by Mark Joseph
Fogarty followed Sorensen into the small chamber and looked closely at the banks of loudspeakers and tape recorders mounted on the bulkheads. Layers of acoustic tile and cork insulated the compartment from noise in the control room and the machinery aft.
"Welcome to Sorensen's Sound Effects. Sit down."
The colors were drab military. The overworked air conditioner never completely cleaned out the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat. In 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis Sorensen had taped up a newspaper photo of his hero, John Kennedy. It was still there, yellow and ragged, partially obscured by fleshy pinups and a photograph of Sergei Gorshkov, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union. A large chart displayed line drawings of the several classes of Soviet submarines: Whiskey, Hotel, Echo, Golf, November and the new Viktor.
Sorensen put on his earphones, and the last effects of his hangover disappeared. His fingers danced over the keyboard and activated the array of sixteen hydrophones, each a foot in diameter, mounted on the hull around the bow and down the sides of the ship. The hydrophones—the passive "listening" sonars—were sensitive microphones that collected sounds that traveled through the water, sometimes across great distances.
He listened to the familiar sounds of Barracuda's machinery, the pulse of pumps and the throttling steam. He heard the underwater beacons, fixed to the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, that would guide the ship through the channel and into the Atlantic. Satisfied that all was in order, he took off his earphones and looked at Fogarty.
To his surprise, Fogarty's eyes were closed. He was literally all ears. "What do you hear?" Sorensen asked.
"Barracuda."
"And what does she sound like?"
Fogarty opened his eyes and smiled. His eyes were dark brown, almost black. At first glance they were relaxed, but on closer inspection there was a hint of controlled tension.
"She sounds like World War Three."
Sorensen blinked, then laughed. "Okay, wiseguy, switch on the fathometer."
"Switching on fathometer." Fogarty's hands played over his keyboard.
"What's our depth?"
"Thirty feet under the keel."
"Test BQR-2, passive array."
"Testing BQR-2, passive array." Fogarty checked the circuits which connected the hydrophones to his console. "Test positive. All circuits functioning."
"Test active array."
Fogarty punched more buttons, activating in turn the transducers mounted in the center of each hydrophone. The transducers created the familiar sonar "pings" that radiated through the water and, if they struck an object, returned as an echo heard by the hydrophones. The "echo ranger" was rarely used, only in special circumstances, since each time it was activated it revealed the sub's location.
"Testing active array, test positive."
"Test weapons guidance."
"Testing weapons guidance. Weapons guidance locked on. Test positive."
"Test target-seeking frequency." In combat the target-seeking frequency was created by a special transducer to locate and pinpoint a target. To the target it was the sound of doom, followed immediately by a torpedo.
"Testing target-seeking frequency. Test positive."
Sorensen lit a Lucky Strike. "How'd you do in sonar school, kid?"
Fogarty flushed. It seemed he did that easily. "I was first in the class."
"No foolin'? Good for you. You look like a smart kid. Why didn't you go to nuclear power school? How come you're not a nuc?"
"I'm not that fond of radiation."
Sorensen blew smoke at the air-conditioning vent. "Can't say I blame you for that. Where you from?"
"Minnesota."
"Oh yeah? A child of the frozen north. You don't look like an Eskimo."
Fogarty grinned. "I'm from Minneapolis, and I hate snow."
"Well, at least you've got some sense, you left."
"At the first chance."
Sorensen said, "Okay, read the notice on the door. Read it out loud."
Fogarty twisted around in his seat and read. " 'WARNING! This Is A Secure Area. Any Unauthorized Use Of Classified Material Will Result In Imprisonment And Forfeiture Of Pay. Removal Of Classified Material Is A Violation Of The National Security Act.' "
"That's not all," Sorensen said.
At the bottom, scribbled in large block letters, Fogarty read, " 'LEAVE YOUR MIND BEHIND.' "
"That's what you do when you come in here," Sorensen said.
* * *
On the bridge the captain told the lookouts to be sharp. Two tugs stood off the bow, but Springfield intended to take his ship into the channel without assistance. The wind was in his favor, blowing from the south.
