“Normal approach?”
Jabo nodded. “As deliberate as possible. We’ll get a gnat’s ass solution, take time to validate it, and shoot two weapons.”
“We’re ready down here.” He pointed at the tube in front of them. “Tube One is your snapshot tube.” Snapshot was a quick reaction shot, usually a defensive move, the submarine equivalent of shooting from the hip. Tube One was their bullet in the chamber.
“We’re not expecting evasion, obviously. Or counterfire. But good to know.”
“You ever shoot a warshot?” asked V-12, to both of them.
“Never,” said Jabo.
“I did, once,” said Timmons. “At the range.” He patted the side of one of the dark green Mark 48 torpedoes that was still on the rails, patting it like you would a horse in the stable. “But nothing like this. Obviously.”
Jabo had always liked the torpedo room, and torpedomen. They vied with the A-gangers for the title for the most “real” of submariners. In their ongoing rivalry, they often said that “A-gangers pump shit, we do shit.” It was damp down there, in the lowest part of the ship, and loaded to the gills with deadly weaponry. It seemed a vestige of an earlier age, when submarines were the most feared, and hated, weapons in the fleet. When submarines were invented there were old fashioned officers who, in their dress whites and gold braid, thought that submarines were ungentlemanly, attacking their victims from the unseen depths: a dirty business. Danny could see how a visit to the torpedo room might confirm that belief.
“Were you ever on a Trident?” Jabo asked Timmons. “You seem familiar.”
“Yeah, I was.” said Timmons. “I was on the Florida — gold crew.”
“That’s it,” said Jabo. “That’s where I did my observed watch to get my dolphins. Captain Sullivan.”
Timmons laughed. “I actually think I remember that. Did you fire a water slug?”
“That’s one of the things Captain Sullivan made me do. I was lost. Your LPO was whispering in my ear the whole time, telling me exactly what to do.”
“Spence. Yeah, you got lucky there, he took mercy on you.”
“For sure. I stand here before you today only because of the collective mercy of about a hundred petty officers who have kept me off the shoals. What’s Spence doing now?”
“Retired, I heard. Made chief and got out.”
“Good for him,” said Jabo.
“He was famous for an incident on the Baton Rouge. They had a hot run in the north Pacific, had to flood the tube and everything. We still train on it.”
“Well,” said Jabo. “Keep focused this morning. Because you’re about to be a lot more famous than that.”
They reached control at the same time as the captain. He grabbed Danny’s elbow as they were about to step inside.
“You okay with this?” He looked Danny right in the eye.
“Sir?”
“You’re about to sink an American submarine. Filled with the bodies of men like you and me. I want to make sure your head is on straight.”
“We’ve got our orders,” said Danny. “And I’m the man to carry them out.”
“No qualms?”
Danny shook his head, a little mystified. “No sir. I’m sure this has been looked over by every admiral in the navy. And that’s good enough for me. Isn’t it for you?”
The captain looked him over for a long second. “I guess I’ve just known more admirals than you have.”
Everyone took their positions in control in an exact repeat of the day before. The only difference was that everyone, from the captain down to the newest cook in the crew’s mess, knew what they were about to do. But if anyone was gripped by doubt, they would have the benefit of that inertia, the reassurance of repetition. It was something they knew well on Tridents, Danny recalled, where every man knew at an abstract level that someday he might be called on to launch the nuclear missiles that could end the world. To defeat the normal human trepidation about that, they drilled constantly on the launch sequence, both to become proficient, and to make it seem routine.
“Are we ready?” asked the captain, already on the conn.
“Ready, captain.”
“Torpedoes loaded?”
“Loaded sir. V-12 and I watched them do the last one.”
“Very well,” said the captain. “When the time comes, shoot tubes one and two.”
“Shoot tubes one and two, aye, sir.”
Danny took a look at Van’s paperwork, then went over to focus on the chart.
The bright red line indicating Boise’s track was right in front of them. They were trailing behind her, waiting for their 0600 signal, the pinging that had guided them in. Danny checked his watch: 0530. He also looked at their depth: 280 feet. A more normal depth that would hopefully prevent that would prevent anything like yesterday where the Boise’s sound had drifted away from them, perhaps because of Danny’s brilliant idea to stay deep. Now they just needed to wait for the pinging.
V-12 appeared at his side with an XBT print out. “Completely flat,” he said.
“Good,” said Jabo. “We should be able to hear her.”
“At 0600?” said V-12, checking his watch.
“Let’s hope so,” said Danny. Since his apparent victory yesterday, the whole crew had adopted as gospel that the Boise would helpfully broadcast a loud noise every day starting at 0600. Danny wasn’t so sure. “I’d feel a lot more confident about that if I knew exactly what that sound was.”
“Who cares?” said V-12. “As long as she keeps doing it.”
“Right,” said Danny.
He stepped over to Van on the conn.
“Ready?”
Van exhaled. “I think so…”
“The proper answer to that question is, ‘I’m ready to be relieved.’”
“Oh, shit… sorry Nav…”
“I’m just screwing with you,” said Danny, putting his hand on his elbow. “Relax. But I am here to relieve you. You’ve got about ten minutes to grab something to eat before battle stations if you want.”
“Ok… cool,” he said. “Ship is on course two-seven-zero, 280 feet, and five knots.”
“Very well,” said Danny. “I relieve you.”
“I stand relieved.”
“This is Lieutenant Jabo,” he said. “I have the deck and the conn.”
The control room watchstanders acknowledged in turn. Danny caught the captain’s eye briefly. They nodded at each other.
“You going to call away Battle Stations?” he said.
“I’m going to wait,” said Danny. “Give the off going section ten minutes to eat and use the head.”
“Good thinking,” said the captain.
In truth, Danny remembered how slowly the time had gone the day before, and he didn’t feel like staring at his watch, watching the seconds tick by for a full thirty minutes before anything happened.
At 0550 Danny gave the order. The COW picked up his microphone and announced “Battle Stations!”
There was less running around than normal, fewer heavy footsteps on the deck plates, because everyone was in position already. Within minutes, the COW announced that all stations had reported, and that they were ready. Danny thought that’s how it must be during war. Battle stations wasn’t an event, it was a state of mind, everybody ready to fight all the time.
“Very well,” said Danny. He picked up the 27MC microphone that connected him to sonar and the torpedo room. “Flood tubes one and two.”
The captain looked at his watch as the torpedo room acknowledged the order. “It’s 0600.”
“Aye sir,” said Danny. He was hoping that the pinging would start again immediately.