The Boy and the Battleship

by Christopher Cummings

  “The Congo,” Graham replied.

  Peter gave a wry grin. “Why not the Nile or the Niger or the Zambezi?” he asked with humorous sarcasm. Graham could only shrug with embarrassment.

  A narrow strait led between Europe and Africa. This had the huge Rock of Gibraltar dominating it. Turning east led into the Mediterranean and to the island of Malta (just a square harbour). Turning west led to the Atlantic via the bottom of Africa. There was no Red Sea or Indian Ocean. Between Britain and Africa was a scattering of six islands. Five belonged to Britain and one to France.

  “Are we having France in the game?” Alex asked.

  “No. The Trogs can take their place,” Graham replied.

  “Trogs-Frogs! Hah, hah, hah!” laughed Max.

  Peter frowned. “Don’t you like the French?” he asked.

  Max shook his head. “Nah. Mob of arrogant trouble makers. I can’t stand them,” he replied.

  Into Graham’s mind flashed a searing image of Cindy and the French sailor and he nearly retorted that his sister really liked them. With an effort of will he managed to hold his tongue.

  Once the map was drawn the hard bargaining began. Peter made the obvious statement that they all had to have at least one big country each.

  “I am having the Trogs and Britain,” Graham said.

  “I will have the Germans and the Alexians,” Alex said.

  “Where are the Alexians?” Peter asked. Alex pointed to what had been North America, an almost rectangular country with two huge harbours and an east and south coast. No one objected to this. Graham pointed to five islands off the south coast of Alexia, and said, “These are the West Indies and they belong to Britain and France.”

  “What about Spain?” Peter asked.

  “They used to own them but lost them in the wars,” Graham said.

  “Is there a Spain?” Max asked.

  “Yes, this country here between the Trogs and the Rock.”

  “So what’s this one here?” Max asked, pointing to the next peninsular of Europe.

  “Italy,” Graham replied.

  “What if I have them?” Max asked.

  Again there was no objection. Peter now pointed to the area north east of Germany. This was in the small storeroom. “Is that Russia?”

  “Yes,” Graham answered.

  “Must be mine then,” Peter replied. They all laughed and no one disputed the claim. Peter’s surname was Bronsky and his great grandparents had fled from Russia at the time of the Communist Revolution in 1917.

  Peter again studied the map. “Now, everyone else has two countries so I would like that big bit there which I take it used to be South America?”

  “Yes it was,” Graham agreed.

  Alex laughed. “You can set up a Banana Republic,” he suggested.

  “No I won’t,” Peter replied. “It is not South America. It is the fabled land of Atlantis.”

  That got some laughs. Graham said, “So we can sink your country as well as your ships!”

  “You can try,” Peter said.

  “What about this skinny bit here; Central America?” Alex asked.

  “We can divide it into a couple of small countries and fight over them,” Peter suggested.

  “Same with Africa,” Max said.

  “The top half is all desert,” Graham added.

  Alex stepped over onto it and swept his hand across it. “Cut it into four and we can draw straws to decide who gets which bit,” he suggested.

  They did this. The whole of the top half became the desert country of Erg-el-Domia. “The Domain or Kingdom of the Sand,” Peter explained. That went to Max. Graham got West Africa which he called Nepa after a country in a Phantom comic. The south central country went to Alex as Simba, the Lion Kingdom; and the one opposite the Straits of Gibraltar went to Peter as Mauretania.

  Lucrania, wedged in between Germany, Italy and a small country right near the door was allocated to Graham, who insisted that it really belonged to Kylie.

  Alex pointed to the small country near the door. “That only leaves this one over in the corner between Germany and Italy,” Alex said. “What is it?”

  “Romania?” Graham suggested.

  “Good idea,” Peter agreed. “It will be flat and have a huge oil field, so we can fight over the oil.”

  “Who gets it?” Max asked.

  “Me,” Peter said. “You can’t or you would have two countries side by side and that is silly.”

