"Prepare to raise dome." A minute later the helicopter was moving again. They dipped their sonar six more times in the next twenty minutes and came up blank.
"Again, w.i.l.l.y. Prepare to lower. Set it down to, uh, eight hundred feet this time."
"Ready, sir."
"Down dome." O"Malley squirmed in his seat. The outside temperature was moderate, but the sun made a greenhouse of the c.o.c.kpit. He"d need a shower when he got back to the frigate.
"Searching at eight hundred feet, sir," the petty officer said. He was hot, too, though he"d brought a pair of cold drinks along for the flight. "Sir, I have something . . . possible contact bearing one-eight-five."
"Up dome! Romeo, Hammer, we got a possible contact south of us. Going after it now."
"Hammer, we have nothing anywhere near you. Be advised Bravo and Hatchet are working a contact. Two torps have been launched with no hits."
n.o.body ever said it was easy, the pilot thought. He moved three thousand yards and dipped the sonar again.
"Contact, this one"s for real. Type-two engine plant bearing one-eight-three."
O"Malley checked his fuel. Forty minutes. He had to get this one in a hurry. He ordered the dome up again and went another three thousand yards south. His shoulders flexed against the seat straps. It seemed to take forever for the sonar dome to get down to search depth.
"There it is again, sir, north of us, bearing zero-one-three. Bearing is changing. Zero-one-five now."
"Set it up!" Thirty minutes" fuel. Time was their enemy now. Ralston punched up the Master Arm and Select b.u.t.tons.
"w.i.l.l.y: hammer!" The sonar sent out five ranging pings.
"Zero-one-nine, range nine hundred!"
Ralston set search depth and pattern. O"Malley brought his thumb across the stick and dropped the torpedo.
The submarine went to full power and turned left away from the helicopter while the torpedo plunged to eight hundred feet before beginning its search. O"Malley growled to himself that he"d launched from a bad angle, but it would have taken too long to reel in and reacquire. He held the aircraft in hover and listened over his headset as the whine of the torpedo screws chased after the deeper thrum of the Charlie"s powerful twin screws. The nuclear sub maneuvered frantically, trying to turn inside the pursuing torpedo.
"They"re on the same bearing now," w.i.l.l.y reported. "I think the fish has him-hit!"
But the Charlie didn"t die. They heard the sound of blowing air, then it stopped. A wild cacophony of mechanical noise followed as the contact moved off to the north, then faded as the submarine slowed. O"Malley didn"t have enough fuel to pursue. He came around west and headed for Reuben James.
"Hammer, Romeo, what happened?"
"We hit him, but he"s still alive. Stand by, Romeo, we"re coming in skosh fuel. Five minutes out."
"Roger that, we"ll be ready for you. We"re vectoring another helo onto the Charlie. I want you to join Hatchet."
"How come we didn"t kill him?" Ralston asked.
"Almost all Russian subs have double hulls, and that d.i.n.ky hundred-pound warhead on the Mark-46 isn"t gutsy enough to give you a kill every time. You try to attack from the stern if you can, but this time we couldn"t. If you get a stern hit, you pop the shaft seals and flood his engine room. That"ll kill anybody. They didn"t tell you to go for a stern shot in school, did they?"
"Not especially."
"Figures," O"Malley growled.
It was good to see the Reuben James after four hours. It would have been even better to visit the officers" head, O"Malley thought bleakly. He brought the Seahawk over the port corner of the frigate"s stern and paced the s.h.i.+p. Aft, w.i.l.l.y opened the sliding door and tossed down a messenger line. The frigate"s deck crew attached a refueling hose to the line and w.i.l.l.y hauled it in, plugging the hose into the fuel tank. The procedure was called HIFR, for helicopter in-flight refueling. While O"Malley fought his helo through the roiled air behind the s.h.i.+p, fuel was pumped into his tanks, giving him another four hours" endurance. Ralston kept his eyes on the fuel indicators while O"Malley flew the aircraft.
"We"re full up, w.i.l.l.y. Secure."
The petty officer lowered the fuel hose and retrieved his line. He was glad to close the door and strap himself back into his chair. Officers, he told himself, were too smart to do what he just did.
