Korea Strait

by David Poyer

  “Those are my orders. Identify these craft. Your alternative?”

  “Well, sir, if those are the orders—I’m not recommending this. But I’ll raise it for discussion. If your orders absolutely are to make positive identification? You could ask Seoul for permission to attack instead.”

  Jung’s eyelids drooped. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because Higher obviously feels they’re a threat.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Captain Yu drifted a couple of paces nearer.

  “Because your national command authority’s gone to a higher defense condition,” Dan said. “Unless that has zip to do with what your task force is doing out here. Which I don’t think it does.”

  Jung didn’t meet his eyes. Finally he said, “It may. But then again it may not.”

  Dan had no idea what that was supposed to mean. They were both looking down, at a standstill, when the Teletype clattered again. Jung’s head snapped around. The flimsy came sailing across the space in the sailor’s hand. Kim studied it. He looked up.

  “From Chang Bo Go. Outer torpedo doors opening on contact!”

  At the same moment one of the sonarmen shouted behind the black curtain. Yu reacted instantly, lunging forward to slam the lever down on the intercom to the bridge and shout into it. The plotters burst into activity, drawing arrows across the paper and pressing their headphones to their skulls with the tips of their fingers. Jung took hold of the plotting table with both hands, lips compressing, eyebrows drawing together as his face turned to granite. After a moment he snapped an order. Kim passed it on instantly over the Pritac.

  “What is it?” Dan said.

  “From Kim Chon: torpedo in water,” the chief said in a tense murmur. A moment later the sonarmen called out again from behind their curtains.

  Just that suddenly, Dan realized, they were at war.

  . . .

  JUNG muttered something in Korean. A curse, Dan suspected. Or maybe a prayer, to what deity in what tradition he didn’t know. Maybe to the same titanic and dreaded presence sailors since before the Phoenicians had tried to propitiate. The great Mask Melville’s mad captain had struck through to find eternal Truth, and met instead eternal Death.

  The voracious, savage, and eternal Sea.

  The frigate heeled, the noise level rising as the whooshing hum of the turbines spooled up from aft. He leaned over the table, gripping it with the same instinctive reaction as Jung, as if the ship were a horse they could urge to greater effort.

  From Kim Chon, still on her crossfield sprint to the eastern side of the barrier, the arrow indicating torpedo effects pointed in front of the flagship. The plotter lifted his pencil from another arrow drawn out from Chung Nam’s own trace. The sound lines intersected six thousand yards ahead of the forward barrier edge. The flagship was at that moment at the rear of her assigned barrier box.

  Dan grabbed Yu’s shoulder. “Is your Nixie streamed? Turned on?”

  “Of course. We practice evading torpedo. Not a problem.” Yu frowned down at his fingers. Dan retrieved them, hoping the guy was right. He checked the heading indicator on the bulkhead. It marched steadily around as the ship shimmied, digging her butt into the turn at full power. Yu was putting his stern to the oncoming weapon, or weapons—there could be more than one, you couldn’t tell from the reports. And he was speeding up.

  Put the noisemaker out, aim your stern at the torpedo, and make tracks—that was about all they could do.

  A minute passed. He stood clinging to an overhead handhold, still trying to wrap his head around the abrupt metamorphosis from peacetime steaming to mortal engagement. The first shot had been fired. No one declared war anymore. They hardly ever had, in Asian waters. But from now on, a state of war existed.

  Only… whom was that war with? That was the puzzler.

  The plotters leaned forward again. Dan’s gaze moved from one hastily sketching pencil to the next.

  Mok Po was turning left.

  The second X they plotted made it perfectly plain. The non-ASW-capable patrol combatant, her easterly neighbor in the barrier, was cutting between the retreating flagship and the oncoming torpedo. As he leaned forward, horrified, the next X went down, at a noticeably greater interval from the first.

  “She is at flank speed,” Kim #1 said in an undertone. His eyes met Dan’s. He was still holding the Pritac handset. The one he’d just transmitted on, passing on Jung’s snapped-out command.

  Dan blinked, trying to deny what he was seeing. “He ordered her across your front—?”

