by Peter Albano
Brent was surprised by the size of the group. He had expected most off-duty men to be in their bunks. But obviously the depth-charging, dive-bombing attacks and the grisly deaths of three shipmates and their funerals had left them all distraught with nerves drawn to a razor’s edge. Obviously most of the men were no more capable of sleep than their executive officer.
Brent shouted “As you were!” before anyone could rise. But a machinist’s mate came to his feet anyway, and the others followed. Again, Brent heard the chorus of “Great shooting, sir.” “You saved our butts, Mister Ross.” And again Brent did not trust his voice. Just managing to mumble his thanks he hurried through the sleeping area, where the chain-suspended bunks had been pulled against the sides of the hull and secured away from the center line of the ship. Stepping high, he passed through the next watertight door into the forward engine room.
Holding onto a steel rail, he began to walk a narrow catwalk that ran the length of the compartment between two powerful Fairbanks-Morse diesel engines. The noise was overwhelming. What had been a muffled bark of exhausts on the bridge and a rumbling vibration in other parts of the boat was a blasting roar in the confines of the small compartment. Combining with the sounds of the combustion were the clatter of valves and lifters, and the whir of gears. Below the catwalk and geared to the engines were two 1,100 Elliot generators which added their high-pitched whines to the cacophony. When needed, their power could be shunted to the 252 cells of the battery. However, the forward and aft storage batteries were already fully charged and the two generators were feeding their full power to the two main motors, which were driving the shafts; these in turn drove the bronze screws.
There were three men in the engine room gang. Chief Machinist’s Mate Hisao Fukumoto was standing to the port side, studying a panel of gauges and instruments while two third-class enginemen were checking oil levels and inspecting pressure gauges mounted on small panels above the sixteen-cylinder engines. All three men carried rags tucked into their pockets. The engine room gleamed like an operating room. There was no dirt, no grime, no splattered oil. A man could eat a meal off the floor plates.
The gang came to attention, and Brent shouted “At ease! As you were!” and waved. He knew they could not hear him but that they understood clearly. The chief returned to his panel, and the two ratings stepped aside as the executive officer passed. Brent stepped through a hatch and entered the aft engine room.
The second engine room seemed like a duplicate of the first. Three men were on duty, and the same noise overwhelmed Brent’s ability to hear. But there was a difference. There was still another sound detectable to Brent’s trained and experienced ears. Beneath the rumble of diesels and the whine of the Elliot generators Brent could hear the high barking roar and hum of an auxiliary diesel generator set below the catwalk. With Number One and Number Two Main Pumps fully occupied with the water leaking into Number One Main Ballast Tank, the auxiliary diesel-generator was operating at capacity, running the boat’s auxiliary pumps and compressors, maintaining the boat’s trim. Nodding and smiling to the crew, Brent Ross hurried through the compartment and slammed the door behind him. Mercifully, most of the assault on his ears died with the closed hatch. He was in the maneuvering room, a small compartment almost directly over the main motors.
A rating stood before the control stand, a large panel with rows of indicators, volt meters, ammeters, and massive switches. Here current was shunted between generators, batteries, and motors to change speed or shift the power source from engines to batteries. Beneath the panel was a pair of annunciators for remote control of the engines in the event the other three became casualties. Brent narrowed his eyes grimly. The very last of the last resorts. The rating snapped to attention, and Brent nodded and stepped through a doorway that opened into the aft torpedo room.
The torpedo room was a jungle of congestion that made most of the rest of the submarine appear spacious and uncluttered in comparison. Built above the shafts and propellers, this was a place where one could always feel the vibrations of the drive-trains more than in any other part of the boat. And the compartment did not impress with the perfect roundness of other parts of the hull. Instead, it tapered sharply toward the stern and its four new Mark 68 torpedo tubes.
Set in vertical banks of two, the solid brass doors of all four torpedo tubes were closed. Twenty-one inches in diameter, they glistened with polished brass and were surrounded with mazes of pipes, fittings, springs, levers, and switches. A firing panel with four red glass windows and four switches was mounted between the two banks of tubes.
