The Boy and the Battleship

by Christopher Cummings

  Graham could only scowl, but knew that some destroyers had been used for mine laying, although the technicalities of how were not clear to him. He withdrew his battleship with so-called ‘damage to her engines which halved her speed’. He then used his other ships to batter Max’s surviving ships to burning wrecks. Then he used all his ship’s guns to pound the HO Scale defending army to bits before he landed his own.

  Peter had brought some HO Scale soldiers of his own and battled hard to stop Graham. Max sat and sulked. Graham tried to ignore this. He said, “These HO Scale soldiers are no good. We need things that are the same scale as the ships.”

  “How could we make soldiers that small?” Peter asked.

  Graham did not know. He shrugged and said, “Maybe we could just fight with tanks and things?”

  They briefly discussed this but could not agree. The battle went on, ending in a victory for Graham. He felt very pleased with himself.

  Max wasn’t happy. “It isn’t fair,” he insisted. “We need some way to keep the two sides equal.”

  “We could use the method Mr Conkey used in his game,” Peter suggested, “Have prices for things and each player have the same amount of money to buy things. Then we could structure our navy the way we wanted.”

  “But you might buy five battleships while Graham gets fifty submarines,” Max objected.

  “Or five hundred planes,” Graham added.

  “So what?” Peter replied. “Once we have it we can’t change, and after a while we will know roughly what the other side has.”

  “How would we get more?” Max asked.

  “By an income,” Peter said. “Perhaps once a month we could all get the same income in marks or points, so we could buy new things.”

  “I like that idea,” Graham said.

  “It sounds fair,” Alex agreed.

  Reluctantly Max agreed too. “I suppose so; but how will we know what things cost?”

  “We will have to do some research I suppose,” Peter said. “Then we can agree on a price list.”

  There was some dispute over the practicality of this but Peter said, “If we can’t find what the real prices were we will just agree among ourselves. That will be fair.”

  Graham agreed; “OK. I like that idea. When do we play again?”

  “Next Saturday?” Peter asked.

  Graham hesitated. “I am going along to the Navy Cadets next Saturday to find out about joining.”

  “Naval cadets!” Max cried. “What do they do? Peer at their navels?”

  “Very funny!” Graham sneered. He went red and felt his temper rise.

  “So when then?” Peter asked.

  “Saturday morning after morning tea,” Alex suggested.

  “We have chores,” Graham reminded him.

  “They can be done in a couple of hours if put our backs into it,” Alex answered. Graham nodded, and so it was agreed.

  Chapter 20

  LITTLE WARS

  At school on Monday, Graham’s mind was in turmoil. Half of it was anguishing over his personal life and guilt over Cindy (and guilt over still having frequent lustful thoughts about her!); and half filled with ideas about the new game of Battleships. These so dominated his thoughts that he paid little attention to teachers, his friends or even Thelma. He spent the day hoping yet fearing to meet Cindy but he only saw her in the distance several times and had no chance to speak to her. During lessons he sat and brooded or sketched plans for the game or made up draft copies of rules they could use to play with. The more he thought about it, the more rules seemed to be required, if only to prevent future disagreements and unpleasantness.

  He was also pleased to have several more people tell him they would be coming to his birthday party, now only two weeks away. Somehow he managed to keep out of trouble with the teachers and even did some of the class work. At little lunch and lunch time he stuck with his friends and got them to discuss some of the game rules, although it soon became obvious Stephen wasn’t really interested and that Peter preferred not to talk about the game at school.

  As the afternoon lessons dragged on Graham became more and more apprehensive about the impending confession. He began to regret having arranged it and wondered how he could get out of it. I could just not go, he told himself. But that made him feel bad. Father George will wonder and I will despise myself as a coward, he thought.

