The captain nodded but said nothing; at fifteen knots his ship moved forward, a powerful steel phantom in the water, but not one designed primarily for underwater combat. In all probability her opponent was.
The almost intense quiet inside the submarine continued. As minute passed minute she inched steadily closer to the strait itself — and that was progress she had to make if she was eventually to reach the Beaufort Sea and the relative freedom of the vast, ice-coated Arctic waters.
It was fiercely real, every moment of it, yet it was surrounded with the aura of an illusion. For all that was actually visible the ship could have been maneuvering somewhere off the coast of Australia.
In the sonar room the operator listened with his eyes closed, intent on capturing any sound that would convey a scrap of additional information about the unseen submarine somewhere out in the waters just south of the strait. His trained ears discounted the ocean noises that came through, the evidence of the restless sea that surrounded the ship and through which she was moving. He heard another ping, faint but definite; he concentrated on the sound he had just heard and decided that it had been a minute fraction louder. The enemy was drawing closer.
The Magsaysay was moving nearer to the Seward Peninsula and the Cape of the Prince of Wales that marked its extremity; that meant that the hostile had to be somewhere in the semicircle between one hundred and eighty and three hundred and sixty degrees. A bearing slightly to the right of true north was also a possibility; that would put it directly in the strait itself where maneuvering room would be at a minimum. There, if she was an attack type, which was almost certain, and a nuke to boot, it would be a tough go.
Another ping came through the operator’s headset, and immediately after that a second one, loud and clear. The sonarman responded almost instantly; he drew a quick breath and reported. “He has contact.” The silent stealth of the Magsaysay had been penetrated; her position was known.
The captain had been expecting that, moment by moment, and he was prepared. ‘^All stop,” he ordered.
Two or three seconds later the screw went dead in the water. The submarine coasted forward gently, then, as her control surfaces began to lose effect, she began to drift downward. The depth gauge began a slow climb, an emotionless mechanical indication that the ship was settling toward the bottom. Within the hull there was an intense quiet, an awareness that the battle had been joined and that the odds for the moment were in favor of the enemy.
Sonar reported again over the M.C. “Torpedo in the water.”
The captain did not speak or move; he waited silently for the next report.
It came within a few inert, suspenseful seconds. “Two units in the water, bearing three ten degrees, bearing drift slightly right.”
The meager information gave the attack party its first opportunity for action; the data were quickly set up in the fire control system. That done, the urgency of waiting returned.
Sonar came on again. “First unit drawing rapidly to the right.” In the forward end of the ship Chief Summers listened and knew that that would be a miss. Out of two shots one almost certainly would have to be a miss; it was the other one which counted now.
“Second unit zero bearing rate, coming straight in.”
That was what Summers had feared; the incoming shot was aimed right down Mag say say’s throat. The captain feared it, too, because he could do nothing in the few seconds that remained. He had one hope and all that he could do to help it was to pray. Underneath him his ship continued to sink slowly toward the bottom.
Then the silence inside the hull was broken from the outside; from bare audibility an insistent whine grew rapidly, ballooning in intensity with terrifying urgency. Summers and his shipmates had all faced death before; they faced it now a second away.
The deadly noise swept the length of the ship as it skimmed overhead, faded, and was gone.
“Active sonar,” the captain directed; after a few seconds he gave another order. “All back full.”
The unexpected command was obeyed immediately without question; within seconds the power being applied could be felt throughout the length of the hull. As the propeller cavitated the sonar pings went out; the inertia of the ship was great and the backward acceleration was very slow.
“Contact,” sonar reported. “Range four eight hundred yards, bearing three zero eight.”
“All stop,” the captain ordered.
Wagner could not follow his logic; he had expected some kind of evasive action and the reverse maneuver had him baffled. But he trusted the captain implicitly; if he had ordered full astern, there was a reason behind it.
“Range four eight hundred yards, bearing three one zero.” As rapidly as the information was supplied it was fed into the fire control system.
“All ahead full.”
“All ahead full,” the phone talker repeated. At that moment Walter Wagner understood one thing: that the captain was stirring up the water behind the ship, doing so deliberately. He deducted correctly that this was to confuse the enemy sonar briefly and to make it harder to read the ship’s position accurately.
“Resume course.”
“Ay, sir.”
No mean schemer himself, Wagner understood that one almost immediately: the enemy would expect evasive action since in all probability he was already reloaded and ready to fire again. At that game Magsaysay would be at a serious disadvantage, but by resuming her course she might be doing the one thing he would not expect. In addition there was the advantage that the ship was under way in the direction she most wanted to go.
“Range four six hundred yards, bearing three one three.”
“Shoot one.”
“Ay, sir. Shoot one.”
“Shoot two.”
“Shoot two.”
“All stop.”
“All stop, sir.”
Once more the submarine fell silent except for the torpedo room forward, where fresh rounds were being loaded into the tubes. The men doing that knew that a countershot was a near certainty, but they had no time to dwell on it. While two fresh torpedoes were being moved into position the ship began to settle once more; she had limited forward speed to dissipate this time and the control surfaces lost their effectiveness very quickly. On the con the exec watched the face of a clock, keeping track of the parade of the seconds.
Sonar reported once more. “Torpedoes departing, range three five hundred yards.”
“Passive sonar,” the captain said.
“Passive sonar, sir.”
Silently the ship drifted deeper into the water; the depth gauge needle moved very slowly, sterile of any emotion, performing its mechanical function as it had been designed to do.
“Hit!”
The captain remained motionless, waiting for the added word he was expecting. It came almost at once. “Incoming torpedoes, two units.” It made no difference then if the reported hit was valid or not; the enemy submarine had put two shots into the water and regardless of what had happened to the launching vehicle, they were independently on their way.
“One unit bearing left.”
That was good news, but the shots were sure to be spread — automatically, one would have to miss.
A knot of steel-clad seconds was measured off by the clock.
“Number two unit bearing slightly right.”
The tension did not ease. In those tight moments Walter Wagner wondered if the enemy commander had directed his shots that way anticipating evasive action and if Magsaysay’s captain had outwitted him by maintaining a straight course very briefly instead.
“First unit passed.” That was the expected news. Silence became rigid in the submarine as the second sound-seeking torpedo, which could be equipped with a proximity fuse and possibly a magnetic anomaly detection system, grew louder in the sonar.