He cupped his hands to his mouth and bawled: “Turn on the fire main!”
He and Miles Weiss had hurriedly discussed the complete insanity of what they were trying to do as if it seemed like the most routine of peacetime evolutions. It had been a short, abbreviated little chat. Peter had informed his friend that he would try not to collide with the American aircraft carrier; while Miles Weiss was to worry about putting as much water as possible onto and into the burning ship. They had decided not to worry about the risk of being blown up by a stray bomb or a rocket falling off the fiery stern of the Enterprise; and if there were further big airbursts in the area they’d deal with that nearer the time. The best plan was to worry about the things they could do something about, and ignore everything else. They hoped Admiral Lord Nelson — and Peter’s father back in Malta, if it still existed — would approve.
Something blew up onboard the big carrier.
Shrapnel and debris rained down within a few feet of Talavera’s bow.
The stream of water from the two hoses on the fo’c’sle reached out for the Enterprise, touched her grey flank near the waterline and slowly, slowly crept up her side as the destroyer drew closer and closer, and even closer until the streams of water boiled violently off nearly red hot hull plates. Belatedly, the hose up in the foremast coughed and burped into action. It spewed forth a less concentrated jet of water but serendipitously, almost immediately every drop it discharged from its lofty nozzle was pouring straight into a blackened, flaming gash in the plating ten feet beneath the armoured flight deck.
“Half-astern STARBOARD!”
Filthy grey-black smoke was tumbling down into the ever narrowing gap between the Talavera’s starboard side and the Enterprise making it impossible to know, at any given moment, how much clearance there was between the ships.
Talavera was so close to the behemoth that she was pitching and rolling in her wake. There was a brief, unhappy rending of metal as the starboard aluminium yard of the foremast scraped along the side of the bigger ship and disintegrated.
Water from the hoses was pummelling the sides of the carrier.
Talavera was so close the jets of water turned to soaking mists as they played on the superheated plates, struck the massive overhang of the flight deck, and poured over the edge of the overhanging steel cliff like small waterfalls. As the water fell onto the deck it sizzled before slowly, it began to cool the metal underfoot. One of Scorpion’s fire hoses misdirected a torrent of water directly across the Talavera’s bridge, momentarily knocking Peter Christopher and several other men down.
Struggling to his feet he realised the ship felt strange beneath his feet.
“Full astern BOTH!”
It was too late.
HMS Talavera’s bow swung in an inexorable, slow arc towards the impregnable bulk of the burning super carrier’s stern.
There was another huge explosion high overhead.
The burning carcass of an F-4 Phantom lurched over the side of the flight deck, balanced for a precarious, heart-stopping moment and then rolled off the Enterprise directly above HMS Talavera’s bridge.
Author’s Endnote
Thank you again for reading Timeline 10/27/62 — Book 4: Red Dawn. I hope you enjoyed it — or if you didn’t, sorry — but either way, thank you for reading and helping to keep the printed word alive. Remember, civilisation depends on people like you.
The sequel to Red Dawn, Timeline 10/27/62 — Book 5: The Burning Time will be available on 1st July 2015.
Book 6: Tales of Brave Ulysses, will be published on 1st January 2016, the first of the three scheduled additions to the Main Series available in 2016.
These novels are set in the Timeline 10/27/62 World. Reader feedback has been most instructive, not to say very helpful, in the ongoing development of future novels and narrative arcs in this project.
One of the loudest ‘messages’ I have received from my readers, particularly in America, is that there is an appetite for a wholly American perspective on the American experience of Armageddon.
In response to this ‘message’ I plan to write an initial three-book series — Timeline 10/27/62 — USA. The first two books will be published on Amazon on 27th October 2015, and the third in the first half of 2016.
Timeline 10/27/62 — USA
Book 1: Aftermath (Available 27th October 2015)
Book 2: California Dreaming (Available 27th October 2015)
Book 3: The Great Society (Available 26th January 2016)
In due course other books set in the Timeline 10/27/62 World will join flesh out more and more of the changed history of the World after the Cuban Missiles War.
For details of my other books and forthcoming publications please check out www.jamesphilip.co.uk.