  The memory of what he and Cindy had done and might have done and of what she and the French sailor had actually done churned in him in a mixture of disgust and lust that left him physically sick and trembling. At one stage he found himself sweating and panting for breath and he felt so ill he thought of putting his hand up to ask the teacher if he could go to the sick room. But he was also aroused and decided to wait. In the end, he stayed in class, turning over and over in his mind what excuse he might say.

  After school Graham walked slowly to the rectory. All the way he battled with himself over whether to go ahead with the confession or not. When he got there he hesitated at the gate and felt utterly wretched. Then Cindy’s scornful questioning of his courage came to him. He bit his lip and shook his head, then pushed the gate open while muttering, “In you go. Don’t be a coward!”

  Father George was waiting for him and showed him in to his office. “Would you like a cup of tea Graham?” he asked as he ushered Graham to a chair.

  “No thank you Father,” Graham muttered. He sat down and burned with shame.

  Father George gave him a kindly smile then said, “We can do this the Catholic way with me out of sight if you prefer.”

  Graham shook his head. Instinctively he knew he needed to see the man’s eyes. “This will be fine Father.”

  “Well, take your time and tell me your problem in your own way, although it’s hard to imagine what a young person like you could have done wrong,” Father George commented.

  At that Graham nearly burst into tears and when he tried to speak he found he was all choked up. But after a few minutes of gentle coaxing he loosened up and started to talk. “I did something with a girl Father, and she did something worse and I think it is my fault. But I won’t tell you who she is.”

  “I would not expect you to and nor will I ask who she is,” Father George replied. “But I will pray for her soul and for her forgiveness. Now go on.”

  For the next 20 minutes Graham haltingly told the priest the outline of what he had done. Father George listened and then said, “Well, it sounds to me very much like you are a perfectly normal young lad who is curious about girls and who has done a little bit of naughty exploring. But there is very little sin in any of that. It is just a normal part of growing up I think, so don’t get too upset. As long as you don’t do anything more serious that could harm the girl’s reputation or cause her physical problems like babies that is. You didn’t, did you?”

  A tearful Graham shook his head. “No Father. But she did, with someone else and I think it is my fault.”

  “Why is it your fault? Did you force her? Is she younger and you convinced her it wasn’t wrong?”

  “No, she is two years older,” Graham sobbed.

  “So how is it your doing?”

  “Be… because… because I asked her to and… (sniff) and sh… she said that (sniff) sh… she would like to t… t… try it.”

  Father George frowned. “But you just said you didn’t do anything.”

  “No, but I wanted to and we started. Then I stopped and said no because it was wrong. She got very angry with me.”

  Father George nodded. “Women do when they make such an offer and then get rejected. It makes them feel humiliated and cheap—and I suspect frustrated as well.”

  Graham nodded. “She said she would find someone else to do it with,” he explained.

  “So she did this with some other person. How do you know she did? Were you there?”

  Graham did not know how to answer for a second but finally nodded. “Y… yes but (sniff) I didn’t know sh… sh… she was going to do th
at. I just came along l… later and saw th… th… them.”

  Father George shook his head. “And you feel guilty because you think you put the idea in this girl’s head?”

  “Yes!” sobbed Graham.

  “Oh you poor boy! Are you in love with this girl?”

  “No Father. I just like her,” Graham replied.

  “Well, it seems to me that you are not responsible. If she is older and if she did it with someone else then your share of any guilt is quite minor. If you care for her and try to persuade her to behave that is probably the best you can do, but don’t torture yourself over things that are not within your control. Now, let me grant you absolution and give you a blessing. Please kneel.”

  Graham knelt and Father George placed his hand on his head while he prayed. As he did Graham stopped crying and he felt as though a heavy load had been lifted from his shoulders. At the end of the blessing Father George said, “You are good boy Graham and a brave one to face up to this the way you have. Now go home and try to think of a way to help the girl without getting too involved.”

  Graham nodded, too wrung out with emotion to speak. Feeling enormously relieved he hurried out and down the stairs. He then walked quickly home, hoping he would not have to lie to hide the fact that he had been to see Father George.

