Submarine

'Watch leader, you have the control. Twelve knots.'

David Powys stepped from between the periscopes.

'I have the control, sir.'

Farge moved across to the chart table. 'Pilot, this alters things. Where are we?'

'Coming abeam of Tsyp Navolokskiy. Here, sir, in the inward shipping lane.' Murray's finger traced the dotted line on the chart, a track skirting the mined area two miles to the eastward. 'I've checked with SINS, sir. The tanker's heading straight into the inlet.'

'This is throwing my original plan out of gear,' Farge murmured as they crouched over the chart table. 'But it's a chance too good to miss. Scrub my intention of bottoming in Ura Bay. We'll follow her in.'

'How far, sir?' Murray asked softly. 'Right in?'

Farge was poring over the chart. He traced the track until he reached Set' Navolok, the headland at the north-western tip of the inlet, where the main enemy radar dish was sited and off which a wreck was marked. The inshore traffic lane led close in, a mile off the beach. It was a tight squeeze.

Murray extracted the larger scale chart upon which he had marked off their furthest-on positions. At this speed, Orcus would be abreast Set' Navolok by 0400. By 0430 she would be at the focal point, where the western and eastern traffic lanes converged. A black and red conical whistle buoy marked the centre of this maritime roundabout which the shipping circled anticlockwise. Farge glanced at the small brass clock above the table: 0250 already.

'Sunrise is at 0315, sir,' the navigating officer said, reading his captain's thoughts.

Farge's finger was stubbing the narrow bay which ran north-east/south-west between Set' Navolok and the next headland. 'There,' he said. 'I'll break off above this bay Lodeynaya Bay. I'll bottom there. Bags of water.'

'The sailing directions say it's too deep for local shipping to anchor there,' Murray said.

'Look, pilot,' Farge said. 'If we bottom here we'll be wooded by the foreshore from the radar dish. The shipping junction will be visible to us — if we can use the periscope.' Farge turned, slicking back his hair. 'Get me to that position. I'll break off when you tell me.'

Murray wasn't looking happy. 'What can I use to get a clearing bearing into the bay?' he asked. 'You'll be coming up for a look?' he pursued, glancing at his captain.

'Not bloody likely. The loo-metre and 50-metre sounding lines can take us into the entrance of the bay.'

'I can use the sounder?'

Farge nodded. 'They'll have a job picking that up, with all this clutter around the place.'

Sims was standing by Farge's side. 'Three fast power-boats are moving up the port side, sir. At speed, outward bound in the far lane.'

Farge grinned. 'See what I mean, pilot. There's a lot of stuff about. We'll run in on soundings.'

Farge left Murray at the chart table. Up top, the murky twilight would be merging into dawn. The beat of the tanker's propellers was still audible, a reassuring sound. The first lieutenant had pushed the old canvas chair forwards and Farge slumped into it as the RS approached:

'Bad news from our midnight routine, sir,' he said. 'The satellites are on the blink. We won't be able to receive COMSUBEASTLANT via the satellites.'

'Any reason given?'

'Interspace war perhaps,' and he twitched a bleak smile. 'I can't receive, sir, here in the inlet. The signal is too weak.'

'Okay. You can still transmit? That's what matters.'

'No problem yet.'

'Thanks, chief.'

The watch leader had things in hand. The boat was steady, following nicely at between one and two hundred yards. Farge began to feel drowsy, lulled by the murmurs around him. At 0355 he was aroused from his half-sleep by the watch leader.

'Tanker's slowing down, sir. Sonar's on to a lesser contact, closing on a steady bearing: probably taking a pilot on board, Number One reckons. We're three miles from the cape, sir.'

Farge climbed to his feet: 'Group down. Stop port. Try and hold her, cox'n, until we see what the tanker's doing.'

The enemy had reduced speed and tension heightened again in the stopped submarine as Bowles tried to hold her depth. The tanker then went ahead at eight knots, Orcus following in her wake.

At 0405 Murray asked if he could use the sounders. Orcus was about to cross the two-hundred-metre line. The transducer was directional, its frequency almost impossible to detect amidst the clutter around them. Orcus crossed the line at 0420.

'Four decimal two miles to go, sir.'

Farge nodded. The ship overhead was still ploughing on steadily.

'Time to the hundred-metre line, pilot?'

'At eight knots, sir, in twenty-eight minutes.'

'I'll hold on while she's still blanketting us.'

During the next half-hour the minute hand of the clock seemed stationary. While the tanker remained directly ahead Orcus was safe, but the radar dish on the cliff at Set' Navolok must be only a mile distant. On the 187 sonar, they could already hear the seas pounding on the shore.

'One hundred feet, Number One. Six up.'

In the tanker's wake, with the destroyer lost up ahead, Orcus glided up to a less dangerous depth for her entry into Lodeynaya Bay where, in forty-eight metres, Farge hoped to bottom her. At 0445 she crossed the hundred-metre line, three minutes earlier than calculated.

'Alter to 263°,' Murray called. 'One mile to go.'

'Starboard ten,' Farge said brusquely. 'Steer 263.' He watched while the ship's head began to swing, saw the cox'n compensating with more rise on his planes.

'Stop starboard.' Farge waited for the way to come off, then nudged her ahead again.

Six minutes later, Murray switched on the sounder. They scraped the edge of the fifty-metre line at 0453, the log showing two knots.

'Difficult to hold her, sir,' Foggon reported.

'How far to go, pilot?'

'Four cables.'

'I'll give her a kick ahead, chief,' Farge told Foggon. 'Port 15 — and try to hold her, cox'n. I'll turn while there's still sea room, so that we're heading out of the bay.' He caught Prout's eye. Ten minutes later, Orcus had turned and steadied on 070°, the way coming off her.

'Depth under the keel?' Farge asked.

'Forty-seven feet.'

'Stop port. Bottoming.' He glanced at Foggon. 'Carry on, chief.'

The MEO reached up and flicked the pump order instrument to 'flood for'd', the command being relayed to the ballast pump watchkeeper in the engine-room.

'Ballast pump, flood two hundred gallons into Ms,' Foggon ordered over the intercom. He nodded at Grady on the panel, 'Pump three hundred gallons from aft to for'd.'

And so, slightly negatively buoyant and with a bow-down trim to keep her shafts and propellers clear of the bottom, Orcus' forefoot scraped gently on the gravelly bottom of Lodeynaya Bay.

'Open Q tank main line suction and inboard vent,' Farge ordered. 'Flood into Q tank.'

There was a hiss as the foul air from the emergency diving tank vented into the submarine.

'Stop flooding Q.'

With Q half filled Orcus was now anchored for'd by the weight of three tons of seawater.

It was 0459: five hours of battery power consumed since Orcus had stopped the charge.

The chiefs' mess was above the coxswain's store and next to the wardroom bulkhead. For Orcus' cox'n, sitting at the table with his messing accounts spread before him, this was the longest day he had ever endured during fifteen years' service in submarines. He shared the mess with his three companions, the Chief MEA; Joker Paine, who was the Sonar Chief PO and known as 'Chief Ops'; and the Chief RS. They had been cooped in there since bottoming at 0500. Bill Bowles had just returned from accompanying the First Lieutenant on a tour of the boat. Morale was good, the nonchalance of those who had been this way before having a steadying effect upon the remainder. It was the doc who was causing despondency; he had pronounced Adams, Pinkney and Robertson sick: flu and high temperatures.