Rage of Battle

“Up scope,” ordered Brentwood. “Ahead two-thirds.”

“Scope’s breaking,” said one of the watchmen. “Scope’s clear.”

Brentwood’s hands flicked down the scope’s arms and, eyes to the cups, he moved around with the scope. On the Compac screen Zeldman could see the dot, moving so fast at forty knots, it had to be a hydrofoil.

Brentwood stopped moving the scope. “Bearing. Mark! Range. Mark! Down scope.” Above the soft whine of the retracting periscope Brentwood reported, “I hold one visual contact. Range?”

“Forty-four point five miles,” came the reply, placing the hostile forty-four miles northwest of Roosevelt, the convoy ten miles to the southeast. The sub was between them.

But Brentwood had a problem. To fire a cruise missile with its nuclear warhead was out of the question unless he wanted to start a nuclear war, and yet the sub’s state-of-the-art Mark-48 torpedoes had a maximum range of twenty-eight miles. With the hostile still over forty miles away, he would have to wait. To make matters worse, it was unlikely that the convoy had seen the hostile — their sonar not as good as the sub’s, their radar not picking up the hostile, which, because of its small size, would be lost in sea clutter.

“Range every thousand yards,” ordered Brentwood.

“Range every thousand yards, aye, sir. Range ninety-one thousand yards.”

“Ninety-one-thousand yards,” confirmed Brentwood. The hostile would have to close to at least forty-five thousand before he could fire. At its present speed, this would be in 14.7 minutes. However, it was now that Robert Brentwood showed why he had been chosen as the skipper of the USS Roosevelt. “Officer of the deck, confirm MOSS tube number.”

“MOSS in tube number two, sir.”

“Very well. Angle on the bow,” said Brentwood. “Port four point five.”

“Check,” came the confirmation.

“Range?” asked Brentwood.

“Ninety thousand yards.”

“Ninety thousand yards,” repeated Brentwood. “Firing point procedures. Master four five. Tube one.”

“Firing point procedures, aye, sir. Master four five. Tube one, aye… solution ready… weapons ready… ship ready.”

“Final bearing and shoot — master four five.”

The sonar operator announced the Roosevelt was now bearing three four nine. “Speed four.”

“Up scope!” ordered Brentwood. “Bearing, mark! Down scope.”

The firing control officer responded, “Stand by — shoot.”

“Fire,” said the shooter, pushing the lever forward.

The firing control officer watched the screen, the torpedo running, monitored. The tension in Control was palpable. No one spoke except for the sonar operator reading off the range, watching intently to see if the hostile would go for the bait of the MOSS — mobile submarine simulator — its sound disk having been altered, according to Brentwood’s orders, to duplicate the new sound signature of the Roosevelt following the Yumashev’s depth charge attack that had bent its prop.

The hostile vector was unchanged, the sonar operator now confirming its signature as that of a Sarancha hydrofoil-armament one thirty-millimeter multibarrel close-in gun, four surface-to-surface Siren antiship missiles, two surface-to-air N-4 missiles. Then suddenly its radar dot seemed to blur, as it changed course, heading to intercept the MOSS. It went to a small dot, then shuddered on the screen, the sonar operator announcing, “Hostile has fired surface-to-surface. Trajectory two seven four.”

The Siren was streaking toward the convoy.

* * *

Several hundred miles to the north, James G. Wilkins, having been arrested and brought to London for trial, now found himself standing in the dock in London’s Old Bailey, looking ashen-faced before a jury as he heard the verdict of “guilty.” He was convicted of fraud — the money he was stashing at home being “kickbacks” from several shipping companies whose “marine loss” claims, as the magistrate pointed out, “were assessed by Mr. Wilkins as being substantially higher than in fact they were.” The difference between the claim paid by the government to the shipping companies and the actual value of the goods lost had been split by what his lordship described as a “mutually convenient agreement between the defendant and various members of the mercantile establishment.”

Rosemary Spence was there out of some vague sense of responsibility toward young Graham Wilkins, who, although he had clearly charged his stepfather out of malice, and had been wrong about any spying, had nevertheless enabled the government to arrest and convict a war profiteer and to make an example of him.

The magistrate sent him “down” for three years and three on probation and commended Inspector Logan of the Oxshott, Surrey, Constabulary. Mrs. Wilkins looked relieved.

“More fun with the milkman now,” Melrose told Logan as they walked out of the central courts.

“I suppose so,” said Logan. “Can’t say I envy him. She seems a hard woman.”

“The son’s the hard one,” put in Perkins. “Didn’t even blink when the beak sentenced his old man.”

“Stepfather, though,” Logan corrected him. “Not his real pater.”

“Still,” put in Melrose, “you’d think he’d show some emotion. The schoolteacher — the Spence woman — she was more upset than anyone.”

“Well,” said Logan, “she’s the type. Worrywart. See it a mile away. Cool outside, but underneath — quite churned up, I expect.”

“Probably worried about her boyfriend,” commented Perkins. “Engaged to some Yank, I believe. Navy type.”

“Ah!” said Logan, as if that made everything clear. “Well then, that explains it. Separation and all. Bad days for the navy. Dicey business on the water. How about you, Melrose — you a sailor?”

“No, sir.” Actually, Melrose had done some sailing in his youth, but he was so shocked from Logan getting his name right at last, he didn’t really think about the question.

“You and I won’t be needed then,” said Logan knowingly.

Perkins glanced across at Melrose and shrugged.

“Ostend,” continued Logan. “That’s where we’ll be pulling them off this time. Nearest port to the pocket.”

“You think it’s that bad?” inquired Melrose.

“Yes I do, I’m afraid. That’s one thing I’ll say about old Professor Knowlton. He faces facts.”

“Professor Knowlton!” laughed Melrose. “Isn’t he the old bloke who keeps on about hair dryers? Conserving electricity on the home front, et cetera?”

“That ‘old bloke,’ as you so impudently call him, Constable, knows what he’s about. Mark my words.” Logan dropped his voice, looked around, and continued, “Just between you, me, and the gatepost, I can tell you all about that hair dryer business.”

“Oh—?” said Melrose, winking at Perkins.

“Yes,” said Logan. “Harriers!” He said it as if the word alone would explain all.

“Harriers?” said Perkins, willing to go along as he eyed two young beauties emerging from Barclay’s Bank.

“Yes. Going to be the RAF’s last defense, the way the Russians are knocking out our airstrips. You know how they put the wings on Harriers?”

“Stitch ‘em on, I should think,” answered Perkins.

“Don’t be bloody clever,” said Logan. “They’re made of carbon wafer, special epoxies, among other things. Stuck together. Found the same thing with the new models as with the original Harriers. The drying, I mean. Has to be done by hand, you see. It’s a craft — just can’t stamp them out like ruddy milk bottles.”

‘‘ You ‘re joking,” said Perkins.

“I most certainly am not. Without enough hair dryers, we don’t have enough Harriers. They’re more important to us than the Spitfire was in the last show.”

“Crikey,” said Melrose, “so the old blighter isn’t so potty after all?”

Logan eyed him irritably. “Just because you get to retiring age, Melroad, your brain doesn’t stop working.”