"Bravo, this is Hammer, where do you want us, over?"
"Hammer, Bravo, come right to one-three-zero and rendezvous with Hatchet eight miles from Bravo."
"On the way." O"Malley curved around Reuben James and headed southeast.
"Hammer, Romeo, be advised Sea Sprite from Sims just finished off that Charlie for you. We got a "well done" from the screen commander for that prosecution, over."
"Tell the Commodore "you"re welcome." Bravo, Hammer, what is it we"re after, over?"
"We thought it was a twin-screw submarine. We"re not quite so sure now, Hammer," Perrin replied. "We"ve fired three torpedoes at this target now for zero hits. He got one off at us, but it prematured in our wake."
"How close was it?"
"Fifty yards."
Ouch! the pilot thought.
"Okay, I have Hatchet in sight. Bravo, it"s your ball game. Where do you want me now?"
Morris had allowed himself to fall far behind in the hunt for the now-dead Charlie. On his command the frigate went to full speed, closing on Battleaxe at twenty-five knots. In response to the multiple submarine contacts, the convoy was turning slightly south.
O"Malley"s Seahawk hovered seven miles from Battleaxe while Hatchet ran back home for fuel and son.o.buoys. Again the process of dipping and moving began.
"Nothing," w.i.l.l.y reported.
"Bravo, Hammer, can you give me a rundown of what this target"s been doing?"
"We"ve nearly gotten him twice atop the layer. His course is generally south."
"Sounds like a missile boat."
"Agreed," Perrin answered. "Our last datum point was within one thousand yards of your position. We have nothing at this time."
O"Malley examined the data transmitted from Battleaxe"s plot. As was usually true of submarine course tracks, it was a collection of vague opinions, shaky judgments, and not a few wild guesses.
"Bravo, you"re a sub-driver. Talk to me, over." This was lousy radio procedure, but what the h.e.l.l?
"Hammer, the only thing that makes the least bit of sense is that he"s extremely fast." O"Malley examined the tactical display more closely.
"You"re right, Bravo." O"Malley pondered this. A Papa, maybe? he wondered. Twin screws, cruise missiles, fast as a thief.
"Hammer, Bravo, if we proceed on the a.s.sumption that he"s very fast, I recommend you go east until Romeo comes off sprint and can give us a bearing."
"Concur, Bravo. Give me a vector." On command from Battleaxe, the Seahawk ran twenty miles east and began dipping his sonar. It took fifteen minutes to load another pair of Stingray torpedoes on Hatchet, along with fuel and son.o.buoys.
"What do you think we"re after, skipper?" Ralston asked.
"How"s a Papa grab you?" O"Malley asked.
"But the Russians only have one of those," the copilot objected.
"Doesn"t mean they"re saving it for a museum, mister."
"Nothing, sir," w.i.l.l.y reported.
Reuben James came off sprint, turning to a southerly heading to bring her sonar to bear on the remaining contact. If only Battleaxe still had her tail, Morris thought, we could triangulate on every contact, and with two helos . . .
"Contact, evaluate as possible submarine, bearing zero-eight-one, bearing-changing slowly, looks like. Yeah, bearing changing north to south." The data went at once to Battleaxe and the screen commander. Another helicopter joined the hunt.
"Down dome!" This was the thirty-seventh time today, O"Malley thought. "My a.s.s is asleep."
"Wish mine was." Ralston laughed without much humor. Again they detected nothing.
"How can something be exciting and boring at the same time?" the ensign asked, unconsciously echoing the Tomcat pilot days ago.
"Up dome! You know, I"ve wondered that a few times myself." O"Malley keyed his radio. "Bravo, Hammer, I got an idea for you."
"We"re listening, Hammer."
"You have Hatchet dropping a line of buoys south of us. Deploy another line west. Then I start pinging. Maybe we can flush the guy into doing something. You ever get herded by a dipping helo when you were driving subs?"
"Not herded, Hammer, but I have gone far out of my way to avoid one. Stand by while I get things organized."
"You know, this one"s a nervy b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He"s gotta know we"re onto him, but he isn"t breaking off. He really thinks he can beat us."
"He has for the last four hours, boss," w.i.l.l.y observed.
