Lion Resurgent (26 page)

“Damage?”

“Coming in, Sir. Minor flooding aft, crew spaces by splinters. Helicopter support area badly damaged. Nothing important.” Keighley was interrupted by a cheer on the bridge. There had been a brilliant flash amidships on the enemy destroyer. One of the four-inch shells had struck home. The belch of black smoke from the hit was clearly visible. “That’s got to hurt.”

“Back to two-two-five.” Blaise knew the hit had probably done next to no damage but at least
Mermaid
had drawn some blood. He was barely able to see the flash as the next Argentine salvo was fired before everything dissolved into chaos.

“What happened?” He was barely able to think. The first thing that struck him was the bitter cold. One of the seamen on the bridge was wrapping a greatcoat around him.

“Mister Keighley’s bought it, Sir. Argie shell hit deck down from us.”

Blaise looked around, his eyes focussing again. The bridge was torn open. The windows were smashed and the sides riddled with fragments. Most of them had come through from the deck below. He didn’t want to look at the red stains and debris that marked his bridge crew. “Damage?”

The voice came up from below. “Three direct hits, Sir. Bridge you know about. Engine room is hit. One of the diesels is gone, the other is hurt. We’re down to ten knots maximum. Aft mast is hit and the shell took the two aft Bofors guns with them. We’re taking in water amidships and aft.”

Across the sea, the Argentine destroyer fired again. Grimly Blaise noted she wasn’t even trying to fire at her maximum rate. She was pacing herself, firing shots as her guns came to bear. The crack of
Mermaid’s
four inch guns was lost in the explosions as more Argentine shells struck the crippled sloop. Blaise waited for the smoke to clear. It didn’t. Instead, the thick oily cloud that enveloped the bridge told him his ship was burning. In a moment of detachment, he was quite surprised the fires hadn’t started sooner. “What’s happening?”

“Machinery has gone, Sir. We’re dead in the water and we have oil-fed fires where the engine rooms used to be. Four inch mount is gone, direct hit. We’ve just got the forward Bofors working. The crew tried a few shots but the Argie is out of effective range. We’re flooding and listing. Pumps are out, we’re trying to rig emergency power now. No perimeter, we’ve got fragment holes all over the ship.”

Blaise looked forward, seeing the cratered ruin of his forecastle where the four inch twin mount had been. The deck was torn up; the bodies of the gun crew scattered all over the area. As he watched, green water washed over the bows, sweeping the human wreckage away. Blaise knew that water had to be surging below, weighing down the bows. Then the ship shook again as a single 5.3-inch shell slammed into the waterline forward.
Mermaid
rolled and her bows started to dip deeper.

“Damage here, Sir. We’re done. That last hit’s opened up our bows. We can’t get pumps working. The fire amidships is out of control.”

“Understood Ronnie.” Blaise sighed and looked over at the destroyer. She hadn’t fired again. He guessed her Captain realized
Mermaid
was finished and was holding fire to allow her crew to escape. A man of honor. “All hands, abandon ship. Repeat, all hands, abandon ship.”

ARA
Catamarca,
North of South Georgia

“Why have you ceased fire?” Astrid almost bellowed the question.

Leonardi didn’t even bother to look at him or answer the question. “Lieutenant, bring us in close to
Mermaid.
Prepare to pick up the survivors. Pass word around for volunteers to man the seaboats to help the rescue. We can’t order men to take the boats out in this storm.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Rescue survivors? What nonsense is this? This ship is needed at South Georgia. I order you to leave them and make maximum speed for Grytviken.”

Remember you are a seaman.
The last words of Commandante Romero echoed in Leonardi’s mind. He hadn’t needed the reminder, but it gave him the official cover for what he was about to do. “Astrid, shut up. If you had any right to wear that uniform or respect for it stands for, you would know why we must do what we must do. Now, be silent and leave my bridge or I will have you confined in the ship’s brig.”

“You will. . .” Astrid lunged forward. His movement was assisted by a sudden lurch as
Catamarca
rolled with the seas. There was a dull thud and he measured his length on the deck. Behind him, the Master at Arms patted the heavy flashlight he carried fondly.

“Sorry, Sir. Our guest appears to have hit his head on the ducting.”

