He set the cup on the narrow shelf, watching it closely as he leaned down to pick up the preventive maintenance schedule from the plastic sleeves taped to the side of the small file cabinet. He opened the two-page card and scanned it.
He took a sip of his drink and laid the PMS card in front of him. All you had to do with PMS was go down the card, step by step, doing each item as it asked. Thankfully, this card did not require any tubes. He just had to check each hydrophone individually for attenuation and sensitivity. What the hell did they think he had been doing for the past two days with that Soviet submarine? Sipping tea and telling shitty sea stories? For a moment, Oliver thought about gundecking the checks — mark them as being done and slip the card back in its plastic cover — but just because others might have gundecked their preventive maintenance did not mean he would.
Oliver flipped off the sonar connection to all the hydrophones and waited a few seconds for the electronics to wind down. Then he flipped on the starboard-side hydrophones.
He lifted the cup and took a deep swig of the drink, his cheeks wrinkling at the sugar surge going across his tongue. What was the difference between a sea tale and a fairy tale? A sea tale starts with “This ain’t no bullshit” instead of “Once upon a time.” He choked at his own joke, spraying slight droplets of bug juice on the scope.
“Damn.” He grabbed a nearby rag and started wiping away the stuff before it dried to a crusty spot, which the chief would spot in a minute and keep him away from Olongapo for two nights instead of one.
As he wiped, he noticed a slight noise spoke on the number four hydrophone. He pressed the headset tighter against his ear because the noise was in the same frequency range as the Echo submarine he had tracked for two days. Oliver wondered what noise from one of the navy’s ships in port could be almost — no, absolutely — identical to a Soviet submarine electrical generator. Could he also just barely detect a sound behind this fifty-hertz noise?
He shut his eyes. His stomach growled. Fifty hertz! Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations’ electrical sources put out fifty hertz to American sixty hertz.
Why would he be hearing “his” submarine inside the harbor — No! He lifted the headset off his ears. Must be some sort of convergence zone peculiarity causing the submarine noise to bounce into the harbor. Oliver looked around. He licked his lips, aware of the dryness, and took a deep breath. What he should do is get the chief up here, but the chief would never get out of his rack. Lieutenant Burnham was the command duty officer, but by now he was in his stateroom.
He slid out of the seat and stood. The spike coming from the hydrophone showed the noise originating off the starboard side of the Dale. What was anchored behind them? He dashed out of the sonar space, through the dark confines of Combat, toward the hatch that separated the war-fighting heart of the ship from the bridge. Quickly he undogged the hatch and stepped onto the bridge for a brief moment before running out onto the starboard bridge wing, where he leaned against the railing.
Nothing! As far as he could see there was nothing between the Dale and the starlit natural barrier that curved back toward the entrance. He checked to see that the logistic ships anchored off the stern were nowhere near the noise spike, even though he knew it was a Soviet submarine he was hearing. To the left, the huge lighted silhouettes of the Kitty Hawk and Tripoli blocked his view of the guarded pier.
Oliver shut his eyes, swallowed. He looked at the waters, his eyes scanning back and forth along the line of bearing where the noise spoke originated. A minute later his eyes crossed the natural barrier. Somehow, if that noise was coming through the entrance, it had to be bouncing off something in the harbor to change its direction.
“What you doing, Matt?”
Oliver turned and looked up. It was Seaman Cleary. Oliver looked back at the water, then up again.
“You ain’t about to jump, are ya?” Cleary laughed. “ ’Cause if you do, I ain’t jumping in to save you. Not with ole hammerhead patrolling the harbor.”
Oliver shook his head. “Naw. I’m not about to jump, Tim. What are you doing on board?” he asked casually, turning his attention back to the dark waters of Subic. His mind roared over the possibilities of how he could be detecting a Soviet submarine while tied up pierside.
“Damn good thing you’re not jumping, because I got the watch.”
He should tell someone. Doctrine called for any contact that an operator was unsure of to be reported. But Oliver would be a laughing stock because no way he should be picking up a Soviet submarine.
He looked up. “Where’s your sound-powered phone?”
Cleary lifted an arm from the railing and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Can’t wear those things in this heat. Makes your ears sweat and I break out in a prickly heat. Besides, you can’t hear the command duty officer when he’s trying to sneak up on you. Ruins a good nap on watch,” Cleary joked.
The noise of a liberty launch drew their attention. Laughter from sailors returning from a night on the wild side of Olongapo City reached their ears. A group were shouting, “Shit Man Fuck!” at the top of their lungs like rowdy cheer-leaders celebrating an unexpected win. Raunchy laughter from the chorus followed each rendition.
“Lucky bastards,” Cleary said. “If I had not had a physical discussion with some fucking chief off the…” He stopped, then added, “Damn. I forget, but it was one of the ships in the harbor. But I showed him. I took my face and beat the shit out of his fist.”
Oliver looked up again. “Don’t move! I’ll be right back.” He dashed through the hatchway.
Behind him, Cleary’s voice carried. “Why? Why can’t I move?”
Oliver dashed through the bridge, ducked as he ran through the hatch, and used his hands as he dodged around the equipment in Combat to get to Sonar. Breathing heavily, he pulled the curtains apart and stared at the display. The noise spike was still there.
He was back on the bridge wing in seconds, looking up at the signal bridge. Cleary was gone. He started up the ladder.
“Hey, man! Why can’t I move?”
Oliver stepped off the rung back onto the deck of the bridge wing. He cupped his hands and looked up at Cleary. “Tim! I need you to call Mr. Burkeet and tell him to come to Sonar.”
“Why?”
“Because I need him, Tim. I don’t have time to explain.”
Cleary snorted. “Shit, man, we’re in Olongapo and stuck on board while every sailor in the fleet is out there enjoying the beer, flesh, and tossing quarters into Shit River.”
“Tim, if you don’t—”
Cleary raised his hand. “I can’t call the lieutenant. I only have comms with the quarterdeck and Mr. Marshall is the in-port officer of the deck. You know what a dickhead he can be. You come up and call him.”
“Who is the junior officer of the deck?”
Cleary’s lips pursed as he concentrated. “I’m not sure,” he said after a few seconds. “I think it is Boats Lowe.”
“Tell Manny to come to Sonar.”
Cleary smiled and threw a thumbs-up at Oliver. “That I can do.”
Oliver disappeared off the bridge wing.
Moments later he was back in Sonar, his headset on his ears, when a sound like a quick flood of water rode across his ears then stopped. He concentrated. Only thing that could make an underwater noise such as this was an outer door opening, like the outer tube on a torpedo. He shivered. This was getting weird. His instructors had told him the oceans played havoc with noise sometimes, sending it hundreds of miles before someone heard it. Other times, you could be on top of a submarine with it making all kinds of noise — their sailors could be banging steel wrenches against the hull — and you wouldn’t hear a peep.