Nearly two hours later, Gutierrez grew weary walking his team through its fourth rehearsal, but he ordered them to repeat the procedure again. During the fifth repetition, he received a report telling him that the battery had reached full charge. He ordered the San Juan deep and returned to its transit speed of six knots.
When the fifth rehearsal of the mining procedure ended, he saw the first man of the evening shift arrive in the control room to relieve his counterpart. As the compartment filled with the next watch section, he saw one of his two junior officers walk through the forward door two steps ahead of Fernandez, who was returning from the torpedo room.
“Lieutenant Commander Fernandez,” he said. “Our young lieutenant here can manage the watch team on his own for a few hours. Join me for dinner in the wardroom.”
Seated in the chair where he had received promises weeks ago from President Gomez, he poked his fork into a three bean salad. To his right, his executive officer sipped coffee.
“I will soon command a squadron of submarines,” he said. “There could be as many as six ships. I will need commanding officers I can rely upon.”
Fernandez concealed any emotions the words had stirred.
“It will be a welcome problem to have more submarines than qualified men rather than to have the inverse problem, which we have suffered for decades.”
“If he hadn’t killed himself by his own stupidity, I would have placed Commander Martinez behind a desk until his retirement. So I consider him no loss. But he also got his executive officer killed in the Exocet missile strike, and that was the loss of a capable man.”
“I agree, sir. I didn’t know him well personally, but he always impressed me during our training together.”
“Until I can recruit and train others, this leaves you as my only future potential commanding officer. I ridded myself of your predecessor because he was slow witted, but you have a sharp mind and think with clarity under pressure during our drills.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My concern is your experience in real combat. I commend you for keeping your calm and showing your nerve thus far, and I expect you to continue doing so.”
“Of course, sir. Always.”
“But I will want to see you lead men in combat before I hand you command of a submarine in my squadron.”
“How’s that possible, sir?”
Letting the questing linger, Gutierrez ate another bite of bean salad and washed it down with a sip of coffee.
“Unless it is the aircraft carrier, the third British warship that we attack in the task force will be yours. I will give you temporary authority to launch weapons, and I will watch over you as you lead the attack.”
Fernandez’s face flushed, and the corners of his mouth rose.
“I’m honored, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”
“I know you won’t. I know you’re capable. After all, I selected you to my crew, and I don’t make errors in judgment.”
Four hours later, Gutierrez sat in his foldout chair on the elevated conning platform. The San Juan drifted with its shaft stopped, and a wall clock told him that the sun had set thirty minutes ago.
He risked raising the radio mast, exposing it to radar energy and visual sightings, in order to update his Global Positioning Satellite data. He wanted to verify the San Juan’s location on the inner edge of the navigable channel leading to Port Stanley.
“We’ve got the positioning data, sir,” Fernandez said. “Do you want a radio message download?”
“No. Lower the mast.”
“Radio mast is lowered, sir.”
Gutierrez hurried to a plotting table where sailors stooped over a chart of the channel. As Fernandez cited the satellite-generated coordinates, a sailor slid a transparent straightedge to the chart’s lines of latitude and then drew a hash near his eyeballed estimate of longitude. He then rotated the edge ninety degrees and drew a hash that showed the San Juan inside the channel.
He looked up to Fernandez.
“Open the outer doors to tubes one, two, three, and four. Prepare to lay mines.”
Fernandez orchestrated a dance of humans, sound-powered phones, and operations manuals in an exact replica of the rehearsals. Then he disappeared through the forward door en route to the torpedo room.
The San Juan’s senior enlisted sailor, a stocky man with a large jaw and a ring of gray hair outlining his balding scalp, wiggled the breastplate-balanced speaker of his sound-powered phone to his lips. He then looked to Gutierrez.
“Sir, the executive officer reports from the torpedo room that the outer doors are open to tubes one, two, three, and four. Each mine is set with a twenty-four-hour delay after wakeup. The ship is ready to lay mines.”
“Very well,” Gutierrez said. “Deploy tube one.”
The impulse launch changed the air pressure within the vessel and made Gutierrez’s ears pop.
“The executive officer reports that tube one is deployed.”
“Very well. Drain tube one. Keep it empty.”
Staying patient, he let his ship drift with the current for ten minutes. He considered raising his radio mast again, but he opted to trust his inertial navigation system to calculate his position. As the flowing waters pushed him closer toward the channel’s center, he made eye contact with his senior enlisted man.
“Deploy tube two,” he said.
His ears popped again, and he missed half of the report from a sonar operator.
“Repeat that,” he said.
“Sonar contact bearing zero-five-five. Loud screws and loud flow noise. Probably a merchant freighter.”
“I need a distance estimate.”
“Five miles, sir, but it’s a guess. There’s no bearing rate, since it’s coming right at us.”
“I know it’s coming right at us, you idiot. We’re in the accursed channel. Use the increase in sound strength as it approaches to warn me before it overruns me.”
Ten minutes later, the inertial navigational fix showed the San Juan passing the center of the channel and drifting to its far side.
“Deploy tube three,” he said.
With his third mine laid, Gutierrez studied the chart. A sailor swiveled a straightedge toward the crosshair that marked the San Juan and ran a pencil along it. He then made ticks corresponding to sixteen knots of speed, a conservative estimate of the incoming freighter’s speed.
Two minutes to impact — less if the solution proved a sloppy estimate. Gutierrez looked to his sonar operator for insight.
“It’s getting loud, sir.”
The shallow channel disallowed him diving under the vessel, and a collision could damage his hull or prove fatal as a giveaway of his location to his hunters. He decided that three mines sufficed, and he would save the fourth.
“All ahead two-thirds,” he said. “Secure mining operations.”
He returned to his elevated conning platform and looked to a monochrome monitor. The direction to the merchant’s sounds started to change as it approached, passed behind him, and steamed away in a near miss.
“Slow to all ahead one-third,” he said. “Right full rudder.”
After the turn, the deck steadied, and the San Juan’s bow pointed at Gutierrez’s mines.
“All stop,” he said. “Sonar, line up to activate mines, minimal transmission strength.”
“Lined up, sir.”
“Transmit activation sequence.”
The sailor depressed a button, and Gutierrez heard nothing. But he hoped that the hydrophones on the mines heard the specific command sequence of varied frequency sonar pulses from his ship.