Anton nodded. “I think you are probably right.”
“It means we will have to do everything over again, Captain. Someday we are going to have to conduct operations in the open ocean, and out there on the Barents Sea are some of the worst waters in the world. Someday we are going to have to prove to those who may have misgivings about bringing atomic power to the Soviet Navy that it is a good thing. That it is capable of taking us outside our waters.”
“Just for the warmth, you would say?”
“The warmth of the sailors makes for a better environment. The ability of atomic power to take this ship anywhere is the reason we are here. Maybe we—”
Anton’s smile left his face. “Are you lecturing me, Comrade XO?”
Gesny stopped in midsentence. Stuttering, he apologized. “I did not intend for my comments to seem counter to your wishes, sir. I was thinking of how great and wonderful it is going to be to see this power”—he clenched his fist—“in every submarine within our Navy. We will truly achieve the centuries-old desire of Russia to be a global sea power.”
Anton’s lips narrowed. “We are the Soviet Union now, Comrade
XO,” he said, more for the benefit of those listening than truly believing his words. “Russia is but one of many within our socialist camp.”
Gesny nodded. “I believe I am only digging my hole deeper, Comrade Captain. If I may start over: if we are able to perform in this weather in the Barents, then we can perform anywhere.”
“That is true, XO, but we need to see what impact atomic power is going to have on the mechanical conditions of the boat. We need to know that the Whale will hold together as it picks up speed, makes emergency dives, emergency surfacings. We need to know every bit of data we can gain and how atomic power affects performance.”
“Yes, sir, and we can do most of that in Kola Bay. But until we do it in the Barents, there will be questions about its utility.” Anton held Katshora’s message up. He started to ask Gesny if the XO thought he should send a message back to the admiral telling him, No, the XO was right. Admiral Katshora was ensuring he knew they were going to remain within Kola Bay and to ignore any message or order that directed the Whale to head toward the Barents.
“We will, XO. Right now, let’s lead our crew through this weather and back into the facility.” He unfolded the message. “Looks as if we will be out here for a minimum of another twenty- four hours.”
“XO!” Shipley shouted down the hatch. “Let’s take the bow down a few feet, clear it of the ice buildup!” He looked aft. The main induction valves were open and easily visible through the rain because the ice along the warmer edges marked their openings.
He leaned over the hatch again. “I want to close the main induction valve and then immediately open them,” he said. That should clear the ice from them. Too much ice and they may fail to close properly when they dived. That would start a series of events such as what happened to the Squalus in 1939.
He heard the snorkel pick up the burden of exchanging the diesel exhaust as the icy outline of the main induction valves disappeared. Several seconds passed, and he saw the aft section of the boat resurface. The exhaust noise of the snorkel eased as the main induction valves reopened. He squinted and thought he could hear the noise of the air being exchanged through them, feeding the four Fairchild diesel engines as they sped the Squall-fish forward.
A moment later, the XO’s head emerged from below the deck, his body covered by the rain slick. Behind him, two sailors emerged also, relieving the two topside. Shipley and Arneau waited until the watches were relieved before doing the same.
Shipley stopped in the conning tower on the way down for a moment to chat with the crew and take off the rain slick. Chief Belford hung it up in the narrowest portion of the conning tower, the aft bulkhead. Lieutenant Weaver was the officer of the deck. He enjoyed the relative warmth of being belowdecks, though everyone had gloves, foul-weather jackets, and watch caps pulled down against the Arctic wind and rain whipping through the open hatch.
“Any word from Naval Intelligence?”
Weaver shook his head. “Not yet, Skipper.”
“I’m going to the wardroom and a fresh cup of old coffee; then I’ll be back. Keep an eye on the topside watches.”
Five minutes later he was back, taking his familiar position against the starboard bulkhead of the conning tower. The temperature showed ten degrees above zero, but it felt warmer after the thirty minutes topside. Shipley picked up the nearby handset and called engineering. Bleecker wasn’t available, but minutes later the chief engineer called back. His men were checking the batteries, but he estimated a minimum of two more hours. Two more hours of thirty-minute rotations for him, the XO, and the sailors as the Squallfish continued its approach to the mouth of Kola Bay.
“You know, Skipper, we might be able to follow that merchant into the bay,” Weaver offered after minutes of silence.
Shipley raised his eyebrows, looking at the operations officer. “How’s that?” he asked.
“We do an end run to get aft of him, sir. It’s dark. It’s going to be dark most of the time this far north and this close to winter. We can stay on the surface for most of the trip.”
Shipley bit his lower lip. “They’ll have radar tracking the ships coming and going.”
“We have a low profile. In this weather with rain, wave, and— there’s the land smear effect, which clouds radar returns within confined areas such as Kola Bay. Just a thought, sir. We could still get incoming messages and charge the batteries.”
Shipley nodded. “Let me think about it.” And think about it, he did. Diesel submarines seldom had the opportunity to approach targets submerged. Battery power may be the key to submerged operations, but by their very nature they provided insufficient speed long enough for a submarine to catch its prey. A burst of max speed at depth in a diesel could find the boat powerless and having to surface. So positioning for attack was usually done under the guise of darkness. The diesel would surface and then race to get in position to await their prey. The unsuspecting target eventually came to them, growing larger in their crosshairs until torpedoes were spewed out seconds apart, separating as they ran for a time-distance spread.
Readings in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings talked of new tactics nuclear-powered submarines would bring to the fleet. A fleet of nuclear submarines with speed limited only by mechanical and human factors. A nuclear submarine could dash forward faster submerged than a diesel submarine could surfaced, so the dash and wait tactic — the “end around” he talked about earlier — would be taught only in the history classes of the Academy instead of the war-fighting tactics courses.
He leaned against the bulkhead, feeling the cold through the cork-covered bulkhead. It meant that men such as he and those who fought in World War II keeping the Japanese away while America geared up to fight a war they never wanted would be anachronisms — a chapter in American history — as nuclear energy changed at-sea warfare.
Shipley shivered as he drained his coffee, the liquid already cold. Would the Squallfish ever lose this cold seeping into its every rivet, bulkhead, and compartment, or would it become part of the ship forever?
He leaned away from the icy contact. They could do this. It would be a visual approach on a target that may have seen them earlier. But this was peacetime. Merchant vessels around the world were not keeping lookouts for danger. In this weather, he doubted the Soviet merchant vessel would even have watches topside; they’d be crowded in the bridge or belowdecks, warm. A burst of Arctic air whipped through the open hatch above, bringing icy rain with it. Everyone hunkered lower, trying to pull their heads inside their foul-weather jackets.