A Game of Battleships

by Toby Frost

  ‘As a representative of an allied nation your vessel will, of course, be repaired,’ Jurgens explained, refilling Smith’s cup. ‘However, I fear your ship may be in dock for some while. Rest assured that some of Europe’s finest technicians will do the work.’

  Smith fought down the image of the John Pym rebuilt in the style of a gingerbread house. The possibility of Suruk’s frogs chewing through the hull would be nothing compared to the prospect of Carveth eating the entire ship. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Now… I understand you have a colleague who needs transport, yes?’

  Smith’s chair was getting uncomfortable. ‘That’s right. I was told to mention the Phantom.’

  Jurgens leaned back. ‘I see. Yes, I thought your mission might be a little. . under the radar. Our mutual friend, Herr W, has made the arrangements. Transport will be provided.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very decent of you.’

  ‘Not at all. We are, after all, keen to help our neighbours. Alle Menschen werden Bruder, as Schiller puts it. Do you know Beethoven’s Ninth?’

  ‘Really? At what?’

  ‘Ah… never mind. Now, a ship that can evade normal detection is clearly a serious threat.

  However, I have a plan. Viennese Whirl?’ he inquired, holding up a plate.

  ‘No thanks. Go on.’

  ‘Docked here at Tannhauser Gate is a European Union military surveillance vessel, the EU-571, under the command of Raumskapitan Schmidt. Although it would be somewhat counter-procedural, I could sequester it.’

  ‘Righto,’ Smith replied, making a mental note to check what that meant in English.

  ‘Using our vessel, you would be able to make a head start tracking your quarry while the John Pym is being repaired. Then you would be able to transmit an exact location to your fleet.’

  ‘Excellent! Well then,’ said Smith, ‘I think this is a jolly good plan. How soon can your people get organised?’

  Jurgens looked slightly put out. ‘Captain Smith,’ he replied, ‘they already are.’

  ‘Splendid.’ Smith stood up and held out his hand. ‘It's been a pleasure, Commissioner Jurgens. I had no idea that Europe would turn out to be such a reasonable place.’

  Jurgens smiled and they shook hands. ‘I must admit, I too am pleasantly surprised. I must confess that the British in Europe do have a reputation for – how can I put it? – crass, drunken lawlessness. I am delighted to be proven otherwise.’

  The door burst open and Carveth ran in, clutching a bottle in one hand and a duty free bag in the other. ‘Oh my God!’ she cried, ‘You were right! This place is terrible! The police are after us!’

  Jurgens raised an eyebrow. ‘Or not,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Smith said. ‘I'm sure everything will be fine – won't it, eh?’ he added, glaring at Carveth.

  ‘No, it won't,’ she replied. ‘They're going to put Rhianna in jail!’

  *

  A twig crackled under W's boot. He glanced down, saw a snake of rope come hissing through the heather and leaped back before it could catch his ankle. The rope snapped closed and whipped away. The ground seemed to explode before him and suddenly he was looking at the upper body of Major Wainscott, wearing a beanie hat and holding the most unwholesome-looking weapon he had ever seen.

  ‘Halt!’ Wainscott said. ‘Can you recommend a florist?’

  ‘Not on bloody Dartmoor I can’t.’

  Wainscott gave him a reproachful look.

  W sighed. ‘There are many fine florists on the streets of Kiev.’

  ‘Morning,’ Wainscott replied. He lowered the weapon. It seemed to be a sort of bow made out of pieces of bone. ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ he observed.

  ‘Indeed. You'll be astonished to learn that I'm not on holiday. We have some business to discuss.’

  ‘Well then!’ Wainscott smiled. He was keeping good care of his teeth, W noticed. ‘You'd better come inside. Be quick about it – you're very distinctive like that.’ Gopher-like, he dropped out of sight as though some unseen assailant had just tugged his legs. W grimaced across the moor, and climbed down into the hole.

  He dropped into a dry chamber hacked out of the earth. The first thing he spotted was the neatness of the place: Wainscott might be a lunatic but he was at least tidy. The second thing he noticed were the badgers: three of them watched him suspiciously from the opening into a much smaller tunnel.

