Night 3 --
Frey stood to his full height and began to swing his hand
down again onto the console but stopped himself. He had to stay calm. That was
his job. He was captain of the boat and all his men looked to him. He needed to
have nerves of steel.
“What are they gaining by this?” the captain asked himself
out loud.
“If it is the North Koreans,” Torres replied, “maybe just to
see if they can. A sub lost in the middle of the Pacific without proof to the
outside world it was them.”
“An astute hypothesis Mr. Torres,” Frey said as he looked up
to him. “You a student of International Studies?” he asked with a slight grin.
“International politics actually Captain. It was my major in
college.” Torres looked down at the console as the number ticked off. “Do we
return fire?”
“Thirteen-hundred feet.”
“Rules of engagement allow it,” Frey replied. “We have to
have a target though.”
“What if we launch decoy and let them fire? That’s should
give us a firing solution.”
“The other choice is to stay quiet. We can outlast them if
they’re really diesel boats,” Frey replied. “They’ll have to snorkel in a
couple days.”
“But I don’t like sitting here like a target.”
“Me either.” Frey picked up the mic as he looked across the
console at his XO. “Torpedo room, ready a decoy. Launch to starboard in three
minutes. Set to course zero-nine-zero.”
“Torpedo room aye,” came the reply.
“Sonar, plot a firing solution from the decoy.”
“Sonar aye.”
Silence hung over the close space, the narrowness of the
small room becoming uncomfortable as the next two minutes passed as they waited
... waited.
“Fourteen-hundred feet.”
“Launch decoy,” Torres announced into the mic.
“Decoy away,” came the reply.
The torpedo carrying the decoy launched with low pressure so
not to make a discernable noise. It carried a recording of what a Virginia
class submarine would sound like. If the decoy could draw fire, they would have
a target.
“Decoy tracking to course zero-nine-zero,” sonar announced.
“Fifteen-hundred feet.” The Officer of the Deck looked
around the control room at the faces he served with. He wasn’t the only one who
looked at the inner hull of the boat. The Virginia hadn’t been this deep since
refit.
“Pressurized noises aft, high speed screws, heavy cavitation
off the starboard beam.”
“Second set of screws aft Captain,” Marchi announced. “Very
loud. Six thousand yards dead astern.”
“Third boat?” Frey asked wide-eyed. “Con, emergency flank,
left full rudder!”
“Helm, emergency flank, left full rudder,” Office of the
Deck ordered.
“Second set of screws port to starboard across the line of
the boat dead astern.”
“Con, belay that order!” Frey announced.
“Contact Alpha heavy cavitation, popping noises,” Marchi
announced.
Frey watched as his sonar operator lifted his hands to the
headphones clamped to his ears and gently pulled them away. The acoustic hull
of the Virginia vibrated with the pressure wave that washed over the boat as
Vic Marchi let his headphones come back to rest on his ears.
“Sonar, residual noise from contact alpha?” Frey asked.
“Only miscellaneous sounds sir. Presume contact destroyed.”
Vic leaned in toward his station as he screwed his eyes shut. “Heavy cavitation
port beam, eleven-thousand yards. Fading.
Sounds like contact Bravo is moving off Captain.”
“Do we have a savior?” Torres asked.
“No other boats in this area I’m aware of,” Frey replied.
“Recommendations?”
“Slow surface,” Torres replied.
The next sound vibrated throughout the hull, the tone
distinct and clear, a sound every man whom ever wore the dolphins on his collar
knew instinctively.
“We’ve been pinged Captain,” sonar announced.
“I’m aware of that Mr. Marchi,” Frey replied. “Con bring us
up, surface.”
“Helm, ten degrees up bubble on the planes, all ahead one-half.”
“Helm aye, ten degrees up bubble on the planes, all ahead one-half.”
The next thirty minutes was agonizingly quiet within the
boat as the USS Virginia began her slow rise to the majestic surface waters of
the South Pacific. Stephen Frey had undergone his first live fire engagement as
captain of the boat. It was something he had hoped he would never come to
realize, never have to face in the real world. But his was a world of secrecy,
the secrecy of a world few would ever know.
Stephen Frey pushed the hatch open on the top of the sail
climbing up into the fresh air and sunshine of the southern world. He scanned
the horizon quickly catching the dark shape off in the distance, the black line
cutting through the waters that rose to a submarine’s sail. It was fading into
the distance, its course not aligned with his own. His XO slipped up beside him
and trained his glasses on the boat.
“There’s a number on the sail,” Torres said.
“We don’t do that any more,” Frey noted. “They stopped doing
that several years ago. What’s it say?”
“593”.
“Are you sure? Look again.” Torres nodded as he noted the
sudden agitation of his captain.
“Yes sir, 593,” he replied as he lowered his glasses. “Something
wrong sir?”
Stephen Frey’s face went ashen as the realization of that
number made his frame shiver, his body breaking out into a cold sweat as he
watched the boat in the distance slide silently back beneath the waves of the
warm Pacific.
“Mr. Torres, do you understand the phrase ‘eternal patrol’?”
“I’ve heard of it Captain. Why?” Torres looked out at the
sail of the distant object sank below the waves. “Whose boat is that?”
“That number belongs to only one
boat,” Frey replied as he looked somberly back out to sea... USS Thresher.”
In
April 1963 the US Navy submarine USS Thresher
was
lost at sea with all hands. She is considered
still
on patrol by the Navy
Dedicated
to those men who never made it home
And are on Eternal Patrol
Special
thanks to former Petty Officer James E. Walker
USS
Sea Devil (SSN-664) - United States Navy
For
his expertise on this subject
Still
on Patrol © Robert Thomas 2019
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