“Very well Master at Arms. Take him to his cabin. And lock the door, he might have a concussion and wander around.

Ahead of
Catamarca,
the British sloop was already in her death-throes. She had rolled over to where her decks were almost perpendicular to the seas. Her bows had already vanished into the waves. Leonardi could see the crew scrambling off the ship, into the icy waters that were swallowing her.
She hadn’t taken much to sink,
Leonardi thought,
but then she had never been designed to fight a proper warship.
She’d done enough to save her honor though. Her four inch guns had hit
Catamarca
twice. One shell had blown up the potato locker, the other knocked out the aft search radar. “Bring us right alongside, get nets over the ship’s side.”

Leonardi looked aft and saw that his orders had been obeyed before he had even given them. There were scrambling nets being laid and the amidships area of the destroyer was already crowded with men. Some were throwing lifebelts with ropes attached to the sailors struggling in the water; others were climbing down the nets themselves to help the survivors climb to safety. Both his whalers were in the water, moving out to groups of men who were separated from the rest. The crews were in grave difficulties. The swell caused the small craft to ship water and roll, but they still managed to start pulling the men they were hunting out of the water.

Back on his ship, the first of the British survivors were already on the main deck. Each man was being wrapped in blankets and given a steaming mug of hot cocoa before being rushed below decks. The whalers were already on their way back; getting them in was going to be a difficult job in this swell. Then, Leonardi saw the men on the nets looking around; some of the British survivors were obviously wounded and losing strength in the bitterly cold water. Some of the Argentine sailors jumped from the nets, swam over to them and started to pull them back to the waiting men hanging on the nets. They handed the rescued sailors up before catching a helping hand to safety themselves.

Eventually, everybody who could be saved was on board.
Mermaid’s
wreck was slipping fast. She slid under the water at an increasing speed as the flooding dragged her down. Soon, just a small triangle of her stern was left. As it too vanished from sight,
Catamarca’s
siren blasted a long mournful note of farewell. Then, the sloop was gone.

Several minutes later, Leonardi was writing up the action in his long when there was a tactful cough at the hatchway leading on to his bridge. “Sir, Captain Blaise wishes to speak with you.”

“Captain Blaise?”

“Sir, I wanted to think you for your rescue effort. Your men were very brave and my casualties would have been much higher had it not been for their chivalry. Could you tell me how many of my men were rescued?”

Leonardi looked at the tally. “We have picked up seventy seven survivors. Of these ten are injured and two are not expected to survive their wounds.”

“Thirty six men lost, including those two.” Blaise’s voice shook slightly but Leonardi pretended not to notice. “May I ask what your current plans for us are?”

Leonardi thought carefully; the picture of the madness in Astrid’s eyes in his mind. “I propose to keep you and your crew on board until I can find a safe place to put you. Now is the time when I could really use a neutral merchant ship. Captain, there is madness loose in my country, I am responsible for you and your men and I will not place you in harm’s way by exposing you to it.”

Conference Room, NSC Building, Washington D. C.

“The Spirit Warriors are fools.” Takeda Shingen spoke the words with utter contempt. “They have taken our warrior code and turned it into a suicide cult.”

“Spirit Warriors?” The Seer hadn’t heard the phrase before.

“Those who believe that Japan’s divine destiny is to rule over the whole world. They see Japan’s lack of resources and weak industry make challenging the world a losing proposition. So what do they do? They make themselves believe that there is a divine spirit in Japan that will triumph over all material considerations. They believe in war and death for its own sake, not as a means to an end. They demand absolute unqualified obedience from those they command, yet they throw their lives away as if they are of no account. They teach those who follow them that defeat and surrender are unthinkable, that it is better to be wiped out to the last man than to suffer the ignominy of defeat. You see where this insanity will lead?”

“I do and so does the rest of the U.S. Government.”

“Who do you speak for now, Seer? The United States Government?”

“Of course. Shingen-sama, the Japanese empire is doomed. It will fall within ten years or twenty at the most. These men, the ones you call Spirit Warriors, when the ruin of their dreams of Empire stares them in the face, they will lash out at the rest of the world, in one last great surge of anger and spite. They will fire their nuclear weapons at everybody, bring the whole world down with them. Oh, we here will ride it out. We’ll lose the West Coast for a certainty but nothing much beyond that. But the disaster will be appalling. Somehow, we must aim for a soft landing.”

