Authors: Joe Buff
Haffner replayed the recording of the launch noises on the sonar speakers. Beck listened to each set of watery whooshes and rumbles, each booster rocket suddenly cut off, the diminishing whine of each jet engine as it receded into the distance, and the final hard splash as each discarded booster hit the surface at hundreds of knots. He counted a salvo of eight torpedo tube launches, then twelve vertical-launch-system shots.
An ELF radio message from Berlin soon confirmed that radio transmissions had been intercepted from the launch location right before the launches, on two different bands. One transmission suggested a two-way floating wire antenna in use. The other was a high-baud-rate antenna—presumably a handshake and an error check.
“I can’t imagine any decoy that can do all that,” Stissinger said.
“Concur,” Beck said.
“Could it be a different submarine, not
Challenger
?” von Loringhoven asked.
“I don’t think so. The Allies would give
Challenger
a clear playing field, to avoid sonar contact confusion or any risk of friendly fire. And we expected
Challenger
to be in the Valdivia Seamounts by now.”
“Then why would they launch missiles when they must know we’re very near?”
“Baron, I’m sure they were ordered to from above. The course of the missiles, toward the southern flank of the Allied pocket, suggests the land offensive has opened and the Allies are in dire straits. The convoy is still very far from landing any reinforcing troops or tanks or ammo.”
“That’s good to hear.” Von Loringhoven smiled.
Beck nodded. “Let’s take care of Jeffrey Fuller once and for all.”
Beck glanced at his chart and at the gravimeter. The closest edge of the seamounts was almost in maximum Sea Lion range. But even at seventy-five knots, it would take a Sea Lion half an hour to cover those thirty-five sea miles from the
von Scheer
.
Beck decided to wait to get closer. He intended to use more off-board probes to feel around for
Challenger
. If that didn’t turn up anything, he would fire Sea Lions from closer in, to force a response. The same seamount maze that
von Scheer
could use in order to disappear from Jeffrey Fuller might just as nicely serve as a way to box Fuller in.
Let me see. Eight Sea Lions approaching the Valdivias from different bearings…Yes, he’d have to shoot back or go to flank speed, or both, and either way I’ve got him.
I’ve got him because I hold one decisive advantage.
Challenger
cuts her guidance wire to a weapon every time she shuts the outer torpedo tube door to reload.
Von Scheer
has better tube architecture. We can fire repeated salvos through a tube and not cut any wires…. Our fire-control systemsare designed to control more eels in the water at once than we can even fit aboard. And our technicians are highly trained in handling such a weapon-rich environment. It was hard for Beck to not feel smug.
“Torpedoes in the water,” Haffner screamed. “Eight torpedoes in the water, inbound at our depth and pinging! New sonar contact, submerged, flank-speed tonals,
Challenger
!
Challenger
’s relative bearing is steady, range is closing fast!”
Beck watched his tactical screens in shock. Mark 88s were coming at
von Scheer
in a wide fan spread, converging from every point on the compass between east and northwest. The Mark 88s were attacking at seventy knots.
Challenger
was charging at Beck, right behind Fuller’s torpedoes.
“Hydrophone effects!” Haffner yelled. “
More
torpedoes in the water. One, two, three…six,
eight
more torpedoes in the water, pinging!”
Jeffrey gripped his armrests as
Challenger
made her rough flank-speed vibrations. The final death ride had begun.
His plan was very simple. Hodgkiss’s orders pushed
Challenger
into another odd reversal of roles: it was
she,
not the
von Scheer,
who had needed to come shallow to conduct a missile launch. Forced to make lemonade from this unexpected lemon, Jeffrey saw a way his Tomahawk strike could help him trap the
von Scheer:
such a conspicuous datum, exactly as Admiral Hodgkiss said, would make very sure Ernst Beck knew precisely where Jeffrey was. Rather than have to think up some credible ploy of his own, the missile launch—under the present strategic circumstances—was believable by itself. The datum would strongly confirm Beck’s likely hunch about Jeffrey’s next tactic, that
Challenger
would make a stand amid the Valdivias. Beck’s recollection of Jeffrey’s final gambit the last time they clashed, before Christmas, would work to Jeffrey’s advantage now.
