Joe Tucker stepped away from the opening and headed forward. “Skipper, I’ll be at the plotting table with the ASW team.”
MacDonald nodded. It would be the plotting table that would show the navigational track of the contact as well as the topography of Subic Bay. They might hear the immediate changes here at Sonar, but if they were going to fight the intruder, it would be from the charts of the ASW team.
Everyone remained silent as Oliver repeated the compass headings as the contact changed course. When he called, “Contact steady on course two-zero-five,” a collective sigh filled the compartment. The one worry with trailing a submarine was missing a maneuver where the contact was positioning for a firing solution.
A minute later, Joe Tucker rejoined them. “Captain, appears the submarine has aligned itself along the shoals of Cubi Point.”
“Means less water beneath his hull to take evasive action,” Green offered.
“Yes, sir, but it might also mean this skipper expects us to use active sonar. Active sonar doesn’t work well in shallow water. It bounces and reverberates all over the place,” MacDonald said.
“How long until he reaches those shoal waters?”
“Admiral, he is already in them, sir,” Joe Tucker replied.
The familiar bagpipe sound filled Combat, almost immediately followed with the call sign of the Subic Operations Center calling the Dale.
“Dale here. Go ahead,” Lieutenant Burnham replied.
“You are cleared for active sonar. I say again, you are cleared for active sonar.”
Topside the sailor manning the aft sound-powered telephone watch reported the red stern lights of the small boys heading back toward the piers of the Subic Naval Base. He also reported the activity on five of the warships as they prepared to get under way. The sound of horns cascaded over the military installations surrounding Subic Bay and Cubi Point Naval Air Station, waking everyone as the American base ramped up to a possible attack. Many of the sailors who would normally be on board would find themselves left behind if the warships received orders to cast off lines, but every ship in the United States Navy kept the minimum number of officers, chiefs, and sailors on board to get under way at a moment’s notice. This event would be critiqued for lessons learned, which would be noted, and soon forgotten as time eroded memory of the event.
“Think we should give active a try?” Green asked.
MacDonald nodded. “If we can get one ping off him…”
Green shook his head violently. “That’s not why I want us to go active, Captain. I want that son of a bitch to know we know he is there.” He guffawed. “After all, isn’t as if he can go anywhere.” He nodded. “Where is the Coghlan? I want her to zip ahead of the contact. Get the Coghlan between it and the open ocean. Tell him to stay silent and he is not to use active sonar without my permission. Let’s box this son of a bitch in.”
MacDonald acknowledged the order and looked at Joe Tucker, who saluted and moved toward the main part of Combat, where Lieutenant Burnham stood.
“Once we go active, Danny me boy, what do you think this contact is going to do? What would you do?”
MacDonald bit his lip as he thought about the question.
“Why do you think he edged himself closer to shoal waters?” Green continued. “And if he has the same charts we do of Subic Bay, he’s going to know that those shoal waters are mostly man-made, filled with huge rocks and debris. Had to do it so the runway would stretch far enough out for the air traffic it was handling.”
“He could open his torpedo tube doors while masked by the active sonar,” MacDonald offered.
Green nodded. He chuckled. “Worst case for us. He opens his torpedo tube doors. We miss it. Then we take short-range torpedoes down our nose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He may do that, but he won’t fire. Let’s assume for ‘worst case’ planning he does do that.”
“I already have ordered our decoys ready for launch at my orders.”
“They’d be good in open ocean. They may not work as good inside the shallower waters we are in. Shallow water — air-launched decoys?” Green shook his head. “Most likely the torpedoes would hit us before the decoys hit the water.” Green looked around Combat. “What do we do?”
“We close the contact, sir.”
“Do what?”
“Close the contact. If we are nearly on top of him when we activate our sonar, we’ll be too close for his torpedoes to activate. Even if he fires them, he’ll miss us.”
“You’re right, Danny. But when they miss us, they’re going to seek out the nearest target that is viable. We have an entire battle group behind us, and one or more of them will become an inferno.”
“We can launch decoys now.”
Green shook his head. “We have to weigh what we do with what we think is going on in the mind of that Soviet skipper. He is as scared as we are nervous. Scared and nervous make for volatile bedmates.”
“Steady on course two-zero-two,” Orlov announced.
“Sir?” Ignatova asked.
“I heard,” Bocharkov told Ignatova, then announced loudly, “Very well. Distance to shoal waters?”
“Fifty meters,” Tverdokhleb replied. “We are fifty meters maximum from shoal waters.” The navigator looked up, pushing his bifocals off the end of his nose and against his eyes. “But these charts are old. I recommend going no closer.”
“How old?” Ignatova demanded.
Old? A hell of a time to decide to tell us that, Bocharkov thought.
“Three years.”
Bocharkov relaxed. A three-year-old chart was nothing. He had sailed from Kamchatka with charts five, six, and one time with a chart ten years old.
“We should be worried?” Ignatova asked.
“Only for the bow,” Tverdokhleb said calmly. “The bow will announce shoal waters when it hits them.”
“XO,” Bocharkov said, drawing Ignatova’s attention. “When the Americans go active, I want to open the aft torpedo tube doors. All of them.”
Ignatova nodded. “The Americans will hear us opening the doors.”
Bocharkov nodded. “It is a risk we have to take.”
“Aft torpedo tubes five and six are decoys. One through four are ready to fire.”
Bocharkov grunted. “You don’t expect me to fire torpedoes at the Americans, do you?”
Ignatova shook his head. “If they fire at us?”
Bocharkov gave a quick chuckle. “Then we will fight our way to the open ocean.”
“Sir!” Orlov shouted from near the sonar console. “Contact Two to our north is in a left-bearing drift. It is increasing revolutions on its shafts.”
“It is increasing speed to get ahead of us. It is moving into attack position,” Ignatova said softly.
“No,” Bocharkov countered. “The Americans are no fools. They are moving the ship to block our sprint to the Pacific. They know we have to try to escape eventually, so they are preparing for it.” But the message from Moscow changed things. What if the Americans knew what Moscow had sent?
“Maybe we should take a chance with the decoys now.”
Bocharkov pursed his lips as he shook his head. “No, XO. Not yet. Sometimes a slow escape is better than none. We will continue along this slow pace, letting the shallow water disrupt their sonar.”
“If it doesn’t, Comrade Captain, then…”
“Then we’ll have less water overhead when we swim to the surface” Bocharkov whispered. Then he shook his head. “Sorry. Bad joke. Vladmiri, the main thing right now is patience. Patience is the key to defeating the Americans. Patience and good Soviet engineering.”
“Then we’re screwed.”