by James Philip
His chief, Surgeon Commander Michael Flynn had yet to get his head around the notion that Abe was a virtual teetotaller, so he put the younger man’s moments of introspection down to his sobriety.
‘Never met a woman who didn’t drive me up the wall if we spent more than a couple of days in each other’s company!’ He had proudly confessed to the younger man.
Which had left Abe reflecting that although his superior no doubt had numerous excellent qualities, in some respects his appreciation of the human psyche was sadly deficient in a man who, like himself, had devoted his life to a profession which had as its precept primum no nocere: first do no harm.
The controller’s torch flashed twice.
Abe braced himself
The next thing he knew the Sea Fox was airborne.
He heard Ted Forrest’s cheerful tones in his headphones.
“I suggest we point the old jalopy at one-one-oh degrees magnetic on that round, compass-like thing in front of you, skipper!”
Abe suppressed a chuckle and held the aircraft in a slow climbing turn to the left, planning to circle Achilles a couple of times to get his heartbeat back down to a sensible pace before setting course to the south.
“That should take us to within sight of Navassa Island in about thirty-five minutes time,” his navigator continued, “assuming we wobble along at what passes for a normal cruising speed for one of these dinosaurs.”
Both Abe and Ted had had their heads turned by the ‘demonstration’ aircraft manufacturers had sent over to Virginia to persuade the Royal Navy to submit large early orders for the next, and probably final variant of the Goshawk scout-interceptor and the latest incarnation of the Sea Eagle dual-purpose torpedo-dive bomber. The Goshawk Mark IV had a top speed in level flight closer to three than two times that of the ancient Sea Fox; the Sea Eagle Mark III could carry a ton-and-a-half of ordinance and was at least twice as fast. Both aircraft – already in service or coming into service with the Royal Naval Air Service - had service ceilings of over thirty thousand feet and a ferry range of about fourteen hundred miles. In comparison, referring to a Sea Fox as a ‘dinosaur’ was nothing but stating the fact, and if one was being picky, being a little unfair on that magnificent genus of long-extinct ancient reptiles.
As the aircraft flew to the south, climbing away from the Achilles the sky lightened to full day. It never ceased to amaze Abe that from altitude at this time of day one could very nearly see the new day racing to the west.
Suddenly, he blinked.
“Ted, put your glasses on two, maybe three ships at your eight o’clock.”
There was a delay of several seconds.
“I’ve got three ships, maybe a cruiser and two destroyers,” his friend reported.
“I can’t see a thing now,” Abe retorted in frustration.
“It’s a big hazy down there. They might be some of the old ships the Hispanics periodically recover from the scrap yard!’
Many Europeans called the Spanish on Santo Domingo ‘Hispanics’, New Englanders just called them ‘Dominicans’ or simply ‘Spaniards’…or worse. The farther north one went or the farther out into the interior of the North American continent, the generic appellation ‘Dagoes’ was in common usage, apparently a corruption, or a derivation, depending upon one’s conscience, of the Spanish name ‘Diego’.
The ‘old ships’ of the Santo Domingo Colonial Navy were in every respect, very old, a handful of ironclad cruisers with a miscellany of different calibre main battery armaments and powered by antiquated Spanish-made, inefficient – even when brand new – triple expansion reciprocating engines incapable of driving them through the waves faster than fifteen or sixteen knots. The ‘destroyers’ on the Dominican Navy List were better described as ‘torpedo boats’, sub-one thousand-ton greyhounds in their prime but by modern standards, feebly armed and not best suited for oceanic operations. All of those ‘old’ ships had coal-fired boilers.
“I don’t think those ships can be that ancient, Abe,” Ted Forrest offered. “I’m not seeing clouds of black coal smoke.”
Between the haze and sun dazzle on the sea in the direction of the original sighting neither men could see a great deal for some minutes.
Abe checked the altimeter.
Five thousand feet.
He began to ease the Sea Fox lower, relishing the odd obedience of the ‘float-less’ sea plane. Not that the bombs slung under her wings and the fixed undercarriage offered an altogether negligible drag on the airflow streaming over the aircraft.
“What…” Abe grunted as the Sea Fox bucked like an angry mule.
Something hit the aircraft, rattling against the low windscreen in front of his face.
“Somebody’s bloody shooting at us!” Ted Forrest yelped over the intercom.
Two or three hundred feet above the aircraft and directly along the course Abe had been flying less than thirty seconds before, ugly balls of expanding grey smoke filled the sky.
Abe swung the Sea Fox around and dipped her nose into a shallow dive to the west. He had no intention of hanging around presenting an easy target for what probably had to be ELDAR-directed anti-aircraft fire.
“Ted,” he decided. “Break radio silence and report to Achilles that we have come under fire from as many as three unidentified warships. Send them our position. Tell the ship I plan to loiter hereabouts; hopefully, out of range.” He realised he was getting breathless. He took a couple of deliberately long, calming breaths. “You best ask them what they want us to do.”
His friend acknowledged this.
