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Crush Depth
2
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The Collins lived long enough to fire two torpedoes in retaliation, but they were shooting blind, tearing in the wrong direction. Van Gelder knew this battle amounted to cold-blooded murder.
“Enemy torpedoes pose no threat to Voortrekker,” he stated, “even if they carry tactical nuclear warheads.” Because seawater was so rigid and dense, torpedo A-bomb warheads had to be very small — a kiloton or less — or the boat that used them could be hoist by its own petard. These yields were a fraction of the weapons America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and were a mere ten-thousandth of the multimegaton hydrogen bombs tested in the atmosphere in the worst days of the Cold War. Yet Axis tactical atom bombs were still a thousand times more powerful than any conventional high-explosive torpedo — which was why the Axis used them, and which forced the Allies in self-defense to use them too.
As if to reemphasize the Collins boat’s impotence, ter Horst ordered the helmsman to come to all stop.
“Weapon from tube one has detonated!” a fire-control technician shouted — the data came back through the guidance wire at the speed of light.
“Sonar on speakers,” ter Horst ordered.
A second later Van Gelder heard the sharp metallic whang of the torpedo hit. The blast echoed off the surface and the sea floor, mixing on the sonar speakers with a two-toned roar: air forced into the Collins’s ballast tanks as her crew desperately tried an emergency blow, plus water rushed through the gash in her hull at ambient sea pressure.
The sea pressure won. The target lost all positive buoyancy, and soon fell through her crush depth. The hull imploded hard.
The eerie rebounding pshoing of crushed metal hitting crushed metal was louder than the torpedo hit. Van Gelder knew any crew still living would have been cremated as the atmosphere compressed and heated to the ignition point of clothing and flesh.
“Excellent,” ter Horst said, almost as an anticlimax. “Helm, steer one eight zero.” Due south. “Increase speed. Make revs for top quiet speed.” Thirty knots.
The helmsman acknowledged.
Van Gelder stood and paced the line of sonarmen on his right, to make extra sure there were no threats as Voortrekker cleared the area.
“Number One,” ter Horst said a few minutes later, “we stay at battle stations. You have the deck and the conn.”
“Aye aye, sir. Maintain present course?”
“No, put us on one three five.”
“Southeast?” That was away from Durban, home base, which was southwest.
“I want to line us up with the covert message hydrophone in the Agulhas Abyssal Plain. I’m retiring to my cabin to compose a message for higher command.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” What was going on now? Well, at least Van Gelder always liked having the deck and conn. He was in almost total control of the ship, as much as anyone could be without being the captain.
Ter Horst returned a short time later with a data disk in his hand. “This requires your electronic countersignature.” He gave Van Gelder the disk.
Van Gelder placed it in the reader on his console. He eyed what came on the screen. Van Gelder was shocked, and then more shocked. Ter Horst was rendering his final verdicts as chair of the tribunal. The accused were being sentenced to death with no real regard for the evidence — or lack of evidence. The choices of guilty or not guilty seemed based more on whim or blood lust. Van Gelder noticed all of the female suspects were to be hanged. This confirmed Van Gelder’s suspicion, that ter Horst actually liked watching such executions. Since the condemned were strung up naked, the implications of erotic perversion were obvious.
But there was more. Ter Horst reported his victory over the Collins boat, and declared Voortrekker combat ready. He waived his planned return to dry dock, and insisted on permission for immediate departure on his next top-secret combat mission.
“But sir,” Van Gelder said, “we have dozens of mechanical gripes and work-order exceptions to resolve.”
“Don’t whine, Gunther. Just sign it, and have the message sent.”
Van Gelder opened his mouth to object. Ter Horst cut him short.
“Don’t spoil a good day for us both. You just countersign, and see that the message is sent.”
Van Gelder relayed it to the secure communications room.
“Thank you,” ter Horst said exaggeratedly. “I have the conn.”
“You have the conn, aye aye.” Ter Horst had taken his ship back. Voortrekker maintained course and speed, further into the Indian Ocean, and also toward Antarctica.
