East Coast Mine Battle story

[Craiglxviii]

This was an excellent one; does anyone have it saved?

[James1978]

This was an excellent one; does anyone have it saved?

Mark Bailey ought to have them all.
In that vein, is anyone checking the Admin PMs? He's having login issues and I sent a PM to the Admin account yesterday on his behalf.

[drmarkbailey]

Yep, sorted and I have access - thanks Cye!

OK, I'll start reposting this story.

It's 100,000 words. Does anyone know what the word limit on posts is, and do we still have to reformat it all?

Cheers: Mark

[Craiglxviii]

Yep, sorted and I have access - thanks Cye!

OK, I'll start reposting this story.

It's 100,000 words. Does anyone know what the word limit on posts is, and do we still have to reformat it all?

Cheers: Mark

No word limit fella. Fill yer boots!

[Craiglxviii]

This was an excellent one; does anyone have it saved?

Mark Bailey ought to have them all.
In that vein, is anyone checking the Admin PMs? He's having login issues and I sent a PM to the Admin account yesterday on his behalf.

I check it daily but usually stay logged in as myself (if that makes sense). I’ve not checked since yesterday morning due to real life crap getting in the way.

[drmarkbailey]

TLW – The East Coast Mine Battle
Mark Bailey

War 230031Z Apr 05231031K Apr05

January 2005: Soviet Pacific Fleet HQ – Vladivostok

They had finished the traditional argument over the strength of the steam in the hot sauna. They were just a pair of ageing men when they were out of their uniforms.

“It just seems to be a waste of resources, Valentin.” The Admirals were old friends, they swapped photographs and updates on their grandchildren, and organised preferential positions for their children. The masses, and even merit, be damned.

“Yes and no, Nikolai. For the south-west Pacific we are talking five old Project 641 class submarines from reserve, and a merchant ship with minimal modifications for the southern region, and two merchant ships for the eastern region. Four 641’s there, with diversion to Panama for one depending on what the Chileans do. More in the Atlantic of course but it is still just 22 old and otherwise useless submarines from reserve, and the crews are all old too. It’s not like they can be used anywhere near the enemy’s main strength. Besides, Moscow has approved it.”

The Commander of the Pacific Fleet’s submarine force knew that he had no argument to win, here, and said so.

“I am not arguing against the orders, of course, and I am most definitely in agreement about the disruption and delays it will cause to some useful American and NATO allies both there and in South America. It’s also about the best use of the old 641 type too. It’s the possible opportunity loss which concerns me. It is just that I think we can do a little more even with those obsolete submarines if we change their loadout a little. At the moment the plan calls for a full load of 22 mines. But we will have surprise, Valentin, and they have to come back too, and who knows what they might meet coming back? That’s after the hornet’s nest has been stirred. Even old submarines like them, with reserve crews, might get lucky.”

“A definite point. What, my glow in the dark friend, would be your suggestion?”

“Make the mines more modern ones to increase their effectiveness, and leave each submarine with six torpedoes, four ideally to be expended after they lay, specifically to be expended against merchant ships while they are unescorted, and give them two wakehomers or acoustic homers for self-defence and opportunity targets on the way home. Even sinking one enemy frigate after they lay their mines would pay for the entire operation. On top of that, we know that they will sink at least one or two enemy merchant ships each, whereas that is never guaranteed with even the best mines. And each 641 still has 16 of those. Something like four TEST-69 wire guided to kill merchant ships and two 53-65K wakehomers for self-defence, I’d suggest. We have huge stocks of both.”

“You are suggesting frontloading the operation for success irrespective of the success of the mines.”

“In terms of sinking enemy merchant ships, yes. We still get the disruption successes from the day the mines go active. And we have to refresh in some areas too after the war starts, perhaps a mix of otherwise useless submarines and perhaps even cheap expendable surface minelayers like small converted merchant ships or large fishing craft.”

“Who would have thought that all those years of pressure did not squeeze all the good ideas out of your head?”

“Hah! We submariners just have sneakier tactical ideas than you surface types.”
Both men grinned.

March 2003
They had long since prepared, of course. It was almost the same as it had been for their grandfathers and for their great grandfathers. The gay assortment of little ships had been identified and then requisitioned when the time came. But they had done better, too. Six auxiliary minesweepers, designated MSA and not commissioned, had been in service for years, and the Australian Minesweeping and Support System emulation sweep (AMASS) system had been developed. It looked like a long string of floating yellow steel tubes, mostly because it was a long string of floating yellow steel tubes. But within them were sophisticated magnets, and selection in the towing arrangement meant that they could mimic the magnetic signature of any ship. The idea was that the whole assemblage would then towed along and used to sanitise approaches and channels of mines. And even modern mines would detonate of both their magnetic and acoustic criteria for a specific target was met. All it needed was a suitable vessel manned by properly trained reserve crews. Everyone knew that they’d quickly develop both a devil-may-care attitude and strange nervous tics.

In the AMASS array an even more sophisticated tube carried systems which radiated the acoustic signature of any chosen ship for which such a signature existed. And the RAN had a lot of those on file.

There were two ways to do this. Set it up in port and tow it out, and by having a larger vessel which could reconfigure the sweep at sea. Which meant taking it aboard. This was actually the preferred Australian method, as these could also do electrical and Oropesa sweeping, and could self-deploy to distant ports. So MSA were needed in the 200-300 ton range and much larger AMS in the 600-900 ton range.

The major ports had some installations on the floor of their approach channels which would have been of deepest interest to the any other country – but the secret had held for years. Even the Americans and British had no idea and this was a good thing because the acoustic signatures of their ships had been collected with equal ruthlessness.

The fly in the ointment was that you needed a lot of suitable vessels to tow AMASS, because you could never stop sweeping the channels. Mines, even WWII ground mines, had ship counters and could lie on the sea floor for months counting passing targets while they waited for “suitable target #124”. More modern ones could be programmed with a specific suite of targets and they would only attack those and no others. The problem with large numbers of simple ships was by no means new. The 1936 planning numbers used “units” of three ships, with some ports needing two “units”. By 2005 there were more ports, and more important ports and some of them were a hell of a long way away from anything else. In discussions with their RN counterparts, RAN officers liked to point to Dampier-Karratha and Port Hedland, which between them earned Australia an eighth of its total export income, and which were as far by sea from Sydney as Athens is from London. Also, they noted that such distances demanded something a bit larger than average just to get there in a timely manner.

The necessary skills had been cheaply built using a gay assortment of six MSA purchased from trade and ranging from a lighthouse tender to a pair of harbour tugs (MSA Brolga, Bermagui, Koraaga, Gunundaal, Bandicoot and Wallaroo) fitted with the AMASS emulation sweeps. The RN had purchased AMASS and it was known in their service by the acronym SWIMS. In the ramp up to war, a clear demand emerged for at least 24 more sweepers, and more if anything but very sporadic mining might occur. About half of them were known to be available in local waters, but there was a lot of concern with the available vessels after those dozen were requisitioned. And training two dozen crews at the same time would be an issue. Then a Maritime Trade Operations officer made a suggestion which fell on fertile ground. Why not use the RANR in a smarter manner and buy a dozen late-model standard Japanese longliners for them to train on? They were going for a song at the time due to banning of longlining as a fishing practise. His paper noted that ship brokers in Japan (he was a ship broker himself in his civilian life) had plenty of 500-650grt, 57-62m, 12-13ktlongliners on their books. And for rock-bottom prices – down to a mere half-million dollars.

The final outcome, two years before the war (but three years into the “Second Confrontation” with the Indonesian junta over Timor Leste), was the final stage of the revitalisation of the RANR. Long neglected, it had declined a long way from what it had been in the decade after WWII becoming little more than a social club for local social types – mostly lawyers – and a way to keep the connection for ex-regulars. This began to change in the 1980s when the Port Divisions were abolished (and their now-valuable waterfront bases sold), but in 1998 the decision had been taken to develop a block capability within each state’s RANR, each block capability being based on a seagoing requirement, but there was obvious “spill”: an experienced retired artificer with a boiler ticket might live in Queensland but he’d still be allocated to a Sydney-based reserve group steamer. Only the Maritime Trade Operations and Naval Intelligence Divisions were different, providing a national capability. They all provided local patrol using 40-foot workboats, the standard training craft.

New South Wales and Victoria provided actual crews for ships in reserve, using vessels of the reserve group. Central and southern Queensland men to man amphibious craft and so-on. But they all had something in common, responsibility for seaward defence including local minesweeping. For this some new facilities had to be built to accommodate MCMV, and the six MSA were kept busy visiting each state’s main ports to train RANR personnel on AMASS. The initial acquisition of 12 ex-longliners was intended to provide these ports with their own AMASS training vessel. They were so cheap that they’d be used for a few years before going in to reserve themselves, with the 12 new-builds replacing them.
It did not quite pan out that way.

The first mission to Japan to discuss matters with the Japanese and obtain JMSDF assistance in the purchase of suitable surplus longliners generated a lot of quiet interest. The JMSDF themselves becoming more interested in MCM using ex-commercial vessels.

The first four arrived very quickly after a simple conversion in a Japanese yard. This was little more than a complete mechanical overhaul, clean, repainting, accommodation upgrade, adding a towing winch and fittings and the simplest naval equipment such as flag bins, signalling lamps and the like. The ships were only to be armed with .50 calibre machine guns and the communications fit would be done in Australia. The JMSDF insisted on this work being done locally so they could also evaluate Australian ideas on the matter, and which led to quiet JMSDF acquisition of AMASS itself and a program of storing basic equipment to rapidly convert their own auxiliary minesweepers. By this time the need for 30 vessels to cover the main ports was both well in hand and rising to greater numbers. This liberated most of the minehunters for deployment overseas or to Darwin, Port Hedland and Dampier-Karratha if a serious mining campaign kicked off. As one cynical and experienced MCM Commander said, that’s where they would also need more AMASS fitted auxiliary sweepers if sneaky little Indonesian buggers in aircraft and small craft started dropping even crappy old WWII Soviet ground mines. Worse might be Soviet-analogue DESTRUCTOR kits fitted to obsolete aerial bombs as these would be “cheap and cheerful” mines which could easily be laid by even a wooden sail-powered fishing craft.

The worst that RAN planning catered for was patchy mine laying using older mines and nuisance attacks by the oldest and least capable SOVPACFLT submarines in local waters, where perhaps they might lay a few mines. Nothing modern was expected because the Soviets had plenty of ancient Foxtrots and early Tango and Victor I class in reserve and even operational in local waters, mostly as clockwork mice for their ASW training. Using even a handful of mine laying sorties from the old submarines would buy a lot of disruption and diversion for negligible outlay.

There was also a need for six more auxiliary craft to act as AMS and as PC to cover the offshore oil and gas fields off the North-West Shelf. A pair of frigates was really needed but might not be available if the balloon went up. It was an area just too economically important not to be covered and the Japanese agreed as they got a third of the natural gas they used to generate baseload electricity for their nation from that area. COASTWATCH civil MPA would also be used and concentrated in that region. Border Protection Command would remain booted and spurred and would be given responsibility for patrols and security off the north-west shelf.