Then Jeffrey, his ultimate commitment already made in agreement with Bell, threw the whole rule book away.
Whether or not it’s true, Ernst Beck, keep thinking I’m predictable and—as captains going head-to-head—you’re better than me.
The
von Scheer
had been moving slowly, for tactical caution and for stealth.
Challenger
built up full momentum, with her reactor pushed to 120 percent—by hiding just beyond the north side of the Walvis down on the very bottom. This gave Jeffrey good acoustic masking until he was ready to turn and rush up over the top of the ridge. He used the active pinging by his first fish to find the
von Scheer,
then ordered Meltzer to bear down on her relentlessly.
Now that he’d caught the
von Scheer
by surprise, his salvos of Mark 88s would force Beck south, out of the protection of the Walvis Ridge and into the Cape Basin, where there was nowhere for either ship to hide.
Jeffrey smiled.
To hell with caution. To hell with stealth. Just keep on believing I’m bluffing, Beck. And then I’ll see you in hell.
Beck ordered salvos of Sea Lions fired at
Challenger
’s torpedoes in self-defense. Even with the Mark 88 guidance wires cut, their active pinging would let them home on Beck’s ship.
Beck fired other Sea Lions at
Challenger,
but Fuller already had more weapons in the water. Still Fuller charged right at
von Scheer
.
Beck ordered the pilot to turn the
von Scheer
south and make flank speed. He needed to buy space and time in order to give his defensive countershots enough room so they wouldn’t take
von Scheer
with them when they blew.
Challenger
’s bow sphere went active. It must have been set on maximum power. A strident screech pierced the water and the
von Scheer
’s hull. The noise sundered the air in the Zentrale, rising and falling in pitch, setting Beck’s nerves on edge as if fingernails had dragged on a blackboard. It made it hard for him to think.
He wanted to retaliate, but
Challenger
was coming at him from behind, in that arc where his own bow sphere was useless.
Fuller has to have planned it this way.
He’s using his active sonar as a psychological weapon.
The worst of it is, it’s working.
The sonar noise was drowned out only when atomic torpedo warheads began to detonate. The
von Scheer
was kicked hard in the stern. Now Beck began to understand what Fuller and
Challenger
had gone through back in the mountain pass. Warhead concussions and fireball pulsations, bounces of shock fronts off the surface and the bottom and the ridge, pounded the
von Scheer
like the Roman god Vulcan working at his forge.
Still heading south into very deep water, Beck knew he had to continue to flee. The massive blasts and aftershocks did more than deafen his crew and damage his vessel. They blinded all his sonar arrays. It became impossible to know what was happening back behind the ship.
One leaker,
one
Mark 88 making it through Beck’s Sea Lion defensive barrage, could catch the
von Scheer
and put her on the bottom in pieces.
Still the blasts and hammer blows went on. The port-side torpedo autoloader jammed. Broken parts sprayed flammable hydraulic fluid, and firefighters raced to smother the fluid with foam before it ignited.
Overhead light fixtures shattered. Cooling-water pipes cracked. Consoles went dark, and software systems crashed. The control room filled with the burned-plastic reek of smoldering electronics. The crewmen raced to don their emergency air-breathing masks. Beck and Stissinger glanced at each other worriedly through their masks. A chief helped the fumbling von Loringhoven get his mask on properly and plugged its hose into the overhead supply pipe.
“He’s going to kill us all!” von Loringhoven shouted. His voice was muffled through his mask, and he was barely audible above the noise.
“No!” Beck yelled. “I know him! That’s what he
wants
us to think!”
Von Scheer
had reached flank speed, over forty knots. But Beck knew
Challenger
was ten or twelve knots faster, and he realized by now that her warhead yields had been upgraded to a full kiloton.
We’re in a stern chase, and he’s gaining…assuming he’s still back there at all.
Beck ordered the pilot to turn east, just enough so the port wide-aperture array could hear back the way
von Scheer
had come.
