The Boy and the Battleship

by Christopher Cummings

  There was silence for a while as the others thought it over. Roger spoke first: “I like it! We could even make a model of the Barron Falls and the railway station at Kuranda.”

  “And the sugar mill would make a good model,” Peter agreed. “We could add a second railway; with narrow gauge sugar trains running all over the place.”

  “A sugar mill would be a really good model,” Stephen said enthusiastically. “We could use N-gauge track for the sugar trains.”

  So it was agreed to try to make a North Queensland layout. Peter said, “Everyone go home and draw up plans and sketches of what they reckon the layout should be. Try to make it so that it can be done in sections so we can play on it as soon as possible while we work on other sections.”

  Graham walked home full of ideas and sat for hours that night sketching what he thought the layout should be like. One consequence was that he did not do his homework. Another was that he did almost nothing on his gunboat. The only real movement in ship construction was to decide, on the basis of looking up a book that had photos of the British gunboats Aphis, Gnat and Ladybird bombarding Italian-held Bardia in Libya in 1941, that this new gunboat should have a larger gun: 6”, the same calibre that the real ones had carried. But he didn’t like the names. So while he made the larger gun he puzzled over what to call the new ship.

  Terror he liked, but she had been a 15” Monitor, and he had no picture of her to give him any idea of her design. He thought Ladybird too sissy for a warship; and the other two insects too tame. So he opted for Tarantula.

  Feeling content with his progress he took himself off to bed, to dream of wooing Thelma.

  Chapter 10

  TENSION ALL WEEK

  On Wednesday morning over breakfast Graham broached with his mother the idea of a birthday party. She had no objection and turned to the calendar to select a suitable date. Graham’s birthday was on August the 4th, a Thursday, so the logical choices were the Friday evening, or Saturday.

  “Not Friday mum. That is Scouts. I would rather have it on the Saturday night.”

  “Aren’t you going to enrol in the Navy Cadets on the Saturday?” his mother asked.

  “Yes mum,” Graham replied.

  “Will that be too much in one day?”

  “No mum. It will be fine,” Graham insisted.

  So it was agreed. Graham set off for school with his head so full of exciting and interesting things that there was little room for schoolwork. On the top of his mind was planning for the party. It will be the best birthday party I have ever had, he decided. A key element in making it so was his plan to invite Thelma. But I will also need to invite some of her friends, he thought. Hmmm. Which ones? That was a problem and he only wrote down Janet before deciding to leave the final choice until later. During the day he continued making a list of people to invite, interrupting this to jot down ideas for party games.

  Graham also spent some of the day sketching plans for the model railway layout. At lunchtime he showed these to the others and this led to a lot of discussion. While they were talking Max joined them and the plans were passed to him for his opinion. He studied them and said, “I like this idea of the railway up the mountain but won’t it limit the types of engines and rolling stock you can use? I mean, unless the curves are very gentle, it will all have to be short wheel base stuff; tank engines and four-wheeled wagons. You won’t be able to have any big engines.”

  “We could,” Roger said. “It wouldn’t matter.”

  “Yes it would,” Stephen disagreed. “It wouldn’t be authentic.”

  Peter clicked his fingers: “I know. We can have it so that the port on the coastal plain is on the main railway from Cairns to Brisbane. That way we could have big freight trains and even an express pass through.”

  Stephen laughed. “Fair go Pete! This is the Queensland Railways we are talking about here. Express!”

  Graham spoke up, remembering a model train he had seen at the show two years before: “We could make a model of the Sunlander by repainting some coaches.”

  “I thought we agreed no diesels?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, well, anyway, we could have a big passenger train,” Graham said.

  Peter agreed. “And the main line could pass out of sight under the mountains; then loop around to bring the same train back from the direction it vanished in.”

  “Good idea Pete!” Graham said. “We could have storage tracks and passing loops hidden under the mountains for all the main line rolling stock when it wasn’t needed.”

  Roger frowned. “That will mean access from the back or underneath,” he said.

