“I took the liberty of contacting Phillip. He’s sending Igrat over to collect the information. She’ll have Henry with her as a bodyguard.” Branwen waited for the explosion. Dealing with a situation that involved both Phillip Stuyvesant and Loki was rather like juggling bottles of nitroglycerine. One could never be sure quite what was happening or when one would explode.
“That’s good. Is there any word from England yet?”
Branwen relaxed slightly. “On Churchill? No. He seems to have vanished completely. The general presumption is that he headed south as soon as news of the Coup broke and made it to Ireland. Our guess is that he’s still there, in hiding and waiting for things to settle down before flying over to Canada.”
“Interesting. Head of a government-in-exile I suppose. A lot of people who were over in the U.S. and Canada have refused to return. The entire British Purchasing Commission for a start.” Loki grinned at the thought. “And that gives any government in exile a useful civil service. Something most of them lack. Igrat’s coming over, you say?”
“That’s right.” And you’re pleased because it’ll give you another chance to get her into your bed. Something you only want because you think that sleeping with Phillip’s daughter will be a gesture of derision aimed at him. And Igrat won’t sleep with you because she’s smart enough to understand that.
“Good, I’ve got some German strategic plans here as well. One’s on an abortive plan Noth came up with. He thought of going East through Turkey and Persia to try and hit India. The other is the German decision to invade Russia. I hope the Americans will know how to use them.” Loki looked at the plan for the German advance on India. It had its author’s blood on the cover.
The CardenLloyd machine gun carrier came to an abrupt halt, its long antennas waving in the air. The tactical situation had been set up for this particular display. The presumption was that a Thai unit was advancing down a road and had run into a hostile roadblock, built around entrenched infantry and supported by artillery and machine guns. It was a well-built, well-sited position that would hold up the advance for several hours if not dealt with. The book answer was quite simple; some of the advancing infantry would pin the roadblock with a frontal probe while the rest of the unit outflanked the defenses and either wiped them out or forced them out of their position. Simple, but requiring too much time. A different answer was being evaluated here.
The key component of that answer was the machine-gun carrier. Or rather, the vehicle that had once been a machine gun carrier. It had been rebuilt; an enlarged and much taller rear structure had been added that housed two radios, their operator and an Air Force officer. One of the radios was tuned to Air Force frequencies and would be used to contact the Corsair dive bombers circling overhead. The other radio was a standard Army communications set. Inside the vehicle, the Air Force officer had seen the defenses and decided to do something about it.
“Cobra Section, attack target on road five hundred meters ahead of position. Green to red.”
Suriyothai watched as the flare arched upwards from the CardenLloyd and started to burn green. Half way through, the flare turned red.
Overhead, the drone of aircraft engines suddenly picked up in volume. Then it changed to the wailing scream of a dive bomber in its near-vertical plummet on the ‘enemy position’. The Air Force has taken a lesson from the German book and attached sirens to the fixed undercarriages of its Vought Corsair biplanes. She looked up; the four aircraft that formed Cobra Section were peeling over into their dive. It was a chilling sight; one that the world had become all too familiar with after the German displays in Poland and France.
Her binoculars tracked the dive bombers down as they slammed their weapons into the enemy position. We need better dive bombers; ones that can dive steeper and deliver heavier bombs than those old Corsairs. On the ground, the troops were running forward while the smoke from the bombs was still clearing. By the time the defenders could have recovered, the infantry were all over them. The position ‘fell quickly’ and the Thai flag was waving over it before the aircraft could return.
“Five minutes from spotting the defense to the dive bombers taking it out.” Field Marshal Plaek sounded more than pleased. “It took the Germans between twenty and thirty minutes to organize an attack like that, and everybody thought they were marvels for achieving it. And we took five!”
“Because we had the aircraft circling overhead and the observer on the ground ready to bring them in. That’s the real breakthrough. The dive bomber attack was reasonably good but it was nowhere near as skilled as the Germans. Our dive bomber pilots need to train more. They must fly more often and keep practicing. See to it please, Field Marshal.”
It was a sight that would confuse any conventional military officer. A woman in a Colonel’s uniform was casually giving orders a man in the uniform of a Field Marshal. Only the tiny handful of people who knew who the woman was would have found it, not just unsurprising, but routine.
“Do you miss military command, Your Highness?”
Suriyothai smiled in response. “Yes, I do. And I miss fighting with you by my side.”
Beneath her smile, her mind ran back to 1932 and the end of the absolute monarchy in Thailand. Her function, the whole meaning of her life, was to serve the monarchy and defend its interests. Sometimes, that meant changing it. 1932 had been one of those times. She had seen that the days of absolute monarchies had ended. They had ended years before, but a series of unusually able kings in Thailand had concealed that. But time had caught up with the monarchy and it had to change, become a constitutional monarchy, if the institution was to survive.
It had been the Great Depression that had ended things. The existing absolute monarchy had been unable to cope with the escalating financial crisis; economic ruin threatened. Suriyothai had moved to avoid the impending disaster. She organized a group of military officers and civilians and planned a coup that had taken place in June 1932. Her allies then had been a group of young intellectuals educated overseas led by a young French educated lawyer, Pridi Banomyong, and a military faction led by military officers Phraya Phahon and Plaek Pibulsonggram. The coup had been launched at dawn and was over by noon the same day. It went so smoothly that most people were hardly aware it had taken place. The King had acceded to the demands to avoid bloodshed and agreed to serve as the constitutional monarch. Not everybody approved of that. In October 1933, a rebellion by provincial garrisons led by Prince Boworadet, a former Minister of War, brought the country to the brink of civil war. Suriyothai had assembled a force of government troops and appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Plaek Pibulsonggram their commander. In order to make sure she remained in command, she had appointed herself a Colonel and so she had remained.
The fighting had started on 12 October when the rebels had captured Don Muang on the outskirts of Bangkok. Heavy street fighting had lasted for two days before they began to retreat. Suriyothai had led her regiment in pursuit and overrun the main rebel stronghold. Even then, she hadn’t stopped. Her troops had pursued and advanced to the rebel base in Nakhon Ratchasima. By 23 October, the rebels had been dispersed, and the revolt was over.