Commander Crawford bounded up a ladder and entered the control room. He stepped to the forward starboard corner and watched the sonar repeater for several minutes. The furious storm above them created a din that drowned out most noises a surface ship might make . Miami’s sophisticated BQQ-10 sonar system computer enhanced the signals to counteract some of the storm’s racket, but it couldn’t be one hundred percent effective. Crawford saw no trace of another ship anywhere nearby, nor did he expect one in this lonely stretch of ocean on such a blustery night.
“Okay, Mr. Wittstrom, you ready to go to periscope depth?”
The young junior officer gulped, but his voice seemed assured when he replied,. “Yes, sir. I think so. I’m coming up to one-five-zero feet to clear baffles.”
Crawford nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”
As Miami rose from the calm depths, the churning of the sea became more obvious, and the submarine’s pitching and rolling increased. By the time she leveled off at one hundred fifty feet below the roiling surface, the sub was rolling more than twenty degrees to either side. The bow rose and fell at least fifteen degrees. By then, everyone had to hold on to something solid just to keep from being thrown off balance onto the deck or down a ladder.
Wittstrom turned the sub to make sure that no ship was approaching them from astern. The sonar was blanked in that direction by the sub’s bulk. Its screen still showed only the noise of the storm.
“Captain, no sonar contacts,” the junior officer reported. “Request permission to come to periscope depth to copy the broadcast.”
Crawford looked hard at the sonar repeater. “MisterMr. Wittstrom, what is the sea state?”
“Captain, sonar reports a sea state ‘eight,’ maybe ‘nine.’”
Crawford looked up at Wittstrom. “That’s what I figure, too. That means wave heights somewhere between thirty and sixty feet. I’d suggest we come around to course ‘north’ to face into the seas. That will limit the rolls a little.”
As Miami swung around to her new course, the rolls calmed a little, but the pitching worsened.
Wittstrom braced himself and shouted, “Number- two scope coming up!”
Wittstrom continued the slow rotation. Submariners had long since dubbed the waltz he was doing “dancing with the fat lady.” He was looking to see if there was any obstacle, like a ship’s bottom or an unexpected ice keel, that he could see in time to avoid it when they surfaced. There was not much chance of that in this pitch-black, storm-tossed sea, but it was still necessary to make certain. Rescue was a long, cold ride away.
With Wittstrom satisfied the way was clear, Miami slid up toward the surface. The pitching and rolling worsened until she was bucking like a frenzied bronco, rearing wildly in some very cold, wet rodeo. The diving officer and his two planesmen were working with every bit of skill and strength they had to keep Miami on depth, but they were no match for the sea. She was quickly broached, bobbing like a cork on the surface of the seething ocean.
A horrendous crash came from the galley, below the control room. Dish stowage was not equal to the sea’s might. Clipboards, books, coffee cups, anything not tied down, fell to the deck and slid noisily fore and aft, port and starboard, as the sub heaved and pitched. Crawford grabbed the stainless steel railing surrounding the periscope stand and held on with both hands.
They couldn’t waste much time up here. Someone could get hurt. Mercifully, the radioman soon announced over the 21MC circuit, “All traffic aboard and accounted for.”
Crawford was just opening his mouth to order the boat back down when Wittstrom beat him to the punch, shouting, “Diving Officer, make your depth three hundred feet. Lowering number- two scope.”
He reached up and snapped the red ring clockwise. The scope slid back into the well as Miami once more headed to the peaceful calm of the depths.
There, it promised to be much safer on this particular night.
“Dmitri, how is the testing going?”
Alan Smythe stepped into the elevator just ahead of the man who ran his company’s testing department. He pushed the button for the twenty-seventh floor while the door hissed shut, and then he leaned back against the rail as the car whooshed upward.