"Deck party, stand by to cast off lines," he shouted to the sailors fore and aft. He watched the shore as the ship drifted with the wind and current, then spoke quietly into his microphone, "Bridge to navigation, how's our tide?"
"Navigation to bridge, the tide is running with us."
"Very well. Cast off the stern line."
"Stern line away."
Some people on the pier began to cheer and wave. The band played "The Star Spangled Banner."
"Cast off the bow line."
"Bow line away."
"Steer right ten degrees."
"Right ten degrees."
When Barracuda cleared the dock and there was no danger of fouling her huge propeller, he ordered, "All ahead slow."
Sorensen and Fogarty listened intently to the sounds coming through their earphones. With infinite smoothness, sixteen thousand horsepower surged out of number one turbine, passed through the reduction gears, and the five blades of the massive propeller began to turn. They heard the whoosh of water as it began to wash over the hull, and the cavitation of the prop, the chunk chunk chunk of every revolution that would be audible until they submerged to four hundred feet. Sorensen punched several buttons on his console and the computer began to filter out the sounds of Barracuda's machinery. Ungainly on the surface, the ship rolled and pitched slightly as they headed for the channel.
"Sonar to control. Do you have the beacon on the repeater?"
The repeater was the sonar console in the control room that duplicated what the sonarmen saw and heard. Hoek sat at the repeater, but it was Pisaro who replied, "Control to sonar, we have it."
Twenty minutes after leaving the pier the captain and the lookouts came down from the sail. Springfield closed the hatch.
"Prepare to dive," said the captain. "Take her down, Leo."
Pisaro gave orders to retract the radars and systematically went through his diving panel.
"Mark two degrees down bubble."
"Mark two degrees down bubble, aye."
"Flood forward ballast tanks."
"Flood forward ballast tanks, aye."
"Half speed."
"All ahead half, aye."
"Stern planes down three degrees."
"Three degrees down, aye." Barracuda angled over and slid silently beneath the sea.
3
Chain Reaction
Barracuda steamed through the Atlantic at twenty-four knots, four hundred feet beneath the surface. There was no wind, no waves, no turbulence. At four hundred feet the water pressure was so great there was no cavitation behind the prop. No bubbles, no energy lost to drag. As the screw turned, the ship moved ahead with maximum efficiency. Three precise inertial navigation gyroscopes recorded every movement of the ship in three dimensions. Without contacting the surface, the navigation computer determined Barracuda's exact position.
The crew settled into the patrol routine of repetitious drills—damage control drill, collision drill, atmosphere systems failure drill, weapons drill. When not practicing for calamity or battle, they were kept busy continuously maintaining machinery and studying technical journals for rating exams and promotions.
Muzak wafted through the ship. Two days out of Norfolk Cool Hand Luke was rolling in the mess. Air conditioners maintained a comfortable seventy-two degrees.
&nbs
p; From the conning station the captain looked around the brilliantly illuminated control room. The green hue of fluorescent lighting, accented by the CRTs, gave the compartment an unearthly glow.
Springfield was not a religious man, but he often thought the control room had the solemn atmosphere of a church—an inner sanctum of high technology. Men watched their instruments with the faith of true-believers. Every act was a ritual prescribed by regulations, perfected by repetition. Barracuda represented the highest order of human artifice, and Springfield thought it ironic that such engineering genius was devoted to a man-o'-war. If Barracuda resembled a church, it was the church militant.
"Lieutenant Hoek," the captain was now saying to the weapons officer, "you have the conn."
Fred Hoek felt as if he had just stuck his finger into an electric socket. As he moved his heavy frame up a step to the conning station, his heart was palpitating and his face was white. He put on a headset.
"Aye aye, sir. I relieve you of the conn."
Lt. Hoek scanned the displays in the conning station. Sweat began to collect on his upper lip. He was in heaven. He was radioactive. He had the conn.
