'Yes, sir. I'll pick up my arctic gear in Tromso.'
'You'll leave a gap, soldier.'
'I'll miss Gloucester, sir.'
He meant what he said. It had been a revelation to serve in a ' latest generation' destroyer. This was one of the most up-to-date ops rooms in the world, totally computerized, data-linked to the rest of the Force by modern inter-command communications. The captain had discarded his headset, because of the silence policy.
The Force was data-linked through its UHF system, so that each ship could follow the battle wherever she was in the Force. The captain and each of the ops room team were provided with boom mikes; a foot-switch cut out the internal circuit and allowed the team to listen with their right ears to the external voice circuits. The left ear absorbed the internal chat; three ears would make things easier. But a strict 'circuit discipline' made sure that things worked. A hardened PWO never raised his voice, but listened for his opportunity to break in.
When Stoddart was officer of the watch, he appreciated the chat line, for he could anticipate what might happen next. When things got hairy and the escorts too close during a submarine hunt, it was the oow's job to override the command's instructions. The OOW was the captain's safety man. When consorts came too close, the Command Display could not react swiftly enough to a neighbouring ship's change of bearing during rapid alterations of course — seconds counted. The officer of the watch's heartfelt cry: ' Bridge Override — I'm not happy, sir. Suggest coming to starboard…' was the nautical ejection seat.
Dick Stoddart felt happier keeping a night rather than a day watch because for him the picture seemed less confusing… How the hell did the PQ convoys cope during their runs to Murmansk during World War II? If STANAVFORLANT ran into a hot war tomorrow, how would he react? Over in seconds, depending upon who fired first — even one bullet through this lot and they could be helpless, if it hit the one vital item of equipment… The SAGA stores system, a comprehensive miracle which was able to find in a few seconds any of its thirty thousand items, was as vital to the ship's efficiency as her weapons. Its compartment ran athwartships from one side of the ship to the other. What would those PQ men think of this?
'Going on watch, soldier?' the captain was asking.
'Last dog, sir.'
'You're going to be late. Keep your eyes skinned. Icarus should be joining us soon on the western flank. It's a rotten, bloody night.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Stoddart slipped out of the snug compartment. Elbowing himself into his anorak, he wrapped Sally's scarf about his neck and clambered up the ladders to the bridge.
At 1714 precisely the communications rating picked up in the darkness a winking light, a yellow smudge flashing its message. Icarus was in station on the screen. Gloucester relayed it by blue lamp to Oileus, invisible to the naked eye for over two hours; and so, back to eyeball methods, the Commodore in Athabaskan finally received the report. STANAVFORLANT was complete. Stoddart sighed with relief: his detachment was here. The day after tomorrow, 29 December, if the weather eased, he and Corporal Burns would be ashore and fixing things up for the detachment's hop north to the base camp. It would be good to be on skis again but not such good news to be shacked up in snow-holes, waiting on the blizzards to blow themselves out….
He crossed to the starboard side of the bridge, waited for the white-out to improve; for the hundredth time he lifted his night binoculars; although the Force was so dispersed, he disliked the feeling that a close consort could suffer a steering failure, make an error in her zigzag. Station-keeping in this weather, with visibility down to half a mile, tended to keep officers of the watch on their toes.
It was lonely here, the helmsman and bo'sun's mate his only company. The one break in the monotony was calling the watch to chipping stations, twice a watch when the Force turned downwind, keeping the seas on the quarter in order to avoid broaching….
He glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time… fifty minutes before the end of his watch… he wanted to get off a letter to Sally before supper. He lowered his binoculars, his arms cramping from his perpetual searching. The two lookouts were on hourly tricks, a discipline brought back from the past by the captain who was a submariner. Wartime experience had taught that an hour's binocular watch was long enough for ratings, two hours for officers, when sighting the enemy first decided the issue. Stoddart's eyes had been acheing for the last hour, but he would take one more goof on this side before returning to the other.
He straddled wide his legs and wedged himself into the corners of the starboard after window: the shock of the ship's pitching had already bruised the socket of his right eye, so he gingerly raised his binoculars to begin another sweep. Starting aft, he slowly cut across the invisible line where the sea was supposed to meet the sky.
It was impossible keeping an efficient visual watch with this bloody pitching. The gale was battering at the bridge windows while sheets of water streamed across the bridge, even when hove-to like this. It was the noise that strained his resilience: the continuous roar from the breaking seas, the howl and shriek of the hurricane-force gusts as they tore through the aerials and radar mounts. After two days of this devil's orchestra, nerves began to fray: would this pounding, this cacophony never cease? He compressed his lips and tried to concentrate — the essence of a good eyeball lookout… crazy to be using binoculars, even.with light intensifiers, when the ship was fitted with millions of pounds worth of radar equipment, navigation aids, IFF, radio communication links, the lot. When his eyes were tired he always suffered hallucinations, imagining things: his vision was becoming jumpy with constantly registering the rollers stampeding towards the diminutive Gloucester. Then, the seas crashing upon her, she shivered, shook herself, began swooping upwards; poised an instant, then plunged again into the gaping valley below… He was reaching Green 130 when the horizon line seemed to take on a strange luminous whiteness. He jammed the eyepieces more firmly into his eyes, stared until they ached. His heart suddenly missed a beat.
A mountain of breaking, lunging seas was foaming in confusion; above it he saw a white plume, a silver scimitar scything into the night sky, its height impossible to guess. Through this veil of drifting spume, the blurred outline of a giant vessel emerged, a gigantic ship careering down a quartering sea.
'Captain on the bridge!' he yelled, keeping his eyes on the apparition.
'Quick, Signalman, call the captain…'
There, at less than a quarter of a mile distant was this gigantic spectre, the pride of the Soviet navy: one of their latest carriers, a Kiev.
'Yes, soldier, where is she?'
The captain grabbed at his binoculars, half-strangling him with the straps. ' Where is she?'
'You're about lined up on her, sir. Look! There? And he watched the darker blur of her starboard quarter disappearing into the night. The captain had picked her up.
'Got her… my God, she's the Kazan. Look at that modified top sail. Sure of it… damn, she's gone.'
He flung the glasses back to Stoddart, grabbed his own, began searching, talking aloud to his officer of the watch. 'Her bow, soldier; did you see her bow?'