The planning was being turned into hulls and men, with the outcome being planned to provide a significant if distinctly low-tech force in the event of war. What they got to quite quickly was:

6 existing MSA (Brolga, Bermagui, Koraaga, Gunundaal, Bandicoot and Wallaroo)

12 similar commercially purchased ships as AMS (Alfie Cam, Allenwood, Beryl II, Birchgrove Park, Bombo, Bonthorpe, Coolebar, Coombar, Durraween, Whyrallah, Goonambee, Gunbar)

12 recently-built and now surplus longliners bought in Japan as AMS, four converted there and the rest converted in Cairns and Newcastle (Kianga, Korowa, Marrawah, Mary Cam, Medea, Mercedes, Nambucca, Narani, Olive Cam, Orara, Paterson, Samuel Benbow)

6 offshore oil and gas protection AMS-PC (Tambar, Terka, Tolga, Tongkol, Toorie, Uki)

13 additional modern large longliner sized ships as AMS as a new build from specialist Japanese fishing vessel yards (Adele, Akuna, Warrawee, Gippsland, Uralba, Bingera, Kybra, Laurabada, Melinga, Wilcannia, Yandra, Vigilant, Whyrallah). Twelve more of these vessels to a modified design built at Cairns (2) and Newcastle (10 at Tomago shipyard)

The names used were all those of WWII auxiliary minesweepers, patrol ships and examination vessels.

They had done better than their grandfathers in other ways too. When tensions reached one of their peaks two years before the world again went into the furnace the Australians had sent a small team of reservists to Japan, led by a man whom his friends were trying very hard to help.

June 2003 Maritime HQ, Garden Island

Commodore Flotillas looked at his senior staff Captain and sighed.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Dave?”

“No, Jim, I am not. Not by a country mile. But it’s Mike, and he’s said to Beetles that he’s drowning. It’s a straw, but perhaps it might save him. And we owe him that just for being our classmate. Besides, he’s a good bloke.”

“And an alcoholic since his wife did what she did. Not that I can really blame the poor sod. If she’d just shot through with someone else that’s one thing, but to have been doing what she did for so long…”

His Captain interrupted. “Old ground, old story and we all know it, Jim. And how he fell apart. Beetles and Andy and Tripod and Salty Jit have been doing all they can and they reckon that a job, a real job, will help pull him out. And he swears that he’s cut down the drinking. Beetles agrees with that, he lives only a couple of k away from him, but you know how it is with alco’s, they can lie if they want and can hide stuff anywhere.”

The Commodore nodded, unhappily. “Besides, It’s Mike. I know.”

He pondered for a moment. “OK, let’s give it a go, and as an all-reserve show. Send Mike as the OIC, you and I’ll have a talk to him about it before he goes. Who’s available as a 2IC, got to be one of us and a reserve Lieutenant who’s able to be called up on CFTS.”

“Tripod. Swalla’s the same rank on retirement but he’s running that radar company these days and we need him there more. Tripod’s been on the blower wanting back in, he’s jack of the public service and will happily dump his EL2 rank to come back in as a two-ringer again even after the best part of twenty years as a civvie. Besides, if he works out OK we can bump him up a rank when he gets back. And he’s a patrol boat bloke with time on the old Ton class sweepers, make a good AMS squadron commander once he blows the rust off.”

“Mph. You and Tripod’ve been mates for years so you’d know. Strain gauge’s actually happy with that?”

“Gets her and their kids out of Canberra, boss. She told my missus that she’s freezing her tits off down there and she hates the place. She’s been encouraging Tripod, and her family’s in Newcastle so even if they wind up in Sydney or even Melbourne she’s a happy camper. Well. happier. It ain’t Canberra.”

“OK, that’ll do, get it sorted. Need a chief to go with them.”

“Tiny Graves, boss.”

“Cripes, Tiny’s still around? I remember him as a PO at Creswell in “79 teaching us how to march! How old is he now?”

“Still around, boss – he’s still a regular. Born in “49, joined through Leeuwin in “64, did riverine stuff in South Vietnam with the Yanks and been in small ships ever since. Did the selection for the MSA’s, salvaged Wollongong when Fordie’s skipper put her on the rocks. Oh he’s in his 50s now but he’s about the best we’ve got.”

“OK. He’s still got that mighty beard?”

“Yep, It’s more grey now, though, than red. And he’s worked with a lot of us, and even better, I can clue him in. He’s worked for Mike before and no-one remembers that now. He was also there the day Tripod earned his name, remember.”

They both laughed.

“Approved and all that, get it done.”

July2003 Yokosuka Naval Yard

The Americans knew, of course (it was not even a secret) and had attached their own MCM guy as liaison. Basically he was there to keep a weather eye on this aspect of the Japanese-Australian relationship which had been building very gradually for many years. He was also there to keep an eye on developments. The USN had its own interest in craft of opportunity programs.

He’d taken them to one of his favourite Japanese restaurants for dinner. It was a small, scruffy little hole-in-the-wall sort of place, but the food was amazing. He’d been very surprised to find out that these Australians did not drink at all – then he was very quietly informed of the reason why.

He brought the tea from the counter.

“OK, I gotta ask. I know you guys are classmates, recalled as reserves and all that.” He gestured at Mike. “I get your nickname of Macca, but I do not get Phil’s nickname of tripod.”

He wondered at the stifled grins. Especially on the crusty old Chief.
Phil Boulay rolled his eyes.

“Better tell him, Tiny.”

A big grin split the Chief”s weathered face, and he began the tale.

Ten minutes later after he stopped laughing, he said, “So let me get this straight. It’s summer, he’s Guard commander on the Wednesday morning Divisions parade, you lot are all in shorts that come to a bit above the knee, and it escaped?”

He started laughing again.

Boulay nodded. “Yep, felt it working free and not a bloody thing I could do about it except continue the pass in review with the last few inches of the old trouser snake slapping me kneecap. It felt a bit breezy. Then Tiny rocks up and yells out, “Guard Commander fall out to restow the third leg of the tripod!” Bastard. Whole parade cracks up, I march off and he takes over. Been tripod ever since.”

“And every female middie and sailor on the base wanted some of that, believe me,” said Tiny with a broad grin, “he was always so tired after that day.”

Boulay grinned at the fond memories. “True, that.”

He sipped his tea. “Might as well finish the story. Few years later I propose to my girlfriend and she says yes. I was on the old Curlew at the time,” he glanced at the big American and added helpfully, “a Ton class minehunter. Now, I’m a big bloke, six-one and I lift weights for fun same as Macca does. Still do. Marie’s about four-six and weighs a hundred pounds wringing wet and wearing an overcoat. Boys on Curlew hear about it and instantly give her the moniker “strain gauge”. Bastards. That’s been her nickname ever since, because my classmates here are also a pack of bastards.”

The American was doubled over again, roaring with laughter. When he wiped the tears from his eyes he choked out a few words.

“You do know the JMSDF guys have invited you all to a meal and to a bath-house tomorrow night, don’t you?”

There was ruminative silence at this information.

“Oh, bugger”, said McCann.

“Yup. They invite me, well, because they are basically really good guys, but also because I am a big black Yank. You see all these stifled expressions of amazement and slow movements by the civvies to cover their peckers up. JMSDF guys think It’s the funniest thing they have ever seen. Can’t wait to see their faces when I am out-sized by a white guy.”

There was an explosion of male laughter.

oOo

McCann was speaking Japanese. He was, after all, a linguist, and quite comfortable on the podium.

“So this is generally our plan, although it will require more ships to provide full coverage of all of our ports, especially the coal and iron ore ports through which our exports to Japan flow. These 12 are the foundation for a force which I think will number between 36 and 48. That explains why we will be back in perhaps five months with a final design for the 12 new ships we will order here.”

The JMSDF Commander nodded. Once. “Lieutenant-Commander, our observers have provided a report, which I will give to you, showing that your emulation sweep is highly effective, more so than our initial assumptions indicated.”

“Sir, it is right to be conservative when making initial assumptions,” replied McCann. “The system is quite mature now, as we have been refining it for many years.”

“Which means that you have an acoustic emulation element to it as well.”

“Of course, sir. That too is part of the system, we did not bring that as there was no real point. The canister is very similar to the magnetic canisters, and the acoustic library is of our own vessels. I have informed Lieutenant-Commander Ozawa that should the Japanese Government wish to acquire this system, the acoustic emulation system will be included. It is not a classified technology and we use commercial components.” This was part of the dance McCann knew well. Odd culture, Japanese, but it certainly had its own robust internal logic. He already knew that the JMSDF wanted the system quite urgently. Their emulation system was active, not passive, and much more complex. Harder to use, too.

“In the demonstrations, may I assume that the evaluation noted a good correlation of magnetic signature to the merchant ships which were emulated?”

The signatures had been taken, quite openly, from NYK and NKK line ships in Japanese ports.

“The degree of correlation was good, and the exercise mines responded as designed.”
“I believe that we have, then, finished this briefing, sir.”

“Agreed, Lieutenant-Commander.”

oOo

The big American looked calmly at the water as they looked at the sunset. The four ships were sailing on the next morning.

“I think you have done a convincing job here, Mike.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Will you be swapping AMASS for Japanese mines, or doing a sale?”

McCann snorted. He already knew that they knew. And they knew that he knew, and so on down that silly chain. “Undetermined, really, we really have to evaluate their mines more thoroughly. They are very good designs, especially for cold water. Warm tropical waters – well I am not the expert. In view of what’s brewing and where our… appropriate forces, shall we say, might be operating, then we may well have a need for cold-water mines offensive mines currently not in our inventory.”

“Yes. And numbers need not be great. And we do not have sufficient stocks even of our own.”

“So you are leaving some essentials a bit too late as well.”

The big American snorted. “Of course. And their offer of earlier marques fitted with new sensor packages makes a lot of sense, especially as they will replace them with new ones.”

“I still say good job, and I’ll see you in a few months.”

“Oh?” inquired McCann.

“Yes. Navy’s not much interested outside the MCM community, but the reserves are, and believe it or not so are the state-based sea militias.”

“Really?” McCann knew that a few of these Civil War relics still existed in a few US states. “Well, we have revitalised our own reserve in a short period of time.”

“Really. And we noticed, and they still exist, which most people do not even know. So COOP and an emulation array, especially one as cheap and effective as yours, is a real issue.”

“Interesting.”

oOo

231031K Apr05

220202K APR05 (211602Z APR05) – Newcastle, New South Wales

McCann snapped awake as his mobile phone rang. He hated the damned things, but duty was duty.

He glanced at the display. Uh-oh, he thought, the duty MCMO at Fleet Ops won’t be calling me at 0200 with good news.

“McCann.”

“Sir, are you fully awake?”

McCann felt as if he had just received a small electric shock. No, not good news at all.

“Yes, now that you have asked that.”

“Warning order, sir.”

“Acknowledged at 0204.”

“Recorded sir, Case Saint Michael, in addition to the warning order, sir. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledge Case Saint Michael.”

“Recorded, sir.” He hung up.

“War. A much bigger one than the last five years. O Saint Michael, preserve us!”

McCann stood and headed for the shower, fast.

oOo

HMAS Namoi 220305KAPR05 (211705ZAPR05)

McCann glanced at the status board on his way in. Well, it explained stuff to visitors too and that saved time. All the serviceable tokens were up. Good.

