"Take her back down to six hundred." The Russians are supposed to depend almost exclusively on active sonobuoys, dammit. He ordered a turn back to the north once they reached the ordered depth, and slowed to five knots. So they're trying to track us passively now. They must have gotten a twitch somewhere... or maybe nowhere. Passive sonar tracking was technically very demanding, and even the sophisticated signal-processing equipment in Western navies made for many false contacts... On the other hand, we've pretty well telegraphed our course. They could flood the area Why didn't we try something different? But what? The only other passage north was even narrower than this. The western route between Bear Island and the North Cape of Norway was wider, but half of the Soviet Northern Fleet had a barrier there. He wondered if Pittsburgh and the rest had escaped safely. Probably. They should have been able to run faster than Ivan was able to hunt. As opposed to us.
This is how we hunt the Russians, McCafferty thought. They can't hear our passive buoys, and they never know when they're being tracked or not. The captain leaned against the rail surrounding the periscope pedestal. The good news, he told himself, is that we're damned hard to hear. Maybe Ivan got a twitch, maybe not. Probably not. If they heard us for sure, we'd have a torpedo in the water after us right now. But we don't, so they don't.
"Bearings are firming up on both forward contacts."
In open ocean water, they'd have a layer to fool with, but there was none here. The combination of fairly shallow water and the overhead storm eliminated any chance of that. Good news and bad news, McCafferty thought.
"Conn, sonar, new contact, bearing two-eight-six, probable submarine. Trying to get a blade count now."
"Come left to three-four-eight. Belay that!" McCafferty changed his mind. Better to be cautious than bold here. "Come right to zero-one-five." Then he ordered Chicago down to one thousand feet. The farther he got from the surface, the better the sonar conditions he would have. If the Russians were near the surface to communicate with their aircraft, their sonar performance would suffer accordingly. He'd play every card he had before committing to battle. But what if-
He faced the possibility that one or more of the contacts were friendly. What if Sceptre and Superb had received new orders because of the damage to Providence? The new contact at two-eight-six could be friendly, too, for that matter.
Damn! No provision had been made for that. The Brits said they'd leave as soon as the boats reached the pack, that they had other things to do-but how often had his orders been changed since May? McCafferty asked himself.
Come on, Danny! You're the captain, you're supposed to know what to do... even when you don't.
The only thing he could do was try to establish the range to and identity of his three contacts. It took another ten minutes for sonar to work on the contacts.
"They're all three single-screw boats," the chief said finally.
McCafferty grimaced. That told him more about what they weren't than what they were. The British submarines were all of a single-propeller design. So were the Russian Victor and Alfa classes.
"Machinery signatures?"
"They're all running at very low power settings, skipper. Not enough for a classification. I got steam noises on all three, that makes 'em nucs, but if you look here you can see that we're just not getting enough signal for anything else. Sorry, sir, that's the best I got."
The farther we go east, McCafferty knew, the less signal his sonar would have to work on. He ordered a turn to reverse course, coming to a southwesterly heading.
At least he had range. The northerly targets were eleven and thirteen miles away respectively. The western one was nine miles off. All were within range of his torpedoes.
"Conn, sonar, we have an explosion bearing one-nine-eight... something else, a possible torpedo at two-zero-five, very faint, comes in and out. Nothing else in that area, sir. Maybe some breaking-up noises at one-nine-eight. Sorry, sir, these signals are very weak. Only thing I'm really sure of is the explosion." The captain was back in sonar yet again.
"Okay, Chief. If it was easy, I wouldn't need you." McCafferty watched the screen. The torpedo was still running, with a slowly changing bearing. It was no danger to Chicago. "Concentrate on the three submarine contacts."
"Aye, Cap'n."
You'd think with all the practice I've had that I would have learned patience by now.
Chicago continued southwest. McCafferty was stalking his western target now. He thought it the least likely to be friendly. The range closed to eight miles, then seven..
"Captain, classify the target at two-eight-zero as an Alfa-class!"
"You sure?"
"Yes, sir. That is an Alfa-type engine plant. I have it clearly now."
"Set it up! We'll run one fish in deep, dogleg it at low speed, then pop it up right underneath him."
