“I remember those reports,” said Buck. “I think I read every one. The Amberjack was one of our first guppies, and they claimed that with all the new speed and maneuverability the way to change depth in either direction was to use angles and get moving, the same way aircraft do. It’s old hat, now. Did you hear they once put forty-two degrees on the Triton? It was last year. Some kind of a test Brighting wanted.”
“I heard about it in the Pentagon. Some of us thought it was a bit much, especially with a ship that big, but it was a one-time thing, done very carefully. One thing it showed, though. If that monster can go to an angle that big, even for a special occasion, all the smaller boats should be able to. It’s just a matter of training, and being accustomed to handling your boat that way.”
“Ship, boss. We’re trying to inflate our importance a trifle.”
“Ship. Right. It’s about time, especially for the nukes. I was just thinking about what we might be running into, and it struck me we ought to have steep angles in our bag of tricks,” Richardson said. There was seriousness in his words, and again Williams felt himself somehow on the defensive.
“Well, we’ve done a lot of it,” Williams said. “We’re rigged for angles this very minute. It’s part of our rig for sea. It’s not something anyone makes special reports about anymore. But we sure haven’t practiced breaking through any ten feet of ice cover with any seventy-two-degree angles, if that’s what you’re thinking of!”
Richardson was instantly contrite. “I didn’t mean to sound critical, old man. I’m sorry. I was just being curious.” He waved his hand across his face in a gesture of friendly understanding. “Submarining has gone so far these days it’s like a whole new science, with all new boats and equipment.”
“Ships. But I’ll bet it didn’t seem so on the new Trigger when she made that famous — or maybe I should say infamous — shakedown trip to Rio,” chuckled Buck, trying in his turn to ease the moment. “She was the first of the postwar boats to be completed, and her diesels were a fiasco. That wasn’t all, either. Her evaporators were no good, and neither were her periscopes. Her skipper caught hell for saying so, too.”
“Later on, a couple of that class had to be towed back to port, one all the way from England, so he was sure right,” said Richardson. “The Navy made it up to him with the Triton.” He was gladly following Buck’s lead, glad of a safe refuge — relaxed professional conversation — from the danger he had nearly fallen into. “You know,” he went on, “giving him the Triton was completely old Brighting’s doing. Sometimes some of us have wondered if he wanted to prove a point and figured this might be a good way to do it. When the Triton’s shakedown cruise took her completely around the world, submerged and nonstop, without any serious mechanical trouble whatsoever, you had to admit he certainly did prove something. As far as I’m concerned, he proved that his ships were the best there could be, anywhere. You’ve got to say there could not possibly be a more demanding test of a brand-new ship!”
“Admiral Brighting sure is a strange one, boss. Do you remember that time in his quonset out in Idaho?”
“I was just thinking about it,” confessed Rich. “He may be a tyrant, but he certainly gets results. The tests and training he puts his people to, and the government contractors he deals with also, are so far beyond what everyone’s been used to that they’re like a new technology. The Trigger’s shakedown compared with Triton’s makes a good illustration. The Triton could have gone on another round-the-world cruise the next day, while they doggone near had to tow the Trigger back from Rio. It was a perfect example of the difference between lousy engineering by committee and the kind of good engineering Brighting does by himself.”
“He didn’t add much to the conference in the Proteus the night before we got underway.”
“He couldn’t. As he said, he’s an engineer, not an operations type. But he did come up with the salient point about the Russian press release. They’ve lost an aircraft in the Arctic under strange circumstances. Strange enough for them to blame it on Keith. And Keith’s second message said there were military aircraft searching in his vicinity. They must have been up there before he arrived. It all hangs together. Something big’s going on.” Richardson’s forehead had been creased in thought often since their departure, Buck had noticed. It was wrinkled now.
“There was one other thing Brighting did,” Buck said. “You know that piece of paper he handed me at the airport just before they took off? All covered with pencil notes and figures?” Williams was looking at Richardson in an odd way.
“Yes. Some new settings for your power plant, he said.”
“Yes. The reactor control officer’s been going over them, and tonight he said he’s ready to put them in. Know what they do?”
“No,” said Rich, his keen interest evident in the narrowed gaze he leveled on Buck. “But I was a bit curious when I heard Harry Langforth report to you.”
“Brighting’s authorized a reduction in our thermal margin and increased the allowed temperature difference between the hot and cold legs of the primary loop. The rest of the figures are the new alarm points for the instrumentation.”
“He handed all this to you on a piece of paper?”
“In pencil. Right off the top of his head. He must carry all those numbers in his mind. I rode to the airport in the same car with him, and he was writing in the back seat. So some of the figures are a little hard to read. He said to check them out and then put them in effect.”
“Has Harry Langforth given you an estimate of what the change does?” asked Richardson.
“It adds twenty percent to our reactor output. Harry figures we’ll make about three more knots at full power. Brighting said the new settings might be useful.” The odd look was still on Buck Williams’ face.
“Three more knots! That’ll give us nearly twenty-three at flank speed!” The furrow was still on Richardson’s brow, now more accentuated. “You say he told you the increased speed might be useful?”
“He didn’t say anything about speed.”
“But that’s what he was talking about, all the same! What a foxy old devil he is! I take back what I just said about him.”
“What’s that?”
“That he’s only an engineer, not an operations type. He’s handed us something that might make all the difference in this caper of ours. Who says he’s not operations oriented!” The frown cleared, was replaced by a grim smile. “We were talking about Triton’s shakedown cruise. This one we’re on is a lot more than any shakedown. It’s going to be the toughest test the old Manta’s ever had, and Brighting thinks there may be more to it even than anyone is anticipating. He’s famous for looking at the possible dark side ahead, you know.”
Buck tipped his chair upright, pushed the coffee cups aside, cleared a space on the writing surface of his desk and pulled a pad of lined paper toward him. “You’re another, Rich! I’ve seen you from way back, and I’ve got a feeling you’re thinking we may have some need for all that new horsepower. We’ll have the new settings in place by tomorrow morning. What sort of ship and fire control drills would you like to start with?”