Submarine

Fitful though his sleep had been, Farge felt less ill when at 0300 on Friday morning he slumped into his chair in the control-room. He'd got in five hours' sleep after supper and the sonar room's reports did not start in earnest until 0230, when intense activity began developing at the exit to the inlet: first a group of sweepers, then two Krivaks. He had started his own vigil in the control-room then, sorting in his mind the picture which must be developing up top. Was this present flurry up top the prelude to the Typhoon's sailing? Or was the crescendo of activity a blind?

Although Chris Sims had logged several major Soviet warships the sound-room had been unable to keep track of the smaller, escorting units. But the crucial information was confirmed: the enemy's submarines, the Northern Fleet's nukes and SSBNS, were using the eastern route. If Farge could now position Orcus closer, to pin-point their driving positions, he was three-quarters of the way to success. Farge rose from his chair and joined Murray at the chart table.

'I'm going to move nearer, pilot,' Farge murmured. 'I'd like an accurate position, after all this time. You should be able to identify Kildin Island, Set' Navolok and the right-hand edge of the Rybachiy peninsular. To give you better visibility, I'll wait till 0730 before coming up for your fix: with luck there'll still be a sea running. Sonar must have more time to refine, so I want to stand off a bit.'

Farge did not disturb the troops, letting them sleep while he tried to ignore the hands of the clock above the panel crawling around its dial. During his rounds with Bowles he found the sailors subdued but still smiling, as bored as he was tensed. The fore-ends were cold and running with condensation, but it was always clammy there, with the grease and the sweating, shiny white paint. Those with flu were turned in, some of them on the makeshift beds above the reloading racks. The SRS and the chiefs were fine, as confident as ever, but were beginning to show strain. The engine-room was empty, its diesel fumes rank in the silent, deserted space, but in the after-ends the MEMS and stokers were cheerfully playing uckers. Farge was glad he'd seen them all: he sensed that the crisis was near, the climax of their mission. If he didn't have a grain of luck soon, he'd be forced by lack of amps to make for the open sea again, just when his quarry was booked to sail.

Farge had been furnished with every known detail of the enemy's monstrous weapon, his Typhoon, the secret plans of which must have already been decided upon when the Kremlin attached its signature to the Helsinki agreement. During the early eighties the Soviets had built two classes of boats, the Typhoon and the Alfa. The Alfa was constructed of titanium alloy, instead of steel, to give immense strength. Because of difficulties in welding techniques, the Alfa was originally plagued by leaks, but the difficulties were rapidly overcome: Nato deep-field SSNS lost the Alfas when they increased to forty-two knots and went deep. Armed with MRV nuclear missiles, Nato assumed that their function was to escort and cover the Soviets' cruise missile attack SSNS, their Charlies and Echos. The second class was the Typhoon. Even now, the West could not satisfactorily explain the enemy's strategic thinking behind this incredibly expensive weapons system: size was not always beautiful in submarine warfare.

The Typhoon was gigantic: only a cricket pitch shorter, but twice the displacement size of the British CAHS Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal, and as Julian's father had remarked, the Typhoon was identical in size to Cunningham's famous flagship, Warspite. The monster submarine carried twenty ballistic missiles for'd of its fin, weapons with a range of over four thousand miles. But the Delta us, with their SS— N-X–I8 ballistic missiles, could already cover half the world from the Barents citadel, so why the Typhoon?

Its immense size suggested that it carried stocks or reloads and the complicated machinery for the tricky reloading operations, and several reactors to drive the underwater monster at speed. Intelligence guessed that they also were built of titanium: if so, the Typhoon could dive to perhaps four thousand feet and lie on the bottom for months, impossible to detect in the shallower wildernesses of the polar seas, such as the Lomonosov Ridge. Once concealed there, she would only have to lift from the bottom to find a polynya, a window in the ice, through which to launch her deadly ICBMS.

How many in the ship's company? Farge mused. An admiral commanding? And discipline for months on end? Hundreds of bored men without women, though Russian women were known to be at sea, some even in command. He smiled to himself. I must be going down with flu, he thought, as at last he watched the hands of the clock creeping up to the hour.