Cold is the Sea (17 page)

             
The Arctic ice pack generally retreats north of Spitsbergen during summer, reducing in size through surface melting and wave action. Warm water from the North Atlantic Current assists in pushing it back. During winter it has on occasion been solid well south of Spitsbergen, and may extend as far as the north coast of Iceland. Iceland's south coast, however, is generally ice-free. The edge of the ice pack is always marked by block and brash ice which has broken loose from the parent floe. Occasional icebergs of much greater size may be encountered frozen into the ice cover, and they will, of course, survive much longer in the sea, drifting to a far more southerly latitude in the process. . . .

Keith was surprised to find he had been reading for most of the morning. He had covered only part of the material when his own exec, Jim Hanson, knocked on the door to announce lunch. Carefully, he locked the refilled envelope in his desk and composed a plausible cover story for his morning's activities. He would have to confide in his officers in due course, for there were many preparations which must be made, but this could wait. For the time being it was best they not even know something was brewing. Besides, he had promised Richardson. . . .

8

T
he promises of eventual spring were freshening along the banks of the Thames River—what there could be of the signs of spring among the few forlorn plants able to exist amid the obscene ugliness placed there by man. A few buds were beginning to become evident, still wrapped tightly in their protective sheaths. There was a slightly warmer flavor to the still, cold air; for two days it had come from the south instead of the north. It was a lovely morning for late February, 1961. Richardson had just shaken hands with Keith and crossed the brow from the
Cushing
to the
Proteus
. The huge, delicately balanced crane with which the submarine tender was fitted had already been attached to the long brow bridging between her cargo port and the flat missile deck of the big submarine, and he had to duck under the wires. The brow was gone by the time the squadron commander of Submarine Squadron Ten reached the upper deck of
Proteus
.

The shorter brow between the
Cushing
and the
Manta
had already been removed.
Manta
's own crew was at mooring stations, ready to cast off the
Cushing
's lines and allow her to
back out. Then she would warp herself in alongside the
Proteus
, bringing in with her the submarine outboard of herself, the
Swordfish
, which had arrived a few days before. The heavy mooring wire from the
Cushing
's bow had already been shifted to the
Manta
. High on
Proteus
' forecastle, the inboard end of the wire cable had been led to a hydraulic winch. All this was routine preparation for letting an inboard submarine out of a nest. Once the
Cushing
was clear, the
Manta
's line-handling crew would pass their own lines around the heavy bitts built into the tender's sides and then, with bow and stern capstans, gently bring her, with
Swordfish
clinging outboard, into the
Cushing
's place alongside the wooden float—the camel—which served as a fender to keep steel from grinding on steel. In the meantime the cable to
Manta
's nose would be heaved in by a capstan on
Proteus'
forecastle, until
Manta
was located in precisely the desired position along the submarine tender's starboard side.

It was a carefully orchestrated maneuver, one which had been done many times over and was consequently second nature to all those involved. Richardson saw with approval that Buck Williams was on the bridge of his ship, alongside his in-port duty officer, whose responsibility it was to supervise the line handling. A few feet beyond, on
Swordfish
's identical bridge, the same situation existed, and there were men on deck at her mooring lines standing by in the event action was needed. Down below, in both ships, there would be an engineering watch on station ready to respond to orders to the propellers, should such be necessary. The reactors of both submarines had been shut down, however, and all maneuvering would have to be done on the much lower power available from their batteries. Because nuclear submarines are underpowered on battery alone, the squadron tug was lying off, ready to assist with her big, slow diesel. A couple of times in the past some unexpected current in the river, a poorly executed maneuver in one of the submarines alongside or inexpert handling of the wire cable had caused the tug to be called into use. A gentle shove at just the right place had prevented bent propellers or other expensive damage.

But there would be nothing of this sort today. Keith and Buck, the principal actors, would make no mistakes. The state of current, tide and wind would have been thoroughly considered. Orders to the lines and to the screws (if necessary) would be
timely and forehanded. Only the most unexpected of situations—a sudden line squall, a ship passing too close aboard, at too high speed—would disturb the deceptive simplicity and ease with which the complicated maneuver would be carried out. Watching, so far as Rich was concerned, was purely ceremonial, a way of saying good-bye, a private farewell.

A regular mooring line already had been led from the
Manta
across the
Cushing
's bow to one of the bitts in the tender's side. By heaving in with her bow capstan,
Manta
had eased her stern clear, so that
Cushing
's rounded belly would not brush against her vulnerable inboard propeller. Two sailors with coiled heaving lines appeared on
Manta
's forecastle, two more on deck aft of her sail. Their presence was precautionary; they would probably not be needed. Rich glanced at his watch. It was precisely ten a.m., the agreed-on time for getting underway. Both Keith and Buck had grown up with Rich's method of line handling, to pass all routine orders by telephone to the various stations. Except in emergency, there would be no frantic-sounding shouts from the bridge of either ship. Evolutions would be done quietly, in virtual silence, the better to be heard if voice commands became necessary. Watching, Richardson realized that these two skippers whom he had known so long were maneuvering their ships almost as though an extension of himself were doing it. In effect, they
were
extensions of himself, for he had trained them. And there was another ingredient, in a way much like the war days—and suddenly the old tense miasma enveloped him in clammy vapors: a gut feeling of unspoken anxiety. The ship getting underway was going on a special mission, into danger above and beyond that usually associated with a submarine voyage. As in the war years, she might, indeed, never return.

