Chapter One

The sea rolled past on its never-ending journey and Sub Lieutenant Tony ‘Harry’ Harrison had been watching it, as if in a trance, for about half an hour. He leant against the highly polished wooden rail mounted on steel stanchions and stared into the depths. The ocean was a deep green and the turbulent waters thrown up by the ship’s massive screws were, in contrast, pure white; the bubbles spewing up to burst onto the surface and split the sun’s rays into all the colours of the rainbow. He watched as the albatross that had followed them for days floated lazily just above the surface, hardly needing to beat it’s 7 foot long wings as it effortlessly and endlessly rode the ship’s wake for reasons known only to itself.

Harry wondered if this trip was ever going to end, and his mind wandered back to the night before he had flown from his base, Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Culdrose, in Cornwall to join the ship in Portsmouth. That had been six weeks earlier and he’d had a bit of a bust up with his girlfriend of three months. Twelve weeks he mused, that’s almost a record for me. With his square jaw, clean complexion and piercing steel grey eyes topping his 6’2’ frame he never had trouble attracting women, he just couldn’t seem to maintain a relationship for longer than a few weeks. It wasn’t the slight air of arrogance or even the aura of power about him that drove them away, rather the feeling that they couldn’t live up to the extremely high standards he set for himself and anyone with him. Laura seemed to be going the same way, he thought, added to which she could not control the insane jealousy she felt every time they were apart. He didn’t even know if she would still be there for him when they finally got back to Port. Still only two more weeks to go and then he would see where he stood with her when they got home. He hoped…

‘You gonna stand there all day or are you coming flying with the rest of yer crew?…Oiy Harry I’m talking to you.’

‘Christ, sorry mate, I’ll be up in the briefing room in a couple of minutes,’ said Harry looking at his watch. ‘Just give me a few minutes to get my thoughts together.’ The interruption had come from ‘Smokey’ Jonston, his 1^st Pilot. Harry rubbed his hand over his rugged face and thought about the approaching sortie. Should be a fairly run of the mill trip. He had been flying as an Observer or ‘backseater’ in the Fleet Air Arm for about four years and in that time had participated in a number of NATO Exercises. At last he was beginning to feel that he had a grip on the job; no longer just mayhem from the beginning of a sortie to the end. He felt confident enough to sit back and enjoy the feeling of command as he vectored his and other Sea King Anti-Submarine Helicopters round the skies, ordered ships into the fight and dropped his simulated weapons onto the unseen steel monsters below. A different man from the one that had joined the ship straight out of training just three years ago, carefully treading his way through the mine-field of his advanced continuation training, working up to his certificate of competence.

He also had time to access the ability of the various pilots that he flew with, all of which bought him back to Smokey. Not a bad pilot and a good friend. Smokey was only about 5’6’ with ginger hair and a face that had grown old before its time. At 27 going on 40 he had pock-marked skin and extremely high cheek bones which gave him the look of a predator, and as a Qualified Helicopter Instructor this often gave him the edge he needed when dealing with a difficult student. Harry glanced idly at his watch again and saw that another 5 minutes had passed.

‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, causing the others on the quarterdeck to peer round with some amusement. Now he would have to hurry to make the briefing time and he hated everything getting bunched up just before takeoff. He rushed off the quarterdeck and onto the main drag of HMS INDOMITABLE, the Navy’s newest in a brand new line of Through-deck Cruisers. At a pinch over 540’ it was not dissimilar to the older Invincible class, except the briefing room was forward!

‘Jesus H Christ Sir, don’t you know you’re not supposed to run in the walkways?’ yelled the somewhat taken aback and definitely grumpy Chief Stoker he’d almost bundled over in his haste.

‘Sorry Chief,’ he called back whilst painting a picture of the Stokers face in his mind so he would be able to buy him a pint next time he got an invite down the Senior Rates Mess.

