The Boy and the Battleship

by Christopher Cummings

  “That’s not fair,” Max said.

  Stephen cut in with: “All’s fair in love and war!”

  Max bristled. Graham said, “She is bigger than your battleship. That is why I reckoned she could have bigger guns and thicker armour.”

  Max went and got his model and placed it beside Graham’s. There was no doubt; Graham’s was bigger. He said, “I told you mine was longer.”

  Stephen laughed and made a play on the double meaning: “Don’t skite Graham! How do you know yours is longer than Max’s? What have you two been up to?”

  Images of being naked in the pool with Max flooded Graham’s mind and he blushed crimson. He swore silently. Sometimes Stephen could be very crude and irritating.

  Peter tried to arbitrate: “I can see why they used to have all those treaties once to limit the number and size of real battleships,” he said.

  “Are you going to play?” Graham asked anxiously. He did not want to hurt or offend Max.

  Max shrugged. “Yeah, OK,” he agreed. “But only if you don’t have any submarines.”

  “Yes, all right,” Graham agreed. So the game began. Graham won the first battle, largely because of his battleship’s bigger guns. Max was not happy. The boys agreed to a second game, with Max to hide his ships before the start, to allow his destroyer a chance to get closer.

  At the start of the second game Graham launched his Seafire from the battleship and flew it around the yard searching. As soon as Max saw it he got angry. “No planes! That isn’t fair! How can I hide if you have a plane?” he cried.

  “But the real ships carried planes,” Graham answered. He had discovered Max’s destroyer hidden in a garden bed.

  Max wouldn’t have it. “Our game is before planes and radar.” Graham got annoyed. “No it isn’t! We didn’t agree on when this battle is.”

  Peter stepped forward. “Maybe you should agree,” he suggested.

  Max shook his head. “I’m not playing anymore!” he cried.

  “Don’t then!” Graham snapped back.

  “Calm down you two,” Peter said. “You can settle this without having anyone spit their dummy.”

  “I’m not spitting my dummy!” flared Max.

  Peter spread his hands. “I didn’t say you were,” he answered soothingly. “Look. Stop the game until you can agree on the details. Where are your rules?”

  Graham indicated a crumpled sheet of paper with a few dice scores marked on them.

  Peter read it and nodded. “We can improve on this. If we use percentage dice instead of ordinary six-sided dice we can have a greater range of results.”

  “Percentage dice?” Graham asked.

  Peter explained: “Two ten-sided dice, one for tens and one for ones. I’ve got some at home. Do you want me to bring them over next time?”

  “If there is a next time,” Max sniffed.

  Peter nodded and said, “Fair go Max. I’d like to play this game too, if you’ll let me.”

  That was a new idea to both of them. They looked at Stephen but he shook his head. “Not me. I’m too busy now. I will help play if you want but I don’t have time to make even more models. I’m tied up with a model aircraft competition with ‘Willy Willy’ Williams at the moment.”

  The boys sat down and began serious negotiations. Out of this came the decision that they would set their game back during early World War 2 to eliminate jets, infra-red sights, guided missiles and nuclear weapons.

  “What about radar? It had been invented then,” Graham pointed out.

  “We will just ignore that. So no radar, but we can have aircraft and tanks,” Peter said.

  “What about subs?” Graham asked.

  Peter nodded. “Yeah, and subs.”

  “No!” Max snapped.

  “You can have them too,” Peter pointed out.

  It took some argument but Max finally agreed. Peter then introduced another technical problem. “What scale are you working to?”

  Graham felt foolish. “None in particular,” he replied.

  “We need to agree on a scale,” Peter insisted. “Let’s measure these models and see what they are.”

  This was done and the measurements compared to the dimensions of real ships in the reference books. Peter kept going “Hmmm.” while he did calculations. “OK, do we want to work in metric or in Imperial measurements?”

  “What are Imperial measurements?” Graham asked.

  Stephen sneered. “Boy! Didn’t you pay close attention in primary school!” he commented. Graham blushed.

