ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (54 page)

The war was not one of point scoring for these young
men, they didn’t care who fired the final shot, they just wanted it over with
and their homes and loved ones safe again.

The time of the attack had not been widely announced,
and yet within a very short space of time it had been common knowledge. The
closer the hour drew near, the more palpable the feeling in the air.

The captain had dealt with the pressure in a manner he
had discovered years before, and it had never failed. The monotony of clearing
the administrative back-log, writing annual personnel assessments and a report
on this vessel, which had been launched less than a year before wiped away all
tension, drowning it in the necessity of creative and analytical thought. Did
he think the standard of her construction met Royal Navy requirements?
Absolutely!
He had typed.

So engrossed was the Captain with his department
chiefs reports into the their subordinates abilities and how these could be
improved upon even more, that it took a call from the control room to bring him
back to the here and now.

It was fifteen minutes before the ordered time of
attack when he entered the control room and he noticed straightaway that there
were several off watch personnel present.

“Gent’s.” he said in a low voice.

“This is the control room of one of Her Majesty’s
warships, not the terraces of a football stadium and as we
are
now going to quietly assume action stations you need to be elsewhere, clear?”

He first checked the time, ten minutes to go, and then
the plot, which showed the Chinese boomer still half encircled by themselves
and the three US submarines. His Number One had the watch and all was as it
should be.

“Captain, sir?” he turned in the direction of the
voice, towards the sonar department where one of the operators was sat with a
slight frown.

“Yes, what is it?”

The operator had apparently heard something because he
did not immediately reply, he was still facing his captain but his eyes were
focussed elsewhere. After a moment the blank expression disappeared and the
young man spoke about what had occurred, and why that concerned him.

“Sir, mechanical noises roughly on a bearing of Two
Nine
Nine
.” The captain knew without looking back at
the plot that the USS
Santa Fe
, the designated shooter for the imminent attack lay
in that direction, but the operator was not finished. “They are very faint
but…but a little louder than I would
expec
…….” Some
further faint noise interrupted him momentarily but he had no difficulty in
identifying it.

“Bow doors opening, sir”

There was still six minutes to go, and the captain was
about to query what he had just been told but a look of alarm appeared on the
sonar operator’s face and was then voiced in his report.

“
TorpedoTorpedoTorpedo
….two…three, now four torpedoes in the water
astern of the Santa Fe, captain!”

Another operator spoke up.

“
Santa Fe
launching noisemakers and increasing speed sir………the
boomers heard it, she’s spooling up too, captain!”

Of course she damn well heard it, the captain though
bitterly, they’d have to be under sedation to miss it.

“Captain?” his First Lieutenant had an expression on
his face that clearly read ‘What the
fuck
just happened?’

“It’s the mysteriously absent
Chuntian
,
Number One, she is missing no longer.”

If the captain had to theorise then it would be that
she had been off station on some mission of importance and on her way back she
must have rumbled the NATO vessels, flooded her tubes out of earshot and then
crept back in to make her attack. There was no way that she could know what the
flotilla of western submarines had intended on doing in just a few scant
minutes, but as a spoiling attack the Chinese captain couldn’t have chosen a
better moment even if he’d planned it.

The sonar operators were feeding information to the
control room, tracking the torpedoes and the other vessels, “Captain, the first
two torpedoes are closing rapidly on the
Santa
Fe
and the other two have acquired
the USS
Columbia.
”

“The first weapons have begun rapid pinging and are
accelerating for the
Santa Fe
…two more weapons launched captain, these have just turned
to the north, they’re steering for the
Tucson
sir, they knew where she was too.”

The
Chuntian
had to have made her approach from the northwest, the
captain mused to himself, because she must surely have heard
Hood
from
any other direction.
Columbia
had been between the British and Chinese attack
submarines, masking them from one another.

Tucson
turned away from the approaching weapons and her blade count rose considerably
whilst closer to home the
Santa Fe
released another noisemaker and began a radical turn
to starboard but only one of the Chinese torpedoes went for it. The other
ignored the newly activated counter measure and although it was travelling too
fast to match the US submarines turn it did not matter. The weapons proximity
fuse triggered at twelve feet from the vessels stern casing, plates buckled
inwards and the seams between them parted, flooding the submarines engine
compartment in just seven seconds. Her captain ordered crash surface but before
air could be pumped into the ballast tanks the second weapon having swept
through the bubble cloud and reacquired, struck the base of the sail and
exploded.

Hood
’s
captain looked at the control room clock and noted bitterly that the second
hand was only just sweeping around in its first full circle since his sonar
department had alerted him. Just sixty-one seconds ago the one hundred forty
strong crew of
Santa Fe
had been alive and as blissfully oblivious to their
peril as everyone else on the western vessels. 

