ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (55 page)

“It’s what I would have done in his shoes, Gavin.”

With
Hood
heading towards the noisy surface of the ocean the
Chinese torpedoes went for the
Hood
’s noisemakers.

Hood
’s
own torpedoes stayed under their operators control as they entered the bubble
cloud created by the
Xia
’s counter measure, the operators used the torpedoes
as an extension of their hydrophones although the Spearfish systems were
nowhere as sensitive as the submarines sensors. They waited in anticipation of
regaining contact with the Chinese ballistic missile submarine but as the
torpedoes emerged out of the bubbles into clear water once more they only
detected another cloud of bubbles ahead.

“What speed was the
Xia
making when contact
was lost?” the captain enquired.

“Twenty four knots, sir.”
His
Number One stated. “There was no indication that she was slowing or had
finished accelerating.”

“Humph!” The captain exclaimed disparagingly.

“Our intelligence sources stated her top speed was
only twenty two knots.”

The
Hood
was still making fifteen knots, a long way from her
best speed but any faster would certainly ensure the control wires to the
Spearfish would break.

“She’s drawing away captain, do we increase speed?”

With a shake of the head the captain dismissed the
idea.

“I think perhaps that is what he wants.” Turning to
the helmsmen he gave brief instructions.

“Come left again to Zero One Eight but maintain this
depth and speed.” He was trying to put himself in the opposing captain’s head,
trying to predict where the boomer would be in five minutes time but he
couldn’t allow himself to get tunnel vision.
“Sonar?”

“Yes, captain?”

“What’s going on with the
Tucson
and
Chuntian
?”

“Captain the
Chuntian
is bearing three one
one
, heading two eight four at twenty four knots, range six
thousand three hundred metres, depth two four five, …the
Tucson
bearing three five zero, heading zero at thirty one knots, range twelve
thousand, depth four zero
zero
sir.”

That was good, the Chinese attack submarine was running
from the Spearfish but she would now know that her charge was in peril from the
Hood
.

The commanding officer of Her Majesty’s Submarine
Hood
had
an easier job of putting himself in the place of the
Chuntian
’s
captain, he’d be getting out of the way of the Spearfish and then coming after
the Royal Navy submarine with all guns blazing.

“Are one and two reloaded?”

His weapons officer nodded and replied. “Yes sir,
thirty seconds ago.”

It was another minute before their torpedoes entered
the bubble cloud created by the last series of noisemakers the
Xia
had
dumped in its wake, but this time on passing through to the other side the
operators could hear distinct propeller noises, as blades churned away at the
ocean at the same depth and heading as previously detected.

“Contact re-established captain, she’s making turns
for twenty seven knots, bearing zero one eight, heading same, range four
thousand two hundred!”

The captain felt a flush of relief; an awful doubt had
existed in his gut that the big missile boat would simply have vanished. He
glanced at the board, the range to the target that had been given was from
torpedo number one and he added the distance from
Hood
to
that weapon, six thousand nine hundred metres.

“Weapons, go active on both torpedoes, accelerate them
and cut the wires.”

“Aye
aye
sir, going active
on weapons one and two…accelerating and cutting the wires…closing bow doors for
reload of tubes three and four captain.”

“Very good…keep this heading and give me thirty four
knots for two minutes.”

“Aye sir, maintaining heading of zero one eight and
making turns for thirty four knots for two minutes.”

The captain paused to allow his orders to be carried
out, feeling a vibration in the deck as the
Hood
’s single screw began thrusting the vessel through the
water at its maximum speed.

As the submarines speed increased the sonar reception
deteriorated and with nothing to listen for in real time a leading sonarman
took the opportunity to rewind the recent recording of the
Xia
and
analyse it with a practiced ear. He knew the intelligence assessment on its
speed and as that was clearly in error he sought for some clue to the secret of
its true performance. A discovery came swiftly, but not to the question he had
set.

Filtering out the sound of the pounding screws he
listened keenly to the sound of the vessels reactor pump and then to an earlier
recording.

“Captain, sonar!”

The captain approached the leading sonarman’s station
where a set of headphones was offered.

“Yes, Kentleigh?” the captain placed one headphone
against his right ear and enquired. “Exactly what am I listening to?”

“That’s a recording taken four days ago of the
Xia
with
all but the sound of her reactors high pressure pump filtered out.”

The captain listened to a slow and faint noise that sounded
rather like asthmatic wheezing. He nodded to the sonarman who pressed a key on
the workstation in front of him. He heard a metallic click in the earpiece as
the soundtracks were switched and then the same rhythmic wheeze; he listened
hard and concluded that it was the same.

“Okay I’ll bite, what’s your point?”

“Sir, the second recording is only five minutes old.”

The self-discipline that the captain exercised at all
times in front of the crew almost,
almost
, snapped. The sound of the high-pressure pump
operating on a vessel travelling at only three knots could never ever sound the
same as one working flat out.

