by Joe Buff
But how long could this precarious balance last?
Beck heard Eberhard speaking with Werner Haffner at the sonar consoles. Beck wondered if Deutschland's presence in the Channel, now that she was being hunted theater-wide, would itself be the wild card that led to the dreaded escalation, to mushroom clouds on London and Berlin, on New York and Johannesburg. ALMOST ONE DAY LATER:
0215 LOCAL TIME, 0 DAY MINUS 2.
Everyone on Challenger was at battle stations. Jeffrey had the conn. He finished his latest coffee, returning the plastic mug to his console's cup holder. The CACC was rigged for black, the only light the glow of instruments and console screens. Conversation was kept to a bare minimum. Challenger's LMRS probe was two thousand yards in front of the ship, scouting for German mines and unreported wrecks, inside the narrow British submarine safe-corridor-of-the-day.
For the last few hours Challenger had steamed at a risky nine knots in mid-Channel, where the water was almost two hundred feet deep. Now, with Dover to port and Calais to starboard, barely eighteen nautical miles apart, the depth was half that; Jeffrey'd had to slow, but the fast tide and prevailing current gave them a push. Now, with deadest night above them, things were quiet. They were almost through, into the North Sea. The magnetometers showed a solar storm strength of G3, what NASA called "strong." Jeffrey wondered if this could make mines go off on their own, including British mines. A manufacturing flaw, or sabotage by Axis agents, or combat damage could never be ruled out. A lot of the mines along here were CAPTORs, which unleashed a Mark 46
torpedo to chase and destroy its quarry. Many mines lay inside the minimum arming run of Challenger's antitorpedo rockets.
Jeffrey took a deep breath, and tried to ease the tension in his neck and shoulders. He lifted his coffee mug, then remembered it was empty. He opened his mouth to ask the messenger for a refill.
"New passive sonar contact!" Kathy interrupted. "On the starboard wide-aperture array .
. . Surface contact, bearing zero nine five, range ten thousand yards." In such terribly shallow water, with the uneven bottom and shoals, detection ranges were unpredictable, and dangerously short.
"Range closing rapidly," Kathy said. "Tonals indicate multiple Axis diesel engines."
"Classification?" Jeffrey snapped. He had no need of caffeine now—adrenaline surged.
"Class one-thirty corvettes! Three, no, four one-thirties! Advancing at flank speed in echelon formation, almost forty knots, directly at us!"
"Put it on the speakers," Jeffrey said. He heard the roar of all those diesels, four per ship, and the high-speed churning of many variable-pitch props.
"Those things are shallow draft, but I'm not taking chances. Oceanographer, what's the bottom?"
"Sand and gravel," Ilse said.
"Helm, all stop. Chief of the Watch, bottom the boat." "Sir," Bell said, "if they spot us we'll be helpless." "Not entirely. Bottom the boat."
"Captain, advise we use the wide-aperture arrays in active echo suppression and hole plug mode."
"Negative, XO. This close in that won't work well. I'd rather play dead. Let them think we're a wreck, if they spot us." Not that that would help much, Jeffrey knew. Both sides bombed wrecks all the time.
Ernst Beck watched the tactical plot as the squadron of Class 130's passed almost directly overhead. He could hear them through the hull, very easily. He felt as if he could almost reach and touch them.
Give them hell, he projected his thoughts to the corvette sailors, as Deutschland followed the German submarine safe corridor near the Out Ruytingen shoal off Belgium.
"New passive contact on the port wide-aperture array," Haffner said.
"What is it, Sonar?" Beck said.
"Multiple lift fans and airscrews . . . four Royal Navy Type two-thousand hovercraft!"
"Armed with Harpoon missiles and lightweight mines," Beck said.
"Hovercraft bearing two eight nine, range ten thousand meters. Signal strength increasing rapidly."
"Hostile contact's course is east-southeast. Type two-thousands making forty knots, on an interception course with our one-thirties."
"We're caught under a mining/countermining skirmish," Eberhard said. "Pilot, all stop. Let us drift with the current while they fight it out."
Jeffrey listened to the melee develop overhead. Fire control technicians tried to track the action.
