Officers and men of Red October! We have orders from the Red Banner Northern Fleet High Command, and they are orders worthy of this ship and this crew!
‘Comrades! Our orders are to make the ultimate test of our new silent propulsion system. We are to head west, past the North Cape of America’s imperialist puppet state, Norway, then to turn southwest towards the Atlantic Ocean. We will pass all of the imperialist sonar nets, and we will not be detected! This will be a true test of our submarine and his capabilities. Our own ships will engage in a major exercise to locate us and at the same time to befuddle the arrogant imperialist navies. Our mission, first of all, is to evade detection by anyone. We will teach the Americans a lesson about Soviet technology that they will not soon forget! Our orders are to continue southwest, skirting the American coast to challenge and defeat their newest and best hunter submarines. We will proceed all the way to our socialist brothers in Cuba, and we will be the first ship to make use of a new and supersecret nuclear submarine base that we have been building for two years right under their imperialist noses on the south coast of Cuba. A fleet replenishment vessel is already en route to rendezvous with us there.
‘Comrades! If we succeed in reaching Cuba undetected by the imperialists – and we will! – the officers and men of Red October will have a week – a week of shore leave to visit our fraternal socialist comrades on the beautiful island of Cuba. I have been there, comrades, and you will find it to be exactly what you have read, a paradise of warm breezes, palm trees and comradely good fellowship.’ By which Ramius meant women. ‘After this we will return to the Motherland by the same route. By this time, of course, the imperialists will know who and what we are, from their slinking spies and cowardly reconnaissance aircraft. It is intended that they should know this, because we will again evade detection on the trip home. This will let the imperialists know that they may not trifle with the men of the Soviet Navy, that we can approach their coast at the time of our choosing, and that they must respect the Soviet Union!
‘Comrades! We will make the first cruise of Red October a memorable one!’
Ramius looked up from his prepared speech. The men on watch in the control room were exchanging grins. It was not often that a Soviet sailor was allowed to visit another country, and a visit by a nuclear submarine to a foreign country, even an ally, was nearly unprecedented. Moreover, for Russians the sand of Cuba was as exotic as Tahiti, a promised land of white sand beaches and dusky girls. Ramius knew differently. He had read articles in Red Star and other state journals about the joys of duty in Cuba. He had also been there.
Ramius changed cards in his hands. He had given them the good news.
‘Comrades! Officers and men of Red October!’ Now for the bad news that everyone was waiting for. ‘This mission will not be an easy one. It demands our best efforts. We must maintain absolute radio silence, and our operating routines must be perfect! Rewards only come to those who truly earn them. Every officer and every man aboard, from your commanding officer to the newest matros, must do his socialist duty and do it well! If we work together as comrades, as the New Soviet Men we are, we shall succeed. You young comrades new to the sea: Listen to your officers, to your michmanyy, and to your starshini. Learn your duties well, and carry them out exactly. There are no small jobs on this ship, no small responsibilities. Every comrade depends for his life upon every other. Do your duty, follow your orders, and when we have completed this voyage, you will be true Soviet sailors! That is all.’ Ramius released his thumb from the mike switch and set it back in the cradle. Not a bad speech, he decided – a large carrot and a small stick.
In the galley aft a petty officer was standing still, holding a warm loaf of bread and looking curiously at the bulkhead-mounted speaker. That wasn’t what their orders were supposed to be, was it? Had there been a change in plans? The michman pointed him back to his duties, grinning and chuckling at the prospect of a week in Cuba. He had heard a lot of stories about Cuba and Cuban women and was looking forward to seeing if they were true.
In the control room Ramius mused. ‘I wonder if any American submarines are about?’
‘Indeed, Comrade Captain,’ nodded Captain Second Rank Borodin, who had the watch. ‘Shall we engage the caterpillar?’
‘Proceed, Comrade.’
‘Engines all stop,’ Borodin ordered.
‘All stop.’ The quartermaster, a starshina (petty officer), dialled the annunciator to the STOP position. An instant later the order was confirmed by the inner dial, and a few seconds after that the dull rumble of the engines died away.
Borodin picked up the phone and punched the button for engineering. ‘Comrade Chief Engineer, prepare to engage the caterpillar.’
It wasn’t the official name for the new drive system. It had no name as such, just a project number. The nickname caterpillar had been given it by a young engineer who had been involved in the sub’s development. Neither Ramius nor Borodin knew why, but as often happens with such names, it had stuck.
‘Ready, Comrade Borodin,’ the chief engineer reported back in a moment.
‘Open doors fore and aft,’ Borodin ordered next.
The michman of the watch reached up the control board and threw four switches. The status light over each changed from red to green. ‘Doors show open. Comrade.’
‘Engage caterpillar. Build speed slowly to thirteen knots.’
‘Build slowly to one-three knots, Comrade,’ the engineer acknowledged.
The hull, which had gone momentarily silent, now had a new sound. The engine noises were lower and very different from what they had been. The reactor plant noises, mainly from pumps that circulated the cooling water, were almost imperceptible. The caterpillar did not use a great deal of power for what it did. At the michman’s station the speed gauge, which had dropped to five knots, began to creep upward again. Forward of the missile room, in a space shoe-horned into the crew’s accommodations, the handful of sleeping men stirred briefly in their bunks as they noted an intermittent rumble aft and the hum of electric motors a few feet away, separated from them by the pressure hull. They were tired enough even on their first full day at sea to ignore the noise, fighting back to their precious allotments of sleep.
‘Caterpillar functioning normally, Comrade Captain,’ Borodin reported.
‘Excellent. Steer two-six-zero, helm,’ Ramius ordered.
‘Two-six-zero, Comrade.’ The helmsman turned his wheel to the left.
THE USS BREMERTON
Thirty miles to the northeast, the USS Bremerton was on a heading of two-two-five, just emerging from under the icepack. A 688-class attack submarine, she had been on an ELINT – electronic intelligence gathering – mission in the Kara Sea when she was ordered west to the Kola Peninsula. The Russian missile boat wasn’t supposed to have sailed for another week, and the Bremerton’s skipper was annoyed at this latest intelligence screw-up. He would have been in place to track the Red October if she had sailed as scheduled. Even so, the American sonarmen had picked up on the Soviet sub a few minutes earlier, despite the fact that they were travelling at fourteen knots.
‘Conn, sonar.’
Commander Wilson lifted the phone. ‘Conn, aye.’
‘Contact lost, sir. His screws stopped a few minutes ago and have not restarted. There’s some other activity to the east, but the missile sub has gone dead.’
‘Very well. He’s probably settling down to a slow drift. We’ll be creeping up on him. Stay awake, Chief.’ Commander Wilson thought this over as he took two steps to the chart table. The two officers of the fire control tracking party who had just been establishing the track for the contact looked up to learn their commander’s opinion.
‘If it was me, I’d go down near the bottom and circle slowly right about here.’ Wilson traced a rough circle on the chart that enclosed the Red October’s position. ‘So let’s