“Come left to zero degrees and make your speed three
knots.” He ordered before patting Kentleigh on the shoulder. “It seems that the
Peoples Republic have themselves quite an effective submarine decoy which we
knew nothing of before, well done.”

As
Hood
’s speed dropped off the sonar department sought to
re-establish contact, the operators listening for some give-away noise amid the
natural hubbub of the Pacific that could only be man-made.

Of the
Tucson
there was no trace, the US attack submarine had
defeated the weapons sent against it and gone quiet, shrouding itself in
silence as it began a stalk of the killer of its sister ships but she was now
miles away and of no immediate assistance to HMS
Hood
.

They knew the
Xia
could not be far away, and in fact
she had stopped running and launched a torpedo shaped Ghost Lamp, a
pre-programmed decoy that was designed to emit sound waves that exactly mimicked
its parent. The
Xia
had as a sensible precaution a Ghost Lamp programmed
to run at their own top speed and loaded at all times in a torpedo tube where
it required only the tube to be flooded and the bows doors opened. This Ghost
Lamp had promptly failed, leaving a trail of bubbles behind as it sank into the
stygian darkness below the boomer.
A second Ghost Lamp had been hurriedly prepared
and launched, emitting an
almost
identical acoustic signature to that of the
Xia
. The
Chinese weapons officer, working furiously at his console, had only moments to
load the necessary sound files into the decoys memory, and he had patched and
pasted quite literally the first available ‘pump noise’ file in the
Xia
’s
sonar history library.

Xia
herself had gone deep behind the cover of her noisy countermeasures and reduced
her speed to a slow walk, listening with satisfaction to the western attack
submarine thundering past in pursuit.

HMS
Hood
’s sonar department listened to the mournful pinging
from west, northwest of two of their torpedoes as they swam zigzag courses in
an effort to reacquire the
Chuntian
. They noted grimly an explosion to the north,
northeast as a Spearfish silenced the Ghost Lamp that had suckered them in for
a while, and they recognised the
Chuntian
as she headed their way at ten knots, too slow to be
waking the neighbourhood but not slow enough to avoid detection by a western
sonar suite.
Chuntian
’s solid fix on Hood’s position had faded as the
British submarine lost way and her captain was desperate to re-establish
contact. Coming in at ten knots would allow his own sonar operators to work
whilst hopefully prompting a reaction from the
Hood
. 

The British captain ordered another course change once
three knots had been achieved, bringing the vessel right around to a heading of
Two Seven Zero because he was certain that they had overshot the Chinese
missile boat, but that was the only factor he was certain of.

“If you were the boomer then where would you be,
Kentleigh?”

The operator took a moment to answer, consulting the
details he brought up on the screen before responding.

“There’s a thermal layer another two hundred feet
below us, I’d be under that by a good margin, sir.”

The captain considered it.

“Okay, and on what heading?”

“In the opposite direction to the one we were on.”
Kentleigh replied.

“I’d want to get as much distance as possible between
us.”

The Leading Sonarman had answered with a calm
confidence and the captain decided to run with it.

“Come left again to One Nine
Eight…
make
your depth seven hundred feet and take us there
slowly
.”

The Hood turned onto the ordered heading even as she
sank away from the light of the surface above her. She had not reached the
required depth when the sonar department reported again.

“Captain, sonar…aspect change on the
Chuntian
, now making turns for twenty eight knots.”

“Range, bearing, course and depth?” he asked.

“Sorry sir we are in the layer now so there’s nothing
consistent on the panel.” The captain understood
,
the
thermal layer made accurate sonar readings impossible on anything on the
opposite side.

His Number One stepped close, speaking in a low voice
so as not to distract the crewmen’s concentration.

“What do you think sir, she can’t have heard us?”

“No I don’t think so, although I think her sonar suite
is an
awful lot better
than intelligence gave it credit for I reckon she is
dangling herself as bait to try and tempt us into launching on her, thereby
giving away a position that she and the
Xia
can both launch on.”

“And if we don’t fire on her…” his Number One mused.
“….they
get
to close the engagement range,
considerably.”

The captain nodded in agreement and spent a second
longer in thought before reaching a decision and clapping his second in command
on the back.

“There is another course of action we can take that
they don’t seem to have considered though.”

“Sir?”

“We are resigning from the
Silent Service
, forthwith.” He laughed at his Number Ones expression and then turned
to address the control room.

“In a few seconds we will be below the thermal layer,
I want the Spearfish in tubes one and two readied for shots at the
Chuntian
and three for a snap shot at the
Xia
…the Spearfish in tube four will also be for the
Xia
once
a proper solution is worked out…so let us take advantage of the layer while we
have it and open bow doors.”

Behind him the Weapons Officer instructed the Torpedo
Room to flood tubes one, two and three and open the outer doors. All eyes were
on the captain, whose own were directed at the sonar operator he was stood
beside.

Anticipation has a way of stretching time, and like
the track runner in the blocks who knows the seconds between the words “Get
set.” and the starters gun, can seem as long as minutes, so the officers and
ratings felt time slow down.