Richardson's reverie was broken by the blast of a foghorn. One long blast: the
Cushing
was backing. Water surged gently up from abaft her rudder, swept forward until it lapped the rounded hull where it emerged from the water. The remaining lines attaching the departing submarine to the
Proteus
on her port hand and the
Manta
on her starboard were cast loose, swiftly hauled in:
Cushing
's, which had held her alongside
Proteus
, to be quickly stowed in her deck lockers;
Manta
's to be merely kept on deck in readiness to be put over to the tender as soon as the
missile submarine was clear. Movement was now evident.
Cushing
's sail was slowly drawing aft. As it passed clear, heaving lines were flung down from the tender to land their weighted ends on
Manta
's deck. At first they were merely hand-held until danger had passed of inadvertently snagging someone or something on the departing
Cushing
. As soon as she was clear they were successively attached to
Manta
's mooring lines and the lines dropped into the water, so that unseen hands on board the tender could haul them in. By the time
Cushing
's bow had passed from between the ships the space between
Proteus
and
Manta
was already spanned by four mooring lines. Two of them, powered by capstans on
Manta
's bow and stern, were slowly hauling her and her immobile sister,
Swordfish
, across the intervening water preparatory to reestablishing the cobweb of lines and communications which had been broken only minutes before.

Now clear in the Thames River,
Cushing
had the problem of turning around in the relatively narrow channel. Of a later design than
Manta, Cushing
had only a single propeller, necessarily behind the rudder instead of ahead, as in the more conventional configuration. She had been able to turn slightly while backing, now lay almost exactly across the channel. Backing and filling was possible with a smaller ship, and could also be done with
Cushing
's ponderous bulk and great length, but there was an easier solution at hand. The tug carried out its second mission of the morning by putting its heavily fendered nose against the missile submarine's bow and pushing it downstream. After a suitable interval, screw turbulence showed astern, the topside section of the
Cushing
's rudder indicated it had gone to full left, and the sleek whale-shaped form began to gather headway.

There was a wave from the departing submarine's bridge. Richardson could not from the distance identify who this was, but it must be Keith. He waved back. Someone on the
Manta
's bridge did the same. The tiny microcosm of the world which she and her crew constituted was now cut off, an entity all its own, a totally independent spaceship coursing toward the opening vastness, leaving behind the infrastructure that had created her and sent her forth. Save for the vital linkage of the radio, from this moment the
Cushing
and her crew were alone. The world
was water, the land merely markings on a chart to be avoided as her navigators plotted the directions and distances she was to go.

Richardson stood watching until the submarine had passed Southwest Ledge lighthouse, at the mouth of the Thames River, and was lost to view. Disquietude possessed him as he finally turned to reenter his quarters. This was certainly not the first time he had watched a departing ship until she was out of sight, nor the first time he had thought of the ridiculous old nautical adage that doing so brought bad luck. Why, then, did it rest like a weight in his mind?

Buck Williams' normal combination of jocular seriousness was for once totally absent. He was seated facing Richardson in the Commodore's Office on board the
Proteus
, fingers holding the porcelain handle of a cup of black coffee in one hand, its saucer palmed in the other. There was a look of honest bewilderment on his features.

“What I can't understand,” he was saying, “is the priorities. The
Manta
's a good boat. We don't need much of a refit. I know you couldn't give us priority until the
Cushing
got underway, and even though Keith never said a word I've got a pretty good idea of why. But that was three days ago. What's holding things up now? We can easily finish our refit in the ten days we have left alongside. All we need from the tender is a little help with some of the bigger jobs. The
Proteus
can do it with her elbow.”

“I know, Buck,” said Richardson.

“That's what I can't understand. Yesterday the squadron engineer said he didn't know when we'd have all our work done, but then he clammed up and wouldn't talk. I was fixing to come up here anyway when you sent for me. We've never failed a commitment yet. We're all keyed up to get into that North Atlantic barrier exercise we're scheduled for. It's the first time the Iceland-Faeroe barrier will have nukes in it, and I want to show what we can do!”

Richardson was looking steadily at Buck, listening. Williams sensed he might be getting through to him, warmed to his topic. “We can make a whale of a difference,” he said. “Our assignment is to be the barrier backup, sort of like a safety man on football defense. The diesel boats in the barrier will be vectoring us to
find the transitors. It will be easy to find the diesel transitors—they'll have to snorkel and that's when we'll get them—but nailing the old
Seawolf
is going to be a problem, even if she is a mite noisy for these days.”

“How do you propose to do it?” Richardson's eyes had not wavered. There was an expression of ineffable sorrow on his face, something behind the shadow in his eyes that could not be stated. But Buck could not be sure, was in any case so wrapped up in his schemes that the question was irresistible.

“Radio communication between barrier submarines has always been the big problem, and now that we're in it the problem will be bigger. When you're down listening below the thermal layer you can't be at periscope depth transmitting information. So you have to break off listening and come up to where you can get a transmitting antenna out of water. By the time you've gone through all the procedural business to get a message off, half the time your contact is gone when you get back down there. It isn't so bad with snorkelers, mainly because they have to move so slowly. But the
Seawolf
is as fast as we are. She's a different story altogether. Ultimately we're going to have to figure out a better way to make tactical contact reports. Maybe by releasing something through our signal ejector that floats up and broadcasts a taped message. Right now, though, we've been working on Keith's old idea.”

“Keith's?”

“Sure. Don't you remember the communication procedure Keith and I worked out back during the war when you had to run that wolfpack for Commodore Blunt? It cut out a lot of the excess transmissions so that we could put out the important dope in a hurry. Well, before he left on this secret trip of his, Keith had some free time, and he and I dragged it out again. It's perfect for what we need, and he helped me work up a vocabulary for the BarEx. There's been a lot of changes in submarines and in communications too, since the war, but for fast passing of tactical dope between subs in a barrier . . .” Williams hesitated, stopped uneasily. The grave look on his superior's face was disquieting. “What's the matter, Rich?” he said, after a searching look.