The onion display flashed up, the aft bearings turning into a loud sonar blueout, which meant there was so much broadband noise that nothing could be heard through it. For a half second Demeers wondered where Captain Patton was until he realized that for some time he had been standing right behind Demeers’ shoulder, looking at the displays.
Demeers’ voice was unrecognizable and almost inaudible when he tried to speak to the captain. “Trouble at the convoy.” Patton said something Demeers didn’t catch and vanished.
In the control room, Patton rushed up the steps to the elevated periscope stand and grabbed the stainless steel handrail. He took a quick look around. Then orders poured from his mouth to the officer of the deck, Kurt Horburg.
“Offsa’deck, man battle stations. I have the conn. Helm, left one degree rudder, steady course east. Sonar, Captain, coming around to the east. Quartermaster, log that the captain suspects the convoy has come under attack and is returning east to investigate and, if possible, counterattack. OOD, flood tubes one through four and warm up weapons one through four.”
The deck tilted far to the right, then back to the left as the ship went through its flank-run snap roll, reversing course. There was a flurry of acknowledgments, except from sonar. Patton shook his head. Demeers had hurt his ears, and who knew how much that would paralyze them?
“OOD, mark range to the convoy.”
“Captain, leading aircraft carrier generated-solution range is twenty-four nautical miles. Our ETA is thirty-five minutes from now, sir.”
“Sir, passing course one zero zero, ten degrees from ordered course,” the helmsman barked.
“Very well.”
The battle-stations crew flooded into the room’s forward door, taking over from the afternoon watch crew.
Forward, to the left of the entrance door, was the ship-control station, a sort of airplane cockpit arrangement. Two pilot seats flanked a console and a vertical instrument panel was stuffed with computer-driven displays. The panel extended into the overhead and slanted back over the two pilots’ heads to a seat aft of the center console. To the left of the arrangement an L-shaped wraparound panel surrounded a swivel seat. The four men of the ship-control team were the helmsman in the right pilot seat, who held the airplane-style yoke that controlled the rudder and the bow planes. The planes man in the left seat had control of the stern planes and the ship’s angle. The chief of the watch sat at the left L-shaped ballast-control panel, which controlled the ship’s physical trim and dive systems, the tanks and pumps and hydraulics, and the masts of the sail high above them. Finally, the diving officer, behind the two pilot seats, supervised the other three.
Aft of the ship-control station was the rectangular periscope stand, the “conn,” where the captain and officer of the deck stood their watches, although they were free to roam the room. The conn was surrounded by gleaming handrails and was packed with equipment in the overheads — sonar repeater displays, television monitors, microphones on coiled cords for various battle-announcing circuits, several phones, a folding command seat, and two stowed type-21 periscopes mounted side by side on stainless steel poles extending into the overhead.
On the port side of the conn aft of the ballast-control panel was a tightly packed row of navigation consoles, where the satellite receivers and inertial nav equipment were set up. On the starboard side of the room was the attack center, a row of BSY-4 battlecontrol consoles set up to allow tracking of multiple targets. Four officers manned these computer screens. The aft station of the attack center was the weapon-control console, set up to program the torpedoes in the torpedo room one deck below.
Aft of the periscope stand were two navigation-plotting tables, one devoted to the navigation electronic chart, the second to tracking the main enemy contact.
The entire room would easily fit into most family rooms with room to spare. Not one cubic centimeter of volume was unused, every reachable space from the deck to the overhead packed with equipment, panels, consoles, displays, intercoms, phones, cables, valves, piping, alarm boxes, seats, or plotting tables. At battle stations, when twenty men would stand watch in the room, the chief of the watch was required to quadruple the air conditioning to the space, not so much for the people as the electronic equipment.
Lieutenant Horburg was relieved at the conn by the battle-stations OOD, a slightly older lieutenant named Dietz. Pattern’s executive officer arrived as well, his face marked by the lines of his bedspread. Commander Henry Vale was taller than Pattern, with light skin and dark eyes and hair, his body slight, wearing wire-rimmed glasses that gave him an academic’s look.
Patton pulled on his headset. Horburg took his battle station at the second battlecontrol console of the BSY4, position two, the master target-solving station. Four other officers manned positions one, three, and four, the weapons officer taking a station at the aft panel, the weapons console. The navigator manned the aft plot table with a ring of men around him, plotting the manual solution to the master target. Meanwhile the ship-control team was replaced by the battle-stations crew, and several phonetalkers stationed themselves around key watchstanders.
Patton blew into his boom mike, testing it, then called to Vale, who at battle stations would be the fire-control coordinator, in charge of the men finding the solution to the master target.
“Coordinator, Captain, test”
“Cap’n, Coordinator, aye,” Vale replied.
“Sonar, Captain, test.”
“Conn, Sonar, aye,” came the reply. It wasn’t Demeers but his first-class petty officer, O’Connor. Patton raised a finger to Vale, telling him to hold down the fort.
Patton left the room through the forward starboard door leading to sonar.
“How’s the hearing?” Patton asked Demeers, who had been joined by four sonarmen sitting in the consoles.
The senior chief was standing behind them, looking over their shoulders.
Demeers shook his head, pointing at his ears.
“Dammit,” Patton said. “O’Connor, you got the bubble?”
“Yessir,” the sonarman said. “Senior’s backing me up, Cap’n.”
“What’s going on out there?”
“Blueout across the eastern bearings. One loud explosion after another. The convoy is taking hits, sir. And I’m worried.” O’Connor turned to look up at Patton. “I’m not sure we’ll hear the bad guy. Or bad guys. This is damned loud. Captain. It’s deafened the senior chief, and we’re getting up to 140 decibels from out here, peak, from detonations, and we’re over twenty miles away.
God knows how loud it’ll be when we get in close. Plus, I don’t know what I’m looking for. The search plan has us all over the frequency map.”
“What are you saying, O’Connor?” Patton asked harshly.
“I’m saying I’m not sure I can hear an attacking submarine over all this, and even if the sea was quiet, I might not see him first I need to know what I’m up against — diesel boat. Destiny II, Rising Sun, older 688. I can’t search for all of them at once, it would take a week! So if we go in, we go in half deaf.” O’Connor pointed at Demeers.
Patton looked at the senior chief, making his next question loud and lip-readable, “You agree. Senior?”
“Yessir.” Demeers’ voice was still distorted, a deaf man. “We’re putting our head into a lion’s mouth.”
Patton glared at them, feeling bile flood his stomach.
He jammed his hands in his pockets — after all, he hardly needed the crew to think he was frightened, although he certainly was, O’Connor was dead right. Heading into an op area with no confirmed search plan was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.