Empire Day

by James Philip

  One of the big, super-charged speed boats so in vogue in the East Coast colonies roared close down the Lion’s flank with its two in-line customised aero-engines purring malevolently. The boat left a turbulent wake lapping ineffectually at the waterlines of the four Lions, castles of steel not to be undermined by the passing of a relative minnow no matter how fast or how loud it was.

  The finest racing yachts had been built in New England for a century, lately the colonists’ obsession for speed had found expression in the competition to continually edge up the world land, water and airspeed records, all of which were now held by New Englanders or industrial conglomerates based in the Americas.

  “All ships will signal non-authorised vessels to keep a safe distance from Cassandra!”

  The trouble with civilians on the water was that they paid absolutely no attention to signals, or orders of any kind unless or until one put a shot across their bows.

  At that very minute Cassandra’s captain would be pouring on the revolutions to ensure that the King was not late for his own party. The destroyer was still too far away, her low silhouette still blurred in the haze but Packenham imagined her creaming through the narrows with a rare bone in her teeth.

  The Squadron Commander forced himself to relax as he stepped to the front of the flying bridge to take in the vista of New York City occupying the bottom two to three square miles of Manhattan Island and the broad, orderly streets ascending Brooklyn Heights on the western shore of Long Island.

  Yesterday’s disaster at Wallabout Bay left a foul taste in his mouth, not least because the Colonial Security Service had – peremptorily, with somewhat ill-grace he felt - turned down his offer to send members of his staff and the Squadron Engineering Division to assist in surveying the damage to the facilities on land and the condition of the wreck of HMS Polyphemus.

  Once the Fleet Review was done and dusted the men of the 5th Battle Squadron were looking forward to a well-earned run ashore. Not in the staid, well-policed city on the southern tip of Manhattan but farther up the East River in the flesh pots of New Town where every sailor who had ever visited New York seemed to end up. All big ports had their drinking, whoring more or less anything goes red-light districts and since time immemorial New Town had been New York’s…

  “My God!” The Lion’s Captain gasped in horror.

  Packenham wheeled around and strode to join the men leaning over the starboard bridge rail peering astern.

  “Something’s just blown up alongside the Princess Royal!”

  HMS Lion’s Captain did not wait for his Admiral’s order.

  “SOUND THE BELL FOR ACTION STATIONS!”

  Chapter 24

  Upper Bay, New York

  Alex Fielding did not know what had just happened but knowing was secondary, understanding at an intuitive, visceral level was everything, the difference between life and death. When something blew up close to a string-bag like a Bristol V the world went to Hell in a hurry and the only thing that mattered was stopping the kite nose-diving into the earth or the water. He had yanked the stick to the left, kicked the rudder bar and gunned the engine before he consciously registered what he was doing.

  The old trainer was still inverted.

  He hoped Leonora Coolidge had strapped herself in as tightly as he had told her to; a woman like that was not to be wasted.

  He was hanging on his straps.

  The Bristol V wanted to spin; he knew that if she did that at this low level he was a dead man.

  Still upside down the aircraft careened insanely between the tall grey smoke stacks of one of the Lions so close that it was probably the updraft from the great ship’s engine room blowers was what probably lifted her momentarily, just long enough to half-arrest the trainer’s shallow death dive.

  The aircraft rolled back and beyond the horizontal and then for the first time in half-a-dozen terrifying seconds which had seemed to stretch for infinity, Alex had the trainer back under control.

  He risked a look forward.

  His passenger was still in her seat in the front cockpit.

  Jesus and Mary, I do not want to do that again!

  Only then did he start to ask: what just happened?

  He eased back the stick to gain a little altitude; when in doubt H-E-I-G-H-T always spells S-A-F-E-T-Y!

  Where was all the smoke coming from.

  Heck, it was as hazy as Hades on a bad day…

  Two holes the size of his fist suddenly opened up on his bottom right wing.

  ‘What the…”

  He recognised bullet holes when he saw them!

  Who the fuck was shooting at him!

