crew,” said the exec. “Then we’ll start the search at around 2100 when we get to the initiation point.”

“Where Rosie went down, right?”

“Yes, Sir. It doesn’t mean anything tactically, but it’s sort of symbolic. The crew can relate to the fact that some other guys died and that’s why we’re out here.”

“Good thinking. I’ll come up around 2200 to see how it’s going; tell Line I’ll want a demo of his new toy.”

At 2200, Mike went up to the Combat Information Center. The control center was in darkened condition, with only the green lights of the scopes and the dimmed red lights around the overhead illuminating the crowded room.

“Captain’s in Combat,” sounded off the watch supervisor when he saw Mike coming through the door.

Mike walked over to the main plotting table. The search track was laid out on the tracing paper, with a bottom contour chart taped underneath the tracing paper. The anti-submarine warfare officer, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Lincoln Howard, had his PC up and running by the side of the table.

“Show me how this works, Linc.”

“Aye, Sir. Basically, I can take the video presentation on the sonar scope down below into the PC on a scanner channel: just as if I were scanning a document, only I get an image. I have the bottom contour chart already scanned into a file, and I keep the part of the chart we’re steaming over in a window. I have another window active, with nothing in it. When we pass over some feature on the bottom that’s marked on the chart, I get the sonar girls to freeze frame the scope display, and then I call for the scan. The scan comes into the second window, and I merge that video picture with that section of the chart, and store them. Anytime we come back to this area of the chart, I can call up the video scan for our present position, and put it in a window, and then call up the current video presentation from the sonar, and we can see if they’re different. If they are, something’s there that wasn’t there before.”

The Captain nodded in appreciation.

“That’s pretty slick; I suppose we have to be making our pass over the bottom feature going the same way as we did when you first recorded it, right?”

Linc grinned. “Yes, Sir. You got it. Otherwise, the feature would be painted by the sound waves from a different angle, and therefore maybe look different. So I also type in the course, speed, and the water sound layer conditions into each file. You can see one here that we just did.”

Mike looked over at the PC screen. In one window was a segment of the bottom chart. In a second, larger window, was a collection of squiggly white lines painted against an amber background. It looked like one of those Rorschach tests psychologists used.

“Um—”

“Yes, Sir, I know,” said the ASW officer. “That’s what you get; it’s not like a clear outline. According to the chart, that happens to be a pinnacle. It’s like a knob of rock sticking up off the surrounding flat bottom some 120 feet high above the ocean floor. When the water depth is around 380 feet, that could look like a sub either sitting on or real close to the bottom. Since we know there’s a pinnacle there, we can ignore it.”

“But suppose the sub knew it was there, and was trying to hide. Couldn’t he park next to the pinnacle, say in the acoustic shadow of it if he knew which way we were coming? Might we not mistake the contact for just the pinnacle?”

“Yes, Sir, precisely, but that’s what my little windows will tell me; especially if we can make two passes from different directions on the pinnacle. I don’t know what it would look like with a sub parked next to it, but I do know it will look different; then we can circle it and ping his ass out of there.”

“Very good, indeed. So while we’re searching, we ought to take at least two ‘pictures’ of any feature where a bad guy might want to hide out here, as long as we have the time.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Linc, appreciatively. “Most of this area on the continental shelf is pretty flat, although when you get too close to the slope, there’s a jillion canyons and stuff. But it would be pretty hard to duck into one of those because the water tends to flow down them and make a hell of a current, not to mention the danger of mudslides.”

“I want to concentrate along the interior margins of the Gulf Stream,” mused Mike. “Everything that’s happened has happened just inside the Stream. The water is turbulent, and the boundary layers are a tough problem, acoustically, but that’s where a sub would hide. He can look acoustically into the fleet operating areas, but he’s nearly invisible to surface ASW forces. Somebody bring me a big chart of the whole area.”

The surface supervisor went to the chart table and rustled through the large charts, finally pulling one out that covered the approaches to the St. Johns river and the operating areas for one hundred miles either side. He laid it out on the plotting table.

Mike picked up a soft lead pencil and drew a two inch wide band down the seasonal interior edges of the Gulf Stream.

“There,” he said. “There’s where our bad guy would hang out, if he had some kind of business in the operating areas. Now, gimme the lat-lon of the position where Rosie III went down.”

The quartermaster read out the latitude and longitude coordinates, and Mike made an X on the large chart. He pointed to the pencilled X-mark.

“Let’s sweep this sector, south from where Rosie went down, for 48 hours; then let’s make a sweep up through the middle of the operating areas, going by any really prominent bottom objects — as I recall there’s some ships sunk and a dozen or so humps and pinnacles. Then we’ll take the northern sector of the band along the Gulf Stream.”

