“And that's not so very far away from where the Huks are playing up in the Philippines. Damn it Greg, when the Germans took Britain out, the lifted the cork on the bottle of every regional issue out here. Now we've got this so called “border incident” blowing up in our faces. We've got pressure on us as well on the Indonesian thing. Bali and a few of the smaller islands are Hindu and the extreme nationalists want us to take them over. Or establish a “protectorate” as you so elegantly put it.”
“I know. We've got a problem there we're going to have to talk about. But you're right about the whole situation here melting down. Martyn, you're not helping the situation you know. Everybody knows India's pulling out of the Commonwealth sooner or later. We're staying in; it’s the one thing that's holding this place together at the moment. Anyway, I don't think Australians will accept pulling out. Too much to lose, nothing much to gain by doing it. Seems like it would be stabbing the old country in the back as well. Anyway, the old Commonwealth's pretty much of a spent force. Won't much longer, once India's out, the Commonwealth's just a shell, out here at any rate.”
“We've got to get out Greg. Look, the Hindu nationalists want power yesterday and, to be honest about it, they can make a pretty good case. Amritsar and all that. Only there isn't a class of top-level administrators yet. The lower-grade civil servants we've got are as good as we'll find but they just don't have the experience for running things at the top. There's got to be a phased handover, we've got to keep running things while we train our replacements. Thank God the Indian National Congress understood the problems.”
Sir Martyn was quiet for a moment. Getting the 1NC to understand that an immediate handover of power in June 1940 was impossible had probably been his finest achievement. The INC had entered discussions wanting all the administration transferred to their hands and wanted it done immediately. He'd explained the problems to them, lead them carefully through the maze of economic, strategic and political hazards that bedeviled India in this crisis. He'd shown them how few solutions really offered themselves and how the very survival of India as an independent country was at stake.
The leader of the INC, Nehru, was many things but a fool he wasn't and lie, like Sir Martyn, had India's best interests at heart. He couldn't have been more different from Sir Martyn in political outlook but he also had the strength of character to realize that it would need all their combined strengths and skills to weather the situation. As their discussions had continued they'd both realized that their different political beliefs had one common factor. They both loved India and wanted to sec it great again. That realization had lead Nehru to accept that there had to be an interim stage, a gradual transition of power. But he'd also made it clear that power would change hands, sooner rather than later.
“Leaving the Commonwealth is the sort of political gesture that will allow us to do that. Publicly severing ties with Britain and the Commonwealth will give them enough to keep the INCs supporters quiet while we make sure the handover of the administration is smooth. Time, Greg, that's what we need and we're buying it. If we rush this transition, if we just pack up and hand everything over, there'll be civil war. The Moslems will pull out, try to set up their own state and they'll try and drive the Hindus out. With fire and sword and, believe me, there'll be plenty of both. The Hindus will hit back at the Moslems and there'll be hundreds of thousands of dead by the time it’s all over. And India will be split. We've got to avoid that, Greg, and leaving the Commonwealth is a small price to pay.”
“For you, perhaps, for us is a disaster. We've got to have some sort of regional organization out here and if it’s not the Commonwealth, what is it going to be? What the devil........”
The lights in the airport building had flipped out. From the darkness outside. Sir Martyn guessed that the runway lights he'd admired earlier had also gone out. Almost simultaneously there was a roar overhead, two aircraft, perhaps more, flying very low overhead.
“What's happening, are we under attack? Surely the Japanese couldn't be thinking of.....'“ Sir Greg was interrupted by two more low-flying aircraft. Sir Martyn chanced a look outside. Just turning off the runway was the dark, shadowy shape of a B-27, its navigation lights out and its somber gray paint merging in with the background. Looking behind it, he could see two more shapes making their final approaches.
“No, Greg. We're not under attack. I think our old friend is making an uncharacteristically dramatic arrival.”
He was right. As soon as the aircraft had landed, the lights came back on and the B-27 and the fighters were tucked away on the hard stand. It took only a few minutes before a familiar figure arrived in the lounge.
“Sir Martyn, Sir Gregory. I am pleased to see you. My apologies if our arrival caused disturbance but the Japanese had night-fighters up, Mitsubishi Ki-83 Ingas, and we had to fly down from Bangkok without lights.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you Madam Ambassador. I trust you were not exposed to any danger?”
“No more than usual. One of the Ingas was a little too close but my Tigercat escorts got it. Japanese radar is still not very good and their night-fighters are very poor. I have four Tigercats patrolling overhead so it is unlikely that we will be disturbed. I would suggest that when you leave here, you head south as long as you can to get well clear before turning for home. I suspect Japanese aircraft will be very active tomorrow. We had air superiority all over the battlefield today, the Japanese will try and change that tomorrow,”
“How does the battle go, Madam Ambassador? I was in Darwin and the only reports I have are very outdated.”
“The Japanese crossed at dawn. Two full infantry divisions. All we had along the border was militia. Civilians armed with shotguns and gunpowder muskets against trained infantrymen,” She sighed. In reality it hadn't been quite that bad but it bad been desperately close.
“They held the line just long enough for us to move a full infantry division up but they suffered terribly. If it hadn't been for the Ostriches flying close support, we would have been in desperate straits. But they did hold. In the east they stopped the Japanese advance; in the west we even pushed them back a bit. There's armor in that bulge somewhere but the Japanese haven't committed it yet.
“We think they're organized as four corps, each with two infantry divisions and an independent armored brigade. So far, they've probed with one of those corps. Depending on what happens to it, the others may cross or try to grind us up along the river. We've got to end it quickly, there's no way we can fight a long, drawn-out engagement against the whole Japanese Army.”
Sir Gregory nodded sympathetically. “I understand how concerned you must be. We, too, are stuck with an unwanted and apparently unending troop commitment, in our case peacekeeping in Timor and the Moluccas. We even have a request from some of the interested parties to take that area under our wing and form it into an Australian Protectorate. We would like nothing more than for BUPKIS to agree to that arrangement and allow the Christian east to go their own way.”
Although no trace of it showed on her face, the Ambassador felt an enormous surge of relief pass through her. As the news of the fighting had come in, she'd known that the one chance of her country surviving the Japanese assault was to get help from the allies she's spent two years cultivating. All day, she'd had the dreaded thought in the back of her mind, that it had all been for nothing. That Australia and India would leave her in the lurch to deal with the Japanese by herself. Now, Sir Gregory had laid out a bargaining chip, she knew that would not be the case. They would help; all that they were negotiating was the price of that assistance.