Torpedo!

CHAPTER 12

Captain Miller finished sticking the gummed strips of the message the Devilfish had received onto a sheet of paper and went into the Wardroom.

“Please tell the officers off watch to assemble here,” he said to the Officer’s Cook. He waited, the message face down on the green baize cloth, until the officers came in and took seats.

“We have been ordered to go on Quiet Alert,” he said. “Our function in the exercise is to patrol just west of the SOSUS array off the Strait of Gibraltar. We will patrol in company with the Orca.”

John Carmichael, the Executive Officer of the Devilfish, looked at his Commanding Officer and read the warning in Captain Miller’s eyes.

“I figured when they told us to get out here on the double and then threw that damned electronic dummy target at us that old Iron Mike was going to work our asses off,” Carmichael said in an offhand tone. “Maybe when the drill is over we’ll get to go in to a good port in Spain or Portugal.”

“Electronic dummy target?” Lieutenant Rory Delahanty, the Sonar Officer, shook his head, “John, I listened to that target. I watched the screens. That was a damned submarine that we and the Orca were after or I’ll eat my hat.”

“You prefer salt and pepper or maybe some salad dressing on the hat?” Captain Miller said.

“Well, sir,” Delahanty said, “I mean, I’ve worked with all sorts of electronic dummy targets and I’ve never heard anything as realistic as what we were listening to out there. It changed speeds, it even reversed course when we went to full speed to run it down and get a shot at it. At one point our computers were giving it a speed of more than fifty knots! I never heard of a dummy target that could go that fast.

“Just as the Orca’s missiles hit the water the target’s sonar transmitter started up. If that had been a submarine the sonar operator would have keyed his transmitters when he heard the missiles striking close aboard to try and confuse the missile’s electronics, sir. But it wasn’t a submarine so I don’t know what to think.” Delahanty’s round Irish face was almost cherubic as he looked at Captain Miller.

“We’ve been away from the States for what, six months?” Captain Miller said. “We really don’t know what new gadgets they’ve developed for us to practice with. All we have to concern ourselves with now is carrying out the rest of the exercise. I want you to tell your people in the crew that we’re on the exercise and that we’re in competition with Orca. She beat us to the target and I don’t want Orca beating us again, at anything. And I don’t want Iron Mike Brannon breathing down my neck if we fuck up. That’s all, fellas.”

He left the Wardroom and went to his cabin. There was a buzz of conversation after he left that Carmichael stopped with a warning frown. Carmichael finished his coffee and stood up.

“A word to the wise, gentlemen. Don’t talk about this to the crew, don’t talk about it among yourselves. This is an exercise, that’s all. Don’t speculate.”

A few minutes later, sitting in Captain Miller’s cabin, he looked at his Commanding Officer.

“How much longer can we keep up the charade, Captain? Damn it, Delahanty knows we were chasing a submarine. He’s no fool. He can guess that the other submarine was a Russian. What’s more, you don’t waste two SUBROC missiles on a dummy target.”

“I know,” Miller said. He rubbed his chin. “I just don’t know what to say. We’re supposed to keep this to ourselves, between you and me. I went down to the Sonar Compartment to tell the Chief and his people that they’d done one hell of a job and the Chief looked at me and the way he looked at me I know that he knows that was no dummy target. We may have to tell the Wardroom people the score. I have to think about that. I hate to think of what Iron Mike would do to me if he found out I told them.”

“What do you think this Quiet Alert means, sir?”

“Oh, hell, Iron Mike is making sure that if the other side decides to strike back we’re in a position to blow them out of the water,” Miller said. “The Quiet Alert went out to all units, Atlantic and Pacific.” He sat back in his chair, his face dark.

“I’ve been thinking about Captain Reinauer,” he said slowly. “The Russian attack subs must carry a crew about the size of ours, a few over a hundred. I’ve never fired a torpedo or a missile at another ship. Neither has Reinauer. I wonder what it feels like to know you’ve killed that many people?”

“Submarine skippers in World War II sank a lot of ships, killed a lot of people,” Carmichael said. “I don’t think they worried about that.”

“That was during a regular war, after Japan had pulled the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and killed about two thousand of our people,” Miller answered. “We’re not at war. There’s something damned funny going on, John. I wish I knew what it was.”

Aboard the U.S.S. Orca Captain Reinauer read the message he had run through the decoding machine and looked at his Executive Officer.

“Get all the officers into the Wardroom. Tell the OOD to turn the watch over to the Chief of the Boat.”

Eckert looked at him. “You going to tell the Wardroom what the score is?”

