Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

“The flooding has stopped,” the 4MC blared.

“Depth four-eight feet.”

Allison, still looking through the scope, caught a glimpse of a string of waterspouts heading right for him. Then they could all hear and feel a heavy explosion from somewhere up in the sail above them.

“Depth five-five feet.”

It took Allison a second to realize what had happened. They had been hit. The explosion was from the gunfire. Everything in the control room appeared to be normal. There were no incoming reports of damage. Judging by the sound and the jolt, they almost certainly had damage in the sail.

There was no way to investigate right now, though. Just pray they remained watertight.

“Depth six-two feet and holding.”

Allison lowered the periscope as the XO and COB walked into the control room. Both were completely soaked.

“Skipper, we took a lot of water into the AMR bilge,” the COB told him. “I expect the drain pump is taking care of that. The equipment in the AMR got pretty wet, but we’re wiping stuff down now. It’s going to take a while to get things cleaned up and shipshape again.”

“Thanks, COB. Good work. And tell the crew, too,” the skipper responded. “Now, you two go get some dry clothes. XO, find out how our guests are doing and see what Doc needs. I’m going to stay here until we have safely cleared datum.”

“I don’t think the COB and I will need our Saturday night baths,” Foster said. “Will do, Skipper.”

Allison turned to Chastain. “Officer of the Deck, make your depth one-five-zero feet, steer course zero-nine-zero. Limit your speed to three knots. We’ll just pretend like we are a boomer on patrol for the rest of this run. Like they say, ‘We’ll hide with pride.’”

The OOD chuckled. But it was more from relief than from his skipper’s weak attempt at submarine humor.

18

Lieutenant Bill Wilson checked the BQQ-10 sonar display on the George Mason. All four of the Chinese submarines they continued to shadow, designated as Master One through Master Four, continued to paint brilliant pictures on the broadband waterfall display, just as they had so helpfully done since emerging from the clutter of the fishing fleet. Wilson flipped the console over to see the target motion analysis display. Course one-two-zero, speed twenty knots. Absolutely nothing had changed with the four subs in the past week. This had all the promise of being yet another boring watch for the young submarine officer acting as the OOD.

Wilson’s instructions were to keep the Chinese vessels at a range of twelve to twenty thousand yards and to not lose contact. As if that were a problem. The big excitement for the watch so far had been when he had to slow and come to periscope depth for routine communications.

The lieutenant stepped over to the port side of the control room where Sonar Technician First Class Josh Hannon had his team busily searching the immediate waters for any other contacts. Wilson watched the men do their work for a bit and then let out a long sigh.

“This is really getting boring,” the OOD complained. “It would be nice if something, anything, would happen and break the monotony.”

The sonar supe looked up and frowned.

“Respectfully, you should bite your tongue, sir,” Hannon told him. “Boring is a very good thing on submarines. Exciting is downright dangerous.”

Wilson could not suppress a grin. That was one of the things he liked about serving on submarines. Sailors were not afraid to express their feelings to officers if they felt they were saying or doing something wrong. Typically, the sailor was right. The informality went back at least to World War II when most submarine skippers informed their crews that they would leave their rank on the dock. Nobody should challenge authority, but every man could feel free to respectfully offer his opinion.

Just then the broadband operator called out, “Loss of broadband contact, Master Four. Looks like he just shut down.” Then, a moment later, “Loss of broadband, Master Three. Loss of Broadband Masters Two and One. They all shut down. No contacts on broadband.”

“Shift to the TB-29,” Wilson directed.

“Mister Wilson, you’ll have to slow to do that,” Hannon suggested. “A flank bell is above the TB-29’s self-noise speed. Recommend that you come broad so you don’t overrun these guys, too. If they shut down, they aren’t running all-out anymore. You can bet they are going to be really cautious after a long, fast transit like that.”

A red-faced Lieutenant Wilson ordered, “Pilot, ahead two-thirds. Right full rudder, steady course two-three-zero.”

As the boat swung around to the new course, ST1 Hannon busied himself with lining up the TB-29 thin-line towed array to do a narrow-band search. He was soon muttering distractedly to himself.

“Sonar Supe, what’s the problem?” Bill Wilson asked.

“Damned thin-line,” the exasperated sonarman answered. “We haven’t used it for the last week since we’ve been going way too fast.” He forcefully punched a couple of buttons. “Now we need it and it’s on the fritz.”

“Yes, we do need it,” Wilson said. “You think you can get it back online?”

“Not sure yet, but not hopeful,” Hannon answered. “Looks like an open in the acoustic path. I sent one of the guys back to check the towed array receiver board. If it ain’t the TAR board, we’ll have an out-of-commission twenty-nine. Better tell the skipper.”

“Tell the skipper what?” Brian Edwards asked as he stepped into the control room.

Bill Wilson answered, “The Chinese wolf pack shut down their diesels and probably slowed. We lost them on broadband. I slowed and came broad to use the thin-line, but we are having problems bringing it up.”

Edwards nodded. “All the right actions, OOD. Except maybe not telling me sooner.”

The skipper studied the tactical display on the ECDIS. With a couple of button pushes and a spin of the cursor, he drew a red circle around the spot where the Chinese submarines had just disappeared.

“If they slowed, one of two things happened. Either they are spooked by something and are going