  Max had to accept this. They then drew two copies of the map. The first was coloured in four colours, one for each of them to show ownership. The names were added. The second had every colour in the spectrum to denote particular countries. This led to some argument about national colours.

  “Black for Germany,” Alex said.

  “Why?”

  “Because they have black crosses for markings, and the SS wore black uniforms,” Graham replied.

  “And yellow for Italy,” Max added.

  “Why yellow? Their flag is red, white and green,” Peter asked.

  Max shrugged. “Because it is my favourite colour, and because the Trogs are going to be blue, white and green and the British are red, white and blue,” he explained.

  “And Lucrania is green and white,” Graham added. “So we need different colours. Yellow will do, and brown for the Russians because that is the colour their uniforms were.”

  “With a red flag and red stars on their planes and tanks,” Peter added.

  “Let’s mark it out now,” Alex said. They all agreed with this idea and rushed downstairs. Chalk was found and Graham set to work going over the coastlines. He was very pleased that the original coastlines of his earlier game were to stay, and was happy with his allocation of countries.

  “What about the topography?” Peter asked, “You know, mountains and rivers?”

  “The Rock goes back,” Graham said. He went out to the garden and lugged the football sized rock back in and positioned it.

  Max pointed down. “We must have the Pyrenees between France and Spain,” he insisted. “Where are those rocks you had there Graham?”

  These were found and a line of stones was placed along the 2 metres of border, with two very obvious passes left. “This is the Pass of Rosconvales, where Roland blew his horn,” Graham explained, pointing to a gap in the stones.

  Peter walked over to the border between the Trogs and Germany. “The Rhine River should run along here.”

  An almost straight Rhine about 3 metres long and 10cms wide was chalked in. Other rivers were added and a range of mountains piled up between Italy and the Trogs (the Alps). More mountains were placed between Italy, Lucrania, Germany and Romania.

  “The Transylvanian Alps,” Peter explained.

  “I’ve heard of them,” Alex said. “Why are they famous?”

  Max laughed. “That is where the Vampires come from,” he replied. For a few moments he imitated Count Dracula biting a victim.

  Peter smiled. “Suits you,” he observed.

  Graham went to the work bench in the corner over Russia and lifted down his battleship. He placed her in the main harbour of Britain. “Portsmouth,” he said.

  Max laughed. “The ship is half as long as the country!”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Graham replied. “It is only a game.”

  Alex walked to his own main harbour in Alexia. “The battleships will be able to fight each other without even leaving port,” he said.

  Peter nodded. “Yes, there is a scale problem,” he agreed.

  “How much?” Max asked. “How far could a battleship really shoot?”

  Graham answered that: “A long way. At the Battle of Calabria in 1940 the Warspite opened fire at 26,000 yards; and she hit the Italian flagship with her first or second salvo. Warspite had 15” guns.”

  Peter tugged at his chin and made some mental calculations. “If the ship is about 250 metres long and it can fire say 25,000 metres and our model is about a metre long, and a scale of 1:240, then�
�� hmmm… er… then if the model could shoot it could fire 100 metres.”

  “How far is that?” Alex asked.

  “Well, a swimming pool is 50 metres and a football field is 100 metres long so 100 metres would be from here to the houses over the road,” Peter answered.

  There was silence for a moment while they digested this. Graham then shrugged and said, “So we just ignore it. We can always play with the ships outside on the lawn or on a map using tokens instead of models.”

  “Map would be best,” Peter agreed.

  Max pointed to his feet. He was standing in the Straits of Gibraltar. “Ships will have trouble getting through these narrow channels too,” he said. “One big gun in a fort will stop them.”

  “Or a torpedo tube,” Graham agreed.

  “You can’t put torpedo tubes on land!” Max cried.

  “You can so!” Graham replied heatedly. “The Norwegians did it. That is how they sank the German heavy cruiser Blucher in 1940. And the Turks had them on the wharf at the Dardanelles in 1915. I’ve seen photos my dad took when he visited the place.”

