'I have no HE,' Icarus called.
Rollo was checking, checking, scribbling down the minutes in his log. MAD had done better, damn it — they had lost contact.
'Bogey range from you,' Icarus cut in, 'estimated four-zero-zero. Stand-by visual, over.'
Hob strained his eyes peering at his instruments, glancing repeatedly at the radar.
'Okay, Hob?' Rollo was grinning inside his bone dome.
'Okay, how's yourself?'
'I'm getting a contact…' The observer had tensed, was doubled over his plot. 'Confirmed sub contact!' he shouted. 'Signature: Victor II.' Hob caught the excitement in Rollo's tense report: the time was exactly 1241.
'1234, Kapitan. Fifteen minutes completed at thirty-four knots — eight decimal five miles, sir.'
'Slow two,' snapped Kapitan Zragevski. 'Sonar all-round passive sweep.'
If he was not sensing this unease inside himself he would have been bored by now of these procedures… slow down, listen, patrol depth---He'd been at it the whole forenoon.
'Faint HE to the south-west, sir. Sector 190° — 135°. Steam turbine: classification, Leander frigate.'
He raised his eyebrows. So that was it? One of their ageing ships rapidly being replaced by their Broadswords…
'Helicopter ship?'
'Affirmative. Mark VII Lynx weapon systems.'
Zragevski remained silent. He'd be prudent and check again with ess.
He nodded at his first lieutenant:
'Eighty metres.'
At 1236, levelling off at patrol depth, he streamed the ess. His instinct had already alerted him, so he was not surprised when, at 1237, the red light was glowing on the ess console.
'Acquisition,' the weapons officer reported briskly. 'Two-two-oh… APV bearing green three-oh.'
The kapitan met his first lieutenant's glance. 'We're being hunted,' he said, without raising his voice.
Number One murmured: ' Aggressive bastards.'
'Well, we'll have to see about it,' Zragevski said. 'Perhaps they mean business.'
'It could be them or us, sir.' The first lieutenant's face was strained and grey.
'Periscope depth, Number One.'
Zragevski had made his decision: he would not risk his boat and his crew if he was being hunted aggressively. Holding the column sensitively between his fingers, the coxswain was handling the boat superbly, swooping her upwards. Kapitan Zragevski was determined to survive: his family had just reached the age when life was fun… he'd get in his shot first, if the frigate was spoiling for a fight.
'Thirty metres, sir… twenty-five… periscope depth.'
He activated the ess switch on the left side of the periscope, snatched at the handles.
'Up periscope!' The blurring of the lens was already clearing.
'Missile ready!' the weapons officer reported. 'Red light showing, sir.'
Zragevski worked his periscope fast. An all-round sweep and he would be happier. The northern sky was pulsating from the aurora borealis… ha! there was the helo….
'Lynx helicopter,' he snapped, slamming shut the handles. The tube slid down.
'She's carrying out a search, Number One. About a mile.' He glanced at the stick operator, held up his thumb. 'Put me on…'
The water cleared. There it was, that bloody chopper…
A shattering resonance boomed through the pressure hull… no need for the sonar room to amplify.
'Active… in contact!' called the sonar chief. 'Bearing 215°, close. Time, sir, 1243.'
'Up periscope.' The drill was instinctive, smooth, after months of training.' Bearing that: Lynx helicopter.'
The helo was in the turn, swooping towards his periscope.
Slung beneath her cab were two torpedoes, clearly visible, their ugly snouts gleaming in the northern lights. The Lynx was dropping out of the sky; it was — flying straight towards his periscope and growing larger at every second… The kapitan's hand slid up to the ess switch. As he pressed it, he snapped:
'Emergency change of depth.' He slammed the periscope handles. ' Take her down, quick, Number One. Slow one, silent routine.'
He had felt the judder of the safety caps on the ANVIL tubes when they slammed open. The missiles were on their way. He was not sticking around, but was keeping to himself what he had sighted. To the left of the helicopter, etched against the aurora's glow, he'd seen the upperworks of a frigate. She too was heading towards SSN 329.
'Steer 186°,' he snapped. 'Bring all tubes to the ready.'
'Sixty metres, sir… seventy…'
The tube-ready lamps were flicking on, one after the other…
'All ready, sir,' the action officer called. 'Sonar has surface target. Range five, decimal four; bearing one-nine-o.'
'Stand-by to fire torpedoes.'
He turned towards the clock — 1247: he would hold on a few more seconds: the Englishman might still break away, call off his attack.…
25
Hob Gamble was concentrating on his heading, the Lynx in manual. The horizon was easy to pick out against the northern lights. Rollo was methodically breaking down the errors from the ASRBS. Staring through his cockpit, Hob suddenly spotted the tube, a steel sliver cutting through the waves, a white plume flicking at its base.
'Green two-oh, Rollo. Periscope!' He checked on the PPI… green 20, a definite blip… and, four miles further out, another minuscule echo.
'I'm going in — we'll take a closer look.' He flung Perdix round, swooped for the tell-tale slick… then, sighting the periscope, he watched it slowly dipping beneath the surface.
'Riser!' He called to Icarus. ' Riser! One thousand, five…'
He levelled her up, then took her down to fifty feet, setting her heading on the bearing. As she steadied, he spotted a strange cupola-shaped bulge on the surface of the sea ahead of them, a grey circle of foaming water.
'Log that, Rollo,' he called. ' 1245: dead ahead, five hundred yards, unidentified —'
Hob Gamble never finished his sentence.
His first reaction was that the tail had gone, that catastrophic tail failure which every chopper-man dreaded, the disaster he and Rollo had never mentioned since Westland's signal. There was the typical explosion; the sudden lurch to starboard as she began rotating about herself. Then there was the orange flash, a blinding light and the agony of searing heat — Perdix was tumbling out of the sky….
'We're being fired on!' he yelled. The escape drill — grab the window base. After the shock of impact, he snatched at his harness, threshing clear with his legs as the engine shuddered to a stop; his world spun around him; and then the water burst in, when she turned turtle. He felt an excruciating pain across his chest. Rollo was yelling at him, his hands clawing at Hob's overalls. He cried out with the pain, felt his senses fading. A red light swam before his eyes, there was a roaring about his ears and he knew no more.
leading Radio Operator Osgood was searching for his chief supervisor. There was a major fault on one of the machines and, from experience, Oz was not risking having his head bitten off again for not seeking advice. The chief was reputed to be with the sonar CPO.
Osgood always entered the brain cell of the ship, as most men did, with an instinctive sense of caution. Still in his anorak, he stepped gingerly through the doorway. Not only was the captain usually here, but so was most of the top brass. A certain aura and calm was essential in the ops room.
'Is my supervisor here?' he asked the plotter manning the GOP (General Operations Plot).
'In the sonar room.' The able seaman jerked his head towards the far corner. ' Wait a bit, mate. Things are warming up.'