  Kim sucked in his breath and nodded. He looked appalled.

  Dan snapped to Henrickson, “Keep an eye on this.” He caught the door before it dogged and followed the old skipper’s double time up the narrow ladder.

  It was full dark; no moon; he’d forgotten it was night. But as he stepped out onto the bridge wing after Yu, a light went on. It was off Chung Nam’s port quarter. The lit bubble slowly grew, turning from white to yellow to red. It went out for a second and dark fell again. Then the horizon lit from one hand to the other in a searing flash that tracered silent sparks, like ascending meteors, through a whole quadrant of the sky behind them.

  A muffled thud rolled out of the dark. Then a ripple of detonations, both sharp and dull, drumming and popping like the finale of a fireworks display. Scarlet fire arched, then faded, leaving a dull red glow like the embers of a dying wood-fire. He stared, breath bated in utter horror, unable to accept what he’d just witnessed.

  ”Mok Po?” he breathed.

  Yu said, voice grim, ”Mok Po.” Then spun, and shouted angrily at the officer of the deck.

  Chung Nam tilted at the end of a roll, caught by the stabilizers. She began skating around, trembling with that strange dreamlike sensation of being balanced. Yu pulled himself in through the door and hiked to starboard, shouting with each step. Yells broke out all over the bridge, but it wasn’t panic or disorganization, just a well-drilled crew responding to a rapid stream of terse orders.

  Rushing out to the starboard wing, Dan looked down to see faintly, by a dim blue battle-light that had glowed to life directly above them, the triple tubes of the torpedo launcher swinging out to train abeam. Crew swarmed over it, then suddenly scrambled back as if from a live bomb.

  The frigate steadied a point to the left of the drifting ember that as they ran through the blackness grew slowly, finally became recognizably a ship, adrift and aflame.

  He ducked inside and grabbed a set of binoculars. Through them he made out she was listing, on fire, with an ominous darkness aft. Torpedoed, some hulls just broke apart. He could make out forms running about the deck but couldn’t see what they were doing. He didn’t see any water-spray, no hoses being employed, no evidence the fire was being fought.

  The muffled bump of compressed air came from below him. One by one, three tubular masses extruded from the launcher. Each hovered for a moment over the racing sea, then arched over and dived splash-lessly into the black. A green fire bloomed beneath the surface, wavering, formless, weird. Then swiftly dropped astern, pulsating and lengthening until the launcher coughed again and another weapon catapulted out.

  Shouts, the groaning of the helm. Again Chung Nam banked and skated. He clutched the binoculars so hard his finger joints protested. He felt frustrated, nervous, charged; above all, useless. He slammed his fist on steel till pain informed him he was bruising bone.

  He spun, hammered down the ladder again, and burst into CIC.

  Jung, Kim, Henrickson, and O’Quinn stood where they had when he’d left. The plotters bent forward like rowers on the stroke. The red and blue and black traces were a little longer, that was all. Mok Po’s ended in a tiny stylized picture of a sinking ship. Five short neatly drawn lines. And the six-digit date/time group.

  “You put her between you and the torpedo,” he muttered.

  The commodore eyed him. “She had no ASW capability,” he said at last. “This ship does.”

  Dan g
ripped the table edge, fighting for control. He’d never witnessed a more cold-blooded act. Then, through the horror, protruded a reluctant edge of professional admiration. This son of a bitch was stone. This bastard didn’t care who he killed.

  He tried to speak and found he couldn’t.

  “Run time,” said Kim. He held up a stopwatch. Dan lifted his head, giving up on words. There were no words. Not for this.

  They listened, waiting for the detonations.

  None came. The seconds stretched out. The Koreans looked ever grimmer. They probably knew men on the stricken ship.

  “What happened?” Jiang snapped. Kim shouted to the sonarmen. They yelled back, and Dan got the gist: nothing. Not one of the three Mark 46s they’d fired had connected. He was surprised. The weapon had been in the inventory for many years; it was dependable. Still, misses happened.

