Kirov (27 page)

The
Admiral had the ship steaming quietly at about twenty knots, just enough to
stay ahead of the oncoming weather. They had a long three day cruise at that
speed if they were to run the Denmark Strait down into the North Atlantic.
Karpov wanted to increase speed to thirty knots and get out quickly, but the
Admiral thought it best to give the junior officers time take in the news of
what happened and prepare them for the action that might lie ahead. In doing so
he sacrificed some advantage of speed and surprise in order to secure his ship
and put it on the best possible footing.

“When
we turn south we will be sailing into unfriendly waters,” he said. “The men
need to know what has happened, and that we may be facing combat situations in
short order. It needs time.”

 So
later that day he had gathered his senior officers and junior petty officers
and made a formal announcement concerning their situation. It took some time,
and a great deal of explanation, but eventually the loyalty of the crew led
them to accept what the Admiral was telling them, and believe his assurances
that this was not an exercise any longer. Petty officers were told to keep the
news quiet in the rank-and-file ratings. “In time we will bring them all to
this table,” he said, “yet for now, I rely on you as leaders, and advise
discretion.” Anyone with questions or a serious problem was advised to go and
see the Doctor.

“When
will we be going home, sir?” one man asked, voicing a question that was surely
in the minds and hearts of all gathered.

The
Admiral was going to say that they would soon find a way back, but he did not.
Instead he just took hold of the man by the shoulder, in an almost gentle way,
and he said: “I cannot tell you that with any certainty yet. And it may be that
we will never see home again. That’s the truth of it, because we still have no
real idea how this happened, or why we are here. I owe you all this truth, and
I ask you to help me carry it. It is a heavy burden for any one man, but
together, if fate is on our side, we will pull through.”

The
words had exactly the effect he intended. He gave them the only thing they
really had now—each other, strengthening that invisible, yet unbreakable bond
that all soldiers and sailors feel for their comrades in arms. It was enough.

As
the news began to slowly spread through the ship, some men laughed off the
proposition, others sat with distant, fearful eyes, still others lingered a
little longer at the officer’s mess hall leaning close in small groups of two
or three, whispering with one another. Digesting this was worse than the beef
that would come out of a bad tin on a cold winter’s day. Eventually, however
the men realized there was nothing they could really do about the situation
other than to man their stations and fulfill their daily duties about the ship.
Those with doubts about the story quietly hoped time would prove them right.
Others were seen lingering over wrinkled notepaper, writing letters that would
never be mailed, pulling pictures out of their wallets and staring at the faces
of loved ones they may never see again.

Yet
when Orlov would make the daily rounds with a couple of pale faced
starshina
(petty officers) beside him, things seemed much the same as always. For some
men the only disappointment was that they weren't turning about to return to
Severomorsk, and for others, young
starshina
fresh out of the academy,
the sudden prospect of an Atlantic cruise seemed very appealing. There is a
thirst for discovery on most young men, and for sailors that goes double.

Later
in the day, Rodenko noted a distant airborne contact headed their way.

“Con,
radar reports airborne contact, bearing one-one-zero, range 226 kilometers at
approximately 10,000 feet, inbound at 180 KPH.”

“Another
of your museum pieces, Mister Fedorov?” said the Admiral.

“More
than likely it's another Fulmar, sir. The British will use them to extend their
aerial radar coverage out in front of a task force like this. I would not be at
all surprised to learn that those carriers have turned about and are now
approaching our position. Once the British get wind of something they will be
fairly diligent in pursuing it.”

“We
should not allow that contact to re-acquire our position,” said Karpov. “We
will lose the element of surprise altogether.”

The
Admiral sighed, nodding. It was beginning, he thought. Those first rounds from
the 100mm cannon on the nose of the ship were just the opening tapping of a
drum heralding the overture that was now about to commence. He had been
listening to his ship this last day like a conductor might listen backstage to
his orchestra as it tuned before the concert. All the various instruments were
quietly playing and tuning themselves, still abuzz with the news he had given
them. Yet he saw how his officers gathered them into smoothly functioning
groups again, like the first violin sounding the ‘A.’ It was not long before
the discordant notes soon fell into harmony again, and the ship continued on,
carrying out its daily evolutions with smooth efficiency. Now it was time to
step on stage. The curtain was about to rise.

“Mister,
Fedorov,” the Admiral turned to his navigator. “What is the range of the radar
the British would be using on that plane?”

Fedorov
had to reach for a well thumbed volume on his desk, quickly looking up the
information in the index. “160 kilometers at best, depending on conditions,
sir.”

“Will
they see us through our ECM jamming?”

Fedorov
slapped his forehead, suddenly remembering. “We’ll be jamming all the wrong
frequencies, sir! All our equipment is set to oppose modern day radar sets.
We’ll have to re-calibrate to lower frequencies…” He had his nose back in the
book again, his finger tracing down the fine print. “The wavelength would be around
7.5 meters.”

“Mister
Rodenko?”

Rodenko
was already working his board. “I’ll need to make some adjustments,” he said
quickly. 7.5 meters was at VHF in the range of 30 to 300 Megahertz. Some of his
equipment no longer even included dial positions at those wavelengths, as they
had not been used for radar signals for many years. Rodenko was working his
T-181 data reception unit, and he could see that these adjustments would take
some time. He put two men on the job, somewhat angry that they had not considered
this probability earlier. “We’ll need some time, sir,” he reported.

“I
trust there is nothing wrong with your MR-90 radars?” Karpov was referring to
the ships medium range air defense guidance radar sets for the ship’s SA-N-92
Surface to Air Missile systems, (SAMs).

“Of
course not,” said Rodenko. “But that SAM will only range out 30 to 90
kilometers depending on the elevation of the target. Can they see us before
that?”

