Charles Taylor: Boomer

Buck Nelson knew the bad guy, but he waved off the question with his hand. Chief Delaney had picked out Pasadena’ s signature. Nelson knew who; he just didn’t know why. What was motivating Wayne Newell? He’d fired on them. He’d fired on the other 688. He was coming back now. Which one was he? Port? Starboard?

Nelson turned away and took a few steps back toward the quartermaster’s chart table. What do you think, Captain? He rested his elbow in his left hand and bent his head, massaging tired eyes with his fingers. He was outside once again, beyond Florida, gazing down upon two SSN’s jockeying for the shot that would destroy the other. One of them wanted to sink him — the other was making a desperate effort to come to his aid. But even out there, even beyond the fray, he couldn’t…. No, I can’t, a voice inside him cried. Can’t tell which… .

“Designate the one to port target number one, the other number two,” Nelson indicated, turning around. “Prepare all tubes.”

“The one who signaled us before will be crazy if he doesn’t do it again,” Jimmy Cross said. “Then we’ll only have one to worry about.”

Nelson shook his head. “We all heard that signal,” he said patiently. “They’ll both use it now. It’s useless. We have two targets. If one gets through, we’ll sink it.”

“How will we tell which one we sank?” Cross asked defensively.

“Maybe we never will.”

Manchester, seven hundred feet below the surface, was proceeding toward the boomer’s last known position at twenty knots. When Chief Moroney reported that Pasadena’ s last torpedo had gone into a homing run well above and astern of them, Ben Steel held his depth until the weapon was drawn into one of their noisemakers and exploded. Then he gradually brought the ship up to four hundred feet.

As they drew farther from the turbulence caused by the encounter with Pasadena, the other boat was detected off their starboard beam.

“It looks like they’re moving close to the same course and speed,” Moroney said, “maybe closing us a little.”

That meant Newell would hear them, too. He’d know that somehow they’d escaped his wild attack — but he had no idea if they’d be able to hunt Pasadena. Newell would be wondering whether to go after the boomer first or take the chance of finishing off Manchester.

“Any indication of damage?”

“Nothing we can pick up. Nothing as obvious as our shaft, anyway.”

Peter Simonds appeared from the engineering spaces. “Mac says not to worry. He wouldn’t want to leave port with something like that shaft and he wouldn’t want a full-power run, but he thinks he can sustain twenty knots without shaking anything apart. No more than that, though. And he can get us home too, he said.”

“And over twenty knots?” Steel asked.

“He thinks the vibration then will be bad enough to affect sonar. Eventually we have to slow down. We’re going to screw up the calibration on the fine-tuned equipment, like the attack consoles, anyway. So we better finish this off quick. Actually, Dave Hall says we’re close to the edge at twenty knots. Lots of our own ship’s noise interfering with his sonar.”

“Any problems with developing a fire-control solution?” Steel asked.

“Not that I can tell,” Simonds said. “Commander Burch says tubes one, three, and four are ready. They’ve got a problem with two that they’re working on.”

Again Steel closed his eyes and imagined the scene. If he were in Buck Nelson’s shoes, he would have gone as quietly as possible after evading Pasadena’ s torpedoes. Perhaps he was as much as ten, certainly no more than twenty, miles beyond his last position. He didn’t want to be heard and he wouldn’t be moving at more than ten knots. And his muzzle doors would be open and weapons ready.

Pasadena was to Manchester’ s east, so Newell would have to come more to the northwest to search for the boomer. He couldn’t go fast enough to place himself in front of Florida. In a picture-perfect sequence at this speed, the two 688s should intersect close to Florida.

Newell would be trying to place each of them in his mind in the same manner. Once his sonar picked up the vibrations in Manchester’ s shaft — they would have had to by now — he would know exactly what Steel was planning.

“Slight change of plans,” Steel said to Simonds. “They can get to the boomer before us, as far as we can tell. I want a course to come in behind them about three thousand yards because there’s no way we can get in front, especially when he hears us coming like this. We’ll force him to turn before he gets to Florida.”

The casualty reports aboard Pasadena might have concerned a captain in full control of himself. It certainly would have altered their tactics. Wayne Newell barely acknowledged them. The boat would remain on emergency electrical power until sections of burned-out cables could be cross-connected.

There had been more damage to the crew than to the submarine. The most frustrating aspect to Newell was the fact that many of the spaces were vague about when they might return to normal operations. They didn’t seem to care, and there was no time to go into each one to talk with them.

“Sonar,” Newell questioned, “what do you have on our contact now?”

“Target motion indicates it might have altered course to intercept us before we reach the boomer’s projected location.”

“How about that noise you picked up?”

Another voice from sonar answered. “Engineering says from my description that the target must be near max speed. Probably has shaft problems.”

“Range?”

“Fifteen thousand.”

“Come left another ten degrees,” Newell ordered. “Torpedo room, status report.”

“Tubes three and four ready. Tubes flooded, pressure equalized. Both units warmed.” There was a slight pause. “Damage to the piping repaired in a few minutes, then we’ll have one and two ready.”

“Open the muzzle doors.” There was nothing to hide at this stage.

Bob Holloway, the weapons-control coordinator, stared back blankly when the captain looked over at him. He was still functioning, but more from instinct than anything else.

Newell took a couple of steps in his direction. “Your target could be at maximum speed now. I will hold this course and speed until either he shoots or we’re at ten thousand yards. Then we’ll adjust our course twenty degrees to port for firing.” It struck Newell that he was talking to a child. “Will the weapons be ready within two minutes?” It was not a question a captain would normally ask, but the man’s expression bothered him more than the possibility Pasadena would be fired on.

“Sixty seconds.” The voice was a monotone, but the job would be done in half the time.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Newell said heartily. “I want you to increase the pitch on number four — deeper target.” He saw Holloway staring at him uncertainly. “Problems?”

The man shook his head but said nothing. And when Newell frowned at the lack of response, the man nodded and managed, “All set, sir.”

What was wrong with these people?

Newell moved over behind the two planesmen at the control panel. They’d been strapped into their chairs and were uninjured. “You men are doing a fine job. I’m going to recommend you for medals when we get home.” That would do it. They’d respond more positively to a pep talk like this. “It’s tough without an OOD or diving officer to back you up, and I’ve got to coordinate the attack. But we’re at war, and the enemy finally gave us a little bit of what we’ve been handing him. I’ll point out in my report that you two assumed the watch for the officers and at the same time you continued to handle the controls.” He rested a reassuring hand on each man’s shoulder. “You just listen to me and we’ll come through this fine. I think the world just may rest on our shoulders right now. We have to get through to that boomer, you know, before she launches, so it’s going to take some pretty fair boat drivers. I’m going to call for some wild maneuvers,” he added with an encouraging squeeze. “I know you’ll do just fine.”