Silent Service

By Zach Neal

Lieutenant-Commander Oliver Dunbar and the crew of E-17, thirty men and boys in a steel cylinder a hundred and eighty feet long, must penetrate the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus and get into the Black Sea. The inland sea has been an Ottoman lake for hundreds of years. It’s their job to sink the ships that sustain the Empire, in support of an imminent campaign on the Turkish mainland. Lined with shore batteries and some very big guns, the straits are a dagger pointed straight at the Sublime Porte. With submarine nets, mines and enemy warships everywhere, they’ll be lucky to make it out with their skins intact.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zach Neal
• Release date: May 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781927957752

Zach Neal

Zach Neal has been writing ever since he can remember. A forestry management professional, he prefers the outdoors to the office. He lives in the Halton Hills overlooking the Greater Toronto Area. He studied at the University of Toronto. Zach’s a single father of two healthy and energetic children. Zach’s boys, Aaron and Jason, mean everything to him.

Book preview

Silent Service

Zach Neal

Copyright 2014 Zach Neal and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-927957-75-2

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral right to the proceeds of this work have been asserted.

Table of Contents

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

About Zach Neal

Act One

Lieutenant-Commander Oliver Dunbar unfolded the periscope handles as she came up to periscope depth. The tip cleared the surface and he stopped it there.

Dunbar did two full three-hundred-sixty degree sweeps, noting small fishing smacks well off to port. They were close enough to see the wheeling shapes of gulls following behind. There was small chance of the fishermen spotting the periscope in the present chop. He made a note of the beaches to starboard, for whatever intelligence value it might have. It was a blustery but otherwise bright day.

Looking forward again, he noted the headland coming down from starboard. Off to port, were the more distant hills of the European shore. After the pinch at Çanakkale, they had rounded the headland a few miles north, turned to starboard and cruised up the middle where the straits widened considerably. Making it through the narrows had been hairy. They were barely making steerage way on battery power against the stiff current. Where the straights were wider, looking more like a river than a body of salt water, the current was less. It could also be a lot shallower, which was a consideration.

Right. Steady on, ahead one-third.

The helmsman watched the compass as the currents of the Dardanelles snatched and caught at the hull.

The Lieutenant-Commander brought the periscope down, watching the clock intently and then raising the periscope for a look ahead and a quick sweep through the circle. He was timing it to every two minutes. The suspense of negotiating the straits blind was even more trying for the crew. They felt a lot better about things when the Skipper kept an eye on the world above. They never got a look, or hardly ever, but they did have imaginations. His projected confidence went a long way to assuaging their perfectly sensible fears.

A grin passed over his long, lean face. He had the periscope on the way up again, putting his eye to the hard rubber ring and having another look. It wasn’t too difficult to fake it, he was born an infernal optimist as his father always called his mother. They were following a predetermined course, based on every shred of intelligence that Fleet had provided. Other subs had done it, and therefore they would too.

There was something about the silent service that appealed to him. It was an independent command. He’d gotten it years before his proper time. He was still a young man, in other words. All the red tape, all of their rules and subordination, all the bullshit, had been stripped away. It was him, a crew and a ship—that was the way it should be and yet so seldom was.

Where previously submarines had been seen as part of the defense, a scouting screen for a battle fleet, they were now engaging in their proper role of independent, offensive operations—and in this branch of the service, a man was entitled to an opinion.

He did another full sweep. At night, they’d steamed up well into the mouth of the Dardanelles Straits, the age-old water barrier between Asia and Europe. It was now a dagger pointed straight at the heart of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks had unfortunately taken it upon themselves to choose the losing side in this jolly little war. It was surprising they hadn’t seen that. He pushed the stiff button, heavy duty all the way around here, and brought the scope down again. There was a little puff of black smoke on the horizon, off the port bow, closer to the far side he thought. They still had a minute.

Stan.

Sir.

His executive officer, Sub-Lieutenant Stan Barrett, stood watching the gauges, being his usual calm self and as drenched with sweat as Dunbar.

Break out the rum. Let’s have a drink.

Yes, sir.

Enough time had gone by, and he put the scope up again. The dark smudge, partially obscured by cloud shadows on the dusty yellow hills beyond, slowly resolved itself as they approached. E-17 was lucky to be maintaining an average of three or four knots against this current. They weren’t using full throttle, which burned the juice too quickly, but only offered a slight increase in speed. It was better to conserve power for as long as possible. With her twin eight