Jeffrey heard the roaring whoosh as Harpoon anti-shipping missiles launched. The Germans retaliated, also with Harpoons. All contacts showed high bearing rates of change, and their engines strained deafeningly as they fought to evade the missiles. Missiles struck home with dreadful whumps. Ammo and mine stocks blew up, crackling and erupting. Ships sank and men died.
Kathy announced more contacts. British light hydrofoils were moving in from the north to back up the
surviving Type 2000 hovercraft. More volleys of missiles took to the air. Now Jeffrey could hear the steady pounding of Axis OTOBreda 76mm cannon. They were answered by Allied 30mm Oerlikons, faster but not as loud. Armor-piercing shells smashed home and burst, or missed and smacked the sea and burst.
Four Royal Navy frigates, Cornwall-class, rounded Goodwin Sands, making flank speed, thirty knots. Each one's twin gas turbines screamed louder still, at full military power. Another squadron of Class 130's was tearing west from Calais. Helos lifted from the ships. Their engines and rotors added to the din, as German Lynx fought British Sea Kings in an air war of their own.
More ship-to-ship missiles ripped by overhead, and engines whined and roared and roared and whined from all around, mixed with the clattering, beating roar of the helos. Still the Oerlikons and Bredas clashed.
A Class 130 was hit and blew up instantly, and Challenger rocked. The hulk struck the bottom almost at once, somewhere to starboard. A Cornwall was hit repeatedly by more Harpoons. It slowed. Another salvo peppered the ship as she beached on Goodwin Sands. Her magazine exploded, killing anyone still alive, and Challenger rocked. Air-to-air missiles flashed between the helos again. More warheads detonated, avgas detonated, flesh and wreckage rained onto the sea.
A Class 130 streaked down Challenger's port side, less than a hundred feet away. Jeffrey heard a slash-splashsplash-splash-splash.
Mines.
Beck listened to the battle raging to port. Deutschland wasn't in the thick of it, but a stray Harpoon might hit the water above, and its warhead equaled a medium-weight torpedo's punch.
The navigator announced the tide was changing, falling,
here on the French side of the Dover Strait. Beck knew the Calais tidal range was large, ten meters or more, forcing Deutschland toward mid-Channel, closer to the surface fight.
"COB," Jeffrey said, "put out a magnetic field like an Akula Two, smartly." COB acknowledged.
Jeffrey hoped the mines, friendly and enemy alike, would all be programmed to ignore a Russian submarine. COB finished as the German mines landed on the bottom. None exploded, at least so far.
A quintuplet of Class 130's crossed Challenger's bow, and there were many more splashes. One of the 130's blew up just to port. Jeffrey heard the noises as its hull broke into pieces. Air boiled to the surface as the pieces tumbled down, and water roared, the ocean flooding in. The pieces thumped to the sand. Something set off a mine. Jeffrey was torn whether to recover the precious LMRS. It was probably safer where it was. If they lost the fiber-optic wire, they could retrieve it by acoustic link. Two hydrofoils exploded a thousand yards ahead. Their pieces pelted the bottom. More mines exploded, and the fiber optic broke.
The surviving German corvettes began to withdraw, still lobbing Harpoons at the Royal Navy frigates. The frigates answered blow for blow. Their 114mm Vickers dual-purpose guns went into action.
One frigate roared by directly overhead. Jeffrey thought he heard the whine of turrettraversing gear, the clanking of its autoloading ammo train. The big gun fired. In the CACC, mike cords and lighting fixtures jiggled, and too late Jeffrey held his ears. Another Class 130 was
hit off Challenger's port bow, but she barely slowed. She was hit again, and Jeffrey heard secondary explosions. The corvette started sinking, still moving at fifteen knots, right toward Challenger. Jeffrey had to move. He dared not go forward or to port because of German mines. He could back up in the safety corridor, completely blind, or take shelter to starboard amid the British mines and German wreckage. With the LMRS cut off, he ordered COB and Meltzer to raise the boat off the bottom and go to back one third.
The bow sphere had a perfect view of the latest 130's death throes. Jeffrey heard the roar of flooding again, the sharper roars and cracks and bangs of the frigid sea on red-hot engine blocks. Added was the screech of tortured steel. Things inside the 130 still exploded as she hit the bottom hard, blocking Challenger's pathway forward decisively. Another German ship crossed Challenger's stern, disappearing for a moment in the sonar blind spot. Did she drop more mines? Jeffrey ordered all stop.