  He pushed the throttle hard forward, climbing, climbing and then he looked back, at first over his shoulder but when he did not believe the evidence of his eyes he rolled the trainer into a long turn so that he could have a proper look at the surreal scene of utter mayhem in the Upper Bay.

  Chapter 25

  HMS Cassandra, Upper Bay, New York

  “Might I suggest you step below, Your Majesty?” The destroyer’s captain suggested respectfully as the ship’s bell - piped at ear-splitting decibel levels over the ship’s speakers – sent men sprinting for their battle stations and the barrels of the forward main battery guns began to seek prey.

  King George had had binoculars glued to his eyes for the last thirty seconds as he tried to make out what was going on around the Lions of the 5th Battle Squadron.

  “The Flagship is broadcasting in the plain, sir!” A yeoman called urgently.

  “Put it on the bridge circuit!”

  “Princess Royal and Queen Elizabeth are under attack by motor launches and aircraft. Cassandra is to run for the Lower Bay at best speed and shelter with the Formidables!”

  The King was having none of that nonsense.

  “Inform C-in-C 5th Battle Squadron that the King of England runs from no man!” He declaimed irritably. This said he reconsidered, looking to his wife. “Eleanor, my love, perhaps you might step below until this unpleasantness is resolved.”

  “I will do no such thing, Bertie!”

  Everybody on the bridge was donning heavy bullet proof jackets – the naval version was a part life jacket, part anti-flash version of the army and police ‘combat garment’ – and the royal couple realised that they and Henrietta De L’Isle were expected to do likewise if they were to remain in situ.

  “Oh really!” The King complained.

  “I’m not wearing one of those things unless you do, Bertie!” His wife decided.

  Henrietta positively sagged beneath the weight of her jacket.

  Eleanor was escorted to the captain’s chair where she gratefully took the twenty-four pounds of extra weight off her feet.

  The King allowed men to check his ‘suit of armour’ was correctly clamped about his torso while tin hats were presented to his wife and the Governor’s youngest daughter.

  While all this was going on Cassandra had slowed to a crawl and a dozen lookouts and officers had been attempting to fathom what was actually going on a mile or so to the north.

  The destroyer’s captain reported to his sovereign.

  “Sir Thomas has said that I am to obey your orders, sir,” he said. “His words were: ‘He’s the bloody King and he outranks me’,” he went on. “Sir,” he finished with a wan smile.

  The King waved at the smoke-filled Upper Bay.

  “Take us up there and tell Guns to blow anything that blinks at us to pieces!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  In a moment HMS Cassandra was surging forward like a greyhound out of the traps.

  In the distance HMS Princess Royal was on fire.

  Momentarily, it seemed to those on Cassandra’s bridge that the third ship in line, the Queen Elizabeth’s after fifteen-inch guns had fired a salvo but then, when their brains had had time to process the evidence of their eyes they realised that what they had seen was an aircraft crashing into the battleship’s aftermost turret.

  T
here was a huge splash of fire.

  An aircraft, a Bristol VI with a silvery fuselage raced past the now charging destroyer heading, obviously for the stern of the Tiger, the fourth ship in the battle line.

  The Gunnery Officer’s voice boomed over the bridge speakers.

  “ALL GUNS THAT BEAR TO ENGAGE FAST MOVING TARGET BEARING GREEN ZERO-THRE-ZERO! WEAPONS FREE IN LOCAL CONTROL! REPEAT WEAPONS FREE IN LOCAL CONTROL!”

  The destroyer reverberated with the recoil of her two aft 4.7-inch guns, shortly followed by the chain-saw rattling of her quick-firing quadruple 0.8-inch cannons.

  The 4.7-inch rounds went over the approaching speed boat.

  It was already too close for the main battery barrels to depress sufficiently to engage it.

  The boat was bright red, nearly crimson and approaching at breakneck speed. Every detail of the onrushing craft was suddenly clearly visible despite the fog of war now hanging over the water like a rapidly spreading evil miasma. It was as if the speedboat was cleaving aside the haze. As cannon shells tore into the water and ricocheted haphazardly yachts and launches were heading every which way desperately trying to escape…whatever was happening.

