Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

Miles away from her struggling helicopter, HMS Bloodhound plowed through the dark water of the Indian Ocean. Sir William Henniker, her Captain, sat in his bridge chair and watched his crew in the dim red light as they kept to an intercept course with their helo.

The weather, though ugly, was not bad by the Atlantic standards her crew was used to. The worst sea state he had been through had been during his tenure as first officer on the Leander. He had been posted to her a week before she had sailed to fulfill her part in the Falklands. The early winter storms off the coast of the Islands had tossed the ships around so violently, some of the men in the bow sections had vomited blood.

The bridge phone rang beside him. He answered it, “Henniker.”

“Communications, sir. Bravo one is inbound. Lieutenant Weaver stated results from the torpedo were inconclusive and that he would give you a full report upon arrival.”

Henniker’s answer was gruff. “Very well. Set a course for their last known contact and let me know when they are ten miles out.”

“Yes, sir.” The line went dead.

Henniker peered out at the encroaching murk. “I hope that young fool Weaver has enough gas to make it back.” He had written letters of condolence to new widows more times than he cared to remember. As advanced as modern helicopters were, as skilled as the pilots of the Royal Navy had to be, the sea took great pleasure at knocking them out of the sky.

Bloodhound and her helicopters had been providing C 3I, command, control, communications and intelligence to a group of Royal Marines and a small medical unit as well as anti-piracy operations. The medical unit was working to provide relief to some of the more outlying townships of Somalia and the Marines were there to make sure it could happen. So far, the Marines had provided some very nasty surprises to some of the local warlords. Unlike the Americans and the Italians, they had avoided the bulk of any press coverage.

The British armed patrols had been a shock to many of the villagers. A fast liaison of the medical group, with a struggling civilian relief effort already in place, had produced quick results.

The orders from the Admiralty had been unexpected, but specific. Find a Korean freighter and find it fast. He had been forced to quickly brief the Americans on their Somali operations and then leave Somalian waters with the Americans holding the reigns of the British contingency. Something that was no doubt going to give the American command grief.

The orders had contained a full brief on what the freighter was expected to have in its hold. Henniker was leery about bringing fissionable material on board his ship. If the Koreans were actively pursuing this route as the fast track to operational nuclear weapons, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, then the world at large was in serious danger.

It amazed Henniker it had taken the superpowers almost fifty years to dynamically seek the reduction and, in some cases, outright destruction of nuclear weapons. Britain, in a burst of old-style colonialism, right or wrong, refused to give up her few sub-launched missiles. Few that was, compared to the combined amounts of the US and Russian land and sub based arsenals. Henniker shook his head at the thought. It probably had more to do with the French and their token arsenal, but then Europe was all one big happy family, now wasn’t it? Of course every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Third World wanted to own the filthy things to prove that they were every bit as clever as their First World cousins. Well if there were warheads and they were now on a submarine, that made it a lot harder to make the world a safer place.

Things were going from bad to worse on board the Sea Lynx. The airspeed indicator had died. The altimeter hands were frozen and fuel was becoming a critical issue. Amazingly, the radar still worked. If they got back, Weaver was going to personally write Ferranti and congratulate them on a rugged system. If they got back.

Tom was able to call out course correction and at least the artificial horizon still worked. Weaver looked at the blinking red fuel displays. The remaining mark forty six torpedo they carried had to go. Even though it was quite small, its weight, once released, could give them the slim margin they needed to live through this. Safeties or not, he did not relish the thought of smacking down X amount of tons of helicopter on anything with one hundred kilos of explosive wrapped in metal, strapped to the starboard side.

“Tom, we’ve got to ditch some weight. Drop the other fish. Let it run out a few hundred meters before you detonate it, just in case.”

Tom nodded and gave Weaver a thumbs up. He flipped the “Safe” cover off the launch button and let the torpedo go. It dropped in an arc towards the water. Halfway down, a small parachute deployed to put it at the right insertion angle. With a small splash, it hit the water and was gone. Tom let it run out for ten seconds before punching the abort button. The water ahead of them foamed and spray burst from the surface with a roar as the torpedo annihilated itself.

On board the Bloodhound, the sonar operator in the Combat Information Center heard the explosion. He turned to the Command Duty Officer of the watch.

“Sir, torpedo in the water and immediate explosion off the port bow. Sounded like a forty eight.”

The OD was beside the sonar console immediately. Bravo one could be in trouble. He knew the ASW helicopter carried two mark forty eights as part of its standard load.

“Any secondary explosions or sounds of impact?”

The seaman shook his head. “No, sir, just the sound of screws and then the explosion. The water state is going to hell. I can’t be sure the hydrophones would have picked them up if they had crashed.”

Henniker picked up the bridge phone on the first ring, “Henniker.”

“CIC, we just picked up an explosion off the port quarter. Sonar reads it as a forty eight.”

“Thank you.” On his intercom, Henniker punched in the code for the communications room. “This is the Captain. See if you can raise Bravo one.”

“Yes, sir.”

So far, the Bloodhound had been observing EMCON, broken only by the few transmissions between her and Bravo one. Henniker had a difficult choice to make. If he ordered the search radars activated, everybody from Madagascar and along the East Coast of South Africa would know there was a British warship off their coasts. The Admiralty had not been specific on the point of how classified this mission was. Henniker did not see it as being worth the lives of two of his men or the loss of an expensive helicopter. He called back the CIC.

“Power up the search radars and turn on all exterior lights. I’m on my way down.”

“She’s dead ahead, two thousand meters. Whoa! They just turned on the big array.” Tom turned to Weaver, “I’m getting them on com. Can we make it?”

Weaver looked at the fuel readout. “Tell them yes, but get a crash crew down to the flight deck. Better get Flight Ops on the line. They’re going to have to talk us in. The artificial horizon just packed it in.”

“Your status. Fox-trot Oscar to Bravo one, what is your status?”

Tom gave it rapidly to the air controller. “Bravo one, HUD, airspeed, altitude and artificial horizon are all out. We are on reserve fuel. Require you to steer us in and talk us down.”

“Roger, Bravo one. Stand by for instructions.”