  ‘It's alright, he's a friend,’ Wainscott said, rooting about in the back of the room. ‘They're funny little fellows, badgers, but terribly loyal.’ He hauled up two deckchairs and began to fight them into shape.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘Thank you.’ W eased himself into a chair very carefully. He crossed his legs as if balancing a landmine on his knee.

  ‘So, what do you think of Chez Wainscott? Quite something, isn't it?’

  ‘It certainly is.’ It was like being trapped inside the skin of a giant baked potato, W decided. It smelt of sausages.

  Wainscott laid the crossbow down beside his chair. ‘I made this myself. Recycled parts, of course.

  I recycle pretty much everything.’ He reached down to a large flask beside his chair. ‘Scrumpy?’

  ‘I, er, had some earlier.’

  ‘Your loss, old fellow.’ Wainscott took a huge swig and settled back. He was wearing his combat shorts and the visible scars bore testament to a lifetime of living hard on the veldt. ‘So, who are we killing today? Got an armoured division you want knocked off?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Ah, a crack at the lemming man, is it? Teach the horrible buggers some manners, eh? I’ve wanted to give them a good pounding for a while, you know. Likewise Susan.’ He took another swig. ‘She can’t stand them either.’

  W looked around the room. The rest of the Deepspace Operations Group were nowhere to be seen. This was unusual, since Susan, as second in command and beam gun operator, tended to act for Wainscott as a cross between an interpreter and psychiatric nurse. Perhaps the others had built their own tunnels and were training their own badgers.

  ‘They went to Butlins,’ Wainscott said. ‘They wanted to go on the water slides. It only seemed fair after they blew up the Fortress of Iron.’

  ‘Of course. But I’ll need them on board.’

  Wainscott leaned forward, setting his deckchair creaking, and rubbed his hands together. ‘So then, what is this job? Lemmings, Ghasts, collaborators?’

  ‘It’s a peace conference.’

  ‘What?’

  Carefully, W outlined the situation. He tried to be tactful, to set out the importance of the meeting and its potential benefits, but Wainscott looked at first perplexed, then unconvinced, and finally slightly murderous. He scowled into his beard.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Wainscott said, ‘but there’s a war on. Do we really want foreigners and aliens involved?’

  ‘Head office thinks so. Apparently the Great Powers need better co-ordination to fight more effectively. And then we’ve got the treaty between the Empire and the Vorl to think about. It needs to be formalised as soon as possible.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t like it. I mean, aliens are one thing, but abroad? Is that really necessary? There are too many people on Earth who can’t tell the difference between gormless militarism and military effectiveness. They don’t realise that to beat Gertie you need to become less like him, not more like him.’

  ‘Well, quite. We won’t tolerate any beastliness –’

  ‘And another thing about abroad.’ Wainscott leaned forward, his voice sinking. ‘They make stuff up. You see that film last year about the Battle of Britain? Set in bloody Utah. You’re always banging on about objective truth – you know what I mean. But perhaps we should drag these fellows in, give ‘em a cup of tea and a biscuit and tell them not to give us any trouble, or else they’ll be getting a visit from the Morlock Rifles.’

  ‘That’s a bit much, Wainscott. Easy there.’

  ‘Alright, no biscu
it.’

  W tried not to grimace. ‘Look, Wainscott. Think of it as a holiday. A special sort of holiday where you don’t kill anyone or live off carrion. All we need to do is make sure things run smoothly. The visitors need to come to the conference, sign what’s required of them and leave in one piece. Easy. And if there is actually any trouble –’

  Wainscott drove his fist into his grimy palm. ‘Not a problem. I know how to root out a conspiracy. Remember in London when I interrupted those villains plotting to kidnap children and nuns?’

  ‘What you interrupted was a full-dress rehearsal of The Sound of Music. You knocked out Baron von Trapp with a brown paper parcel and left half the cast tied up with string.’

  ‘So? What was wrong with that?’

  ‘Well, how long have you got? Suffice it to say that for quite a while you were not one of the Service’s favourite things.’

  Wainscott settled back. ‘So, you’re asking me to trade in living in a hole with badgers for some sort of diplomatic shindig. There’d better be a bar.’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Alright. I’m in.’ The major stood up, kicked his chair deftly, and left it folded against the wall.

