“Here,” Weaver said quickly. “You two stand over near the aft bulkhead until the skipper finishes his surveillance.”
Why so tense? Shipley thought. Maybe this mission was bringing back memories long thought buried. He had nearly screamed at the sailor. That wasn’t him. He had deliberately fought against developing a reputation as a screamer.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
He did not see Weaver nod in reply.
Another couple of rounds, and Shipley stepped away.
“Lieutenant Logan, it’s all yours,” he said.
Logan and his sailors quickly pounced on the periscope. Shipley worked his way through the crowd to the sonar operator, who reported no change in the sounds. The warships were still out there, and they were still boring holes through the water. When he turned back to his periscope, Brooks and Cross were stepping back from the contraption strapped to it.
“Do we know if this is going to work, Lieutenant?” Shipley asked.
Logan smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir; we’ve tested this several times on our trip here.” He gestured to it. “Would the captain like to take a look?”
Shipley started to say no, but then stepped up to the camera. With Logan telling him how to operate the lens, Shipley leaned against it and peered through the camera, which allowed him to see through the periscope. Other than the handles being farther away, he could tell no difference. He leaned back. “How do you take a photograph?”
Logan told him. Shipley looked at the button for operating the shutter. “How many photographs can you take?”
Petty Officer Cross dragged a black briefcase over near the periscope. Logan squatted and opened it. “We have nearly a hundred frames capable of taking low-light photographs.”
“So we’ll know when you have enough photographs?”
“Yes, sir; unfortunately, we can’t process them until we return. Naval Intelligence is going meet us with a photographer team.”
“Why didn’t you bring a team with you this time?” Shipley asked, thankful they didn’t.
“They weren’t available on such short notice, sir. Petty Officers Cross and Brooks are stationed at Edzell, Scotland, so it was easy to get them down here, and they had the proper security clearances needed to conduct this mission.”
“Edzell, Scotland? Never heard of it. Where is it?”
“It’s in Edzell, sir,” Logan answered, touching his watch cap. “It was a World Wars I and II RAF base.”
“Well, Lieutenant, I doubt we will ever see your photographs.” He turned to include the two CTs. “Listen to me, for this is important. If you hear the ‘oogle’ go off and shouts of ‘Dive! Dive!’ that means we are running from something that may have or has seen us. We can’t let this periscope down with your camera on it. So if you want to save your camera”—he turned to Logan—“as well as the air sampler you’re going to mount on the main induction valve, you’re going to have to be quick in getting them disconnected. Otherwise one of my sailors is going to rip them off and throw them aside as we head for deep depths. Okay?” He looked at their faces as all three replied with loud “Ayes.”
“Good,” he said, turning back to Logan. “Now, how do you have your men dispersed?”
“Cross and Brooks will be in the aft engine room with the air sampler, sir, since it is the most cumbersome. They will operate that while I stay here and take the photographs.”
Shipley agreed.
“Once I have used up the frames, I’ll disconnect the camera even if we are still on the surface.”
“Sir,” Van Ness announced, “we have arrived.”
“Up attack scope,” Shipley said. He did one more sweep of the area, then ordered the Squallfish to surface. A chill ran up his back, and it was not because of the weather. The fog was still surrounding them, but it appeared to be less thick than when they submerged. He could make out faint lights on their starboard side. One light blinked steadily, most likely marking a large structure. Blinking lights along coastal structures served two purposes: it alerted aircraft of their height and, as far as he was concerned, it provided known geographical locations for mariners to take a bearing. Those bearings allowed a ship to refine its distance and location from shore.
“Okay, Lieutenant Weaver, let’s take the boat up,” he said, slapping the handles down. “Down periscope.”
“Sir, recommend coming to course two two zero,” Van Ness announced.
Shipley nodded. “Let’s wait until we do a positioning once we’ve surfaced — that is, if we can get a couple of landmarks.” His eyebrows arched. “We do have some landmarks to do a couple of fixes on, don’t we?”
The beeps warning the crew of the boat surfacing echoed through the Squallfish. The boat tilted slightly as the American submarine finished rising the fifty-five feet to the surface. Throughout the conning tower and the control room beneath it, there were the routine sounds of the watches blowing the air from the ballasts, answering the nominal commands associated with bringing a boat sunk on purpose back to the surface of the sea. Van Ness nodded. “Yes, sir; we have a few landmarks ready for fixing if we are within two or three miles of our dead reckoning.”
“Well, I was able to see lights ashore. One of them could be on that water tower you mentioned earlier.”
“Surfaced, sir,” Weaver announced.
Van Ness and his signalman bent over the chart. The signalman put his finger on the chart and whispered something to the navigator.
“Yes, sir, Skipper,” Van Ness said. “That should be the water tower on the chart.”
One of the sailors from the control room rushed up the ladder through the conning tower to the main hatch above. He spun the wheel on the main hatch. Then he pushed it out and slid around to the side of the ladder.
“Switch to diesels,” Shipley commanded.
“Sir?”
Shipley looked at Logan. “You’re right, Lieutenant.” He turned to Weaver. “Officer of the deck, we’re going to have to secure one of the diesels so Lieutenant Logan and his team can take their air samplers. Put one diesel driving the shafts and the other two recharging the batteries. I want those batteries topped off if we need them. And tell the CHENG that I want to be able to switch three diesels to the electric motor if we need to sprint.”
“Aye, sir.”
Then Shipley climbed the ladder to the bridge as behind him he heard Weaver report the opening of the main induction valves. In the control room below, the Christmas Tree started changing from green to red across its board.
Two sailors followed from the control room where they had been waiting. Seconds after the Squallfish had surfaced, Shipley was once again in the Arctic elements freezing his butt off, and hoping they survived this perilous mission. Somewhere the Navy admirals who ordered this were sleeping warmly.
Three puffs of gray-black smoke coughed from the main induction valves along the aft portion of Squallfish. With the diesels driving the boat ahead at six knots, he was putting noise in the water. Hopefully, if the destroyers picked up the noise, they would think it was a merchant or fishing vessel. If not, the Squall-fish was going to have a rough time making it back to international waters. He had little choice. Without a full battery charge they would have to make it back to the Barents Sea surfaced.
The signalman appeared through the hatch with a compass.
He quickly set the sighting compass on its stand, pointed it at the water tower, and wrote down the time and the bearing.