  The quadruple 0.8 cannons, each barrel shooting at a rate of over two-hundred and fifty rounds a minute – ripped up the sea ahead of the blood-red wraith screaming, almost skimming across the waves impossibly fast – until the stream of cannon shells intersected with the frail craft and it disintegrated in a thousand disarticulated, spinning, splashing fragments.

  Up ahead the Bristol VI heading doggedly for the Tiger was smoking heavily, clearly on the verge of falling out of the sky. No gun on the Cassandra dared to fire for fear of raking the decks of the battleship.

  The King gripped the bridge rail in nameless, impotent rage as the aircraft, trailing a plume of burning gasoline across the smoke fouled air fell onto the quarterdeck of the leviathan and disintegrating, tumbled fierily until it met the immovable armoured obstacle of the battleship’s ‘Y’ 15-inch turret.

  And exploded.

  Chapter 26

  HMS Lion, Upper Bay, New York

  By the time the big ships had brought all their light weaponry – essentially, their 1.7 and 0.8-inch twin and quadruple anti-aircraft mounts – into play the sky had cleared of aircraft and every small boat in the bay was running for cover.

  Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Packenham drew breath knowing that right now he needed to be the calmest man in New England. His flagship was the only one of the four Lions to have escaped unscathed; and although reports were streaming in from Princess Royal, Queen Elizabeth, Tiger and the cruisers Ajax and Naiad, still guarding Lion’s flanks, none of his big ships had suffered critical damage.

  Right at the beginning of the attack – which thus far had lasted some twelve minutes, starting to peter out after about eight – a big speedboat had smashed into Princess Royal’s starboard side abreast her bridge. An unknown number of men who had been manning the rail had perished and many must have been injured as the lightweight speedster had disintegrated against the 13-inch cemented armour plating protecting that part of the hull above and below the waterline.

  More serious had been the aircraft which had smashed into the rear of the Princess Royal’s bridge and started a fire which had destroyed a pair of 1.7-inch cannon mounts, wiping out their crews and igniting adjacent ready-use ammunition lockers.

  Astern of Princess Royal the Queen Elizabeth had been rammed by two speed boats, and by an aircraft which had crashed between the barbettes of the aft ‘X’ and ‘Y’ main battery turrets. This latter strike had barely scratched the fourteen-inch thick armour protecting the turrets but a large explosive charge in the bow of one of the boats had opened a ten feet wide hole in the less heavily armoured stern plating and about six hundred tons of water had flooded into two compartments initially causing a list to port of slightly less than one degree.

  Tiger had sustained a single aircraft strike which had scorched her quarterdeck and damaged the range-finder of her ‘Y’ 15-inch turret.

  Ships specifically designed to withstand hits by two-ton 15-inch shells plunging onto, into and around them at supersonic speeds, and one-thousand-pound armour-piercing bombs dropped from aircraft flying at five thousand feet, had not been meaningfully inconvenienced by motor boats displacing at most a few tons ‘bumping’ into their mightily robust and armour-encased sides like explosive dodgem cars, or small, fragile aircraft crumpling up on their decks. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the aircraft involved seemed to have been virtual flying petrol cans – which was a nasty twist - apart from Princess Royal’s problem with ready-use ammunition catching fire, all the resultant fires had swiftly burned out, or been expeditiously extinguished by damage control teams.

  Had the Lions not been ‘dressing the side’ with hundreds of men on parade on deck at the outset of the attack casualties would have been minimal.

  “Cassandra is hailing us, sir!”

  The fleet destroyer had raced into the midst of the action, now with her screws churning astern she slewed to a near halt between the Naiad and the Lion, the signal lamp on her port bridge wing flashing furiously.

  In the near distance 0.8 and 1.7-inch ammunition lit off like fireworks and smoke billowed downwind to the south east from the superstructure of the Princess Royal.

