This contact, which Bodzin was quick to label Sierra Six, reacted to the ping with a sudden noisy burst of speed. It was surely the long sought Han, thought the Texan, as his wonder turned to sheer terror when his headphones next filled with the buzz saw whine of an approaching torpedo. Bodzin had previously heard this dreaded sound only during practice exercises, and he wasted no time passing the warning to the control room.
Benjamin Kram was standing beside the navigation plot when Bodzin’s frantic warning arrived via the public-address speakers. For the first time in his long career, he found himself the target of an actual hostile-torpedo attack. Kram had no time for fear. His years of training now took over. He rushed to the adjoining helm and positioned himself behind the seated COB.
“All ahead flank! Come around hard on bearing three two-five, at a depth of eight-hundred-and-fifty feet!” Kram ordered.
As COB repeated these commands to the helmsman, Kram looked to his right, where the boat’s firecontrol console was situated.
“Weaps,” he shouted. “Prepare to launch five-inch evasion device.”
As Kram was reaching up to grab the nearest intercom handset, the deck dropped forward and canted hard aport. He balanced himself on the back of COB’s chair and addressed the crew over the 1MC.
“Rig ship for collision!”
“Countermeasures ready for launch, Captain,” informed Weaps.
“Launch countermeasures!” Kram instructed.
“Countermeasures away!” Weaps revealed, in reference to the grinding decoy that was soon shooting off in the opposite direction.
“Conn, sonar,” broke in Bodzin’s amplified voice. “Torpedo is at two thousand yards and continuing to close!”
“COB!” directed Kram. “Come around crisply to zero six-zero. We need to leave the mother of all knuckles in the water behind us.”
The Folk’s hull shifted hard to the right, and a loose coffee mug crashed to the deck and slipped past the helm. Kram managed to grab it, and as he tightly gripped the ceramic handle, his determined glance locked on the digital-knot gauge.
“Twenty-six knots,” revealed COB, whose gaze was also focused on the steadily rising digital display. “Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine …”
“Conn, sonar,” interjected Bodzin. “Torpedo is rangegaiting at one thousand yards and closing. It’s going to be close, sir!”
“Weaps, launch another decoy!” Kram ordered. “Sound the collision alarm!”
A muted electronic alarm began ringing in the background. As the weapons officer informed them that yet another decoy had been released into the water, Kram dropped the mug he had been holding and tightened his grip on the back of COB’s chair.
“Thirty-two knots at seven-eight-zero feet,” revealed COB, whose own tone of voice continued to display an unbelievable degree of composure.
“Come on Jimmy K, you can do it,” urged the young planes man seated to COB’s left, his steering yoke pushed forward to its full extension.
“Conn, sonar. Torpedo has lost its lock on us. It appears to be going after our last decoy!”
This joyous revelation was punctuated by a gut wrenching blast, its shock-wave arriving seconds later. Tossed to and fro by this powerful concussion, the Folk’s hull shuddered violently and the overhead lights flickered.
Kram was thrown to his knees. He struggled to stand. As he regained his footing, a quick survey of the compartment found no apparent injuries, and he addressed the 1MC to determine how the rest of the sub had fared.
“Damage control, I want all parties to report in on the double!”
A tense sixty seconds passed as the calls began arriving from all sections of the Polk. Except for a few bruises and cuts, with all stations reporting in as being fully operational, not a single man was seriously injured.
“That was too damn close, COB,” whispered Kram with disgust. “Now let’s see what we can do about paying our respects to the bastards responsible for this unwarranted attack!”
In the adjoining depths, the HMS Talent had also managed to outmaneuver the Lijiang’s torpedo. Having ordered the launching of a full spread of countermeasures, Comdr. Mark Eastbrook found himself with no time to refocus the Talent’s efforts over to the offensive. For the enemy’s acoustic homing torpedo had yet to detonate, being presently on a direct collision course with the QE2\
He doubted that they’d be able to eliminate this errant weapon with one of their Spearfish torpedoes. Unable to warn the ocean liner by radio, Eastbrook realized there was only a single option available to them.
Though it would take every spare knot they could squeeze out of their propulsion system, he calculated that there was just enough time for the Talent to position itself between the oncoming torpedo and its unsuspecting surface target.
Completely oblivious to the suicidal nature of this maneuver, the crew of the Talent accepted Eastbrook’s difficult decision without question.
For the brave, dedicated men of the HMS Talent, duty to the Crown prevailed above all else. Individual lives meant absolutely nothing in the defense of this intangible principle, and they willingly put them on the line to preserve the integrity of their beloved Queen.
44
The Lijiang had survived its own brush with death by a combination of effective decoys and a daring quick-stop maneuver. The enemy salvo was last heard spiraling down into the cold depths, where the warhead eventually detonated.
Guan had expected that their captain would react to this near miss with a celebration of some sort. Instead of relieved joy, Lee Shao-chi expressed himself with a furious outburst of crude invectives. Gone was his passive, controlled manner, which Guan and the rest of the crew had been so quick to emulate. In its place was a dark side of Lee’s personality that they had yet to experience. His face flushed with anger, his breaths coming in quick, uneven gasps, Lee furiously castigated his sonar officer for failing to pick up the enemy submarine that had sneaked up behind them. Once this verbal punishment was delivered, he stormed back to his command position on the periscope pedestal. Pure madness emanated from his eyes as he monitored the James K. Polk’s successful evasion of their attack.
All but forgetting about the American warship at this point, Lee refocused his wrath on the submarine that had taken the potshot at them.
It was believed to be a British, 7ra/a/gar-class vessel, and Lee had taken it upon himself to personally see to its destruction.
“How could they have managed to evade our sensors, and sneak up on us like that?” mumbled Lee to no one in particular. “Such effrontery is inexcusable!”
“You know how sneaky those Brits can be,” offered Guan in a vain attempt to lighten Lee’s sour mood. “I still think it’s a miracle that we even got them to give up Hong Kong.”
“Nobody makes a fool out of me like that,” continued Lee, not paying any attention to his commissar’s rambling comments. “Nobody, I say!”
Guan didn’t like what he saw as Lee’s face was momentarily illuminated by the flickering candlelight. His face was drawn and gaunt, his jagged scar giving him an evil appearance.
To make good his revenge, Lee had ordered the Lijiang to initiate a tight, high-speed turn that made their sonar all but useless. Seemingly unconcerned by the frothing cavitation al wake that they were leaving in their baffles, Lee managed to position the Lijiang at the rear of the Trafalgar. The Brits were apparently well aware of their presence behind them, for they were in the midst of a frantic, full-speed sprint to the surface.
As the Lijiang’s planes man yanked back hard on his steering column, Guan found his body pulled forward as the deck canted upwards. The diving officer began tensely calling out their rapidly decreasing depth, in between constant range-to-target updates from sonar.