  Max had to concede this. Peter then added. “A single mine will block up any of these straits.”

  “My oath!” Alex agreed. “And if a big ship was sunk in the channel then nothing could get through.”

  Max frowned. “How will we have mines? How can we show where they are without everyone else knowing?” he asked.

  “Same way as submerged submarines,” Peter answered. “Mark them on a map and get an adjudicator to decide.”

  “We should ban them,” Alex suggested.

  They considered this for a minute. Graham studied the narrow straits and harbour entrances and was appalled. His fleets would have great difficulty moving around if there were mines. I will need minesweepers at every port, he thought. He wasn’t quite sure how minesweepers worked. He knew there were several types of underwater mines: the old fashioned contact type anchored to the seabed, which had horns protruding for ships to bump; magnetic mines which went off when a steel ship went over them; and acoustic mines which were set off by the sound of a ship’s machinery and propellers. His mind wandered onto the problem of building model minesweepers.

  It was agreed at length that it would be unrealistic to ban either mines or submarines. “Aircraft give us the same problem as big guns,” Peter pointed out. “A fast plane could cover this whole game area in a few minutes. We can’t ban planes.”

  “Unless we move the game back in time to before World War 1,” Graham said. He was happy to do that, but then the problem of armies arose.

  Peter shook his head. “Then we have no tanks. They weren’t invented until 1916.” So it was decided to keep the game in the 1940s. “Before guided missiles and all that electronics,” Peter added.

  Peter then raised the issue of the countries having economies and money. “That way a country could only have the armed forces it could afford,” he explained.

  “Did you work out those prices?” Graham asked.

  “Yes I did. Here they are,” Peter said. Opening a folder he took out a sheet of paper. He held this so the others could read it. “It isn’t exact,” he explained. “I had to guess at some of the prices of things like tanks and bombers. The ships are roughly correct though.”

  Graham ran his eye down the list and was surprised by the differences in price. One battleship for 700 points as against a destroyer for 35. You could get twenty destroyers for the price of one battleship! he marvelled. It was food for thought. Inshore minesweepers, he noted, were only 2 points. Cheap enough to lose a few.

  Peter held up another price list. “These are costs of World War 1 ships. We can use them for map games where there are no aeroplanes.”

  Graham looked at them and was surprised to see that the price of ships had risen dramatically from World War 1 to World War 2. A Tribal-class destroyer of 1939 cost as much as a World War 1 light cruiser; and battleships had risen from about £2,500,000 to £7,000,000.

  Max asked: “We are going to need a lot of money for each country if we do this. How much would a large country need?”

  “Thousands,” Peter replied. “I did up some rules and calculations.” He took out a sheaf of papers covered with tables of figures and lists. These were passed around. To Graham it seemed a good idea but a bit complex.

  Alex didn’t like it. “This will get too bloody complicated,” he objected. “I don’t want to waste half my time doing bloody sums and paperwork. I get enough of that at school!”

  Max seconded this: “I just want to play with models.”

  “So how do we control how much any country has?” Peter asked.

  “By how hard the owner works,” Graham suggested. “If they work hard and make lots of models then good luck to them.”

  “Yes, but then we will get people just whacking together cheap and nasty models of low quality,” Peter objected.

  We have a few already, Graham thought, with Max’s battleship in mind. He said, “We can have some sort of minimum standard for quality, and if there is any argument then we can put it to the vote.”

  This was agreed to. Peter then said, “We can still use these prices for map games. We can try out a series of games where each player has the same amount of money but can select their own fleet secretly before the game.”

  “That will be interesting,” Graham agreed. “I’d like to try that.”

  Max shook his head. “Let’s get this game here set up first,” he said.

  They each set to work planning and moving things. Graham carried all his models down and placed them on the concrete. Alex did likewise and Max went home to get his. When all the ships, tanks and planes were placed on the floor they looked very sparse and scattered.