Secured to both sides in pairs, one above the other, were four nineteen-foot-long Mark 48 torpedoes. Shorn of its wire and its active and passive homing systems, the Mark 48 could deliver its 600 pounds of explosives only in the old-fashioned unguided mode of World War II. But its maximum speed of 55 knots and range of 28 miles made it superior to every torpedo in the world — including the Russian 533. The men grumbled about the restrictions, but the Arab 533s and entire arsenal of ASW (antisubmarine warfare) weapons were as unguided as thrown rocks. If not, Blackfin would have been killed long ago in its first encounter with enemy destroyers.
Bunks were fitted above the lethal fish. What, a bed-mate? Brent thought, viewing the arrangement.
There were eight men in the room. All were huddled around Number Ten tube — the lower torpedo tube on the ship’s port side — and all were torpedo men except for Chief Engineer, Senior Lieutenant Brooks Dunlap. About thirty years old, Dunlap had yellowish hair streaked with platinum. His most striking features were his eyes, light blue speckled with green. In the reddish glow of battle lamps, they could take on the strange aspect of purple marbles veined with silver. Dunlap turned and came erect. Before any of the others could move, Brent said, “As you were.”
Dunlap’s fatigue was emphasized by the grease that had been ground into the creases around his eyes and fell off from the corners of his mouth, leaving black lines. His tans were filthy, and his rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms streaked with grease and dirt. He waved at the tube, “The outer door’s been jammed open.”
Brent nodded. He knew the jamming of the heavy bronze muzzle door was not serious damage as long as the inner door to the tube was secure. And it certainly appeared secure. But there was water on the floor plates, and he could hear a hiss. Dunlap gestured to a stream of water jetting from a valve beneath the torpedo tube. “Goddamned sea valve is ruptured, too.”
“The bilge pumps can take care of that,” Brent said, feeling annoyance that he had been summoned for a minor matter-certainly minor when compared to the damage to Number One Main Ballast Tank. He could have been informed over the ship’s PA system. Dunlap was surely capable of handling this situation. He stabbed a finger aft at a jumble of pipes and fittings. “Anyway, there’s a cut-off valve further up the line. Why don’t you secure it?”
Dunlap bit his lower lip and released his breath in a sign of weariness. “We will, sir... as soon as we track every leak, find all the damage.”
“Is that all?” Brent asked impatiently.
“No, sir,” Dunlap answered, reading his executive officer’s irritation perfectly. He gestured forward to the maneuvering room. “The real problem is up there.” He led Brent forward into the small room and stopped in front of the control stand. The rating stood aside. The chief engineer gestured at the bank of switches and said, “Somewhere our main wiring is ruptured, and I haven”t been able to track it.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“We can’t switch to electric drive. Even if we can fix the Number One Ballast Tank, I can’t give you power submerged.”
Brent nodded understanding. Now, more than before, they were bound to the surface. They were completely dependent on their diesels and could not use their electric drive until the break was found and repaired. “I’ll report it to the captain.” He ran his eyes over the tired face. “You have some men on it?”
Dunlap nodded. “I�
��ve got six electricians on it now, Mister Ross. But the damage is somewhere beneath the aft battery room in the bilges, probably about where the hull was damaged between frames forty-six and forty-seven. There’s still some gas down there, and the repair party must wear respirators. It’s a son-of-a-bitch, sir.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I’d guess the blasts broke the insulation, and now, with the leaks and more water in the bilges, the whole system has shorted out.”
The full implications of the situation struck home, and Brent felt a familiar icy creature crawling up his spine. He nodded and said, “Christ. We’re lucky it didn’t short out at four hundred feet. We’d still be down there.” He grabbed the engineer’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “We’re stuck on the surface, anyway, Lieutenant. At the moment it doesn’t affect our sea-keeping efficiency.”
“I know, sir. That’s why I didn’t call the captain. He has enough problems just keeping this tub afloat.”
Brent nodded agreement. “I’ve got to relieve him now on the bridge. I’ll give him your report.”
“Thank you, Mister Ross.”
Brent turned and began to retrace his steps forward. He was halted by Dunlap’s voice as he reached the door to the aft engine room. “Great shooting, Mister Ross. You guys up there saved our ass.”