At last he arrived at the briefing room; a stark, oblong room with cream bulkheads and a green tiled floor. Along the tops of the bulkheads and deck-heads ran pipes of varying diameter, each with metallic tape identifying its contents. Most were fresh or salt water whilst others carried steam. One of the lessons learnt during the Falklands crisis in 1982 was how easily fire and smoke spread from one section to another via electric cabling. These were now also encased in steel pipes that would offer some protection to the wiring and would limit the spread of smoke throughout a stricken ship. The monotony of the walls was broken by the various tote boards and intelligence briefings on the latest phase of Exercise Stop Gap. Harry knew well the concept of the exercise, having been involved in the planning phase as far as the anti-submarine effort went. NATO forces would have to escort friendly convoys through the Iceland – Faroe’s gap whilst ‘Red’ forces would oppose them. Quite who the Red forces were supposed to be in these days of peace between the two main super powers remained a mystery.

‘Ah there you are,’ sighed Lieutenant Commander ‘Stormy’ Peterson. ‘Now, perhaps, we can begin.’

Just my bloody luck thought Harry, trust me to be late when the sortie’s being led by the Senior Observer (SOBS). He settled down into one of the surprisingly comfortable airline style seats and started to concentrate on the job at hand. He gave his full attention to Lt Cdr Peterson who started to cover the domestics of the sortie. It was going to be a fairly standard mission; departing as a pair and sitting in an active sonar search about 20 miles ahead of the task force that clung to INDOMITABLE like chicks to a mother hen. The Sea King’s job was to set up a screen that any Submarine intending to attack the fleet would have to pass through. On this occasion they would be using active sonar, which, working on the same principle as radar, involved putting sound into the water and waiting for the returning echo from any targets within the beam. To achieve this aim the Sea King has a variable depth dipping sonar, which when lowered up to 600’ below the aircraft would set about the job of finding submarines. Although very accurate it has one big disadvantage; the targets could hear the sonar long before you were in range to receive their telltale echo, and could take action to steer around the defence and maybe still get to their targets. However by randomly ‘jumping’ about in their assigned sector, and with the backing of shipborne sonar, the active screen is still a good way to defeat the submarine threat, and also advertised their presence to the enemy thus possibly warning them off from attempting an attack that might prove fatal to the submarine.

‘Okay, okay’ said Peterson. ‘I’ll be Dipboss for the first hour and then we’ll go through the swap procedures and you can take it for the rest of the trip Harry. Any questions?’ finished SOBS.

Silence greeted him and so with a slightly self-praising smile he turned and left the room, heading for the changing rooms. Harry thought about brushing up on the procedures for handing over ‘Dipboss’ but then thought the better of it. There may well be 4 or 5 Sea Kings involved in the active screen, each arriving and leaving at different times. One of the Observers would sit in over all tactical command and once contact was gained with the enemy he had the responsibility of prosecuting any attacks. When the Dipboss was due to go off task he handed control to another aircraft. Harry had done it many times before and pretty well knew the procedures inside out.

‘That’s what gets me about this job,’ murmured Smokey interrupting his thoughts. ‘The number of times we have to change clothing in a day.’ He wandered off still grumbling to himself, but he had a point. This would be the fourth change of the day and it was still only 1400.

Harry reached the cluttered changing room that contained the Squadron’s flying clothing and was greeted with the familiar smell of sweat and rubber. Opening his locker he looked at the photo of Laura pinned to the inside of the door. Quickly looking away he put all thoughts of home out of his mind and concentrated on the job at hand. He changed into two layers of thermal underwear and a knitted bunny suit before pulling on his ‘Goonsuit’; a bulky and uncomfortable garment, not unlike a diver’s dry suit; it was an essential addition when flying over cold water. In the unlikely event of ditching into the sea the fabric of the suit and the rubber wrist and neck seals combined to stop any freezing water from reaching the body. In the water temperatures of about 3-4 degrees centigrade that they were sailing through it would increase survival time from about 1 hour maximum to somewhere in the region of 12. This figure would obviously be greatly extended if the survivor managed to board his single-seat life raft, which was connected to his life jacket as part of his strapping in procedure once he boarded the seat in the aircraft. All these things together would give ample time for any rescue operation to be mounted.

