“Why her? She wasn't of any war value. Why did they have to do for her as well?” Fox's voice was anguished, almost a wail, carrying around the dockyard. It caused people to stop and look and that motion caused Fox to compose himself. By the time he had managed it, one of the workmen had come over to him.
“Now don't you take on so Sir. She's not as bad hurt as she looks, honest. We'll get her fixed up again.”
“What happened.... sorry, I don't know your name.”
“It's Thomas, Sir. It was Americans, one of them bent-wing bastards. Corsairs. Wasn't his fault either, really. They were hitting the storage buildings down the way. Couple of old destroyers were tied up down there and they were going for them as well. The Huns had flak all around of course and they'd put a twin-30 on the building over there, that one Sir. You can still see the hole where it was. It got the Yank as he came over the rooftop from the river. He must have been hit just as he fired 'cos his nose dropped and one of the rockets hit the old girl. She burned Sir, but some of the mates, well we got hoses and sand on her and we put it out before she went up proper. If you want to see the one that done it, the wreck's still down there a bit. Burned out of course. Pilot rode it in.”
Fox shook his head. It seemed so pointless, it hadn't even been done deliberately. If it had, if there had been a reason for it, even if it had been for the sheer joy of destruction, perhaps it would have seemed a little less cruel. But for the old girl to get gutted like that, by accident, by a pilot aiming at something else and a flak crew trying to stop him, it was a wanton act of fate.
Without even sensing it he thanked Thomas and wandered away, drifting towards the river that lay the other side of the line of warehouses. Then, looking across the river, he saw where the stories of the destruction of Portsmouth had come from. Pompey had survived, just but Gosport hadn't. Where Gosport had been was a flattened desert, only relieved by the square structure of the great German submarine bunker. Twice the size of the one at Faslane, a bombproof structure for two dozen U-boats and the stores needed to keep them running.
The workman had followed him. “Aye, a grim sight isn't it. Yanks did that too, last day of the war. Same time as they atom bombed Germany near enough. At least two dozen of them big bastards they say, flying so high nobody could see them. Dropped a thousand tons of bombs in a minute so they say. One minute it was all there, just the way it had been, the next it had all gone. Could feel the ground shaking all over Pompey. Us, Huns, U-boat crews, their folks, our folks, everybody just gone. There's nothing left over there now. Only that damned concrete tomb right in the middle. Smashed Gosport to hell the Yanks did but the U-boat pens survived.”
Thomas looked as if he wanted to curse somebody but didn't know who. The Americans perhaps who'd brought such destruction? Or the Germans who'd brought the American bombers down on Gosport? Or Halifax who'd brought in the Germans? Or the politicians who'd brought in Halifax? Or the people whose votes had brought in those politicians. In the final analysis, had the people of Gosport brought the B-36s down on their own heads? Surely that couldn't be right or fair. Just who was to blame? Or was nobody to blame, was the whole nightmare just the results of blind chance and evil fate?
Fox sat on a concrete bollard, looking over the gray, stained river towards the moonlike plain where Gosport had been. Sitting in the concrete bunker was HMS Thule, shortly to become HMAS Thule. A modernized, streamlined T-boat that would be his command the moment he signed his transfer to the Australian Navy. He'd take her out and Julia would follow on one of the liners and they'd meet up again out there. Somewhere fresh where they could make a new start, build a future. He'd come down to Portsmouth for no other reason than to sign those papers and look at Thule
Fox felt the breeze freshen slightly and he caught a slight hint of burned timber. He felt it was from Victory but probably it wasn't. There were enough burned buildings around here to make up the numbers. There was something else on the breeze, a smell of fresh timber. He turned around and saw a cart was unloading wood, good English oak, beside Victory. Some was being carried inside and he could hear the sounds of saws and hammers. Even as he watched, damaged timber was carried out and lengths of new wood carried in to replace it.
It occurred to him that Victory was a good allegory for England itself. Smashed, broken, burned, wrecked by friends and enemies alike. Yet still, despite all the odds, despite all the hardship, people were at work putting the pieces back together again. Rebuilding what could be rebuilt, replacing what could be replaced, making do where neither was possible. Making the best of what they had left.
He couldn't leave, Fox thought, it would be deserting. But he had his own life; he'd survived eight years of a war that had killed most of his class-mates. Wasn't that enough? And Julia deserved a proper life, one where she could have some of the things she deserved. Including a future and a family. Fox sat, staring alternately at the ruins of Gosport and the slow work on Victory, the arguments surging backwards and forwards in his mind. As soon as he made a decision, one way or the other, the losers retreated, re-gathered and surged back, swinging him the other way.
Fox sat on his bollard, unaware of the hours that were passing and the soft gray dusk that was slowly closing in on him. A lonely figure, torn by his indecision and the weight that was pressing down on him. Britain or Australia? When night fell, he was still sitting there, his face in his hands, and still he had not made his decision.
Headquarters, Second Karelian Front, Riga, “The Baltic Gallery”
“Vodka!” Rokossovsky's voice held a quiet air of desperation.
“Lord God Yes, for the love of mercy. Vodka!” Rommel's voice shared the desperation and added a touch of incredulity. Across the table from him, Rokossovsky banged the surface with his fist. Two of his women came in with a bottle of real vodka, not the home-brew that seemed to appear every time a Russian Army unit halted for a few minutes. One moved slightly faster than the other and got her glass in front of the Russian first.
“Thank you Anya.” Rokossovsky looked at the other girl then at Rommel. The girl shook her head and his hand dropped to his pistol holster. The girl shrugged and sat by Rommel, pouring him a glass of the clear liquid. Rommel understood the silent conversation as if it had been spoken in German. “Sit with the German and pour his drinks.” “Over my dead body.” “That can be arranged.'* “Oh, all right then.”
“Erwin, let us drink to insanity. There is so much of it in the world.”
“To insanity, Konstantin. Yours, ours and most especially, theirs.” Both men burst out laughing, the tension released. Neither of them was in any doubt who 'they' were. They touched glasses and drained the contents, the two girls refilling them as soon as they touched the table.
“Four governments, four different sets of boundaries, every one of them claiming to be the only true representative of the Polish people. This set want the pre-1939 borders, that set want some that haven't been seen since the 17th Century. We should have known this would happen, Erwin, we both have Polish troops in our armies.”'
“Yes my friend. And if we give mine to that lot, every one of them will be dead by dusk. And if we give yours to those maniacs down there, all of yours will be the same. They'll probably kill everybody. I wonder who they hate more, you, us or each other?”
Rokossovsky thought for a moment. “They all hate you more than they hate each other. Two of the four hate us more than they hate the other two, the remainder hate the others more than they hate us. And it’s not just us. You heard the Czechs and the Slovaks are at each other's throats? Their threats are words only, now, but words will become reality in time unless somebody stops it. So what are we to do?”