Springfield strolled over to the reactor displays that monitored the chain reaction taking place at six hundred degrees fifteen feet away. Instinctively, he fondled his film badge, a strip of sensitive celluloid that measured the amount of radiation he was receiving. Like everyone else, the captain turned in his badge once a month to a hospital corpsman, who processed the film in the darkroom and determined how much radiation each crew member was receiving.
* * *
In the stern of the ship, in the steering machinery room. Machinist's Mate Barnes was standing his watch amid the jungle of pipes and compressors that moved the rudder and stern planes. Barnes worked at an exquisitely compact lathe, turning parts for the constant maintenance and repair of the ship's intricate machinery. From the engine room came the high whine of turbines and the throttling noises of high pressure steam.
"Howdy, Barnes."
It was Sorensen, standing in the hatch in a pair of red Bermuda shorts, thongs and wraparound sunglasses. He held out a set of schematic diagrams. "I'll need this in Naples."
Barnes shifted his goggles to his forehead and looked at the diagrams. "No sweat. Ace. Throw it on the bench." He turned back to his lathe.
"Barnes."
"Yeah."
"Don't fuck it up."
Portside was a small door with a brass plaque that shone brilliantly amid the flat navy gray of the compartment: "WELCOME TO SORENSEN'S BEACH. NO VOLLEYBALL ALLOWED. PLEASE KNOCK." Sorensen went in without knocking.
Designated in the ship's plans as storage space for electronic parts, Sorensen's Beach was barely six and a half feet long by four feet wide. Stooping under the low tapered ceiling, he switched on a pair of bright sunlamps and pulled a plastic mat and wooden beach chair from a cabinet. Taped to the door was a travel poster. Santa Cruz, California. Sun, surf, sand, pier, golden bodies.
"Surf's up."
He turned on the tape recorder and out flowed the mellow tones of Dave Brubeck's "Home at Last."
From a pile of magazines he grabbed the one on top, a dogeared Playboy. Tapping his feet, he flipped through the pages to the centerfold.
After a while the same old tits and ass became monotonous. He dropped Playboy and picked up Newsweek. Bad news. Riot, revolution, war, assassination. A general strike in France. He liked the naked women better.
The chaos of life ashore made him crazy. Millions of half-wits running around in confusion, like an ant colony gone amok. Greed, selfishness, corruption, lives without passion, without purpose.
Underwater, the madness disappeared. Inside Barracuda's pressure hull Sorensen had found a purpose and an identity. On the ship life was orderly, pure, simple, and defined only by the implacable laws of physics. The sub demanded total discipline and absolute dedication. Every man had a job to do and did it with his whole being or not at all.
Few could give that much, but certain men blossomed and thrived in the artificial environment of a submarine. For Sorensen it was liberation. He had joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and never looked back, never wondered what his life might have been like under open skies. Now, after ten years, he realized that he couldn't stay below forever. For one thing, navy regulations were against it and eventually he would be promoted to chief and stuck in a sonar school where he'd probably drink himself to death...
He dropped the magazine and put on a whale tape. He liked whales and recorded them frequently. On this tape the whales were hooting up a storm. What could interest a bunch of whales so much, he wondered. Lunch? Whale sex?
* * *
In the torpedo room Chief Lopez was feeding a fly to his pet, a brown Mexican scorpion named Zapata. The scorpion lived in a glass cage mounted over the firing console and was the subject of many whispered rumors and legends.
Lopez dimmed the lights in the compartment and switched on an ultraviolet bulb in the cage. The scorpion glowed an iridescent blue. Lopez leaned his full face closer to the cage, sweat running into his heavy beard, eyes flaring like an aficionado de toros awaiting the kill. The fly buzzed around, banged into the glass and finally dropped to the sand. The scorpion moved. Lopez imagined he could see a drop of venom leaking from its tail.
The rest of the watch stood around quietly while Lopez acted out the ceremonial feeding. The torpedo-men knew better than to make smart remarks about Lopez and his bug.
* * *
In the galley the Filipino cook, Stanley Real, had worked for hours on a sauce demi-glace. Stanley fancied himself a chef de cuisine rather than a navy cook. He was trying to explain the difference to Cakes Colby, the steward.
"This sauce it is cook for three days."