32nd Minesweeper Flotilla, 2nd Squadron
AMS 32/1 Birchgrove Park, Bombo, Bonthorpe, (2 x 20mm Oerlikon)
AMS 32/2 Wilcannia, Yandra, Vigilant(2 x 20mm Oerlikon)
AMD 32/3 (forming as ships complete training) Nambucca, Whyrallah, Adele
SDB: Belmont, Tokal, Coal Point (motor yachts, cut down and armed, 1 x 20mm Oerlikon, 2 x .30cal MG
Dan layers: Wallace Star, Stockton, Sugarloaf (wooden fishing vessels, 1 x .30cal MG)
Examination vessels: Cutlass, Adolphe (steel oil industry tenders, 1 x 20mm Oerlikon, 1 x .50cal MG)
Channel Sidescan Survey: William the Fourth (wooden paddle steamer, coal fired reciprocating steam engine, small arms)

Dawn was not really that far away, and the little base was the site of furious and very noisy activity. The Duty Officer had been receiving complaints all morning, finally resorting to telling the most voluble that there was an operational requirement, and that no further complaints would be entertained. The old Lee wharf had been built over with waterside apartments by yet another bunch of idiot city councillors who took a hefty rake-off where they were not themselves real-estate developers. That was long before the requisition orders had arrived, and many of the loudly protesting civvies had been politely if summarily ejected. Now the place was the home of the 2nd Squadron, 32nd Minesweeping Flotilla, six AMS with three more due as soon as they could be converted, three dan buoy tenders to keep the swept lanes marked, three seaward defence boats, two examination vessels to ride herd on the vast armada of bulk carriers anchored off the port awaiting their turn at the coal loaders, and one wooden paddle steamer named William the Fourth. When asked just why he had requisitioned a replica 1830s wooden paddle steamer with a coal fired reciprocating engine, McCann had pointed out that it was the one ship in all of Australia absolutely guaranteed not to be on an enemy mine’s target list or to be mistaken by a mine for something that was – and the Newcastle Uni had a really schmick towed sidescan sonar. The refit for the ship had been fast and thorough. She’d been slipped, coppered, many of her fittings replaced with bronze to lower her already small magnetic signature, fitted with modern dacron sails and fitted to operate the Uni’s sidescan sonar. She was now a junior Sub-Lieutenant’s very first command and defaulters now found themselves assigned to stoking duties. With shovels and actual coal involved, which improved discipline no end.

And one newly minted and very, very teetotal Commander McCann ran the show, including the Army Reserve company now re-manning the old Fort Scratchley – no longer a museum although the museum’s material had been very carefully removed to storage – which commanded the harbour mouth. McCann’s lips always quirked at that. The young Captain in charge up there was refurbishing the old coastal defence fort and was even doing his best to return the two old 6-inch guns there to service. He’d probably succeed, too, the energetic young git. It was amazing the contacts the Museum’s staff, a mix of old ex-Army men and retired local notables, actually had. When pointedly asked what the hell he was doing, the Captain had earnestly told McCann that he was boosting the morale and capability of his young reservists and, just quietly, doing a full refurbishment of the old fort, observation bunkers and Shepherd’s Hill radar site so that when they handed them back they’d be in good condition. Besides, his brother was in arty and he could get all the 155mm he wanted. And they’d fit. A bit. Sort of. With some mods... McCann had shut the hell up at that point and bravely ran away. The little maniac was obviously planning on firing the damned things if he could. Last he’d heard Goninans heavy industry had finished a full refurbishing of the two guns as an apprentice training project and they were reinstalling them.

As McCann was a local lad himself, he did not really object. Especially as he had himself requisitioned the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the wharfside apartment complex next to it (as well as the old transit shed which had contained the Maritime Museum) to turn them into HMAS Namoi. His very own base, and now seething with frantic (and really noisy) activity.
He walked into the big conference room and the hubbub stopped immediately. He was speaking before he got to the lectern.

“Right, people. Listen up, we have a shedload to do and little time to do it in.”

The hubbub died before he got to the front.

“Righto, no messing about. You have all been following the news and the low-end classified reports so you all know that It’s looking bad. We now have a war warning and we have something worse. Especially for us.”

He turned and looked at his preposterously young NID officer. “Spy?”

The young Sub-Lieutenant stood in place. “Early last night a fishing boat in Cook Strait pulled up a mine in his trawl. Kiwis being Kiwis they avoided blowing themselves into the middle of next week as they were smart enough to leave it in the water when they identified it as not being a fish, mermaid or a new breed of sheep. The Kiwis got some good images of it. It’s a very old M-26, a pre-WWII moored mine that they have thousands of, but it’s in new condition and was set deep. Worse, they assess that It’s got a modernised sensor package as it certainly has had the old horns removed and blanked. There was no marine growth on it, and the Kiwis say that the wire was greased very recently. Can’t have been in the water more than a few days. The trawl was running at about 40 or 50 metres depth so at first assessment this is a M-26 reconfigured as an influence mine. That is bad news for us, because some in the fields may well be configured to take out sweepers when we start to run deep Oropesa sweeps with the kite and otter set to say 50 metres.”

Something very like a silent sigh went through the audience as his short brief continued. He wound up with a brief on just what the Soviet Pacific Fleet’s deployment looked like and that was all very bad news. The XO then gave his roundup of where the 32nd was at this moment, and then McCann took over again.

“Right, despite what the politicians say, and what those imbeciles at the UN are banging on about, we all know what’s coming. I talked to the harbourmaster at 0230 and he’s quietly closed the port for a few hours until we can at least have a look at the main channel. As the XO mentioned, William the Fourth’s leaving now with her mighty 75ihp engine thumping away to do a sidescan sweep which should show us if any rude strangers have fouled it. Then we start on the Q-routes which become marked channels as of today. I’ve had a talk to Commander Boulay in Geelong and he’s doing the same with his mob. Brisbane Squadron’s not really up yet but they have enough to do a check-sweep of Brisbane waters.”

He looked at the skippers of the danlayers. “You fellows are about to get very busy. I also need you to think about how many dan buoys we need to stock up on as I think that consumption’s going to be high. Twenty minutes ago I ordered another 200 from the local manufacturer just in case and they will work three shifts to build them. The other Squadrons are already asking the same question so they won’t be wasted.”

His eye roamed the skippers. “We are going to a war footing now, and from now on route sanitisation will be continual. The mine the Kiwi’s found has me worried. We know from the mines SMS Wolf laid in WWI and the ones KM Pinguin laid here in WWII that moored mines on this coast walk along the bottom with the east coast current. Ivan’s not stupid but he does things differently from us, and Ivan invented mine warfare way back in the Crimean War of the 1850s. If he’s laid scattered barrages of deep influence mines in the current, they will be walking south constantly, and each one at a slightly different pace. Which gives us one hell of a problem, gents, and one that will not go away because the current will constantly walk mines into the channels and the anchorage. And if he’s laid mines upgraded buoyant’s in Cook Strait, anyone here want to bet me a pot of tea and a pie at Harry’s that he did not also lay ground mines?”

Jack Kubale, the skipper of the Birchgrove Park and like his crew another local lad, sang out irrepressibly, “no way boss, last two bets I’ve had with you I bloody well lost!”
The chuckles broke the tension a little.

oOo

McCann and his XO walked the wharf, ignoring the resentful stares from the civilians still in their harbourside apartments. He owned the wharf and what had been their front yards, pool and barbecue areas as well, now covered in temporary buildings and the mounded squalor (as they saw it) of the voluminous equipment the minesweepers required. He saluted as Birchgrove Park left, and Kubale saluted from his bridge.

“I really wish we had not used that name, boss,” his XO said.

“What, Birchgrove Park? Why not?”

“You’ve read The Song of the Sixty Milers?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Hmm. Let me quote the relevant bit, then.

Mute “ship ahoy” to the lost Fitzroy
Our Jack and the Birchgrove Park
And all the men of the coastal trade
Who died in the thundering dark

There were no survivors from the Birchgrove Park, boss, and I get the willies every time I step aboard her namesake.”

“Superstitious sod,” said McCann, “meanwhile, I am going to wander back to the wardroom for a cuppa and breakfast with the harbourmaster, who will be here in ten minutes. I think that William the Fourth will get us a decent tow-fish side-scan picture of the main channel out to four miles within the hour, it will be quick and dirty, and I am only going to clear it if there’s no buoyants. Then we start really looking for the ground mines. I’ll get them to do a survey sweep north and south as well, see if we can see any of the buoyants.”

“You really think they are there boss?”

“I’ll eat my hat if they are not. The Germans – and Ivan’s obviously studied the huge disruption they caused with a few mines – hit here first and Kiwi second. I’ll make a prediction that we will find mines from here to Wollongong and in Bass Strait. If they did that they may well have hit Brisbane as well, and God help us if they were smart enough to lay modern ground mines in the inner passage of the reef.

He paused. “Those fuckers again.”

The local Greens were out in their kayaks protesting about running dog lickspittle Imperialist warmongers and atmospheric plant food again. Their protests had been acceptable before, but would not be, and very soon. The local bunch were stupid even for Greens, and had proudly boasted that the USSR had been funding them. Fraternally, of course.

“Ex, get on to the Volunteer Harbour Patrol boys and girls. I want constant patrols from now on, I’ll authorise the fuel, victuals and such. Also tell them on the QT that they may wind up being armed. We have a contingency for that, the garrison up at the fort can help. I have a bad feeling about those watermelon bastards and it involves limpet mines.”

“Bit paranoid are we, boss?”

“The local greenfilth have long been taken over by stupid but active communists, but let’s hope It’s just me being paranoid, anyway. But stupid and active is a bad combo, even for those idiots. Hopefully ASIO has them pegged.”

oOo

221231Z Apr 05(222231K Apr05)

He looked at the report from his very own wooden paddle steamer. “Bugger, that’s torn it,” he announced to no-one in particular, “start plotting these and get a confirmation and the plot to MHQ and HQJOC. Get both danlayers out there to pull the dans. I know they have just come back in but get 2/2 back out again, we must start sweeping on this datum right now. Double Oropesa ten metres off the bottom, land there’s flat and that will clear the wrecks. I want east-west sweeps along all Q1 and I want them to mow the lawn to the north. Bastards have laid them up-current so they’ll be walking them into our channels. This is going to go on forever if they’ve laid mines that deploy on timers, too. And they most certainly have.”

oOo

230039Z Apr 05 231039K Apr05

McCann was just sitting down with a cup of tea when his yeoman burst through the door of his office.

“Excitable, aren’t we?”

The yeoman ignored this sally. “Flash traffic, sir. Fastest to run it over.” He was panting heavily.

McCann put the cup down and grabbed the flimsy.

“Oh shit. Balloon’s gone up. Acknowledge receipt and send a signal from me to all ships, “Hostilities have commenced in Europe. Assume active minefields 32MSFLOT AO and get acknowledgements. Got it?”

“Got it, sir.” He left at the run. McCann forced himself to calm down, then sat back down and forced himself to think for several seconds. Right. He picked up the phone to order his facilities to war footing.

Twenty minutes later he was back in his Ops room.

“I want you all to think about the logic in this. We do not know that the mines are now armed and won’t until we lose the first merchie. We have an unknown number of buoyants, laid deep as we know the Cook Strait mine was laid. Assume they are fitted with an uprated sensor package, and that the intent is to act as a migratory sort of semi-ground mine as the current walks them south. Start there and think threat, blue sky brainstorming session in fifteen minutes. Go. I’ll be with the harbourmaster.”

oOo

Death of a Foxtrot 230031Z Apr 05 (231031K Apr05)

The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641 and they were always known by pennant numbers, not names. They had names of course, the crews had long ago named them.

The Foxtrot class was designed to replace the earlier Zulu class, which suffered from structural weaknesses and harmonic vibration problems that limited its operational depth and submerged speed. The first Foxtrot keel was laid down in 1957 and commissioned in 1958, the last was completed in 1983. A total of 58 were built for the Soviet Navy at the Sudomekh division of the Admiralty Shipyard in Leningrad. Additional hulls were built for other countries.

