“Captain in Combat!” someone shouted as MacDonald stepped through the watertight hatch. A nearby sailor secured the hatch behind him. He moved hurriedly through the tight maze of equipment, noticing the activity around the target motion analysis table.
“What you got?” he asked as he neared.
“Sonar has a contact, sir,” Lieutenant Kelly replied.
The two officers stood there, watching the TMA team plot the second line of bearing from the plotted location of the Dale. The line crossed the farthest-on circle.
“Soviet?”
“Not American.”
“How far out?”
Ensign Hatfield answered. “Can’t be more than one hundred twenty-eight nautical miles from us, sir.”
“One hundred twenty-eight?” MacDonald asked.
“Yes, sir. We are estimating max speed of eight knots for the submarine. Any faster he’d be blind. His passive sonar would be unable to detect any signals. Ergo, one hundred twenty-eight nautical miles since the reconnaissance aircraft picked him up.”
“We’ve had two lines of bearing?”
“Yes, sir. Just two.”
MacDonald turned toward Sonar, stopped, and turned back to Kelly. “What is our course and speed?”
“Sir, we are still on two-two-zero, but speed is eight knots.”
He had ordered the speed reduction a couple of hours ago to increase detection ability. “Well, we can’t have this, can we? If the submarine is doing eight and we are doing eight, then we’ll never close.”
“No, sir, but if we increase speed, we’ll have to restart our time motion analysis.”
MacDonald shrugged. “We only have two lines of bearing. Bring the speed up to twelve knots, so we have some closure rate on the contact.”
Kelly acknowledged the order, and as MacDonald walked toward Sonar, he heard the Combat watch officer pass his instructions to the bridge.
“What you got?” MacDonald asked as soon as his head parted the curtains.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Burkeet was hunched over the shoulders of Petty Officer Matthew Oliver. The two men were watching the display console as sound in the water bounced across the sensistive hydrophones within the bubble bow of the Dale. He straightened, but his eyes never left the display. “Oliver has a weak signal directly in front of us, sir. Very weak, but every now and again it grows stronger.”
MacDonald pulled himself all the way into Sonar. He touched the sailor on the shoulder. “Does the signal fade in and out, or does it seem you have two signals: One that is faint but constant and then one that startles you as it overrides the faint one?”
Oliver’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know, sir. I haven’t given it thought. I think it is a convergence zone signal. Would mean the contact is at least fifty-six miles from us.” The petty officer ran his hand through his hair. “I think you’re right, Captain. Every now and again it grows in strength. That’s when I’ve gotten two good bearings on it.”
MacDonald looked at Burkeet. “How far apart are the bearings?”
Burkeet seemed puzzled.
“Time, man? How many minutes apart between the signals?”
His eyes seemed to light up. “Five minutes — maybe six.”
“Aren’t you keeping track?” MacDonald asked sharply.
“Sir, the Gold Team is keeping track of the times.”
“You keep track also,” MacDonald ordered.
“Means we have both a convergence and a direct zone, doesn’t it, Captain?” Burkeet replied.
MacDonald nodded. “Most likely. If we do, then the submarine is closer than fifty miles. Most likely not that far if we’re getting both signal bounce off the layer and a direct path to the Dale. I doubt we have two submarines out here. The TMA team says we are within one hundred twenty-eight miles of it. I don’t believe we are that far.”
“I’ve got another one!” Oliver said, holding his headset tight against his ears as he glanced at MacDonald and Burkeet. “This one is real strong.” Oliver shut his eyes. “Seems almost as if I have two signals instead of one.”
“Convergence zone,” both officers said together. Both officers were wrong. It would take time to reach the contact, but he had a line of bearing regardless of how the signal arrived at the hydrophones located in the bulbous sonar nose on the bow of the destroyer.
FOUR
“Skipper.”
MacDonald heard the voice along the outer rim of his doze, pulling him back from the comfort of a near-dream of him home with his wife, Brenda, the joyful sounds of Rachel, twelve, and Danny Junior, eight, in the background. A comforting vision that had accompanied him on this voyage.
Without opening his eyes, he shifted in his chair on the bridge. “What is it, Lieutenant Goldstein?” The warmth of the early morning sun on his face disappeared.
“Sir, radar is showing a couple of contacts that are going to pass close to us — well, at least one of them. Combat recommends we alter course to open up our passage.”
He opened his eyes. Goldstein stood between him and the Pacific sun. “You’re blocking my morning sun, Mr. Goldstein.”
The officer shifted quickly to the side. “Sir, Combat—”
“I heard you the first time.” He pushed himself completely upright. The boatswain mate of the watch handed him his cup filled with hot coffee. “Thanks, Boats.” He yawned.
“How close are they going to pass and how long until we reach the point where we see them?”
“One is going to pass about two thousand yards off our bow. Unless the second one changes its speed or course, it will be a CBDR.”
CBDR stood for “constant bearing, decreasing range.” A ship said to be CBDR was one you would collide with somewhere along the way, as the range between the two of you decreased and neither of you changed your course or speed.
“Time?”
Goldstein cleared his throat. “Sir, we can see the closest one. He’s about twenty thousand yards off our port bow. The second one radar has just over the horizon, about twenty nautical miles out.”
MacDonald stepped down from the chair and strolled to the port bridge wing. Goldstein trailed along the left side of him a couple of paces behind.
MacDonald stepped through the opened hatch into the glare of the sun, realizing he’d left his cap beside his chair. His wife had warned him to keep his face covered because of his proclivity to sunburn. It was that Irish-Scot pigment, she kept telling him.
“Merchant,” MacDonald mumbled.
“Yes, sir. Out of Hong Kong.”
“British.”
“Flying the British Hong Kong flag, sir.”
“How much will it upset our ASW team if we turn or change speed?” MacDonald asked.
“Mr. Burnham didn’t say, sir.”
“Mr. Burnham has the watch?”
Goldstein nodded.
“Have you tried bridge-to-bridge with the merchant?”
“No, sir. You said radio silence.”
“What’s your recommendation?”
“I recommend we alter course twenty degrees to starboard, sir. It’ll open up our passing range to eight thousand yards, then once passed, we can return to base course of two-two-zero.”
“When?”
“When?”
“Yes, Mr. Goldstein. When should we turn?”
“Captain, as soon as possible.”
“Tell Combat what we are doing, then do it.”
Goldstein disappeared back into the bridge. MacDonald stood alone, watching the merchant vessel, scanning the empty ocean surface. He was more surprised over the lone merchant occupying their space than over the closeness of approach. In this part of the China Sea merchant traffic was usually heavy. But nothing was as heavy as ships transiting the Strait of Gibraltar.