  ***

  At home he was relieved to find that neither Alex nor Kylie had noticed his late arrival so he settled immediately to his desk. The germ of an idea had been niggling at him all afternoon and he wanted to try an experiment. This was to construct a model tank on the same scale as the ships and aircraft. He dug out a reference book which gave him the basic dimensions of a real tank. Then he converted this to their game model scale of 1:240.

  The results of his calculations surprised him. A real tank 7 metres long and 3 metres wide would only be 3cm long and 12mm wide. Oh well, if that is it, then that is it! He shrugged and pulled a piece of 5mm balsa sheet over and measured out those dimensions. Then he used half a razor to slice the piece off. Next he puzzled over how to make the wheels and caterpillar tracks at such a tiny scale. He decided they could not possibly work and that cardboard and paper were probably the best materials.

  Using a paper punch he punched a dozen small circular pieces of cardboard out of a sheet. These he glued to the sides of the tank so that they just protruded below the bottom of the hull. Thin strips of paper with the track pieces drawn on in black ink were then glued around the wheels and the ends glued together on top. To hide the join a piece of cardboard slightly larger than the hull was glued on top of the hull. This gave mudguards. Next the drivers slit and hatch were marked on in black ink at the front and the engine covers and exhausts at the back.

  A small piece of wafer thin balsa was glued on top of the hull and then a turret was pinned on, the pin having been cut off short by a pair of shears. The turret was sliced from 3mm balsa sheet and Graham gave it a distinct taper towards the front. A main gun made from a thin piece of balsa 2.5mm long was inserted into a hole in the front of the turret and glued in place. A hatch was then drawn on top of the turret and a tiny piece of fuse wire 4mm long pushed in beside the main gun to represent the co-axial machine gun.

  To Graham the finished product looked most realistic. It was somewhat larger than he had planned but still looked about right. The tank did not match any real tank but he liked it. It looked powerful and workmanlike. But he was aware that it had taken a lot of work, over an hour, just to make one tank.

  “It isn’t a British tank,” he muttered. “So it had better be a Trog tank.” That raised a problem. What were the Trog markings and what was their national flag? By a mental process which associated ‘Trog’ with ‘Frog’ he decided to make the flag similar to the French tricolor but substituting dark green for red. He took out felt pens and drew a green, white and blue tricolor. This looked all right, so he tried drawing roundels to glue on the tank.

  He tried both colour combinations: Blue in the centre and green as the outside circle, and vice-versa, but did not like either one. So he made a green dot and put blue dashes either side, roughly similar to the arrangement of US aircraft markings. That looked all right. Next he tried a blue dot and green dashes and thought that looked even better. Using the felt pen he marked this on both sides of the tank.

  The new Trog tank was just doing its first tryout around the tabletop when Alex arrived home. He looked at it and made a few disparaging remarks before walking through to his room. Graham heard a humming noise which he recognized as Alex imitating an aircraft engine. Alex reappeared. In the fingers of each hand he held a tiny aircraft made to their game scale. Both were twin-engine and had wings made of aluminium foil taken from the top of Milo tins.

  Before Graham could react Alex had executed two dive bombing passes. “Got ya! Your tank has been blown to bits by bombs,” Alex cried.

  “No it isn’t. You’ve got to throw a dice,” Graham said. “Poop little brother! If I say it is blown up it is,” Alex retorted.

  A heated argument ensued over what the odds should be for a dive bomber to knock out a tank, and what chance the tank had of knocking out a plane with its pintle mounted machine gun. Alex bent to study the model tank.

  “It hasn’t got a machine gun on top,” he snorted.

  Graham had to concede it did not. “It is too hard to make at that scale; but real tanks have them so we will pretend it has one.”

  Alex conceded this. He flew off with his two planes while Graham found the percentage dice. Alex then returned and made more attacks. It took him two runs before he got a score that knocked the tank out. Graham failed to hit either plane. Alex chuckled and flew off back to his room.