  Peter answered: “Feet and inches and all that stuff.”

  “What does it matter?” Max asked.

  “Well most of the reference books are in old Imperial measurements, feet and inches. And anything from America still is,” Peter explained.

  “Feet and inches then,” Graham answered. He had no desire to do mathematical conversions. Max agreed.

  Peter did some more calculations. “OK, it looks like the best scale will be about 1:240. That is, 1 inch equals 20 feet. If we use that then planes will be about the size of the one Graham has made and these ships will be fine.”

  Graham liked that idea. “What about a really big ship? What about the battlecruiser Hood or the Japanese battleship Yamato?” he asked.

  Peter checked a reference book and then did a sum and held his arms apart. “They would be about this long, a bit over a metre.”

  Graham’s imagination was fired by this. He had seen a picture of the famous Hood in one of his dad’s books. To him she appeared to be the most beautiful ship ever made. He resolved to make a model of her. And she will have 15” guns! he thought.

  The boys then argued over rules for the next hour till it was time for Max to go home.

  “Are we playing tomorrow?” Graham asked as Max stood up.

  “All right. But it will have to be at my place,” Max replied. Graham had to agree to this. He had no possible excuse he could think of. But he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Cindy again. Max took his leave. Stephen went as well, leaving Peter and Graham to continue the discussion.

  Peter looked at the flag on Graham’s battleship. “What countries will we have?” he asked.

  “Well, I wanted to be the British, but so did Max, so we agreed to be the Hiburnians and the Trogs,” Graham explained.

  “Trogs?”

  “Descended from the ancient Trojans, who gave them courage; and the Troglodytes who gave them strength and cunning,” Graham answered.

  Peter gave a good natured laugh. “I like it. OK, I will think of some country to be. What about other real countries, like Germany or Japan?”

  “You can be them if you like.”

  “Not me,” Peter replied.

  The friends discussed the game for another hour before Peter had to go home. Graham felt really excited. Now it would be real fun! He flicked through his reference books of ships looking for ideas on what to build next. I need something to surprise Max again, he thought. An idea flickered, then seized him. An aircraft carrier! That would get him.

  Graham rushed downstairs to the wood box and rummaged through the off-cuts. The best that he could find was a piece 40cm long by 10cm wide by 5cm high. It will have to do, he decided, thinking of how little time he had to get this new model finished. He seized a saw and set to work.

  To shape the bow he merely cut off two triangular pieces, making no attempt to round the curve. The stern was left square. After a perfunctory effort at smoothing the wood with a rasp and sandpaper Graham carried it up to his work bench. He did not draw any plans and, apart from measuring the block of wood, made no calculations. In his mind an aircraft carrier was just the flight deck and the planes.

  To make the flight deck he found a sheet of grey cardboard. It was not long enough which meant that he would have to join two pieces to get the right length. That did not trouble him. He was aware that the flight deck on most aircraft carriers overhung the hull but he did not know by how much. To make sure he added 1cm to
the dimensions all round. With ruler and pen he marked out the shape of the deck. Scissors were then used to cut out the two pieces of cardboard which he then glued end to end on top of the block of wood. The front end of the flight deck he rolled down as he could see something like this in the photos of ships.

  Already he was pleased with her. HMS Glorious, he decided. He knew that the real Glorious had looked different but was not going to be bothered with such trifles. He liked the name.

  Next came the superstructure. A block of wood 6cm x 3cm wide x 2cm high was glued on the starboard side amidships. On top of this he added a balsa bridge and wheelhouse, then several small balsa lockers and protrusions to represent all the many small platforms and decks the real ships seemed to have. A cardboard funnel, short bamboo mast and balsa signalling lamp completed the superstructure.

  By then it was tea time and he had to stop. Alex came in and admired the model and while they ate tea Graham described their game and how Peter was going to play.

  “What about me?” Alex asked. “Can I play too?”

  “If you like,” Graham replied. “You can be the Germans or Italians and attack everyone.”

