Why if lady luck wasn’t with us, we all could have been killed!”
“Easy, kid,” prompted the veteran.
“Ours is far from a perfected art, and these things happen from time to time.”
“Tell that to the XO,” retorted the distraught seaman.
“Lieutenant Commander Layman came down here and really read me the riot act after those cowardly bastards rammed us. Yet when I played him back the tapes, he had to admit that with all the natural commotion going on in the water around us, even he had a hard time identifying Ivan’s signature.”
Stanley shook his head.
“It’s this damn ice, Les.
The way it’s always fracturing and cracking, the Queen Mary could be on our tail and we’d never know the difference. So relax kid, and look on the bright side. The Defiance survived Ivan’s best blow to the chops, and now that we’ve got all of our turbines back on line, it’ll soon be our turn to even the score. That’s the way it works in this game.”
The junior seaman seemed unaffected by these words of wisdom, and Roth sighed heavily.
“You damn kids today take life so seriously. Nobody’s perfect, and no machine is either.”
Realizing that he was wasting his breath, the veteran walked over to the adjoining console and seated himself. It felt as if he had just returned to work from a long vacation. While absorbing the familiar sights and smells, he activated his repeater screen and clipped on his headphones.
He initiated his scan by isolating the hydrophones set into the upper portion of their bow. As Roth had expected, he was immediately greeted by the gut-wrenching sounds of the ice. No matter how hard he tried to filter them out, they still prevailed. When one nearby floe fractured, it sounded like the explosive crack of a rifle shot. A passing ice ridge expressed the monumental pressure it was under by groaning loudly and sounding like the rusty hinge of a gate. And yet another ridge surrendered, and could be heard buckling under with a high-pitched squeal of protest.
Well aware of the great difficulty of picking out a man-made sound signature in this maelstrom of white noise, Stanley readjusted his scan to take in that portion of the sea that lay beneath them. As soon as he completed this connection, his headphones filled with a mournful, high-pitched cry that was followed by a sharp series of resonant clicks and whistles. From several different directions this call was answered, and the senior sonar technician mentally visualized the graceful creatures responsible for this distinctive racket.
Because of their current position in the waters of Lancaster Sound, these undersea mammals were either the white-skinned beluga whale or its legendary cousin, the narwhal. The males of this latter species were known for the long spiraling ivory tusk that pierced their upper lip on the left side of the jaw; it could extend toward for as much as ten feet.
Once selling for up to twenty times their weight in gold, these tusks were treasured in medieval Europe where they were ground up and utilized as an aphrodisiac or the filler for a magical amulet.
Stanley had once read a National Geographic article that described these creatures in detail. He had been surprised to learn that scientists were still confused as to the reason such tusks were needed. It used to be believed that the narwhals used these appendages to stir up the seafloor for food. But the tusks themselves were hollow for most of their length and could easily be broken. The going theory was that they played some sort of sexual role, though Stanley couldn’t begin to theorize on what this might be.
Beyond the singing whales, a herd of seals could be heard harshly barking. While an assemblage of shrimp chattered away in the distance like a bunch of hyperactive castanets. To the veteran sonar operator, all of these sounds were like old friends. This would be his twelfth Arctic patrol, and during many a long lonely duty segment, the noises of the ice pack and of the creatures that lived there were his only company.
As he scanned the Defiance’s baffles, that sound absorbent cone that lay immediately aft of their spinning propellers, Stanley realized that his colleague was still seated before his console.
“Jesus Les, don’t you even want to grab some chow, or at least a cup of joe? You’ve been at this for a straight four-hour clip, and I’m more than capable of handling it on my own.”
The determined Texan replied without taking his eyes off the repeater screen.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hang around a little longer. Maybe with both of us listening, Ivan will finally give himself away.”
“Suit yourself,” returned Stanley.
“Though all the overtime in the world isn’t going to make up for the fact that Ivan was able to use a combination of stealth and the natural ambient noises of these waters to land a crisp right jab to the Defiance’s, kisser.
No matter how many ears we had listening for their approach, chances are they still would have been able to get within punching distance.”