“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.
He stepped quickly across the passageway, looked quietly into Buck’s room. It was empty. So was the wardroom. He started for the control room, had to wait for an instant because the control room messenger was coming through from the opposite side of the bulkhead door.
“Commodore! I was sent to get you, sir! There’s distant pinging, coming closer!” The young sailor’s face was flushed, his eyes showed white completely around the pupils. There were beads of sweat on his cheeks and upper lip. Of course, it had been hot in the control room without the ventilation…
“Thanks, son,” said Richardson, trying to demonstrate a calm he did not feel. He ducked through the watertight door, headed for the sonar room.
Jeff Norton and Buck were already in it, as was the chief sonarman. Tom Clancy, Deedee Brown and the chief of the boat (now called “chief of the ship”), Chief Auxiliaryman Mac McClosky, were standing in the passageway outside the aluminum-framed door. Those in the passageway made way for Richardson, but there was not room to enter the sonar room. He stood in the doorway, craned his neck into the darkened space, listened.
“I heard distant pinging first,” the sonarman at the console said. “So I reported that. Chief Schultz came running in, and then Mr. Norton, but by that time it was already getting louder. He was pinging all around. I think he was searching. Then he started to beam it right at us. I think he got contact right then. That’s about the time you came in, Captain. He’s pinging right on us now, on long-range scale. He’s not searching anymore.”
“That’s right, sir,” said Palmer Schultz, serious-faced. “When I first heard it, the pinging was sort of general, all around his dial. While I was here I heard him bounce a real solid ping right off us, and that was the ball game. He’s got a solid contact now. He’s too far for us to hear any screw noises, but he’s not getting louder quite as fast as he was. So I think he’s slowed down.”