  ‘Lead on.’

  *

  ‘It's terrible,’ Carveth explained, hurrying along beside Smith. He strode quickly through the broad, tidy streets and she had to jog to keep up with him. ‘I went to the duty free because Suruk ate all my cosmetics last month.’ She held up a bag marked Rouge Trader. ‘And then I thought I'd get a pasty and half a dozen cans of Interstella Artois, so I left the others outside and went in. But they didn't have any pasties, so they gave me this liquorice drink instead – which might have been alcoholic now I try to think of it – and when I managed to get out they were gone. But Rhianna went into a caff and now she’s been arrested on drugs offences and my legs feel like they're going to fall off.’

  They weaved deeper into the space station: down narrow avenues, under spacesuits on a washing line, past a two-cylinder Citroen moon buggy. Carveth pointed to an art deco sign above a door. Smith strode straight in. Rhianna was sitting at a table near the door and over her stood a man in a blue uniform.

  ‘What the devil’s this?’ Smith demanded, advancing on the man. ‘Unhand that woman and get back to delivering the post.’

  ‘That is enough, monsieur,’ the man replied. ‘I am an officer of the gendarmerie. In your language, a bobby, yes? This woman attempted to purchase illegal drugs from the proprietor of this establishment.’

  ‘Oh,’ Smith replied. “Is this true, Rhianna?’

  She looked very upset. ‘I thought Holland was in France,’ she explained. ‘It’s in Europe, right?’

  In a second Smith realised the truth. As a citizen of New Francisco, Rhianna had assumed that all European countries had an identical attitude towards herbal medication. It was awkward, he thought, but not beyond repair. A bit of diplomacy would straighten things out. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘she’s made a mistake.

  I know she’s done something silly, but she is foreign, you know.’

  ‘Then may I remind you,’ the policeman said, ‘that you are foreign too.’

  ‘What? I most certainly am not.’

  Carveth sighed and sat down at a table.

  ‘Maybe we can just, you know, talk it over?’ Rhianna said.

  The door burst open and Suruk stormed in. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘I leave to buy postcards and flick-knives and everything goes wrong.’ He picked up a menu, glared at it as if it contained a personal insult, and added, ‘I warn you and your reprobate chefs… stay away from my frogs!’

  A second gendarme appeared in the doorway. Balls, Smith thought. He needed to work fast: not only was Jurgens’ ship due to leave soon, but he had a good idea what European justice entailed: something to do with a quick kick in the Bastille followed by an uncomfortable run-in with Madame Guillotine.

  It was time to use the Bearing, the ancient Shau Teng discipline. Smith summoned up his moral fibre and stared the nearer of the gendarmes in the eye. ‘Now look here, my good fellow…’ he began, taking a step forward. ‘This woman is under my protection. You will release her now, sir.’

  The gendarme grimaced. ‘You think you will use – the Bearing – on me?’ he gasped. With great effort he raised his shoulders and the palms of his hands. Then he laughed. ‘Nice try, English! But I shrug off your demands.’ He opened his hands. ‘Eh? Huh? Bof.’

  ‘Damn!’ The blasted fellow wielded his lack of civility like a shield. To Smith’s right, Suruk quietly lowered the menu. Smith reached to his hip. This was going to be unpleasant but there was no other option.

  Smith said, ‘Let’s finish this now.’ His right hand made one fast move into his coat, and suddenly it was no longer empty. ‘It’s time to leave.’

  The gendarme looked down at the wallet in Smith’s hand. ‘You corrupt English! You think we can be bought like that?’

  ‘Well,’ Smith said, ‘yes.’

  ‘How dare you? I am arresting you too, for attempting to bribe an officer of the law.’

  ‘But this is abroad, man. Surely you take bribes in France.’

  ‘Bah! What do you know of France? I bet you have never even heard of Charles de Gaulle.’

  ‘Of course I have. Little fellow with a big moustache, doesn’t like Caesar?’

  ‘That is Asterix the Gaul! That is it – in the name of Europe and the Four Hundred and Thirty-eighth Republic of France, you are all under arrest!’

  *

  ‘So,’ said Carveth, looking around the cell, ‘what happens now?’

