The XO’s eyes twinkled, but the face remained as impassive now as it had since Anton met him. It was Gesny’s eyes, Anton decided. The eyes betrayed the mood of the XO, but you had to be quick or you’d miss his humorous moments.
For the next few minutes, the planesmen and helm worked together while the chief of the boat, Chief Ship Starshina Mamadov, worked the hydraulics control handles controlling the water flow into the ballast tanks. The familiar rumbling of the hydraulics associated with the ballast tanks vibrated through the Whale. Anton’s forehead wrinkled as he heard the noise and felt the slight vibration, wondering how far it carried in the water.
Noise in the water traveled faster than noise in the air, and it was noise that antisubmarine forces used to find, track, and destroy submarines. The ballast hydraulics were noisy during World War II, and they were noisy now. When the Soviet submarine fleet joined the global navies of the world, Anton surmised that noise would be the great equalizer. With atomic power as the common energy for submarines, it would be stealth and firepower that determined the difference. He wondered how the top-secret hydroacoustic coating being added to the submarine hulls in the Pacific Fleet was going. With atomic power along with this special coating designed to reduce noise in the water, the Soviet submarine force would be even more formidable. He imagined for a moment American submarines being forced to surface by a superior Soviet submarine force.
“Steady at fifteen meters.”
Master Ship Starshina Mamadov’s report brought his thoughts back to the exercise.
“Periscope up,” Anton said, stepping to the instrument. As it rose from below, he squatted and put his eye to the eyepiece. The periscope broke the surface. Anton waited the few seconds for the water to drain off the lens. He leaned back. “It’s quit raining.”
“That’s good news,” Gesny said.
Anton leaned against the periscope, wondering if Gesny really believed it was good news or was just echoing his skipper’s sentiment. For some reason, he had developed a fondness for the taciturn Gesny. How could a man go so long with so little expression of emotion? But the incident in the facility when Gesny had pulled him away from the scene with the stretchers had revealed the man’s loyalty. Loyalty was a virtue highly prized within every Navy in the world.
Anton spun the periscope, searching for the escorts. The exercise now consisted of him targeting the destroyers, reporting when he had simulated torpedo firings, and then the destroyers were to commence an ASW attack against him. His job was to engage, evade, and escape.
“Do you see them?” Gesny finally asked after Anton had spun the periscope several times.
“I believe we now have fog,” Anton replied. He stepped back, nodded at Gesny, and motioned to the periscope.
Gesny stepped to the periscope, draped his hands over the handles, and commenced searching, stepping around the conning tower as he spun the scope.
Anton looked aft at the sonar operator. “Sonar, you have them on sound?”
“Aye, Comrade Captain. First target bears zero two zero true and second target is behind us now bearing one nine zero.”
“Range?”
“No range, Captain. I can commence target motion analysis to determine it, but it will take several minutes.”
“Then do it.” He looked at Rybin. “What is our course and speed, officer of the deck?”
Rybin looked past the helmsman at the gauges on the forward bulkhead. “Sir, we are on course zero nine zero at eight knots.”
Gesny stepped away. “Fog,” he agreed. Then he looked at Ry-bin. “Ensign Rybin, an officer of the deck always knows the course, speed, and depth of his boat. He doesn’t have to look at the gauges.”
Footsteps on the ladder drew the attention of Anton and Gesny. The dark hat of the zampolit filled the hatch for a second before the smiling face of Tomich looked up.
“Ah, Comrade Tomich, welcome to the conning tower,” Anton said, wishing the man had stayed in the warmth of the officers’ mess instead of crowding an already crowded compartment.
“What would the captain like to do?” Gesny asked, ignoring the zampolit.
Tomich smiled, climbed into the conning tower, and stepped aside near the forward bulkhead on the starboard side of the helmsman. Anton appreciated the political officer staying out of the way. He had little say as to where and when a zampolit could go. To refuse a zampolit access to men or compartments would be a strike against an officer’s career, if not his life.
“Let’s use sonar for a targeting solution. Then as soon as we report our simulated firing, I want to do a full right rudder, burst our speed to about fifteen knots, and create a knuckle in the water.”
A knuckle was when water was churned behind a submarine, creating a swirling condition that could reflect sonar and put noise into the water. Many times a knuckle confused surface sonar into believing they had the submarine located.
“Then we’ll take her deep at three knots, with another right full rudder. We’ll coast away from our firing position. We’ll want to steady up going in the opposite direction we are on now.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Down periscope,” Anton said as Gesny stepped away.
Gesny slapped the handles into the upright stored position as the scope started down.
“If we do that maneuver,” Anton continued, “it will expose our shaft to the destroyer bearing zero two zero. But the knuckle should shield the cavitation noise of our propellers from the sound heads on the target at one nine zero. The goal is to get behind the target bearing southwest of us. Then we’ll do another complete one-eighty turn and come out as close behind him as possible. That way we’ll ride his baffles while they search.”
Anton stayed silent as the XO and Ensign Rybin put his orders into action. He waited while the sound team developed a profile of the surface. Thirty minutes of riding at periscope level should give the ASW teams on the destroyers sufficient training. He knew it should be easy to track a target that is maintaining the same course, speed, and depth. The noise from the pumps was the major source of sound on a submarine, so only a deaf sonar technician could miss hearing the Whale at this depth and distance.
“Sir,” Rybin said from the plotting table, “we have solutions on the targets.” A broad grin spread across the young officer’s face.
“Well, Comrade Rybin, why don’t you give them to me?”
“Comrade Captain, target Alpha now bears zero one zero, left-bearing drift, on course two seven zero, speed eight knots.”
“Eight knots seem slow,” Gesny said.
“That is because we have fog on the surface, and target Alpha is approaching the operational area of target Bravo,” Rybin answered.
Gesny raised his eyebrows as he looked at Anton.
Anton ran his hand over his mouth to hide the smile. He knew where Rybin got that tidbit of information. The more he worked with Gesny, the more respect he grew to have for the officer.
“And target Bravo?”
“Comrade Captain, target Bravo bears one seven zero on course zero eight zero at eight knots, sir.”
Anton looked at Gesny. “Looks as if they have us located, XO.”
“Aye, sir. Looks as if Bravo is attempting to push us toward Alpha.”
“Ensign Rybin, what do you recommend?”
Rybin licked his lips for a moment. “Sir, I would recommend putting your plan into action.”
“How?”
The man’s eyes widened, and the officer whirled back to the plotting table.
“What is the range to the two targets, Comrade Rybin?” Gesny asked.
“Sir, Alpha is one thousand meters and Bravo is at approximately two thousand meters,” the young ensign answered without looking up from the chart. Then he sprang upright. “Sir, I recommend we come to course zero one zero—”