“I think I have to,” Reinauer said. “ComSubLant has ordered all attack and missile submarines on a Quiet Alert. ComSubPac has done the same thing. Admiral Brannon or someone else must think the Russians might retaliate to what we did. If we’re about to go to war I’m not going to keep up the pretense that we fired at a dummy target.”

Captain Reinauer sat at the head of the Wardroom table, his face grim. He waited until his officers had seated themselves around the table and the Officer’s Cook had served coffee.

“Leave the coffee pot on the table, Emil,” he ordered. “I want the Wardroom area sealed off. No one is to go through the compartment until I say so. That includes you.”

“Gentlemen,” he said after the Officer’s Cook had departed. “We did not fire those two missiles at a dummy target. Let me give you the background and bear in mind this is highly secret.” He recited the facts succinctly and then watched the faces of his officers, looking for signs of alarm and seeing none.

“All submarine units of the Navy are now put on Quiet Alert,” he said in a low voice. He looked down the table at Lieutenant Bill Reiss.

“Your suspicions about our target were well founded, Bill.”

“We destroyed them,” Reiss said in a low voice. “How many people aboard, a hundred or so?”

“About that, I’d think,” Reinauer said.

“What happens now?” Reiss asked.

“I don’t know,” Reinauer answered. “All I know is that we have been assigned a patrol area off the western edge of the SOSUS network off Gibraltar. Devilfish will be patrolling with us. We’re senior so the XO will work out the patrol area positions and co-ordinate with Devilfish.” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“My direct orders from ComSubLant were to keep this information between the XO and myself. I have disobeyed those orders because I can’t go into what might be a nuclear war with you people in ignorance. All I ask is that you give me your word that you won’t blow the whistle on me when we get back to port.”

Lieutenant Reiss looked at the officers around the table. “Captain,” he said slowly, “I think I can speak for the rest of us and say that none of us will ever say a word about what you’ve just told us.

“The point is, sir, we knew. All of us here knew that wasn’t any dummy target out there. None of us ever saw anything maneuver like that target did. Only another submarine could go through those maneuvers. That’s all we’ve been talking about since we secured from General Quarters.

“I might add that the crew knows this, too, or at least they suspect it pretty strongly. Our sonar people are awfully sharp, you know. They’ve had too much experience with all sorts of electronic targets and with other attack submarines in drills. They know damned well that we fired at another submarine and that we hit it and they have to know that the other submarine was a Russian.

“The Chief of the Sonar Gang told me that the target was so sophisticated that its sonar operator hit his transmitting key after the missiles impacted on the surface to try and throw off the missile electronics. That’s exactly what the Chief would have done if he heard missiles hitting near us, he would have keyed his transmitters at full decibel rating.”

Captain Reinauer nodded his head. “I know,” he said. “But I’ve disobeyed a direct order from ComSubLant in telling you what we, the XO and myself, knew before we arrived on station. All I’m asking you is to keep it to yourselves. As far as the crew is concerned, keep up the pretense that it was a very sophisticated target that we fired at.”

Lieutenant Reiss looked steadily at Reinauer. “Are we at war, sir?”

“Not that I know of,” Captain Reinauer said. “I think that if we were at war all ships on station and in port would have been notified. There would have been messages for the ballistic missile submarine to unlock their missile safeguards. There have been no such transmissions. I don’t know what this is all about, I don’t know why the Russians sank the Sharkfin but I do know that we have avenged Sharkfin.”

Down in the Orca’s torpedo room Turk Raynor had supervised the loading of two SUBROC missiles into the torpedo tubes. He turned to one of his torpedomen.

“Old Man and the officers ain’t sayin’ nothin’ but I’ll bet a payday that we didn’t fire at no damned electronic target. Did you hear the Sonar people talking over the phone circuit? Damned target was maneuvering at forty-five, fifty knots, jinking all over the fucking ocean.” He turned as Lieutenant Reiss came into the torpedo room.

“Tubes are reloaded, sir,” Raynor growled. “Burn separation time is set at max on the missiles.”

“Very well,” Reiss said. “The Skipper is pleased that the missiles worked perfectly.”

“What the hell does he expect, sir? We know our jobs.”

“Did you see the Captain about your transfer?” Reiss asked. Raynor nodded. “I followed the book, sir. I talked to you first and then to the Exec and then to the Captain.”

“What did the Captain say?” Reiss asked.

“He told me to think about it. I already thought about it. I want off, sir. As soon as we get back into port. Whenever that will be.”

“Might be some time,” Reiss said.

“We gonna go after another Russian submarine and sink it, sir?” Raynor’s heavy face was grim. The people in the torpedo room tensed.

“I didn’t know we had sunk a Russian submarine,” Reiss said.