Takeda drummed his fingers on the table. “I agree. Our primary aim is to make sure Japan survives the fall of the Spirit Warriors.”

That may be your primary aim, it isn’t mine. My aim is to make sure the rest of the world survives the fall of your Spirit Warriors. If that means taking out Japan with a pre-emptive strike, so be it. Let’s just hope we don’t get to that point.
“We have made a good first step in that direction, I believe. The naval demonstration in Chile wasn’t a complete success in its public purpose but it’s real role was achieved quite well. Some of your Navy people met some of ours and found that everybody could get along quite well. It isn’t much, but it’s a start. There’s a little bit of understanding now that wasn’t there before. It gives us a foundation to build on at least. We must hold more such unofficial meetings, help our people build confidence in each other.”

“Ha.” Takeda sounded slightly scornful. “And what will confidence be worth?”

“One day, when those inside Japan face off against your Spirit Warriors and seize power back from them, it will mean that our people can trust the new government to try and put things right, not just to continue the same old policies under a different name. That will be of the greatest possible importance. Excuse me; what’s up, honey?”

“Boss, a message has just come through from the National Reconnaissance Office. It appears that the Argentine Navy has just sunk a British frigate north of South Georgia. The war is on out there.” Lillith shook her head. “Anyway, the White House and the Chiefs of Staff are holding a meeting in thirty minutes. Obviously, you’re invited.”

“Oh well; we knew it was coming. What are the British up to?”

“Emergency session of Parliament. Formal declaration of war I believe.”

“Over some small bits of frozen rock?” Takeda was contemptuous.

“More than that. Argentina is caving in economically and the aborted attack on Chile has made things much worse. This is their last chance at surviving as a functioning state. For Britain? It’s their chance to show the world that they are back as a functioning state. There’s a lot more here than just a few frozen rocks.”

House of Commons, Parliament, London, U.K.

“And so it is, with great reluctance and with a heavy heart that I am forced to support my Right Honorable Friend’s motion that, with immediate effect, a state of war be declared between the Republic of Argentina and the United Kingdom.” The leader of the Labour Party acknowledged the thunderous roll of applause and sat down. Dennis Skimmer, unaffectionately known as ‘The Beast of Bolsover’ and regarded as probably the best reason why the Labour Party had lost the last election, sat down.

“The House recognizes the Honorable Member for Linlithgow.”

“Mister Speaker, I cannot agree with the sentiments expressed by my Right Honorable Friend and leader of our party. I will resist a war with every sinew in my body. Why must we ask young men to die for the possession of a few ice-covered rocks in the desolate South Atlantic? If another nation wants them so badly, let them have the things. They are not worth the life of a single human being.”

Skimmer jumped up. “Must we listen to That Man again?” There was a stunned silence in the house at the invocation of Lord Halifax; the one name that, by convention, was never spoken in the House of Commons.

The Speaker banged his staff on the floor. “I would remind the Right Honorable member for Bolsover that unparliamentary language is not permitted in this House and ask him to retract his statement.”

“Mister Speaker, you are right. My apologies, my feelings overcame me and I will retract the word ‘man’.” An explosion of laughter ran around the chamber.

The Speaker shook his head. “That isn’t what I meant and you know it. Out you go.” Skimmer rose to his feet and limped out of the Chamber to a thunder of applause that the Speaker’s efforts couldn’t quell. He shook off an attempt to help him. The fact that he had been the youngest member of the resistance to survive a Gestapo interrogation, albeit one that had left both his legs broken, was a major part of his parliamentary persona.

After that, the debate was an anti-climax. The Government motion was passed with only one vote against.

Ernest Mullback’s Home, Yeovil, UK.

“Leave it.” The sleepy protest from his wife, and the implicit promise in it, almost made Lieutenant-Commander Ernest Mullback ignore the telephone that was ringing so urgently. It really was a most uncivilized time to call. It was eleven PM, he and Sam had only got to bed a few minutes earlier.