Free Down The Hatch by John Winton Page A

just altered towards. But he’s still a long way away. Number One, pipe ‘Attack team will be required in ten minutes’ time’.”
    Leading Seaman Gorbles, the sonar watchkeeper, had been giving negative reports in a regular monotone voice. Suddenly, his voice went up a semitone.
    “Possible H.E., bearing two-seven-zero. Faint transmissions on the bearing.”
    The Bodger was jubilant. “That’s us! Blood for supper! Let’s have a butchers.”
    The Bodger took the second pair of earphones and listened as Leading Seaman Gorbles quartered the sea with sweeps of his set. The Bodger could hear the unmistakable throbbing of the destroyer’s hydrophone effect, known in sonar parlance as “H.E.”, and the eerie pinging transmissions of its asdic set. Leading Seaman Gorbles had already begun his long recital of new hydrophone effects and bearing changes, couched in the esoteric dialect of the sonar world, which would continue until all the sounds had faded and the sea was empty once more.
    “. . H.E. louder, two-seven-two, moving right. Revolutions one-two-zero, classified turbine. Transmissions on the bearing, transmission interval varying. Second H.E., two-seven-nine, transmissions varying. . . .”
    The destroyers were still searching without contact. While their transmissions remained random and disconnected, a submarine could assume that it had not yet been detected. The Bodger went back to the periscope.
    “It’s them all right. I can see them now. It’s two destroyers and there’s something else behind them. . . . Can’t see what it is, but it’s a lot of ship! And more of them. . . . My God a whole bloody forest of masts! It’s the Task Force, not a doubt about it.”
    It was indeed the vanguard of the Task Force, spread out over a front of more than thirty miles. The Task Force had been assembling for the past two days, the earliest arrivals killing time in refuelling, carrying out asdic sweeps and narrowly avoiding collisions.
    The main striking element of the Task Force was the two aircraft carriers H.M.S. Great Christopher and the U.S.S. Little Richard . Little Richard was almost three times as big as Great Christopher and was the largest warship the world had ever seen. Rumours of her fantastic size had even percolated as far as Seahorse and the messes were buzzing with sailors’ yarns about her, that she was so big that the Captain went round Sunday divisions in a Grand Prix Ferrari, that her hangars were so large that she carried two squadrons of B.52s, that she was so long that there was a bus service from one end of her to the other, and that her flag deck was so high that her signalmen wore oxygen masks. By any standards she was a formidable ship. The Bodger was anxious to make her acquaintance.
    Little Richard was only the hub of a vast armada made up of Great Christopher and four smaller carriers, five guided-missile cruisers, three orthodox cruisers, seven escort and radar picket groups, and a fleet train of four tankers and a supply ship.
    Occupying last place in the Task Force was the motor yacht Istagfurallah , the property of an oil-bearing Sheikh. She was present quite by chance, her owner only hearing of “Lucky Alphonse” through his sailing master who was given complete details of the exercise in a Naples bar. The Sheikh had arrived at the assembly point first and had courteously greeted each fresh arrival by dipping his ensign, the house flag of San Remo casino, and by a display of fireworks. Istagfurallah had passed unchallenged because each new captain who saw her had decided that she must have been included in an Amendment he had not yet received. Her presence was in fact appreciated, if only for the firework display she provided every night. Her only other quirk was her habit of hoisting inexplicable signals according to the passing whim of the Sheikh. At the present moment she was flying “Am preparing to repel boarders” and a small white pennant inscribed in gold with a verse