His first thought had been to hide amongst the noises generated by the aircraft-carrier Illustrious and her frigate escorts, but they were too far ahead, and would already have crossed the SOSUS barrier before Truculent could catch up.
So he’d decided to hug the continental shelf and pray for a merchantman to happen past. Throughout Saturday night they’d lurked, listening, west of the Orkneys. Philip had slept fitfully, leaving orders for the watch to wake him the moment a suitable decoy appeared.
Sunday morning came and went, with Philip finding it increasingly difficult to contain his fear of entrapment. He’d been on the point of making a run for it through the gap; to hell with the risk of being detected. If he was fast enough, he might slip away into the Norwegian Deep before the surface ships and the Nimrods could be marshalled onto his trail.
Then soon after lunch had come the breakthrough he was waiting for. A Russian fish-factory ship was heading back to Murmansk from the Scottish coast, laden with sprats and mackerel. The heavy thump of its diesel engine and the uneven beat of its imperfectly-milled propeller provided the screen of noise he needed.
To compound the deception, Philip ordered the trailing of a noise generator, a slim canister towed astern which transmitted a broad band of underwater noise, to swamp the discrete frequencies from the submarine which could identify it to the SOSUS system as a Trafalgar Class boat.
Philip crossed the control room to the chart table.
‘How’re we doing?’
Nick Cavendish was ready; the captain had asked him the same question every thirty minutes since lunch.
‘’Bout twenty miles northeast of SOSUS. Still at twelve knots, with the Soviet fisherman two miles to starboard.’
‘Where’s the Victor?’
‘Last reported about one hundred miles north, but that was yesterday, sir. We’re short of fresh intelligence.’
‘Okay. Let’s dump the noise generator, and head due north. Get down into the deep water and do some listening.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Stretch our legs a bit. Once you’re sure we’re out of everyone’s way, we’ll stick a mast up and pick up an int. broadcast.’
‘I’d like that, sir.’
Ahead lay the vast, empty waters of the Norwegian Basin, 3600 metres deep in places. Deep down, Truculent’s towed sonar array came into its own. If the Soviet Victor was anywhere within a hundred miles they’d have a good chance of finding her.
Cavendish gave the orders for the new course and depth. He set their speed at fifteen knots, fast enough until he had a better idea what other submarines might be sharing the waters with them.
He stepped into the sound room to look over the shoulders of the sonar ratings as they checked their waterfall displays. In the deep sound channel into which they’d descended they heard no trace of other submarines, just the squeaks and groans of countless krill. The Victor must have moved on.
Back in the control room he decided it was safe to put some distance behind them.
‘Make revolutions for thirty knots!’ he ordered. ‘Maintain depth two-hundred-and-fifty metres.’
Their own sonar would be deaf at that speed, but he’d risk it for half an hour. He clicked the intercom to report the change of speed to the captain.
‘Very good. Carry on,’ Hitchens approved.
Thirty minutes later Cavendish ordered a return to fifteen knots. They were now over forty miles from the SOSUS barrier.
In the sound room the ratings scanned 360 degrees around the boat. Still no trace of man-made noise in the ocean depths.
The time was shortly before 1800 hrs. He’d checked with the wireless room; at 1814 there was a satellite transmission scheduled. Any submarine listening could take in the latest intelligence and news reports in a thirty-second burst of compressed data, together with signals directed at individual boats.
‘Captain, sir! Officer-of-the-Watch,’ Cavendish called into the intercom.
‘Captain!’
‘No contacts in the deep channel, sir. Propose to come up to sixty metres, and clear the surface picture. If nothing’s around, I’d like, with your permission, sir, to return to periscope depth, raise a mast and take in the broadcast scheduled for 1814, sir.’
In the pause that followed, Cavendish imagined Hitchens studying his watch.
‘Sounds good. I’m coming to the control room, but carry on.’
Cavendish swung round to the blue-shirted planesman.
‘Bring her up to sixty metres, Jones.’
The rating pulled back on his control stick, keeping a careful eye on the angle-of-ascent gauge.
They came up fast and levelled out at a depth where they could hear the sounds of surface ships, hidden from them before by the temperature gradients which separate surface sounds from those of the deep.
Somewhere up here was the Illustrious task force, but Cavendish calculated the ships should be well north of Truculent, closer to Iceland, preparing to sweep the seas for submarines ahead of the USS Eisenhower battle group.
‘Control room! Sound Room,’ the loudspeaker crackled by Cavendish’s ear.
‘Go. Control Room.’
‘No contacts on sonar, sir. Surface clear.’
Cavendish smiled with relief. Philip Hitchens joined him at the bandstand, behind the planesman.
‘Did you hear that, sir?’
‘Yes, I did.’
He looked at his watch. 1805.
‘You can proceed to periscope depth. I’m going to the wireless room.’
Hitchens moved awkwardly across the control room, as if conscious the men were watching him. How many of them knew about the controls he’d imposed on the communications procedures?
He’d told sub-lieutenant Smallbone the previous evening that all future communications would be for his eyes only.
The burst transmission of digital data from the satellite would be recorded on magnetic disk, then fed through a processor to be printed out in real time.
‘As soon as you’ve got the stuff printing, I need you out of the room, I’m afraid,’ Philip reminded them briskly.
Smallbone and the operator Bennett nodded at him sullenly.
‘I’m sorry. Not my idea. Orders from CINCFLEET,’ Hitchens lied smoothly. ‘Everything set now?’
‘Sir,’ Smallbone acknowledged.
Hitchens peered at his watch for the third time in a few seconds. He couldn’t conceal his nervousness and spun back into the control room.
Cavendish was raising the forward search periscope.
‘ESM?’ Hitchens snapped.
‘Negative, sir. No contacts.’
The Electronic Support Measures mast was the first to be raised whenever they closed with the surface. Its sensors were designed to detect radar transmissions from ships or aircraft, transmissions that could spot their periscope or radio mast.
Cavendish completed his all-round look.
‘No visual contacts, sir. Sea-state five.’
Hitchens studied his watch again. 1814 precisely.
Philip stomped back to the wireless room. The diskdrive chattered as it filed the data.
‘Transmission complete, sir,’ Smallbone reported.
Philip turned on his heel and called into the control room.
‘Officer of the Watch, down periscope, and take us deep again.’
Hugo Smallbone shuffled awkwardly out of the radio room, and stood outside the door, hands clasped behind his back as if at parade-ground ease.
‘I’ll press the tit for you then, sir?’ Bennett growled.
‘Yes, please.’
The rating did so, then scuttled from the room with exaggerated haste as the printer began to pour forth its data. Philip slipped inside and closed the door.