“One thousand, sir.”
“Carry on, Ex. Resume zigzag.”
“Resume zigzag. Yes, sir.”
Brentwood asked the electronics officer if the failure to receive a VLF burst message could have anything to do with their own VLF aerial.
“I’ve checked it out, sir. It’s fine.”
Brentwood thanked him and quietly, calmly, addressed the whole watch, not using the PA system so as not to risk the slightest hull reverberation; the sound of the aerial retraction was risk enough.
“Right, you all know the situation,” Brentwood began. “Next attempt to receive burst message verification will be our last. If we do not receive any — if it has been a case of land farm knockout — we should be close enough to the Scottish coast on the final BMV station to elicit TACAMO recognition signals. But if not, then we must assume the Soviets have taken out both Holy Loch and Wisconsin transmitters and possibly the floating dry dock in the Loch itself. If we do not receive TACAMO, we will proceed north — get as close to Kola Peninsula as we can— and unload. Any questions?”
In the red glow, a blue denim sleeve, looking darker than it was, rose. It was one of the operators on planes control. “Turbulence during aerial layout indicates bad weather topside, Skipper. TACAMO aircraft might be grounded — or being jammed.”
“Believe we would have picked up jamming,” said Brentwood, turning to Sonar for confirmation. “That right?”
“Yes, sir. No jamming apparent.”
“All right,” continued Brentwood, “we’ll be close enough in so that even a relatively weak TACAMO signal or farm transmission should reach us. We might risk a quick HF exposure. But if we do not receive any signal, then our course of action is set.”
“Yes, sir,” said the planesman, but his face told Robert Brentwood he wasn’t happy.
No one was.
The salt night wind was stiff in his face, the smell of monsoon rain approaching, a peculiarly clean smell that he’d never experienced before, as Douglas Freeman started to berate himself, talking as if he were dressing down a besieged prizefighter between rounds. “Well — you saying God’s on their side. That’s as self-pitying a piece of shit as I’ve heard in a long time, Freeman. You need a good kick in the ass.” He gripped the railing, which narrowed sharply at the bow, the sea splitting open beneath him. “God helps those,” he told himself, “who help themselves,
When he reached Banks’s cabin, his aide saw the sparkling impishness of a child in the general’s eyes. “Banks. God helps those who help themselves!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Al,” said the general, a mood of such excitement coming over him that the tenor of his voice grew more stentorian by the moment as he invited his aide out on the deck. The sea was becoming rougher all the time, but Freeman seemed oblivious to all around him as, leaning into the wind, he recalled what he termed “the fields of honor — Agincourt, the first English conquest of Normandy in the early fourteen hundreds, Waterloo, Gettysburg, the Somme, Normandy, Stirling’s brilliance with the long-range desert group, the eccentricity of Wingate, Patton, Heinz Guderian, Liddell Hart, Lawrence, Napoleon, Mount-batten.” He mentioned Mountbatten and Burma several times, and each war, he told Banks, was different, though the terror just the same. “Worst mistake you can make, Al,” he told Banks, “is to seduce yourself with history. Technology changes everything. Only the men are the same, and with new technology, even they change. You realize in the first two hours of the Arab-Israeli tank battles in Sinai, over ten percent were disabled. Men have never before been under such strain — not even in trench warfare. The sheer hitting power, mobility, means there’s nowhere to hide. No time for respite. You have to fight or die. Come with me, I’ve got something to show you.”
Captain Al Banks listened to the general’s plan carefully before he spoke. After hearing it, he thought that either General Freeman had a screw loose or was some kind of genius.
“You seem to know a lot about Pyongyang, General.”
“Yes I do,” said Freeman, in no mood for false modesty. “Blindfolded, I could take you through Pyongyang.” He paused. “You think I’m nuts?”
“General, I just hope you’re right.”
Freeman was grimacing as a huge cloud of spray enveloped the ship. “So do I, Al. So do I.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“Sonar contact!”
“Trawler?” suggested Brentwood as he grabbed the extra set of earphones.
There was no reply from the operator.
“Closing?” asked Brentwood
“Think so, sir. Slowly. Think they might be trawlers.”
Brentwood turned to Zeldman. One of the burst messages they had received before the “Zippos” had started was about the trawlers who’d attacked R-1. “Cut to one-third.”
“One-third, sir.”
Now the sonar hydrophones would have reduced interference from the
“Soon as you can, Sonar,” Brentwood enjoined.
“Yes, sir.”
Zeldman, his face in the light of the control room taking on a deep sunburned color, asked, “Herring boats?”
“Possibly,” answered Brentwood.
“Closing, sir,” came Sonar’s voice. “Fifteen knots.”
“Tad high for a fish boat, isn’t it?” put in Brentwood.
Sonar made a face that said six of one and half a dozen of the other. “ ‘Bout right if they’re hurrying to close in a net, sir.”
“Or attacking,” said Zeldman. “Doing a Norwegian.”
“Torpedo status report?”
“All eight loaded, sir. One to six inclusive Mark-48s. Seven and eight MOSS.”
“Very well. Lock in seven and eight to sonar feed.”
Two seconds elapsed.
“Seven and eight MOSS locked to sonar, sir.”
“Very well,” Brentwood said, speaking on the intercom to the lieutenant in charge of the torpedo room up forward. “Stand by.” Brentwood now switched his attention to the screen readout. “Have we got a signature match for friendly?”
“Negative,” answered Sonar.
In his mind’s eye Brentwood could see the convoys of well over three hundred ships en route to Europe behind him.
“Sir. Two other contacts coming in. I’d say range six miles and closing.”
“Signatures?”
“None of ours. But trawler class.”
“Very well. Designate targets Alfa, Bravo, Charlie.”
“Designated Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, sir.”
“Very well. Alfa bearing?”
“Zero seven four,” said Sonar.
