Simon Collingwood’s orders were explicit.
…You will avoid contact with surface units of the Enterprise BG but will operate in such a way as to block submarine elements of that force, and if possible other potentially hostile submarines from approaching the northern flank of the Hermes BG. ROE Protocol 1.2 is in effect…
Under her current ‘rules of engagement’ Dreadnought was not authorised to initiate hostile action against elements of the Enterprise Battle Group but she was permitted to defend herself if threatened or attacked.
“Contact bearing two-six-two.”
Then: “Down Doppler.”
Dreadnought was levelling out.
“Range to contact four thousand yards…”
Simon Collingwood stopped himself whistling with surprise.
Two miles. That was too close. Worse, this wasn’t the contact they’d had before; that had been more distant, very slowly moving north to south east.
“Your opinion please, Number One?” The Captain of HMS Dreadnought inquired nonchalantly of his Executive Officer.
Max Forton’s face creased in intense thought.
“I think they’re pissing in the wind, sir.”
Simon Collingwood chuckled lowly. He was a lean, clean-shaven man of only just average height with dark hair that had been receding for some years. He’d been designated as one of three candidates to be Dreadnought’s first Executive Office before the October War had changed everything. It had fallen to him to commission the boat, build a new crew and take Dreadnought, probably, to war. The US Navy had a score of boats like, and in many cases, more advanced and capable than his command; no matter, one could only confront what was before one.
“How are we trimmed, Number One?” He asked, considering his next move and the half-a-dozen after it. Underwater hide and seek was like three dimensional chess.
“If we lose steerage way we’ll start rising by the bow, sir.”
“How badly?”
“We’ll hold level for maybe three or four…”
Thereafter entropy would do the rest.
“Zero revs!” Simon Collingwood ordered. “Silence in the boat, if you please.” This latter was a redundant order; they’d been closed up running silent, mostly running deep for ten hours without a break. A lot of men wouldn’t have slept for twenty-four hours. This wasn’t the time to get careless.
Lieutenant-Commander Max Forton tip-toed around the plot and joined his Captain, leaning on the back of his high chair.
“Those jokers aren’t taking this anywhere near as seriously as we are,” he whispered.
“How would they play it if this was for real?”
The younger man by a handful of years scratched his rust-coloured beard.
“I’d go active,” he decided.
“So would I if I was them. But only if I was absolutely certain I’d got a bead on us. They know we’re here. I don’t think they’ve got us on their plots though. So, if I was them I’d be treating it like a peacetime exercise, making sure my log looks good when my Flag Officer crawls all over it in a month’s time.” This sounded reasonable as far as it went; but nothing stopped the hairs on the back of Simon Collingwood’s neck rising as a cold, cold hand clutched for his heart. “Surface contacts?”
“Negative, sir.”
“What is it, sir?” Max Forton asked, frowning.
Simon Collingwood sighed.
Game over!
“Some you win, some you lose, Number One.” He hesitated another moment. “Trim the boat, if you please. Make our revs five-zero. Five degrees left rudder, turn onto three-three-zero degrees. Stand down silent running.”
The crisp orders were repeated and acknowledgements flew around the control room.
“Contact astern!” Reported the sound room.
“How close is he?” The Captain of HMS Dreadnought asked, already knowing the answer.
“Almost on top of us, sir. Less than five hundred yards.”
“Send by active ping the following: WELL PLAYED SIR STOP PLEASE KEEP YOUR DISTANCE MESSAGE ENDS.
Simon Collingwood cleared his throat.
He looked around the control room.
“Gentlemen, we must not let that happen again. I suspect the ghost contacts we allowed to distract us were sonar buoys dropped by the Enterprise’s aircraft. Subsequently, one of the boats out there made himself visible so that we believed we had a handle on both hostiles while the other one worked around behind us. When we analyse the plot we shall find that the rate of drift of the sonar buoy contacts approximately correlates to known tidal, current and drift records relative to our movements which we ought to have factored into the plot. No matter how tired we are we must focus, gentlemen. Our foe,” he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘our enemy’, “has learned from the run around we gave him a week or two ago. We must learn from today’s exercise. That is all, resume normal watch keeping stations.”
“Chummy hasn’t replied to our message, sir,” Max Forton remarked.
“No, he won’t.” Not even when he’s stopped rolling around on the deck splitting his sides with mirth. “The nature of the game has changed, Number One. I shall be in my cabin.”
Once in the claustrophobic solitude of his cabin Simon Collingwood shut the hatch at his back. The Captain’s Cabin on HMS Dreadnought was small and pokey but by far the most luxurious berth on the boat.
The two American submarines would cling onto Dreadnought’s skirts like grim death; if war came his command would already been locked in their sights. He understood the game; they understood the game. It wasn’t personal. It was just the way it was. The second part of his short message had communicated that he understood, as they must as brother submariners that death could come with horrible swiftness in their profession. If they had to do their duty, so be it. In the meantime it was his job to wriggle free of the trap they’d sprung with such aplomb. He’d take himself to task for putting his hand in the meat grinder another time; assuming they all lived to tell the tale.
Never forget it is just three dimensional chess.
Always look one move farther ahead than the other fellow…
Simon Collingwood had built his naval career as a technician, one of the new breed of ‘experts’. He’d been posted to the Dreadnought project primarily to oversee the last year of her construction, the commissioning of her propulsion and electronic systems, and to ‘manage’ the start up of her nuclear reactor. Afterwards, he’d have stood down, possibly been assigned to a similar role in the construction of Britain’s second nuclear submarine, HMS Valiant, which was presently a partially formed steel skeleton near to where Dreadnought had been fitting out on the night of the October War. He’d dreamed one day of commanding one of the new nuclear boats; secretly suspected that this was no more than an idle pipedream. Yes, he’d passed the ‘Perisher Test’, the gruelling course that all would be submarine captains in the Royal Navy had to pass; but he’d had no illusions he was a man born to command one of the Navy’s most complicated and inherently dangerous vessels. His progression in the Service had been gradual, and other than in his chosen specialism, electrical and mechanical engineering, he’d never stood out from the crowd, and even now he could think of a dozen men better qualified and better temperamentally fitted to command HMS Dreadnought. However, they were on land or making the best of a bad deal in old-fashioned diesel-electric boats; he was the one who’d found the prize at the bottom of the apple barrel.
Escaping Dreadnought’s two US Navy jailors was his job.