  ‘Well,’ Smith replied, ‘if my knowledge of French history is right, they’ll probably cut off our heads.’

  ‘Not mine,’ Suruk growled. He crouched on the far end of the bench, coldly furious. ‘I read their menu. I know what they do to amphibians in the name of cuisine. Should they ransack our ship and interfere with my spawn, they will die.’

  ‘We’re not in much of a position to do anything about that,’ Carveth replied.

  ‘My spawn are. They will strip them to the bone.’

  Rhianna stood at the door, looking through the bars. ‘I can’t believe Amsterdam isn’t in France,’ she said. ‘How could I not know that?’

  Carveth sighed. ‘You were too stoned to figure it out?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Smith grimaced. He was finding it hard to think. It didn’t help that there was a radio playing in the empty room outside the cell. On it, a woman who sounded as if she was slowly drowning was singing about how she didn’t regret Ryan. Smith wondered who Ryan was and whether he was the one drowning her and, if so, whether he could get on with it.

  ‘Right, men,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘I have a plan. We have been left with no other choice than to escape. I’ll ambush the guard and if he refuses to release us, we’ll add Tannhauser Gate to the British Empire.’

  ‘How?’ Carveth demanded.

  ‘We will work out the details as we go. Step One, however, is to overpower the guard.’ Smith moved over to the bars. ‘I say, guard! What about la liberte and all that?’

  The room outside remained empty. The radio gargled on.

  Smith tried to think of some French words that didn’t involve the pen of his aunt. ‘I’m British, damn it! Let me out!’

  A figure stepped into the corridor outside, and Smith paused. The fellow wore tight black clothes, almost like a wetsuit, a striped shirt and a small white mask. As Smith looked on, astonished, the newcomer turned to check the corridor behind him and crept towards their cell with high, exaggerated steps.

  ‘There’s someone there,’ Smith whispered to his crew. ‘Strange chap.. ’

  The man in black stopped just outside the door. He raised a finger to his lips, squatted down and began to pick the lock. Suruk got up, flexing his fingers.

  The lock clicked and the cell door swung open. The man in black stood up and gave them a deep, elaborate bow.

  ‘Hello,�
�� said Smith. ‘Thanks.’

  The man leaned back and scrutinised him, stroking his chin as he did. Then he seemed to relax.

  ‘Monsieur, Mesdemoiselles, monstre hideux et bizarre, I bid you good evening. I am Le Fantome.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Smith. ‘What are you, some kind of spy?’

  ‘ Mais non! ’ Le Fantome laughed behind his mask. ‘I have come here to rescue you. We have a shared enemy. It is vital you board the ship at once. Come,’ he added. ‘It is time to escape this –’ he gestured around himself with his gloved hands as if patting invisible walls, ‘prison.’

  ‘Amazing,’ Rhianna said. ‘A real tribal dance.’ Her interest in other cultures did not seem to be diminished by the fact that one of them had locked her up.

  ‘We must be quick,’ Le Fantome replied. ‘I used ancient French arts to reach you in silence. Now we must depart.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Smith, ‘You’re a mime!’

  Le Fantome nodded several times. ‘But not just any mime. I am a mastermime.’

  ‘Go to space, meet a loony,’ Carveth said. ‘There’s a surprise. On the other hand, the door is open.’

  Le Fantome led them into the corridor. They crept past the gurgling stereo and down the hallway. Smith glanced to the left and saw a spectacled detective in an office, busy filling his pipe.

  ‘You are lucky it was I who found you,’ Le Fantome whispered. ‘There are plenty here who remember the part your secret service played in deposing the Prince of France.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Exiled to a tiny planet, with nothing but a flower for company. . come. As we say in France, we must be rapide.’

  They passed through a narrow door, back into the dark of the space station. It was the station night-cycle now, and light spilled from bars and bierkellers onto the artificial boulevard. Far off, two alley cats, an accordion and an oompah band competed for ownership of the night.

  The simulated evening was warm and dry and the smoke from Galloises and Bratwurst stalls was whisked away before it could upset the sprinkler system. They walked through the residential quarter, trying to look as normal as they could. ‘Do not worry,’ Le Fantome said. ‘Once people see you have a mime with you, they will know everything is under control. It is, to use a French word, inevitable.’