“Very
likely,” said Fedorov. “That old radar was one of the longest range sets deployed
in the war, out to 100 nautical miles. I am sorry we did not consider this.”

“Don’t
worry, Mister Fedorov,” said Volsky. “We will adjust the equipment in time. For
the moment, however, we will just have to use our long range SAM systems.
Perhaps we can discourage this plane with a near miss detonation.”

“We
would have seen the plane earlier if we had one of the KA-40 helos up,” Karpov
admonished.

“True,”
said the Admiral, “but how much aviation fuel do you think we are carrying,
Captain? We should use our helicopters judiciously. Remember, we are going to
also have to consider the German U-boats. They may think we are a British ship,
yes? In effect, we are at war with everybody, the British, Americans and
Germans alike. And these U-boats are very quiet, as Mister Tasarov will
attest.”

“When
submerged and operating on battery power they will be difficult to hear on
passive sonar,” said Tasarov. “Even the Americans could not find some of our
old diesel submarines on occasion.”

“Very
well, we were caught unprepared at the outset, but when Mister Rodenko sorts
out his equipment we will neutralize this British radar. For now…”

“Contact
range one-eight-zero.” said Rodenko. “We can engage with the S-300s in a few
minutes. They range out to 150 kilometers.” These missiles would streak out at
a blistering speed exceeding Mach 6.0 and deliver a large 150kg warhead if it
got anywhere near the target, sending a hail of withering shrapnel in all
directions. They were so accurate that they could even be used against short
range ballistic missiles.

If
he fired, the Admiral had little doubt that he could shoot this plane down, yet
he hesitated, a strange thought entering his mind, the echo of his good friend
Dr. Zolkin’s warning. Who was the pilot? Did he survive this war, or was he one
of the thousands that perished in the conflict? Was he married? Would he have
sons after the war, and who would they be? If he killed this man, how many
others might never be born in the years stretching out from this day forward?
He realized this was war, yet he might not simply be extinguishing a single
life here, but whole generations that would follow this man into the future.
Yet it was impossible to know any of this, and an agonizing and debilitating
torture to consider it all at a moment like this. He had to act.

“Contact
approaching 150 kilometers,” said Rodenko. “They’ll have us on their radar
soon, sir.”

“Mister
Samsonov,” he said quietly. “Activate our long range air defense system and target
the contact with a single S-300 and fire.”

“Aye,
sir.” Samsonov had not the slightest inkling of regret or recrimination in his
mind. He was a naval gladiator, trained to react and fight in the split second
time spans of modern combat. It was as if he was no more than a human extension
of the ship itself, one that could simply hear and execute the orders he
received. He toggled his Air Defense System on, enabled the forward battery and
pressed the button to fire a single missile. There was a loud warning claxon,
and then they saw the missile fire and streak away, climbing loudly up at an
amazing rate of speed to vanish in the low overhead cloud cover seconds later.

~
~ ~

Over
a hundred
kilometers away, Fulmar N4029 of 800 Squadron off the carrier
Furious
had just noted a contact on their radar set. Lieutenant James Beardsley called
it out to the pilot, Lt. Seymour Burke. “Looks like we’ve got her,” he said.
“I’ll get a message off.” He began keying in the sighting through his code
set…. ‘Contact bearing two-nine-two, speed 20, course—’

At
that moment the pilot saw something oddly out of place in the gray sky ahead of
him, yet before he could even think to consider what it was the object flashed
up through a bank of clouds and seemed to leap at the plane. “My god!” His
instinctive prayer was cut short, along with his flying mate’s contact signal
when the S-300 ignited its warhead and literally blew the Fulmar fighter to
pieces.

Burke
and Beardsley were dead. They were supposed to have flown off
Furious
this very day, escorting a flight of Albacore torpedo bombers in to strike the
German occupied harbor at Petsamo on the North Cape of Norway. There they were
to meet a group of German Me-109 fighters lying in wait and sustain damage that
would see them ditch their plane at sea six miles off the coast. They would
have been spotted, alive in a dinghy, by one of the Albacores they had been
escorting, but they were never seen again, and were listed as KIAs a few days
later.

So
Admiral Volsky’s worrisome thoughts about them were of no consequence, though
he could not have known that when he gave the order to fire. Burke and
Beardsley had met their rendezvous with death after all, yet in a way neither
of them could ever have imagined possible. All that was denied them were those
last cold hours alone together in their dinghy on the frigid Arctic Sea, the
hope they may have clung to in those first frantic moments as they struggled to
inflate their raft, the words and thoughts they may have exchanged with one
another, and the long, freezing death they most likely endured when they
finally realized that there was no ship coming for them on that that grim
morning. Instead they vanished from the continuum in a flash of violence with
scarcely a second to know what had happened to them. Their lives had been
checked off as scheduled on the ledger of Fate. Time was balancing her books.

Part VI

Breakout

“…Men
still are men and not the keys of a piano.”

—Fyodor
Dostoevsky

Notes
From The Underground

Chapter
16

August
1 – 2, 1941

“The
message
was cut
short, sir,” said the signalman. “And we’ve heard nothing more.”

“Nothing
more?” Captain Bovell on
Victorious
considered that for a moment. The
plane could have suffered radio failure, or worse, some sort of engine trouble
that forced her to ditch. Damn luck if that were the case. There would be no
way they could get to the men in time, or even find them now in the wide Arctic
seas. And there was no way this plane could have been shot down by the
contact—not at that range. He considered the possibility that they may have
come upon a German Kondor and exchanged fire, but yet there would have been
some notification of that. In the end he decided it had to be a radio outage,
and went to inform Admiral Wake-Walker, hoping the plane would find its way
home.