Cold is the Sea (41 page)

“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.