  Tom Packenham did not wait for a yeoman to call out Cassandra’s signal.

  He chuckled to himself.

  “WELL DONE EVERYBODY STOP THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY WHEN WE FIND OUT WHO IS BEHIND IT STOP QUEEN AND I STILL IN ONE PIECE STOP I WILL REMAIN ON CASSANDRA UNTIL SITUATION CLEAR STOP GEORGE V MESSAGE ENDS”

  The Squadron Commander was about to swap jocular small talk with the Lion’s captain when both men heard HMS Ajax’s quadruple 1.7-inch mounts angrily clatter back into life.

  That was when they heard the sound of the two aircraft approaching.

  Chapter 27

  Upper Bay, New York

  Alex Fielding had flown over Bedford Island and on into New Jersey and circled south over Elizabethtown at about three thousand feet. He would have searched for somewhere to land but after what he had just witnessed in the bay an unfamiliar aircraft was liable to be shot at. Fortunately, he had plenty of fuel left in the tank so he could afford to stooge around and wait for things to settle down.

  All the other times he had been in the air in the middle of a battle he had had the comfort of knowing he had a couple of machine guns mounted either on his kite’s nose or top wing; so, in the last few minutes he had felt positively naked.

  He had no real sense of time passing; he was too busy scanning the skies around him and trying to piece together the insanity of the last few minutes.

  That Bristol VI which hit the last battleship in line had looked an awful lot like one of the ones Magnus McIntyre and Paul Hopkins had been flying. And by the size of the fireball it must have been carrying spare cans of 87-octane or some kind of explosive charge onboard when it hit…

  Oh shit!

  That would explain why those comedians had taken such long take-off runs…

  This just got worse!

  Guess who signed their temporary Long Island Flying Certificates?

  No, no, no he was letting is imagination get the better of his brain.

  Every amateur flier in New England was snapping up Bristol Vs and VIs for a song as the CAF re-quipped with modern types; hardly any of the idiots who bought those kites knew how to fly the things. The lunatics crashing their rides into those ships did not even need to know how to land the damned things!

  Although, the question of exactly what sort of a man would deliberately crash his kite, let alone deliberately crash it onto the deck of a battleship defied all reason.

  You would have to be insane?

  Wouldn’t you?

  The big ships were alone in the Bay; all the small craft had scuttled for cover with their crews waving anything they could find that was remotely white as they got out of the fir
ing line. From the amount of debris and fuel oil fouling the Upper Bay a lot of innocent people must have been caught in the cross fire. He noticed for the first time that the third battleship in the line had started leaking a new, thin slick of black bunker oil into the dirty grey waters downstream towards Hell’s Gate.

  A pillar of black, grey-streaked smoke was billowing from the second battleship in line from somewhere amidships. The pall of smoke was drifting east across Red Hook. Periodically there were flashes, pinpricks of light through the increasing murk of the fog of war. That would be ammunition exploding, small stuff, nothing that was going to sink a ship like that.

  Alex was about to point his aircraft south over Staten Island and begin a long, circular return to Jamaica Bay when he saw the other aircraft.

  A Bristol VI.

  Well, he did not so much see it as collide with it!

  It almost flew straight into him!

  He threw the stick to the right and for a moment looked the man at the controls of the other machine in the eye.

  Rufus McIntyre…

  Chapter 28

  Brooklyn Heights, Long Island

  Colonel Matthew Harrison had had his driver take him up to a vantage point on Brooklyn Heights to join the crowds gawking at the big ships anchored in the main channel less than a couple of miles away. Even at that distance the four Lions looked damned big, utterly indestructible, the very foundations of the Empire.

  The Governor of the Commonwealth of New England was going to give him a hard time about John Watson. It was not going to be enough to rely on the line that he was shot resisting arrest, those nincompoops had filled him so full of lead, front and back, that he was going to have to throw them all to the wolves.

  Heck, that was the sort of thing criminals did to each other, not honest to God patriotic CSS Agents!

  What was it they said about no plan surviving contact with the enemy?