Kathy announced the Cornwalls were launching torpedoes. A dozen lightweight Sting Ray fish dashed at the Class 130's from the flank. Some scored hits, loud metallic whangs, followed by more sounds of disemboweled hulls dragged down by gravity. Other fish rushed for the Calais coast, looking for a target, any target.
"Torpedoes in the water!" Haffner shouted. "Bearing two seven zero, range eleven thousand meters. Sting Rays, attack speed forty-five knots!"
"If we fire antitorpedo rockets," Eberhard said, "we'll give ourselves away. Achtung, Einzvo, decoy in tube eight. Program it to sound like a Class two-twelve with a damaged screw and bilge pumps running."
"Understood."
"Los!"
Beck watched the decoy's track. The Sting Rays picked it up. Not wire guided, they mindlessly converged. One Sting Ray won the race, and set off all the others sympathetically. Deutschland vibrated sharply from the multiple concussions. She rolled to port as the shock wave echoed off the Calais shore.
"Captain," Kathy said, "loud explosion bearing zero nine zero, range twenty thousand yards."
"The Sting Rays?" Jeffrey said.
"Confirmed. . . . Sir, we have an ambient and hole-inocean submerged contact near the Calais coast, based on echoes from the Sting Ray warheads."
"Is it something on the chart?"
"Negative, sir."
"Size of contact?"
"Wait, please. . . . Appears to be beam on, length approximately three hundred feet."
"Must be a dead Axis corvette," Jeffrey said, "lost in some recent action like this one." Beck listened as the hydrofoils and hovercraft wove in and out, and the corvettes and frigates thrust and counterthrust. One big ship, which side's Haffner couldn't tell, went down; her magazines exploded underwater.
"Ambient and hole-in-ocean submerged contact," Haffner said, "backlit against the Goodwin Sands." "Size of contact?" Beck said.
"Appears to be beam on, length one hundred meters."
"A Cornwall," Eberhard said, "or a piece of one." Beck watched the tactical plot, frigates chasing corvettes east. "They're coming in our direction, Captain."
"First Watch Officer," Haffner shouted, "new passive sonar contact to starboard! Many inbound aircraft, fast movers bearing one three five! They sound like our Tornado fighter-bombers!"
"Let's get out of here while we still can," Eberhard said. "Pilot, go to one-third speed ahead, RPM's for ten knots."
"Sir," Kathy said, "new passive sonar contact to port. More inbound aircraft, this time from the west. They sound like Royal Navy Sea Harriers."
"We have to get out of here;" Bell said. "This skirmish is getting out of hand." Jeffrey thought hard:-"Sonar, is the acoustic sea state high enough you can spot wrecks and mines on the wide arrays in ambient passive mode?"
"Affirmative, sir! Engine noises providing good illumination."
"Chief of the Watch, recall the LMRS. Bring it back to one hundred yards off the bow."
- "Recall the LMRS, aye," COB said.
"Helm, on auxiliary maneuvering units, stand by to slide to starboard into the British mine field." It was the least-bad choice; with the map they'd been given, and with luck, the mine field could be negotiated.
"Understood," Meltzer said.
"Captain," Bell said, "the seas up there will be chaotic for a while. No one will see our surface hump."
"Concur. Helm, as soon as we bypass the new German , mines and fresh wrecks, bring us back to the safety corridor. Then go to ahead one third, turns for ten knots."
"Sir." Sessions. "Advise the tide has turned."
"Sir," Meltzer said, "we're drifting backward and our stern is being swung to starboard."
"Captain," Bell urged as he pointed to his screen, "there's a British mine too close. It's right near our pump-jet."
"Helm," Jeffrey snapped, "pivot us the other way using the forward auxiliary thruster only."
Meltzer acknowledged, his voice an octave higher than before; they dared not use the aft thruster so close to the mine, and they dared not use the pump-jet. Challenger's heading changed, but she kept drifting crabwise toward the mine. Crewmen shifted nervously in their seats, and glanced at each other wide-eyed.
"There's nothing more we can do but ride it out," Jeffrey said. The forward thruster alone just wasn't strong enough to hold them against the shifting tide. Besides, any other course not blocked by wreckage would take them over a German mine.
