We were shrouded in the trawler's noise, and so lost direct contact with the Victor, and never regained contact with the Whiskey as he emerged from the shadow and turned south to join the Victor. All we heard was the steady pinging of the Victor's active sonar. He had to be getting a large echo from the combined presence of the trawler and us, but he couldn't know of our presence.
We had about three hours on this heading, and it took everything we had to keep position, a constant checking and rechecking. If our sonar blips separated on the Victor's sonar, he would have us.
One and a half hours into this leg, Sonar suddenly announced, "Conn, Sonar, we just got the Whiskey back, and he's close, less than a mile off the port bow."
I acknowledged, and then King added with a bit of agitation, "Conn, Sonar, the Whiskey's surfacing — right in front of the trawler."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
"Pots," I said to the Chief of the Watch, "set ultra-quiet ASAP!" I looked to the Skipper for approval.
He nodded. "Keep the plant running," he said.
"The Trawler just stopped," King announced, and then the sound-powered phone chirped. I picked it up. "Sorry about that, Sir, the trawler's DIW."
"All stop," I ordered. "Stand by the thrusters." I trilled the sound-powered phone. "Pinpoint the trawler's engines," I said to King. "I want to stay directly below them."
The Skipper sat down and lit up a stogie. He picked up his sound-powered phone and called the Torpedo Room. "Do we have a decoy loaded?" he asked. "Okay," he said after listening for a moment, "open tube one manually. Try not to make any noise."
The Skipper motioned to Pots. "Get Weaps up here, please."
"Aye, Sir." Pots grabbed his sound-powered phone handset.
"Mac," the Skipper said, "set General Quarters, but not with the alarm. Try to keep the time till ready to five minutes."
I nodded to Pots. People started moving through Control, orderly, but quickly. Normally, Larry had the GQ Deck, but this time the Skipper told me to retain the watch. He said he needed Larry on top of the nav situation. Senior Chief Gunty normally had Nav at GQ, but the Skipper wanted both of them available. That was fine by me. I would much rather be in charge in a critical situation than be an observer. Besides, the Skipper was right there. He wasn't going to let me screw up.
King notified me that the trawler was drifting a bit to the north. I moved us to the left a few yards.
"Skipper," I said as we eased back under the trawler, "we need to give Sonar direct control of the thrusters to minimize our drift."
"How do you propose to do that?" he asked.
"Skipper, look at this," I said, pointing to the thruster controller box. "The installation is not permanent. See this," I indicated a bundle of cable tie-wrapped to the supporting post, "and here…" another bundle right at the overhead, "… and here," a third bundle where the cable joined a larger cable run. The Auxiliaryman standing his GQ roving watch reached into his tool kit for a cutter and snipped the tie-wraps holding the controller and cable to the post, overhead, and cable run. Stretched out on the deck, it reached well into Sonar.
The Skipper went into Sonar and made sure Senior Chief Barkley knew what to do. Then he came back out to Control. "Nice job, Mac," he told me as he settled down in his chair again, relighting his cigar.
Sonar reported that the Whiskey had pulled up starboard side too, alongside the trawler's port side. "Looks like they're going to board her, Sir."
That's when it hit me. "Skipper," I said, "we've got a great opportunity here."
I then quickly outlined my still sketchy plan. The Can was at an internal pressure of 130 feet. Jack, Jimmy, and I could suit up in regular scuba, with twin tanks, press down in the escape hatch and exit the sub, carrying a couple of lift bags with us. We could quickly access the hawser stored in the after bin, hang it from the lift bags and swim it over to the Whiskey's screws. It would take less than five minutes to entangle the hawser into both screws. If we had any time left, we could even jam one or both bitter ends into the diesel engine cooling water intakes. Then we could secure the bin on our after deck, and the sub could drop down thirty feet or so to equalize the Can pressure with outside, and we could enter the Can. Since our bottom time would be relatively minimal, I could decompress in the lock, and be out in less than an hour. Since there was only about a day and a half left of the decompression anyway, Jack and Jimmy could either decompress one at a time following me, or just stay in the Can for the remaining time. Ham could handle the Dive Console by himself until I decompressed. I said we would work out the details as we progressed.
"We disable the Whiskey," I said, "and the Victor will have to surface and give him a tow to prevent him from running aground, at least for as long as it will take to get one of their surface ships over here. And before that, they'll have to figure out what happened." I grinned. "We'll be long gone by then."
There was virtually no time to think about the decision. The Skipper had to decide quickly, because we had, at the outmost, forty-five or fifty minutes — more likely thirty or less. He sat quietly for a very long minute, puffing his cigar.
"Let's do it," he said, "but scuttle your equipment as you enter the Can."
"Aye, Sir! We'll hang the weight belts and tanks from the bags, and drop them over the side."
""The Captain has the Deck and the Conn," the Skipper announced as I left for the Dive Console.
Time was critical. I arrived at the Dive Console, told Ham to get Jack and Jimmy. Then I outlined to him what we were going to do — at least try to do.
"You're crazy, El — Tee! Mac, fer Chris' sake, you can't do this!"
"Do you have a better solution, Ham?" I asked, not stopping as I ripped my clothing off, climbed into a snug, warmth-preserving wooly undergarment, and then pulled my Poseidon Unisuit over my head — bright orange rip-stop nylon outside, black inside. I forced my head through the tight neck dam. Then I shoved each arm into a black nylon-lined sleeve and forced each hand through the tight, waterproof cuffs. Then the legs, one at a time, into the relatively loose fitting Unisuit legs, down into the attached boots. Reach back and find the pull cord — there it is. Pull the zipper down the back, through the crotch, and up to the middle of the chest. Finally, I rolled the neck dam in so that internal air pressure would seal the soft neoprene to my neck, and slipped the thin black neoprene edged hood over my head, fitting the face seal comfortably. And with that, I was encased in that modern marvel, the Unisuit drysuit.
Next to me, Jack and Jimmy were going through the same contortions, following virtually the same steps. Since the Unisuit came out a couple of years back, divers had tried every possible combination for getting into one. What I just gone through turned out to be the only really practical way.
Somehow, Ham had managed to gather our accessories — if that's what you want to call them. Ankle straps — three-way straps that fit around the ankle and under the arch, so you don't blow your fins off; a set of ankle weights; long, straight, stiff brown rubber fins made by Voit called Duck Feet; snug fitting, three-finger gloves that sealed to the cuffs; a buoyancy compensator attached to a contoured backpack carrying twin nineties with two Poseidon regulators and a Unisuit hose, with weight pockets distributed over the entire front and back of the vest, the total weight adjusted to each diver's specific requirements; a facemask chosen by each diver — mine was close fitting, with a soft neoprene seal, sporting a one-way clearing valve in a cup around the nose, with an attached snorkel (mine had a corrugated section connected to the mouthpiece so it dropped away from the mouth); a sharp eight-inch knife with a serrated back edge; a six-inch double-edged dagger mounted horizontally on the BC bottom front; two twenty-four inch bang-sticks in break-away holders on each thigh. That about did it. In five minutes we were ready to go.