Lion Resurgent (24 page)

Hooper lost control of his eyebrows for a brief second then managed to retrieve them from his hairline. “Those civilians who wish to remain here and take their chances may do so. There is going to be one hell of a fight though.”

“I will not abandon the mail. It’s more than my job’s worth.’ Walsingham had his jaw set. He had made himself look foolish twice; he was not going to do so again.

“Very good, Sir. But I suggest you take cover. What do you want us to do with the mail when the Argies arrive?”

“Burn it.”

Hooper nodded. That made sense; there could be valuable information in there. “Curly, get some thermite charges and rig the mail to burn. Postmaster Walsingham doesn’t wish it to fall into enemy hands. He’ll be staying with us to make sure it doesn’t.”

ARA
Catamarca,
North of South Georgia

“There’s nothing out here, Sir. Radar is completely clear. Whatever the contact was, it’s gone.”

Captain Leonardi scanned the gray mass of fog, rain, clouds and sea. It was very hard to tell which was which. Almost anything could be hidden in this mass of foulness that passed for weather in the South Atlantic.

“They’re out here. I can feel it.” Leonardi spoke the truth. He could sense another ship out here somewhere not so very far away.

“Woman’s intuition?” Astrid’s voice was sneering and derisive. He took some satisfaction from the stir of anger that ran around the bridge crew.

“A sailor’s sense.” Leonardi spoke absently, willing himself to ignore the evil presence on his bridge.
If I ignore it on my bridge, isn’t it just what we have all done when we ignore these people in our country.
He didn’t like that train of thought at all. Another one also ran through his mind
all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
That stirred his conscience. Like everybody else, he had assumed the tales he had heard were wild exaggerations; stories of cartoon villainy that were intended to blacken the name of the armed forces. If he’d taken them seriously, he would have expected Astrid to board his ship, twirling his moustache in comic-opera style. He hadn’t. He’d appeared a normal, personable young officer. Only when Leonardi had looked into his eyes had he known the truth and realized the stories he had heard were, if anything, a pale reflection of reality.

“That sloop has to be around here somewhere.” He looked again, as if expecting to see his target emerge from the gray morass.
Which could,
he reflected
easily happen.
“If she had held course we would have seen her,”
or run into her
“a few minutes ago.”

“Sir, we have an intercept, a burst radio transmission. From east of us.”

“East?” Leonardi thought about that one, and then light dawned. “Abbey Hill. She picked our radars up and changed course.” The name of the British electronic surveillance system was almost a curse. It was well known that the sloops had very good electronic intelligence equipment, but he’d forgotten all about it. “How far east?”

“Getting a cross reference from
La Plata
now.” There was some frantic measuring on the charts. “The baseline is very short, but a minimum of 25 kilometers and a maximum of fifty.”

“She must have turned as soon as she picked up our radars.” Martin looked at the chart, computing distances in his mind. “Her message will have been to warn the troops ashore that she was coming in and get ready to embark. She’ll be heading south at maximum speed.”

Leonardi shook his head. “No. The pick-up must have been pre-arranged. She wouldn’t have taken a chance on transmitting just to confirm it. No, the message must have been to tell them she was not coming in. She will be heading north, trying to get clear.”

Martin nodded. “Then we should make course oh-four-five to intercept.”

“Very good. Only we need to spread our net. We will make oh-four-five,
La Plata
should make oh-five-oh until we are twenty kilometers apart. Then we will parallel each other. Make to
La Plata
accordingly.”

Headquarters, First AirMech Brigade, Aldershot, UK

“Strachan here.” The answer on the telephone was curt. Anybody in the Headquarters Building, in this brigade or any other could sense the tension that filled the whole Army. A war was coming, everybody knew it and everybody sensed that much more depended on this that just the ownership of a few islands nobody had ever heard of. “That’s marvelous news, Sir. We’ll amend our plans accordingly.”

“Sergeant Harper? Good news, we’re getting
Albion
and
Bulwark.
The Incredible Bulk finished her yard period in record time. Spread the word; an O-group immediately, every officer to the conference room on the double.”

