Cold is the Sea (16 page)

But
Proteus
was actively carrying out her primary function, although her propellers hardly ever turned, for there was always at least one and sometimes as many as four submarines alongside. The whaleback hulls, dull black in color, lay very low in the water. Only a tenth of their structure showed above the surface, and were it not for a prominent protuberance amidships vaguely resembling a sail, their presence would be easy to overlook.

Not that the residents of New London and Groton were likely to overlook anything. The easiest way to keep aware of what submarines were alongside the
Proteus
was to look southward over the rail of the high arched bridge across the Thames River as one drove eastward from New London to Groton. To the initiated, the white block numbers painted on the respective sails translated automatically to an intimate communication of the myriad of details beneath.

To be sure, the submarine nearest the bridge obscured the numbers of those between her and the tender. But such details presented little difficulty to residents of the area, who had long since become nearly as adept as any members of the U.S. Navy at checking out the submarines alongside the
Proteus
.

Rich's office, as Commander Submarine Squadron Ten, or ComSubRon Ten, was at the forward end of the topmost “promenade deck” of
Proteus
, with large circular ports opening out upon the forecastle which lay two decks below. There was a watertight door to the side, backed up by a light wooden screen door, giving access to a verandalike extension of the covered
promenade. Aft of his main room Rich had a private bedroom with a standard civilian-type metal bed bolted to the floor, and a private bathroom. The suite had a twin, on the other side of the ship's centerline and easily accessible through a door, assigned to her skipper. Over the years it had become customary for the captain and commodore to mess together in the captain's sitting room, thus leaving the squadron commander's sitting room available for discussions and conferences. It was an arrangement dictated by necessity, for these seemed always to be going on.

There was a desk flush against the slightly curved forward bulkhead of the space, upon which rested a standard dial telephone, supposedly plugged into a special dock connection when the ship moored. It had been so long since
Proteus
had moved from her accustomed berth, however, that, for all Rich knew, the wiring might have been run directly to the nearest telephone pole. Attached to the bulkhead were the standard ship's telephone, a gyrocompass repeater, a voice tube with swing cap leading to the bridge and, prominently centered, a bows-on photograph of
Proteus
with ten tired diesel submarines alongside. The caption read, “Tokyo Bay, 1945.”

Richardson had swiveled around to face Keith Leone, who was slouched in an armchair.

“You must really have pushed your gang on the
Cushing
, Keith. All the tests down at Canaveral were perfect, and you got away three days early. Now what can we do for you up here?”

“The usual, I guess, Commodore. Get us ready for the next drill. My crew is tired, though, and I am too, after the pressure they put us to down there. We'll be glad to turn the ship over to Bud Dulany and the gold crew next week.” In what was an unaccustomed gesture for him, Keith passed his hand wearily across his face.

“After that welcoming committee I saw on the dock yesterday I thought maybe you'd been gone on a regular deployment, instead of only a month.” Richardson grinned.

Keith grinned back. “It was the longest we've been away yet, so I guess the families were pretty glad to see us. How did you get the word to them all that we were coming in early? I don't think there was a single individual on board who didn't have at least someone waiting on the dock for him. Having the gold crew set
up the security watch so we could all get ashore was a great idea, too. Who thought of that?”

“They did, so far as I know,” said Richardson. “Are you on holiday routine today?”

“Yes, we sure are. Till noon, that is. We couldn't pass up a chance like that.”

“Well, I'll not keep you long, Keith. You deserve some time off too. My apologies to Peggy and little Ruthie for asking you to come over this morning at all.”

“What's up?”

“We've got to lay a special mission on you. If you want it, that is.”

“On me? You mean on the
Cushing?”

“Right. Washington has delayed
Cushing
's deployment. They want you to do something else first.”

“But it won't be us, you know. The gold crew takes over Monday. Bud Dulany's the one.” There was disappointment in Leone's voice.

“That's why I had to send for you, old man. The powers-that-be down there must have been impressed with what they were hearing from the missile-testing range. They want you and the blue crew for this one.”

“Gee, that's great, Rich—I mean, Commodore! But won't that mess up all the Polaris scheduling? I mean, I thought that was supposed to be inviolate!” Keith's tiredness seemed to have disappeared. His posture was now animated.

“That's not our worry, Keith.” Richardson felt himself reacting to his friend's enthusiasm. “If the Joint Chiefs tell the Navy, and the Navy tells Special Projects, and Special Projects calls ComSubLant, and his operations officer calls me, we can assume that's already been covered. The big question now is if you can do it.” Richardson rose, swiftly shut the door between his room and the dining area. He started back to his chair, reversed himself, closed the door to his bedroom also. “Keith,” he said, “it's a top-secret mission. There may be danger—in fact, we know there will be. You don't have to take it on. If for any reason you'd rather not, you can say so and that will be the end of it. They'll send another submarine, one that's already got a patrol or two under its belt, as soon as they can fit her with an ice suit. The
reason they picked you first is that you're not yet deployed. Your operational routine will suffer less. The record you turned in at Cape Canaveral with your firing tests and the other readiness inspections is what convinced them. But there'll be no prejudice against you or the
Cushing
if you feel you should decline.”

“We'll not decline anything,” said Keith. “What is it? Is it something only a missile submarine can do? Tell me more.”

“All I personally know is in this folder. It was sent by messenger from Washington a week ago, but I thought I'd hold it until you'd been in overnight. No need to spoil your first night in port.” As he was speaking, Richardson took a large, already opened manila envelope from the top drawer of his desk, held it in his hand. “You'll want to study this privately, in your own stateroom in
Cushing
, Keith. Come back before you talk to anyone about it. You'll have a lot of questions. I've already read it three times. Don't let it out of your possession.”

