SSN - Tom Clancy [122]
The atmosphere aboard Cheyenne was one of happiness, but the euphoria of victory was coupled with exhaustion. As the stress level in each man slowly sub-dHoH an unbelievable fatigue set in.
That was the norm of submarining, when warriors returning home could sleep most of a day away. Those who did not have to continue at their watch stations crashed in their narrow bunks. There was time to sleep before they passed by the Ryukyu Islands; then it was back to being ready for anything. Even Mack finally crawled on top of his bunk, curling up to fit on the short bunk.
The following day, as Cheyenne approached the time for coming shallow, sonar reported numerous merchant ship contacts, easily identified by their huge, slowly turning propellers. All were cavitating as if they were empty of cargo, riding high in the water.
Mack wasn't about to be careless, however. The Japanese supertankers had drafts of over ninety feet. Cheyenne would be cautious on going to periscope depth. Biologies were once again hindering the sonar search. During one of his frequent visits to the sonar room, Mack reminded the sonar operators to conduct careful tonal searches on the bearings of the merchants and the biologies. The operators had already been doing this. They remembered the submarine they had found in the biologies of the South China Sea.
The TB-16 towed array, having been earlier deployed in exchange for the TB-23, was ordered to short stay as Cheyenne ventured inside the one hundred fathom curve southeast of Taipei. Now at periscope depth, Mack sighted an interesting cluster of smoke over the horizon. There were four different sets of smoke patterns moving north. He ordered Cheyenne to track behind them at periscope depth in the shallow water.
Hours later, with the sea bottom once again plummeting to over two thousand fathoms, sonar reported diesel lines on the bearings of the smoke being observed. Mack went deep to catch up for a visual, running at full for the next few hours until the water started to shoal again as they approached the one hundred fathom curve of the East China Sea. He knew the contacts could not be Akulas snorkeling, but if they were Kilos Mack wanted to know what was going on.
Cheyenne got back to periscope depth in one hundred feet of water in time to see the four sources of the now-black smoke. Four Kilos were on the surface, on a course toward the Yellow Sea, the playing grounds of China's North Sea Fleet. Being on the surface, and apparently heading away from the battle zone of the last few days, they were no threat to Cheyenne, and Mack decided not to go after them.
Cheyenne had done her part-for now, at least. Mack ordered the floating wire replaced. It had been flaked out in the control room, waiting to be installed.
As the Kilos continued to the north, Mack watched them go, thinking about battles past and those yet to come. When they had steamed over the horizon, he had Cheyenne turned to the west, back toward her patrol area, and then on to Tsoying Naval Base and some well-deserved rest and recreation.
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15. Special Delivery
Cheyenne arrived at daybreak, surfacing off Tsoying Naval Base for the slow transit among the seemingly never-ending junks. During his last underway from Tsoying, Mack had remembered the war stories, both from World War II and Vietnam, where the same type of junks were carrying large-caliber machine guns. Mack tried to put that out of his mind. This situation, this entire war, was different, and he didn't believe that any of these