catwalk down to the submarine hold.”
“I understand, Captain. I understand.”
“We need to have been and gone by the time the destroyer gets here, and we have a lot of work to do before then.”
On Challenger Once more Challenger approached the Prima Latina from below. Jeffrey had Meltzer use the control surfaces and propulsion power to hold the ship as shallow as was safe until he felt satisfied the two vessels were lined up properly.
It was time to commit. On the live periscope image, Jeffrey saw Wilson was right — the surface swells outside were already stronger, as the nearby shallow banks and shoals fell astern. Prima Latina was rolling side to side noticeably now, making the docking maneuver even harder.
“Blow all main ballast!” Jeffrey shouted. COB’s fingers danced on his panels. There was a roaring sound, as compressed air forced water out through the bottom of the ballast tanks. Meltzer and Harrison handled their controls in grim concentration.
But as Challenger rose into the Prima Latina’s hold, Challenger’s bulk interfered with the freighter’s propellers biting the water. The freighter began to slow. Relative to the surface ship, Challenger seemed to speed up. Willey’s laptop was useless now — Jeffrey would have to do it by eye. Meltzer reported that Challenger was surfaced.
“Helm back one-third!”
Meltzer acknowledged at once, but Challenger still surged forward in the hold. They were going to hit, and smash the bow dome and the sonar sphere, and maybe rupture the ballast tanks and detonate the missiles in the forward vertical launch array.
This was getting too tough. Jeffrey seriously considered diving and giving it up, in spite of Wilson’s order.
“Contact on acoustic intercept!” Kathy shouted. This broke Jeffrey’s focus badly — Challenger and the Prima Latina were being pinged by another sub. “Contact has an active towed array! Contact is a surface ship. Contact’s sonar is Russian!” Not a submarine, a spy trawler, just as Wilson had warned.
Challenger was trapped: If Jeffrey dived, the trawler would surely catch her as a separate sonar contact. He simply had to make this docking work.
“Helm back two-thirds!”
Meltzer and Harrison walked a tightrope now — reversing on the pump-jet made Challenger’s stern slew sideways unpredictably. A bow collision was barely avoided, but then Challenger started drifting backward in the pool of water in the hold. They were going to hit at the stern, and smash their delicate pump-jet — and Russians were snooping somewhere near.
“Helm, ahead two-thirds!” Jeffrey could see the water around him churning and swirling wildly as he checked the sternway. He ordered, “Helm, ahead one-third,” so as not to gain too much headway.
Kathy announced more Russian pinging, getting closer.
Jeffrey saw the bottom doors start to swing closed underneath him; Challenger shivered from violent new buffeting and turbulence, which also affected the Prima Latina’s speed. Jeffrey kept having to throw the pump-jet into forward and then reverse. He and Meltzer and Harrison juggled like madmen.
The Russians pinged again. Do they know we’re here? Are they getting suspicious? Will they try to ram the Prima Latina, the way the Soviets played chicken with our navy in the old days?
The hold doors closed securely. “Helm, all stop. We’re in.”
Jeffrey had to sit down, then was surprised he’d been standing — he must have jumped up without realizing it as he issued his engine commands.
“Chief of the Watch, rig for reduced electrical.” COB acknowledged, and everyone switched things off. Jeffrey called Lieutenant Willey, and told him to shut down the reactor.
Jeffrey used the periscope to explore their cramped and secret hiding place, which looked more high tech on the inside than the tramp steamer did from the outside.
But Jeffrey dreaded what he might see at any moment. If the freighter hit a mine, her hull would burst inward with sudden flame and blasting water. Her flotation tanks would be ruptured and she’d take Challenger with her to the grave. If the Russian trawler rammed them, the freighter’s hull would burst inward with slicing steel and gushing water. Challenger would die. The Russians could always claim it was an accident, just another maritime collision.
Strange, urgent vibrations began, though Challenger’s pump-jet wasn’t moving. The periscope image showed the water in the hold was slapping around.
“Prima Latina engine noise increasing, Captain,” Kathy said.
Jeffrey turned to Wilson. “Is this supposed to happen?”
Wilson, frowning, responded, “I don’t know.”
Jeffrey felt the deck heeling under his feet. Challenger creaked against the rubber blocks holding her firmly in the hold. The heeling grew much steeper, to port — the Prima Latina was turning hard to starboard.
The vibrations and heeling grew stronger; the water in the hold all rushed to Challenger’s port side, slopping over the submarine’s hull, gurgling and roaring.
“She’s making an emergency turn,” Wilson said.
Above the other racket, Jeffrey could hear a warning bong begin to sound somewhere in the Prima Latina. He put two and two together fast.
“Chief of the Watch,” Jeffrey snapped. “Collision alarm.” The raucous siren blared. Crewmen tried to brace themselves.
The Russians are going to ram. Now Jeffrey heard a deep mechanical moan from outside the hull. Kathy said the freighter was sounding its horn, a lengthy, insistent blast.
The collision alarm kept blaring inside Challenger. Jeffrey watched through the periscopes, helpless, waiting to see the Prima Latina cut in half.
The Prima Latina turned sharply the other way. The heeling reversed. The maddened shaking and sloshing continued. Jeffrey gripped his armrests, hating having nothing to do. She’s trying to evade the trawler’s charging bow. All eyes were glued to the periscope pictures now, each person dreading to see what Jeffrey dreaded — an insider’s view of a freighter being skewered on the high seas.
The freighter sounded her horn again, an endless series of angry staccato blasts. She turned sharply back toward starboard. The shaking went on and on.
Then the vibrations died down. Challenger’s deck righted itself. By gyrocompass, Jeffrey saw the freighter was resuming her course south.
In a little while, a crane on a catwalk in the hold lowered a gangplank onto Challenger’s hull. Jeffrey watched a man swagger down the ramp and knock on Challenger’s forward hatch with a pipe wrench. Jeffrey recognized the scruffy seaman who’d been smoking the cigar