  So the plans for the model railway progressed. Max listened for a while, then turned to Graham and asked, “Are you still coming over to my place on Saturday arvo with your ships?”

  “Sure,” Graham replied. “I have nearly finished another gunboat.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Tarantula,” Graham replied.

  “Is she the same as the other one?”

  “Pretty much,” Graham replied. But he was careful not to mention that the new gunboat had a 6” gun. That is a secret, he told himself, by way of rationalizing his deceit.

  That conversation made Graham realize how little he had made of the second gunboat, so that afternoon after school he hurried home and settled down to construction. He used almost the same techniques and design as the previous model but added a few more boxes and lockers to the deck and superstructure. Because he was basically repeating the same plan he was able to make things a lot faster and slightly better, with the result that the model was almost completed by the time he went to bed.

  Somehow Thelma had been pushed out of his mind for most of the day. It was only when he was at last in bed that he turned his thoughts to her. He began to conjure up a romantic fantasy involving her, but drifted off to sleep long before it had progressed very far.

  Thursday brought new challenges and problems. Graham resolved to strike up a conversation with Thelma. Then I will ask her for a date, he told himself. But there was no chance to do that before school and none in class. At the start of the morning break Thelma and Janet hurried away so quickly that Graham was left behind. Then he had to disengage from a conversation with Stephen. Only by saying he needed to go to the toilet was he able to do this.

  Once outside Graham did go to the toilet and then he hurried around looking for Thelma. This time he did find her but when he did he got a nasty shock. She was in a huddle with Janet, Edmonson and Jerry Denham. For a few moments Graham surreptitiously studied the group. She looks very matey with Denham, he thought. That was a depressing notion. How can I compete with a Year 12? he worried.

  Feeling quite dejected Graham wandered off. Not wanting to be with his friends while he was in such a mood he walked down to the school oval.

  That afternoon after the last class Graham hurried downstairs and took up a position where he could observe Thelma leaving without being seen himself. To his disappointment she did not appear. She must have gone already, he decided as he strolled dejectedly back through the school.

  As he did he encountered students in army camouflage uniforms. They were army cadets, the school having a cadet unit run by his History teacher, Mr Conkey. For a few minutes Graham stood and watched the army cadets but it was only a casual interest as in his own mind he was already superior to them. I am going to be navy cadet, he told himself. Feeling better he made his way home and set to work to complete his second gunboat model.

  Thursday came and went with no chance for Graham to talk to Thelma on her own. Instead he stayed with his friends to avoid Edmonson and the other bullies. The talk was all about the model railway plans and the broad outline was agreed on. Detailed planing was then begun.

  Friday was a busy day. During the lunch time Graham followed Thelma into the library with the intention of striking up a casual conversation. But as he watched her talking to Janet and another girl his courage evaporated. He turned to the bookshelve
s so that she would not suspect he was watching her. In doing so his eye caught sight of a large book on warships. It was one he had never seen before. He pulled it out and began to leaf through the pages. The book was full of excellent photos and large drawings of ships. He became engrossed to the extent that, when he remembered Thelma 15 minutes later and looked up, she was nowhere to be seen.

  After school Graham hurried home to enjoy the usual treats of comics and chocolate. In the evening was Scouts.

  Graham really enjoyed Scouts that evening. He was one of those selected to be leaders and he was promoted to be the assistant Patrol Leader of the Crocodile Patrol. To add to the pleasure of the event Peter was made second of the Platypus patrol and Stephen of the Kookaburras. The only sour note was seeing Max looking resentful and unhappy at not being promoted. The promotion really lifted Graham’s spirits and made him feel better about himself.

  In between coming home and Scouts Graham found no time for model building, so it was not until he had completed his Saturday morning chores at home that he had time to settle to finish his gunboat. The Tarantula received her finishing touches by 11am. Graham then sat for a while admiring the model and pushing it around the table.

