The two men watched as the line for their course was laid out with a straight edge. Then the quartermaster used a compass to mark their distance every ten minutes. “He’s probably doing this right now himself,” the captain muttered. “Trying to figure what I’m up to.” He stroked his chin.
“I’d take odds he was going to try to come right up our butt,” the XO commented.
“Good bet… I wouldn’t take it,” was the answer. The captain tapped his finger on the thin overlaying paper. The Soviets’ course would eventually intersect their own on the port quarter. “He’s got to be under six knots, probably no less than four… give him five. Lay out a course for him to intercept us at that speed.” When the two lines intersected, the captain wondered aloud, “What’s the perfect range for those torpedoes he’s shooting? Maybe six or eight thousand yards?”
“For a sure shot.” The XO had picked up the compass and was drawing a half circle behind Olympia’s projected position representing about eight thousand yards.
“Yeah,” the captain murmured. Then he smiled. “He’ll want to make sure his first shot’s his best… cause he knows we’ll be firing right after we hear the tiniest sound.” The quartermaster had anticipated the next step. As the two officers watched, he laid out the progress of each submarine in five-minute segments until the Soviet boat was just a hair’s breadth from the eight-thousand-yard half circle. He checked his watch to ensure his times were correct, then wrote the time projected for the other boat to reach that semicircle. “About thirty-eight minutes from now, Captain.”
“Great! Good work, son. That’s exactly what I wanted. You read my mind.” He offered the thumb’s up sign as he stood up straight. “What the hell do I need a computer for if I’ve got quartermasters? Now you just keep rechecking what you’ve got there son, and if sonar picks up anything you mark it right away and let me know if he’s off that track of yours at all.”
“No problem, Captain. We’ll get him.” The quartermaster had never looked up. His eyes were glued to the track he’d laid out for the captain.
The weapons control coordinator looked up as the captain returned. “Torpedoes are warmed up, sir. Do I have enough time to wait for a little noise outside before I finish the rest?”
The captain nodded. “You will be firing in approximately thirty-five minutes… unless sonar picks up something and tells us different. I’d estimate your target will be at about eighty-five hundred yards, still hovering just below the ice. Give him a speed of about five knots. He’s going to be coming right down the throat because I’m going to turn around a few minutes before and wait for him.”
The fire control coordinator’s eyes lit up. “He’ll be figuring to come up behind us, hiding in the baffles, won’t he?” The baffles, directly astern, were the only area where a submarine could be considered deaf.
The captain nodded with a smile. “Sounds like a perfect shot for us, doesn’t it?” After a pause, he added, “Nothing ever is. I want to fire two torpedoes… and I hope to hell the wire holds on at least one of them because he’s going to be moving faster than hell as soon as they leave the tubes. You may have to feed some steer into those fish, you know.”
The fire control coordinator nodded. They’d rehearsed the same sequence innumerable times.
“Well… the sooner the better,” the captain concluded. “It all sounds too easy to me. If you don’t have enough outside noise in the next twenty minutes to complete your sequence, then get it all ready anyway. We’ll just have to take our chances.” He smiled, adding mostly to himself. “Of course, they won’t be too good if he fires first.”
Novgorod’s captain expressed his displeasure. “They’re not that quiet, damn you.” One of the sonarmen clapped his hands over the earpieces to shield the noise the captain was making. The pressure of listening for an elusive microsecond of sound at a time like this was overwhelming. Men had been known to have a nervous breakdown, even in fleet exercises, when another submarine was running an attack on them.
The political officer touched the captain’s sleeve tentatively, after noting the sonar officer’s eyebrows raise in despair. “We can’t do anything to help them. They’re trying very hard,” he offered. The tension had gripped even him in the last moments. The knowledge that another submarine was waiting for the slightest hint of their position, anything that would justify firing a torpedo, had overcome the confidence he had been exuding up to that moment. His armpits had inexplicably grown cold. Perhaps it was the fuzzy picture of two dark submarines that clouded his mind. They were vague forms suspended like puppets in a liquid environment — each one seeking the other, each intending to shoot and run before the other might grasp the opportunity.
The half smile the captain had managed as he entered the control room turned brittle as he saw the navigating officer bent over his chart table. “They must have heard us ping. That pressure ridge… that damned pressure ridge may have given us away.” Others in the control room turned at his outburst, only to find him suddenly silent, appearing moody, thinking. All that single ping could provide the American with was a rough bearing, and confirmation that Novgorod was operating close to the ice. There was nothing he wanted to alter yet. No point in changing depth. The ice provided too fine a background screen to mask them from a torpedo.
The more he considered his options, the more he realized there really were very few. They each had a reasonable idea of where the other was, and neither would take a chance of revealing his actual position. They could each stop and hover in place until the other made a mistake and gave his location away. But there was no time for that… and the American submarine was quieter than his own — he had to admit that. No, he’d much rather attack. That was his strength… and he was in the best position.
Moving to the plot laid down by his navigating officer, the captain studied the assumed position of the American in relation to his own. He was approaching the American from the port quarter. He should be difficult to hear at that angle. It wasn’t a matter of chasing after the American. They were converging if the plot was reasonably correct. There was only one answer: prepare three torpedoes. It would be wiser to waste one. Fire the first before they were really in position. No need to have a target solution. Just fire the damn thing. The American would hear it. Then he would either have to fire his own without preparation, or commence evasion immediately. Either way, the captain would be ready to fire at the first sound the other made with his two remaining torpedoes. It might not take two, but two were a much better precaution.
He moved about the control room giving orders in preparation. The navigating officer worked furiously at his figures to determine the optimum time for firing the initial torpedo.
Olympia’s quartermaster called out softly, “Recommend coming left in thirty seconds, Captain.”
“Thank you.” The captain, his measured voice matching the others in the control room, moved over beside the diving officer for the third time in as many minutes. “Don’t do any trimming, but try to grab a bit of an up angle as we come about. I’m going to slow down at the same time — can’t take a chance on any sound.” Not moments, before, he’d explained the same process to the engineer. He wanted his ship as quiet as possible, yet he expected them to accelerate like a horse coming out of the starting gate as soon as their last torpedo was in the water. Absolute silence wasn’t entirely possible. Steam flow in the turbines and engine noise could be picked up even at this speed in close quarters.
“Make it a slow turn,” he added to the sailor on the helm. “We’ve got the time.”