“Did Smithy run a diagnostic?”
“No. I don’t think so. Chief. He just pointed it out and said it was probably in the system.”
“Then Petty Officer Smith didn’t do his job. You did,” the chief declared. Tomorrow he’d have a talk with Petty Officer John Smith about proper procedures in the ASW module. If they ran more ASW drills, he wouldn’t have this problem of explaining what his sailors should know intuitively.
The captain walked through the hatch. Behind him stood Lieutenant Frank.
“What you got. Chief?”
Boyce jumped. “Captain,” he replied hoarsely. “Calhoun has a sound anomaly that we are unable to equate to a systems glitch.”
“Is it a possible sub?”
“I’m not sure. Skipper. What we would like to do, with your permission, sir, is change the ship’s course about ten degrees to see if the blip follows us. If it does …”
“I know. Chief. [used to be the ASW officer on my first ship, USS Caron. Show me the blip.” The captain moved to the SQR and stared intently at the waterfall.
“I don’t see anything,” the captain said.
“Right here, sir.” Calhoun reached up with his pencil and pointed to the slight hiccup running down the waterfall.
“You sure that’s a sound event and not just wishful thinking on a boring watch?” the captain asked, eyeing the young second class searchingly.
Sweat broke out on Calhoun’s forehead. Oka\, Chief, you answer the Old Man, Calhoun said to himself, but he knew Boyce well enough to know he wasn’t going to answer. Damn. Oh, well, he only had six months to go.
Calhoun took a deep breath. “I don’t think so, Captain,” he said as confidently as possible. “I think something’s out there.” He crossed his fingers and hoped the Old Man agreed.
“Okay, let’s find out. Let’s see the history of the noise.”
Calhoun reached up and twisted the knobs. Where before, the waterfall pattern was a series of slightly separated lines, it now displayed tightly packed lines running down the screen, covering a much longer time period. The periodic clicks now clearly showed a pattern.
“Okay, I see what you’re talking about, Calhoun,” said the captain as he reached up and touched the hiccup on the screen. He turned to Boyce. “Good work. Chief.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Boyce replied. “We thought you needed to know about this. Though, sir. it could be a system anomaly, but we’ve run diagnostics twice and they indicate a clear system.” Stay astride of that fence, he thought.
“Okay, let’s find out what we’ve got.”
The captain reached over to the intercom box and pressed the button for the bridge. “Office of the deck, this is the captain. Come right ten degrees for ten minutes. Combat, notify the OTC that we are changing course to open up our baffle.”
“Aye. aye. Captain.”
The captain turned to the three men. “Don’t want to alarm the battle group yet, do we?” The captain’s face melted into a smile.
“Lieutenant Frank, go ahead and have Combat set the ASW team in the event we decide to call it a possible submarine.”
“Aye, Captain,” the lieutenant replied, and hurried out to get Combat ready.
That meant resetting the holographic table from surface to undersea.
The holographic plot was a new analytical tool installed last year that allowed the Hayler to fight its battles from a three-dimensional display that showed range, bearing, altitude, and/or depth. Prior to holograph plotting, they depended on operators putting pencil markings on graph paper and connecting lines to show threat position and maneuvering. Most ships still depended on the manual method.
“Captain,” the squawk box blared. “Officer of the deck; the OTC said five minutes, sir, and not to close the Nassau closer than six thousand yards. He said it’s getting dark and he didn’t want to have to start evasive maneuvering at this time of night.”
“Roger, OOD. Go ahead and change course ten degrees to starboard.
Then, I want to wait four minutes and change it back twenty degrees port. We’ll stay there for another four minutes and then return to base course.”
The OOD acknowledged the order and signed off.
“There!” the captain said to Boyce. “That gives you plenty of course changes to determine whether you’re going to grab the brass ring or not.”
Boyce stroked his chin. And he really needed that ring. Promotion to senior chief would be just enough to keep the wife and kids off welfare, if he could keep her off credit cards.
Lieutenant Frank reappeared. “We’re nearly ready, Captain. It’ll take a couple of minutes to reset the holograph plot.”
The captain nodded, his attention riveted on the waterfall.
The USS Hayler heeled to the right as the ship turned to starboard.
“Should have told him to use a five-degree rudder,” the captain shared with those around him. “I think he’s coming about a little too fast.”
The tilt of the ship broke up the waterfall presentation and masked the reading. It would be a few seconds after the ship settled out before a valid reading could be obtained.
The ship came back on a level keel as the OOD brought the rudder amidships. SQR graphics began to etch their way from the top of the screen downward, millimeter by millimeter. The four men watched impatiently as the waterfall reached a quarter-inch thickness. The blip was still there, but on a new bearing of two seven zero.
They looked at the captain.
He nodded and flipped on the intercom. “OOD, this is the captain. I want a slow turn to port of twenty degrees. Minimum rudder. Got that?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the OOD repeated. “Twenty-degree port turn, minimum rudder, minimum roll.”
“You got it, Lieutenant. Execute when ready.”
“Lieutenant Frank, set the Gold TMA team,” the captain ordered. “I want to start a target motion analysis against this anomaly.”
“Do you want to call it poss sub, Captain?” Lieutenant Frank asked.
The captain bit his lower lip. “Not yet, Lieutenant. Not yet. I’m not completely sure it isn’t something else. Let’s do a bit of TMA. A little target motion analysis won’t hurt anyone and it’s good training.
We don’t get enough opportunities to do ASW training as it is.”
“Yes, sir, Captain. Should I tell the OTC what we’re doing?” “No, not yet. I will, if I think we need to,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s ten till now, so use the IMC. I don’t want to use it after taps, if we can avoid it. The crew is tired enough without disturbing what little rest they do manage.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Frank answered. He hurried out the hatch.
The USS Hayler, like other destroyers, had a minimum of two TMA teams of six to eight officers and sailors. The Gold team would begin a long, tedious computation by marking the bearings of the blip against the Hayler’s course changes. As ship’s course changed, bearings to the blip would change and in fifteen to twenty minutes, the number-one TMA team, the Gold team, would have a rough course, speed, and range to the mysterious blip being tracked by ASW — if the target didn’t change its course and speed. Depth would be the question mark.
“Captain, starting our turn to port.” the squawk box announced from the bridge.
The turn was barely felt as the OOD eased the Hayler’s rudder to five degrees port. On the waterfall display the blip began to move slowly against the ship’s direction. When the ship steadied on course three one nine, the sound event beared two eight nine.
“Chief, let’s look at the history log on this blip,” ordered the captain, barely able to keep the excitement out of his voice.
“Yes, sir. Calhoun, run the past three hours on the left screen.”
On a side screen to the waterfall display, a rapid recap of the display for the previous two hours appeared. “Sorry, Chief, I only started recording it after I ran diagnostics. We only have about two hours of data.”