  ”Very well,” said Jung. He mopped his face with his palm, and Dan saw it was dripping when it came away. He felt shaky too. If he hadn’t seen it before, in other situations, he wouldn’t have believed how swiftly everything you thought and knew and assumed you were prepared for could come unglued. And all turn to utter shit.

  Yet it just had. “Is Kim Chon launching too?” Dan asked the table in general.

  “I’ve ordered her not to, unless she’s fired on,” Jung said. “In case this was the action of one hothead. But to remain in instant readiness to attack. By the way, she has active contact on one of the others.” He placed his finger on a newly drawn dot. “She will maintain track and attack instantly if she suspects hostile intent.

  “And now”—he switched his gaze to Kim—”we will call on them once more to identify. If they do not, we will destroy them all.”

  14

  TOPSIDE again, he gripped the rail on the 01 level, looking down and out. The bow wave rolled out slowly into the black. Sailors talked excitedly beside him, pointing across the water.

  Two hundred yards away Mok Po was burning. This close the firelight illuminated everything with terrible clarity. Everything aft of the patrol craft’s aftermost mount was missing, gone, blown away. Fire roared amidships. Her bow was rising slowly as the stern section sank. And the men… some gathered on the bow, watching as the flagship approached. They didn’t yell or wave, just stared. Another knot struggled around a boat, but even from this distance Dan could see they weren’t making much progress. It looked like the davits were jammed.

  But the inflatable rafts weren’t going over. The fiberglass capsules that held them were still lined up neatly on the flying bridge. As he watched, a plume of white burst from amid a knot of men along the main deck. It wavered, sprayed straight up, then steadied and swung around to play into the flames.

  He couldn’t quite believe it, but it didn’t look as if the CO had ordered abandon ship. He shook his head. It was both courageous and incredibly dangerous. Judging by how much of the stern was missing, they had to be taking at least some flooding in the engine spaces. If whatever bulkheads sealed off the remaining watertight compartments gave way, the craft could go under literally in seconds. She’d slide aft and down as the sea rammed into her like a crazed bull, killing anyone still belowdecks and sucking down those floundering in the water.

  Not that he didn’t understand how her skipper must feel. Exactly the same, probably, as he’d felt during Horn’s trial by nuclear fire.

  The door behind him thumped open. O’Quinn said, “Jesus. Straight up the fucking ass. Didn’t they have their Nixie streamed?”

  “They probably did. These guys don’t neglect countermeasures.”

  “Then it wasn’t acoustic.”

  “Huh? Uh—no. Probably not.”

  “Sraight runner? Unlikely, from a submerged shot. Only one thing left.”

  Dan nodded, heart sinking. He should have come to the same conclusion. Wake-homing torpedoes were a Russian invention, dismissed as myth by the U.S. Navy for many years. But they were real. And the Chinese had them.

  It looked like now they knew whom they were facing.

  And with one less advantage the surface ships had counted on in case it came to an exchange of ordnance.

  “They’re gonna stick it out?”

  “Looks like it.” Dan figured he should get back to CIC, but couldn’t tear himself from watching yet. They witnessed side by side as another hose cut on, as the bowless hulk rolled and a prolonged wailing protest of stressed steel and the cries of embattled seamen came plain across the dark sea.

  But the men over there had firemain pressure. They still had power. If they could get the fire out before it set off the ready ordnance, get the engine room dewatered and the bulkheads shored up, they might have a chance of keeping her afloat.

  Reluctantly, he turned away.

  Back in CIC Yu and Jung were screaming at each other. Or at least the little skipper was screaming. Junior officers and men stood frozen, gazes averted from their seniors. “What’s going on?” he muttered to Hwang, who was standing as far from the altercation as he could get.

  “Captain Yu wants to stop and lower the whaleboat. Take over firefighting supplies. Commodore has refused permission.”

  They didn’t need him in that decision, but Dan hoped they got it settled soon. Dawdling around here, outlined by the flames, was as dangerous a position as he could well imagine if whoever had torpedoed the PCC was hanging around. But just then Yu swung away, face flushed nearly black. He shoved an enlisted man out of the way and stormed out.