This was the last thing on Harry’s mind as he finished off by quickly grabbing and donning his life jacket. He picked up the bulky flying helmet and navigation bag, containing overlays for the radar and anything else he may require for the sortie. With a friendly nod to Smokey he darted out of the door hoping to make up for the preparation time he’d lost before the briefing.

‘Do the walk round for me,’ called Smokey after him. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble with me boots.’

‘Lazy Bastard,’ came the good-natured reply from Harry.

Arriving on the flight deck he pulled the heavy watertight door shut behind him and spun the wheel that threw the six retaining bolts into place. He was surprised by the cutting wind and salt spray that slammed into his face. The quarterdeck he’d been on earlier was sheltered and gave a false impression of the weather conditions and here he judged that the Ship was making about 20 knots into wind, giving about 40 kts over the deck. The sea was also getting up he observed as he bounded down wind to 5 spot where his ‘cab’ sat waiting. Once in the lee of the ship’s huge super-structure he started to get some shelter, though the wind eddied around the ‘island’, becoming gustier in the turbulence forming downwind.

‘Should make for an interesting take-off,’ he muttered to himself as he started walking round the helicopter looking for the tell-tale signs of a leak that could lead to an engine failure or, God forbid, a main gearbox seizure in flight.

‘What was that?’ asked Sub Lieutenant Paul Spencer, the 2^nd Pilot for the sortie.

‘Oh nothing,’ returned Harry. ‘I’m just doing a walkround for Smokey.’

‘Don’t worry I’ve just finished. There’s a bit of oil on the Starboard side, but as they say, if it’s not leaking – it’s empty.’ He gave Harry one of his best youthful smiles and disappeared through the front door of the aircraft.

Harry carried on with his walkround. Paul had been on the Squadron about 3 months and in Harry’s opinion showed a dangerous trait in any Pilot however experienced – over confidence. In Paul’s case this was combined with inability borne from inexperience and this made him doubly dangerous. Harry knew that as Captain of the aircraft he would have to keep an eye on him. His thoughts were broken by the arrival of Smokey and the Aircrewman who would operate the sonar.

‘You know my feelings about Paul,’ Harry confided to his Pilot once Leading Aircrewman McKilroy was out of earshot. ‘Just watch him will you, especially on take off; it could be pretty bumpy with this wind.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s my skin too and Mandy ain’t gonna put up with damaged goods when we get home in a couple of weeks.’ With this he treated Harry to his dirtiest leer before getting back to reality and continuing. ‘Anything on the walkround?’

‘There’s a bit of fresh engine oil on the starboard side that I think we should get the Crew Chief to take a quick look at it.’

‘Okay I’ll check it out – you get your gear sorted out in the back.’ Smokey ducked under the tail and motioned for the chief of the deck crew to join him.

Seeing that the possible mechanical problem was in good hands Harry entered the aircraft through the split front door, the bottom of which dropped down to form steps into the interior. Gaining entrance the familiar smell of stale hydraulic fluid that had soaked into the grey, sponge sound proofing that lined the inside of the aircraft hit him full in the face. Not altogether unpleasant it held with it many memories both fond and fraught. He made his way aft through the narrow passage between the starboard bulkhead and the sonar winching gear and ended up in the rear cabin. What used to be a spacious area that could seat 21 people was now jammed full of equipment. Radar, teardrop sonar displays, magnetic anomaly detection equipment along with rows of passive sonar buoys, all helped to give the appearance of a high tech environment. After a cursory glance at McKilroy, who was checking the safety equipment and secure stowage of any potential loose articles, Harry dropped himself into the left hand seat and started running his fingers over the familiar controls. As he worked he ran through a mental check list; Radar to standby, Tactical Air Navigation System (TANS) initialised and Ships Position and intended Movement (PIM) entered along with the current time. As he was selecting the radios on he heard the engines starting to wind up and Paul was calling to the Ground crew as he started spreading the rotor blades.