“What is it?” Keith asked again. He restrained his eagerness to reach for the envelope. Richardson had not yet handed it to him, obviously wanted to say more.

“It's an under-ice mission. Being the newest missile sub,
Cushing
is better off than the others in under-ice capability, and that's another reason Washington picked you. Basically, they want you to make a test deployment in the Arctic Ocean. The mission is to see if it's feasible to fire missiles through the ice. If we can do it, the whole capability of the missile system will be radically improved.” Rich could recognize the look on Keith's face. He had seen that contemplative evaluation many times before.

“I guess we've all done some reading about the Arctic lately,” said Keith. “Probably it is possible in some areas up there at least part of the year, when the ice cover is less.” He spoke slowly, his brow creased in concentration.

Rich said, “You'll see in this set of papers that what we're looking for is a year-round capability. In other words, a certainty. That's another reason for sending you right now. We're about to come out of winter into spring here in Connecticut, but the ice is thicker now in the Arctic Ocean than at any other time of the year.”

“Do they expect us to shoot missiles up anywhere, no matter how thick the ice is? There's no way! They're pretty impressive
coming out of the water, all right, but the launching system has nowhere near enough power to break through heavy ice cover. If there are enough polynyas maybe we can always stay near one. In winter most of those are also pretty heavily iced, though.”

“Well, read the operations proposal. They've thought of that, and they have a couple of things they want you to try.” Richardson thrust the envelope toward Keith.

To reach his ship, Keith had to climb down three decks and walk through
Proteus
' big machine shop to the cargo door in her side, through which a portable walkway, a brow, had been laid over to the
Cushing
. To his surprise, there was another submarine outboard, much smaller, lacking the raised deck over the sixteen missile tubes which were
Cushing
's total reason for existence. She must have come in during the night or early morning. The number on her sail was a familiar one: Buck Williams' boat, the
Manta
. Keith felt warmed by the thought of the proximity of his friend. Before he left for home he must see him. His own gangway watch was saluting, but he was a stranger. One of the gold crew. There was a second brow directly opposite, leading to
Manta
's much narrower deck, and a second gangway watch was visible standing nearby.

Manta
and
Cushing
were totally dissimilar in design, save for the nuclear power plant, and already
Manta
was outmoded by the more powerful whale-bodied
Skipjack
class now coming into service. Buck would probably have the
Manta
for only a couple of years and then, in his own turn, shift over to one of the much faster
Skipjacks
or
Threshers
, or even directly to one of the new ballistic missile ships like the
Cushing
. Keith toyed with the idea of going on over the second brow and surprising Buck down below. No doubt he had long since finished breakfast, but he might catch him drinking a second cup of coffee while going over some of the never ending paperwork.

But that would have to wait. The large, slit-open envelope in his hand—from the feel of it there might be anywhere up to two dozen sheets in it, lying flat, plus some pamphlets—had a magnetism he had felt before. Keith returned the salute of the watch. “Is Captain Dulany aboard?” he asked, to ascertain in advance whether his stateroom was free down below.

“Nosir. There's just us standby gold crew here, sir. Lieutenant Ridgely has the watch. He's down below. I didn't see you
coming, so he don't know you're here, sir.” Good. He would make himself known to Ridgely of the gold crew, then lock himself in his room. By noon the changeover back to the blue crew would be complete and
Cushing
entirely his once more. Bud Dulany, knowing that the presence of another skipper must halt all productive activity on Keith's part, would probably not appear at all.

The ladder leading below was inside a vertical tube, with a watertight hatch at each end. Its inner surface was lined with shiny sheet metal, stainless steel (officially, corrosion-resisting steel, or CRS, in building-yard jargon), and its diameter was such that a person could ascend or descend the ladder with his back sliding against the slick smooth surface, thus with his hands free. Negotiating the twelve-foot distance to the linoleum-covered deck below was second nature. Keith stepped swiftly through the maze of instruments in the control room, allayed Ridgely's embarrassment at not having been topside to greet him, and retreated with a cup of coffee into the sanctuary of his own tiny stateroom. There was an aluminum door as well as the traditional green baize curtain at the entrance. He gently closed the door and locked it from the inside. Each of the thirty heavily typed sheets of bond paper in the manila envelope bore a stamped notation in large red letters:
TOP SECRET. EYES ONLY
. So did the two printed pamphlets.

             
This is not an Operation Order. Conditions are not yet clearly enough defined to permit definitive treatment. An Operation Order for conduct of this mission will be prepared later, after consultation. Whoever undertakes this mission must be prepared to improvise according to conditions and circumstances found. The purpose is to investigate the Arctic Ocean as a potential area for SSBN strategic operations and to determine appropriate tactical and materiel adjustments as may be necessary. Safety of ship and crew is paramount, but certain potential hazards must be recognized from the rigorous environment and from possible interference by unfriendly powers.

             
The most favorable entry for a submarine into the Arctic Ocean basin is via the Greenland or Barents sea. Entry may also be made from Baffin Bay via Barrow Strait, or via Smith
Sound and the Lincoln Sea, but neither of these routes offers assurance it may not be totally choked by layers of rafted ice. Entering through Bering Strait presents even greater difficulty because of the extremely shallow water, lack of deep channels and near certainty of heavy rafted ice.
Nautilus
' first attempt to transit the Arctic Ocean failed through inability to penetrate this barrier. Ice cover is heaviest during early spring, in both extent and thickness, and during this period it must be assumed that entry will only be possible via the Atlantic Ocean (i.e., Greenland or Barents sea). Undetected submerged entry should be possible here at any time of year.