“Thanks for coming in, XO. I guess you might as well be the first to know about this contact.”
Makin couldn’t make out Steve Thompson’s face in the dim blue light and he was sorry the sonar officer couldn’t see his. “Oh.” It wasn’t the response he’d planned, but he hadn’t expected that approach from Steve either. This wasn’t the normal method for prosecuting a contact. The OOD had located him in the ship’s office and said that Lieutenant Thompson in sonar had something on tape for him as soon as he had the time. “Where’s the captain?”
“Haven’t bothered him yet, sir,” Thompson responded. “Too indistinct. It’s really not worth his time yet.”
“What do you have on tape, Steve?”
“Nothing special … the contact, or actually just a sound we picked up.…” He was uneasy.
“Well, is it a contact or not?” The executive officer was as tired as any other man on Pasadena. A man could get along without sleep for longer than he would have imagined, but his temperament quickly became a major part of the sacrifice, even more so in a submarine at war. It was impossible when you had a sonar officer who had suddenly become incapable of expressing himself.
“I guess it’s a contact….”
“Shit, Steve, no one in New London ever taught you to guess. Do you think you’re pregnant, too?”
“Sorry, XO,” Thompson snapped back. “I meant it was intermittent, nothing positive yet, no reason to get our asses in an uproar.”
Makin folded his arms across his chest. Even in the semidarkness there was no mistaking the way his jaw jutted. “Talk to me, Steve. Tell me when a contact is not a contact. I seem to need a briefing on new ASW procedure. Or maybe I just need to have you tell me why you haven’t called the captain yet. We both know his orders,”
“The sound is weak enough so that it must be a good distance from us. No way to track it yet that I know of. I couldn’t see the sense in disturbing him when I had nothing specific.”
“That’s never bothered you before. You just about dragged him out of his bunk by yourself and carried him in here when you picked up a trace of that initial target. You getting jaded in your old age?” Then, his anger close to the surface, he added slowly, “Did you also forget the captain’s standing orders?”
Steve Thompson was taller than the executive officer by half a foot. The difference in their heights usually was less noticeable since they remained at a reasonable distance when they talked. But Makin was as close as he could stand now, both because of his anger and a desire to keep as much of the conversation as possible just between the two of them. Even in the dim light the younger man could see the creases around the XO’s eyes and the tautness of his lips. This was an entirely different man than he’d anticipated. “I really wasn’t trying to contradict anything, XO. It’s just that a lot of us are as exhausted as you and the captain, and we don’t want to make any mistakes or bother you before you need to be bothered. I wanted to be sure what we had before I put the captain to any trouble.”
“Okay, Steve.” Makin took one step back. “What do you think you have out there? Do you want me to listen to it?”
“There’s really nothing out there you could call solid, sir. I don’t think we have anything right now.” He tapped one of the sonarmen on the shoulder. “Do you have anything on that new contact now?”
The man shook his head.
“You can listen to the tape if you want, sir. I doubt it’ll tell you anything I haven’t already said.”
“Computer come up with anything?”
“Not really. It’s not biological,”
“How about one of their boomers?”
“Well, I don’t know.…”
“Steve, what you don’t know is one hell of a lot, like how far away that contact might be. It could be something completely different from what we’re looking for and a hundred miles away. Or you could have one of their boomers moving along at maneuvering speed, hardly making a sound and only five miles away. Perhaps they could be lining us up for a shot right now. Or, God forbid, we’re about to hear their missile doors open for a full-scale launch.” He covered the single step, which once again brought them almost together, and looked up into a young face that was now deeply lined by lack of sleep. “I’m going to find out from the OOD where the captain is right now, and then I’m going to have him man battle stations until you have a better idea of what’s out there. For all you know, it could be sitting close by with its muzzle doors open, waiting for us to drop our drawers. As soon as I know exactly what our situation is, I may have time to sit down and have a serious talk with you.” He took a couple of steps backward. “I sincerely hope we’re both alive to have that talk.”
Makin stepped out into the control room. “Where is the captain right now?” he asked the OOD.
“Torpedo room, sir.” The OOD grasped the support bar above his head with both hands. He appeared to be swinging from it as he leaned slightly forward to peer at the XO. A broad smile seemed to punctuate the dark circles under his eyes. “Probably recounting the number of Mark 48s we have left,” he said with a mix of humor and sarcasm.
“Save it,” Makin snapped. “I’m on my way to the torpedo room. When we get back here I expect you to have the battle stations party ready to function.” He halted as he was about to step into the forward passageway and looked back over his shoulder. “You should be ready for a snapshot any time. That funny little noise no one seems to be too upset about could be completing an attack solution right now. Or you just might have to evade without firing. That means a wall of noisemakers.”
“Yes, XO.” A concerned expression quickly erased the smile on the OOD’s face.
Dick Makin had little time to consider the varying attitudes he’d encountered the past few hours as he trotted down the ladders to the torpedo room two decks below. Each of the crewmen who’d talked with him during that time was superb. He’d written or reviewed the officers’ fitness reports and the enlisted evaluations. Together, he and Wayne Newell had managed to transfer any individual they doubted. Pasadena’s crew was as close to 4.0 as any he’d encountered. They had been trained ashore and at sea until they acted as one, and that had been evident in the sinking of those two enemy boomers. The preparation and attacks had been perfect.
Yet a couple of these supposedly superior men had already broken, or appeared close to it, even after their captain had explained in detail the sinister masking device employed by the Soviets. If Captain Newell had not been warned about this new device before their departure, perhaps there might have been room for doubt. But it had been explained in black and white. Makin had read it himself — a hideously ingenious device could be employed in a head-to-head confrontation to deceive sonar teams on American submarines. And Pasadena had luckily been ready for it. Intelligence had been on top of the Russians once again!
Then … then what motivated these superb men to question their leaders? As fearsome as it was to destroy another submarine, especially one that sounded like one of your own, the only alternative was your own death. And in your fast moments you would have prior knowledge that your enemy now had free reign to saturate the United States with nuclear warheads. Each individual in the submarine force knew that in the event of an actual war certain of them would be chosen as a first line of defense. It was the roll of the dice. But it hadn’t sunk in completely until it became a reality.
Why, then … why were these men questioning authority at this stage? Was it a form of mass hysteria?
He found Wayne Newell perched slightly back on the warhead of a Mark 48 torpedo, joking pleasantly with the first class torpedoman and the new chief of the boat, Tim Sanford. As chief of the boat, Sanford was technically no longer a torpedoman; his appointment had given him a new trade. But at a time like this, Newell still wanted him close to the torpedomen, close enough to keep the weapons functioning as perfectly as they had when they were managed by Sanford. Newell knew he’d have to stay close to Chief Sanford after placing the chief’s best friend under arrest. Everything in this space was orderly. The balance of the torpedoes had been repositioned to racks that would facilitate reloading. A combination of polished and painted metal heightened the special smell that Makin associated with the torpedo room.