World in Flames

“hostile by sound,” was closing, having fired three torpedoes in response to the Roosevelt’s firing of one of its Mark-48 torpedoes to break open the ice. In response, Brentwood had launched the four Mark-48s toward the hostile and they were now running. Meanwhile, the men in “Missile Firing Control” remained as perplexed as the rest of the crew by the captain’s earlier order, still in force, to “man battle stations missile” and to begin the missile firing procedure sequence. They had received no authorization to launch, and no one aboard had received any indication of conditions that would justify Brentwood exercising his IAL — independent authority to launch.

“Our fish closing…” reported Sonarman Emerson, watching the blips of one of the four M-48s from the Roosevelt moving toward one of the blips that had been fired from the hostile.”

* * *

“Wire disengaged,” advised Emerson, informing Control that the Roosevelt’s torpedo was now in automatic homing mode. “Three thousand yards… two thousand to go… fifteen hundred… one thousand… veering… veering… enemy fish closing in…” The three blips on the sonar screen — two enemy, one from Roosevelt—merged, the luminescent dots becoming one, swelling, then gone from the screen. Emerson swung about excitedly to Link. “We got ‘em…we got—”

“Be quiet.” It was Capt. Robert Brentwood, disturbingly calm to those in Control, his words more like an older man’s dismissal of a younger, emotional wife, its implication— “Behave yourself”—startling to Zeldman, who was not only waiting anxiously for the three remaining 48s now about to go off the wire into automatic, but who was also envisaging him and Brentwood on the opposite sides of a court-martial over Brentwood’s order to “man battle stations missile”—the order continuing the preparatory procedures dangerously close to the point of no return.

All Zeldman’s instincts were against interfering, but was he, he wondered, permitting his and Brentwood’s relationships with Rosemary and Georgina Spence to mislead him, holding him back from a higher responsibility to the crew if Brentwood could no longer—

Suddenly Brentwood, while simultaneously monitoring the verification sequences of Missile Control, Sonar, and the helmsman’s report of the sub’s painfully slow progress to the area directly beneath the hole, turned to Zeldman. “You heard the order to disarm?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Zeldman, his anxiety increasing with Brentwood’s apparent clairvoyance. “Problem is, sir, that you didn’t order all missiles disarmed. We still have four with seven MARVs apiece. That’s twenty-eight warheads, each of three hundred kilotons, sir.”

“The new D-5 Tridents we took aboard at Holy Loch,” cut in Brentwood, “are a hundred and fourteen thousand pounds each. The C-4 Tridents were sixty-five thousand pounds each.”

Zeldman couldn’t see it. Nor could anyone else in Control. So what if you fired a deactivated missile? The tube still filled with water. Besides, wasn’t Brentwood telling him the D-5s, no higher at forty-four feet than the C- 4s, which also rose two feet “proud” above the fairing of the forty-two-foot pressure hull, were almost double the C-4s’ weight? But then, with Sonarman Emerson’s voice telling them the second two Mark-48s were closing in on the next hostile torpedo coming at them just over seven miles away at a depth of 1,215 feet, Zeldman now realized what Brentwood had over an hour before. Though the D-5s were almost twice as heavy as the C-4s that they had replaced, when the D-5s were released, the volume of water replacing them would be insufficient in weight to make up for their loss. It meant that rather than the sub being required to increase its buoyancy, by having to pump out more water, as it would had it been firing the lighter C-4 missile, in the case of the D-5, the volume of water pouring into the tube would weigh less than the missile it replaced. This in turn meant the sub would actually become lighter after a D-5 firing and would naturally rise, the damaged ballast tanks not needed.

Overhearing the conversation between Brentwood and the executive officer, Sonarman Link still didn’t get it, but Emerson did, and it wiped away any umbrage Emerson had taken from Brentwood’s curt injunction to be quiet. Old “Bing” Brentwood was clearly a genius. There was no doubt in Emerson’s mind that if they survived the war, Robert Brentwood would become vice admiral in no time and probably, like JFK, would become president.

