Rage of Battle

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Robert Brentwood and the chief of the boat collided outside Roosevelt’s galley, the smoke so thick, they couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of them. But the fire was out, and a six-inch coil suction hose was rigged to the hatches to vent the smoke.

“Am I glad to see—” the chief began, but couldn’t continue, his coughing going into a dry retch.

“Come on, Chief,” said Brentwood. “Let’s get topside with everyone else.”

As the chief and his fire-fighting party emerged from the forward hatch, there was a smattering of clapping on the deck and the sound of several sailors being violently seasick in the heavy swells that were slopping over the Roosevelt’s deck. The moment his gas mask was off, Brentwood looked skyward and at the whitish silver of horizon between the sea and cumulonimbus that was piling up like bruised ice cream, heading farther away from them in the direction of the Bay of Biscay. “Officer of the deck.”

“Sir?” responded Zeldman.

“Soon as we clear this smoke, get everyone below. I’m going down to assess damage. Chief says our automatic scrubbers have had it, but we can break out crystals — run a few days on those. Even at three and a half knots, we should get to Holy Loch in another seven days. I think the water supply will—”

At the same time as the Roosevelt’s lookouts spotted them, Brentwood also saw the long line of more than thirty ships southeast of them, the sub’s surface radar not having picked them up because its circuit, like that for the passive underwater sonar receivers, had been shut down due to the fire. Once they got under way, the consoles would be operational.

Brentwood felt strangely calm yet vulnerable, the rolling deck twenty-five feet below him more than ever looking like some great whale pushed back and forth by the gray swells. On the other hand, there was the disadvantage that the sub’s position was almost certainly known now by satellite bounce-off, for even without infrared, their smoke trail had now spiraled thousands of feet above the Celtic Sea. It was an “unenviable situation,” as his father would have said wryly. Knowing that now he would almost certainly come under attack, Brentwood decided to rule out any thoughts of reaching home port at Holy Loch.

“We’ll set course for Falmouth,” he instructed Zeldman. “Even with our present drag-ass three and a half knots, we should make it in plus or minus fifty-five hours — a hell of a lot sooner than if we tried Holy Loch now we’ve been spotted.”

“Maybe no one’s picked us up yet,” said Zeldman.

“Right, Pete. And elephants fly.”

“Well,” said Zeldman, indicating the line of ships on the horizon, “we’ve received no fire from them.”

“Which is why we know they’re ours. They’re not the ones I’m worried about, Pete. It’s what we haven’t seen that concerns me.”

The lookout was reporting two Sheffield-class British destroyers in the horizon line, confirming Brentwood’s hunch.

“Very well,” responded Brentwood, and for a moment, seeing as their smoke was undoubtedly being picked up above cloud level by satellite, Brentwood elected to use the above-water high-frequency antenna for a quick transmit to SACLANT — Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic — via ACCHAN — Allied Commander Channel — to arrange for a tow as soon as possible to reduce their transit time to Falmouth.

For a moment it struck Brentwood that it was possible the war had ended between the time Roosevelt had been attacked by the Yumashev and now. The reply from SACLANT, decoded in seconds, immediately disabused him of any such notion. A tow could not be sent for at least four days, and Roosevelt was instructed by SACLANT, via sat bounce from Norfolk, Virginia, that she was to maintain her position and provide a defensive umbrella in the area for the convoy — now only seventeen hours from the port of Brest in the Bay of Biscay.

The war message stressed the DB pocket was so critically short of supplies that several squadrons of NATO’s Thunderbolts were waiting at Brest, unable to fly effective missions against the Russian armor because of the lack of thirty-millimeter depleted uranium ammunition. The message ended, “Imperative you give max assist to convoy. Convoy notified.”

“I thought,” said Zeldman, “the Royal Navy would have the Channel approaches bottled up.”

“Obviously not, old boy,” said Brentwood in a bad imitation of an upper-class English accent.

“Course,” added Zeldman, “the Russians will have come out from Kola, around the top.”

“Captain?” It was the chief. “We have three casualties aft. Lost ‘em in the smoke coming out.”

“All right, Chief. Take the tags, have a deck party put them by the hatches. Then back quick as you can.”

“Deck party to put casualties by the hatches. Aye, sir.” The chief didn’t hesitate. It might seem to others a cruel decision, but Roosevelt’s job was to fight, and she needed all tubes free for firing to help make up for her lack of speed and helm response time.

Zeldman was on constant lookout as the deck party heaved the body bags up through the hatches and laid them on the deck. They were in what the NATO sub captains called “Sarancha Gulch,” Saranchas being the fast, small missile boats operating from “Milch Cow” auxiliary mother ships. Highly maneuverable and bristling with surface-to-surface sixty-mile-range N-9 missiles and surface-to-air N-4 missiles, the boats were perfectly suited for this kind of last-minute attack around the Bay of Biscay and the other western approaches before the convoys reached Brest, or the relative safety of Land’s End, Falmouth, and the Channel.

* * *

As Zeldman came down the ladder into Control, he heard the hatch close behind him, a seaman beginning the holy litany of the dive. “Officer of the deck — last man down. Hatch secured.”

Zeldman took up his position as officer of the deck. “Last man down. Hatch secured, aye. Captain, the ship is rigged for dive, current depth one ten fathoms. Checks with the chart. Request permission to submerge the ship.”

“Very well, officer of the deck,” said Brentwood. “Submerge the ship.”

“Submerge the ship, aye, sir.” Zeldman turned to the diving console. “Diving officer, submerge the ship.”

“Submerge the ship, aye, sir. Dive — two blasts on the dive alarm. Dive, dive.” The wheezing sound of the alarm followed, loud enough for the crew in Control to hear but not powerful enough to resonate through the hull. A seaman shut all the main ballast tanks. “All vents are shut.”

“Vents shut, aye.”

A seaman was reading off the depth. “Fifty… fifty-two…fifty-four…”

One of the chiefs watching the angle of dive, trim, and speed reported, “Officer of the deck, conditions normal on the dive.”

“Very well, diving officer,” confirmed Zeldman, turning to Brentwood. “Captain, at one-thirty feet, trim satisfactory.”

“Very well,” answered Brentwood. “Steer four hundred feet ahead standard.”

Zeldman turned to the helmsman. “Helm all ahead standard. Diving officer, make the depth four hundred feet.”

They were just flattening out at 390 when Brentwood heard, “Sonar contact! Possible hostile surface warship, bearing two seven eight! Range, fifty-three miles.”

Brentwood turned calmly to the attack island. “Very well. Man battle stations.”

“Man battle stations, aye, sir,” repeated a seaman, pressing the yellow button, a pulsing F sharp slurring to G sounding throughout the ship.

Brentwood turned to the diving officer. “Diving officer, periscope depth.”

“Periscope depth, aye, sir.”

Brentwood’s hand reached up, taking the mike from its cradle without even looking. “This is the captain. I have the con. Commander Zeldman retains the deck.”

Beneath the purplish blue light over the sonar consoles, the operator advised, “Range fifty-two point six miles. Classified surface hostile by nature of sound.”