“Yes, sir,” Higgins said. His pager buzzed. “Sir, aircraft are inbound from French Indochina, heading for Singapore.”
Flynn nodded. “Understood,” he said. “I have to take command; order the air defences to engage the enemy, cleared to fire without warning.” He snorted. “Do we still need the legalese?” Higgins shrugged. “Target-lock them and fire at will.”
Flynn heard the chitter-chitter-chitter of the radar-guided machine guns as the Japanese aircraft closed in on the island. The Governor flinched, even underground in the bunker, and winced as the first explosion shook the ground.
“A Zero went down,” a technician called out, when Flynn cocked an eyebrow at her. “The enemy aircraft have been wiped out. Some minor damage to the docks; one bomber crashed into the Peak District.”
“Send the fire brigade,” Flynn ordered, and scowled. Did Singapore even have a fire brigade? “What’s it like on the streets?”
“Panic,” Higgins reported. “The police have been clashing with Chinese and native factions for the last hours; a lot of weapons have been smuggled in and are being used on us. Some of it is opportunistic looting, but we’re still being killed.”
“I should declare martial law,” Thomas said. He’d become a great deal more agreeable when the attacks had begun. “Order everyone off the streets.”
Flynn had considered that. “It won’t work,” he said. “We’re already losing control; we’d have to bring back a division to control the streets, and we can’t afford it.”
“Can we afford not to bring them back?” Thomas asked. The report of a white woman being raped had shocked the upper class, who’d been pressuring the governor to bring the police to the Peak District and protect them and them alone. “We have to…”
“We have to stop the Japanese,” Flynn said. He scowled, considering the problem. Far too many of the attacks were motivated by the desire for revenge, to kick the Europeans while they were down; the most successful Chinese businesses hadn’t been attacked. “My troops are not equipped for crowd control.”
“The Council is already demanding that I take action to protect their property,” Thomas insisted. His voice was becoming more plaintive. “People are dying, important people…”
“Everyone is important,” Flynn snapped. “Colonel, kindly put the Governor in protective custody.”
Ignoring Thomas’s protests, Higgins escorted the Governor to one of the police stations. Flynn scowled at the map; he needed a peaceful rear area, but at the same time he understood the racial frustration that had burst out of the ethnic population. Was it time for Operation Clean Sweep?
“Colonel, can we pull Clean Sweep off in the next few hours?” He asked, as Higgins returned. “That is, without lowering the defences enough to pose a real problem?”
“It’s about bloody time,” Higgins said. “Half of the men are very… unhappy about those stone age bastards.”
Flynn smiled for the first time. “Answer the question,” he said.
Higgins took a moment to consider. “I don’t think that any of them would put up a fight,” he said. “We’d use the infantry reserve to do the act, all 2015 forces, not Contemporary. The only problem is that some of the other locals may take it as permission to start something.”
Flynn scowled. “There are times that you daren’t belch without someone taking it as a sign to start something violent,” he said. “Colonel, take personal command and carry it out, gather up all of them and place them in the POW camp. Then inform everyone that we’ve declared martial law; and then we’ll decide what to do next.”
“Yes, sir,” Higgins said. “We’ll round all of the aristocrats up, no bother at all.”
“I think the Japanese mean business,” Corporal Plummer muttered, as another row of lorries moved past along the road to Kuala Lumpur. Historically, it had taken the Japanese nearly ten weeks to reach Singapore and take the island; the way they were going it suggested five weeks, perhaps less.
“Not a chance,” Captain Dwynn muttered. The Japanese advance was rapid because they hadn’t run into any opposition. The SAS had been ordered to change that; the team had crossed nearly thirty miles to reach their current location.
“When do we hit them?” Sergeant Vash asked grimly, as some Japanese tanks appeared, moving along the road as fast as they could. “Those would make good targets, sir.”
Dwynn nodded. “Everyone, choose a tank and prepare to hit it,” he said, using his helmet to distribute firing targets. Invisible beams of laser light reached out for the Japanese convoy, which now included lorries and marching troops. “Fire!”
The rocket-propelled grenades lanced out from their position; bursts of machine gun fire from Vash peppered the Japanese troops. The RPGs were basic weapons; they couldn’t hope to damage a modern tank, but they would destroy the pathetic Japanese tanks with ease. A chain of explosions shattered the Japanese tanks, bringing the convoy to an abrupt halt.
“Bastards are disciplined,” Chang muttered, as the Japanese infantry began to return fire. Single rifle shots cracked through the jungle, seeking out their position.
“Hit the lorries,” Dwynn ordered calmly. None of the Japanese bullets had come close to them yet. The RPGs fired as one; basic weapons that could be reloaded very quickly. More explosions billowed up as the Japanese started to spread out and approach their position. Vash slaughtered a Japanese patrol by sweeping his machine gun across their bodies, but they kept coming. If they’d had AK-47s, like the Jihadis, the SAS team might have been in trouble.
“Time to leave,” Dwynn said, and tossed a series of fragmentation grenades down at the advancing Japanese. Screams and explosions rang in the air as the grenades detonated; the SAS team slipped into the jungle down paths they had explored previously. After bursts of firing, the Japanese didn’t attempt to follow them.
“Looks like we scored a success,” Vash said, as Dwynn transmitted a report to Singapore. Details of the other SAS teams were sparse; it looked as if there had been a handful of other successes, but not enough for the British to become complacent. He smiled; all of the nobs from Singapore had been rounded up and put out of the way.
“Oh, they’ll be pissed about that,” Chang said, when Dwynn told them the news. “Think about it; all of the coloured people taking their place.”
Vash chuckled. “I wonder how it’s going to end up,” he said.
General Yamashita glared down at the series of reports and swore vilely. One of the weaknesses of the Japanese army, its main one, in his view, was that it never invested enough attention to its supply lines. The generals, all of whom knew about the spirit and little of the material of war, planned to make do with as little supplies as possible. The British, with the benefit of seventy-five years of hindsight, were slashing his supply lines apart; small parties of men destroying lorries and refusing to fight directly.
“General, we are winning,” his aide-de-camp protested. Yamashita ignored the idiot; on the map, the advance looked as if it was succeeding brilliantly, but he knew better. For one thing, the enemy hadn’t come out to fight; there was no way to win without destroying the enemy army. Instead, there were the damnable sneak raids on his supply lines, and an army that had slowed down.
“I assume that the bridge has been repaired,” he said, referring to a bridge that had been destroyed with a tank on it. The aide bowed. “See to it that it is guarded night and day.”