  After that he began to prepare to go to Max’s. Downstairs he found a cardboard carton and in this he carefully packed both model gunboats, plus the plastic destroyer, the Gloire and the packets of HO scale soldiers. That task completed Graham found he still had time on his hands. He took the three ships out and lined them up on his desk.

  A destroyer, that’s what I need, he thought, looking at the plastic model. I wonder…? Curiosity took him down to the off-cuts box. Yes. There was a piece of wood almost exactly the same size as the plastic model, only a little wider. It was 30cm long, 6cm wide and 2cm thick. A shorter piece of the same thickness 15cm long gave him the idea of using that to build up the raised focsle of the typical World War 2 destroyer. A few small blocks for superstructure were also dug out.

  The next problem was how to shape the hull when it was in two pieces. Graham decided to fasten them together. He found some wood glue and liberally applied it, then placed the two pieces together and proceeded to nail them as well. That done he marked out the rough shape of the bows with a pencil and went upstairs for lunch.

  After lunch he repacked the completed models in the carton and set off for Max’s, confident that his new gunboat would tip the balance in his favour.

  Chapter 11

  MAX’S HOUSE

  Max lived three blocks along in the same street. His house was also old, but of a different design. To start with, it was low block. Secondly, it had an open front veranda and a porch at the rear. A short flight of four steps led up between ornate concrete arms to the carved wooden railings of the veranda. Through the front door was a large lounge dining room. On the left were two bedrooms: a large one, Mr and Mrs Pullford’s bedroom; and a smaller one, currently in use as Mr Pullford’s office. On the right were two more bedrooms, Cindy’s and Max’s.

  From the rear of the dining room two doors opened into the back of the house. The one on the left led into the kitchen and pantry. The door on the right led down a short corridor past Cindy’s bedroom to a bathroom. From the corridor a door opened to the back lawn. Here there was an L-shaped concrete porch or patio with a veranda roof over it. Beyond was the back lawn, with a fenced off swimming pool on the right and a timber and corrugated iron garage on the left. The driveway to the garage led in along that side of the house.

  Outside the door to the corridor which led past the bathroom was an extension added to the house later; a toilet (installed when the house had been converted to sewerage), and a laundry. These made up the arm of the ‘L’. The back patio was the favourite play area for the boys and it was to here that Graham was conducted when he arrived.

  “What will we play?” Graham asked.

  Max pointed across the back lawn. “Why don’t you try to get your fleet to try to sail from the coconut palm near the garage to land your army on the concrete here? The grass is the ocean and the concrete is the land.”

  “OK, but I am not the Germans. I am the British,” Graham replied. “No you aren’t. I am,” Max insisted. This began a furious argument which led to both boys getting heated and obstinate. In the middle of it Mr Pullford came out of the toilet and said in passing: “Why don’t you both compromise? Make up two fictional countries and call them some other name; like the Lilliputians or Slobovians or something?”

  The boys considered this reluctantly but it made sense. Max spoke first: “All right. My ships belong to Hibernia. Get it? Hi- bern- ians.”

  Graham laughed. That was the name on the front of the house and he knew it was the ancient Roman name for somewhere like Ireland. He cast around for a suitable name for his own fictional nation. One name that sprang to mind was Trojans, as he had not long before seen a movie about Helen of Troy and had been very impressed by the Trojan’s blue and gold armour.

  “Mine are the Trojans,” he said.

  Max laughed. “More like Troglodytes!” he replied.

  Graham wasn’t quite sure what a troglodyte was except that they were some sort of subterranean people. Rather than admit ignorance he compromised. “That’s right, they are. When the Trojans were defeated some of the survivors fled into underground tunnels and evolved into half Trojan, half Troglodytes. They are Trogolites; Trogs for short.”

  Max laughed again: “Trogs! Bullfrogs you mean!”

  The teasing made Graham obstinately stick to his decision. Ignoring Max’s jibes about toads he carried his ships over to the back of the garage after handing over half the soldiers and the plastic destroyer to Max.

  “How far can we move each turn?” he asked.

  “1 ruler for every 5 knots,” Max replied.