  Jung cleared his throat and passed a hand over his hair. He turned back to the plot. No one said anything, and after a moment he observed hoarsely, for some reason in English, “We cannot linger here. We will send a message to Seoul reporting the loss and requesting them to send assistance. Commander Hwang, see to that.”

  ”Yae, jeon daejang mm.”

  “We’re too far out for helicopters. They will have to send fishing craft. Send the position twice. Make absolutely sure they record it correctly.”

  The chief of staff aye-aye’d again and Jung turned back to the DRT, eyes narrowed to X-Acto cuts. The turbines speeded up again. The heading indicator began to spin. Bending over the paper, Dan saw that Kim Chon was fifteen thousand yards distant and headed southwest. The trace showed she still held contact, though not with which sub.

  The teleprinter chattered. Jung took the flimsy, lips compressed. Dan studied him, his emotions a mess. The guy had just sacrificed another ship to protect his flagship. Then left its men to the sea, and all without a word of regret or any indication, really, that he even rued having had to do it. Maybe it was tactically justified, but it took an iron will to condemn others to die. He’d had to, once or twice, and he still wondered, deep in the night, if he could’ve been smarter, have saved them somehow

  He looked across the space as O’Quinn came in. No doubt he had nightmares too, about the guys he’d welded that hatch down on.

  The trace showed Chung Nam steering southwest. At flank speed, judging by the vibration. He remembered the patched hull and hoped the concrete held. “Where’s Chang Bo Go?” he asked the chief, who shrugged.

  “Still at depth,” Jung said.

  “Unless she’s been torpedoed too.”

  Dan took a deep breath, hoping not. But what he didn’t understand was why the 209 hadn’t taken out the hostile after it had fired on Mok Po. She’d been shadowing. She’d reported the outer doors opening. But hadn’t fired. He wondered what the last teleprinter message said, and who it was from, but Jung had already folded it and stuck it into his breast pocket and buttoned it in, and it wasn’t Dan’s place to demand to see.

  “We can’t let these guys get away scot-free,” he suggested.

  “I’m warning them one last time to surface. Then I attack without making distinctions,” Jung said. He spoke to Kim, and the lieutenant pulled down the handset.

  They had it in hand, so Dan tried to back off. Look at it with some distance. This group, Chinese probably, had committed an act of war. Since they stil
l weren’t identifying, and were obviously operating together, Jung was fully justified in carrying out as savage an attack as he could with the remaining forces at his disposal.

  Which over the next half hour he proceeded to do. With Kim Chon holding contact one thousand yards astern of her unknown, he assigned Captain Yu to conduct a deliberate attack from abeam. Dan cautioned that they might encounter wake homers. Jung said brusquely he’d reached that conclusion too. He sent a message to their own sub to stand clear. Kim called their target one last time on the underwater phone, but again, got not a syllable in response.

  This time two torpedoes hit the water eight hundred yards to port of the contact. The shock when they went off, one after the other, rattled the frames.

  “Target is breaking up,” Hwang translated the sonarmen’s report. “They’re putting it on the loudspeaker.”

  The space went quiet. Men listened to the distant, reverberating crunch of imploding bulkheads. Then more explosions. And last, an eerie, ululating whine that faded slowly as the hulk sank away into eight hundred fathoms of dark sea.

  The teleprinter broke the silence with its zipping rattle. This time Jung shared the message. ”Chang Bo Go reports unable to fire torpedoes,” he said. “Fault in the fire control system arming logic. They’re trying to set up a manual workaround.”

  “So they tried to fire?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Dan thought that over. Not encouraging. Understandable; after all, they were still on their delivery trials, not only of a new boat but of a new class. But still not good news, that a third of their remaining force, and the only sub, couldn’t pull the trigger. “What about contacts? Do they have any?”

  The commodore shook his head. This was bad too. It meant there were three subs down there slipping through the deep, aware now they were being hunted.

  Jung slouched with hands in his pockets, looking into the trace as if into a screen that foretold the future. His face was like a sagging, blotchy rubber mask. Dan checked his watch. Nearly dawn. He needed coffee, but didn’t dare leave. If they picked up another contact, or got another torpedo warning, things would move very fast indeed.