  “Pigs bum! They were the enemy,” Alex replied. A fierce argument began which was only quelled by their mother.

  The evening was spent adding details to the aircraft carrier and making planes for it. A 3” gun in a mounting was placed on the flight deck in front of the bridge and two batteries of three 40mm anti-aircraft guns were glued on either side of the flight deck. Low cardboard walls were placed around these to separate them from the actual working area of the flight deck. The AA guns were just a thin sliver of bamboo for the barrel glued at a 45-degree angle on a small piece of balsa. From a distance they looked quite effective.

  The planes were made in the same way as the Seafire on the battleship: a balsa fuselage cut to shape by a razor blade, thin balsa wings and cardboard tail and tail planes. Graham made them all by eye and only rejected a couple which did not look quite right. Paper markings were added. In all he made six Seafires. These were arranged on the flight deck and for the next 10 minutes he was lost in a private game while he refuelled, re-armed and intercepted imaginary enemy planes.

  “Torpedo bombers attacking!” he muttered excitedly, dimly aware that those types of planes once existed and were deadly to ships.

  He flew off two fighters around the room making aeroplane and machine gun noises. As he did, Alex came in and at once entered the game, picking up a HO scale model of a Spitfire off the shelf and starting to dive at the carrier.

  Graham stepped forward shaking his head. “You can’t use that,” he said. “It is British, and this is a British carrier.”

  “I thought you were the Trolls,” Alex replied, continuing his dive. Graham swept in with the two tiny Seafires.

  “Trogs,” he corrected, then made stuttering multiple machine gun noises. “Anyway, that plane is the wrong scale.”

  “It’s just a big one,” Alex replied. Graham insisted it was not in the game. Then he insisted he had shot it down. “Anyway, I am beating off some torpedo bombers which are attacking.”

  “What torpedo bombers?” Alex asked, looking around.

  “Pretend ones. I haven’t made any yet.”

  Alex laughed and landed the plastic model back on the shelf. “Then I will make some. Give me some balsa.”

  “Use your own!”

  “I haven’t got any of that thin stuff left,” Alex replied. Knowing that he was only an intermittent model builder Graham grudgingly agreed, aware that he needed an opponent to make the game really exciting. When Alex had gone back to his own room he returned to his desk.

  “Torpedo bombers. Yes, I need some strike planes on the carrier. Now, what will I have?” he muttered. He opened the reference books and histories. The most obvious British plane from World War 2 was the Fairy Swordfish; but that was a biplane and looked like it might be very hard to make on such a tiny scale. He also noted that carriers had dive bombers as well.

  He decided to make three torpedo planes and three dive bombers. For the torpedo bomber he selected the Fairy Barracuda, hoping that the others would not say it was too modern since it only came into use later in World War 2. The dive bomber was the Blackburn Skua. Both were fairly easy to make. He made no attempt to put on wheels or propellers. The cockpits he marked on the balsa with a black pen. For the three torpedo bombers he made small balsa torpedoes, which had red warheads on the front, coloured with felt pen. When these were glued under the planes the aircraft tipped over on one wing. That did not look very satisfactory so he then added two tiny balsa undercarriage legs.

  When the planes were finished Graham stood back and admired the result. He could easily ignore the rough shaped hull of the carrier as it was no longer obvious, being half hidden by the flight deck. In any case the eye was drawn to the flight deck and planes. Content with his handiwork he played quietly for half an hour, launching strikes against the plastic destroyer, which he now considered unworthy to be in his fleet, being a bought toy, not a proper scratch-built model.

  But the darkness after bedtime brought guilty and arousing thoughts creeping back. Memories of Cindy caused him a mixture of intense lust and deep revulsion. Knowing he was a hypocrite did not help and guilt of a different kind took its place.

  Graham’s guilty conscience struck him with full force at church next morning. Graham and Roger were rostered as altar boys and from that vantage point he could scan the whole church. Cindy was there, sitting next to her mother and looking the picture of beautiful innocence—except when their eyes briefly met and hers glinted. Whether it was with tears or regret or hate Graham could not decide but it left him feeling very upset. During the confession he felt wracked with guilt and it came to him that he should do it properly. I should do a proper confession to Father George, he thought.

