Beck began to think he was losing the fight. Jeffrey Fuller seemed fixated on taking both crews to their graves.
And Beck realized that, from a strategic point of view, it did make sense, like an exchange of queens in a grand-master chess tournament.
An even trade. The balance of power of undersea forces, Allied versus Axis, is maintained — at a lower level for both sides — but the crucial Allied relief convoy is spared my salvo of missiles.
It was then that Ernst Beck knew for sure that, this time, Jeffrey Fuller wasn’t bluffing.
The lights were dim; smoke filled the air and everyone wore their air breather masks. Challenger had taken a terrible beating, but still the speed logs all read 53.3 knots — and still she was gaining on the von Scheer.
“New mechanical transients, Captain.” Milgrom projected her voice through her mask. “Assess as firefighting and bilge pumps running on von Scheer.”
Jeffrey turned to her. “Could it be faked?”
“Negative. We’re in their baffles. They don’t have an array to project false sounds in this direction.”
“What else?”
“Heavy banging and clanking, sir, as if crewmen are making numerous hasty repairs.”
“Very well, Sonar.”
Jeffrey turned back to Bell. They met each other’s eyes through their masks.
“We’ve clobbered them good,” Bell said.
“They’re still making flank speed,” Jeffrey said. “They still have nuclear weapons aboard. They’re a functional fighting machine, XO. Our duty is to destroy them. If we back off now, we regress to our previous tactics, trading blow for blow from a distance. We need to get so close Beck’s own defensive Sea Lion blasts would kill his ship if our shots fail. That’s our only formula for guaranteed success.”
“Understood.”
Even through the mask, he heard infinite sorrow and regret in his XO’s voice. “Reload another full salvo of Mark Eighty-eights,” Jeffrey ordered.
Ernst Beck racked his brain for a way to survive this suicide charge by Challenger. The fire and flooding in Engineering were serious, even if the influx past the main shaft packing gland was muted by the fail-safe design of the seals. Von Scheer’s torpedo room was still in bad shape, even with Stissinger down there helping.
Only a lucky shot would get through Challenger’s defensive Mark 88 salvos — and the range between the two ships was getting so short that soon a single atomic torpedo from either one would kill them both for sure. It seemed that only some other lucky stroke, such as a major breakdown on Fuller’s ship, could save Beck’s own.
And right now I don’t feel lucky. Then Beck had a desperate idea.
“Pilot, forty degrees up bubble. Make your depth nine hundred meters.”
Von Scheer’s nose soared for the sky. If Beck looked straight ahead, he saw the deck and not the forward bulkhead now. He was forced back against his headrest, and the ship went shallower fast. Because she was neutrally buoyant, literally floating while down in the sea, this rise toward the surface required no fight against gravity: unlike an airplane, a submarine could pull up hard without sacrificing forward speed.
“Von Scheer has pulled a steep up-bubble,” Bell yelled.
“Collision alarm! Forty degrees up-bubble, smartly!”
The alarm was a shipwide warning for the crew to grab something, fast. Meltzer pulled back hard on his wheel. The control-room deck became a hillside. Jeffrey and Bell were tilted steeply in their seats.
Bell turned to Jeffrey and yelled, “What is he doing?”
“Going shallow enough that his noisemakers and decoys work! And so his high-explosive Series Sixty-five torpedoes can function!”
“But we can stop his Sixty-fives with our antitorpedo rockets if we go shallow!”
“Maybe not! And shallow relieves his rate of flooding!”
Jeffrey tried to put himself in Ernst Beck’s shoes.
What manner of man is this guy? How driven is Beck to succeed and survive? How far out on the risk-taking envelope is he truly willing to go to accomplish his mission?… How willing is he, really, to die?
“Sonar!”
“Captain!”
“Status of mechanical transients on von Scheer?”
“Bilge and firefighting pumps! Hammering noises, and power tools now!”
“He’s leveling off!” Bell shouted.
Jeffrey eyed a depth gauge: 3,000 feet — 900 meters. “Helm, zero bubble! Make your depth three thousand feet!”
Before he could shoot, von Scheer launched four more Sea Lions. They looped around and charged at Challenger.
Jeffrey ordered Bell to fire four Mark 88s to destroy them, and four more at the von Scheer.
“He’s still full of fight, sir.”
“So am I, but him I’m not so sure. Watch what happens now.”
The four inbound Sea Lions spread out. Bell had his men direct one Mark 88 at each inbound weapon. Bell had the warheads set at lowest yield, and blew them barely outside lethal range of Challenger. Beck made defensive countershots too, also at low yield, and they detonated a split second after Challenger’s.
Challenger was punished hard. A wall of noise and bubble clouds stood between Challenger and von Scheer.
“Helm, all stop!”
“Sir?” Bell yelled as the ocean outside fulminated.
“We don’t know what’s on the other side of that curtain now! With noisemakers and decoys, and up-close conventional Series Sixty-five shots, and with all the atomic reverb as distracting background noise, he can start a game of hide-and-seek and maybe get in a lethal sucker punch!” Jeffrey drew deep breaths inside his mask.
“Our job is to destroy him!”
“Our paramount job is protecting the convoy! If we stay on this side of the wall of new blasts, we do that! We’ve already done that! We go through there blind, with Beck having all these new options, we stand to lose both Challenger and the convoy!”
“But—”
“If he wanted to accept the double kill, he’d’ve doubled back at us and it would all be over by now! He wants to live. Nuclear blasts to blind us, then noisemakers, decoys, to get us all confused about his location and course and depth so he sneaks away!”
“And then goes after the convoy?”
“No. We can easily stay between him and the convoy! We’re faster and we’re less damaged! He could see and hear all that for himself!.. We’ve forced him so far south he’s much farther away from his missile launch point than before! He has to know he’ll never get past us like this!”
“Why don’t we keep shooting at him with nukes?”
“Every time we tried, it was a draw! We’re low on ammo! We don’t know what else we might face as we head for the convoy!” Then Jeffrey saw it with total clarity. “The Golden Bridge, XO!”
“What?”
“Sun-Tzu! He said always give your enemy a Golden Bridge, a way to back down but save face, so you avoid mutual annihilation!