Mumbling his thanks, Brent stepped through the doorway. Quickly he retraced his steps until he reached the control room. Here, Electronics Warfare Technician Matthew Dante, a bright young petty officer with black hair, wide brown eyes, and a pleasant, friendly face, stopped him. The best ESM technician Brent had ever known, the young petty officer was seated before a unit with the US Navy designation of WLR-8. On line with a powerful Sylvania computer, the WLR-8 could automatically acquire and isolate signals, measure direction of arrival, frequency, modulation, and pulse width. All this information could be fed into the computer’s threat library for identification. It was like having a spy on every ship tracking them.
Dante gestured at the waterfall display stretching across his screen. “Just picked up a big unit.”
“Ranging us?”
“Not yet, Mister Ross. But he will. According to my library, it’s DD (destroyer) Number One. Our friend Captain Fite. He’s bearing zero-three-seven true, steaming course two-one-seven, range one-one-zero. With our low silhouette and coat of RAM (radar absorbent material) he’ll have a hard time picking us up.”
“But he will, and if he’s an Arab, we could be dead.” Dante’s voice became mechanical as if he, too, were part of the machine. “He’s searching with a pencil beam with an azimuth width of one-point-five degrees and elevation width of one-point-two degrees, frequency ten gigahertz. His antenna is one-hundred-eight feet above the waterline, with a rotation rate of sixteen rpms...”
“Very well. Very well,” Brent said impatiently. “You’re sure its DD One.”
“Absolutely, sir. It’s his signature, all right.” He patted the computer. “This baby’s no pussy. It never tells a lie.” Brent could not help but grin at Dante’s sharp wit and bright, cheerful face. “Very well. I’ll report it to the captain immediately,” he said, patting the young technician’s back.
Quickly, he walked forward through the control room and entered the passageway that ran the length of “officer country.” He could feel gloom and tension begin to ease and slough away as if a suit of chain mail had been stripped from his body. Warm memories began to crowd in. Captain John “Slugger” Fite ran through his mind.
He could see the big, bearlike escort commander with white hair like a snow cap, and a broad, strong face. He was the bravest man Brent had ever known. Twice — once in the Mediterranean and again in the Southwest Pacific — Fite had saved a damaged Yonaga by leading his Fletcher Class destroyers in suicidal torpedo runs on enemy cruisers and destroyers. He had lost five ships in the two attacks and nearly been killed himself. But he was back: unstoppable, invulnerable, motivated by hate only death could quench. His only son had been assigned to the American ambassador in Damascus as an interpreter. He had been kidnapped by terrorists in 1981 and held for ransom. When the ransom was paid, his body had been dumped on a garbage heap in the outskirts of the city. He had been skinned alive, penis slashed from his body and in the Arab tradition, stuffed into his mouth. Fite could not kill enough. With men like Slugger Fite on your side, it was hard to lose a war.
Brent Ross entered his small cabin, pulled a doubleknit turtleneck sweater over his head, shrugged into his fur-lined foul weather jacket, squared his hat low over his forehead, and stepped back out into the passageway, zipping up the jacket. In a moment he was back in the control room at the foot of the ladder. He bounded up the ladder and into the conning tower.
A cylindrical compartment sixteen feet long and eight feet in diameter, it was actually a small pressure hull mounted on top of the main pressure hull and separated by a watertight hatch. This tiny compartment was the nerve center of the boat. Here were two periscopes — a wide-angled night periscope and the narrow, six-power magnification attack periscope — helm, depth and pressure gauges, engine room controls, speed indicator, revolution counters, telephone circuit board, sonar, radar, TDC (Torpedo Data Computer), torpedo firing keys. Crowded in this tiny tank, the attack team plotted and maneuvered until Blackfin was in position to fire her torpedoes. At this moment, except for the captain and executive officer at the periscope, the conning tower was fully manned. Brent smiled. This was the only place in the boat that was more congested than the aft torpedo room.