The Foxtrot class was comparable in performance and armament to most contemporary designs. However, its three screws made it noisier than most Western designs. Moreover, the Foxtrot class was one of the last designs introduced before the adoption of the teardrop hull, which offered much better underwater performance. Also, although the Foxtrot was larger than the earlier Zulu class submarine, the Foxtrot class had two of its three decks dedicated to batteries. This gave it an underwater endurance of 10 days, but the weight of the batteries made the Foxtrot’s average speed a very slow 2 knots at its maximum submerged time capability. Due to the batteries taking up two decks, onboard conditions were crowded with space being relatively small even when compared to older submarines such as the much older American Balao-class submarine. The Foxtrot class was completely obsolete by the time the last submarine was launched. The Russian Navy retired its last Foxtrots between 1995 and 2000 but, as with their usual practices, retained them all in reserve and kept tabs on the men who had formed their crews. When planning for the war had started, these men found themselves back in uniform and back in what they fully understood were obsolete deathtraps. They had expected to be employed on coastal defence and ASW training. They were wrong.

B-46 was not in bad condition, well, not too bad a condition for a reserve boat maintained by bored drunks who used the grease to bugger each other with, there being nothing better to do. She’d been built at Yard 196 in Leningrad and laid down on 13 August 1966. She’d been commissioned on 24 December 1966 and placed into reserve on 30 June 1993. Recommissioning her had been one long nightmare for the crew, they had even had to replace the battery themselves. As one of the “better” boats with a long range minelaying mission, they at least had that much.

HMAS Anzac

The thoughts of peace still drifted across the mind of the Officer of the Watch as he stood behind the pelorus. What a perfect day, the sort of day when a rock fisherman on the inner tubes at Beecroft Peninsula would be certain of hooking a marlin, or a big yellowfin tuna. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes. No fishermen haunted the crumbling bases of the towering sandstone cliffs, he knew. He scanned the fishing spot known as The Cemetery, directly below the white finger of the lighthouse on Point Perpendicular. It was empty. Jervis Bay had been closed for weeks now, and Montague Roadstead was jammed with anchored shipping.

He walked past the tired bosun’s mate to the port bridge wing, and glanced aft. Anzac was lead ship of her class and thoroughly modern. The Kariwara tail gave her a good ASW capacity even in these shallow, turbulent waters. It all depended on the sonar control room crew, of course, but those blokes had been on the ship for years. Their skills and experience were formidable.

Below, in the SCR, Leading Seaman “Bogga” Harrison looked intently at the Kariwara sonar’s passive waterfall display. That transient had appeared again, but the environment was noisy with life, and sonar conditions off Jervis Bay varied between bad and completely craptastic.

But this was different. This seemed regular. He reached a decision.

“Chief, I’ve got an odd transient, 135 degrees. Second time I’ve had it, last was three minutes ago”

Chief Petty Officer Tyne didn’t hesitate. He knew how good Bogga was. The Operations room was informed immediately, and the information plotted as a matter of course.

B-46

The CO sweated. Damn those dockyard workers at Vladivostok, they didn’t have to take a submarine into the backyard of the Imperialist Australians. He did, and had to lay a minefield as well. B-46 was at periscope depth, crawling south with the current and laying a mine every five hundred metres or so, but the din seemed deafening, magnified in his own brain. It truth it was not much. The voyage had been an endless stream of mechanical failures, and the clattering from the fore ends was the last straw. It could get them killed.

His boat was very old, and the non-existent Gods knew she was not in the best condition. Far too old and decrepit for real war service, she was here in time of peace to mine the approaches to Jervis Bay. Survival would be a bonus, though, thought the Captain.

Anzac

The Captain had been called minutes before, after the initial plot of passive sonar information. He reached for the handset; “Officer of the Watch, Captain. Bring the ship to action stations.” It could be done just as easily from the Ops room, he thought as the alarm bells sounded, but give the kid the experience. It was undoubtedly a false alarm, but they would all have to get used to it for real. Soon, if the intelligence reports were to be believed. He had spent many hours talking to his new Executive Officer about the developing situation. The Captain rebuked himself mentally, no government declared a full national mobilisation as an exercise. It just cost too much. No, the darkness was coming, this was the indrawn breath before the plunge in to the abyss.

The crew was well drilled by now, and the ship closed up in three minutes.

The PWO looked up from the plot; “It’s all on Kariwara, sir, but there’s been four transients now, bearing of the original was 135, bearing is drawing left, It’s now 125 degrees. Sonar conditions are pretty good for this bloody place, recommend we go active on the sonar, the ready launch Seaking is already on the way from Nowra on normal rotation.” Commander Harry Thomas considered for barely a second, and gave his approval.

Results followed in seconds. “Ops, SCR! Contact bearing 121, range eleven thousand yards, classified POSSUB.”

B-46

No more than seven seconds, the doctrine said. He got the periscope around and down again in six, but he had seen the danger. So much for his obsolete sensor fit, he thought.

The attack scope hissed down into its well. “We have company on the roof, XO, a frigate mast at 301, range about six thousand metres, and he’s heading south. He’s probably an ASW picket, and that means there will be dipping sonar helicopters about. Cease laying, prepare to fire torpedoes on bearing 300. Take us down to forty metres, speed eight knots, steer 120 to give him a narrow aspect. Lets get the hell out of here!”

Anzac

“Contact bears 117, range ten thousand five hundred yards, reclassify contact as PROBSUB, sir,” intoned the sonar operator. Leading Seaman Harrison broke in over the circuit “He’s accelerating, passive sonar shows a lot of noise, a shedload, this boat sounds like a brass band compared to a Collins, aaah, library says three screws, reclassify as CERTSUB! Assess as an old Foxtrot sir, nothing else in the sea has three screws.”

The PWO looked at Thomas. “Bogga Harrison is good, sir, he’s married to that sonar.” Thomas snapped at the signals yeoman; “Get a signal out, from Anzac to Fleet and Navy Office, am prosecuting submarine contact inside the closed zone, and add the sub’s position. Bridge, Ops, come left 045.”

B-46

The CO felt a ball of leaden ice materialise in the pit of his stomach. If his old equipment could detect enemy sonar transmissions, he had to be illuminated. Laying a minefield off one of the enemy’s main military training and convoy assembly areas was always going to be dangerous. His archaic project 641 class boat was expendable, which was why it was manned with a reserve crew. She was noisy and slow, and could not even dive past 150 metres, not that there was that much water here.

Like most naval officers in most periods of history, he was brave. He resolved to try and take the enemy out. He turned slightly to face his torpedo officer, “Torpedo officer! Fire both torpedoes at the enemy.”

Forward, information was passed to the old Type 53 torpedoes in the lower tubes. She did not carry wakehomers, just the old acoustic homing torpedoes themselves from reserve stocks. B-46 only carried six torpedoes on this mission. Information was fed to the weapons through mechanical spindles. Once the target settings were put in, the tube doors were opened.

Anzac
“Torpedoes fired, bearing 118 degrees, bearing steady, about to lose passive sonar in the turn, sir,” Harrison said. His supervisor glanced at him. He was too calm, but his knuckles betrayed more than simple tension. His grip on the edge of the sonar display was iron tight.

The voice over the speaker had that unreal sound to it. Disembodied - but the words had their impact. It was a shooting war now. Everyone flinched as if from a blow.

“Captains go given, PWO, get a torpedo off!”

The PWO punched the launch button himself. A second later, the triple mount spat a single Mk50 lightweight 12.75” torpedo into the water. The stored chemical energy propulsion system’s pump-jet accelerated it almost immediately to 42 knots. The ship’s combat suite had downloaded a tactical package and the little fish followed its programming.

“Bridge come left 010 speed 28 knots, stream the decoy!”

If we can get the bearing to draw right for a while, even if the decoys fail I should be able to run them out of fuel, thought Thomas. Triple screws, a Foxtrot for sure, we’ll stand off 20,000 yards and prosecute with the dipper - if we live.

“I just hope these are not wakehomers, Sir” muttered the PWO.

“Amen to that” replied Thomas.

B-46

The ASW torpedo hit the water with a small splash which the Foxtrot’s old systems had no hope of “hearing”, but they knew something had to be on the way. The dark green weapon dove to ten metres and streaked to its search area where it began a spiral search, pinging and listening. Its electronic brain heard the of Foxtrot’s three-shaft layout as she passed seven hundred yards away. It compared the frequency lines with its internal logic. This was an item of interest. The torpedo switched to active mode and illuminated the bearing with its small sonar. The sound energy reflected off the air interface of the submarine hull, and off the metal of the hull itself. The weapon centred the strong return and accelerated to attack speed.

B-46 did not hear it until seconds before it hit, squarely amidships under the sail.

The control room crew died instantly in the blast. The boat rolled to port as the weapon exploded, then flicked back to starboard and dove for the sea floor. She hit hard on the rock and sand bottom, springing the pressure hull forward. Two torpedoes, the eight remaining mines and all the loose gear bounced around the compartment as it began to fill. A huge cloud of sand rose around her as she ground to a stop, oil gushing from ruptured tanks. The surviving crew began a desperate struggle to survive as the dim emergency lights glowed inside the wreck. Most lost their struggle.

Firefly Three

The message from Anzac had reached the old Seaking minutes after it took off from the Naval Air Station, HMAS Albatross, for the forenoon patrol. Lieutenant Bob Mikalis had immediately pushed his throttles to the limit. As the big helicopter roared over the gleaming white bell tower of the Naval College on the shores of Jervis Bay he saw the sight in the distance. The furious accelerating Anzac”s stern was crouched and she was kicking up a strong wake. Even before the ship told him, he knew she was in trouble.

Six minutes later his dipping sonar winched into the sea two cables from a bubbling, dirty roil three miles off Bowen Island. The operator listened intently to his machine as it harvested sound from the sea.

In Anzac’s ops room they looked at the data transmitted over the data link with the Seaking, and worried about the semi-smart torpedoes closing on the ship. A huge white plume rocketed skywards 4,000 yards astern as one was seduced by a mobile decoy. One down, thought Thomas as he performed swift mental calculations. He and the PWO both smiled at once, Type 53 torpedoes could not get them, and that’s what the library said they had used.

“Sir there’s no fish running, and I’ve got a hell of a lot of random metallic noise and flooding noises.....aah, active contact, on the bottom, 195 three cables,” said the operator, “Krishna’s teeth boss, I think they nailed him!”

Mikalis started, “You must be joking, Tacco, a one shot kill? This outfit doesn’t have that sort of luck, the stores system doesn’t stock it. Besides, chasing subs is supposed to be like trying to stuff an octopus into a string bag - bloody difficult!”

The Seaking rose, to dip again. The brilliant sunshine glinted from the instruments as the aircraft swung south.

B-46

One more had already died, leaving three in the fore ends of the wreck. There was barely a metre of midnight airspace left, but they knew that the pressure had equalised. They groped for the hatch, and their faint chance of life. Starshina Aleksandr Shchyogolev felt the wheel above his head, and mentally begged it to spin. He called the other two as it moved under his hands.

“If it opens, we go straight out. Breathe deeply, keep close, get out fast and breathe out on the way up if you value your lives!”

The hatch opened as if newly made. Shchyogolev escaped into the dark green gloom. He swam up to the light, it seemed amazingly simple, like the drills. But no-one else joined him on the surface.

Firefly Three

Mikalis saw a splatter of bubbles painting the surface of the sea. He saw a man, and spoke his news into the mouthpiece.

Anzac

Thomas shook his head at the report. They had managed to avoid the torpedoes, he had run on well past their known range. The passive sonar reported nothing now that the ship had slowed down, and there were survivors in the water. He gave orders and sent urgent reports as the auxiliary minesweepers and helicopters converged on the dead submarine. He also kept his frigate well clear.

Two hours later the picture had clarified. Thirteen men had escaped alive from the wreck. An auxiliary minesweeper was anchored over the smashed hulk as its small commercial ROV looked it over. Interrogations of the prisoners had begun at the Naval College gymnasium.

