“Aye, sir,” replied Brent.
Captain Bostwick arrived and demanded, “Report the situation.”
Brent’s gut flipped over. “Everything inside the hull is normal, sir. I think we hit a mine. A small one. Maybe an MZ-26. They’re ship laid with a case depth near thirty-four meters, just about where we are. Likely activated by our electric field.”
He did not want Bostwick to read this as a smart-ass I told you so but feared it came across that way. The current that created this field was by design. Hull mounted sacrificial zincs disintegrate to insure good electrical connectivity between them and the propeller they protect.
Brent had urged the captain to install a shaft grounding wire, a copper braid that rode over the top of the shaft just forward of the seal to prevent the electric field. He reckoned protecting Denver took precedence over the propeller shaft. In the same conversation, Brent also suggested eliminating the weekly steam generator blow-downs as a noise reduction measure. Bostwick rejected both recommendations.
Continuing, Brent said, “They’re only one point three kilograms of explosive, Captain, but enough to puncture the outer hull and make us noisy.”
Bostwick demanded, “Sonar contacts?”
“None, sir.”
“Why did you order us to go active? Do you want to alert the whole damn Red Navy?”
“No sir. But if someone’s in the area, they heard the explosion and know we’re here. Active doesn’t show ’em anything they don’t already know. If we find somebody, it gives us a leg up. We got a bearing and a range while he only has a bearing.”
The captain snapped back, “Stuff the goddamn tactics bullshit, Brent. I have the Conn. All ahead full, right full rudder, steady course east. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
The helmsman replied, “Ahead full, right full, steady east, aye, Captain.”
Brent advised, “Sir, I recommend increasing depth ahead of the cavitation curve.”
Bostwick snarled, “Damn it Brent, I have the Conn,” then followed the recommendation with an order to the proper depth and rate of descent.
Denver picked up speed and a loud howl grew from the region of the ship’s starboard side. By then, Jack Olsen had reached the Attack Center.
Brent looked first at Jack through a pleading expression then said in the calmest voice he could muster, “Captain, we’ve got to slow down. If this mine field’s patrolled, we’re playing right into their hands.”
The captain glared at Brent with a look of fury beyond rationality. The howl became deafening as Denver approached full speed.
Moments passed. Finally, the captain ordered, “Ahead one third. Mr. Olsen, you have the Conn. Mr. Maddock, report to my stateroom immediately.”
Half a minute later, the showdown began. The captain took his place behind a small table but did not invite Brent to sit.
Agitated, Bostwick opened with, “Mr. Maddock, I’ve put up with all the bullshit I’m going to take from you. Do you understand?”
“No, sir, I don’t understand. I’m not fighting you, sir, I’m—”
“You’ve been second-guessing me in front of the crew with your goddamn cutesy tactics show. You bitch at me for wanting to run back where we know it’s safe because you think it’ll make too much noise. Yet, you want to bang away with active sonar. Now what the hell?”
“I needed a quick look, Captain. Something might have been lying in wait and close aboard. A few pings would have spotted him. Now noise from the damaged hull sends a beacon to anyone who wants to take us. The enemy will know we’re running east at full speed when they hear the noise. That knowledge gives him tremendous tactical advantage.”
“Enemy, you say. What enemy? No one’s out there or he’d have gotten us on the way in.”
“Our tactics, sir. Not much chance he could find us before we found him. Your own plan of using the fisherman to screen us likely prevented our being detected.”
“Like I said, Maddock, I’m tired of your half-assed theories. There’s nothing where we came from except that damn fishing boat. Consider yourself off the watch bill until further notice. I’m not putting you in hack because it’s unfair to the others to pick up your workload.”
An officer in hack is confined to his quarters.
Brent saw the futility of attempting to reason with the Captain. Denver’s new look abruptly became a memory. Crisis had plunged the captain back into his black mood.
“If that’s all, Captain?”
“That’s all. Now get the hell out of here.”
An urgent call from the Attack Center on the 21MC interrupted Brent’s departure. “Captain to the Conn! Sonar holds contact on a probable submarine bearing zero-eight-zero, closing rapidly!”
Dave Zane surveyed the activity that accompanied establishing his new submarine base. Scarcely three weeks into the project, Dave had already assembled a cluster of barges for living and working areas and had them moored in place. Makeshift shelters, in some cases tents, housed the base facilities.
“This sure does beat all,” Dave said to Dutch Meyer. “Takes a war to get us off our asses and out from under the bureaucracy. The damn environmental impact study for this alone would take two years.”
Dutch had joined Dave Zane at the makeshift refit site. He added, “Every time I bust a rule to get something done on schedule … makes me feel good all over.”
“Know what you mean, Dutch.”
They ate lunch prepared in the open eating area under a canvas fly covered field kitchen procured from nearby Fort Lewis Army Base. They looked out to sea via the harbor entrance where sunken barges formed the first line of an improvised breakwater and savored a long, bright day in May that signaled the approach of summer.
“Make damn sure you don’t tell your California buddies about this, Dutch. We don’t want them coming up and crowding out us natives.”
Grinning, Dutch said, “Nothing but rain, rain, rain. Can’t see how we stand it up here. That’s my message.”
“You got it, Dutch.” Then Dave continued with, “Gotta give Danis’s aviators credit. They sure know how to get things moving.”
“The commodore can get blood from a stone,” Dutch added. “But these guys are good. Did you see how fast they converted that empty field in Astoria to a full-fledged Navy supply depot?”
“Yeah … and they did a helluva job getting stuff staged so it could be here when we need it. That Carter guy moves well. I heard he flew off Savo Island when she got it and had to eject and dump his F-l4 in the drink near a destroyer to get picked up. Lucky for us he made it. Likely he figures he’s got some payback to do.”
“You’re right, Dave.” Then turning his attention to the shoreline east of the base, Dutch continued, “that break in the woods must be the power coming in. How do you figure to get it out here from shore?”
Dave’s face brightened in one of his trademark squinty grins. “Lay the cables on the bottom. Don’t believe I’ll call the county electrical inspector. Chalk that project up as another success by the flyboys. I don’t know where they got the people and power lines to do that job.”
“You probably don’t wanna know.”
Dave asked, “What’s happening with the Torpedo Range stuff?” referring to a torpedo proofing facility based to the north of them on the Washington Coast normally used to test anti-submarine torpedoes.
Dutch reasoned the sudden abundance of Soviet targets provided a much better test bed so he converted the network of range hydrophones to serve as a submarine warning system for the new base. “Going real well … already using the stuff from the range seabed. This, plus all their spares makes a pretty good network out to about a hundred miles.”