“Still too far. We’ll wait,” Smolensk’s captain decided.
“Admiral, the target has gone silent,” Stevan Lozak reported to Danilov. “She was at about forty kilometers.” Danilov’s face remained expressionless. “Did you have a solution?”
“Yes, sir.” Lozak smiled at the chief of staff for the first time that day. “Captain Sergoff insisted we continue our solution, just in case there was a casualty on Smolensk Lozak wondered silently if there really was a special talent in being an admiral’s chief of staff. So far. Sergoff hadn’t missed a trick. He’d covered every angle. Perhaps he wasn’t a threat to Lozak’s ambition after all.
“She’s dead in the water,” Danilov remarked.
“Make that correction to your solution,” Lozak ordered. “Hold your target at last known position.” He looked up at Danilov expectantly.
“Smolensk may not have completed their solution. We will wait fifteen minutes for the American to make repairs, or whatever they are doing. Then we shoot at him ourselves. If there’s no noise, they’re holding position.”
Hal Snow was sniffing with distaste at a cool cup of coffee in the control room when the report came from sonar. “Helena’s stopped, sir.”
“Stopped?” Why? It didn’t make sense — not without contacting him or Reed.
“No screw noises on her bearing, sir. I’ve still got reactor and steam system-related noises, so they’re expecting to resume speed pretty soon.”
“Christ,” Snow muttered. “I wasn’t planning to travel with a dinner bell in front of me.” He called to the OOD as he left the control room, “Cut your speed for a while. No reason to run up her back. And tell sonar to keep an ear open for anything Russian out front of us. If I was them, I’d take out Helena first thing and worry about the rest of us later.” He paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder. “Better yet, man battle stations. They’d be crazy not to if they’re nearby. If we hear them fire at Helena, we ought to be able to squeeze off a couple of shots ourselves. We’ve got longer range than Houston.”
When a submarine is prepared for sea, a base-line survey identifies every sound emitted by the boat. Computers can identify those not in the survey so that corrective action can be taken. When necessary, extraneous noise can normally be isolated by use of a stethoscope.
Helena’s captain, engineer, and senior chief machinist mate were in the engine room near the shaft alley. The unidentified noise was directly astern, the only part of the submarine that sonar could not pinpoint. It was necessary for the engineers to isolate the source themselves.
“Turn the shaft,” the chief engineer ordered over the sound-powered phone.
Very slowly, the shaft began rotating the propeller. The chief, stethoscope against the bulkhead, shook his head.
“Add more turns.”
Vibration increased in conjunction with the shaft revolutions. Still there was nothing.
The chief looked up at the captain. “It’s nothing to do with the fittings on the shaft, captain. They’re secure. Got to be outside on the prop.”
“Add more turns.”
The submarine was increasing speed with still no extraneous sounds noticeable through the stethoscope until they reached eleven knots.
The chief’s hand rose slowly. “Got something here, Captain. Nothing sonar could pick up yet.”
“Sure?”
“I’m sure, sir.” The chief looked up with a grin. “I listened to it in sonar before we stopped. It’s got to radiate with more strength before we can pick it up ourselves.”
There was little the captain could say. At times like this, he was at the mercy of his experts. There was nothing to do but wait.
At seventeen knots, sonar reported the sound radiating from astern, and that it increased with the shaft revolutions. Once it dispersed beyond the dead area, there was no doubt that it could be picked up by any good piece of equipment. It was on the propeller. There was no way they could repair anything until they were either alongside a tender or in dry dock. There had been no damage they could determine. It had to be an imperfection in the metal that became evident only after thousands of hours of operation. There would have been no way to anticipate such a casualty.
When the captain returned to control, he called his operations officer. “We have to get out of here. We’re a hazard. Contact Imperator. She’ll relay to Houston.”
“Roger your last. You’re still faint, Helena, but we copy.
Understand noise problem is external. Over.” While Imperator was able to receive messages over vast distances on her refined underwater telephone, “Gertrude,” other submarines remained unable to hear her transmissions. The sonarman aboard the giant submarine waited for a response. There was only silence.
He called Snow in the control room. “Captain, I have a voice transmission from Helena—about her noise problems. No way I could get back to her. I’ll bet she’ll repeat in a minute.”
Sonar was just off the control room. In seconds, Snow was seated next to the sonarman, headphones in place. It was less than a moment before the message was repeated. This time, it was more extensive.
“Helena is dropping out of formation to the south. Severe external noise problem diagnosed as propeller casualty. Noise increasing. Consider myself a hazard to your transit. Request you forward status to Houston at best opportunity. I am unable to receive from you at this range. This is my last transmission. Out.”
The voice transmission from Helena could not be heard by the Russians well to the north, but there was no doubt concerning the source when the same propeller noise began on the exact bearing as before. Aboard both Smolensk and Seratov, the tubes had been flooded, pressure equalized, and the outer tube doors opened in anticipation that their target would turn away from the formation.
“Solution?” Smolensk’s captain bellowed anxiously.
“Thirty seconds, Captain. There was slight drift after they went dead in the water. Perhaps they are in a turn now…” His voice faded away as he attempted to concentrate on the reports from his attack team. The initial solution appeared accurate. It was a matter of rechecking, insuring the solution was in the torpedo’s memory, and ejecting the missile from the tube. Fifteen seconds…
“Will we wait until he’s out of range?” The captain’s anger was rising.
“Ten seconds, Captain.”
Smolensk’s captain began counting on his fingers. His breath was now unpleasantly warm on the fire control officer’s cheek as he studied the maze of dials before them.
“Standby.”
The captain’s arm was involuntarily in the air and it dropped as he was told. “Ready to fire, Captain.”
“Shoot.” His fist hit the chart table resoundingly.
Every man aboard Smolensk felt the ship shudder against the ejection of the missile from the tube. “Come about to course zero, zero, zero — speed two zero,” the captain ordered joyfully.
“Nothing from Smolensk?” Danilov inquired calmly.
“Perhaps their solution wasn’t complete,” Captain Lozak answered.
“Have they reversed course?”
“Can’t tell yet, Admiral. They’re too far away.”