‘Is there such a thing as an unsinkable ship, Mr Macrow?’
The designer grinned. ‘No. But it’s good for morale to believe it, wouldn’t you say? And, as regards what the Russians have, or can have in the foreseeable future, given their financial commitments, your ships would be virtually unsinkable, by anything save our Majestics.’
‘And torpedoes, Mr Macrow.’
‘I have considered that, Admiral Barrett. In the first place, I must tell you that I regard the torpedo as a vastly overrated weapon, and one which is going to become increasingly irrelevant. I understand you hit Ting Yuen fair and square. But her crew had time to get steam up and get moving. She didn’t sink.’
‘Because she was beached, Mr Macrow. In the open sea, it would have been a different story.’
‘In the open sea, with the battleship under way, would you have got close enough to hit her at all, without yourself being blown out of the water? This is my point, that as naval guns get more powerful and more accurate, as they are doing every day, torpedoes are going to lose in effectiveness. To be used with any hope of success they have to be fired at a range of two thousand yards, or less, and how is any ship going to get that close to its target? If there were some way of approaching unseen, of course, that would be different. Some say submarines may be the answer to this but frankly, I take that with a pinch of salt. As things stand at the moment, anyway, except in the case of, if you will pardon me, Admiral, sneak attacks such as yours on Wei-hai-wei, which can surely be prevented by any competent navy, by means of nets and booms, etc., they cannot be considered a viable weapon in a naval battle. In any event, I have made allowance for what our American cousins would call a maverick. These ships are designed to have double hulls. But this second skin is not just to be air. It will carry your fuel bunker. Any torpedo getting underneath your belt armour and penetrating your outer hull will then encounter several feet of packed coal. The damage would be minimal.’
Nicholas studied the design for several minutes. ‘What sort of delivery are we talking about?’
‘If you were to place a firm order now . . . you could have the first ship operational in four years time.’
‘The end of the century,’ Nicholas commented.
‘Or the beginning of the century, Admiral Barrett. It is merely a point of view.’
*
Nicholas used the coding department at the Japanese Embassy to send the details of Macrow’s proposals to Mutsuhito and Ito, and pending their approval, entertained Elizabeth.
Socially he remained in a dubious position. No one questioned the fact that Elizabeth was his wife, but he remained persona non grata with the British establishment, because of his record as a deserter from the Royal Navy. Katsura was informed by the ambassador that Admiral Barrett could not be accepted at any of the balls and receptions thrown for the prince. Katsura was prepared to take offence at this, but Nicholas talked him out of it. ‘I have got what the Emperor wants from me,’ he said. ‘Now you must get what he wants from you, honourable Prince. My wife and I will keep a low profile.’
In fact this was all he wanted to do, as he took Elizabeth to the theatre and the opera, and then into the country to visit his old Surrey home, and to see his mother’s grave, then down to Portsmouth. He did not attempt to enter the college, but he could at least show her where he had spent his boyhood.
‘Are you homesick?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think sailors can afford to be homesick,’ he said. ‘Home is where one happens to be. If one can have one’s mate there with one, then it is doubly home. But you are homesick.’
‘I think Russians get homesick more than other people. And just to know how my family are . . . do you think I ever shall?’
He had no reply to that, if Mutsuhito’s plans were going to come to reality.
*
When they returned to London, however, he received an invitation to dine with Vice-Admiral Sir John Fisher, the Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy.
‘It does not mention you,’ Nicolas told Elizabeth. ‘Apparently he wishes to entertain me at his club. Shall I decline?’
‘You came here to see these people, Nicky,’ she reminded him.
Nicholas had known Fisher as a midshipman, briefly; he was two years the elder. Now he was surprised at the bluffly handsome, confident and yet oddly affected man who greeted him.
‘Nicky Barrett, by God. You’ve lived an adventurous life.’
‘So have you, Jackie, from what I’ve read.’
