But this was the book he read every year: the one that had stuck with him through a life very different from that of Kipling’s youthful protagonist.
Ernie’s latest visit to the world of Harvey Cheyne ended with a feather light tap on the doorframe of the Goat Locker. The door swung partway open, and the Messenger of the Watch stuck his head through the gap. “Excuse me, COB. The Skipper’s asking for you in the Control Room.”
“Thanks,” Ernie said. ‘On my way.”
He closed the paperback, slid to the end of the work table’s bench-style seat, and stood up — stretching to loosen the kinks in his lower spine.
A quick stop by his rack to tuck the book under his pillow, and then he was out the door, following the messenger up the ladder.
Thirty seconds later, he walked into Control and strode over to the commanding officer. “You wanted to see me, Skipper?”
Captain Townsend looked around and treated Ernie to an evil little smile. “We’ve got the bastard, COB. Dead to rights.”
Before Ernie could respond, the CO turned his head and started issuing orders. “Right ten degrees rudder, steady on course three-one-five. Make turns for fourteen knots.”
As soon as the commands were repeated back, the CO continued. “Torpedo Room, Fire Control — Make tubes one and four ready in all respects. Open outer doors.”
Again, the orders were acknowledged and carried out.
The Sonar Technician in Ernie made him long to be in the sonar room, watching the operators work their wizardry on the target’s acoustic signals. But the Skipper clearly wanted him here in the Control Room.
So Ernie stood where he was, and waited until the commanding officer was facing his way again. “How solid have we got him, sir?”
“It’s our boy alright,” said the CO. “Plant noise looks like an old Chinese Han class without some of the usual harmonics. And he’s got a few extra tonals in the lower frequencies. Definitely our guy.”
Ernie nodded. That certainly aligned with their previous acoustic signatures from the North Korean sub.
The Skipper turned away again. “Firing point procedures. Weapons Officer, I want swim-out on both fish.”
“Weapons Officer, aye. Swim-out on both fish.”
The term ‘swim-out’ referred to an alternate firing mode for the torpedoes. Instead of being forcefully rammed out of the torpedo tubes by columns of piston-driven water pressure, the weapons would spool up their internal turbines and “swim” out of their tubes under their own power.
Though much slower than the standard launch procedure, a swim-out was many times quieter and far less likely to be detected by the target submarine.
All was now in readiness and Ernie felt a tightening of the muscles between his shoulder blades. He had observed or participated in this same sequence of procedures more times than he could count. But always it had been under training conditions. The contact had been an electronically injected computer simulation, or an unmanned mobile target.
This time, the target was a real submarine, crewed by unsimulated people. When Captain Townsend gave the order, actual human beings were going to die. It was a sobering thought, but there wasn’t much time to dwell on it.
“Tube one,” said the Skipper, “match generated bearings and shoot!”
The instant the order was acknowledged and carried out, the Skipper repeated it for the second torpedo. “Tube four, match generated bearings and shoot!”
There was none of the usual restrained acoustic thunder of a torpedo launch. No surge of rushing water and hiss of compressed air. Just a pair of low rumbles and high pitched whines that quickly faded to inaudibility.
Over the speaker came the Torpedo Room’s report. “Tubes one and four, impulse return. Normal launch.”
‘Impulse return’ signaled that the weapons had received and accepted their final package of targeting data. They were functioning normally.
“Make tubes two and three ready in all respects,” the Skipper ordered. He was already setting up for his next shots, in case a second salvo was required.
Meanwhile, the pair of Mark-48s in the water swam slowly toward their preprogrammed navigational waypoints, both weapons still connected to the Albany’s Mark-2 Combat Control System by thin fiber-optic wires that unreeled as the distance increased.
The waypoint for tube one’s weapon was fifteen degrees to starboard of the target, currently designated as Master-One. The waypoint for the other weapon was fifteen degrees to port.
When the weapons reached their respective waypoints, the CCS would turn them both toward a carefully calculated lead-angle position near the target’s bow, and then let them off the leash. The turbine engines would spin up to full RPMs, and the 48’s would close in on the target at maximum attack speed. Or that was the plan, anyway.
The tactic was known as simultaneous time-on-target. If it was properly executed, the enemy submarine would suddenly find itself on the wrong end of two close-aboard torpedoes, converging at high speed from opposite directions.
Against any other submarine on the planet, an STOT attack could be devastating. Against a target capable of accelerating to three-hundred knots, its effectiveness was yet to be proven.
The tension between Ernie’s shoulder blades ratcheted up a few more notches. If everything went according to plan, an unknown number of North Korean sailors were about to die horribly. If the plan didn’t come off properly, it might be the Albany’s sailors who were in for a messy ending.
And there were a lot of things that might go wrong. The wires could break on one (or both) of the Mark-48s, kicking the affected weapon automatically into search mode, and alerting the target. Or, slow-swim mode or not, the target might detect the turbine or blade noise of the incoming weapons. Or the target might catch a sniff of Albany’s acoustic signature, and pump out a couple of supercav torpedoes to get the party started early. Or… Ernie could think of at least four or five more ways that the situation could go to shit.
But none of them seemed to be happening. At least not yet.
“How long till our weapons reach their waypoints?” the Skipper asked.
The Weapons Officer checked his screen. “About another six minutes, sir.”
No one groaned aloud, which Ernie recognized as a sign of the crew’s discipline and the quality of their training. Everyone hated this part of a slow swim attack. Your weapons took an eternity to creep into position, and every tick of the clock announced another endless second in which the engagement could turn against you.
But even slowed to a subjective crawl, time does continue to pass. After what felt like an hour, the weapons were five minutes from their waypoints. An hour after that, they were four minutes away. In another hour they were two minutes away. Then one minute. Then none.
“Go hot on both weapons!” the Skipper ordered.
“Weapons Officer, aye! Both weapons are hot!”
The tension between Ernie’s shoulders began to relax a little. Maybe this was actually going to work. Maybe it was…
And that’s when everything went to hell.
It started with the Sonar Supervisor’s voice over the 29MC speakers. “Conn — Sonar. Hydrophone effects off the starboard bow! Bearing three-three-five, correlated to the current bearing of contact Master-One. Initial classification: supercavitating torpedo!”
Captain Townsend began immediately rapping out orders. “Helm, left thirty-degrees rudder! New course two-nine-five! All ahead flank! Diving Officer, make your depth eight-hundred feet! Weapons Officer, launch one noisemaker, and one mobile decoy!”