Coombes couldn't believe it. Almost home and dry: the Typhoon sunk, Safari still afloat and homeward bound. Selfish bugger, he mused. How was Julian Farge getting on? And what about those poor sods, those still alive, a thousand feet down in the crippled Typhoon? He grabbed the mike:
'Diving stations,' he called. 'Diving in five minutes time. Ask the navigating officer to speak to me.'
'Pilot here, sir.'
'Give the communications officer our position and tell him to push out our diving signaclass="underline" time 0356.'
Coombes grinned at his bridge team, unidentifiable in their bulky arctic clothing. 'Take your last look,' he told them. 'Next stop, Faslane.'
The sea smoke to the north-east was shutting down fast, wreathing in sinuous trails along the surface: hundreds of miles of whiteness, wiped bare of life by this merciless, icy wind.
'Bridge — control. Diving signal passed.'
'Roger. Finished with the wireless mast. Captain coming below.' Coombes nodded at the bridge OOW, then shouldered his own bulky torso through the upper lid to clamber down the ladders to his control-room.
They unpeeled him from his warm clothing while he prepared to take his last check through the search periscope. Number One was muttering behind him:
'ECM'S picking up that frequency again, sir — 018°. Pulse shifting and seems stronger.'
Coombes said nothing. He swung to the bearing: nothing, only the sea smoke.
'Clear the bridge — clear the bridge,' he commanded, feeling the turmoil in his gut. 'Come below. Shut the upper lid. I have the ship.'
He swept the horizon again, an unease pricking at him, as the diving drill continued around him.
'Bridge is clear, sir,' from the OOW; and then the lookouts were slithering down the ladders, bringing the compass repeat and the bits and pieces with them. He heard, the resonant echoing from the hammering as they fastened home the bolts. Coombes faced the ship control console to check that the HP air and hydraulics were on the line.
'Upper lid shut, two clips, two pins,' a voice called down from the darkness of the tower.
'Lower and secure ECM mast.' The damn thing was only causing twitch.
'Boat diving now,' Coombes said.
'Diving now, diving now,' the sec repeated.
'Open three and four main vents.' He looked at the clock: 0401. Eight minutes to get down, for invisibility. Thank God for that. If the hull valve held, no problem. The ECM mast was hissing behind him, on its way down.
'Three and four main vents indicated,' the sec reported, monitoring the tell-tales in the console.
'Report the bubble,' Coombes snapped.
'Bubble moving for'd, three degrees,' Bull Clint said,' pushing up Safari's nose to clear the for'd tanks of residual air.
'Open one and two main vents.' Coombes had dived this boat innumerable times, but never before had he been so relieved to feel the surface mantle of invisibility spreading above him.
'Bubble coming off, sir,' Clint called.
'Six down, eighty feet, back to fifty-eight.'
Coombes sighed with tiredness: he'd better take a final look.
'Bubble moving aft, sir,' the cox'n said.
Coombes began his last search by sweeping westwards, then slowly through south across the endless white waste merging formlessly with the dead sky. He shivered, whether from the cold or from the effect which this desolate ice-scape was having on him he did not know. All he had left now was the northern sector and that would be it…
The sea smoke was drifting across the northern horizon and reducing visibility to five miles.
He felt his heart leap as into his circle of vision the silhouettes of two aircraft parted the sea smoke, two sleek Soviet bombers end-on, growing larger with every second. They were low, clipping the ice, and streaking towards the half-dived submarine.
'Action stations, action stations,' the captain shouted from his periscope. 'Shut all bulkhead doors.'
Glued to the eyepieces, he watched them, less than a mile now, one a few feet higher and to the side of the other. In the lower half of his lens, the dark mass of Safari's half-submerged hull was still looming above the surface. Two wisps of smoke spurted from beneath the wings of the first aircraft: then two more, from the other.
'Down periscope,' Coombes blurted. 'Blinder bombers. They've fired their rockets. Hold on!' 'All hatches dry, sir,' the sec reported, calmly continuing the drill. 'Lower lid shut and clipped.'
'Forty feet, sir,' Bull Clint shouted. 'Two down.'
'Six down — ' But as Coombes spoke the rockets struck, blasting two holes through the pressure hull in the for'd escape compartment.
Seconds later Safari was hurtling down, her fore-ends flooded, at a thirty-degree bow-down angle. She struck the bottom at 0406, in a depth of 297 feet. She hung for a moment, her stern slowly subsiding; she settled then, almost level, crippled in the mud of the sea bed.
As Coombes picked himself up from the deck of the control-room, the intercom snicked above his head:
'Control — manoeuvring.'
He stagged towards the mike: 'Control.'
'Hull valve's just holding. We're okay back-aft.' Coombes could hear Gunn gasping as he fought for breath. 'I may have to scram, sir.'
Coombes was reeling, shocked by the suddenness of disaster.
'All compartments make your reports,' he commanded, searching for words. 'Starting from for'd.'
He was swaying on his feet, holding on to the periscope rods, as the control-room crew struggled back to their stations.
There was no reply from the for'd escape compartment, the JRS' accommodation space or fridge spaces: the whole of the fore-ends for'd of the main bulkhead was flooded. If the reactor was scrammed the submarine would lose all power.
'Oh God,' Coombes muttered to himself. 'I must have time to think or we're buggered.'
Chapter 29
It was 2105 when Carl Vinson turned the corner fifteen miles north of Phippsoya, the diminutive and most northerly of the outlying islets protecting Spitzbergen. Vice-Admiral Jessup stood sheltering on the leeward side of his bridge where, even in this giant ship, he was forced to flex his knees as the great carrier pounded east at full speed into the worsening gale. Constitution, five miles on Carl Vinson's port quarter, was barely visible, shrouded by the icy spray. Both carriers' escorts, the DDGS, were pin-points astern of them on the western horizon, unable to keep up in this appalling weather. He felt the judder of the ship as she splunged again into the long, ice-green swell. Peering upwards at Old Glory flapping itself to tatters, he relinquished the lip of his bridge, then staggered through the screen door and into the warmth of the carrier's citadel. Unzipping his wind-cheater, he hurried down to the anti-submarine control centre where he plumped into his chair in front of the admiral's display. The glowing PPI screen was slowly presenting a logical picture. Jessup took the Proceedings State which his flag-lieutenant was holding towards him.
'Thanks, Dan,' Jessup said. Methodically he perused the day's happenings. Goddamit, had it all started only twenty-one hours ago? First there had been Safari's flash report:
DTG: 180106 (ZULU) MAY TYPHOON SUNK 81°15′ NORTH 38°54′ EAST DEPTH 960 FEET. MESSAGE ENDS.
The Limeys had done it at last — and thank God for that, thought Jessup. sow had succeeded, as far as Nato was concerned, though it was too early to know whether the superpowers were stepping back from the brink. The world was holding its breath while the Kremlin deliberated. But Safari's next signal had deflated the earlier exhilaration.