He stood back from the chart, taking in the whole picture, assessing in his mind the magnitude of the search.

“The other thing we need to do is to take fathometer readings each time we draw a picture,” said the Exec, who had, as usual, materialized in Combat because the Captain was there.

“Hiya, XO. Yeah, I agree, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking. You’re looking for initial search depths for torpedoes, right?”

“Yes, Sir. If we get into a contact situation, we call up Linc’s pictures, and at the same time set up one of our fish so that it’s programmed not to try to go below the actual water depth.” He noticed Linc’s face. “What’s the matter with that, Linc?”

“Well, Sirs, the basic problem is that our anti-submarine torpedoes will acquire the bottom every time at these depths — it’s just too shallow. But what that depth reading would be really useful for are the depth charges. See, if the chart says the water depth is 400 feet, and we’re trying for a target sitting on the bottom, we’d set the fuzes for 400 feet. But if the real depth was 375 feet, they’d never go off. The data on this chart is over forty years old; lots could’ve happened since then. We definitely need accurate depth dope.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully. The other members of the ASW team stood around, listening in to the discussion.

“OK,” he said. “Make it so. Get a good picture of the anomalies. XO, maybe we shouldn’t have the torpedo tubes charged, hunh?”

“Well, Captain,” Lincoln Howard interjected. “The beauty of the torpedoes is that they can be fired fast. We hear a fish incoming from a certain bearing, we can shoot one down that bearing. It might go after the bottom, and it might even blow up on the bottom, but it will disrupt maybe the second and third fish the guy’s trying to shoot at us, and it might even acquire him and kick his ass. The depth charges require that we go right over the guy, and that takes time, especially if he runs for it. I think we ought to keep one on each side ready, anyway.”

“OK, XO. I’m convinced. You guys sound like you have your stuff together. Let’s give it a try. XO, I’m going out to the bridge — you got anything else for me?”

“No, Sir, nothing that can’t wait till morning.”

“OK.”

Mike walked through the forward door of the CIC and out onto the darkened bridge; it took a moment for the bosun to spot him and announce him. It was a clear night with a bright moon, so it was not all that dark. He crossed over to his chair and swung himself up into it. The bosun mate appeared with a cup of coffee, which Mike took but did not drink. It was too late at night for coffee; he wanted to be able to go to sleep. Not wanting to hurt the bosun’s feelings, he held the cup in his two hands.

Those guys were setting this little operation up exactly right, he reflected. The ASWO had a super little toy in his PC system; whatever came of this, he had to make sure Linc got some credit for it. He sat back in his chair. The sea was shiny black, with a broad avenue of moonlight reflecting on the overhead of the pilothouse. The ship was cruising along at 10 knots, barely moving for a destroyer, and the sea winds were calm. Of course it’s all bullshit, he thought. We’ll go through the motions, and we’ll get a really good bottom contour chart. Maybe I’ll get all those fitness reports done that have been piling up in my inbasket. And then, there was this weekend, yes, this weekend.

He wondered how he and Diane could get together. If they would get together. He had simply assumed that they would. Somehow. He digested for the hundredth time the news that his nemesis on the Staff was playing around, and that Diane knew about it. He had wrestled with the problem of feeling good or bad about that situation, but the consensus among his voices was that J.W’s mid-life penile indiscretion had opened a very wide door for Mike Montgomery. He fantasized about the possibility of his making Diane his wife. She was his age or maybe even a little older than he was probably, but what did that matter. J.W. didn’t want her, and Mike was discovering that he certainly did want her. Everybody said he should settle down, get married, have a family, live on the base. Well? He laughed silently. If he and Diane Martinson linked up, neither one of them could stay around the Navy. He would be roundly condemned for “breaking up” the marriage of a senior officer with his wild, bachelor ways. Martinson’s girlfriend would be conveniently forgotten. But, hell, he was probably going to have to retire from the Navy pretty soon anyway, and she was certainly sick of Navy life. He knew that Diane was not a woman to be enjoyed and discarded like the pneumatic beach bunnies who occasionally inhabited his houseboat. He sensed that a relationship with Diane would be a serious undertaking. He had tried to fluff the whole thing off under the guise of a mature bachelor’s attitude — woman’s available for a fling, go have a fling, but nothing more. The problem was that he was more than a little smitten.

He sipped some of the coffee after all. The next weekend might be the most interesting thing he would deal with all week. Certainly more interesting than this mickey-mouse tasking. He yawned and settled back in his chair to watch the night sea. A submarine. What a laugh.