‘Nothing so dramatic. Bombarding Alexandria has been my most exciting moment.’ Whiskies were brought. ‘At least we are both supporters of gunboat diplomacy, even if yours is on a far grander scale than ours.’
‘Ours was a war, Jackie.’
‘Oh, quite. We don’t go to war nowadays. There’s nobody left for us to fight, at sea.’ He glanced at the menu. ‘May I recommend the quails’ eggs? They’re very good here. And then some roast beef. I imagine you don’t see much of that in Japan.’
‘That sounds delicious. No, our eating habits are a little different.’
Fisher gave the order, and leaned back in his chair to study Nicholas from beneath half-closed eyes. ‘Like it there, do you? Well, you must do, as you’ve lived there now for . . . how long is it?’
‘Thirty-five years, Jackie. But it hasn’t been entirely by choice.’
‘Oh, quite. Damned bad show, that. I mean, on our part,’ he added hastily. ‘Different times, different people. Water under the bridge.’ They ate their first course. ‘Still,’ Fisher remarked. ‘You haven’t done too badly.’
Nicholas grinned, and drank some of the excellent Montrachet. ‘I’m a stripe behind you. And I’m at the top. My top.’
‘Being a foreigner, eh? I tell you frankly, Nicky, I hope to get on a bit. I have such ideas. But this is the most conservative service in the most conservative nation in the world. Of course you know that. Power, that’s what a man needs, to get things done. And to have power, in our democracy, you need to keep your nose very clean until you’re there. Follow me?’
‘I do indeed. But I wouldn’t say you’re keeping your nose very clean by entertaining me. People have long memories.’
‘Bastards,’ Fisher remarked, and attacked his meat. ‘What do you think of the Latour?’
‘Excellent. Again, we don’t have wines like this in Japan.’
‘But you probably will have, if you go on westernising at this rate. Rumour has it you’re been ordering battleships.’
‘Amongst other things,’ Nicholas said equably.
‘I have some ideas on that as well . . .’ Fisher changed his mind about what he would have said. ‘Four modern fifteen thousand tonners would make Japan the most powerful navy in the Far East.’
‘We feel we need to be,’ Nicholas said, concentrating. The point of the evening was coming closer.
‘It’ll upset people.’
‘Your people?’
Fisher grinned. ‘By the time you have your four, we shall have thirty. No, it won’t upset my people. I was thinking about the Russians and the Americans. I don’t suppose the Chinese matter any more.’
‘No,’ Nicholas agreed. ‘They don’t. And the Americans are very far away.’
‘Not all that far.’ Fisher scratched his chin. ‘Not if they develop Pearl Harbour.’
‘Will the Hawaiians agree to that?’
‘I don’t think they’re going to have too much choice, in the near future. The Yanks already have by treaty the sole rights to develop the harbour – admittedly as a commercial port, not a naval base – but there is also a move in Washington to end all the various reciprocity treaties. In effect that means that for the past twenty years the Americans have been running the country anyway, and will move for direct annexation. Manifest destiny run wild, eh? They’re a troublesome lot. Delusions of grandeur.’
‘You’re talking about British Guiana and Venezuela?’
‘Amongst other things. We
’re certainly not going to let the State Department tell us where the boundaries of our colonies begin and end. You want to keep them in mind; if they do annex the Hawaiian Islands, no one is going to be in a position to tell them not to turn Pearl Harbour into a naval base. That’ll bring them two thousand miles nearer to Tokyo.’
‘We shall keep that in mind,’ Nicholas said. ‘But what have they got? Two so-called capital ships, Texas and Maine, which are really nothing more than heavy cruisers. They’re both under seven thousand tons.’
‘They’ve got three eleven thousand tonners on the way. One of them, Indiana, is actually in commission. Thirteen-inch guns. Big stuff.’
Nicholas had also done his homework. ‘And only fourteen knots. They’re hoping for better things from the one they have building, Iowa. But she’s only going to be twelve and a half thousand, and sixteen knots, and it’s interesting that she’s coming back down to twelve-inch like everybody else. As you say, Jackie, we will have the four best ships in the Pacific. Anyway, we don’t see the Yanks as a threat. Our relations with them are very good.’