"You know what the most important part of gambling is? You have to know when it"s time to quit." O"Malley circled up high and turned his search radar on for the first time that day. It was not very useful for detecting a periscope, but it might just scare a sub running near the surface into heading back under the layer. The sun was sinking, and O"Malley could pick out the two other helicopters working this contact from their flying lights. They dropped two lines of pa.s.sive son.o.buoys, each eight miles long, at right angles to each other.
"The picket lines are in place, Hammer," Captain Perrin called. "Begin."
"w.i.l.l.y: hammer!" Six hundred feet below the helicopter, the sonar transducer pounded the water with high-frequency sonar pulses. He did this for one minute, then reeled in and flew southeast. The process lasted half an hour. By this time his legs were knotting up, making his control movements awkward.
"Take over for a few minutes." O"Malley took his feet off the pedals and worked his legs around to restore circulation.
"Hammer, Bravo, we have a contact. Buoy six, line Echo." This was the east-west line. Buoy number six was third from the west end, where the north-south "November" line began. "Weak signal at this time."
O"Malley took the controls back and headed west while the other two helicopters circled behind their respective lines.
"Gently, gently," he murmured over the intercom. "Let"s not spook him too much." He picked his course carefully, never heading directly for the contact, never heading far away from it. Another half hour pa.s.sed, one miserable second at a time. Finally they had the contact running east at about ten knots, far below the layer.
"We now have him on three buoys," Perrin reported. "Hatchet is moving into position."
O"Malley watched the blinking red lights about three miles away. Hatchet dropped a pair of directional DIFAR buoys and waited. The display came up on O"Malley"s scope. The contact pa.s.sed right between the DIFARS.
"Torpedo away!" Hatchet called. The black-painted Stingray dropped invisibly into the water, half a mile in front of the oncoming submarine. O"Malley closed and dropped his own buoy to listen as he brought the Seahawk into hover.
Like the American Mark-48 torpedo, the Stingray didn"t use conventional propellers, which made it hard to locate on sonar both for O"Malley and the submarine. Suddenly they heard the sound of propeller cavitation as the submarine went to full power and turned. Then came hull-popping noises as she changed depth abruptly to throw the fish off. It didn"t work. Next came the metallic crash of the exploding warhead.
"Hit!" Hatchet called.
"Down dome!"
w.i.l.l.y lowered the sonar transducer one last time. The submarine was coming up.
"Again!" Ralston wondered. "That"s two in a row."
"Set it up! w.i.l.l.y, hammer him."
"Range four hundred, bearing one-six-three, I have an up-doppler."
"Circular search, initial search depth one hundred."
"Set," Ralston replied.
O"Malley dropped his torpedo at once. "Up dome! Bravo, the hit did not kill the target, we just dropped another one on him."
"He might be trying to surface to get his crew off," Ralston said.
"He might want to fire his missiles, too. He should have run when he had the chance. I would have."
The second hit finished the submarine. O"Malley flew straight back to Reuben James. He let Ralston land the Seahawk. As soon as its wheels were chocked and chained down, he got out and walked forward. Morris met him in the pa.s.sageway between the helo hangars.
"Great job, Jerry."
"Thanks, skipper." O"Malley had left his helmet in the aircraft. His hair was matted to his head with perspiration and his eyes stung from hours of it.
"I want to talk over a few things."
"Can we do it while I shower and change, Cap"n?" O"Malley went through the wardroom and into his stateroom. He stripped out of his clothing in under a minute and headed for the officers" shower.
"How many pounds you sweat off on a day like this?" Morris said.
"A lot." The pilot pushed the shower b.u.t.ton, closing his eyes as the cold water sprayed over him. "You know, I"ve been saying for ten years that the -46 needed a bigger warhead. I hope to h.e.l.l those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in ordnance will listen to me now!"
"The second one. What was it?"
"If I had to bet, I"d say it was Papa. Great job from the sonar guys. Those steers you gave us were beautiful." He pushed the b.u.t.ton again for more cold water. O"Malley emerged a minute later, looking and feeling human again.
"The Commodore is writing you up for something. Your third DFC, I guess."
O"Malley thought about that briefly. His first two were for rescues, not for killing other men.