Shadow Hunter by Geoffrey Archer Page B

at him? Mocking him?
    In the control room, Pike hung the microphone back on its hook and bowed theatrically to the navigator.
    â€˜All yours, Pilot!’
    Cavendish raised an eyebrow at the mock courtesy, then turned to the helm.
    â€˜Ten up, planesman. Keep sixty metres. Revolutions for four knots.’
    The rating at the controls pulled back on the control-stick and watched the gauge. The deck began to tilt as the hydroplanes lifted the nose of the submarine. Pike grasped one of the overhead cable-ducts to steady himself.
    â€˜Sound room. I want a check for surface contacts!’ Cavendish called.
    â€˜
Aye, aye, sir
!’
    HMS Truculent
came up fast from the depths, passing through the thermocline which had refracted their faint sound downwards, keeping them hidden from listeners on the surface. Her speed dropped from eighteen knots tofour, at which it was safe to trail the wire antenna without breaking it.
    â€˜Level at sixty metres, sir,’ the helmsman called.
    â€˜Deploy the wire.’
    On the outside of the fin a small aperture appeared, and the VLF antenna began to unreel. Black plastic strips trailed from the wire to disguise it as seaweed.
    In the sonar compartment the tattooed hands of the ratings tuned their acoustic processors to the new sounds of surface ships, or ‘skimmers’, as they were known.
    Sensors outside the hull analysed water temperature and salinity and fed the data into a computer which predicted the refracted paths that the sounds would follow through the water.
    â€˜Cavitation on port bow, chief!’ shouted one of the junior sonar ratings. Chief Petty Officer Hicks looked over his shoulder at the VDU, and confirmed it.
    On the green ‘waterfall’ display, low frequency ‘spikes’ of sound detected by the bow sonar showed as overlapping vertical stripes. Hicks counted them.
    â€˜Two shafts. Six blades. That’s
Illustrious
,’ he announced with confidence. The last intelligence report had told them the British aircraft carrier was in the area.
    â€˜Range and bearing?’
    The rating keyed in additional data from the towed array. Bearings from the two sonars were triangulated by computer.
    â€˜Range, 32.4 miles, bearing 039, Chief.’
    The CPO pressed a button which transferred the data to the Action Information panel in the control room. There the carrier appeared on the tactical display as a triangle – a friendly target.
    â€˜
What about her escorts
?’ demanded the officer-of-the-watch through the intercom.
    Eyes scanned the screens and ears strained at headphones.
    â€˜Nothing else registered, sir,’ came the eventual reply from the CPO.
    Sound in water seldom travels in straight lines.
HMS Illustrious
had at least two frigates keeping her company,but
Truculent
couldn’t hear them. The sound waves from the warships curved downwards away from the surface, then curved up again many miles distant, to a so-called ‘convergence zone’.
Truculent
was in just such a zone for the carrier’s noise signature to reach her, but not yet in one for the frigates.
    Hicks stood up, desperate to stretch his legs. He stepped into the control room, leaving the sonar ratings to plot the remaining contacts – distant trawlers fishing the edge of the continental shelf around Scotland.
    He crossed to the Action Information plot, and yawned as he watched it begin to fill with contacts from the sound room.
    â€˜Keeping you up, are we, Hicks?’ Pike quipped.
    â€˜Off watch in an hour, sir. Boring day! Once we’d finally sorted out the 2026, there’s been sod-all to do.’
    â€˜Did you report that to the captain? He wanted to know.’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Have no fear.’
    Pike looked at his watch. Time for the broadcast. He stepped into the communications office as Cavendish ordered the final manoeuvre to align the boat to receive signals.
    â€˜Planesman, steer one-one-zero, revolutions for