The board told him that
Columbia
was between
themselves and the
Chuntian
, so the
Hood
could not fire without the risk of hitting the
American Los Angeles class vessel unless one of two things happened, they
manoeuvred into a position where a shot would not endanger the friendly vessel,
or…

The second option occurred even as the captain was
thinking it.

“Control Room, sonar…explosion on the
Columbia’s
bearing…sound of bulkheads buckling and general breaking up noises.”

The captain felt a void open in the pit of his
stomach. Another vessel and her crew gone, just like that!

“Sonar…what is the
Xia
doing? I want you to keep on her because if you lose
her we are up the proverbial without a paddle, clear?”

“Aye
aye
,
sir!”

“Weapons…do you have a solution on the
Xia
?”

His weapons officer had been working on a firing
solution on the newly arrived PLAN attack submarine and the captain’s question
took him unawares. The captain read that on his face. “As soon as you have a
solution on
Chuntian
launch two Spearfish at five second intervals. That
should keep those Chinese on their toes and buy the
Tucson
a
little breathing space but cut the wires once number two is away.” He
explained.

“Our friends are on their own for the time being but
that boomer cannot be allowed to slip away…we may have a slim advantage in that
neither PLAN vessel is apparently aware we are here, that of course will change
once we launch though.”

“Captain, sonar…aspect change on
Xia, sir?”

The weapons officer got busy and the captain turned
his attention back to the sonar department, looking at his watch as he did so,
barely a minute had passed since the
Chuntian
had appeared so the only surprising thing about the
Xia
’s
reaction was that it hadn’t happened several vital seconds before.

“Go, sonar?”

“
Xia
still increasing turns, now at twelve knots and
rising…vessel coming around to starboard…now heading zero seven
seven
, sir.”

The Chinese ballistic missile submarine was turning
across the
Hood
’s bow, a clear confirmation that the Boomer was
unaware of them but then the hull rang as the
Xia
’s sonar went active,
sending
out several pounding beats of sound to check who
else was in the neighbourhood.

“That’s torn it.” muttered his Number One.

“It helps with our solution though.”

The
Xia
’s helm went back over as soon as she detected the
Hood
. She
came around to a course leading directly away from the Royal Navy submarine.

“Captain, we have solutions on both vessels.”

He nodded, pausing for a moment to question his own
tactics before deciding that they were indeed correct.

“Bring us up to fifteen knots on a heading of zero one
eight, assign one and two to the
Chuntian
, three and four to the
Xia
but do not cut the
wires on three and four, we’ll guide as long as we can, however, reload one and
two with Spearfish straight away.” In the background his orders were repeated
aloud and he stood calmly, allowing the vessel to respond as ordered.

The deck tilted beneath his feet before levelling as
the required heading was achieved.

“Captain, heading is now zero one eight at fifteen
knots.”

“Very good, flood one through four, open outer doors
and shoot.”

As soon as the weapons were away he turned his
attention towards the engagement between the
Chuntian
and the
Tucson
,
the US vessel was defensive and had launched two weapons at the Chinese vessel
whilst running from the torpedoes that were homing on them. The
Tucson
’s
weapons were not under guidance from the weapons
operators,
she had cut the wires and reloaded straight away so the weapons were pinging
and therefore visible to the enemy vessel. It is far easier to avoid a threat
you can see than one you cannot, as the case would have been had operators been
guiding the weapon.

HMS
Hood
would guide her weapons in using the information
available to the Royal Navy weapons operators, and although her captain doubted
they could steer them all the way unseen it was the best he could do for the
American vessel at present.

Ahead of them the
Xia
was still building speed when she released a whole
series of noisemakers, the sound of her screw disappeared as the
Hood
’s sonar’s
were drenched with the counter measures masking sound.

As the information on the boomers movements tailed off
to nothingness the captain moved from the weapons operator’s positions to that
of the sonar department.

“What’s she doing?”

Several minutes had now elapsed since the
Xia
had
launched the first noisemaker and that device had just ceased to produce gas
bubbles, it was now sinking silently toward the distant ocean floor.

“Sorry sir, too much racket.” The operator made some
fine adjustments but then gave a half shake of the head.

“Nothing at all, she’s kept the noisemakers between us
to hide, sir.”

That wasn’t too smart thought the captain, carrying on
in a straight line wasn’t hiding because they knew her heading, unless…

“Come right to One Three Zero…standby countermeasures!”

The weapons officers turned in his seat to pose a
question. “A hard turn might cut the wires captain, shall I do that anyway?”

“No, not at present Gavin, I am actually trying to
prevent that from becoming necessary.”

His weapons officer did not understand, but then a
sonar operator enlightened everyone except the captain who had already guessed
correctly.

“
TorpedoTorpedoTorpedo
…high speed screws bearing zero one two. Two torpedoes
just emerging from the bubble cloud!”

“Launch counter measures…bring us up to two hundred
feet but keep this heading.” The captain looked over at his weapons officer who
was wondering just how his captain had known the Chinese had launched weapons
directly back the way they had come.