"Aye, Skipper," I said as I set to the assigned task.
"Sonar, Conn," I said over the sound-powered phone as we settled into ultra-quiet, "did he detect us?"
"Probably not, Conn. We're outside his detection range."
"He's playing a hunch, Mac," the Skipper said. Then he picked up the handset. "Weaps, set the decoy to turn right ninety degrees on launch, five degree up-angle, maximum noise two seconds after launch. Set number two Mark thirty-seven to turn sharp right as soon as it clears the tube, five degree up-angle, and force-arm it at five-hundred feet." The Skipper was telling Weaps to force the torpedo to arm itself at 500 feet. "Set number three the same, except make it turn sharp left. Make absolutely certain the one-eighty cutoff is activated." The Skipper was referring to a safety mechanism that automatically opens the torpedo arming circuit should the fish reverse its course and acquire the firing submarine. It's not cool to be sunk by your own torpedo. "One more, Weaps. Set number four to run straight, five-degree up-angle, same arming sequence. Open the outer doors on all tubes. Let me know as soon as you're ready."
Five minutes later Josh called to say that the Torpedo Room was ready.
"Where are we, Mac?" the Skipper asked.
"About five-hundred yards from the wall to starboard, nine-hundred feet deep, stern to the Whiskey, making bare steerageway," I answered.
The Skipper picked up the handset. "Where's the Whiskey now, Sonar?"
"Dead astern, coming toward us at twelve knots, at four, maybe five-hundred feet deep, three miles back." King paused. "No way he can hear us, Cap'n, he's deaf and blind at this speed."
"He'll be on us in fifteen minutes at his present speed," I said needlessly to the Skipper.
He nodded. "That won't last."
Five minutes later the sound-powered phone chirped. I picked up the handset. "Conn, Sonar, Kilo-three has slowed way down. He's closer than we thought; 'bout a mile away now, and he's got his ears on."
I acknowledged, and informed the Skipper. Just then a loud screeching sound filled the sub, and the lights dimmed. The Skipper was on the phone instantly and urgently. He grunted a couple of times as the lights came back to full brightness.
"Conn, Sonar!" King was urgently on the intercom, despite being at ultra-quiet. "The Whiskey just launched a torpedo! It's running hot and true — eight-hundred yards out! I think it acquired us!"
The Skipper grabbed the 1MC mike: "This is the Captain. Stand by the decoy!" He put down the mike and announced to the Control Room, "I have the Conn. Stand-by thrusters."
And to Sonar: "Distance to incoming?"
"Four-hundred yards, Sir!"
"Count it down, Sonar!"
The Skipper held a stopwatch in his hand, watching it closely.
"Three-fifty… twenty… three…"
The Skipper waited several more seconds and then ordered over the 1MC: "Launch decoy!"
The number one tube cycled as the WRT released its pressurized load. The decoy burst forth, turned right, and headed on its upward slope.
"Right full rudder," the Skipper ordered. "Forward port thruster full; aft starboard thruster full. Take her down to eleven-hundred feet fast — zero bubble!"
Two seconds later the decoy's chattering noise was clearly audible right through the hull. The Skipper held up the stopwatch as…
"Two-fifty…"
"Sound the collision alarm!"
A high-pitched, shrill, slow warble filled the sub as every man not lying down grabbed the nearest firm object for support. As the Halibut twisted to the right, the Skipper held up his right hand with the 1MC mike while holding out his left with the stopwatch, his eyes fixed on the heading indicator. He stopped the turn when we were pointed directly at the wall.
"Conn, Sonar, two-hundred fifty yards. It's accelerating on its final approach… two-hundred yards… hold it, Conn, the fish is changing its heading to the right…"
"Passing one-thousand feet," Chris interjected.
The Skipper held up his hand again, and then slowly lowered it. As his hand reached horizontal Sonar announced, "Conn, Sonar, the fish disappeared — it's gone, sir, nothing at all. The decoy's gone too. They both just disappeared."
"Fire Control, shoot four," the Skipper ordered, and punched his stopwatch again.
Although there was no sound, I knew the fish was underway. I ran a quick calculation in my mind. We were less than 500 yards from the wall. The fish swam out with a slight up-angle. It would be at forty knots almost immediately, which meant it was fifteen seconds or less from the wall.
A long, pregnant pause ensued. It seemed to last forever. At the fifteen-second mark, the Skipper slowly dropped his hand, and suddenly the sub was rocked by a huge explosion. The lights blinked as the shockwave passed us from in front and above. The entire submarine shuddered with a lurching, bounce that felt like an elevator suddenly starting down. Loose items like pencils and cups bounced, some falling to the deck, the cups shattering. Unlike submarine movies, however, where streams of water from ruptured pipes inevitably follow nearby explosions, in our real world the lights blinked, the ship rocked, and that was it.
"Absolute silence, Mac," the Skipper said. "Get the word out, if you're not doing something specific and necessary, get in your rack."
I gave the order to the Chief of the Watch, and in seconds he had transmitted it silently throughout the entire sub.
"Find out what happened in the engineering spaces," the Skipper ordered, "but do it silently." He paused. "Not a sound, Mac, not a sound."
I got the point. The Skipper had just pulled off one of the greatest cons in the history of submarining. We were snuggled in close to the trench wall. Whatever had happened back aft had caused the Soviet Skipper to pull his hair trigger — to launch an active fish. At just the right moment our Skipper had launched a noise-making decoy toward the wall, angled upward, and simultaneously dropped us as deep as possible, but in complete silence. The Soviet torpedo picked up the decoy behind us and turned toward it, forgetting about us. Either its tracking electronics went haywire, or its proximity fuse malfunctioned, but apparently both our decoy and their torpedo smacked into the wall, and that was it. No explosion.
This is where our Skipper's brilliance came into play. He didn't count on their torpedo exploding. It was an old Whiskey. He figured their armament was at least as old, and thus unreliable. Good for us if it exploded — they would think they got us. But if it didn't, they would simply launch another fish, putting us right back in the same situation again, but less ready to deal with it, because we had already expended the decoy and didn't have another ready to launch. Just in case their ancient torpedo didn't detonate, therefore, the Skipper had set up three alternatives so that no matter what our orientation to the wall, he could run one of our own fish on a short fuse into the wall, where it would explode, giving the Soviet skipper the assurance that he had gotten us.
Like I said, it was a great con.
The event that initiated everything turned out to be a combination of a faulty automatic switch and a propeller shaft brake that worked too well. An automatic switch activated unexpectedly, supplying a lot of power to the electric drive, but the shaft was stopped with a mechanical brake that gripped the shaft like a vice. The screeching was the sound of the shaft under power trying to turn against the vise-like grip of the shaft brake. The damage was local, and Dirk's guys would be able to repair it while we were underway on the plant. In the meantime, we were limited to one screw, which cut our speed down to just over four knots.
Besides, the Skipper wanted to hang around here for at least a day, while Ivan pulled back his hounds, shut down his ears, and went home.