The second assault ship being ready was a miracle. For four weeks, Strachan had been trying to work out how to pare down his AirMech brigade so it would fit into a single assault ship. Anyway he cut it, the result was a unit that sacrificed too much of its fighting power for comfort. Now, with both ships, the unit could go to war the way that the Gods and the War Office had intended.

He paused and picked up his secure telephone and dialed a number, one known to very few people. The receiver the other end rang and he heard Sir Humphrey Appleday’s voice, “Piccadilly Circus.”

“Strachan here, Humpty. We’ve got both assault ships, the whole Brigade is going down.”

“I know that.” Appleday was slightly irritated. The strain was telling on him as well.

“Well, it means we’re going to have to change our plans slightly. Can you tell me how long we’ve got?”

There was a long silence on the end of the line. “It’s starting now. Literally now. Don’t count on more than 24 hours. Just get the equipment on the ships. We can sort it out later. Oh, and Brigadier, as our friend over in Washington might say, come back carrying your shield or carried on it.”

“That’s Spartan, not Macedonian.” Appleday wasn’t the only one who had a classical education. He and Strachan were two of the much smaller number who knew how wrong some of that classical history was.

“In the great scheme of things, the difference made by the geographical minutia of the post-Alexandrine geopolitical gestalt is of very little consequence. Brigadier, we’ve turned down American assistance on this one. We’re on our own. That’s our choice and it has to be this way if we are ever to rise again as an independent nation. So, carrying your shield, or carried on it, because everything we have ever worked for depends on you now.”

The telephone clicked and Strachan looked at it. It had been a very different call from the usual chat with the urbane and loquacious Sir Humphrey Appleday. The last time Strachan had heard him speak that way was when That Man had pulled his coup and taken Britain out of the War.

“Sir, officers assembling in the Conference Room.” Sergeant Harper looked solemn. “A word from the Squids Sir. The Ozwalds are offering to take over Indian Ocean Station, put a destroyer and a couple of frigates in so the Andrew can pull its ships out for the coming excitement. South Africans are reputed to be putting in some discrete help as well. And the Canucks, they’re offering their C-133s to help supply Ascension. Commonwealth pulling together, gathering around the mother country and all that.”

“The Canadians don’t operate C-133s.” Strachan objected.

“They do now, Sir. Funny that isn’t it.”

Strachan laughed. The Senior NCO circuit in the British armed forces worked extremely well. He strode down the corridor to the Conference Room, overtaking the last straggling officers as he did so. Some were muddy and had obviously come straight off the training ranges. Once everybody was inside, he banged on the desk to quieten the room.

“Gentlemen. . . I am sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have two urgent pieces of news for you. One is that I have just been informed that we will be allocated both
Albion
and
Bulwark
for our journey south. We will, therefore, have enough lift capacity for the entire Brigade. We can forget our plans to strip the unit. The word I have is just to throw everything and everybody on to the ships and we’ll sort things out on the way down.

“The second piece of news is that the situation is coming to a head right now. We can expect a movement order literally any minute. Get your units ready to move out accordingly. Do not pass this word to anybody outside the unit, not even your families.”

Strachan noted that some of the women in the medical and communications units looked uncomfortable with that.

“Another word. There has been some talk about us receiving help and assistance in the upcoming campaign. Don’t believe any of it. Her Majesty’s Government has refused an offer of American assistance so the objective will not be glowing in the dark when we get there. A few of the Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries are providing support assistance but the fighting forces will all be ours. I was given a very unambiguous message on this. I was told to come back carrying our shield or carried on it. I think that applies to us all. This is it, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is our chance to expunge the blot on our national name caused by That Man. Let us not falter, let us not weaken. Let us show the world, we are back as a power to be reckoned with.”

HMS
Mermaid,
North of South Georgia

“Bad news, Sir. The Argies have made us. Their track is showing they swung north just after we did. They’re on an intercept course. If we hold present course and speed, they’ll literally hit us.”

“Hmm, Italian-built destroyer hitting a British-built sloop. I wonder who would come off worst in that collision?”