Jeffrey watched his screens. Challenger kept drifting. Jeffrey felt everyone's blood pressure rising higher by the second. As the surface battle roared on in the distance—and downed aircraft and ejection seats and spent shell casings hit the sea—the British mine, sitting on the bottom, passed right under Jeffrey's feet. He stared down at the deck, not daring to breathe, wanting to scream. He waited for the mine to blow and snap the ship in two and kill his crew and ruin everything.
Nothing happened.
Soon Challenger was on the move again.
IN THE NORTH SEA
Two hours later, that surface-and-air skirmish left behind and the LMRS probe recovered for a battery charge, Ilse was helping refine Challenger's plan for crossing the southern North Sea.
Bell came over and told her to go see the captain. Bell sounded grim. Ilse went aft and knocked on Jeffrey's door. What did I do now?
"Come in!"
Not for the first time lately, Ike thought Jeffrey looked tired.
"You look tired," Jeffrey said.
It's like we just read each other's minds. "I think everybody's tired, sir." Ilse made sure to use the "sir," but she noticed Jeffrey's attitude was softer now between the two of them in private, more personal, confiding. His shoulders were less stiff, his whole posture more relaxed—she liked his strong, broad shoulders and the well-toned muscles of his forearms and his neck.
"Take a seat. I have bad news."
"What is it?" Ilse said.
"Running so shallow, we picked up a VLF radio message. It took a lot of work to clean up the signal for decryption. ARBOR has been arrested."
Ilse exhaled. "We all saw this coming, didn't we?" "Yeah," Jeffrey said.
"Do we turn back?"
"No. Her last dead-drop signal said the jigs and dies for mass-producing the missiles are ready at the lab. . . . The mission goes forward. We invoke the contingency plan."
"I thought you'd said there wasn't one."
"I lied. . . . No, I withheld information. For security." "Oh, God." Everything fell into place. "Don't tell me—"
"Yes. You have to go." “Why?”
"This isn't my idea. It's in the written orders. We need someone to break cover inside, and find their way around. You're it."
"What about the SEALs? Chief Montgomery."
"Look," Jeffrey said. "Navy SpecWar language skills emphasize just talking to the locals. Not blending in as one of them."
"But my German isn't perfect, either. I could never pass."
"You won't have to, Ilse. You go as who you are, a genuine South African Boer person."
"Like a visiting technician?"
<
br /> Jeffrey nodded. "There's plenty of that going on. It's one more thing this German regime learned from World War Two mistakes: close cooperation with their allies from the getgo. With Japan, the cargo U-boats they sent over were too little too late. Crated jet fighters, V-two rocket parts, uranium oxide . . ."
"Um, I didn't know that." Ilse shifted in her seat, and crossed her legs. "But won't the Germans be expecting us, now ARBOR's caught?"
"Not necessarily, though for sure they'll be on heightened alert. We just have to take the chance she was able to
plant that computer worm. Otherwise . . . They've arrested a number of Mossad moles the last few months. There's no reason they'd think ARBOR at Greifswald was special, not right away."
"What if they make her talk?"
"The moles were conditioned against that. The Israelis are state-of-the-art in counterinterrogation techniques." Ilse shivered. "Short of suicide, you mean."
"You'll have to start hard workouts, and refresher training on the Draeger and the weaponry, at once. Sit in on Clayton's briefings from now on, rehearsals, all of that. You know the drill."
There was a knock on the door. Jeffrey looked annoyed.
"Come in!"
It was the messenger of the watch.
"Sir, the XO's compliments. He reports the shocks from our battle with the two-twelve and two-fourteen, and running repairs since then, appear to have freed the jammed foreplanes. He requests permission to deploy them, for enhanced maneuverability."
"Tell him negative. I'm afraid they may jam again while deployed. Keep them retracted." The messenger, for confirmation, repeated the response. He left.
Jeffrey turned to Ilse. "The foreplanes deployed could make us unstable at very high speed."
"Oh." Ilse liked it when Jeffrey explained things to her. "Sorry," Jeffrey said. For the interruption, or for getting irritated by it?
"There's something else, Ilse. Your Governmentin-Exile talked with the Pentagon. . . . I know it's small compensation for having to risk your neck. You've been granted the assimilated rank of lieutenant in the Free South African Navy." Ilse smiled. "What's that mean, exactly?"