‘But Russia is on your doorstep, eh? I agree, they’re an even greater menace, and such a filthy regime. You know your prince is up against some brick walls.’
Nicholas nodded. Katsura had not told him in so many words, but he could tell the embassy was not going well.
‘It’s a combination of two things, really,’ Fisher observed. ‘Splendid isolation, which means a reluctance to become involved in other people’s problems, and, well, little yellow men. Doesn’t go with the John Bull image, does it? I hope you don’t mind my speaking frankly, Nicky?’
‘I appreciate it. But I wish you’d be even more frank, and tell me what you have in mind.’
Fisher toyed with his flan. ‘I’d like you to be patient. There are a lot of things happening right now which may make a radical reappraisal of the situation, all of our situations, very necessary. France and Russia are allies. I suppose you know that?’
Nicholas nodded.
‘And they both hate our guts. We’re not afraid of either of them,’ Fisher said. ‘Or of the two of them together. But now there’s a whisper coming out of Germany that the Kaiser is thinking big. He wants a navy, and he wants a colonial empire. He is of course a pumped-up little twit. But he has a lot of clout. You know about this Jameson business?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Well, a lot of Brits work in the goldfields outside Johannesburg, you see. And they’re denied all political, and some social, rights by the Boers.’
‘Why should they have any rights? They’re only there for the money, and it is the Boers’ country.’
‘We still have a lot of believers in the Palmerstonian theory, that wherever a British citizen sets up home, that is immediately part of the Empire. I’m not offering an opinion on this, because thank God it’s not a Navy matter. Anyway, these Uitlanders, as they like to call themselves, have been agitating for what they consider their rights, and of course they’ve been backed all along the line by Cecil Rhodes and his Cape-to-Cairo-coloured-red dream. The upshot was that last year they persuaded Rhodes, who just happened to be prime minister of the Cape Colony, that with a little bit of help they could take over the entire Transvaal. Rhodes went for it, and last December sent in six hundred men under his friend Starr Jameson.’
‘Good God!’ Nicholas commented. Not even Mutsuhito had tried anything like that.
‘Well, of course it didn’t work,’ Fisher went on. ‘There was no rising in support, and the Boers merely surrounded Jameson’s people and told them to surrender or be shot to pieces. It’s caused the most frightful stink. Jameson has been returned here for trial, and Rhodes is done, politically. Yet the country is fairly stirred up, and what the outcome will be I wouldn’t like to say. I repeat, thank God it can’t be a Navy matter; the Transvaal doesn’t have a seacoast. But the point is, the Kaiser has sent Kruger – he’s the Transvaal president – a cable of congratulations at giving the old lion a black eye. He’s caused deep offence, dear boy. Deep offence. Britain and Germany are supposed to be friends and even potential allies against Russia and France.’
Nicholas stroked his chin. ‘You are saying that the old splendid isolation is becoming a case of the most unpopular boy in the class.’
‘No doubt about that.’
‘So?’
‘Whatever I say is my own personal opinion, Nicky, and if you repeat it I shall deny ever having said it. Got me?’
Nicholas nodded.
‘The fact is,’ Fisher went on. ‘That this empire of ours is one hell of a burden. It’s too big, and I can tell you that most of it is totally unremunerative. That’s the politicians’ business. From the seaman’s point of view, we simply do not have the ships, or the men, or, I’m afraid, when you come down to it, the money, to protect every British possession at the same time. They all hate each other so it’ll be a matter of whether at any given moment they happen to hate us more, but if Germany and France and Russia were all to get together and say it may be the time to trim the lion’s size a bit, and if, perhaps, they were supported by the United States, because our relations with them are rock bottom right this minute, we would have a bit of a problem. We might have Yankee ships out of Pearl Harbour, Russian ships out of Port Arthur, French ships out of Saigon, all causing trouble while we would have to maintain our main strength in the North Sea to take on the combined French and Russian fleets. While if Germany were to go ahead and build a high seas fleet of her own . . . did you know they’re cutting a canal through the Kiel Peninsular? Its design is specific: it must be wide enough and deep enough to take a twelve thousand ton ship. That means the Germans could transfer a battleship from the Baltic to the North Sea in a fraction of the time it would take them to steam round by the Skagerrack. And what’s more, there is nothing anyone could do to stop them. This is a doomsday scenario, Nicky. But it’s a possibility.’
