“I have already spoken with Beijing, what killer satellites we have will begin launching from Baikonur cosmodrome in twelve hours, the People’s Republic has already begun. We will rob the west of their radar and then their communications… they have already blinded their optical surveillance satellites themselves. Now, I believe you have work to do, so… get out!”
The breeze was still as feeble and fitful as it had been for the past few days and the 60’ ketch barely made steerageway. Behind the old sailing vessel were towed a Gemini, three open one man life rafts and a larger inflatable raft with a domed top to keep out the elements.
Fishing was the principle activity onboard; seeking to add to the supplies which would have been adequate for the owners, Muriel and Eric but with four extra mouths to feed rationing was being enforced.
The day before Sandy and the Americans had been taken aboard; Muriel had heard the plaintive cries of the sole occupant of an open life raft. Had there been anything of a wind to speak of they would probably not have noticed it at all, but sound carries well across water and his hails were heard.
The sun had blistered Lt Fu Shen’s skin and his throat so parched that only a determined effort had made any sound come out at all, when he had seen the sail. If he had ever needed a distress flare then that had been the time, but he had used them all signalling the ships of his own combat group, ships that had ignored them and him as they had forged past.
Being fluent in English is a requirement for most pilots but not for lieutenants in the PLAAF who are unlikely to speak to ATC in any country but mainland China; however the young lieutenant had acquired the essentials of his own volition. Learning a foreign language as spoken by one’s own countrymen is rather different to speaking it with a native and the pirated copy of the language tape he had purchased served only to confuse his ear further. Eric’s “Oye, Fu Man Chu… toss that bluddy gun over t’side, or I’ll brain yer!” did not factor in with the syntax contained in ‘Oxford English for Cantonese speakers’. The only clue he had as to what language was being spoken to him by the elderly man had been the Union Flag, called a Union Jack by the misinformed, that hung limp at the stern.
A comic mime act with the elderly Englishman gesturing at the 8mm handgun in Fu Chen’s shoulder holster, and shaking a boathook threateningly had got the message across eventually. Once the aviator had been helped aboard the Englishman’s wife had given him water and plastered a paste made from corn flour and water over his burnt areas of skin, before finally pressing on him fried pieces of potato between slices of bread, a ‘chip butty’ she had called it.
Returning to China or Russia and re-joining the Mao was the aviator’s dearest wish but he had no idea how to sail. A glance at the fuel gauge for the ketch’s small engine ruled out his motoring the small craft there, even if he could bring himself to overpower the elderly pair. They had undoubtedly saved his life and they were in their twilight years, which demanded respect.
The war had interfered with the couple’s plans to sail up the coast to the Bering Straits and then south along the western coast of North America. Their first planned landfall on the Russian continent was to have been at Ust’-Kamchatsk, but the BBC world service had changed their minds for them and they had altered course for Midway.
Coming across the Fleet Air Arm pilot and US Navy aviators had greatly taxed the limited stores of fresh water and food. Chubby had an idea about solving the water crisis, but told them all about it without thinking it through properly.
“What if we fill a sail bag with sand and urinate in it… the sand will filter out the impurities!”
Muriel had looked at Chubby and then back to her husband with a knowing smile.
“And where did that daft idea come from, young ‘un?” Eric asked him.
“I think I read it somewhere.”
“Do you see a beach anywhere you daft bugger… where does the sand come from?”
“Chubby mate, it might have been a good idea for you to select ‘brain’ before engaging ‘mouth’.” Sandy said with a laugh.
“Now just one minute fella… ”
Eric had left the tiny cabin muttering under his breath.
“Soft ha’puth.”
Nikki spent a lot of time sleeping for the first two days but now the headaches that had accompanied wakefulness had faded.
The relationship between the Chinese aviator and the only survivors of the USS John F Kennedy and HMS Prince of Wales had been distinctly chilly at first until Fu Chen had alleviated the water problem for them by using bowls and pans from Muriel’s little galley, along with dustbin bags and seawater.
The westerners had watched curiously on deck as he had filled the pans from the sea, floated empty bowls in them and carefully sealed the lot in the bin bags before arranging depressions in the top of the bags. The seawater evaporated leaving the salt behind in the pans and condensed on the inside of the bags where it ran down the sides to collect in the bottom or drip off the depression into the bowls floating in the pans.
Eric was grudging in his praise toward any foreigner’s ideas, but as he examined the solar stills he actually smiled at the lieutenant and nodded.
“You’ll do.”
Eric did not have a lot of time for officers either, no matter what their nationality.
“Useless buggers the lot of ‘em,” had been his indictment of those he had served under in the Lancashire Fusiliers and later in the Royal Army Service Corps. He had little time for women in uniform either; he related to Nikki how he had got into trouble for swearing at his female pupils as a driving instructor in the RASC.
“Lorries,” as he termed trucks. “Are no place for bluddy women.” However, when Chubby had related how she had shot down at least nine enemy fighters and bombers he had softened considerably.
An aircraft had buzzed them during the night, stooging around for several minutes before departing. They had only been able to hear the sound of its engines but had no doubt that it belonged to the enemy. What they did not know was that the Border Guard An-72 had looked them over through a lo-lite TV and seen the flag of Great Britain on her stern. The only thing that had saved their lives was the ordnance the aircraft carried.
The P-21 Termit R anti-shipping missiles that NATO calls the Styx 2D, would not lock-on to the small wooden vessel and the Antonov had turned for home after reporting the ketch as being a ‘probable spy ship’.
HMS Hood had abandoned her search and was headed for Pearl Harbour when her sonar department picked up the sound of trouble ahead, in the form of a nuclear boat on a sprint. It took just two minutes to get an idea as to what they were up against
“Captain… classify Sierra five one as Han Class, SSN. Bearing now two zero one degrees, course one two eight… speed twenty-six knots.”
Traffic traversing the ocean had dropped to virtually nil since the start of the conflict. What shipping there was hugged the coast, where they could dash for cover if threatened by a surface vessel and where submarines were least likely to venture.
It was the first PLAN submarine they had yet encountered. The People’s Liberation Army Navy had five of the Han nuclear attack boats and one was known to be laid up with reactor plant problems, which left four unaccounted for.
The captain was well aware that the PRC had only one SSBN, or a ‘boomer’ in submariner’s parlance, carrying submarine launched ICBM missiles. Normal practice for the PLAN was to have two Hans escorting the sole Xia class SSBN boat when it was on a cruise, and after their attack on the carriers the captain would have put money on one of the Hans being with the carrier screen now. Was this Han off hunting on its own, or was it part of the Xia escort?