‘Everyone on intercom?’ asked Smokey, and continued before anyone had the chance to reply. ‘And confirm you’re all strapped in or holding on.’ Having received an affirmative from the whole crew he let the rotor brake off and the cab lurched sideways, rocking on the oleos as the blades started to rotate. Soon the bouncing settled down to the usual high frequency vibration as the rotor disc reached its operating speed. Harry finished off in the back as Smokey and Paul went through the challenge and response pre take-off checks.

‘Flyco this is W6Y ready for take off spot 5,’ called Smokey once the checks were complete.

‘Flyco roger, relative wind off the clock is red 20/45 knots, cleared non-standard departure to the left – launch on the green,’ came the staccato reply.

‘Okay Paul, that’ll be your take off – you happy?’

‘No snags’ Paul replied enthusiastically. ‘Got the green light and the Flight Deck Officer looks happy, starting to pull power…torque’s coming in together…lifting off…’

‘Jesus Christ,’ shouted Smokey. ‘Control malfunction, tail rotor failure.’ As the Helicopter leapt into the air it rapidly yawed to the left and had completed a full pirouette by the time it reached ten feet from the deck. Just as suddenly the aircraft rocked sharply and came back under some semblance of control.

‘What the hell happened there?’ gasped Harry as the aircraft lurched away from the ship and cleared the flight deck to the left. The sheepish reply came from Paul:

‘Sorry about that guys, I put the wrong boot in as we lifted off.’

‘Too bloody right you’ll be sorry,’ came the seething reply from Smokey.

Paul had made an elementary mistake. The force of the turning rotor blades has an equal and opposite reaction, which those of us conversant with Newton’s laws will appreciate, and this causes the body of the aircraft to spin. To overcome this, a side mounted tail rotor is fitted and by varying the pitch and therefore the lift of the tail rotor blades by use of the ‘rudder’ pedals, the rotating motion is controlled. Paul had kicked the wrong pedal in as he lifted the cab off the deck and in so doing had compounded the effect instead of compensating for it. Harry broke the lengthening silence.

‘Flyco, W6Y airborne, chopping to operational frequency.’ After a short pause he said. ‘Dial up frequency 274.2 on your box please Paul.’

‘Yeah, let’s see if you can get that right,’ added Smokey caustically.

‘Alright, cut it out,’ snapped Harry. ‘Leave it for the debrief. Let’s just get on with the job at hand. Right, it’s about 18 miles to the first dip position, we’ll let the flight control system (FCS) take us down into the hover, set the height hold at 40 feet.’ Thinking for a moment and referring to the water temperature charts in his kneepad he said to Leading Aircrewman McKilroy. ‘Okay Tom, set up for an all-round sweep, 4 pings per sector. I make the optimum body depth around 240 feet,’ he finished. His reference to ‘body depth’ was the depth to which they would lower the sonar transmitter to achieve the best detection range. Sometimes there were pronounced temperature layers in the water and a submarine could hide above or below them. In that case the helicopters would carry out a sweep above and below the layer. McKilroy studied his own crib sheet of figures and agreed with Harry that they would only need to search the one depth on this occasion.

The rest of the transit was in relative silence as each member of the crew went about setting his equipment up for the tactical stage of the sortie. In the front Paul set up the FCS ready for the first transition to the hover. Smokey watched his every move, still annoyed after the take-off. McKilroy set up the sonar displays and double-checked all his figures. Harry had nothing more to do and so studied the radar picture carefully, hoping to get the small return from the Submarine as it raised it’s periscope above the surface for a sneaky look at it’s targets. With the sea state as it was he had little hope but it would make their job a lot easier if he did spot something.

