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SEA OF SHADOWS 301
“Noisy and blind,” Ensign Cooper said. “What a great way to chase a
submarine.”
“I agree, sir,” Chief McPherson said. “It’s certainly not my first
choice, but if we try it quiet and slow, that sub is going to be tied to a pier
in Zubayr before we even get up to the north end of the gulf.”
The XO whistled through his teeth. “It looks to me like we are damned
if we do, and double-dog-damned if we don’t.”
“Anybody got any brilliant suggestions?” the captain asked.
No one had any.
The captain stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Bring the port screw on line
and head for Zubayr with the best speed we can manage. No matter how
noisy the coach is, Cinderella cannot be late for the ball.”
An hour later, Chief McPherson knocked on the door to the captain’s
stateroom.
“Enter.”
The chief opened the door. “Captain? May I have a word with you?”
“Come on in,” the captain said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Sir, I just came from Sonar Control. We are making a lot of noise.
The sub is going to see us a hundred miles away.”
The captain said, “No choice, Chief. We’ve got to have the speed.”
The chief nodded. “I realize that, sir. The problem is we sound like a
destroyer with a bad screw.”
“I’ve talked to the Chief Engineer, and he tells me there’s nothing we
can do to quiet that screw.”
The chief nodded. “I understand, sir. So I think we should take it in
the opposite direction. If we can’t make Towers quiet, we should try to
make her as noisy as possible.”
The captain frowned. “And then the sub will be able to detect us even
farther away.”
“Yes, sir,” Chief McPherson said. “But will it be able to classify us?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I went through Acoustic Analysis, they taught us a simple rule
for spotting U.S. subs on a sonar gram: ‘If you look at the gram, and
there’s nothing on it, you’re probably looking at a U.S. nuke.’”
“I’m not following you, Chief.”
“When a Sonar Operator looks at a contact that’s generating big fat
broadband and lots of narrowband tonals, he’s not thinking U.S. nuke.
He’s thinking merchant ship. He’s thinking beat-up old tanker with worn-