“I take it the Sahand is at sea?”
“Yes Sir, she’s off Hormuz Island waiting.”
“Very well, I have our orders. Cast off Commander, let’s join her.” He gave his second officer a smirk, “we’ve a job to do.”
Arvand slipped her birth and set out to sea, she headed for the channel between Qeshm and Hormuz Islands.
“Commander, make to Sahand. We have our orders and an important task to carry out. Take up line astern and follow. Captain out.”
He looked out at the shimmering sea and wondered. It must go well out there, his navy depended on it.
“WE’RE STEADY AT PERISCOPE depth Sir.”
“Thank you,” Luke replied. He raised the periscope, it rose above the waves, he did a turn through three hundred and sixty degrees. Dusk was falling in the southern Red Sea. He took in the view around the horizon. To the northeast, sandy red in the sunset was the island of Perim, peppered by the lights of Yemeni settlements and facilities. To the west was a single light from the Djibouti village and Mosque of Moulhoule. There was a ship approaching from the north, Luke zoomed in and it was clearly a cargo ship showing its running lights. The screen displayed a target range of nine point three kilometres. He lowered the scope.
“Anything from Northwood Exec?”
“Yes. They left the canal at 16.10 yesterday and submerged.” Luke calculated the estimated speed and checked the chart to get the distance.
“Then I’d say they should be here in a few hours.”
“Sir, do you want tubes five and six loaded with Spearfish?” asked Savita.
“Yes, do that, it’ll give us four fish to feed them. That should be enough for the greedy bastards.”
“Mr Cartwright, plot our position.” He walked over to the navigation officer’s screen.
“Here Sir, we’re five point one kilometres south-west of Perim island.”
“Give me the channel width, Mr Cartwright.”
“This channel is twenty five kilometres wide, max depth three hundred and ten meters. To the east of the island, the channel is three kilometres wide, max depth thirty meters.
“Very good. Planesman, come to two four five degrees, speed seven knots.” The boat heeled over slightly to the left as it turned to the south-west.
“Flood forward one and two, down angle fifteen, make your depth one eighty.” The deck tilted forward and all in the control room leant backwards to maintain their balance. The Ghost slid deeper into the black straits.
“Sonar, keep a check on the layering as we get towards our depth.”
“Aye Sir.”
In the deep sea, warm layers of water lie above colder layers. Sonar is refracted from the various temperature layers present in the ocean, allowing submarines to hide in the deeper cold layers.
From its fifteen degree dive, the boat’s deck levelled out.
“One eighty Sir, zero bubble.” called out the planesman.
“What’s the sonar story Ratty?” asked Luke.
“Way aye Sir,” he said in his Geordie vernacular, “we had a cold slice at one six three.”
“Come to three thirty Planesman. Stream the Lure fish Ratty.” The Lure streamed by reel far out into the submarine’s wake and trailed behind, communicating by cable. It was a listener, a detector of submarines and a deceiver of any weapons tracking the boat. Lures were at the cutting edge of NATO and Soviet technology. They can calculate the distance and the direction of a sound source, and identify the type of ship or submarine by the unique, acoustic signature of noises from its machinery. This is most effective when the cable is in a straight line. So rapid course changes degrade its effectiveness. The Ghost streamed out her towed array sonar equipped Lure, hundreds of meters behind the boat. Where it could listen in the dark silence for any sign of a vessel, both surfaced and submerged.
“I want ten minutes with the tail above the layer, then turn for the return leg and ten minutes with the tail below. Keep that up, one leg with tail up, the return with tail down. Make rectangular passes four runs to the north-northwest, then four to the south-southeast. If a Whale farts off Jeddah I want to know.”
“Lure fish streamed Sir.”
A good towed sonar array can detect propeller noises and other acoustic anomalies from distances of up to hundreds of kilometres. These are then passed by fibre optic cable for processing by a powerful computer in the submarine.
Luke picked up the microphone and addressed the boat’s company. “We are now under silent running, I repeat silent running.” The boat sailed north-west listening. Ratty Southworth turned to his Captain.
“Sir, permission to transfer the Vyborg and the Vologada to the Iranian library?”
“Yes Ratty, the Vyborg is now the Nahang and the Vologada is the Siyah Bambak. That’s Crocodile and Black Shark to you.”
“I expect they’ll be in line astern, probably. You never know though, they won’t be expecting any trouble down here. However, they may go wide. You know their sounds, we’ve tracked them before.”
“They’re tricky sods, Sir. But we might get lucky, they won’t be on silent running
I’ll bring up the libraries. They’re quiet the Kilos, but we can hear them.”
“One thing to watch for is every twenty three or so miles, they’ll have to surface or put the snorkel up. I doubt they’ll be on the surface for hours even though it’s dark, they’ll be too slow there. At the end of the Ghost’s first run, it was a slow wide turn to starboard and then the run west-northwest. Luke headed aft down the companionway. He entered CPO Salt’s cabin.
“Hi Salty, how’s Lieutenant Pearl Turner settling in?”
“Fine Sir, I showed her around the boat, she’s in her working area getting it sorted out to her liking. She’s got a bunk now, it’s Ascot’s old one.”
“Keep an eye on her, she’s only partially completed her sub conversion course.”
“I will Sir.” Salt started to take out a tablet from his personal drawer.
Sir I know she’s a Medical officer, but what’s a prophylactic?”
“Why?”
“LS Jewel had just got out of his bunk, you know how he looks first thing? She said, “Are you OK sailor?” He grunted. She said the bags under your eyes look like two used prophylactics.”
Luke laughed. “Well, Sir?”
“You’ll have to find out Salty,” said Luke grinning. Luke continued his tour of the boat, Next would be the back aft lot, the Engineers. A while later he walked into the control room.
“Any sign of them?”
“Not really Sir. I had a possible a while ago but it was a false shadow.”
“Control room to red lighting,” ordered Luke. Dull red lighting bathed the room, it was possible to see but it was now semi dark. This is to preserve the Captain’s night vision in case he needed to use the periscope.
Luke started to make an entry in his log via his laptop. Fifteen minutes later Southworth looked up.
“Sir. I might have something. Refining. Refining.” Luke watched him, he noticed Mark Davis the Exec was looking too. Would this be it? thought Luke, it was a hunch he knew, but there had to be a strong chance.
“I’ve lost the surface contact. No sub surface contacts Sir.” Ratty frowned at his scope and continued his scan, adjusting the gain and frequency trawl. It went on for more than an hour.
“Conn Sonar, possible contact. Thirty nine degrees, fifty eight kilometres. Refining, refining.” Luke took a look at Mark his Exec.” He noticed the tension on his face. Mark forced a smile and held up crossed fingers.
“Lost him, Sir. Sorry but they're like bloody shadows on a foggy night.”
“You’ll do it Ratty, keep on em.”
“Exec.” The Exec walked over to Luke’s position at the conn.
“Mark, I’ve been looking at the survey of the sea conditions here, and there’s an outflow from the Red Sea in the upper layers. It’s countered by an inflow in the lower layers. What chance do you think there is that they’ll come through the smaller eastern channel?”