The Boy and the Battleship

by Christopher Cummings

  “Don’t be silly! That is on the other side of town,” Alex answered. “You go. Mum wants it done today. It should have been paid on Friday but she forgot.”

  With bad grace Graham took the money and bill and went upstairs to put on his shoes again. Then he wheeled out his bike and set off. In town he parked his bike and walked along, alternately looking in shops and admiring the girls.

  As he approached a cafe with tables on the footpath he noted several girls in the uniform of his school. When he was close he looked to see who they were, and his heart leapt. The one facing him was Thelma. With her were Janet and a girl he did not know. Then his heart fell with a thud. They were with Jerry Denham, Edmonson, and a youth who looked to be about twenty.

  Thelma saw him first. For an instant Graham got the impression she was just going to look away and ignore him, but she nodded and gave a little smile.

  Plucking up his courage Graham smiled back. “Hello Thelma, hello Janet,” he said as he passed. He would have dearly liked to stop but did not dare.

  Thelma nodded but did not answer. Edmonson turned to see who it was and a look of dislike crossed his face. Graham tensed ready for a fight. Then Janet looked up. “Hello sailor!” she called in a sarcastic tone.

  Graham went red and Janet laughed mischievously. As he walked on Graham heard the youth ask: “Why did you say that to him?”

  “’Cause he’s in the navy cadets,” Janet explained.

  Graham did not hear any more but felt uncomfortable as long as he was in sight of the cafe. He was particularly worried that Edmonson might follow him to give him more grief. But he didn’t so Graham went on to the shop and payed the bill. Outside again he hesitated on which way to go back to his bike. For a moment he considered walking right around the block as he did not want to be teased again. Then he gritted his teeth. No. That is stupid. Worse, it’s gutless. I’ll go back the way I came.

  Steeling himself for a bad time he set off along the footpath. By the time he was approaching the café his heart was beating fast and his palms were sweaty but he was determined to not let Thelma think he was a coward. Even if it means a few bruises and teeth knocked out, he thought.

  Feeling very self-conscious and afraid he rounded the corner. From half way along the block he saw that the girls were still seated there but Edmonson was gone. Anxiously Graham approached, ready for trouble. But he need not have bothered. This time they barely responded to his greeting. Janet did not even look at him but continued her conversation with the youth. That gave Graham the chance to learn his name; or at least his nickname, as Janet called him.

  “Pinky! What a stupid nickname,” Graham muttered angrily as he walked on. His anger was increased by the knowledge that he was jealous. Pinky was doing just what he longed to do: sit at the cafe with the girls!

  In a grumpy mood he rode home and resumed work on the new model battleship. By tea time he had planed and sanded the hull and marked out in pencil where the main items were to be placed on the deck. Then he slid the hull under his bed and took his new minesweeper: the HMS Seagull, down to the Ship Room. He placed her at Gibraltar to keep the straits open.

  For 10 minutes Graham stood there and considered what else he needed. The weakness of the Trog army and navy were glaringly obvious. “They have overseas territories and no-one to defend them,” he told himself. With that in mind he went upstairs and set to work to make five small armoured cars for the Trog Foreign Legion. Having completed these he then had the idea to give them a Beau Geste type fort as their base.

  Using white cardboard he cut out four walls each 10cms long and 2cms high. A doorway was cut out and then crenellations to show the battlements. The sides were glued together and he then made a tower 4cm square and 5cm high to place in one corner for the living accommodation. A flagpole and Trog flag were added as the finishing touches. He was very pleased with this and took it down to place it in West Africa (Nepa), right on the desert border of the Erg.

  When he went to school on Tuesday Graham took a small tin box in which he had pieces of balsa of various thicknesses, plus pins, razor blades, wire, tweezers and other odd items. His plan was to use his spare time making more tanks and aircraft. His priority was the Trogs but somehow he sidetracked himself into only making one tank, a British Crusader, copied from a war comic.