Then quipped: “I’m not going to remind Achilles we’ve got bombs on board. Those beggars have already made a couple of holes in the top wing and we were miles away at the time!”
Abe elected not to amend his orders.
The last time he had tried to ‘dive bomb’ a ship at sea he had nearly killed them both and on that occasion, nobody had actually been shooting at them!
Chapter 33
Wednesday 5th April
Hacienda de Cortés, Navalperal de Tormes, Avila
Melody Danson had awakened that morning to discover Henrietta De L’Isle keeping watch over her. Her lover was lying on her side, her gaze sleepily, contentedly amused. She kissed Melody, who reciprocated while attempting to suppress a giggle. The women hugged tight together and sank deeper into their nest of blankets.
Melody began to doze off to sleep again until the call of nature whose twinges had been what had roused her in the first place, reminded her it was a need which had, and was not about to go away. She groaned, began to disentangle herself.
It was only then that she realised that she hurt all over.
She was so stiff and sore, down to the marrow of her bones with every joint seemingly aching in mutual complaint, that she found it hard to sit up the first time she tried it. Her legs felt like wooden sticks even though – although she had no memory of it – her feet were bandaged and the stinging agony of yesterday’s blisters was gone when eventually, she staggered upright.
She was wearing a long white cotton nightdress.
No, I don’t remember putting that on either…
Fresh clothes were hanging on hooks by the bedroom door and folded over the back of chairs near the bed. Not the fancy court dresses they had been wearing right up to their desperate escape from Chinchón, no these were practically, crudely tailored workmen’s or male below stairs household staff fatigues. That made sense, with their hair short and the way they had slewed off every last ounce of superfluous flesh in the last couple of weeks, they hardly looked like ladies of leisure anymore!
Somebody had had their walking boots cleaned and polished overnight.
And there was a tray on the floor near the bed with hard doorsteps of fresh bread – the smell gave it away – cheese, a jug of water and crystal glasses.
Briefly, the women forgot their pains and attacked ‘breakfast’.
Under the window of their large, white-walled chamber there w
as a big bowl of tepid water, soap and towels which they employed in a vain attempt to make themselves look ‘half-way presentable’ before dressing and creeping down a wide staircase to the ground floor where they interrupted a conversation between Paul Nash, Albert Stanton – Melody had thought she had dreamed their meeting the previous evening – and a large, distinguished man in his sixties who introduced himself as Don José Cortés, Alcalde of Navalperal de Tormes.
All three men had side arms strapped to their hips.
Paul Nash had his grey automatic pistol, the others old-fashioned silvery revolvers of the type still, allegedly favoured by cowboys on the great ranches of the New England west, and all manner of ne’er-do-wells and ‘free spirits’ in the fast-shrinking wildernesses beyond the Mississippi.
The women became aware of the intense activity outside, the sound of horses, and of vehicle motors running up.
“We had hoped to let you ladies rest a while longer,” Don José apologised, mortified that their restorative slumber had been prematurely disturbed. “Paul has told us of the privations of your journey and of your remarkable fortitude.”
Melody smiled and thanked the old man and his family for ‘taking us in’.
Don José beamed with pleasure.
“I had heard that you were both fluent speakers of our ancient language,” he chortled in native Castilian.
“It has been our great joy to hear again the music in that language these last few months,” Henrietta interjected with a girlish smile.
Melody had quickly accepted that the daughter of a Viscount was, as was to be expected, a lot better at social small talk than she was ever going to be, and wisely, since they had been in Spain she had often deferred to the younger woman in public settings.
Don José was instantly charmed to the point of distraction, his mind momentarily diverted from the troubles he and the other men had been discussing.
“We need to be on the road in the next couple of hours,” Paul Nash declared, matter of factly.
The women waited for him to elaborate.
“There is an Army patrol in the next village,” Albert Stanton explained, throwing a frown at Nash. “We think the road to the west is still clear but the authorities seem to be getting their act together.”
Melody’s heart sank.
Don José and his people were about to become fugitives too.
The old man seemed to be reading her thoughts.
“Like my old friend Don Rafael, My Lord’s strong right arm, I and my family’s banner has been loyal to the Duke’s House since before the time of the Great War. His Grace has declared for the Queen and we are thus, condemned. We must flee, come what may because there is no place for us, or for any of our clan or mind in this new Spain.”
He spoke with stern, implacable gravitas as if there was no choice but to accept his fate.
Melody felt a tear trickle down her left cheek.
“No, no,” Don José murmured. “It is God’s will. My family is descended from that great butcher Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, who died in debt, shunned and shamed by his own people. It matters more to my household that we live in honour rather than bend our knee to those who would betray Old Spain.”
Paul Nash coughed.
A starter motor fired, died, roared again in the yard outside.
He looked hard at Melody and Henrietta.
“Neither of you is fit to walk.” He shrugged. “Which rules out a slow, possibly safer trek over the mountains.” This said he grimaced: “Well, ‘safer’ being a bit of an oxymoron in this case.”
Albert Stanton opened his mouth to speak.
