MacDonald pushed the toggle switch the next time his pacing took him by the 12MC. “Combat, Captain. Have we regained contact?”
“We are working on it, sir,” replied one of the officers.
“Very well, Lieutenant. Ask Coghlan if they have contact.”
“We have, sir. Coghlan does not have contact with Alpha One either.”
“Alpha One?
“We have designated the submarine contact as Alpha One, sir. Never know, we might have another one…”
“… as a probable submarine, sir.”
“With your permission, Captain, I believe we can upgrade that to definite submarine. It’s the Echo we tracked earlier, is my understanding. That is what the sonar technicians, Chief Stalzer and Oliver, are saying, sir.”
“Have we put out a situation report — a SITREP on this?”
“Initial SITREP went out within a minute of us detecting the probable submarine, sir.”
MacDonald stayed bowed over the voice box a few seconds longer before pushing the toggle switch again. “Well done, Lieutenant, and it is definitely a submarine. That we have already decided. Let’s not waste time calling it a probable submarine.”
“Thank you, sir. Well-trained crew.”
MacDonald straightened. He turned to Goldstein. “Officer of the Deck, I’m going to Combat. You have the bridge and the conn.”
“Aye, sir.”
They watched as the skipper walked past the helm, around the radar repeater, and passed by the plotting table to reach the aft hatch port-side.
The boatswain mate of the watch announced, “Captain off the bridge,” as MacDonald undogged the hatch and stepped off the bridge and into Combat. At the plotting table the quartermaster of the watch made a quick notation as simultaneously he was taking bearings from the topside watches to shore and drawing the lines on the chart.
“Stayed longer than I thought,” Ensign Hatfield said.
Goldstein smiled before replying, “Keep your attention on the job at hand, Ensign.”
There seemed to be a spring in Goldstein’s steps as he walked the bridge, double-checking course and speed and acknowledging the quartermaster’s periodic repeats of where the ship was located, nearest point of land to their left, and distance to shoal waters. The captain must have a lot of respect and confidence in his ability as OOD to leave the bridge at a time such as this.
“Captain in Combat,” the chief of the watch announced as MacDonald entered. Seated near the captain’s chair above the radar consoles, an operations specialist third class petty officer made a notation in his logbook. A captain’s presence on a warship was never without notice.
“Carry on!” MacDonald said as he maneuvered past the tight confines of the Forrest Sherman class combat information center.
No space was wasted, and when the ship manned battle stations such as now, there was little space left to walk. Sailors pressed against their consoles or squeezed into a narrow space, or put their backs against the bulkhead to allow MacDonald room to pass them. A chorus of “excuse me, sir” graced his passage.
At the entrance to Sonar, Admiral Green stood talking with Joe Tucker.
“Joe Tucker, would you take the bridge, please.”
Joe Tucker saluted and started his own journey through the mass of equipment and sailors toward the bridge.
“I wondered how long you could stay up there before realizing this is where we fight ships today.”
“Longer than I thought, sir.” MacDonald stuck his head inside the sonar compartment. “You got anything?”
Both Stalzer and Oliver had their hands on the earpieces of their headsets, pressing them down against their ears. They both shook their heads and replied in unison, “No, sir.”
“We’ve lost the little son of a bitch,” Green said from over MacDonald’s shoulder. “Gonna be one hell of a ribbing if we don’t regain him.”
Ribbing? This submarine may be planning to shoot, MacDonald thought.
Green smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, Danny. If the Soviet asshole had wanted to fire on us, he would have already done so.”
“How about the other submarine outside the harbor?”
“We don’t know there is another submarine outside there. We ‘supposed’ there was one when we initially detected this one. But you may have been missing the transmissions ongoing between Subic Operations Center, the marines ashore, and the small flotilla of search craft that is convoluting this effort of ours.”
“I may have, sir,” MacDonald replied, knowing the admiral was right.
Green let out a burst of air. “Methinks our earlier suspicions about the bastard below us being here on a spying mission have been proven right. And I think our spooks are better than their spooks.”
“They may have him again, sir,” Burkeet said, his head jutting out from around the open curtains of Sonar.
MacDonald and Green stepped closer.
“What you got?” MacDonald asked softly.
Oliver lowered one earpiece. “I think I had the coolant reactor pump again, sir. Hard to tell. But it’s gone now.”
“Were you able to get a bearing on it?”
“No, sir, Captain. I got a quick noise and then it faded.”
Stalzer looked at the two officers, glanced at Burkeet, and then said, “Admiral, Captain. We should go active, sir.”
“It would be the third pulse,” MacDonald said.
“I mean go active and stay active, sir,” Stalzer said, his words running together.
“He might think we are fixing to fire on him,” Green said.
“And he might not,” Lieutenant Burkeet offered. “At this depth, neither his torpedoes nor ours are going to be very effective. Too much bottom clutter, too much Subic-generated noise in the water, and if we fired a torpedo, we’d run as much risk as he would of it hitting one of our ships.”
“We know that, Mr. Burkeet, but right now that submarine captain has got to be one nervous asshole,” Green said. “Nervous assholes tend to do things with emotion rather than logic.”
“Sir, if we don’t find him and he reaches deep water…”
MacDonald stepped away quickly, saw the nearest sound-powered telephone talker, and grabbed him. “Ask the bridge where the nearest deep water is.”
A moment passed. “How deep they want to know, sir?”
“Five hundred feet or more?”
“What are you doing?” Green asked from behind him.
“Sir,” the young seaman replied. “Nearest water that depth is directly off our starboard beam about four nautical miles.”
MacDonald moved toward the center of Combat, where Lieutenant Burnham stood. “Lieutenant, bring the Dale onto course two-seven-zero, speed ten knots.” He turned to the ASW plotting table, where the Gold Team had their clappers, rulers, and pencils scattered on the chart. The chart outlined the depth contours of Subic Bay. He looked at where the submarine was last located and the time notated beside the pencil mark. A quick glance at the clock on the bulkhead showed him there had been nearly ten minutes of no contact.
“Won’t that take you across his bow, Danny?” Admiral Green asked.
“I don’t think he is on a course that would take him toward the northern shoreline of Subic Bay.”
“So, your thoughts?”