Attack of the Seawolf

The tube fired, barking as it ejected the torpedo, the air in the ship compressing in a shock wave from the highpressure air ram venting inboard.

“Tube seven fired electrically, sir, and we’re active.”

The pinging of the torpedo could be heard outside the skin of the ship, the sound fading as the torpedo drove away to the northwest down the bearing line of the frigate.

“Lookaround number-two scope,” Pacino called, raising the periscope and lifting his eyepatch. The scope was trained to the bearing of the frigate as it came out of the well.

He put the crosshairs of the scope on the frigate, now approaching at flank speed directly toward him, the hull of the Tampa a mile behind it but on almost the same bearing line. He realized that if he missed, not only would Tampa take the torpedo hit, but Seawolf would be rammed and sunk by the frigate.

As the frigate plowed toward him, its knife-sharp bow looming bigger each second, he wondered what Admiral Donchez would say if he heard that both submarines had been lost.

“COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT, BUT THE WOK WON RADAR IS GETTING A DETECT OFF THE SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE, BEARING ONE TWO FOUR.”

“Steer one two four. Fighter Tse,” Commander Chin ordered the helmsman. Up ahead he thought he could see the reflection of the moon off something in the water, perhaps from a periscope lens.

“What’s the status of the helicopter?” he asked the Deck Officer.

“He’s on deck now, sir, and should be starting his engines any minute.”

“Tell him to hurry.” Chin clicked the intercom button.

“Are the Whitehead torpedoes armed?”

“ARMED AND READY, COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT.”

“Standby.”

Chin raised his binoculars to look at the bearing to the periscope, and when at first he didn’t see it he dropped the glasses and searched with his naked eyes until he saw the periscope silhouetted in the moon’s reflection on the bay’s waves.

“Got him now,” he mumbled to himself. An instant later the fo’c’sle of his frigate disintegrated in a blooming fireball while the deck jumped up two meters, the explosion throwing him against the aft bulkhead of the wheelhouse and cracking open his skull.

The ship’s forward momentum, without her bow section, drove her into the water of the bay, the water soon flooding the bridge after the bow of the ship exploded. As the Nantong sank. Commander Chin Chi-wei sputtered, coughing and inhaling water as the wheelhouse filled with water. For a few moments he swam in circles, his lungs filled with water, then lost consciousness in the blackness of the bay.

Moments later the hull of his ship hit the bottom of the bay and rolled over, burying the bridge in the silt.

The crosshairs of the periscope were centered on the bridge of the frigate, and when Pacino switched to high power he could see the face of a man staring at him with binoculars in the red lit windows of the bridge. He switched back to low power, the hull of the frigate almost filling the periscope view.

The bow of the ship vanished for a moment, obscured by a column of water and an orange cloud of fire, black chunks of shrapnel flying away from the bright flash. Almost as quickly as it came, the fireball and water-column receded as the ship plowed into the water, taking a down angle. The sea swallowed the gun mount forward of the bridge, then the bridge went under, the central mast following. The funnel vanished in the foamy water, then the helicopter hangar and finally the helo deck until there was nothing left but the Dauphin helicopter, which for a moment bobbed in the waves caused by the frigate’s sinking, then gave up and sank itself, either from being flooded or being sucked down by the vortex from the frigate.

The bay was empty except for the Tampa, which still leaned helplessly against the sandbar.

CHAPTER 24 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 1917 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY, XLNGANG HARBOR

USS TAMPA

0317 BEIJING TIME

As Jack Morris climbed the ladder in the dark bridge access trunk he felt the explosions from outside the submarine. He had no idea what was going on topside but figured it wasn’t good.

At the top of the tilted bridge trunk he stopped before the closed hatch, pushed up on it with all the strength he had, thinking that since it was almost two inch-thick steel it would be heavy. He hadn’t counted on its spring-loaded hatch, the spring designed to balance the weight of the steel pancake so that a child could open the hatch from below. With Morris’ mighty heave on the hatch, the spring coiled and pulled the hatch upward, launching Morris out of the trunk and smashing the hatch against Kurt Lennox’s thigh. Morris lost his balance and fell to the deck grating of the bridge cockpit, then stood abruptly and hit his head against the closed canopy of the steel clamshell.

“Son of a bitch.” He found the square of light coming from the one opening on the starboard side and crawled toward it. Lennox’s large frame was standing in the opening, his head exposed above.