There were six men in the conning tower, and as one they turned and greeted their executive officer. Brent faced the only officer in the room, Ensign Robert Owen, who was the JOD (Junior Officer of the Deck). He was standing in front of the TDC. Heavy-set, with a small paunch despite the deterioration of the ship’s food supply, the young ensign wore his usual warm, friendly smile as if God was in his heaven and all was right with Blackfin. Owen seemed to read Brent’s mind. He gestured at the computer. “Damned rugged machine, sir. I’ve checked it out and it still works.”
Brent stood in front of the TDC and ran his eyes over it. It was the heart, the brain of the entire attack system. The TDC was his responsibility and he was not satisfied. He glanced at his watch. He was still early for his watch. Hurriedly he threw a switch, and instantly the small room was filled with the sounds of the TDC’s small motors coming up to speed. He ran his eyes over the four-foot-tail machine, which was divided into two panels. The top panel was black, with twelve circular dials highlighted with white letters and calibrations. Each was labeled with the information necessary to kill: Target Speed, Target Length, Target, Own Ship, Relative Target Bearing, Own Course, Time. In the upper right-hand corner was an elliptical Distance-to-Track indicator which had a grid face. Here a red solution light in the form of an F would glare when all data had been digested and torpedo depth, running speeds, and firing angles automatically transmitted to the torpedo tubes. At that moment the doom of a ship’s crew was sealed.
Brent reached to the lower panel where there were eight cranks arranged in two rows of four. He cranked in a problem and watched the indicators and dials turn as they registered the information. He nodded his approval.
“Not quite like the high-tech glamor stuff on the new SSBNs, Mister Ross,” Owen said. “But it works.”
“The Gefara can testify to that,” Brent said. Everyone in the compartment laughed.
Brent switched off the TDC and then turned to a stubby Japanese petty officer, Radioman Second Class Goroku Kumanao. Fortyish, with thinning black hair, Goroku had spent eight years in the Merchant Marine and ten in the Self Defense Force. Intelligent and resourceful, he learned quickly, digesting US Navy manuals as if English were his first language instead of his second. At the moment he had the computer unit of the SPS-JO, D-band, surface and air-search radar spread on a small pull-down table mounted against the bulkhead next to the sonar. Brent peered down at the dismantled computer. “How’s it coming, Kumanao?” he asked. “Was the
hard disc damaged?”
The Japanese stabbed the point of a tool as thin and fine as a scalpel at a board that had obviously been seared by a short circuit. “The hard disc is fine, sir, but the force of the depth-charging caused a short circuit here,” he moved the tool like a pointer, “shorting out the parallel ports.”
“What about the serial ports,” Brent said, staring at the board. “And the software? No correction there?” Kumanao moved the tool slightly, obviously surprised by his officer’s depth of knowledge. He shook his head. “Our software is not very forgiving. So this unit requires two serial ports.” He tapped a tiny ceramic device with the end of the tool. “I’m trying to reconfigure the ports by flipping these switches.”
“Will it work? What does the manual say?”
The Japanese shrugged and turned up his hands. “The manual is nonsense.”
“What do you mean?”
Goroku thumped a thick volume on a shelf above the computer. “This board was manufactured in Singapore by, ah — as my American shipmates would say, built by spastic cretins — and the manual was written in their own brand of Japanese-English sprinkled with Chinese. Only the man who wrote these hieroglyphics could understand it.” He tapped the table top in frustration. “We need a new board, Mister Ross. I can tell you that.”
“Do we have them?”
The technician shook his head. “Negative, sir.”
“Damn,” Brent said. “Next time we’ll back up all of our units — everything.”
“Good idea, sir. We need a complete set of spares.” A slow smile spread across the broad face like spilled oil. “And good shooting, Mister Ross.” There was a chorus of approval from the other men in the compartment.
Quickly Brent grasped the ladder. Voicing thanks under his breath, he climbed up to the bridge. There were ten men on the bridge instead of the usual six to be found for ordinary steaming watches: Lieutenant Reginald Williams, who had the deck; a helmsman who manned the annunciators, too; port and starboard lookouts in the bridge enclosure; two more lookouts on their platforms on the periscope shears; and four men manning the two twenty-millimeter Orlikons on the cigarette deck. Williams glanced at his watch and smiled. “You’re early, XO,” he said, using the familiar term that only the captain exercised when addressing the executive officer.