“Look, Mr. Reiss, you’re an okay officer. You know your job and you know our jobs and you don’t bullshit anyone, you shoot square. Everyone on this ship knows we fired those missiles at a submarine. We got a guy on the battle phones in every compartment, you know that. We all heard the reports from Sonar. That wasn’t any electronic target we shot at.”

“Are you asking me to say that we shot at a Soviet submarine when we are not at war?” Reiss’s voice had suddenly become crisp, official.

“No, sir,” Raynor answered. “I figure you can’t do that. I’m just telling you so you can tell the Old Man that all hands knows what went on. This is a pretty damned good crew, Mr. Reiss, except for those fucking nuke people, and the crew’s worried. If there’s gonna be a war we’d like to know it. We figure we’re entitled to know that. And if there isn’t any war why in the fuck did we shoot two at another submarine? Longer he doesn’t tell us the more the stories will grow. You know sailors, sir, they talk to each other, they try to figure out what you people in the Wardroom are doing.”

“The only thing I can tell you is that we fired at a dummy target, Turk. That’s it. That’s final. You can pass that word along.” He turned and left the torpedo room and Raynor looked at his torpedo gang.

“You heard the man,” he said in his rumbling voice. “For the first time since he came aboard the son of a bitch is bullshitting the troops.”

There were meetings held on every nuclear ballistic missile submarine at sea on patrol. The Commanding Officers informed their Wardrooms that all ballistic missile and attack submarines had been ordered to go on Quiet Alert. The fail-safe procedures to insure that no Commanding Officer could fire a ballistic missile without full knowledge and acquiescence of his Executive Officer and Weapons Officer were reviewed. The three officers who were issued the special keys to unlock the firing consoles made sure that their keys were hung on thongs around their necks. The precise language of the order to fire the missiles that would come from the President of the United States, or the Emergency Command Center in case the President were killed in a nuclear attack or unable to issue orders for any other reason, was gone over in detail.

The nuclear attack submarines in ports in Scotland, Japan, Guam and the United States put to sea and headed for predetermined positions to intercept any Soviet missile submarines that managed to escape the passive mine fields that were positioned to destroy enemy submarines en route to the United States.

In the Black Room of Operations Commander Fencer kept track of every Soviet submarine that had earlier gone into the Atlantic or the Pacific on patrol. The watches in the Black Room were doubled and a cot was brought in for Commander Fencer, who took up residence in the Black Room. The official word was put out that ComSubLant was conducting an all-out readiness drill for all submarine missile and attack units.

In his office Vice Admiral Brannon checked the reports that were flowing across his desk in a steady stream. He looked up at Admiral John Olsen.

“Not bad, John. We’ve got fairly good coverage already and in another ten hours we’ll have saturation coverage with attack submarines on the Soviet routes to the Atlantic and Pacific.”

“How about the Russian missile subs that were already on patrol?” Olsen asked.

“The best we can do there,” Brannon said slowly, “is to assign two attack submarines to cover each one of them. That’s been done. Fencer’s got every one of them pinpointed. Radar units on both coasts are alerted. If they pick up any incoming missiles the bastard who fired the missiles won’t last ninety seconds after he fires his last missile. We’ll hit him with retaliatory anti-sub nuclear missiles from the shore.”

“Same thing goes for our ballistic missile submarines,” Olsen said dryly. “The Soviets can pinpoint the source of their missiles and destroy them.” He got to his feet. “Submarine war isn’t like it used to be when you and I fought in World War II, Mike. Now if you fire sixteen ballistic missiles at an enemy you got to know that you’re dead right after your last missile is airborne. Isn’t a nice thing to think about, you know?”

“I know,” Brannon said. “I guess everyone on missile submarines knows that. Sometimes I wonder how we get men to serve on them, knowing that they won’t live very long if they ever have to fire their missiles.”

“Must be a thing called patriotism,” Olsen said. “Not a popular word, now, what with Vietnam and all that. But I think it’s the only thing that keeps those sailors on submarines.” He looked at Brannon.

“Any word from Admiral Benson?”

“His last call to me said they had solid evidence that the Russians are in a dozen fire fights along the Chinese border. Not little fights, either, pretty good scrambles. Soviet planes are overflying Chinese territory and there’s been some bombing raids on Russian posts by Chinese aircraft. Benson says it’s a damned serious situation.”

“The Chinese must know something,” Olsen said. “Let’s hope they keep nipping at the Russian heels. Might convince whoever ordered the Sharkfin to be sunk that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.” He stopped as the phone rang. Brannon picked it up and listened and grunted a “thank you” and put it down.

“Bob Wilson has told Admiral Benson that the Israeli intelligence has picked up information that the Soviet Union is going to a full submarine war alert.”