It took almost an hour for Van Gelder’s intercom light to flash. The junior lieutenant in charge of communications had the response from headquarters. It surprised Van Gelder. Ter Horst’s tribunal decisions were accepted as is. Obviously, within the Boer power structure, ter Horst was well connected. Van Gelder saw the entire inquest had been a travesty, a purely political show trial. And besides, the television producers in Johannesburg were always hungry for more human meat for the ever-popular gallows show.
But that wasn’t all. Higher command had news for ter Horst. USS Challenger was conclusively identified as the Allied submarine involved in an attack before Christmas on a stronghold on the German coast. Challenger was still laid up for weeks more of battle-damage repairs. And Boer freedom fighter Ilse Reebeck had been spotted as a participant in the Germany raid.
Van Gelder realized ter Horst was also reading the message when ter Horst cursed.
“That bitch.”
Van Gelder knew that for two years, up until the war, ter Horst and Ilse Reebeck had been lovers. Van Gelder had met her several times, at receptions and banquets. He thought she was sexy and smart, a suitable consort for his captain. Only now, she worked for the other side.
“I’d like to watch her squirm at the end of a rope.”
Van Gelder blanched, and was glad the red glow of instruments hid his discomfort.
“Now this is interesting,” ter Horst went on. He was calm again, so calm it scared Van Gelder. “It seems during our own running fight with Challenger, her executive officer was in command. Hmmm. Jeffrey Fuller. I don’t know him.” Ter Horst turned to face Van Gelder. “Ha! That’s as if you had been fighting me, Gunther.”
Van Gelder winced. “Why her XO?”
“Our first torpedoes gave her captain a bad concussion.”
Obviously, Van Gelder thought, Axis espionage sources were extremely well informed.
“Good,” ter Horst said as he finished reading. “They agree we can begin our next combat mission at once.”
Van Gelder hesitated. “Sir, if we’re heading into battle against main enemy forces, I do think we need more time for completing maintenance.” They’d taken a lot of damage themselves in their duel with Challenger back in early December, and not everything was fixed.
“You’ll find work-arounds, Gunther. Improvise. I have total faith in you, my friend.” Ter Horst turned to the helmsman. “Steer zero nine zero.” The helmsman acknowledged.
Ter Horst looked Van Gelder right in the eyes, and smiled his most predatory smile. “Global weather conditions are perfect at the moment. Coordinated timing, and surprise, are everything now.”
Van Gelder had to clear his throat. Zero nine zero was due east. “Sir, may I inquire, what are our orders, our next destination?”
“No, you may not.”
ONE
Later that day
Bachelor Officers Quarters, Naval Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut
Outside the window, in the post-midnight pitch-blackness, the freezing wind howled and moaned. The wind slashed at the leafless trees on the slope that led down to the river. Now and then, sleet pattered the pane, the tail end of a strong nor’easter that had dumped a foot of snow. Inside the room, a candle glowed in one corner. The ancient steam-heat radiator hissed and dripped. Ilse Reebeck looked down at Jeffrey Fuller. “Do you want me to get off now?”
He met her gaze, with that slightly out-of-focus look in his eyes he always got right after making love. Jeffrey nodded, too sated to speak. Ilse felt him watch her intently as she left the bed. He stayed fully under the covers — she’d noticed since they’d first become intimate on New Year’s Eve that he was strangely shy with her about his body, well endowed as he was with muscles and dark curly hair and the scars of an honorable war wound. Ilse was proud of her figure — she gave Jeffrey a last quick profile view and blew out the candle.
She got back in bed in the dark and put one arm across his chest and tried to fall asleep. It was good to lose herself in sex with Jeffrey Fuller, and tune out the rest of the world, but as the immediate ardor subsided she felt sad. Her family was dead, for resisting the old-line Boer takeover, her whole country in enemy hands. She’d been in pitched battle twice behind enemy lines, during tactical nuclear war, and killed and watched teammates be killed. The war was far from over, quite possibly unwinnable. Even the escape of sleep was a mixed blessing, because sleep brought on the nightmares. Nightmares of combat flashbacks, of hurling grenades and bayonet charges and incoming main battle tank fire. Nightmares of relatives hanging. Nightmares of reunions with friends who were decomposed corpses.
If she hadn’t been at a marine biology conference in the U.S. when the war broke out, Ilse might well be dead now too, strung up with the rest of them.
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