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CHAPTER 4 Part 3: England Expects More....

THREE

Barker and Imrie were walking – taking a turn around the outside of the building in fact – and speaking in low tones.

“How many hours have we been at this? How many hours and days to go?” John Barker was only patient when his submarine was stalking a victim, so he continued with as much of an answer s they had. “I guess it will depend on how many scenarios we have to run, and how long each will take. That is something we won't know until we have sorted a smooth and efficient way to run them. I think that means we find the parts that matter and standardize the rest.”

“That's pretty much what we are doing, if you look at the program Davies and Jones have listed.” Wilson Imrie was less frustrated, but only because he had braced himself for this to take time, maybe a few days. “We've been missing something in the way we follow through on the merchant ship side of your submarine attacks.”

“I agree. Some of the runs seem to end too suddenly, or something. It doesn't feel right.”

“Maybe it's just that we aren't at sea so when we get past the part that we want to examine we call a halt – instead of worrying for hours that the U-boat is stalking us?” Imrie, RNR, had years at sea in his civilian career and was more in tune with the concerns of a captain.

“Yes, that could well be it. Probably is. I am used to the tension rising to a crescendo and then down again, not this repetition.” They walked in silence for a moment.

Imrie came to a sudden halt. “Depth bombs. You've seen the new depth bombs? Heard of them at least?”

“Yes, I read the official signal to submariners, and we had a short briefing.” British submariners had been told of the fearsome new depth charges – a pair of which were being mounted on every RN destroyer – and sailed in fear of the Germans figuring out something similar. “They have been used in action, but they are semi-secret and we haven't been told all that much about them, Haven't been told if the huns have developed anything similar, either.” Barker was pensive a moment as he pondered the use of such a weapon against him while submerged. “Can we simulate their effect in our table trails?”

“I think a few have been used against U-boats. We can check. As far as the simulation, I bet if we get PO Cooper working on it he'll come up with something.”

“Good morning, gents, erm, sirs,” Robinson greeted them as he arrived back from his trip to the administration building. “I'm a landlubber learning all this as we go along – and so I was just asked if we wanted a live demonstration of the new depth bombs. I said yes. They said day after tomorrow. Does that sound good? Can I send confirmation?”

Barker looked at Imrie as he replied: “I'd love to see it, and it's an important new weapon that we need to understand better.”

Imrie nodded. “Yes. We'll go. Can we bring Davies and the other POs, as well as.... Hmm. Ask them how many we can bring, but if they get stingy about it tell them we really need to have 10 or so. Smithy will be back. Hard to think the Admiral would go.”

“The Old Man would love to, but he'd never negotiate gangways and ladders,” Barker said as he shook his head. “Walke will be thrilled. He loves to add real experience – he calls it empirical observations – to his data.”

“Say, Barky, what's Leonard up to this morning? Is he still out gathering data on weapon performance?”

“Yes, things like the depth bombs, depth charges they are calling them, and interviewing all the experts and collecting all the technical briefs and memos he can find. He puzzles me sometimes. We get our hands on things and just work them out, but he does a lot in his head.”

Robinson hesitated, then spoke. “Sirs, I think I understand that part of him fairly well. Consider this. As a solicitor I think of everything in precise description, so a judge or jury can know exactly what is meant – or not if obfuscation is what you are trying to achieve. But, it is all about precision in language and grammar. If you cannot write it out clearly then you yourself don't know what you are saying. Leonard Walke is the same – but with numbers. Just as I see the words, he sees numbers and quantities, and relates them to each other in his mind. I bet he would say that if you cannot measure or count it, or something like that, then you don't know what you have or what you are doing with it.”

They all thought about this for a moment, then Imrie brought them back to the present. “Right then, let's get back to work. First we'll tell the crew about the depth bombs, and see what they think about including them in the weapons for escorts – when we get up to the point of including escorts.”