Nash cut him off.
“So, what we’re going to do is mount up in every available vehicle and make a headlong dash for the Portuguese border. Several of Don José’s most trusted men will go ahead of the main convoy. As a vanguard, or trail blazers, if you like. I will hang back in the rear guard. If all goes well, we shall meet up again on friendly territory in twenty-four to forty-eight hours’ time.”
Melody had always been a woman trying to compete with men in their world and in her experience, it was exactly this sort of macho, testosterone-driven do or die crap which was responsible for most, if not all, of the World’s troubles.
Infuriatingly, in this situation she could not think of a better idea. She knew that although there probably had to be one – a better idea, that was – she just could not think of it.
So, do-or-die it had to be…
Involuntarily, she put her hand to her neck where habitually she twirled her hair in moments of concentration. Her fingers encountered fresh air and she snapped back her hand, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.
Don José was viewing her with concern.
“It is nothing,” she assured him quickly, with a tight-lipped smile. “Hen and I used to have long hair. Like I say, it is stupid…”
“Only two women of such fortitude and distinction could have survived the long walk out of the Sierra de Guadarrama. I did not think it was possible,” the old man grimaced. “Your beauty is not in your hair, it shines from within your souls.”
Melody blinked, tried not to start crying.
And I thought Alonso was a sweet-talking seducer…
This must have been the guy who taught him all he knows!
She heard what she took to be an engine backfiring in the distance. The men in the room were suddenly tense, listening hard.
“That sounded like one of those old policía carbines,” Paul Nash suggested.
Don José nodded.
There was more shooting, albeit still distant.
The rattle of return fire, a ragged fusillade was not perhaps, as far away as they had all first imagined as it filtered into the room like the commotion of fireworks in the next valley.
Nash patted Don José’s arm.
“That settles it,” he decided. “I need to be somewhere else and you and the ladies need to be heading in the other direction!”
Chapter 34
Wednesday 5th April
Windward Passage, Caribbean
Knowing that they were too far away from the Achilles to communicate via scrambled VHF radio transmissions Abe climbed to rise, hopefully, high enough above the cruiser’s line of sight horizon to establish secure voice communications. All the while Ted Forrest tried to raise the ship having been ordered not to broadcast in ‘the clear’ a second time.
“That’s it!” He proclaimed triumphantly. “I’ve made contact again!”
The ships below had stopped shooting at the Sea Fox.
Either the range was too long, or they were flying too high. More likely the former than the latter, although their altitude was a perishingly cold nine thousand feet at present.
Abe had decided he was not going to miss the old-fashioned open cockpits of the Sea Fox when somebody offered him the chance to fly a more ‘modern’ aircraft.
“The other two kites are going to bomb those fellows!” The man in the aft cockpit reported. “We’re to keep well out of the way and when it is all over, we’re to report to Achilles and to beetle off down to Jamaica pronto!”
Abe did not think a Sea Fox could get anywhere near one of those ships down there without getting shot to pieces.
“Those ships almost knocked us down at a range of three or four miles,” he reminded his friend. “They’ve got to have ELDAR-controlled gun directors on at least one of those boats. Our kites will be sitting ducks!”
“I’m just telling you what Achilles told me, skipper,” Ted Forrest retorted tersely.
Abe realised that discussing it was not going to change anything.
“See if you can raise the other kites on the scrambler link, Ted.”
“What do you want me to say to them?”
“Tell them we’ll approach the targets from the west if they want to attack from other points, say north and east of the compass. That way, we’ll at least split their fire and hopef
ully, make it impossible for their ELDAR directors to concentrate on a single aircraft.”
Well, until the beggars have shot down the other two Sea Foxes...
“We were ordered to stay out of it, skipper?”
“Our friends will get themselves blown to bits if we don’t do something, Ted.”
“Okay, okay. But for goodness sake try not to fly down the funnel of the nearest ship this time!”
Abe began to bleed off height, seeking to get below the haze to find a clearer view of the enemy’s – people who fired at one were by definition ‘enemies’ – vessels.
He blinked.
Whoever those ships belonged to the biggest of the three was no antiquated ironclad. To the contrary, just a fleeting glimpse of its three-quarters silhouette was enough to betray the purposeful lines of a modern cruiser, escorted by two big, very mean-looking fleet destroyers built on the…German model.
No, that was insane!
There were no big Kaiserliche Marine warships in the western Caribbean. The radio listening services in Florida and along the Gulf Coast all the way to the Mississippi Delta below New Orleans routinely triangulated all radio traffic in the region, identifying and locating – within a few miles – where every active unit of the Cuban and New Spanish navies were, day by day. Add to that the reports of ship sightings by the countless British and New England-flagged, not to mention friendly merchantmen plying these waters and a foreign vessel, especially a warship could not fire up a boiler without, within hours, appearing on the big situation board at Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk. Besides, all the German warships in the region were supposed to be down in Vera Cruz the best part of eighteen hundred miles away…
“The big ship looks like an Emden class cruiser. The destroyers with her look like C or D type ships.”