After following SOBS for the first part of the transit they were cleared to act independently and Harry vectored his aircraft to the centre of their nominated sector and instructed the Pilots to ‘mark dip’. Hitting the ‘transition down button on the FCS the aircraft flew itself to the hover on an estimated into wind heading and the Pilots set about their never-ending list of checks. They started by getting the hover sorted out; ensuring the cab was facing directly into wind by sliding their windows open and feeling for any draught that would indicate a cross wind. Then it was onto the FCS; confirming the hover height and parameters for leaving the hover, before finishing with a ditching brief to the crew.

‘We’re pulling 76% matched torques.’ Paul’s voice droned on. ‘If we loose an engine in the hover the other engine will not be able to sustain rotor speed, and we will be making a positive water landing. With this sea state we’ll turn over immediately and it will be everybody for himself. Any questions?’ There were none; they’d heard it all before.

For the next thirty minutes they worked; methodically searching their sector and jumping to a new position about every 5 minutes to maintain a relative position in sector about 20 nautical miles ahead of the ship. Where the hell is that Submarine thought Harry, probably gone home and forgotten to tell anyone; it had happened before. Harry dropped the blind from the window by his left shoulder. The dark grey sea was still building up, showing the occasional white horses dancing over the waves. His mind was starting to wander back to Laura. No other woman had affected him like this and if the truth were known he wasn’t sure whether or not he liked it. He pictured her face in his mind. She could only be described as beautiful with classic bone structure, deep brown eyes, a face set off by her multi-coloured and somewhat spiky hair and a smile to die for. With an effort he dragged his mind back to the job, as he’d be taking over from Stormy shortly and he wanted to make a good job of it especially after turning up late for the brief.

‘What do you make of that Paul?’ asked Smokey.

‘Dunno, maybe lightening, could even be the Northern lights.’

Harry didn’t like the tense edge in Smokey’s voice; he wasn’t one that normally got flustered. Un-strapping his harness Harry struggled his way past McKilroy, who carried on with his methodical search of the ocean without showing any interest in the current proceedings, and made his way forward. As he appeared between the pilot’s seats Paul pointed about thirty degrees starboard.

‘What do you reckon then Harry?’

‘Search me.’ Harry looked over to the horizon where the sky had started to darken. At first he could see nothing out of the ordinary and was about to return to his seat when suddenly the sky lit up with an orangey-green flash. It was over in a moment, but was quickly followed by another and yet another before dying away, leaving just a faint impression on the retina. Harry had never seen anything like it before in his life. As he watched, glued to the spot, the lights burst again and this time they seemed much brighter and maybe a little closer than before.

‘Er..Sir, those lights, 30 right would you say?’ So McKilroy had been listening all along.

‘Yes, why?’ Harry’s reply was very short. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising and he watched yet another conflagration light up the inside of the helicopter.

‘Well…’

‘Come on man, spit it out,’ returned Harry through gritted teeth.

‘Sorry Sir, It’s just that I’ve never seen anything like this before. From about 15 to 45 degrees right the sonar display is full of noise, but it’s not just normal wide band noise; it seems to be modulated in some way. It’s as if somebody’s put some kind of message on top of it, and it’s getting closer Sir; it’s on the nose round to 90 degrees now.’ As he finished the lights burst again, this time bright enough to light up the cockpit as clear as day.

‘I don’t like this one little bit,’ said Harry. ‘McKilroy raise the sonar body, let’s get the hell out of here and see what’s going on. Smokey, give the Ship a call and see if they are recording any of this. Oh and while you’re at it give them an accurate position.’

Smokey didn’t like the hidden meaning of the last command, but complied all the same. Suddenly Paul gave a warning shout.

‘Torque split, call NR.’ The worst had happened. On the torque meter the left power needle had fallen to zero and the right was hovering at its end stop of 140%. The screeching sound of tortured bearings said it all – the right engine could not produce enough power to maintain rotor speed (NR)

‘NR is 96 percent…94…90 percent, shit…Brace, brace, brace!’ cried Smokey as he anticipated the inevitable outcome.

Harry never had a chance of making it back to his seat. He could physically hear the rotors slowing down and with the rotor speed went their lift. He clung onto the back of the two Pilots seats and spread his legs awaiting the impact. The next second all hell broke loose.

