He braced himself as the deck came up to meet him… his knees, every muscle in his body, were acheing from the continuous struggle for balance. Everyone was tired, bad-tempered, craving sleep. He peered out' from the port wing of the enclosed bridge, whence he could see the whole sweep of her side, down to the flight deck.
Seas were swirling across the flat surfaces, half-moons of froth see-sawing and curling with the motion — he wondered what she would be like without her stabilizers and twin rudders… even in these hard conditions she was giving little trouble to the Chief and his boys — only No. 3 stabilizer had 'fallen over'. The marine engineers ran the ship from their cosy, centralized control room where push buttons and computers did the work. The ship was designed to fight with as few men as was necessary: a future war would not last long, they said.…
Dick smiled sardonically. No planner (as most admitted) could envisage what a hot war would be like. He suspected that sea warfare would revert to traditional hard slog; to who could hold out longest, whose morale would crack first and that depended upon the quality of sailor fighting the ship — and, even more, upon those leading him.
Gloucester's spirit was infectious: they were an enthusiastic team, from the compact, humorous man who was their captain, down to the most junior rating. They all knew where they stood, because discipline was firm… and the effectiveness of this finely-tuned, superb weapon, a ship costing thirty million pounds, depended upon instant and efficient reaction to any threat which the enemy might hurl at her. There had been criticism of these ships, but now that they had been modified the Type 425 were as efficient as any warship in the world.
The forenoon's sitrep stated that Glorious and her amphibious force would be off Tromso at 1600 this afternoon, ready to disembark 45 Commando. He smiled ruefully: at least he had won the Old Man's permission to land somehow, to prepare for the arrival of his detachment from Icarus. He hoped that Corporal Burns had prepared the detachment for what was coming to it — Gloucester's captain had broadcast to his ship's company a lucid explanation of STANAVFORLANT'S and the navy's role up here.
The Russians had built up their Northern Fleet for two objectives: to cut our Atlantic sea lanes, so that America could not reinforce the free nations of Europe — and that meant one million tons of stores had to be convoyed across the Atlantic during the first few days of war if NATO was to survive. For this reason, the Soviets had built their huge submarine fleet, a nuclear fleet able to roam the vast ocean of the Atlantic; able to lie in wait below the horizon, choosing the moment to fire their missiles at the stream of modern ships, each one on average four times larger than those of Hitler's war. To realize this objective, Russia must first ' take out' the exasperating thorn in her flesh — the surveillance and counter-threat of NATO'S presence at North Cape.
The enemy's prime objective, of course, was to destroy the retaliatory threats, the widely-deployed ballistic missile submarines, their missiles beamed on the Soviet naval dockyards, and the American carrier strike forces, cruising in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But so remote was the chance of countering all these in time that both objectives would, and could, be pursued simultaneously.
'And that's why,' the captain concluded, 'we are sending our Royal Marines alongside the Norwegian army, to show the Soviets that NATO will resist to the death, any invasion of its territory. Our chaps and the Dutch Marines are on their way now,' the captain concluded. 'To Norway in Glorious; and with the consent of our Norwegian and Danish friends, a force to Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen islands. The ACE International Mobile Force, will soon be on its way from Europe and will be landing its troops and aircraft two days after 45 Commando.' Dick had forgotten the importance of ice-bound Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen: they also overlooked the Russian bolt-holes into the Atlantic.
STANAVFORLANT was keeping radar and radio silence. The Russians would have a job pin-pointing the Force in this weather, though its Northern Fleet frequencies were monitored to catch every transmission. Gloucester's EW team were watch-on, watch-off at the moment, receiving and analysing the data, both from the enemy and from Northwood. The ops room was building up a considerable plot but, due to the radio and radar policy, no overall picture was yet possible.
STANAVFORLANT was standing by as a longstop, secretly patrolling the second line of defence, detecting and monitoring any Soviet warship sailing from Murmansk. The first line, the SSN Fleet submarines, were maintaining their Iron Ring off North Cape; they were on their stations, watching, reporting, shadowing, ready to strike. Deep-field in the Atlantic, south of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gaps, the third line of defence, the American strike fleet, was forging to its war station under SACLANT'S orders.
It was 1530 and darkness was gradually shutting down again upon another wild night, another night of bitter weather; another twenty-four hours of chipping, officers and men together, fighting the insidious invasion of black ice. Frozen hands and feet, the cold eating right through them — it was not surprising that men were asking themselves what the ship could achieve in these frightful seas… The weapons gave the answer, provided they could stand up to these harsh conditions.
The bo'sun's mate was preparing to make his pipe to call the dog-watchmen. Dick Stoddart slipped from the bridge and hurried down the ladders towards the ops room. There was time to bring himself up-to-date and sight the met. forecast before he took over his watch.
Leaving his anorak and gloves outside, Stoddart stepped into the gloom of the compartment which was the combined brain and heart of this fighting ship. He glanced at the ' State' board on the port side: there they were, ships of the Force, Athabaskan, the Senior Officer in the centre and coping with the ' Up-Threat', the oiler and the replenishment ship disposed five miles astern of her, three miles between each. To the north-west, Goeben; away to the south-east, Gloucester, covering both RAS ships and the eastern half of the Force: when Icarus arrived (any hour now) the western section would also be covered, though her Sea Cats could not give long range cover. Frigates, frigates… never enough of them, as Nelson had complained.
There was a chance that the weather might moderate tomorrow for a brief twenty-four hours. The Commodore had approved the captain's suggestion that Gloucester's Lynx might lift Stoddart to Oileus and that her Sea King should fly him to Tromso to prepare for Icarus's detachment. Conditions were too hairy for Gloucester's Lynx to lower him by wire on to Icarus' lurching flight deck.
'Stoddart… all set for Saturday, if I can get you off?'
The captain was looking across at him, the customary cheerful grin on his round face. He was slumped in his chair, at the Command Display where every scrap of information, after being filtered and analysed by the computers, appeared on the PPI in front of him. On the captain's left was the Advanced Principal War Officer taking care of the air battle and every action above water. On the captain's right was the other PWO, junior to the AWO, who was responsible for the battle beneath the surface. The ship was organized into two defence watches, so the two AWOS and two PWOS were watch-on, watch-off. Life down here was as boring as hell at the moment, nothing much from the EW room, little more from CINCEASTLANT: a Soviet passenger ship was coming up from the Skagerrak steering north-noith-west; that was all, except for numerous 'sub' enemy reports from long range maritime patrol aircraft.