'That riser must have been the threat, sir. Out to the north to draw us off. Athabaskan's lost the contact.'
'Roger,' Trevellion acknowledged. There was a Dutch submarine in the area: they were good and pressed home their attacks.
It was 0959 and Phoebe's mast was just visible above the horizon — outside Exocet range now, but inside Perdix' Sea Skua missiles. For some reason, Gloucester was still within range of Icarus' Exocets, though she might be outside Jesse's and Goeben's capability. Athabaskan was on the other side, off to the south-eastward, covering Oileus and Guardian, the Canadian replenishment ship, with her Seasparrow surface-to-air point defence system.
The PWO (Underwater), Julian Farge, was talking in the background. Then McKown cut in briskly:
'There's a report coming in, sir.'
Trevellion, feeling the tension of his first moment in command of an action was staring through his binoculars at the blur that was now Phoebe on the north-western horizon. Then he glimpsed the flickering beam of her signalling projector. The hands of the bridge clock showed forty seconds past the hour….
'Phoebe's opening fire on us,' he called into the loop system. ' Tell the Lynx to engage her with Sea Skua.' He snapped down at the yeoman: ' Make an enemy report.'
Things were moving now. His training over the past months was paying off, he hardly had to think, so automatically did the sequence come…
'Range of Gloucester?' someone called.
'Eighteen miles, sir,' from the PWO.
'Stand by to open fire with Exocet on Gloucester,' he ordered. ' Steer 345°, Officer of the Watch.' He called down to the ops room: ' Have you got her?'
'Yes, sir. We've got her.'
'Come hard left, Gubbay. Full ahead both engines.'
'Aye, aye, sir. Port thirty…' The senior watchkeeper kept his eye on Campbell, who was fighting with the steering. The ship began to heel and then the repeat bells from the engine room telegraph tinged in the background. Pascoe felt a sudden elation — this was what he had been trained for all these long years — this is what it's all about. And he felt the bite of reality — a Krivak's missiles would be just about striking into Icarus' upperworks at this instant… the ship was weaving to her new course now, her deck trembling beneath his feet as she responded to the full power being delivered by her twin steam turbines. But Gloucester was twisting like a tropical sea-snake, slithering away out of range, boosted by her extra 20,000 HP from her twin Olympus gas turbines. The Krivaks had an edge of eight knots on our Type 423, presumably because of their additional tonnage of some seven hundred tons.
'Course, sir. Three-three-oh, sir,' Campbell called.
'Open fire with Exocets on Gloucester,' Trevellion snapped, as soon as her light projector began blinking.
'She's opened fire on us,' he yelled down to the ops room. 'PWO — Captain: Have you got the flash report out yet?'
'It's going out now, sir,' McKown said.
'Come hard left, Officer of the Watch,' Trevellion ordered, his mind racing.' Steady on Gloucester. Stand by to engage her again with Exocet.' He heard Gubbay meeting the swing, his orders calm and reassuring: the Kashin's missiles were in the air, on their way…'… Midships, Cox'n. Starboard twenty.'
'Flash report passed, sir,' from the PWO.
'Roger,' Trevellion snapped.' Open fire with Exocet.'
'We are at war, sir,' the PWO reported nonchalantly.
A chuckle of amusement rippled about the bridge. 'Roger,' Trevellion acknowledged. ' Pass to the Commodore: Have engaged Gloucester.' He smiled to himself: so it was Red Alert, State Three, and every man for himself — a relief after the waiting.
'Roger, sir,' McKown acknowledged. 'Perdix has engaged Phoebe with Sea Skua. She's standing off and shadowing.'
'Have you told her to rejoin?'
'Yes, sir, I've told her. She's not acknowledged yet.'v Poor devils, Pascoe thought: for real, it would be a hot spectator's seat for Hob and Rollo out there, between the shooting. The PWO was talking again, immediacy in his voice.
'Air Raid Warning Red, sir.'
'Roger. Stand by Sea Cats.'
Phoebe and Gloucester were racing below the horizon, their tasks for the moment completed. How would the real Krivaks and Kashins have fared — and how many British sailors would now be either mangled corpses or struggling in the filth of an oil-fouled ocean? It was difficult not to feel, as he watched Goeben vanishing behind curtains of flying spume while she tore after the receding enemy, that the whole thing was unreal — but how else could the NATO fleet keep up to scratch, year after year, decade after decade?
'We're now swimming, I suspect,' Trevellion said in an aside to Neame who was standing at the chart table. Then he called down to the ops room: ' Reload Exocet.'
'Captain — PWO.'
'Yes?'
'From the Commodore, sir: scrum down… twenty-five.'
'Roger.' So we were switching to the first alternative on the AWC (Air Warfare Co-ordination) net — the air cover frequencies were being swapped.
'From so, sir: assume air defence screen to the eastward… Air Raid Warning Red — all ships.'
'Roger. Stand by Sea Cats.' So the Yanks were sending in their lighter bombers from USS Nimitz, somewhere east of Gibraltar. Trevellion turned to Gubbay: 'She's all yours, Officer of the Watch. Don't hit anyone.' He glanced at the clock: 1035 already — then he swung past the chart table and clambered swiftly down to the ops room. Could we depend upon the Russians playing the game to our rules: would confrontation be like this?
As he swung down the ladder for the ops room he bumped into the chief radio supervisor who was knocking on the ward-loom door.
'Top secret signal, sir,' he amplified. ' I'm looking for the crypto officer.'
'He's not on the bridge, Chief,' Trevellion said. ' I'll be in the ops room when you've got it decyphered.'
The forenoon's classified signal had been an anti-climax, merely warning all commanding officers that a further classified menage was in the pipeline. STANAVFORLANT was still awaiting the second signal which, presumably, would be extraneous to ' Clear Lane'.
Dusk was drawing in when the Force approached the Tagus estuary. Cape St Vincent lay out of sight to the south where the coastline merged into the grey horizon. Captain Trevellion could see the low-lying, flat cliffs, black and uninviting, on the northern side of the Tagus estuary. Against this background NATO minesweepers were sweeping the channel ahead of STANAVFORLANT.
Glorious' Sea Kings fluttered, apparently stationary, above the white horses slashing the dark brown waters of Lisbon's main artery. The night sky was dark and menacing; only a few streaks of milky grey could be seen above the cliffs.
The standard dusk air raid had been artificially injected into the exercise by the PWO. Missiles at a speed of over Mach I were on their way, so Trevellion had brought the ship round to port to a reciprocal course, to open ' A' arcs, in order to cover the Force. The missiles were still seventy miles distant and were being tracked from the ops room. The PWO (Air) had fired his chaff to seduce the incoming missiles attack.