“Italian-built, Sir? It could be one of the Gearing DDEs or DDKs the Septics sold them a few years back.”

“They’ve got SPS-37, not -40. These are the Cordoba class, you can bet your gold sovereigns on it.” A nervous laugh ran around the bridge at that comment. It was technically illegal for British subjects to hold gold, whether as bullion or coin, but the occupation years had taught the population much about hiding things away and keeping quiet about them. Despite the prohibition on owning gold coins and guns, every Government since the ban had been imposed in 1950 had sadly accepted the fact that probably every family in the land had a few of both hidden away.

“Cordobas. With those 5.3-inch guns, they’ll shoot us to pieces.” Keighley sounded mournful. The Italian 5.3-inch gun was a very effective weapon. Even the old versions carried on the Cordobas were fast-firing and their shells had a lot of punch. Much more so than the twin four inch gun mount that was
Mermaid’s
only real armament.

“Of course. Although it won’t be as easy as they think. We’re a better shooting platform than they are and I bet their forward turrets are washed out.” Blaise was thinking carefully. “That’ll buy us a little time. Helm, bring us around to oh-nine-oh. We’ll try and put them north and behind us. As soon as they cross our old track, we’ll come around to two-two-five. We’ll keep heading for the worst weather we can find.”

Keighley nodded. It made sense. In the foul seas they had to handle now, Mermaid’s sea-kindly hull meant that the Argentine destroyers were barely, if at all, faster than she was. But, if the seas improved the difference would grow quickly. The Cordobas were the fastest destroyers out there, every one of them had run trials at over 40 knots in smooth water. Given their heads, they could ran
Mermaid
down easily. So, it made sense to head for the worst weather and the roughest seas.

Blaise felt his ship’s movement change as she swung around to oh-nine-oh. Quietly, he knew he was running out of options.

ARA
Catamarca,
North of South Georgia

“There’s still nothing out here, Sir.”

Leonardi thought it over.
What would I do if I was commanding that British sloop?
The answer was obvious, he’d use his electronic surveillance system to track the destroyers and move away from them.
That being so, where would I be, right now?
Suddenly, a light switched on in Leonardi’s head. “Make to
La Plata.
Tell her to maintain course oh-four-five for thirty minutes, then come around to two-oh-five. We’ll come around to one-three-five and make twenty five knots. And shut down all our radars, every one of them. We’ll make this run blind.” He hesitated. Twenty five knots in these conditions was driving his ship hard. She would have damage, perhaps just guard rails buckled and deck fittings lost but more likely cracks and flooding.

“La Plata
Sir? Her radars?”

“Full power transmission. All of them. Surface search, air search, navigation. I want her to make so much noise that sloop will think we’re both up there. That sloop is tracking us with her passive surveillance equipment so
La Plata
can keep her focused while we do a silent run in to a new position. With luck, she’ll walk right into us.”

Royal Australian Navy Submarine
Rotorua,
Leaving Puerto de Valparaiso, Chile

“Message Sir. From
I-709.
Message reads ‘Goodbye and good hunting.’ It’s from Captain Sazuko himself.”

“Make return message. ‘Farewell. Wish you fair seas and a smooth voyage.’ Sign it from me personally. I wonder what he meant by ‘good hunting’?”

“I guess he’s assuming we’ll be helping the Andrew out. We’re heading south after all. Lieutenant Elorreaga, you have found your cabin and everything you need?”

“I have indeed, Sir. Your officers were most helpful. I took the liberty of bringing some bottles of wine from my family vineyards on board. I hope it would be in order for me to donate them to the wardroom?”

“Lieutenant, I can think of no way to make yourself more welcome on this submarine. We’ll be diving in about an hour, as soon as we’re clear of the shipping lanes.”

“Very good, Sir.” The Chilean officer looked around the bridge. “This submarine is much larger than any I have served on before.”

“You were assigned to an old V-boat, weren’t you?”

“That is correct, Sir. The
Simpson.
Only four tubes forward and very small inside. Very handy and quick though. Sir, how does
Rotorua
handle?”