Haffner and his men worked hard to filter out the noise and clean up the signals. The hissing and whooshing of air-breathing masks, including Beck’s own, added to the other noise and made the scene seem mad. But Beck knew the lunacy was all too real.
Beck waited for a report from Haffner.
Challenger
had probably turned away, to continue the cat-and-mouse stalking as the acoustic catastrophe outside the hull died down. If Fuller got too close, he wouldn’t be able to fire at Beck—his own weapon explosions would fracture
Challenger
’s hull right along with
von Scheer
’s. Three kilometers down, Beck knew, Fuller’s only high-explosive torpedoes, his ADCAPs, were far below their crush depths.
“Flank-speed tonals and flow noise, Captain!
Challenger
still in pursuit!”
Beck cursed; Fuller was gaining on him. He ordered another salvo of Sea Lions fired. They had to run out in front of the ship and then loop behind to reach their target. This cost him precious space and time.
More Mark 88s went off. They had been set on lower yields, probably a tenth of a kiloton, to knock down Beck’s Sea Lions without damaging
Challenger
too badly.
Beck ordered the pilot to turn slightly, again. Immediately Haffner reported eight Mark 88s in the water, tearing after
von Scheer
at almost thirty knots net closing speed.
Challenger
resumed her brain-shattering sonar harassment.
Beck ordered the pilot due south. He ordered Stissinger to launch eight more Sea Lions. Stissinger yelled that the work was badly slowed because of the jammed autoloader and slippery firefighting foam, laced with oily hydraulic fluid, that was sloshing on the torpedo-room deck.
Beck ordered Stissinger to the torpedo room to take charge and steady the men. More A-bombs went off. The intercom circuits failed; the phone talker said his line had gone dead; the on-board fiber-optic LAN went down. The lights dimmed suddenly—and Beck was out of touch with the rest of his ship.
Soon a messenger came forward from Engineering, breathless from running in a heavy compressed air pack. He said an auxiliary turbogenerator was on fire and the main propulsion-shaft packing gland was leaking. The engineer requested permission to use the main batteries to drive the firefighting pumps and bilge pumps aft. Beck knew that to draw current from the main propulsion turbogenerators would slow the ship, the last thing he could afford. And draining the battery ran the risk that
von Scheer
might not be able to restart her nuclear reactor, in case the reactor scrammed because of blast shock or an electrical problem.
Beck began to think he was losing the fight. Jeffrey Fuller seemed fixated on taking both crews to their graves.
And Beck realized that, from a strategic point of view, it did make sense, like an exchange of queens in a grand-master chess tournament.
An even trade. The balance of power of undersea forces, Allied versus Axis, is maintained—at a lower level for both sides—but the crucial Allied relief convoy is spared my salvo of missiles.
It was then that Ernst Beck knew for sure that, this time, Jeffrey Fuller wasn’t bluffing.
The lights were dim; smoke filled the air and everyone wore their air breather masks.
Challenger
had taken a terrible beating, but still the speed logs all read 53.3 knots—and still she was gaining on the
von Scheer
.
“New mechanical transients, Captain.” Milgrom projected her voice through her mask. “Assess as firefighting and bilge pumps running on
von Scheer
.”
Jeffrey turned to her. “Could it be faked?”
“Negative. We’re in their baffles. They don’t have an array to project false sounds in this direction.”
“What else?”
“Heavy banging and clanking, sir, as if crewmen are making numerous hasty repairs.”
“Very well, Sonar.”
Jeffrey turned back to Bell. They met each other’s eyes through their masks.
“We’ve clobbered them good,” Bell said.
“They’re still making flank speed,” Jeffrey said. “They still have nuclear weapons aboard. They’re a functional fighting machine, XO. Our duty is to destroy them. If we back off now, we regress to our previous tactics, trading blow for blow from a distance. We need to get so close Beck’s own defensive Sea Lion blasts would kill his ship if our shots fail. That’s our only formula for guaranteed success.”
“Understood.”
Even through the mask, he heard infinite sorrow and regret in his XO’s voice. “Reload another full salvo of Mark Eighty-eights,” Jeffrey ordered.