All over the ship, division heads were logging in the first watch. In the control room the captain went through the departure checklist.
"Maneuvering room, report."
"Steam, twenty percent. Turbogenerators on line."
"Very well. Engine room, report."
"Engine room standing by on number one turbine."
"Very well. Sonar, report."
"Sonar reports screws on the surface bearing one niner zero, range two two five zero zero yards."
"Very well. Radar, report."
"Radar reports a ship entering the channel, bearing one niner zero, range two two five zero zero yards."
"Very well. Navigation, report."
"Navigation reports gyros set, course plotted, standing by."
"Very well. Helm, report."
"Helm standing by."
"Very well. Stern planes, report."
"Stern planes standing by."
Springfield turned to Pisaro. "This is it, Leo. I'm going up to the bridge. Quartermaster, sound General Quarters."
Throughout the ship loudspeakers heralded the quartermaster's voice. "General Quarters! General Quarters. Prepare for maneuvering. All hands man battle stations."
Two sailors were standing by on the deck near each hatch, their eyes on the bridge. Springfield ordered them, "Deck party, stand by to cast off lines."
He spoke through the intercom to the control room. "Bridge to navigation, how is the tide?"
"Navigation to bridge, going out at one-quarter knot."
"Very well. Cast off the bow line."
The crew of the Tallahatchie County appeared over the gunwales, smiling and waving.
"Bow line away."
"Cast off the stem line."
"Stern line away."
"Steer left three degrees."
"Left three degrees."
"All ahead slow."
Fogarty began feeding the signature programs of the six subs into his compter. The captain and lookouts came down from the sail.
"Prepare to dive," sad the captain. "Take her down, Mr. Pisaro."
Pisaro gave orders to retract radars, and the diving officer went through his panel.
"Mark three degrees down bubble."
"Mark three degrees down bubble, aye."
"Flood forward and main ballast tanks."
"Flood forward and main ballast tanks, aye."
"Flood forward trim tanks."
"Flood forward trim tanks, aye."
"Maintain slow speed."
"All ahead slow, aye"
The bow sank quickly under the surface of the bay.
"Stern planes down ten degrees."
"Ten degrees down, aye."
The game began.
7
On the stroke of midnight an inbound tanker passed a large red navigation buoy eleven miles outside the Naples breakwater. The sailors on the tanker's bridge scarcely glanced at the revolving light buoy, and no one noticed a much smaller float that had attached itself magnetically to the buoy. Eight inches in diameter, the float had a two-foot-long antenna extending into the air and a thin wire descending into the depths. At the far end of the wire, 150 feet down, USS Mako hovered in ambush.
She had been on-station for six hours, waiting for the message from the Sixth Fleet shore command that would announce Barracuda's departure. Having spent a dozen patrols lying off Soviet ports waiting for Russian submarines to exit, the crew was accustomed to picket duty.
The tide had turned and Barrcuda was about to exit the bay under the tanker's sound screen. Captain Flowers joked that Netts himself was on the tanker, intentionally fouling the water with noise pollution. Like everyone else on Mako, Flowers wished for Barracuda's, ultimate success, but regretted that if it came it would be at his expense. His orders were to stop Barracuda the moment she emerged from the channel and put a quick end to "Netts's Folly."
"Radio to control. Target under way."
Flowers wasted no time. "Cut loose that buoy," he ordered. "Control to weapons, he's moving. Load dummies in tubes one and two."
The weapons officer, Lt. North, stared at the blip on his screen that was Barracuda, just as he had stared a month before at the blip that was Leninsky Komsomol when she sailed from Leningrad into the Gulf of Finland. Should Barracuda elude the picket and reach blue water, she could outrun Mako and reach the fleet in thirty hours.
The rules of the war game established a combat-free zone within a radius of ten miles around Naples. Outside the ten-mile limit, a submarine "kill" would be registered by the firing of a dummy torpedo and a sonar blast, to be judged as a hit or a miss by umpires aboard each ship. Torpedoes fired at other submarines would contain no propellant. Immediately after being ejected from the tubes, they would sink. Only the torpedoes Barracuda fired at Kitty Hawk would make a run to the target. With no warhead the fish would bounce off the huge hull of the carrier, causing no significant damage.
"Control to sonar, listen up. He's moving."
Mako's sonar room was larger, quieter and more comfortable than the cramped sonar room on Barracuda. With her more sophisticated sonars, computers and fire control systems, plus the element of surprise, Mako seemed to have every advantage. The sonarmen expected Barracuda to proceed seven or eight miles into the bay and submerge under their noses.
"Sonar to control. We have her, bearing three four six. Course one two three. Speed four knots. Range nineteen thousand yards. She's turning. Bearing three four seven, three four eight, three four nine. Captain" — the operator's voice suddenly rose with astonishment—"she's submerging."
The sonar operators listened to Barracuda's machinery as she submerged, prop cavitating noisily in the shallow water of the bay. The sounds were muddled by the tanker that was now between the two subs.
Suddenly the machinery noises stopped. They heard the tanker, the ping of the fixed beacon that guided ships in and out of the harbor, but no submarine.
"Sonar to control. We lost her on the passive array. She disappeared."
"Springfield's guessed that we're here," said the XO, Commander Poland.
"Control to sonar. Echo-range," ordered Flowers. "Find her."
"Sonar to control. Echo-ranging."
The bottom of the bay was studded with rocks, sunken ships, mounds of garbage and waste from the deeply dredged channels, all of which deflected and distorted the sonar pulses from Mako's echo rangers, transforming her sonar screen into an undecipherable maze.
In the control room Flowers scratched his jaw, took off his headset and rubbed his ears.
Poland said, "She's gone turbo-electric. She's trying to sneak out on the quiet."
The captain nodded, knowing that ballistic missile submarines occasionally left port under turbo-electric power in order to evade a waiting attack sub. All SSN officers were, of course, familiar with the tactic.
"The question is," said Flowers, "does Springfield come after us or try to escape?"
"I think he'll run," the XO said. "He's faster than we are and he'll try to get around us. He'll use the islands."
Pointing at the electronic chart that displayed the Bay of Naples and the islands of Procia, Ischia and Capri just offshore, the XO said, "If Springfield can get behind one of the islands and block our sonar he can escape. The channel between Capri and the mainland is the deepest and the safest for passage. I reckon he'll go south, here, around Capri. He's already moving in that direction."