‘So you feel Katsura’s brick wall may not be as solid as he fears?’ Nicholas said thoughtfully.
‘He won’t get anything this time. I mean, while your biggest ship is a roughed-up ex-Chinese battleship, which is itself only a heavy cruiser, what have we got to gain? But when, in a few years time, you have the most powerful fleet in the Pacific, and supposing circumstances do not change, so that we are still the bad boys of Europe and you are still the bad boys of Asia, I think there will be created a body of opinion in this country, certainly in military circles, which will say to itself, well, you know, if those four Japanese battleships were on our side in the case of trouble, we could leave the Pacific including the defence of Australia and New Zealand, to them, while we get on with what we have to do in the rest of the world.’
‘That is quite a dazzling picture,’ Nicholas said.
‘It’s what you would like, isn’t it?’
‘All we want, Jackie, is to get the French off our backs in the event of trouble with Russia.’
Fisher grinned. ‘And all we want, dear boy, is to get the Russians off our back in the event of trouble with France. Think about it.’
It was certainly something to consider, Nicholas knew; Fisher’s suggestion had put an entirely different concept on the situation. He was deep in thought when, an hour and several brandies later, he left the club. Fisher had remained behind, not wishing to be seen on the street with the ‘renegade’, which Nicholas could well appreciate. He turned left on Regent Street, certain he could pick up a cab for his hotel in Piccadilly Circus, but had taken no more than a couple of strides before being suddenly checked by a push on the chest from someone he had not even noticed, so deep in thought had he been.
‘Barrett, by God!’ declared Count Rashnikov.
*
Nicholas was so surprised he could not for the moment speak. He was also more than a little tight. But he did realise there were two other Russian officers with Rashnikov. His best bet was not to lose his temper, even if he had been virtually assaulted.
‘Well, well, Count,’ he said. ‘What brings you to London? I thought the Russians weren’t very popular here?’
‘Cur!’ Rashnikov said, and drew his glove across Nicholas’s face.
Keeping his temper in these circumstances was impossible, especially with the brandy bubbling on top of the whisky in his arteries.
‘Your address?’
‘Your second will find me at the Russian Embassy,’ Rashnikov said, and strode off, accompanied by his friends.
*
Elizabeth was awake when he came in. ‘You look a lit the worse for wear.’
Nicholas washed his face, sat beside her, and told her of his encounter.
‘Oh, my God!’ she clasped both hands to her neck. ‘And you accepted?’
‘What else was I supposed to do?’
‘But . . . Rashnikov is the best pistol shot in Russia. Or he was.’
‘I thought you said he was too much of a coward ever to challenge me?’
‘Well, I am sure he is. Was. But he has challenged you. He must have changed. Or he was drunk.’
‘Either way, that suits me entirely.’
‘But the risk . . .’
‘What makes you think I intend to fight with pistols? I have choice of weapons.’
Her mouth made a huge O, and she got up and walked about the room. ‘You will be arrested. Both of you. Duelling is against the law, in England.’
‘I’m sure we can find somewhere we will be unobserved.’
‘Oh, Nicky!’ She was in his arms. ‘You are fifty-seven years old. Paul is eleven years younger. Even with swords he may be able to . . .’
He kissed her. ‘There is confidence for you!’
*
He went to see Katsura the next morning. The Prince was indeed packing up, regarding his mission as a failure. ‘These stiff-necks can see no advantage in an alliance with Japan,’ he grumbled.
Bloody Sunrise Page 33