  The air raid was serious food for thought. What had Alex made in the secrecy of his room? A spy mission seemed called for so Graham sauntered along to the door way of Alex’s room. Alex was busy cutting balsa at his desk as Graham came in. He at once covered what he was doing and called out: “Get out of here you little bugger. We shoot spies.”

  Graham tried to pretend that he was just dropping in to discuss something else but Alex was not bluffed. He got up and pushed Graham back out of the room. All Graham got to see were at least four more planes of the same type in process of construction.

  “And you keep out of my room you little wart,” Alex threatened. “If I find you’ve been sneaking in I’ll pulp you.”

  Graham retired to the enclosed veranda that he was using as his ‘bedroom’. Hmmm. If he is building planes I must have them too. For a moment he contemplated using the aircraft off his aircraft carrier, but discarded the idea, They are British and Alex will dispute whether they would help the Trogs. I had better build a Trog air force.

  Construction started immediately. Using 3mm balsa he cut out five fuselages and drew cockpits and markings on them. Without thinking about it he matched his brother’s air force by also making twin engine bombers, although his had thin balsa wings with square tips and the engines mounted below the wings so they looked quite different. Only then did he realize that he needed some fighter planes as Alex mounted another raid, ignoring their mother’s call to tea, to roar in and bomb his ships and tanks with six bombers carried on a piece of cardboard.

  After tea Graham set to work to make five single engine fighters. He made these in the same way but gave them rounded wing tips for variety. Alex kept coming in to see what he was up to, necessitating frequent hiding under a sheet of cardboard but before bedtime he had them completed. He immediately mounted his own raid on Alex’s bedroom: five bombers escorted by five fighters.

  The raid resulted in a lively and rowdy battle which Kylie objected to as she was trying to do her homework. The boys ignored this and flew round and round with loud sound effects and much laughter and shouting. Graham went to bed well pleased that he had trounced the Alexians well and truly. The two squadrons of Trog aircraft spent the night lined up on his desk top, guarded by the tank.

  These were the first things Graham saw when he woke up i
n the morning. It gave him another idea. I need a proper airfield with hangars and anti-aircraft guns and so on. The planning of this took up most of his day, and got him extra work at lunch time for inattention in class. As soon as school was over he rushed home and set to work.

  To his surprise Alex also came home early instead of playing sport with his mates. Both then tried to spy on the other, resulting in a lot of pushing, shoving and wrestling; contests usually won by Alex due to his greater aggressiveness and superior size and strength. Kylie came home with Margaret and both girls watched each bout with some disdain, the veranda being the usual scene of combat. In between annoying each other both boys worked on models.

  Graham constructed five cardboard hangars, which he then painted with brown and green camouflage. He also cut up some old mosquito net and painted that for camouflage nets. Plasticine was used to construct blast bays for his aircraft. During this Alex made two raids. The first was by his six bombers on their own, resulting in five of them being shot down by Graham’s fighters, for the loss of one fighter and four bombers parked on the airfield (his desk top). During the second raid Alex brought along six brand new single engine fighters, which he claimed were superior in speed and performance to Graham’s.

  By then it was time for bath and tea. Margaret said goodbye and went home and Graham tried to sneak another look into Alex’s room. After tea both boys ignored their mother’s instructions to do their homework and settled back at their desks to continue the war.

  Graham set to work with razor and balsa to make five 40mm Bofors guns. These were placed around the airfield in plasticine gun pits and helped to down two bombers from Alex’s next raid. But by then Alex had twelve of the silver winged fighters and swept Graham’s defending aircraft from the sky before the bombers appeared. His new airfield was bombed to smithereens!

  In retaliation Graham tried a counter raid on Alex’s room. He got in the door with his planes and the fighters began to battle but there was no sign of Alex’s bombers on his desk.