  But what really blew his building program was the fact that Thelma smiled at him and said hello. She spoke to me! he thought in astonishment. He was so surprised he could not think straight for the next 10 minutes. In class he glanced over towards her frequently, and was rewarded by her meeting his eye and grinning. For the rest of that lesson his mind was in turmoil. She has noticed me! Oh my God! What do I do now?

  He did not know. But that did not matter. When they were dismissed for morning break Thelma came over and talked to him.

  “Hi Graham. Where were you going yesterday afternoon?”

  “Just going to pay the electricity bill for mum,” he explained. He knew he should not ask but he was so curious he did: “Who was that with you yesterday?”

  “Who, Jerry?”

  “No. That other bloke?”

  “Oh Pinky? He’s a Uni student. He’s a friend of Janet’s sister,” Thelma replied. She smiled and said, “Thanks for inviting me to your party. I really enjoyed it. It was the best party I’ve been to for a long time.”

  “Gee! Thanks Thelma,” Graham replied. He blushed and glowed at the same time. She chattered on about the party for a few minutes while they walked downstairs. Graham expected her to wander off to her friends at that point but she didn’t. To his delight she stayed and stood talking to him. She even laughed at one of his jokes. Standing talking to Thelma made Graham feel very self-conscious as he could see Stephen and Angus looking at them, but despite this he listened happily to what she had to say.

  By the time they went in to class again Graham was on cloud nine. His hopes soared and he began to reconsider his plans to ask her for a date. But what to say? And where to go?

  At lunch time Thelma again spoke to him. Graham was thrilled. I didn’t even have to go over to her! She came to me! That gave him a problem of what to talk about. He had enough common sense, and enough self-control, to avoid talking about ships and the navy. Instead he clowned, told jokes, and described the family pets (Kylie’s really: the pup Skip, the two budgerigars, the guinea pigs and the fish). This sufficed to keep them going without awkward pauses.

  While Graham was packing his bag after the last lesson he found Thelma again beside him talking. That tore him in two directions as he had promised Peter he would go over to his house to play Battleships after school. Bugger Battleships! he thought. Now that Thelma was talking to him he did not want to miss one second of it.

  What followed just seemed to develop naturally. Thelma packed her bag and picked it up and the pair went down the stairs together, still talking. At the bottom she paused to turn right. Normally Graham would have turned left but to get to Peter’s he also had to turn right.

  Thelma stopped. “See you tomorrow then Graham.”

  “Sure. Yes. I mean… I am going this way too. I am going over to Peter Bronsky’s,” he stammered.

  “He’s nice. He’s very brainy isn’t he?” Thelma said, starting to walk. Graham walked with her, experiencing a twinge of panic, lest she not want him to walk with her, and jealousy, about Peter. Thus he walked nearly all the way to her home with her. She only lived four blocks away, one from Peter’s. They even stopped on the corner near her house to talk for 5 minutes before she said goodbye.

  Blissfully happy, Graham strode on to Peter’s. Peter and his little brother Paul were busy in their workshop under the house when he knocked. Peter turned to see who it was and cried out: “You can’t come in here. We shoot spies. Go upstairs.”

  Graham did so, wondering what secret Peter was hatching below. After a few minutes Peter and Paul came up. Refreshments followed then the game was set up on a table in the front room. The game was played by t
he same rules as before and using the same price list. Peter handed Graham a photocopy of it to work from. Paul was the adjudicator, on the understanding he would get a game another day.

  Graham took out a notebook and the checked over his ideas for the ideal fleet. Using his 1000 points he selected four battleships, five destroyers and ten subs. Using his razor he cut tokens for these out of the balsa in his box and placed these on his half of the map, wondering what Peter was laying out on the other side of the screen.

  “OK, ready.” he said, taking another gulp of cold lime cordial. Paul wrote on a notepad and said, “It is 0600 hours. This is what you can see.”

  He then measured the 20cm visibility distance and began to place tokens on the two maps of what the opposing fleets could see of each other. Graham was pleased to discover five enemy destroyers immediately. He thought Peter could only see three of his. All were out of range so Paul noted the new time.

