“It sure won’t hurt,” said the captain as he looked at his watch.
“We’ll have you out to the site soon enough. Commander. Meanwhile, how about joining me down below for some breakfast? The chow’s pretty decent on this pig boat, and I know you won’t be disappointed.”
“I’d enjoy that, Captain,” replied Mac, who watched as the Bowfin’s CO barked into the intercom to send up a replacement.
As Mac climbed down the narrow steel ladder that led below deck, the distinctive scent of machine oil replaced that of the sea. The access way led directly into the control room. Here the current OOD stood watch beside the periscope well. Mac took in the two seated helmsmen perched before their airplane-style steering columns awaiting the order that would take the Bow/in down into its natural element.
When there was enough water beneath them to safely allow this dive, the chief petty officer positioned behind the helm would be called upon to change the state of their buoyancy by triggering the valves at the tops of the ballast tanks. In this way the air inside these tanks would be vented, allowing seawater to flood in from below and cause the vessel to lose its positive buoyancy and sink. This process would then be reversed when they wished to surface.
Close by, the radar operator anxiously stood facing his pulsating green scope, quick to call out each new surface contact that lay before them. Alertly plotting these sightings on a chart was the Bowfin’s navigator.
It was to this sandy-haired, bespectacled officer that the captain addressed his remarks.
“Mr. Murray, I’ll be in the wardroom. Let me know as soon as we pass Little Cumbrae Island. The sooner we dive and get out of this pea soup, the better it will be for all of us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Confident in his crew’s ability to safely see the Bowfin through these fog-enshrouded waters, Captain Foard beckoned Mac to follow him aft. A narrow cable-lined passageway took them by the sonar and radio rooms.
Mac would be utilizing the powerful transmitter of this latter compartment to contact Admiral Long at the Pentagon once the ROVs were deployed and he was able to gauge their effectiveness.
They passed by the ship’s office, ducked through an open hatchway, and entered a fairly spacious compartment dominated by a large table. Seated alone here, sipping a mug of coffee and immersed in a pile of paperwork, was a middleaged officer sporting a crew cut. The captain had to clear his throat loudly to get the man’s attention.
“Excuse us, XO. Commander Mackenzie and myself were just going to have a little breakfast. Would you like to join us?”
Lieutenant Commander Ted Bauer put down his pen.
“No thanks. Captain. I’ve got a couple of extra pounds I’d like to lose, and I’d better stay as far away from Cooky’s hotcakes as possible.”
As the CO seated himself at the head of the table and Mac sat down beside him, an alert orderly appeared with two mugs of coffee.
“We’ll be having two Scottish breakfasts, Mr. Warren,” instructed the captain.
As the order was sent down to the galley on the deck below, the XO pushed aside the stack of reports that he had been working on.
“I understand that we’ve still got the fog topside, Skipper. Do you want me up on the bridge?”
“Lieutenant Murray can handle it. How are the crew’s competency reports coming?”
The XO shrugged his shoulders.
“I keep working on them, but I don’t see any progress. It doesn’t seem like I’ll ever finish.”
“You’ll manage like you always do,” said the Captain, as the orderly arrived with two bowls of oatmeal.
As the two officer’s dug into these servings, the XO asked, “How do you like the Bowfin so far, Mac?”
Mac gulped down a spoonful of the thick cereal and answered.
“She seems like an efficient, proud boat, Ted. I’m still kind of flabbergasted that Admiral Connors gave me the use of her.”
“We’re happy to be of service,” replied the XO.
“She’s a bit different than my last command, though.
You remember the Blueback, don’t you, Mac?”
Mac grinned.
“How can I ever forget her? I think I spent more time in her torpedo room than I did at Barking Sands.”
“You never did say what you two were working on back on Kauai,” observed the captain.
Mac looked at the XO before replying.
“Though it was classified top secret at the time, I guess we can tell you about it. Hell, we’re all going to be working with CURV soon enough, as soon as it gets here from San Diego.”
“CURV?” repeated the captain.
“That stands for cable-controlled underwater research vehicle,” explained Mac.
“We originally designed it at Nose to recover test-fired torpedoes. It’s primarily comprised of ballast tanks, lights, and a claw, and has a 3,000-foot depth limit.”
“We sure pushed it to its threshold back at Barking Sands,” observed the XO.
“Actually, the Blueback was almost responsible for us losing the first CURV prototype,” revealed Mac.
“It was originally designed only to go down to 2,000 feet.
But it seemed that every time you fired a torpedo, it ended up at a depth greater than that. So to show command that CURV was worth all the time and effort that we had been putting into her, we made some quick adjustments and sent her down to recover the Blueback’s torpedoes. At a depth of 2,600 feet, the port ballast tank ruptured. It’s a miracle that the starboard tank remained intact and we were able to nurse it to the surface.”
“I still say that it wasn’t our fault that the guys at Barking Sands gave us the wrong firing coordinates,” justified the XO.
“I’m just glad that we were able to save the prototype,” added Mac.
“Without it, the test would have been a complete failure, and there’s no telling if we’d ever get the funding to build another test unit.”
“So I gather that CURV is now a working element of the United States Navy,” concluded the captain.
“It most certainly is,” answered Mac.
“The new models work with fiber optics and are equipped with a camera that can send back remarkably clear photos at depth. This facilitates recovery and allows the unit to work on its own.”
“Let’s just hope that all of us will get a chance to see CURV do its thing in the Irish Sea,” offered the captain, who looked on as the orderly arrived with a platter heaped with blueberry hotcakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, kippered herring, and crusty scones.
“Dig in,” ordered William Foard without ceremony.
“And don’t be afraid to eat hearty. Commander. Because it sounds to me like you’re certainly going to have your work cut out for you these next couple of days.”
Chapter Ten
Dr. John Maguire had just arrived at his office at Dublin’s Shamrock Nuclear Power Station on the banks of the River Liffey when a call arrived for him on his private line. In a very serious, calm tone of voice, a woman explained to him that his wife and two daughters had just been kidnapped.
The physicist’s first reaction was that this was all some sort of sick practical joke, and he was tempted to hang up the receiver and call plant security. It was at that moment that his oldest child’s voice emanated from the telephone. There could be no denying the six year-old’s frightened tone as she begged her father to take this call very seriously or they would hurt her mommy. Sobered by this plea, Maguire listened anxiously as the kidnapper directed him to leave at once for the Central Dublin postal exchange. He was ordered to drive alone, and above all, not to inform the authorities of this call. For if he did, he would never see his family alive again.