U.S.S. Seawolf Read Online Free
Author: Patrick Robinson
to Amarillo, Texas, and then used the small Beechcraft single-engine private plane owned by his father for the last northerly leg of the journey.
And once on the family cattle ranch, deep in the Oklahoma panhandle, Linus, as usual, disappeared. Given his family connections, it was not much short of a miracle that no word ever appeared about him, even in local newspapers. But perhaps even more unlikely was that he had always avoided the media during his tenure in Washington and at the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia.
Judd Crocker thought it a major achievement by the young lieutenant commander, but of course, on a far grander scale the English royal family had been doing it for most of the century, effectively “hiding” sons Prince Charles and Prince Andrew for years while they served in the Royal Navy. It had been the same with King George V, of course, and Prince Philip. Indeed, Prince Andrew hardly had his photograph taken when he flew his helicopter off the deck of HMS Invincible during the Falklands War. It was the same with Linus Clarke. And he seemed determined to keep it that way.
And so the aura of mystique clung to him. On the lower decks the men knew who he was, and that he had CIA connections. But the subject was not aired publicly. In the wardroom he was watched carefully. It was an unspoken fact that no one wanted him to make a mistake.
“I guess,” remarked Lt. Commander Cy Rothstein, the combat systems officer, “we always have to remember just who he is.”
“That’s probably the one thing we ought to forget,”replied the captain. “And we better hope he can, too. Clarke has a major job on this ship, whoever the hell he is.”
Right now, as Seawolf cruised through the pitch-black depths of the Pacific, still making 20 knots, Judd Crocker was preparing to go deeper, down to almost 1,000 feet, for the torpedo tube trials, another searching examination of the submarine’s fitness for frontline duty.
Behind Judd Crocker’s crew were weeks and weeks of meticulous checking in which every system in the ship had been tested at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. They’d completed their “Fast Cruise”—driving the systems hard while still moored alongside, still fast to the wall. They’d tested for “fire, famine and flood,” Navyspeak for any forthcoming catastrophe. They’d done all the drills, all the tuning, all the routines, checking and changing the water, changing the air, running the reactor, checking the periscopes, checking the masts.
They’d found defects. Engineers from Seawolf ’s original builders, General Dynamics of New London, had been aboard for weeks, fixing, replacing, and adjusting. The process was exhaustive and meticulous, because when calamity comes to a submarine, the kind of calamity perhaps easily dealt with on a surface ship, it can spell the end for the underwater warriors. Laborious and time-consuming as sea trials may be, every last man in a submarine’s crew gives them 100 percent of their effort. Pages and pages of reports had been written, signed, and logged as they tested and retested.
Out here in the Pacific they were effectively going over all of the same ground again, the same stuff they had checked over and over on the Fast Cruise. But this time they were at sea, and that added a massive new dimension to the equation. Moreover, these tests would be conducted both dived and on the surface.
“ Conn—Captain. Bow down ten…one thousand feet…make your speed fifteen knots…right standard rudder…steer course three-six-zero …”
Judd Crocker’s commands were crisp and clear, andthey all heard the slight change in the beat of the turbines as Seawolf slowed and slewed around to the north, heading down into the icy depths.
The captain turned to his XO and said, “I’m going to run those tube tests again. You might go up for’ard in a while and take a look. I still think those switches are awful close together.”
Fifteen minutes later,
And once on the family cattle ranch, deep in the Oklahoma panhandle, Linus, as usual, disappeared. Given his family connections, it was not much short of a miracle that no word ever appeared about him, even in local newspapers. But perhaps even more unlikely was that he had always avoided the media during his tenure in Washington and at the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia.
Judd Crocker thought it a major achievement by the young lieutenant commander, but of course, on a far grander scale the English royal family had been doing it for most of the century, effectively “hiding” sons Prince Charles and Prince Andrew for years while they served in the Royal Navy. It had been the same with King George V, of course, and Prince Philip. Indeed, Prince Andrew hardly had his photograph taken when he flew his helicopter off the deck of HMS Invincible during the Falklands War. It was the same with Linus Clarke. And he seemed determined to keep it that way.
And so the aura of mystique clung to him. On the lower decks the men knew who he was, and that he had CIA connections. But the subject was not aired publicly. In the wardroom he was watched carefully. It was an unspoken fact that no one wanted him to make a mistake.
“I guess,” remarked Lt. Commander Cy Rothstein, the combat systems officer, “we always have to remember just who he is.”
“That’s probably the one thing we ought to forget,”replied the captain. “And we better hope he can, too. Clarke has a major job on this ship, whoever the hell he is.”
Right now, as Seawolf cruised through the pitch-black depths of the Pacific, still making 20 knots, Judd Crocker was preparing to go deeper, down to almost 1,000 feet, for the torpedo tube trials, another searching examination of the submarine’s fitness for frontline duty.
Behind Judd Crocker’s crew were weeks and weeks of meticulous checking in which every system in the ship had been tested at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. They’d completed their “Fast Cruise”—driving the systems hard while still moored alongside, still fast to the wall. They’d tested for “fire, famine and flood,” Navyspeak for any forthcoming catastrophe. They’d done all the drills, all the tuning, all the routines, checking and changing the water, changing the air, running the reactor, checking the periscopes, checking the masts.
They’d found defects. Engineers from Seawolf ’s original builders, General Dynamics of New London, had been aboard for weeks, fixing, replacing, and adjusting. The process was exhaustive and meticulous, because when calamity comes to a submarine, the kind of calamity perhaps easily dealt with on a surface ship, it can spell the end for the underwater warriors. Laborious and time-consuming as sea trials may be, every last man in a submarine’s crew gives them 100 percent of their effort. Pages and pages of reports had been written, signed, and logged as they tested and retested.
Out here in the Pacific they were effectively going over all of the same ground again, the same stuff they had checked over and over on the Fast Cruise. But this time they were at sea, and that added a massive new dimension to the equation. Moreover, these tests would be conducted both dived and on the surface.
“ Conn—Captain. Bow down ten…one thousand feet…make your speed fifteen knots…right standard rudder…steer course three-six-zero …”
Judd Crocker’s commands were crisp and clear, andthey all heard the slight change in the beat of the turbines as Seawolf slowed and slewed around to the north, heading down into the icy depths.
The captain turned to his XO and said, “I’m going to run those tube tests again. You might go up for’ard in a while and take a look. I still think those switches are awful close together.”
Fifteen minutes later,
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