When the submarine was 30 degrees on the bow of the target, the torpedo doors were opened. He would create a classic gyro-angle shot with a spread of three torpedoes to counteract the target speeding up or suddenly turning away. He waited until he was 900 metres from the destroyer, then he released the first torpedo at a bearing of 90 degrees to the target course. The second torpedo was fired at 5 degrees ahead of the bearing, and the third at 10 degrees behind.
As the 533mm torpedoes sped towards the target, the Indians had less than thirty seconds to react, which is why the commander had taken his vessel so dangerously close. The torpedoes did have a range of eight nautical miles and were wire-guided with active and passive homing at a speed of 40 knots. But the Kilo commander trusted little of that. He wanted to sight his target and fire.
The first torpedo, with an impact fuse, struck the destroyer aft, cutting the engines almost immediately. The second, with a proximity fuse, blew a hole amidships, sending uncontrollable litres of water streaming into the ship. If the destroyer had not been slowed immediately by the explosions, the third torpedo would have missed. As it was it clipped the propeller casing, blowing another hole in the stern. This decided the Bangalore’s fate. Within minutes the ship was sinking. She was lost with all hands. The only distress signal received was sent out after the second impact. Then the radio went dead.
In Zhongnanhai, President Tao was told of the success and hoped he had delivered China her victory with one strike, her yizhan ershang.
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi, India
‘If we continue our ceasefire and show restraint, China will be condemned by the international community in such a way that it will never recover,’ said the Foreign Minister Prabhu Purie.
‘Whatever it does, China will recover,’ said Hari Dixit, unable to contain his anger. ‘China gunned down civilians in Tiananmen Square and within a year the Western leaders were kissing the asses of the men who ordered it. Now China is sinking our ships in our ocean, occupying our land, killing Buddhists in Tibet. If you are suggesting India surrenders now, you can bloody well resign.’
‘No, Prime Minister,’ Purie said firmly. ‘I am merely saying that we should wait a few hours and get unequivocal international support. Then we can do whatever we damn well like.’
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
‘He’s British,’ said Tang Siju. ‘He confessed after we gave him truth drugs. It is impossible for even the best-trained man to resist giving away his nationality.’
‘Is he a mercenary?’
‘He is a member of the Special Boat Squadron. I suspect he was following orders which would have had the approval of the British government.’
‘Comrade Song,’ said Tao, turning to his Foreign Minister, ‘what do you make of this?’
‘The only motivation I can see for it is to create a power balance against us in South-East Asia. The British commando probably came from HMS Ocean, which is in the Bay of Bengal on exercises under the Five Power Defence Agreement. Technically, the Cocos Islands belong to Myanmar. Our lease on them has not been officially declared.’
‘You’re waffling, Foreign Minister,’ said Tang. ‘Britain is an American ally and the United States is intent on containing the power of China. We must strike back immediately and effectively. We have a Song-class submarine which has been following the Ocean task force for two days now.’ Tang looked at his watch. ‘The satellite is passing overhead in fifteen minutes. I suggest we give the commander his orders.’
Briefing
The island of Taiwan, 160 kilometres off the eastern Chinese coast, was governed by the Japanese from the 1890s and Taiwanese residents were given Japanese citizenship. For two years after the end of the Second World War it came under mainland Chinese control. Then, in 1949, when the government was overthrown by Mao Zedong’s Communist Party, Taiwan became a stronghold for the fleeing nationalist forces. Taiwan made a remarkable development into a modern society under a mixture of military rule and American benevolence. Taiwan received a jolt of reality in the 1970s when the United States began its rapprochement with China, eventually cutting relations with Taiwan in favour of the mainland. The island continued to thrive. Martial law was lifted in 1987, the first ever direct presidential election was held in 1996 and its foreign reserves became among the highest in the world. Links with the United States remained strong. Taiwan remained protected by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. The act was designed to ‘help maintain peace, security and stability in the Western Pacific’. It also maintained the ‘capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan’. It was deliberately woolly about America’s obligation to go to war with China over Taiwan, but it left the option open.
Presidential Palace, Taipei, Taiwan
President Lin Chung-ling of Taiwan was born in the United States while his father was the Ambassador there in the 1960s. He was given the best American education and even held a United States passport, which he had to give up when he entered politics. He considered himself as much American as Chinese and certainly was more at home in the corridors of the State Department and the White House than he would be in Zhongnanhai and the Great Hall of the People.
The events of the past few days had thrown up an opportunity which Lin was convinced he could not let pass. For sixty years Taiwan had struggled in isolation, risen to the challenges and created one of the most modern Asian societies. Even the poorest Taiwanese were generations ahead of the Chinese peasants and right now a vulnerable China posed an enormous opportunity for Taiwan.
Lin had to strike while China was weak. It was pinned down in Tibet. The incursion into Arunachal Pradesh was as foolhardy as its invasion of Vietnam in 1979. International support had already been slipping from it. The decision to sink the Indian destroyer would bring condemnation from every quarter. Very rarely did such a succession of events come together in such a way.
President Lin Chung-ling had been elected with a landslide majority after he said he would attempt to see himself a citizen of Taiwan as a recognized independent country within his lifetime. Never had he dreamt the opportunity would come so quickly. He desk-topped his personal secretary to bring in the BBC film crew which was waiting outside to interview him. He had decided to make his announcement of Taiwan’s independence on BBC rather than CNN to distance himself from his American benefactors. But it would be in the contemporary manner, announcing it to the world on live television.
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC
‘They’ve hit the British frigate Grafton,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘Two torpedoes. She’s still afloat. More than twenty men dead.’
‘What with?’ said John Hastings.