  Graham had divided his few British ships up to have two fleets: Home Fleet and Mediterranean Fleet. I need another battleship and another carrier, he mused, And some small ships for escorts and jobs like the West Indies Guardship.

  Next he deployed his Trog ships, with the same problem. Trogolitia, like France, had two coasts, and also some overseas territories. Alex added some wooden blocks for buildings and chalked in a few roads. Then he added a couple of plastic caps off insect spray cans as oil tanks. The others did likewise but the supply of blocks soon ran out.

  It was afternoon tea time by then so they trooped upstairs and sat discussing the game. After that Peter suggested a game of Battleships on maps as he had no models to play with yet. This was agreed to. Graham agreed to be the adjudicator and they ruled up sheets of white paper into 1cm squares and quickly cut out two sets of balsa tokens. Alex lost interest at this stage and went off so Peter and Max played. They used Mr Conkey’s rules and Peter’s World War 1 price list. Both players were allowed 1000 points.

  While Max and Peter cut out more tokens Graham moved the flower vase off the dining room table and stuck down the maps with sticky tape. Then he used two marble book ends to hold up a sheet of plywood between the two maps. The respective fleets were then positioned by the two players so that they could not see what the opponent had, or where it was placed. As they finished this Graham did a quick count, interested to see what ships each had decided to have. He noted that both had an armoured cruiser and three light cruisers but that Peter had opted for only two battleships whereas Max had three. This allowed Peter ten destroyers and thirteen subs against Max’s four destroyers and five subs.

  It was an interesting battle. Peter won, and it was the extra subs and destroyers that gave him the victory, but only just. Graham filed away the results for when it was his turn to play. By the time the game was finished it was time for the others to go home. After they had gone Graham sat and read for a while, feeling quite contented. It had been a good day.

  After tea Graham went to his desk and considered minesweepers. He found a photo of a British Algerine-class minesweeper and went to the scrap box to find a suitable hull. A nice piece of soft white pine caught his eye. It was 3cm wide, 2cm high and 15cm long. He decide
d it would do. Without drawing any plans he cut off and shaped the bow and stern, then rasped and sandpapered them. With a saw he cut away the back to give a lower quarterdeck. A small block provided the bridge.

  Then he returned to his desk and added a cardboard funnel, bamboo mast, a balsa 4” gun in a small turret, two AA guns, searchlight, two lifeboats, five depth charges and a crane for the paravanes. By bedtime the minesweeper was completed and he really liked it. It looked just the job. He placed it on the table and went to bed very happy.

  Chapter 27

  A CHANGE OF HEART?

  Graham took his new book on battleship design to school. During the breaks he sat and read it. In class he jotted notes on the models he needed to make for each of his new countries. This kept him pleasantly occupied and out of mischief for the whole day. Several times he met Thelma’s eye and smiled. She smiled back but it was only a perfunctory good manners smile.

  How can I ask her out? What can I do to impress her? he wondered. He was sure she had enjoyed the party and that she did not find him repulsive so he still had hopes.

  Goaded by urgent physical desire he also had vague hopes of enjoying a bit more with Cindy so at lunch time he went looking for her. He found her all right, but got a rude shock. She was sitting with two of her friends—and with three Year 11 boys. The boys were obviously trying to impress the girls, to win on. Equally obviously the girls were responding. One of the boys had his arm around Cindy’s shoulders. The sight made Graham seethe with jealousy. With his ego somewhat deflated, Graham wandered back to join his mates in their usual place.

  After school he went straight home and set to work on his second battleship, the HMS Nelson. For the hull he had found a plank of pine that was nearly a metre long, 12cm wide and 2.5cm thick. He marked out the hull shape with pencil and went down to the Ship Room to saw it to shape. While he was engaged in this task Alex came in and watched. Graham made no attempt to hide it.

  He will see it on my desk anyway, he thought.

  Alex said, “Can you go to town to pay the electricity bill? I have to go to footy practice.”

  “Why can’t you do it while you are out?” Graham asked.