24130KAPR05 (240301ZAPR05)
HMAS Voyager, Garden Island Naval Base.

It seemed to Captain Rogers that he had hardly slept since he had taken over command of Voyager from the late (or so everybody assumed) Captain Holt.

He had realised that evidently Captain Holt had not finished the ship’s working up process. Like all new warships she suffered from a number of teething problems, her command system, CMS, had to be told repeatedly told that it was on an Australian warship fitted with APAR, not a British ship fitted with Sampson, so stop looking for one system and ignoring the other.

The CMS had also on occasion refused to believe that the American Mark 45 Mod.4 5inch/62 gun on the forecastle actually existed; evidently it thought that a good British Mark VIII 4.5inch or Mark IX 155mm/39 gun should have been there instead.

At least she had not suffered the sort of embarrassing breakdowns that had plagued the first of the Royal Navy’s Type 42 destroyers, Sheffield, when she had been working up in the late 1970s.

Her Rolls Royce WR21 gas turbines and the associated electric motors functioned correctly; in fact her engineer, Lieutenant Commander (E) Les Patterson, who had last served aboard an Adelaide class frigate, was very taken with them; as did the majority of the electronic systems.

Captain Rogers would have liked another couple of days to get rid of the last few bugs in the ship’s systems, but his superiors had it very clear that Voyager would sail whether she was entirely ready or not. She was supposed to form part of the escort of a convoy carrying the army’s 3 Brigade to South Korea, which could not be delayed, especially since it was supposed to link up with a convoy carrying an army battlegroup from New Zealand, which had already sailed.

As Voyager made her final preparations to sail, a force of mine countermeasures vessels, the Huon, Hawkesbury, Norman, Diamantina and the Gascoyne, were checking over the area that the convoy would pass over just in case the Soviets or their allies had managed to lay any mines, while the frigates Sydney and Newcastle were performing an ASW sweep in conjunction with an RAAF AP-3C Orion and a couple of extra helicopters, including Voyager’s Merlin HM.51, also just in case.

Rogers took his place on the bridge as Voyager made her final preparations for sea.

“Okay, Adam, cast off.” Rogers ordered.
“Aye, aye, Sir.” Lieutenant Adam Hills, the Officer of the Watch replied. “Cast off.” He said, repeating the order. “Lines are cast off, Sir.”
“Right, give me slow ahead port, slow ahead starboard.”

As a matter of pride Captain Rogers liked to take his ship to sea without the assistance of tugs, something he had often done when he had commanded the old Hobart, which meant deft handling of the engines and rudder.
The bows of Voyager swung gracefully out towards the shipping channel.

“All stop.” Rogers ordered as the bows approached the position he wanted it to be in. “Slow ahead both.”

The destroyer began to move away from quayside and out into the shipping channel ahead of the bigger ships carrying the troops and equipment of 3 Brigade. Though the majority of these ships were requisitioned merchant Roll-on Roll-off cargo vessels, much of the heavy equipment and soldiers would be carried aboard the navy’s own amphibious warships, HMAS Kanimbla, Manoora and Tobruk.

“Signal from the cab, Sir. Seems she has a sonar contact.
“Sydney’s and Newcastle’s cabs are moving to assist.”
“Sound action stations, we can’t be too careful.” Rogers ordered. “Adam, remind me what the Rules of Engagement say regarding this sort of thing.”
“We can sink any Soviet or Indonesian submarine within the twelve mile limit, or if it appears to be a threat to the convoy.
“Do they know what it is, Sir?” Lieutenant Hills asked.
“Not yet, apparently.” Rogers replied. “Keep me posted.” He said to the yeoman who had passed on the initial report.
“Aye, aye, Sir.” The sailor replied. “Newcastle’s cab is dropping depth charges on the target, Sir.” He reported a moment later.
“Turn on the speakers, I want to hear what the cabs are saying.” Rogers ordered.

“Newcastle this is X-ray One. I think those charges really shook the target up.
“Looks like it really is a sub after all. Over.”
“Newcastle, this is Victor One, One, permission to drop our fish on the target. Over.”

“That’s our cab.” Lieutenant Hills commented.
“I know.” The captain replied. “Come on, Bob.” He muttered, referring to the commander of HMAS Newcastle, Captain Hawke. “It’s not one of ours, and I doubt our allies would put a sub off Sydney.”

“That’s a negative, Victor One, One.” The frigate replied a few seconds later. “We need a positive I.D on the target before we drop fish on it.”
“Christ all mighty, Newcastle!” The pilot of Sydney’s Seahawk exploded. “X-ray One has already dropped ordnance on it! Plus she sounds like a nuke boat! What more do you need?”
“Those were depth charges, Charlie two one. They were intended to warn the target, not kill it. Over.” A stern voice said over the radio; Rogers recognised it as belonging to Captain Hawke himself.

“Christ, stop being such a bloody old woman, Bob.” Rogers muttered, irritated that Hawke seemed to have failed to make the transition from a peacetime frame of mind to a wartime one.

For a moment he considered contacting the admiral on Kanimbla who commanded the group, but changed his mind, reflecting that he had six months seniority over Hawke, and he could give legitimately give orders to his own helicopter. He picked up the radio handset on the bridge.

“Victor One, One this is Voyager. Drop your ordnance on the target on my authority. Over.” He said in a clipped voice.
“Roger Voyager. Dropping now. Over.”

Rogers did not replace the handset, knowing that in a few seconds that he would face a barrage of complaints from Hawke, who would be irritated at his interference in “his” operation. However Rogers believed that he had done the right thing to protect the convoy from attack; he just prayed that the US Navy had not been stupid enough to station an attack boat off Sydney for some reason.

oOo

They hadn’t. The Victor I was old, but in decent condition. Her systems heard the splash. She’d been tracking both the helicopters and the frigates and instantly fired two 53-65KE wake-homers at the frigates to keep them entertained. She immediately started to accelerate, then turned sharply to create a huge eddy in the water, called a “knuckle”, she studded the knuckle with two decoys, a gas generator to make a nice solid sonar return, and a noise generator which sounded like a Victor I, then she dived for the sea floor. The Mark-50 advanced lightweight torpedo was in hot pursuit until it reached the knuckle and got a return good enough from it to activate its attack sequence. It attacked twice before its “brain” twigged to the fact that it was not a submarine.

It rose above the knuckle to listen, and immediately “heard” the still-accelerating Victor I, which was redlining its two VM-4T reactors and steam plant and passing 30 knots, on its way to 34 – the Victors being a bit faster than Western intelligence thought. Even an elderly submarine like this one was still very fast.

A somewhat exasperated voice came over the circuit. “Charlie two four this is Echo six Mike actual, prosecute the contact. Lima two seven has tactical control. Out.”

“Well,” muttered Rogers to himself, “Proper call signs and a pissed off Rear-Admiral Johansen. Pissed off with me too for all he just passed me tactical control. Bob, you fucked it up and he’s not a happy camper.”

“OOW sound action alarms, Nav, take her out and haul arse doing it. Get harbour control to clear the channel right now for a high speed exit, tell them we have a battle going on offshore and tell them to get the ferries the hell out of the way and don’t bend her or I will be very sad. I’m for the Ops room.”

“Sunday, boss!” The startled navigator knew that the harbour was crawling with all sorts of pleasure craft. The fishermen were fine, they stayed out of the channel, but the yachts crossed it all the time on their racing legs, and as for the drunken rich cretins in their motorised gin-palaces…!

“Have fun with that then but if the choice is yachties or us then bugger the yachties. Use the sirens creatively. Get blanks up for the machine guns. Whatever you have to do.”

oOo

The Victor I pulled up just twenty feet from the bottom, turned sharply again – which cost her five knots, and put two more decoys into the enormous swirling knuckle of water which raised tons of mud and sand into its vortexes, fired a self-propelled acoustic decoy on a widely diverging course to mimic a Victor I trying to get away at just 15 knots, cut plant power to minimum and coasted away skimming the bottom. Her speed rapidly fell off but it got her a thousand yards clear before the Mark50 attacked the knuckle, which really was much more “solid” this time with all the particulates in it. The torpedo hit the bottom and exploded.

Rogers was there fifteen seconds later and slid into his command chair as the ship’s acceleration increased with the rising howl of the Rolls Royce WR21’s. The tactical picture was already datalinked in, of course.

Voyager rounded Bradley’s Head at 25 knots, throwing a huge bow wave and still accelerating. Obvious brown plumes of funnel smoke were jetting from her exhausts due to a slight problem with the fuel flow adjustments, as the A/OOW frantically called on the emergency circuit to get the ferries and other watercraft clear of the channel. Sydney Tower had already ordered the ferries away. The ship’s siren sounding to draw attention to matters. Sailing craft scattered in a directions – the ferries knew an emergency when they saw it and got out of the channel to let her pass, often abusing yachtsmen to clear out too before they got skittled. Voyager screamed past Middle Head at over 30 knots, a spectacular sight.

Rogers did not give much thought to all that, either his subordinates were competent, or they were not.

“Hmm. So Newcastle and Sydney running like hell with a wakehomer chasing each. Nothing I can do about that but they were far away from her when she fired. Mr Victor – PWO how solid’s that ID? Solid? Good– going thataway at way over 30 knots. The Mark50 probably won’t catch him before it runs out of fuel but it might. PWO, get the AP-3C to put in a line of DIFAR buoys here,” his stylus showed the line...

“Detonation, sir! Still have a possible acoustic target heading north-east. Working to refine it.” Orders were flowing to the helicopters.

“Do not believe it for a moment, PWO. And that other track’s heading away, see? Tell me, you ever met a non-aggressive submarine driver?”

“Sir?” The ship lurched suddenly to port. Mildly irritated, Rogers grabbed the mike.

“Did you bend my nice shiny new ship, Nav? It’ll be “bad doggie and no biscuit” for you if you did, y’know.”

“No sir, idiots from the Sydney Yacht Squadron and dickheads in gin palaces, I think we swamped three or four of ‘em.”

“And I’ve lost my nano-violin. Bugger. Don’t have too much fun up there, Nav and no eyeing off topless blondes without putting video on the main circuit for everyone to enjoy.”

There was a single harsh bark of laughter over the circuit and the sally earned some chuckles from the men and women present. Good, thought Rogers, they were getting too tense for my liking.

He turned back to the PWO. “And you will not, either. Look at that track. He’s broken contact, and if you can break contact, why break it away from where the convoy must go? He knows it’s there, damn Canberra, its leaks and the efficiency of the KGB and GRU. So he’ll break towards the south. Not away. Tell the Admiral to clear the heads and alter south, not north, and at minimum speed and as close as he can safely get to the shore, there’s an SSN heading towards where it thinks he will go. Right, now get the AP-3C to put a passive barrier here to here,” his stylus moved, and move the helicopters to... here. And now we play the game again.”

“Bridge CO.”

“Sir.”

“Nav, when we pop out the heads I want you to turn north and really kiss the cliffs, fast as we can and close as you dare until we are ten miles north of North Head, got it?”

“Shit! Sorry boss, you really think that...?”

“If they got a Victor I here with intel this good, what else have they got? If I was planning this little op I’d have mines here for sure, for all we know that the port and channels seem to be clear, and there’s that one the Kiwi’s trawled up and all the excitement off Newcastle. So yes.”

“Aye aye, sir.” There was a tone of respect in the voice. On the bridge, the Navigator glanced at the OOW and pitched his voice for everyone to hear.