“Enemy torpedo destroyed!” announced Link matter-of-factly. “Hostile vessel still closing.”

At the hostile’s speed of forty-five miles per hour, it would be in very close range within eleven minutes, and by now its active radar would have confirmation that its target, the Roosevelt, was traveling at no more than five knots. The hostile hadn’t fired any more torpedoes, suggesting to Brentwood that it was now going to rely on its superior speed to outmaneuver its slow target. The Hunter/Killer would try to stop him reaching the hole, unless Roosevelt could increase speed and so buy time. Brentwood unclipped the hand mike.

“Torpedo firing control. Stand by for snapshot two. One.”

“Standing by for snapshot, sir.”

“Very well. It’ll come in a rush,” added Brentwood. “Minimum range — one mile.”

“Understood, sir. One mile.”

“Just keep him away from me,” intoned Brentwood.

“You give me the angle, sir,” repeated Torpedo Control, “and we’ll get ‘im.”

“Chief engineer?” called Brentwood.

“Sir?”

“Possible to turn our main prop at all?”

“Sir, it’s bent to hell and gone — it’d shake the guts out of her. Too much torque. In half an hour — maybe less — we’d have leaks popping up—”

“What can you give me?” Brentwood cut in. “Maximum, Chief?”

“Five and a half,” said the chief resignedly but not liking it. “Maybe six with the help of the current, but we’ll wake up every son of a bitch from here to the South Pole, Captain.”

“We’ve already done that, Chief. Give it a burl.”

“Hold on to your dentures,” the chief advised. “It’s gonna shake ‘em loose.”

It was an understatement, and as if that weren’t enough, a report came in that not only was the oxygen generator down, but no attempts could be made to bleed oxygen from reserve bottles because of damage sustained to their valve heads and regulators.

“Also,” the damage report seaman was shouting, above the bone-shuddering noise of the main prop, “oxygen and Freon gas scrubbers — closing down.”

“Very well — light candles!” shouted Zeldman as Brentwood hooked back into missile firing control verification procedures.

“I hope,” Brentwood yelled out to the weapons officer, “those tube liners can take a bit of vibration?”

“No sweat!” came the weapons officer’s report, his voice loud over the intercom, practically blasting the headphones off Brentwood, starting a throbbing, hot, needlelike pain in his left ear. The prop, though bent only a few thousandths of an inch, was turning the pressure hull into what felt like an unbalanced spin dryer out of control, the torque creating mayhem in the kitchen, where hamburgers became airborne, coffee shot from pots in marble- sized globules, the crew hanging on to every hold bar, nook, and cranny they could find, the men in Control buckled up while the OOD gripped the back of the planesmen’s chairs. But the chief, as chiefs were wont to do, lived up to his promise and delivered six knots, which together with the four knots of the emergency “bring it home” twin screws in the after ballast tank, were pushing Roosevelt at ten knots, chopping her ETA in the area beneath the hole from what was a minute ago twelve minutes to less than six, the burning of the perchoate candles mixing with the stench of sweat that was pouring out of the men. Emerson gave up on sonar echoes, the sub’s din overwhelming its hydrophone sensors.

After three more minutes, Brentwood shouted orders to stop all engines in order to take an active sonar pulse. Emerson’s screen showed the Hunter/Killer was now at eleven thousand yards.

“Any fish yet?” Brentwood asked Emerson.

“No, sir.” Brentwood estimated the Roosevelt would have to stop in another three minutes if he was to engage any torpedoes the attacking sub might fire, leaving him only three minutes to retaliate and hopefully blow the HUK’s torpedoes out of the water. He called for full speed ahead, and again they were assaulted by a kind of shaking none of them had ever known.

“Sir!” cried Emerson, alarming everyone who heard him. So ingrained were they with the idea of being quiet on the sub that despite the tremendous roaring of the ship itself, shouting in Control was a “noise short” violation,