Bleecker squatted in front of the cells where Fromley had landed. Neither he nor Crocky was surprised.
Shipley stood and lifted his binoculars. This was not good news. He had one fully charged set of two batteries in the aft compartment. Looking around, he saw the faint light of what would not only be dawn but also would be the lightest it would be all day at this time in the Arctic.
“Captain!” Weaver shouted.
“I hear you, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, sound is reporting the submarine is blowing ballasts, sir.”
Shipley squatted beside the hatch. “Any change in its course, speed, location?”
“Ballast tanks blowing. Rapid left-bearing drift along our starboard beam toward our bow. I would say the submarine seems to be closing, sir. Not much of a drift. It’s off our starboard bow, and if it keeps on this drift, the sound will pass down our starboard side. What’s that?” Weaver asked someone inside the conning tower.
Shipley waited.
“Sir, sound seems to think the submarine is heading back toward the shore. He can’t hear the sub’s screws right now. He doesn’t think it’s that far from us.”
Shipley bit his lower lip. Most likely they had sailed into the middle of an antisubmarine warfare exercise. Probably meant the exercise was over and the Soviets were preparing to head back into port for breakfast.
If the Soviet submarine was blowing ballasts and close to the Squallfish, that meant he had sufficient depth beneath the boat to dive. Except that the Squallfish had only one bank of charged batteries; four knots would be their speed submerged if he had to evade the Soviets in their own backyard.
“Lieutenant, increase speed to ten knots. Get us some maneuvering room away from the shoreline. Tell Van Ness to start giving us some headings back to the narrows. And tell me what that does to the drift on the sub contact.”
He would use the diesels as long as he could.
Weaver acknowledged the order. Below, Shipley heard the officer of the deck giving orders to the helmsman. Shipley glanced aft and saw the faint wake start to curve to the right as the Squall-fish started away from the shore and headed toward the narrows. They should be far enough way to avoid the destroyers.
“Sound says we now have a slight left-bearing drift, Skipper!” Shipley raised his binoculars, scanning the visible area of the fog-enshrouded bay. He looked at the topside watches. “We got a contact ahead of us somewhere, off our starboard bow with a left-bearing drift,” he said to the two men, who nodded. “Keep your eyes open and watch for any motion out there between our bow and along our starboard side.”
The two sailors replied “Aye, aye, sir” in unison. Both looked to starboard.
“But also keep alert around us. I don’t want all three of us watching right for the contact on our starboard side and us run aground on the port side.”
One of the sailors pushed the other, pointed to the left side of the Squallfish, and so the watches divided their duties.
Shipley squatted beside the open hatch again. “Lieutenant Weaver,” he said, “wake up the XO.”
“Contact’s bearing drift has slowed, Skipper.”
“Very well,” Shipley replied. This meant that their speed was changing along with the range, but which way and at what range? He was still too close to shore, but even as he watched, the shoreline crept behind the surrounding fog. He gave the Soviet submarine’s closest range as a couple of nautical miles — four thousand yards — but neglected to take into consideration how enclosed bodies of water such as Kola Bay played games with underwater noises.
“We are approaching twenty meters depth, Captain,” Gesny said.
“Level off at fifteen meters,” Anton ordered.
Across the conning tower, the planesmen spun their brass wheels. The tilt of the surfacing submarine eased as the Whale leveled off at periscope depth.
“Up periscope,” Anton said, squatting so his eye could ride the scope up. Never surface a submarine in the middle of a bunch of skimmers, make sure you know the surface situation before you ever surface, as a former commander taught him.
He spun the scope around. “We still got a lot of fog out here,” he said without moving away from the eyepiece.
“We could signal them,” Antipov offered.
“I doubt either of us can see the other through the fog. Sonar, where are Alpha and Bravo?”
He listened as station BCh-3 reported the bearings of the two destroyers. Alpha remained northeast of them on a westward heading, or drift. Bravo was louder. Sonar thought the Whale was somewhere off the port stern of Bravo; therefore Bravo was heading northeasterly.
“Sir, we could use underwater comms,” Gesny offered.
“Okay. Tell them we’re surfacing and tell them where we hold them.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And while you’re at it, tell them about the intruder near the facility.”
“It appears the intruder has decided he shouldn’t be there,” Gesny added. “Sonar says his screw rotation has picked up.” Anton leaned away from the periscope. “Sonar, you still think it is a warship?”
“Its bearing drift has increased, sir.”
“And?”
“I think we are closer than we think to it,” the sonar technician said hesitantly.
Anton put his eye back on the periscope. “Bearing to intruder?”
“Intruder bears two eight zero degrees, Captain.”
Anton watched the built-in compass on the scope as he aligned the lens on the bearing. “I see nothing. The fog is still lifting.”
“Noise is increasing,” sonar said.
Double shaft, left-bearing drift. He moved the scope, looking for the telltale profile of a merchant towering over the water somewhere out there. He saw nothing. “I don’t see—” he said as he leaned away just as a bit of motion caught his eye and caused him to stop talking.
Anton quickly leaned back into the scope, squinting. “I thought I saw something,” he mumbled.
“Contact is steady on bearing two six three degrees.”
Anton shifted the alignment slightly. The fog looked darker here, but then, on the other side of this fog, was the shoreline.
“What is our range from shore?” he asked, leaning away from the periscope.
“Ten kilometers,” Nizovtsev muttered.
“Lieutenant Antipov, do we have contact with the officer in tactical command?” he asked, referring to Admiral Katshora.
“I have told the skimmers we are surfacing. They are turning away to clear the area.”
Anton nodded. “Then let’s take the boat up.”
Chief Ship Starshina Mamadov pulled the handles of the hydraulic main vent manifolds. The sound of compressed air pushing out the last of the seawater echoed through the boat. The boat began to rise.
“Sir,” Weaver shouted through the open hatch, “sound reports no bearing drift on the contact! I repeat: no bearing drift!”
No bearing drift meant one of two things. Either the contact was on a collision course with the Squallfish, or the contact was separating from her. Since sound could not hear the screws, then that meant. .
“All ahead full!” Shipley shouted.
“Sir, submarine is blowing ballasts again! It’s coming up!” The diesels kicked in. Shipley grabbed the railing as the Squallfish picked up speed.
Anton leaned forward, putting his eye against the periscope, rocking slightly to adjust his vision. A dark shape filled the lens for a moment; then a violent blow rocked across the Whale and the submarine rolled to the right as the bow of the Squallfish rode over the periscope mount rising out of the sea.