“We’ve got a good one here, OOW. He’s thinking three steps ahead. Let’s not bend his ship and let’s go kill that sub.”

oOo

Six hours later and things were starting to pick up. The AP-3C had gone to Richmond skosh fuel and buoys, but another was on-task and monitoring both its barriers. Rogers had ordered max buoys and fuel, so it only had one rather elderly Mark-46 torpedo, much to the disgust of its crew. The use of buoys was prolific, but there were thousands of men aboard the convoy currently creeping southwards. He had the two FFG’s pretending to be the ASW screen in front of a convoy heading north with a dipper down there pretending to be two dippers.

“Tell the AP-3C good work, I agree with them that this twitch is more interesting than the last four. Get the cab in position and order the AP-3C to put his fish in – here, in eleven minutes.”

The PWO looked at the plot. “You intend to spook him, sir?”

“He has to respond when he hears a live fish in his water column if it is within a few thousand yards. This is an old Victor I and although he’s pretty good, that’s a noisy boat even with a modern prop on it. He’s smart and he’s aggressive, a noob in his first command I suspect, but he knows that sonar conditions here suck, so we should hear a reaction. Then our Merlin or one of the Romeos will nail him.”

The tension was enormous as the AP-3C loosed its only fish.

The splash-point was spotted. Twenty seconds later they saw the reaction, and three AN/SSQ-53D DIFAR generated bearing lines. Victor two was the closest helicopter and attacked within two minutes.

Again the operators heard the faint bubbly screeching of the Mark-50 torpedo and this time there was no mistake. The Victor I’s engines again thundered but the torpedo was too close: the big submarine jinked frantically as it tried to dodge the lethal little robot.

The torpedo missed on its first attack, the big sub dodging the right way. On its second attack it hit her directly abreast the reactor room.

затоплениезатопления в машинномотделении!

Her Captain was a proud professional and he spoke calmly even with his engine room flooding. “Full emergency blow, full ahead emergency power, hard rise on the planes, prepare to abandon ship.”

He’d get his men off if he could, the water here was only about 400 feet deep but the roof was only 230 feet away. She responded, but sluggishly, as the Tasman Sea thundered into his dying command.

oOo

The AP-3C had reported the hit and Sydney’s Seahawk was racing in as Voyager’s helicopter reported a huge bubbling and suddenly, a gleaming black shape, still steaming quite quickly as hatches slammed open and men began to tumble into the sea. The helicopter reported her aft down-angle increasing rapidly as her men escaped in a rush, trickling quickly until the last couple struggled out of the hatch in the sail just before it submerged. The submarine floated vertically for several minutes, eighty feet of her bow exposed, then slid back into the sea.

Rogers passed a Bravo Zulu to all concerned and sat in his chair as the reports came in. Of her 48 crew, 37 survived including her CO. Less than a handful had made it out of her engine and reactor spaces.

He turned to his Operations Room crew. “That was not too bad. Think we just broke the old Voyager hex, too. Which is nice. The boys sleeping off Jervis Bay will be pleased. I want a full assessment of systems performance ASAP as there were some glitches I did not like very much. We’ll do a hot washup in two hours. Meanwhile, the Admiral probably wants to chat. I also want everyone to get used to the idea that we are in a shooting match now. Finally, anyone here dumb enough to think that Ivan sent just one sub down to these waters after this convoy? No? Good. I’d have also sent an Oscar and some diesel boats, but I am, of course, a swine. So from now on it gets worse, people. PWO get the OOW to set defence watches, and get someone to tell my steward I want a mug of tea or something up on the bridge. Oh, one last thing, get the MUD to rustle up some paint. I want a Victor I silhouette painted on each bridge wing.”

He got out of his chair and headed for the bridge.

oOo

260215Z Apr 17 (261215KApr 05)
Serenity Spirit was a normal ship for the trade, and had been on the Newcastle run for five years. It was a profitable milk run, Newcastle to the Inland Sea with steaming coal and back, feeding prosaic but essential coal to power the Japanese baseload electricity system which kept the economy going. A routine now changed, although the 90,000 tons of coal in his holds hadn’t.

The events of the past few days had been shocking, the master thought as he watched the helicopter lift the pilot off. He was steaming slowly, just six knots to make that a little safer for the pilot, but he would not increase to his 14 knot cruising speed until he reached the end of the swept channel, neatly marked with two lines of dan buoys, each with its radar reflector. He approved of that, he approved of the busy professionalism of the local sweepers too; they had already put up eight mines, and he approved of the briefing the Maritime Trade Operations officer had given him as well, complete with his recommended dispersal routeing. It would add two days to the voyage, but he knew from his own company’s briefings in Yokohama that it would both make him a lot safer and mean that the ship and his crew would be covered by war risk insurance into the bargain.

The explosion was a total surprise, and he instantly understood what it meant. He hit the new abandon ship alarm and screamed at his bridge staff, sprinted to the port bridge-wing and grabbed the ship’s main broadcast mike to order the abandon ship. The ground mine’s power was incredible, it was able to visibly lift the ship amidships even fully laden as she was, and he knew that her hull girder had been broken. The water swept him from the bridge wing less than a minute later as Serenity Spirit plunged.

oOo

“What’s the situation, pilot?”

“Tell Namoi ops that she’s just bloody gone, and right in the channel at the nine mile mark. Definitely mined, it broke her like a stick two holds forward of the superstructure, she broke in two and sank instantly, estimate she sank in about forty seconds, she went down like a brick in a pond. I see four survivors in the water clinging to wreckage, there’s a danlayer coming, we’ll hover over them until she gets here. And harbourmaster, close the port.”

oOo

B-36 was another ancient Type 641 scraped off the dockyard wall and manned by reservists. But Yevgeni Kosygen was no ordinary reservist. He’d done his time in submarines of course, but his life in the Maritimes was excellent and he resented being here. Especially in an ancient death-trap. He missed his wife and young mistress, children, the new grandchildren, the near-mansion and his well-appointed dacha. The profits of his cross border trade were great and he had the enthusiastic cooperation of the local militia and security services. But that was all local, and the recall had come from some bedamned and forsaken ministry in Moscow.

It had caught him by surprise. And that was the only reason he was here, commanding this heap of junk and its all-too-obviously expendable crew. But they were his crew now, he’d taken care of the stocking and they had infinitely better food and even conditions than any other. You never, ever stiffed the hired help which was why he was a rich man in Russia with devoted ... employees.

Organised crime gang was such a harsh term.

And they knew he’d done that, and that meant they did their jobs properly. Which maximised his own chances of survival.

He also knew how to tactically maximise his chances of survival, too. One long string of mines laid while drifting in the current totally shut down and ending here at the anchorage. Now, to obey orders to attack merchant shipping with four of his torpedoes, then go home the slowest way possible. And oh look, there were 32 big merchant ships at anchor all around him. And he’d wangled wire guided fish, the best his ancient systems could manage. One of his best investments and it only took a case of rather decent Chinese brandy.
The old boat shuddered as the first torpedo left the tube. Ten minutes later, the last of four explosions rumbled through his hull, and for the first time he smiled.

“Well, boys, we are all now submarine aces as those empty colliers are all about 90,000 tons each, one has broken in half, the stern has sunk and the bow is drifting ashore, three were perfect shots, well done torps, all hit in the stern. By the look of it all three are sinking, their sterns on the bottom and the bows filling. Now we go home the safe way for tea and medals. Up snort mast, recharge and we’ll run due east at twelve knots for the rest of the night. It’s a risk, but the Imperialists will not have a submarine here, or even a frigate, and that will get us well clear of the datum by dawn. Then we go home very slowly, and through remote waters. I assume you all like the idea of living?”

The faces of the crew brightened considerably. So much the better, Kosygen thought, if those other idiots stay and pick off individual merchants they are probably going to get nailed. I’ve achieved my mission entirely and can go home very slowly and become the hero. With the whole Pacific to cross it will take weeks. And we’ll be pretty safe all that time. But I have to play to the zampolit even though I own the little bastard.

“Navigator, we have really stirred up the Imperialists and completed our orders to the letter. We need to plot a course out to the east of the Solomon islands and then via remote waters through the island chains, well clear of Imperialist bases. We will have to stretch our fuel very carefully. Have a look at the problem again.”

oOo

The old M26 mine had been laid by a merchant ship weeks before, and was one of the ones selected for delayed release. This was half of the lay, 60 of the 120 mines in the straggly barrages now unravelling around Newcastle. It had the usual magnetic-acoustic sensor package grafted on to the archaic M26 moored mine. Like its 60 sisters, it also had a second package. This was a simple magnetic ship-counter, and when it reached eight it released a pawl, allowing the mine to unspool. Unlike them, this mine and the few others configured in the same way did not have the standard warhead of 250kg of H6. H6 was powerful explosive, 1.35 times as powerful as TNT. These few mines had something which no other country still used as it was more expensive and less stable over long periods of time, old-fashioned TORPEX. TORPEX had a significant advantage though, which made it the best choice for this role. It was 1.5 times more powerful than TNT. The old mine had a warhead the equivalent of 375 kg or 825 lbs of TNT.

The old-fashioned ovoid rose on its cable to 10 metres below the surface. This was unusually shallow as this was a slightly unusual mine. It was designed to attack any minesweepers – the M26 could not be modified to attack minehunters – and among other things it was programmed to look for a specific magnetic/acoustic signature. There was nothing unusual about that as it had a small library of them. What was unusual about it was that within specific range parameters it was programmed to attack that signature the first time it “saw” it.

oOo

060415Z May 17 (061415K May 05)

McCann looked at the plot. He needed a minehunter and he did not have one, although Shoalhaven had been sent up briefly to him as soon as they cleared the main channel out of Port Botany. She and her sister were pretty much all the truly modern protection Ports Jackson and Botany had, which really showed the difference between a modern mine hunter (even a small one) and his formation. Since the Victor I had been sunk off Sydney and the Foxtrot had been sunk off Jervis Bay it was quite obvious that the initial pre-war lay by a surface ship still unidentified had been reinforced with a submarine lay. And they had used entirely modern mines, too.

This was not good news.

Worse, they had been attacking shipping. Aside from the colliers off his own port, four merchant ships had been torpedoed in the first two days of the war and three-and-a-half of them had gone to the bottom. The half had drifted on to the rocks at Fraser Park and was breaking up. The fifth had not survived either, a big Hoegh RoRo full of cars for Sydney, she’d been torpedoed and had her bow blown off fifteen miles south east of Nobby’s. It had disabled her engines and no tug from Newcastle – still closed at the time – had been able to reach her before she drifted ashore on Stockton Beach. Where she had fallen on to her side and then broken in half amidships, her keel to the ocean. At least she had not lost any of her crew, but the ship and her cargo was a total loss.

Four more had been sunk since, one of them in his area, a 14,000 ton geared flexible freighter called the Golden Dragon torpedoed off Catherine Hill Bay. Her holds were full of earthmoving equipment but she’d had 230 containers stacked on her hatch-tops and they were all over the place. Some had sunk, many had washed ashore, some were drifting about under the surface, more were bowling along the bottom partially buoyant and all of them had made a hash of his operations, acting like giant pieces of chaff, even breaking some of his Oropesa sweeps. The locals were having a field day. McCann grinned to himself. His slightly dodgy cousin Simon had spotted a container in the surf at Catherine Hill Bay after dusk one miserable night, just before high tide. By the time the tide was a quarter out he’d opened it and realised it was full of dirt bikes. By the time the tide was out he and his mates were proud owners of 40 brand new (if very soggy) KTM dirt bikes and were busily soaking them in fresh water to get rid of the salt, in preparation for tearing them down. Simon owned a mechanic’s shop with his Dad, Patrick, who was McCanns first cousin.

McCann’s dirt bike was blue.

