“Mark. Fire seven.”
“Seven fired and running.”
Zeldman instinctively looked above, as if trying to see through the sub’s pressure hull, as the torpedo, running at forty-five knots, the sub’s attack speed, streamed away from the sub, giving off the signature of the
All faces in the
“Track the splash,” ordered Brentwood dispassionately. “Designation Tango.”
“So designated,” answered Sonar. “Ah — sir — Bravo Charlie, fading.”
“Frightened them off?” wondered Zeldman, his tone half wishful thinking, half doubt. Brentwood said nothing. Target designated Alfa was also turning now, its echo fading. But whatever it had dumped was still falling and, worse, spreading.
“Mines!” proffered Zeldman.
“Sonar?” asked Brentwood, lending his authority to the question. The operator looked puzzled.
“What’s up?” asked Brentwood.
“Don’t know, sir. Fuzzy.”
Brentwood held up the earpiece. It was fuzzy, a soft sound, like milk simmering, men more diffuse. The one big chunk of sound definitely broken up, as a pile of mines would.
“Bearing?”
“Zero eight niner.”
“Mark. Fire one and two.” The sub felt a gentle push.
“One and two fired and running, sir.”
Again Zeldman looked up, the Mk-48s running off to his right from the sub’s bow at ninety miles an hour, uncoiling their thin guide wire until the torpedo would be close enough for the target’s sound to activate the Mk-48s’ own sound sensors, which would then cut off from their wire feed control and home in by themselves.
At four minutes plus three seconds, the sonar screen went into what looked like power failure whiteout, as a screen goes blank when hit by a high voltage without a surge control bar, the screen about to die, but the green and amber tints started to bleed back. There were loud cheers and excited congratulations all around.
“Shut up!” It was Brentwood, as sharp as they’d ever heard him. “Sonar — readout on Alfa, Bravo, Charlie?”
“Still fading, sir.”
The control room remained quiet, no one moving, waiting to see if the Alfa, Bravo, or Charlie fish boats were returning or whether passive was picking up anything on them at all.
“Distance to Holy Loch?” Brentwood asked Zeldman.
“A hundred miles, sir.”
“Very well. We’ll wait ten minutes, then proceed. Plot a new course to the loch.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brentwood glanced around at one of the spare watch-standers, another “Bugs Bunny,” or sonar operator, with whom he could replace the present sonar operator, whom Brentwood now asked to report to his cabin in fifteen minutes. The sound wave from the Mk-48 explosions now hit them, the sub rolling slightly, then righting itself.
The sonar operator didn’t know what to make of it but took his leave to go down in his slippered feet toward the gallery for a much-needed coffee with liberal helpings of sugar.
Two of the other watch-standers in control, out of Brentwood’s view because of the scope island, made “what’s with him?” faces at each other.
After ten minutes, Brentwood turned over the watch to Zeldman. But before he brushed the heavy green curtains of the combat control center aside, he looked around at the men on watch, from sonar to planesmen. “If I ever hear an outburst like that again, I’ll cancel all liberty on this pig boat. That clear?”
Muffled acknowledgment.
Brentwood did not raise his voice — indeed, it was softer than the usual tone he used issuing orders — but the repetition of his question now took on a more clipped tone. “Is that
“Yes, sir,” came back the affirmation.
“In the two seconds it took you to sound off, an enemy surface ship could have fired an ASROC-SN-12, which travels — at what speed? Wilkes?”
The planesman frowned, the glistening worry lines emphasized by the red glow. “Can’t say exactly, sir.”
“Ex?” Brentwood didn’t want to show any favorites.
“Eight hundred meters a second, sir,” answered Zeldman.
“Correct. Twice as fast as our best ASROC, gentlemen.
“Loud and clear, sir,” said the Trim petty officer.
“Very well. Carry on, Ex.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
After Brentwood left control, there was a sigh of relief in the room, and Zeldman’s presence, though clearly felt, was more like that of an assistant coach — the big tension was off, which Brentwood could feel as he stepped out of the control room and which is what made him worried. The most difficult thing at sea on such long six-month patrols, was to keep the men on the razor’s edge. A second or two had always been important in war, but never so much as now.
“What’s bugging Bing?” Brentwood heard a seaman ask as he passed the galley, his antistatic moccasins moving noiselessly on the shiny spill of red light bouncing off the polished decks and bulkheads.
“His book’s probably out of print,” answered someone else, and Brentwood heard them laughing.
When he got to his cabin, the sonar operator was waiting outside apprehensively. Brentwood took off his cap, pulled the narrow green drapes across the cabin entrance, and waved the operator into his cabin. “Come in, Burns.”
“Yes, sir.”
Robert Brentwood yawned, excused himself, and motioned the seaman to a chair, but the seaman declined.
“You did well up there, Burns.”
“Thankyou, sir.”
Brentwood noticed the boy had a prominent Adam’s apple, just like his kid brother Ray. “But there’s something you did I don’t want you to repeat.”
“Sir?”
Brentwood pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, the tiredness in his eyes now more pronounced under the regular cabin lighting. “You hesitated on giving me two readings.’ Ah — something.’ I don’t want any ‘ah — somethings.’ It’s at least a second’s delay, and it could be enough for a target designation of us by an enemy sub. We’ve got enough acronyms — letters for symbols — as it is. Forget about ‘ah’—sounds like ‘R.’ “
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing, Burns. What the heck you think we blew up? I would have expected more of a bang. I’ve heard forty-eights go off against targets. Usually make a lot more noise than that.”
“We might have hit fish, sir.”
Brentwood looked up. “Fish?”
“Yes, sir. The way I figure it — the ‘splash’ from Alfa we got could have been them ditching their catch — to get away.”