Cakes thought Stanley's fuss over the sauce was ludicrous.
"It looks like gravy to me, Stanley."
The cook waved a slotted spoon in Cakes's face. "Once, they say to me, cook for the President Marcos. On the Andrew Jackson in Subic Bay the President Marcos eat his dinner on the ship. Big missile sub, yes, the Andrew Jackson. The President Marcos he come and he run his hand all up and down the missile, like he love it, then he eat. He like what he eat. He call me from the galley to the officers' mess and he say come cook for me in the palace of the president. No no, I say, I am loyal to the U.S. Navy. I am qualified as a submarine, first class, I say. I am citizen of the U.S.A."
Cakes was making his last cruise. The only member of the crew to have served in World War Two, he had seen a lot of cooks in twenty-five years, but never one like Stanley Real.
"Good God, Stanley. Where do they find guys like you?" Cakes muttered as he locked away the officers' flatwear in a cabinet. "Whatever happened to white beans and ham hocks?"
* * *
In the forward crew quarters, in a bunk on the third tier, Fogarty lay sleepless, all in a sweat. In two days his world had changed so completely that he seemed to have forgotten who he was. The discipline of the sub often required him to react without thinking, as if he were a robot, and he lay now in his bunk pretending that his brain had been replaced by a reactor. Someone pulled the control rod a little ways out of his head, and he speeded up. Pull it all the way out and he speeds up so much, he melts. Push it all the way in and he stops, he scrams.
Fogarty understood that on a submarine there was no margin for error. A moment's hesitation could mean disaster. Fogarty knew that in time the discipline would become automatic, but the learning was painful. Two hours out of Norfolk, as the crew raced through their first damage-control drill, he had banged his knee on a bulkhead while scrambling through a hatch, and it still hurt. Yet the bruises to his body were nothing compared to what was being done to his brain. He was being bombarded by information. A whole new world was being revealed to him in the sonar room—the sea and all its multifarious sounds—and he was close to overload. Sitting watches with Sorensen was an exacting experience. In his casual way, Sorensen was a perfe
ctionist who never tolerated mistakes. Off watch, Fogarty frequently found himself running from one end of the ship to the other during endlessly repeated drills. Not a single watch had passed without a drill, and he felt as if he had a terminal case of jet lag. Night and day had been replaced by the rotation of the watches; his circadian rhythm was off. He knew it was five o'clock in the morning—four hundred feet up there was weather, a sunrise, a sky—but on Barracuda there was only machinery, a handful of radioactive metal and one hundred men.
The compartment was dark. His bunk was a tidy cocoon. To his right he could feel the acoustic rubber insulation that lined the pressure hull. To his left a flimsy gray curtain gave him a sense of seclusion. He heard the whir of air conditioners, and the sounds of sleeping men packed together as carefully as the uranium pellets in the reactor.
His mind refused to shut down. Electrical circuits popped like flashcards into his imagination, demanding recognition. When those were exhausted he started going through the signatures of Soviet submarines, retrieving the sounds from memory. The Russian ships were noisy, but he had had no real idea how loud they were until Sorensen played a tape of a Hotel-class fleet ballistic missile submarine. Fogarty thought it was the most frightening thing he had ever heard.
Fogarty could hardly believe that he was lying in a bunk with the sound of Soviet machinery running through his head. All his life he had waited to get on a nuclear-powered sub. When he was eight years old he had been electrified by the news that Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-propelled submarine, had put to sea. When Nautilus went under the polar icecap and surfaced at the North Pole, Fogarty made up his mind that he was going to become a submariner. He read 20,000 Leagues Under the sea and Run Silent, Run Deep so many times his paperback copies fell apart. His father, who had served on a submarine in World War Two, encouraged both his sons to join the navy, but it was young Mike who fell in love with subs. In high school Fogarty had puzzled over the mysteries of nuclear reactors and spent hours in the library buried in Jane's Fighting Ships. He built model submarines, marvelous, handcrafted working miniatures with radio control that struck terror into the hearts of toy sail-boaters on Lake Minnetonka.