Only one of the minelaying submarines had been sunk so far, an old Foxtrot as she was laying mines off Jervis Bay, nailed by HMAS Anzac. Intel was saying that there were probably four minelaying submarines off the coast from the pattern of known mine laying and sinkings. All of them old, no Tango class or so they thought. The good news was that the minesweeping squadrons of 32nd Flotilla were earning their keep. Mines had been put up off Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and in Bass Strait; not many so far but enough to indicate that they had been hit pretty hard for a low-budget tertiary operation. Some clever little bastard had been reading their history.

The few modern hunters had proven that the inner channels in Sydney, Melbourne and Dampier-Port Hedland had not been fouled. The roadstead minehunters had also proven that Newcastle and Wollongong harbours were clear, and had then been pulled back to their major task, ensuring the safety of the main fleet base at Garden Island and keeping Port Jackson and Port Botany clear. The closest probable barrages were at least a few miles from the harbour mouths and in the case of Dampier and Port Hedland many miles out due to the hostile hydrography of those waters and their enormous tides. And the currents there, in Bass Strait and off the east coast ports were moving them constantly.

It was an almighty pain in the backside and the economic impacts were quite serious. Newcastle’s coal exports were down by a third and already the Japanese government was making pained noises. Fortunately for them (and the Australian balance of payments) they had picked up several Chinese contracts under negotiation for steaming coal, coking coal and iron ore which they had abandoned, and in turn this meant that bulk carriers carrying that coal and iron ore went to Japan instead. There were definite political overtones in all of that but that was above his pay grade. The Japanese had stockpiles built up over years, and wanted to preserve those stockpiles as long as they could before tapping them.

So it really was up to the auxiliary minesweepers now.

McCann sighed. Well, he thought, if it was easy they would not need you, would they?

At least he still had six sweepers and there were three more coming. Like the rest of the 32nd, they’d mostly be manned by locals.

oOo

The local media had their slow days and the war was new, so one of their standbys was the 2nd of the 32nd. Their reporting had been a complete pain in the backside to McCann, as it had focussed on the disruptions to the lives of people in the buildings taken over by the Navy to form HMAS Namoi. So he’d had a chat to Sydney and done something about it. The Squadron was manned mostly by young local reservists although none were women for the reason that the work on the sweepers involved very heavy manual labour and they simply did not have the upper body strength to do it. If you could not lift fifty kilograms all day long, you could not work on a sweeper’s deck. It was just that simple. This was a bugbear for a couple of the local paper’s reporters, and the Newcastle Morning Herald was a little idiosyncratic at the best of times and bughouse crazy much of the rest of the time. AMS Group 32/2/1 was sweeping up-channel, with its three ships on influence duty, Birchgrove Park in the lead, followed by Bonthorpe, then Bombo. As usual, the reporter and her cameraman were in the centre ship. They had cheerfully been told that this was no position of safety, just where they’d get the best pictures, including from inside a waterspout if they were mined. The young reporter and her seasick cameraman did not really believe it of course, even with the broken wreck of Hoegh Tokyo sinking in to the sand of Stockton Beach and the four new wrecks offshore.

Tracey Schlichter was new. A bright and intelligent 23 year old, she was learning the ropes and her journalism degree was so new it squeaked. She wanted to get out of here, Newcastle was her home town, and brighter lights beckoned. The last thing she wanted to do was to deal with bloody stupid meat-headed myrmidons. She knew from her time at university just how un-progressive such types were. The Flotilla Commander was typical of the type, she thought. An old geezer, almost twice her age, cold, distant and someone who’d never heard of Chomsky, third-wave feminism or any of the exciting new ways of the future. She sighed.

Sub-Lieutenant Scott Clark looked at the reporter. He knew that sigh, it was the sound a teenager made at just how hopeless her parents were. He knew. He had four daughters. They grew out of it and this pretty, elfin blue-eyed blonde with the big chest would too. Bloody fast if she stayed here – there were no boys on a minesweeper. Life was too dangerous and just damned hard. They had already had casualties. You became a man fast, very fast.

He turned to his duty and pierced his mate of the upper deck and effective XO with a gimlet eye. He could do that, as the amazingly junior rank of Subby hardly reflected the man, he had thirty years of experience skippering small craft in the oil and gas industry offshore and until recently ran a line boat business in the port as his retirement job. Which was crazy but kind of explained the man. Chief Maher was his effective XO for the simple reason that Midshipman Horner, the actual XO, was so new that he squeaked, and looked like he was about 15.

“Chief, an eye for the dolly-birds is one thing, but I don’t want you taking your eye off the rig. I don’t like the look of that cross-swell and we are towing a long string.”

They were, in fact, emulating a frigate leading a bulk carrier, and the AMASS array stretched 600 yards behind them.

The young reporter actually was Chief Maher’s type and she knew it, but the banter had been just good natured. Maher was married and his pretty and utterly irrepressible little elfin Filipina wife was expecting their second child any second now. The reporter had been appalled at this, and asked why he was not with her. Maher had just given her a pitying look, and shaken his head. She had blushed at her stupidity.

“Dolly-bird,” she said evenly, which made a nice change.

The CO grinned unrepentantly. “And dolly-bird I stand by or I’ll disappoint my daughters, who I have convinced that their Dad is a reactionary old rogue too. They were oh-so-fashionably progressive too before they grew up and became women. Have to keep up the rough, hard edged persona of the sweepers, you know. Even Midshipman Horner there is doing that.” He jerked his chin at the foredeck, where his nominal XO was driving the hydraulic crane as they sorted some heavy, greasy steel cables. It was hard, dangerous work and there was an old AB recalled from his civvy job there keeping an eye on things and transferring his experience.

She snorted. These men were so different, she thought to herself they do not give a crap if they offend me. With a small shock she realised that this was because they really were men, and that what she had thought were men back in uni were really just boys by comparison, even the guys here who were her age were – older somehow. She shook her head, which did interesting things to her chest. “How come he is your second in charge, anyway?”

“Ah, you sense a story.” Scott paused and she grinned unrepentantly in return.

“Fair enough. That’s your job. He’s in a learning position. He’s bright, hard-working and advanced in his class, so they sent him here in to a semi-command, semi-learning slot. He’s not bad, either, picked up running that crane safely in two days, and is really picking up all the hard graft seamanship stuff. As XO he gets to handle a lot of the paperwork, and as for the crew, well, there can be no daylight between the XO and the MUD here. Which means that in every evolution they are standing there running it and he’s learning as fast as humanly possible while picking up all the little tweaks on how to spot dangers and keep the men as safe as possible.” He knew she was taking mental notes.

“I noticed that there’s a lot of heavy physical work,” she said, still with a tone of disapproval.

“Unavoidable on sweepers and it’s never changed. It’s why we cannot have females aboard, well, that and these ships have no separate sleeping or washing facilities. But it’s simply because of the physical requirements, which are serious and women just do not have the upper body strength needed. If we can find women who can easily lift a hundredweight after sixteen hours of bloody hard graft we’ll use them. But there aren’t any. Even I pitch in and I am not supposed to, but we are minimum manned although that’s changing now, so there’s not much choice. Anyway, Chief, get aft and keep an eye on things, the rest of you lot come in to the bridge.”

The reporter and her cameraman did so. The CO had the ship and rapidly plotted a fix, keeping an eye on both the helmsman and the relative position of the ship. It amazed the reporter that he could do it all so effortlessly while thinking about his sweep, monitoring the activity around the hold forward of the bridge, and talking to her.

“This is not really dangerous work though is it?”

Clark snorted. “You see a fairly calm, sunny day. But the sea has its dangers and is always trying to kill you. Add mines to that and it gets worse. What you do not see is the cross-swell, the current trying to keep us from maintaining the axis of the sweep along the route, and you still do not really believe that the mines are real. I think you do understand that the war is real, but you do not understand that it is real here, off ordinary boring old Newcastle, so far away from everywhere. Perhaps that should be your story, rather than the human interest… FUCK!”

He grabbed the main broadcast fast as the heavy, monstrous dull thud rolled over the ship. “Rescue stations, rescue stations, MUD get the RHIB into the water now. Birchgrove Park’s mined!” The cameraman had already been snapping shots and these had caught the explosion through the bridge glass – he dashed out on to the port bridge wing while holding the trigger down. Obediently, the digital camera kept taking continuous stills. The young reporter’s eyes were saucerlike as she saw the enormous plume of water and shattered debris, with more chunks of debris gyrating away into the sky. She thought the angle of the minesweeper’s stern was unusual as it vanished into the spray, but it was something barely glimpsed.

The M26 had detonated slightly forward of amidships and just four metres from the hull. The TORPEX had very rapidly started to form a great bubble of gas: but water is incompressible, and just four metres away was a thin shell of air-filled steel. Air compresses very easily. The bubble never had time to fully form before the tremendous power of the shock wave reached the hull, which could offer no more resistance than a bare shimmer of finest silk. The still expanding gas was venting into the hull before the surface of the water ten metres above where the mine had been actually started to move.

Unfortunately for HMAS Birchgrove Park in the last few hundredths of a second of her life, her hold held a mass of steel towing cable, some on wooden spools, some in carefully arranged coils. The immense power of the expanding gas hit this and was, for a long time as such things are measured (although it was only ten-thousandths of a second), partially deflected. As the still-building power of the gas started to move the heavy bed of wire vertically, a secondary shock wave moved like a knife blade at about 45 degrees, slicing though the engine room bulkhead before emerging just aft of the funnel. It essentially severed the bridge block from the hull a fraction of time before the main body of the ferociously expanding gas rose through the rapidly disintegrating hull in a sunburst of fury to fling the compressing and disintegrating bridge block into the sky. The crew of HMAS Birchgrove Park literally never knew what hit them. The ones forward, in the machinery spaces and on the bridge were dead before their nervous systems could carry a pain impulse from their feet to their brain. The ones tending the sweep aft died nearly as quickly, most were rent apart by the knife blade.

She was only 630 tons.

oOo

While it seemed to tower over them forever, the gigantic plume actually stood for only about twenty seconds. Water is heavy, and gravity relentless. The fine spray maintained some illusion of the seven hundred foot plume for many seconds after that. What the young reporter could not understand was where the ship was. So she said the first thing that came in to her head.

“Where’s the ship gone?”

Clark’s voice sounded like crushed gravel swirled in a bucket. “Look at the splashes, girl, she’s been blown to pieces. As for the rest of her, she’s gone. Now shut up or get off my bridge.”

“Helmsman, port ten.”

“Port ten on, sir.”

Scott waited half a minute. “Midships, steer 045.”

“Course 045, sir.”

Scott always brought the helmsman out on exactly the course he wanted.

“Yeoman, hoist Guide, and signal flags for Bombo, conform to my movements, and continue sweep.” Then signal Namoi, Birchgrove Park mined, with a position, RHIB in water to search for survivors, continuing sweep.”

“Aye aye, sir.” He ducked out of the starboard bridge door to make the flag signal.

Clarke had not let go of the main broadcast. “Mate of the upper deck, drop the RHIB as we pass the site of the sinking, ensure radio comms with it, report when done.” He grabbed his binoculars and confirmed where the end float of Birchgrove Park’s sweep was, it was now bending south in the east Australia current, away from his ship and her sweep.

“Hmm. That’s enough lateral separation then, Starboard ten steer 055.”

“Starboard ten steer 055.” The young helmsman smiled very slightly to himself. He’d passed a test of trust. That order meant that the skipper trusted him to bring the ship back to base course by himself.

“Messages sent and acknowledged, sir,” said the Yeoman.

Scott still had the binoculars to his eyes. “Very good. Message to Namoi, send dan carrier to site of sinking to buoy wreck and recover sweep. Sweep still appears to be attached to wreck.”