  “It is 0615. You can both move.”

  Graham moved all his tokens forward the allowed distances, keeping the battle squadron in a tight line astern. Peter seemed to take a long time to move, which was worrying to Graham. He speculated on what the composition of Peter’s fleet might be. When both had moved Paul did the visibility and added more tokens to both maps. From watching Paul’s eye movements and body Graham decided that all five of his destroyers and probably one of his battleships were then in sight of the enemy. A quick check led him to deduce that the destroyers were 8cm apart and the leading battleship 18cm from the nearest enemy destroyer. By then ten destroyers were marked from Peter’s fleet, spread right across the map.

  Aha! Pete has opted for less battleships and lots of destroyers, Graham thought.

  All ships were still out of range so they moved again: 0630. At the end of this Graham’s whole fleet was visible to Peter but he had only found thirteen of Peter’s destroyers and no larger ships. By then the destroyers had closed so that some of them were within 4cm of each other and firing began. The dice rattled and notes were made of hits and losses. Three of Graham’s battleships were able to fire as well as all his destroyers but at the end of the round he had lost three destroyers and only sunk four of Peter’s.

  They were told to move again. Seven more destroyers appeared on Peter’s side. Graham was appalled at how rapidly a dozen of these were closing the range on his battleships and he turned the line to starboard. Even so the move ended with four of Peter’s destroyers only 3cm away from his leading battleship. The dice rattled as torpedoes were launched and guns blazed. There were loud, excited cries as ships were hit. Graham was gripped by alarm as his first battleship was torpedoed and sunk and his second damaged so that it could only move at half speed. In return the battleships blasted all of the attacking destroyers, plus three more. Graham did a count and saw that Peter still had ten destroyers on the map.

  They moved again and five more destroyers joined Peter’s headlong attack. Six got within torpedo range of the battleships. One of Graham’s destroyers had slipped through Peter’s ships and could see the back of the maps. No large enemy ships were visible to it. Hasn’t Peter got any large ships? Graham wondered. A sinking suspicion formed in his mind about the composition of the rest of Peter’s fleet. Submarines! And lots of them.

  This was confirmed immediately when Paul placed three submerged sub tokens near his two destroyers. Suddenly those two destroyers became vital assets—and one was right behind the enemy fleet!

  Firing was done. Graham lost his slow battleship and the third battleship, all to torpedoes from the attacking destroyers. In return he managed to blast another six of them. One enemy sub was sunk by his closest destroyer.

  With only one battleship left, plus two destroyers, Graham began a withdrawal. On the next move his last battleship was sunk, along with one destroyer. They took six enemy destroyers with them, leaving only two. But Graham’s sole surviving ship was now in contact with four subs, all of which fired torpedoes at it.

  During the next two moves Graham struggled desperately to extricate his destroyer. He sank another sub but detected three more! And Peter’s two surviving destroyers are now on their way back and closing the range fast!

  The end was inevitable. Graham sank one more enemy sub before three of them torpedoed his ship. They agreed that submerged subs could not harm each other, not using the technology of 1914, so the game was over.

  Despite his defeat Graham was happy. “That was a bloody good game!” he cried. “What did you have in your fleet Pete?”

  “Fifty subs and twenty-five destroyers,” Peter replied.

  It was on the tip of Graham’s tongue to retort that that wasn’t fair; but he knew it was. Ruefully he conceded that Peter was a smart bugger all right. I should have guessed. I’ve known him long enough, he thought.

  The game had taken two hours and Graham had thoroughly enjoyed it. “That was fun,” he said. “Can we play again tomorrow?”

  “If you like. Paul will get his go then if that’s all right?”

  “Sure. I’d better go. It will be dark soon and mum will start to worry,” Graham replied.

  He collected his tokens and packed them, then set off home. On the way he looked longingly up Thelma’s street, hoping for a glimpse of her. Sweet fantasies of true love filled his mind as he walked. It was a fair distance and he considered whether he should have brought his bike to school. No. Then I wouldn’t be able to walk with Thelma, he decided.

