The Alfa would try to track the Hamilton once she was underwater, taking advantage of the bottleneck we would have to pass through – the North Channel between Antrim and the Mull of Kintyre. It would be a fruitless task. We would shake her and, once we had, the Hamilton could run so quietly that the Soviet sub would never pick us up.
‘Rig the bridge for dive and lay below.’ It was Robinson, the new XO, from the control room.
‘Rig the bridge for dive and lay below, aye,’ I replied. We were answering ahead one-third at a speed of about five knots. I ordered the quartermaster to disconnect the ‘suitcase’, a portable silver case full of communications and navigation equipment used while the submarine was on the surface.
‘Clear the bridge.’ The quartermaster was first down, with the communications suitcase, followed by the lookout and Ensign Marber.
I took one last look at the wet grey world, savouring the cold mixture of air and moisture on my cheek, and dropped down the ladder myself, shutting and dogging the watertight hatch. ‘Last man down. Hatch secured. Bridge is rigged for dive.’
‘Submerge the ship,’ the XO ordered. ‘Make your depth sixty feet.’
Immediately the diving klaxon sounded twice, a distinctive ah-oo-gah blare. ‘Dive! Dive!’
The helmsman rang up to two-thirds ahead, and the planesman set the vessel to five-degrees-down bubble. The chief of the watch opened the ballast tank vents.
The nose of the Alexander Hamilton dipped forward, and I could hear the Irish Sea slurping over the deck above.
We were going down, and staying down. For more than two months.
TWENTY
November 1983, Norwegian Sea
‘How about Barbarella?’
Craig glanced at the other officers seated around the wardroom table. We were four weeks into the patrol, coming up to the halfway point, and we were discussing important matters: what movie to watch that evening.
‘We saw Barbarella two weeks ago,’ said Lars.
‘Yeah, but a movie like that you only appreciate properly the second time you see it, you know?’
‘Weps, you’ve got to have seen Barbarella half a dozen times,’ Lars said. On the submarine, Craig, like every weapons officer before him, was always known as ‘Weps’. Craig had a thing for Jane Fonda, and since Maria had walked out on him it was getting out of control. There was even a poster of her on the wall of his rack. ‘What about Blade Runner?’
‘I hate sci-fi.’
‘What do you think Barbarella is? A war movie?’
Commander Driscoll stirred at the head of the table. ‘How about The Magnificent Seven, gentlemen?’
Craig knew when he was defeated. ‘I think The Magnificent Seven is an excellent choice, sir. I’ve always been a great fan of Mr Brynner.’ He managed to inject just the right amount of humour into his obedience.
There were eight of the ship’s fourteen officers present at the table, the rest were on watch or asleep. The wardroom was the most luxurious space on the submarine. It was dominated by a rectangular table with a blue cloth, white china and the ship’s silver. Fake wood lined the bulkhead, upon which was mounted a mishmash of instruments, framed photographs, typed instructions, exhortations such as ‘transients kill’ and ‘think quiet’, and a TV screen with a VHS recorder. Behind the captain was a portrait of Alexander Hamilton himself, General Washington’s chief of staff, one of the Founding Fathers and the first secretary of the Treasury. His pointed nose and long chin had become so familiar to us over the previous year and a half, he felt like one of the crew.
The captain sat at the head of the table, with the XO on his right. A steward served us food that was surprisingly good. It was the same fare as the crew, but the submarine service claimed they provided the best food in the Navy. We had just finished ice cream sundaes, and were waiting for coffee.
There was no alcohol served on the vessel. Which was probably wise when things were getting tense.
And things were getting tense. That was why the captain, who usually let his officers squabble over the choice of movie, had exercised his authority. When things got tough, he liked to watch The Magnificent Seven. He had chosen it after the reactor scram the previous January, and when we had successfully evaded two Soviet attack submarines in the Greenland Sea during our last patrol.
Soon after I had joined the Navy in 1975, the Cold War had begun to thaw amid Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and détente. But, since Ronald Reagan had become president, all that had changed. Now the messages emanating from the White House were all about increasing, not decreasing, nuclear weapons, cruise missiles were being deployed in Europe and there were plans to develop anti-ballistic missile systems in space. And then in September the Russians had shot down the Korean airliner.
The Alexander Hamilton had received two Emergency Action Messages that day. The first, which I had decoded with Lars, was for information only. It announced the start of a major NATO exercise known as Able Archer, which was designed to test the NATO command structure’s response to a conventional attack by the Soviet Union that went nuclear. That in itself wasn’t concerning. We had been briefed at the start of the patrol to expect the exercise.
The second EAM of the day was much more worrying. It had raised the state of nuclear readiness to DEFCON 3, with no explanation. There were five levels of readiness, ranging from DEFCON 5, which applied nearly all the time, down to DEFCON 1 which meant launch of nuclear missiles was imminent.
The technical definition of DEFCON 3 was not particularly alarming: ‘increase in force readiness above that required for normal readiness’. But during the whole Cold War, DEFCON 3 had only been set three times: in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – when it had eventually reached DEFCON 2, during the Yom Kippur war between Israel and the Arabs in 1974, and in 1976 after a flare-up on the Korean peninsula.
So DEFCON 3 was a big deal.
Of course, the crew of the Alexander Hamilton had reacted to the change in status with calm professionalism, and Commander Driscoll had briefed the officers and senior chiefs two hours earlier, as much to steady nerves as anything else. Which was why we were still watching a movie that evening.
In theory, officers were not supposed to ‘talk shop’ in the wardroom. In practice, on the Hamilton it was allowed at the end of the meal.
I had a question.
‘Sir? Do you think the DEFCON 3 status has anything to do with Able Archer?’
Every officer in the room looked at the captain, who took a moment to puff on his cigar. He seemed to come to a decision and turned to his right. ‘XO? Can you tell these gentlemen what you told me earlier?’
Lieutenant Commander Robinson seemed surprised by this request. He raised his eyebrows, but Driscoll nodded, confirming his instruction.
‘Aye, captain.’ He leaned forward and looked at the rest of us around the table. ‘What I am about to say is Classified. Secret. And some of it is speculation.’
‘But it is directly relevant to the situation we find ourselves in,’ said the captain. ‘I think you need to know the answer to your question, Bill.’
‘As most of you know, I was transferred to the Hamilton directly from the Pentagon,’ Robinson began. ‘I worked on planning the Able Archer 83 exercise for six months. We do Able Archer exercises every year, but this year it’s a bit different. This time the scenario is that the Warsaw Pact invades West Germany, reaches the Rhine and SACEUR decides to respond by nuclear signalling.’