As the helicopter impacted with the sea it pitched forward. Harry’s knees buckled and he was thrown into the Pilots seats. His helmet took the first blow but was rapidly followed by his left shoulder. He heard rather than felt his collarbone break and although not conscious of the pain he would feel later, if he survived, he was aware of growing warmth around his left shoulder. He tried to push himself off his knees but in the next moment the cab rolled viciously to the left and he felt a sickening jar as the rotor blades made contact with the sea. Water was pouring in through the open cockpit windows at an alarming rate and Harry was vaguely aware of a pair of boots disappearing out of the port window before the rush of water pushed him towards the rear cabin.

Miraculously Harry was carried along the passage past the sonar without becoming snagged, however he was rapidly becoming disoriented and grabbed out with his good arm to retard his progress and get his bearings. He opened his eyes in the stinging salt water and found himself looking into the dead face of Tom McKilroy at close quarters. The shock of it nearly killed him, but also gave him the best chance of survival. He let go of his anchor point and instinctively drew in a breath. Freezing cold water was sucked into his trachea before being checked by his choking; the air expelled from his lungs forcing the water out ahead of it. He realised he was drowning and felt the flow of water and the buoyancy given by the air trapped in his goon suit pushing him to what he assumed was the far rear of the aircraft. It was the air in his suit that saved him as he had floated up to where the rest of the trapped air had accumulated. As his head broke surface into the small pocket of air he drew in a huge, sweet mouthful and immediately started choking again.

As he took stock of his position he began to feel the first bolts of pain in his left shoulder. He explored it with his good hand and immediately knew that it was a compound fracture; the exposed bone pushing hard against the inner fabric of his waterproof suit. He was also aware of the numbing cold that was starting to affect his exposed hands and face.

‘Well I can’t stay here all day,’ he said aloud into the eerie silence. There was no telling how deep he was but the wreckage appeared to have stopped moving violently. The only clues were the light filtering into the cabin and the rolling motion that could only have come from the wave action of the sea surface. Taking a large breath he pushed himself under the water and peered about. It quickly became obvious what had happened to Tom McKilroy. On impact with the water the momentum of the main gearbox had pulled it through the roof, striking McKilroy on the head and breaking his neck before coming to rest on the backs of the two seats. Had he been in his seat at the moment of impact Harry would have met with the same fate. Harry broke surface again. Poor Bastard he thought, however it had revealed a possible escape route through the gaping hole ripped in the roof of the cab where the gearbox had come crashing through. Harry had correctly guessed that he was at the tail end of the aircraft, which was suspended nose down by the air in the tail and the external flotation bags that had automatically deployed on contact with the salt water.

Harry took 5 or 6 deep breaths, purging the CO2 from his lungs in preparation for his final escape attempt. The pain in his left shoulder was becoming unbearable and was rapidly spreading all down his left side. In addition he was losing the use of his fingers due to the cold. Too bad he wouldn’t be able to collect his single man life raft on the way out; that was still snugly sat in the seat pan below tonnes of gearbox and other wreckage. With a final breath he pushed himself down towards the source of light. He almost made it as well. It was a struggle grappling his way against the buoyancy of his suit that had only two minutes ago saved his life, but he made it to the ‘exit’ with plenty of breath to spare. He took some time to clear some soundproofing material and control run cables that were blocking his way and then made the final push for freedom. He moved about a foot and then felt the excruciating pain as his left shoulder rammed into the torn remains of the radome. He felt consciousness slipping from him but fought it back, only to realise that he was now snagged in the exit. He started to struggle; panic setting in. He felt the fabric of his goonsuit tear, saw a red cloud of his own blood blossom in front of his face, and realised that cold water was flooding into his suit. In probably his last lucid moment before blind terror set in, he fired his life jacket in the vain hope that it would free him from the snag and carry him to the surface. Shortly thereafter the panic left him and he calmly slipped into a black void.

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