  It took him some effort to summon up the courage to mention this to Father George when they were briefly alone in the vestry after the service. Father George looked at him in surprise and raised an eyebrow. “Confession Graham? Is it urgent? Yes, you look upset. All right, what about tomorrow afternoon after school?”

  Graham could only nod he was so choked up with emotion. After hastily changing he wiped his face and hurried out to join his family. With an effort he acted normally and even managed to laugh at one of Max’s jokes. But inside he felt disgusted and very guilty.

  On Sunday, after lunch, he and Alex walked along to Max’s, carrying all the models in two cardboard cartons. This was necessary to hide the carrier, and to stop the wind blowing the planes off. Peter was already there, talking to Max in the lounge room. Graham looked around for Cindy, but to his relief, she was not in sight. He did not dare ask where she was. There was no way he was going to indicate that he was interested in her.

  “What have you got there?” Max asked as Graham put down the large carton he was carrying. Graham extracted the aircraft carrier.

  A horrified expression crossed Max’s face. “A carrier! That’s not fair!” he cried.

  “Why not? We agreed we could have planes, and they had carriers then,” Graham answered.

  “We don’t have any rules to deal with planes,” Max answered.

  “Let’s make some up then,” Peter put in. Max did not want to but was prevailed on to accept some rules. These were quite simple: AA guns had a ten percent chance of knocking a plane down if it flew within 3 paces of them (40mm guns) or 5 paces (3” or 4”). The planes were assessed at having a 25% chance of hitting a battleship with a torpedo but had to launch within 2 metres.

  “20% chance of a hit on cruisers, 15% on destroyers, 10% on gunboats and 5% on subs and torpedo boats,” Peter said.

  “We haven’t got any torpedo boats,” Graham pointed out.

  “I have,” Max said. He brought out four new models. They were all 15cm long, 1cm high and 2cm wide. Each torpedo boat had two 40mm guns; one forward and one aft, four balsa torpedo tubes; two either side, a sma
ll block for the bridge, some lockers and hatch covers and a stubby mast. They looked good as a set and Graham was struck with envy.

  “How fast?” he asked.

  “40 knots,” Max replied. That did not please Graham, but when he disputed it Max produced an old book with this information in it. A photo of a torpedo boat at full speed, throwing up a huge bow wave of white spray, was the clinching argument.

  After some discussion the boys moved to the back yard. Peter and Max were the defenders. Their army of HO Scale soldiers was deployed on the back porch. The ships were positioned and the game began. Graham began with air strikes on Max’s battleship. He lost all three torpedo bombers but sank the battleship, much to Max’s anger and dismay. One fighter plane was also lost. Then Graham launched the three dive bombers at Max’s torpedo boats which were racing across the lawn towards his fleet.

  Two were shot down and they did not hit any of the torpedo boats. Graham claimed the dice were rigged and became even angrier when he tried to strafe the torpedo boats with his fighters and Max objected.

  “Torpedo boats were only made of plywood,” Graham pointed out. “Machine guns could punch right through.”

  “No they couldn’t,” Peter replied, “Their bullets could.”

  “Don’t be smart Pete. You know what I mean,” Graham snapped.

  It was decided that the fighters could attack the torpedo boats and Graham made another attack and sank all four, for the loss of four fighters. He then made a strike against Max’s destroyer which he sank, but for the loss of his last dive bomber. Max got very upset and Graham thought he was going to burst into tears.

  Graham’s battleship was then moved forward into range and started hitting Max’s cruiser. Max got more upset and angry. He scattered marbles on the lawn. “There is a minefield there. Your battleship is sunk!”

  “How did the mines get there? Where is your minelayer?” Graham countered.

  “We put them there before the battle,” Max replied.

  “You still need a minelayer,” Graham insisted.

  Peter interjected: “We used the destroyer.”