The American skipper was named Roscoe Hanna, and he was an old hand at following Russian and Chinese boomers, as well as conventionally powered Chinese Kilo- and Whiskey-class boats. This was the first time since he’d assumed command of Utah that he’d had the luck to latch on to a nuclear-powered boat. The Chinese diesel-electric subs were noisy on the surface and easy to follow because they couldn’t go very deep and they had to surface, usually at night, to recharge their batteries. The difficulty level rose geometrically, however, when two or more of them operated together. Chinese nukes, on the other hand, spent more time in port than they did at sea, probably because their reactors were unreliable and the boats needed copious maintenance.
“What’s the name of this boat?” someone asked. Research in the ship’s computers couldn’t come up with a name, merely a hull number in the class.
“It’s a Chinese military secret,” the chief of the boat decided.
“The Great Leap Down,” the XO quipped, so that is what she became to the American crew sneaking along behind her.
Hanna and his officers had been ecstatic four weeks ago in the South China Sea when they realized they had a nuke on the hook. Then the ecstasy faded and mystification set in. The Chinese sub didn’t stooge around the South China Sea or the Gulf of Tonkin, or head for the Taiwan or Luzon Strait. She submerged, worked up to eighteen knots and headed south.
Occasionally, at odd times, the Chinese captain would slow down and make ninety-degree turns to ensure no submarine was behind him, its noise masked by his propeller, and he would maintain that slow speed for a while to listen, “clearing his baffles.” While he did that, Utah, in trail, also listened. The Americans wanted to ensure that their boat wasn’t being trailed in turn by a Chinese or Russian sub. No, except for the Chinese attack sub and Utah, the depths were empty.
After a half hour or so, the Chinese sub resumed cruising speed. A half hour to listen, then go. The routine must have been on the Plan of the Day. On a similarly predictable schedule, the Great Leap routinely slowly rose from the depths and descended again, no doubt checking the temperature and salinity of the water at various levels, and once poking up her comm antenna for a moment, probably just to receive message traffic from home.
Captain Hanna and his officers remained alert. Russian subs occasionally used a maneuver known as a “Crazy Ivan” to try to detect trailing U.S. submarines. The Russian sub would make a 270-degree turn and come back up its own wake, trying to force any trailing sub to maneuver quickly to avoid a collision, which would make noise and alert the Russians to the trailing boat.
Yet the Chinese maneuvered only to clear their baffles. The Great Leap Down held course to the south. Rounding the swell of Vietnam, the course became a bit more westward.
The noise the Chinese boat made appeared as squiggles, or spikes, on computer presentations. The sonarmen designated the unique noise source with a symbol, then recorded and archived it. A movement of the noise source left or right meant the contact was turning; up or down, ascending or descending; getting quieter or noisier, slowing or speeding up. Following it required care and concentration, made easier by the fact that every maneuver the Chinese sub made changed the frequency of the sound. Taking on or discharging water to change her buoyancy, speeding up or slowing the prop, moving the rudder — all of that was displayed instantly on the sonar computer screens in Utah’s control room.
“My guess is she’s headed for the Strait of Malacca,” the navigator said to Captain Hanna, who was standing beside him studying the chart.
“Into the Indian Ocean?”
“Well, maybe.”
Hanna seemed to recall that at least once before a Chinese boomer or attack boat had passed through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. Normally they stayed in the western Pacific to intimidate their neighbors and strengthen Chinese demands for complete control of the China Sea. Yet this one was on a mission, going somewhere. As the navigator had predicted, it went past Singapore and northwest right through the strait between the Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra.
“Maybe she’s going to India to show off Chinese technology,” the captain mused.
Yet out of the strait, the Great Leap Down turned southwest, around the northern tip of Sumatra and through the Great Channel between Sumatra and the Nicobar Islands, into the Indian Ocean. Then it set a course for the Cape of Good Hope. Utah followed right along.
“This is one for the books,” the XO said one evening at the wardroom table. “Maybe she’s going to the States. The captain and his crew might be defecting, like Red October. Maybe she’ll surface outside the Narrows and nuke into New York harbor.”
“France, I think,” the chief engineer opined. “Maybe they are going to France for a refit or upgrade. Visit the Riviera, ogle the women, perhaps buy a French sonar.”
“Why not a pool?” suggested the navigator. “Everyone picks a place and we each put in a twenty, then whoever gets the closest to this guy’s final destination wins the pot.”
The officers liked that idea and mulled their choices for a day. The destination was defined as the farthest point from Hainan Island that the Chinese sub reached before it retraced its course. “I’ll take a circumnavigation,” the junior officer aboard said the following evening when he dropped his twenty on the table. “I think we’re following a Chinese Magellan.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion twenty bucks’ worth.”
With the pool set, the off-duty officers went back to the wardroom Acey-Deucy tournament.
Captain Hanna began fretting the fact he was completely out of communication with SUBPAC. Utah could not transmit messages when submerged. It could, however, receive very low frequency radio signals, which literally came through the saltwater. When summoned, he would have to report. He decided to let his superiors know what he was doing without waiting for a summons. He prepared a long report, told SUBPAC where he was, what he was following, the condition of his boat, and his intentions. He had it encrypted and ready for a covert burst transmission, then slowed and let the Chinese sub extend the range. Poking up his stealthy comm mast would create only a little noise, but better to be safe than sorry. When the distance was about fifteen nautical miles, he rose to periscope depth, sent off his message and picked up incoming traffic, then quickly went deeper and accelerated.
The Great Leap Down was ahead of him, somewhere, yet she was, he hoped, still on course two-five-zero. He didn’t want to close on her too quickly, so he set a speed just two knots above the boat he was shadowing. Getting back into sonar range took two tense hours. Finally his quarry reappeared as squiggles on a computer screen. The computer recognized the signature; the assigned symbol appeared. Got her again!
And so it went, day after day, averaging about 330 nautical miles every twenty-four hours. Around the Cape of Good Hope and northward into the Atlantic. Occasionally they heard commercial vessels passing on various headings, and now and then storms roiled the ocean, putting more sound into the water from the surface. The ocean was not quiet. It was a continuous concert of biological sound: shrimp, fish, porpoises, whale calls and farts. Amidst all this there was the steady sound of the Chinese sub boring along, slowing, listening, turning, speeding up, rising or descending.