Waring grabbed the microphone from the hand of the operator. ‘Achilles zero-one-one three, this is Amersham. Your message has been received. Please proceed with your destination. Maintain present course — over.’
He closed his eyes in relief; they had managed to repair their radio. ‘Thank Christ we didn’t have to take any action. We could have started a bloody war with the Greeks!’
On board the submarine, Murphy was also relieved. He could now proceed with his plan, and the British task force being oblivious to the real intentions would now allow him to do so. He marched back onto the bridge and ordered the attack scope to be raised. Looking through it, he saw the destroyer that had been hailing them. Then, in the distance, was a much larger ship; the carrier, his potential target. Murphy studied its lines and the array of aerials bristling from the island on the flight deck.
On HMS Amersham, Waring was on the short-wave radio, alerting Northwood of the presence of the Greek visitor, and it had finally identified itself, preventing unfortunate action. The battle stations alert had been stood down. What the captain wasn’t expecting, was the order he had then received from his superiors in north-west London.
He was to contact the submarine again, and ask the captain to take a surface run, while negotiating the ships of the task force. He gave the instruction to the operator. ‘Inform them if they remain submerged, they are not following NATO protocol. This is not an exercise, so there is no need for them to be evasive.’ He nodded to confirm this communication, and looked on as the operator tuned to hail the submarine again.
On board Achilles 0113, Dimitri remained in the radio room, in case another call should come through. The submarine had now been identified as a vessel of the Greek navy, so this pretence had now to be maintained. He had taken the new message from the British destroyer, and ran to tell his captain.
‘Sir, the British are saying that we are not following the NATO protocol by staying beneath the water. They have advised we surface and maintain course to destination.
Murphy sighed. ‘God dammit! Just like the Brits to stick to the rules.’ He turned to Crossman. ‘Will, do we have a choice, now that we have told them who we are?’
Crossman shook his head.
‘I guess we’d better play by the rules, Mike.’
Murphy didn’t want this. On the surface they could be viewed. The British would be checking through their binoculars. If they allowed the submarine to be studied for a longer period, as it cruised amongst the task force, there was bound to be one clever sailor up there, who would smell a rat.
He turned to the Greek-American.
‘Tell them that we will surface.’
As the operator on HMS Amersham acknowledged, he suddenly received another call, but this was not from their recently-identified Greek submarine. The operator listened to the transmission from someone with the call sign of Doris-203, informing them that they were approaching the area and had detected the submarine.
Waring stared in disbelief at his radio operator.
‘Who on Earth is Doris-203, Hanson?’
His answer came when, over the tannoy system, his first officer announced that an RAF mark three Shackleton, had been spotted and was now circling the task force.
Waring stared confusingly at his radio operator.
‘That’s funny, Hanson. I’m sure all the mark three Shackletons were retired from service and replaced with the Nimrod.’
Chapter 31
Swan continued to study the radar screens; the yellow dot that represented the rogue submarine was in the datum area. On the plotting table, he had marked their position with a chinagraph pencil.
Hornsby explained that at this point in a real sortie, they would now be dropping their sonobuoys, but as they had none on board, he had decided the destroyer could use theirs instead. Now that contact had been made with the sub, this action was no longer necessary. The Amersham had informed them of the situation regarding the earlier non-communication.
‘So, it’s a Greek sub after all, and you were right Jack, it did have a problem with its radio.’
Rowse smiled. ‘All’s well that ends well. Any chance we can go back to the island now, John?’
Swan then heard the familiar sound of printing from the teleprinter, as the ALISS equipment began to interact with the passive radar.
‘Hang on, we have something.’
When the print had completed, he ripped off the sheet, and as he read it, his heart skipped several beats. In silence, he quickly retrieved Janet’s telegram.
The name of the submarine on it matched the print-out from the teleprinter.
He turned to the others.
‘We may have a problem. According to ALISS, the submarine we are tracking is called the USS Hatcher. A Tench-class diesel electric boat, commissioned in 1951.’ He then explained to them what he had learned in London from the Turk, Babak, and then handed Hornsby the telegram.
‘So, why did they inform our navy they were Greek?’
Hornsby was confused.
‘And, if she’s armed with these torpedoes, what do you think she is doing here?’ The RAF squadron leader did not need anyone to answer him. ‘My God, whoever they are, they could be going after the bloody carrier,’ he realised.
Swan looked out of the window at the ships down below. In the middle of the frigates and the two destroyers, was the assault carrier. He paused for a few seconds, wondering what he could do to save her from being attacked. Suddenly, he had an idea, and for it to work, he had to make contact with whoever was in command of that submarine.
After asking Hornsby for the radio frequency, he attempted to address the submarine.
‘Calling the USS Hatcher, this is Doris-Two-Zero-Three. I wish to speak to your captain — over.’ Swan hoped the shock tactic of using the sub’s true identity might create a response.
At first there was static, then a voice could be heard through his headphones. A voice that sounded foreign. ‘Doris-two-zero-three, we do not understand your last message. This is zero-one-one-three, Hellenic navy submarine, Achilles. You are mistaken in thinking we are what you have addressed. Please check you have the correct frequency for the vessel you are attempting to communicate with.’
Rowse looked blankly at Swan. ‘He’s bluffing, Alex, surely?’
‘Of course he is, Jack. Stalling for time.’
Swan tried again, relaying the same message, then decided to add something else.
‘On July thirty-first, you put into port in the Azores. There you loaded ex-Israeli Mark 37 torpedoes. It is my belief you intend to use them against one of our ships. If this is your intention, we will have to take action against you. We are tracking you now and ready to release a torpedo. Do you understand, Achilles?’
He turned back to Rowse. ‘Two can play at this bluffing game.’
The same voice came back to him, explaining that if they were to do this, they would technically be declaring war on Greece.
Rowse shook his head. ‘We better be right about this, Alex’.
‘The ALISS system has identified this submarine as theUSS Hatcher. A submarine that left the Azores eleven days ago.’
Swan spoke through the microphone to Hornsby. ‘John, how long do you think it would take a diesel electric submarine to reach here from the Azores?’