  That led to another delay. The relative speeds of the ships were then debated. Graham wanted to know why Max wanted the speeds to be just ruler lengths. “Real ships can go at 31 knots and 33 knots and so on.”

  “I know they can but we need to keep it simple,” Max insisted. “So we will agree on jumps of 5 knots in speed. How fast could those gunboats go?”

  Graham did not know so he guessed. “About 15 knots.”

  “So that is 3 rulers. The destroyer can do 35 knots, which is 7 rulers,” Max said.

  That sounded a lot so Graham tried to argue this down to 30 knots but Max carried his point. The speed of the old Gloire was set at a miserable 5 knots. Then Graham raised another point.

  “How far can the guns fire?”

  “Something simple,” Max replied. “After all, if we calculated their range according to scale they would be lobbing shells into the next block. Let’s go for 1 metre per inch of calibre.”

  Graham considered this for a moment. The absurdity of mixing old Imperial inches with metric measure did not bother him as all the models had gun calibres measured in inches in the reference books. Because the Americans still used feet and inches both boys were familiar with the measurement.

  Thinking to gain an advantage and expecting resistance to the idea, Graham said, “OK, but the main gun on the Tarantula is a 6”.”

  “Fine,” Max replied, somewhat to Graham’s surprise.

  The basic rules agreed on, the game began. Graham loaded his soldiers onto the Gloire and set sail from behind the shed. He sent the two gunboats out ahead and as soon as he could he opened fire with his 6” gun on Max’s army, which was spread right along the beach in ones and twos. To his surprise, the destroyer stayed back out of range. Max steamed it to the far corner of the laundry.

  To push his ships forward across the grass Graham knelt down. Max did likewise. Then he stood and went out of sight behind the laundry. Curious to know why, Graham looked up—and was horrified.

  Into view was slid a large model warship made of wood. It was, Max explained, a cruiser. Graham looked at it in dismay. Max had obviously made it in secret. The hull was about half a metre long, of unpainted wood, with the bows cut
to a V by a saw. The superstructure was made of wood blocks glued on and it had two cardboard funnels and two masts. But what mattered most of all was that she had three gun turrets for the main armament. These were small blocks of balsa wood about 3cm x 4cm with a nail driven down through them so that they revolved. The gun barrels were nails pushed into the face of the turrets, but Graham could not argue that they did not look like guns. They did!

  “6” guns,” Max added. “Nine of them.”

  Graham counted. There were three in each turret. Three turrets: two forward and one aft. He was so dismayed he just felt like giving up there and then. “That’s not fair!” he cried.

  Max grinned. “Yes it is! All’s fair in love and war.”

  “I can’t fight that,” Graham said.

  “You can try,” Max said.

  Graham gritted his teeth and did try. He sailed both gunboats towards the cruiser, but it could do 30 knots (a figure he did not dispute), and Max was able to pull back out of range of Graham’s 4” gunboat while he pounded the new Tarantula to metaphorical pieces. Then he closed in and sank the 4” gunboat from just outside its gun range. The troop transport was only saved by fleeing ignominiously back behind the garage.

  Max looked very happy. “What about another game?” he asked.

  “No. I haven’t got a chance against your cruiser,” Graham replied. He was so upset he was on the edge of tears.

  “All right. I’ll tell you what. You can have your destroyer back and I will just have the cruiser,” Max suggested.

  After some persuasion Graham accepted this. The cruiser was slid back out of sight and Graham sat and considered his tactics. This time he moved the gunboats and the destroyer to meet the cruiser while the troop transport headed for the beach. Max’s cruiser came out to fight and the dice flew hot and fast.

  This time it was a lot more even. The destroyer was able to get close enough to launch a torpedo (after another heated discussion about torpedo ranges). The Tarantula also got in some 6” hits before being overwhelmed. Even the 4” of the Terrible managed to score two hits before she was sunk. Graham then noted that the sides of Max’s cruiser were lined with secondary armament: little blocks of wood with small nails in them. “4” guns,” Max explained.