  At home that night he resumed work on his new battleship model. The superstructure was built up using a piece of 1cm thick balsa cut to shape for the lowest level, and the one above. On top of that he placed a tower of cardboard with the bridge and various projections on it. The fire control range finders and fighting tops were added, made out of balsa and with pins down through them so they could rotate. A cardboard funnel was added which had the effect of transforming it into a ship.

  He went to bed very pleased with his day.

  ***

  Graham went to school full of hope and expectation the next day. He sang and whistled as he walked along, his mind full of dreams. As soon as he got to school he looked for Thelma. She was with Janet and another girl. As Graham hesitated he saw Janet nudge Thelma and nod in his direction. Thelma looked, then smiled and stood up. To Graham’s surprise and relief Thelma walked over to him so he did not have to talk to her with the other girls listening.

  When she started talking happily to him Graham’s fears that yesterday had just been some sort of mistake evaporated. She really must like me! he decided.

  His happiness grew as the day went on. Thelma talked to him at little lunch and again at big lunch and seemed to be happy. Graham glowed, aware that others were noticing. It made him feel good. He was even more thrilled when, after he told a silly joke to Thelma, she impulsively put out her hand and touched his forearm.

  That made him tingle and his pulses race. His hopes grew. He began to dream of the golden moment when they might actually kiss.

  But I mustn’t rush it. That might put her off, he cautioned himself. He began to agonize again over asking her for a date.

  The crown was placed on his happiness when even that trial suddenly evaporated. She suggested he might like to walk her home. So as soon as classes were over Graham hurried down and waited near the bike racks. While he stood waiting he had another slightly upsetting experience. Nearby the army cadets were getting ready for their weekly Home Training parade. Among the camouflage army uniforms Graham noted several people in school uniform.

  That is Cindy, he noted. For the next few minutes he watched her. At first he thought she must be considering joining the army cadets but that seemed unlikely. But when the cadets were all called to move on parade and she waved to one of the Year 11 boys he realized it wasn’t that at all. She is flirting, he thought and felt quite sad and jealous. Despite that he found he was glad when she went the other way and did not see him waiting.

  A few minutes later Thelma appeared and he walked her h
ome again and when they reached the corner where they had to go their separate ways Thelma turned to him and asked: “Graham, what are you doing on Friday night?”

  Friday night! he thought in a rush of panic. What does she want? He was about to say ‘Scouts’ but instead said, “Whatever you want.”

  She smiled at that and he felt very pleased that it had come out sounding so natural. She said, “Some of us are going to the movies. I wondered if you would like to come?”

  A date! She is asking me! Graham was almost stunned into silence. There was a flash of disappointment that it would be some sort of group thing but he told himself that was only normal. At her age parents did not like serious dating. He replied: “I’d love to come. What is the movie?”

  Thelma told him. He had never heard of it. “It is a love story,” she said. She explained the outline but Graham could not have cared what it was about. He asked: “Who else will be going?”

  “Oh, Janet and her sister and a couple of other kids,” she replied.

  Graham resolved to give Scouts a miss for one night. I might never get another chance! They settled the arrangements of when and where to meet and he went off to Peter’s floating on air.

  The battle against Paul went well. Paul tried Peter’s tactics only with more destroyers. Graham opted for one less battleship and ten more destroyers himself. He lost all of his battleships but managed to sink all of Paul’s destroyers and most of his subs before they ran out of time. It was a very happy boy that walked home that evening.

  Work resumed in the shipyards on the Nelson. Six turrets, each mounting two 6” guns were positioned either side of the superstructure. Searchlight platforms and ladders were added to the sides of the funnel. Boats and small details were added, then the tripod mast and AA guns. By the time he went to bed the model was starting to look like a very powerful ship. I will make the main armament tomorrow, he thought.

  After tea he faced a difficult moment when he asked his mother if he could go to the movies instead of to Scouts.