“Sir.” Then he grabbed the bridge sound powered phone as it buzzed. “Bridge. Yeoman.” He listened for some seconds and hung up.

“Sir, RHIB going into the water now. SBA has sent a kit, he’s prepping the wardroom for wounded survivors.”

“Be surprised if there’s any survivors at all, Yeoman. That explosion was like the fist of an angry pagan god. Something very funny going on there, I think that we have just met our first anti-minesweeper mine and it worked a treat for them.”

They stood and watched the RHIB dart away towards the great pool of oily wreckage in silence, for some minutes.

“Yeoman, signal to Namoi ops info COMAUSMINFOR, usual SIC and urgent priority. Birchgrove Park sunk with unusual vehemence stop. Be surprised if there’s any survivors stop. Ship appeared to disintegrate stop. Plume approx twice normal height stop. Bridge block seen to be blown free of ship and into the air stop. Suspect some form of anti minesweeper mine stop. Request any available data on such stop. Eighteen sweeps of route eight three will now take until 2300 local stop. Continuing mission stop. Got that?”

“Sir.”

Ten minutes later the still silent reporter was further shocked to hear the radio report from the RHIB that they had four bodies, but no survivors. Scott told them to keep searching for half an hour, then to return to the ship. She finally ventured a question.

“Captain, this is a shocking event. Surely we go back in now?”

Scott had been expecting it, of course, and strangled the rage that tried to roar up within him.

“No. Firstly, this is not a shocking event. It’s just not a good day, I knew damned near every man aboard Birchgrove Park and her CO was an old, old friend of mine. I was best man at his wedding. Make sure that you mention Jason Kubale, and that the men of the Bonthorpe knew they were a good crew. This is our price of doing business, so to that degree this is another day at the office for us in the sweepers. Secondly, we have a job to do, which is to conduct 18 influence sweeps of this route, which was six sweeps with three ships, now it is two sweeps with three ships and six sweeps with two ships. And we are in front, so if there’s another of those mines out there then we will wear it. That’s the job. Now that merely means that it will take an extra six hours, so we won’t get in until 2330 or so, then we offload the dead, clean up, refuel, take on some victuals and get ready to sail at 0600 to do it all again. That’s the mission, that’s the job, and we mourn our dead later, when we can, if we live. Got it, girlie?”

She nodded, eyes wide and face pale. Lord preserve me, she thought, I might die out here – what? I just prayed?”

“I am not being cruel or nasty, especially towards you. I am being realistic and factual. This is what we do and It’s not a video game. In my world, the losers and the unlucky fucking die. And it does not matter how good you are doing your job, some days. While on board you are in my world. Perhaps that should be your story. That right in the middle of boring old ordinary Newcastle there is an entirely different universe where none of the normal rules apply at all, and where the fast and violent death of a ship and 29 men is pretty tough, but just part of the normal life in that world.”

There was silence on the bridge for many minutes, but the reporter was writing furiously on her laptop.

“Bridge, MUD.”

“Bridge, CO speaking.”

“Boss, the RHIB’s coming back. No survivors.”

“Damn. Thanks, MUD, tell me when they are hoisted.”

“Aye aye sir.”

HMAS Namoi 061340Z May 17 (062340K May 05)

Bonthorpe berthed first, the Army blood wagons waiting without haste. The four were all they had found and they needed no haste.

McCann stood there in the cold wind – the southerly buster had come through, making the last three hours of the sweep quite lumpy as the sea sliding south fought the wind racing north – waited until the brow was slung across, and went aboard. He swarmed up to the bridge as the lines were being doubled and the fuel and water hoses connected.

The reporter, looking tired and wan, was still there. Her cameraman looked dead, but was now recovering from the seasickness. It had not stopped him doing his job. That had earned him some respect.

McCann looked at them first. “I have spoken to your editor and he has agreed. You are going to my ops room to be debriefed, and so we can copy all the pictures you took.” He held up his hand to still their automatic protests. “I said your editor has agreed. The story will go out day after tomorrow, with no mention of an anti-sweeper mine. It’s hardly confirmed yet anyway, and in any case we need tomorrow to tell the families their sons and husbands are dead. Nobody wants the poor bastards to find out from the news.” The protests died aborning. They were local reporters and knew their city well. No-one wanted that and they were mostly local men.

McCann turned to Clark. “Koraaga’s being sent up as a replacement for Birchgrove Park. She’s just an MSA so you know what that means.” Clark nodded unhappily. “Obviously you are out again tomorrow, early and she won’t be here until the day after. Danlayer has laid on the wreck and is bringing the sweep back in now. Hopefully some of the bodies will drift ashore, where she was sunk that’s probably going to be Stockton beach. Everything fetches up there. Got a written report?”

Clark handed it over wordlessly. He’d known, obviously. Just as obviously, he knew he’d be lucky to get even an hour of sleep tonight. Might as well maximise the chance.

“What d’ye think they have done, Clarkie?”

“We’ve been sweeping old M26 with an influence pack added. I think all they have done is make some of the mines deploy on the ship-counter, and attack a small magnetic target. Which would be us the fuckers are gunning for. So I think we have a simple but bloody effective anti-sweeper field out there mixed with the normal. I cannot think of a way to avoid losses if that’s what they have done unless we have enough minehunters, which we don’t. So It’s just like the bad old days and I do not think we can really change it.”

“Shit”, said McCann. “The trouble is I have a feeling you are right, or at least close to the mark, and the bottom line is that the hunters not already there are going north to protect the vital export ports, leaving only Shoalwater and Rushcutter down here in the south-east, and they are little tackers, just inshore roadstead hunters. Not really seaworthy and needed in Port Jackson anyway. So we have influence and wire and that’s it, against modified M26 and modern ground mines. Ah well, at least the fields are not being refreshed, and every ship’s a minesweeper, once.”

Clark nodded. “They are going to have to expand the military cemetery at Sandgate, boss. So you’ll be coming out then.” It was not a question.

“Of course, would not miss it for the world.”

The young reporter had been listening to this with an appalled look on her face and felt no compunction about interjecting.

“How can you say that? I am struggling to understand how you can be so blasé about this. You both know there were no survivors from the ship sunk today, and you are happy that there will be more deaths?”

McCann looked at her with obvious pity in his eyes.

He was careful with what he said. “Girl, this is our job. More than that it is our duty. The concept of duty is one of the highest achievements of the human mind. It is a debt you owe to yourself for the oaths you have sworn, and it entails everything from a willingness to spend years doing boring repetitive work to an instant willingness to die if that is required. If you do not understand the concept of duty and its twinned concepts of loyalty and honour, then you can no more understand us than a dog can understand nuclear physics. These men will cheerfully proceed to sea tomorrow, and I with them, because it is our duty to do so, because we are loyal to our oaths, and because it brings us honour to do so. That, love, is what the men on the sweepers do. And men they damned well are.”

His hard eyes examined her pitilessly, it seemed to her that they stripped away everything but the bare essentials, and found even them ... wanting.

“So I invite you along. You may learn some of the truth of things. Or you may get killed.”

She nodded. Her cameraman said “I’ll come along to look after you.”

McCann laughed in his face. “Hah. It’s good you’re looking out for this girl. Does she have a curfew? I wouldn’t trust her alone either. Lots of bad guys out there.”

Then he turned to her. “I dunno, are you sure you’re ready for this, being on your own and all? It’s a scary world. If you can’t handle it, I’ll check in with your buddy here and he can safely take you to your parents place.”

Then he turned away, she would come, or not.

He’d just lost a whole crew. It was not like he gave a damn what she did.

oOo

Michelle sat down with the coffee she had bought them. Her friend looked like she needed it.

“So Trace, how’s the gig really? Loads of boys, anyway.” She’d provided a “second set of eyes” review for the drafts. They’d been rather harrowing.

Tracey looked into her cup. “No boys at all, really. Not after that. And the old bastard running the show is an arsehole, uncaring and indifferent to me, only cares about his men and his job. Aloof as hell.”

“Huh?”

“No, It’s weird. He’s an uncaring jerk to me, shows it clearly in his body language and tone of voice, not to mention his lack of words, he can take or leave me.”

“Grow up, Trace, and stop thinking like a twelve year old. You want to tell me why should he pay attention to you? He’s got a job to do and his people bloody well die doing it. Just do your own job, Trace, like it sounds like he’s doing his.”

“But,…I’ve never been treated like that.”

“So? Welcome to the real world. Don’t crack the sads, Trace, you’ve been at uni and just have never met a real man before, have you? Sounds like that’s what he is.”

“What?”

oOo

072000Z May 17 (080600K May 05) Stockton Beach

The old man and his friends had fished this beach for sixty years and knew all the habits of the big mulloway. Known colloquially as Jewfish, they were a highly regarded sports species, reaching over 150 pounds, and unlike most other fish they got even better to eat as they got larger. They had been putting live tailor into the gutter since midnight, and had two big mulloway, kept cool on the sand by wet hessian sacking and a bag of ice inside each.

He smiled, as one had been caught by one of his young grandsons, just 13 but passing his little rite of manhood, fishing with the best mulloway beach fishermen in the district. The old man had finished landing the shark and had cut the line after the lad, now wilting a bit from the long night, had seen it. He had not let him help kick it back into the water. He gave his 16-foot one-piece rod and its big Alvey side-cast reel to his grandson.

“Jake, take that up and set it in the sand spear, next to my bags will you? I’ll need to re-rig.” The boy smiled and took the rod. The old man walked away, the smile fading from his face. He waited until a back-surge in the surf shallowed the gutter out a bit, waded in a few yards, then turned around and started walking back. He grandson was running towards him.

“What’s up grandad?” The boy was still really excited.

“Something bad, Jake. Look, I need you to run down the beach half a kilometre, then cut inland on the Fort Wallace access track.”

“The fort’s closed, grandad…”

“I know son, I know. Get to the gate, there’s a guard there, and tell him your grandad and his mates have found one of the boys off the Birchgrove Park, and to bring a stretcher and a blanket when they come to collect him. Tell them we’ll get him out of the water and watch over him.”

The boy had gone a bit pale and looked uncertainly at the water. His grandfather put his hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes.

“This is serious, Jake, serious business and I do not want you to see him. There are things that have no business being in your head at your age. I did my time in Vietnam as you know, and I know this, OK? He’s our comrade in arms, and we will look after him.”

“Yes granddad.”

“Good man, now go.”

The boy ran off.

The old man sighed, and signalled. They had no more forgotten those hand signals than he had. His two old friends reeled in and set their rods in the sand spears. It only took a few minutes, and the boy was just cutting inland when they got to him.

“Problem, Bill?”

“Body, one of the poor lads off Birchgrove Park by the looks, and not pretty. And Jake’s dad is not due back with the fourby for another hour or so.”

“Ah. OK, we will look after the poor bastard then.”

The three old men again waited until the water surged out a bit, and got to the body in knee deep water. They grabbed it and hauled it ashore. A leg was gone and the sea life had been at him.

The old men looked with sorrow at the water-streaming body after they had dragged it up to the hard sand.

“Get the tarp, mate, we’ll look after him as best we can until the army lads come, going to say some prayers for his soul, now.”

“Important, that. I’ll get the tarp and join you two in those after we wrap him when I get back.”

Bill cocked an eye at Harry, who already had his Rosary out. “Harry, you are a daily man at Mass when you can be, and the oldest of us…”

“Of course I’ll lead, Bill, especially for this poor lad. At least it was quick for him, he didn’t die hung up on the wire, at least. Seems like most of his bones are broken so massive blast got him, I’d say. And something clipped that leg off clean.”

“You’ve been under heavy arty, you’d certainly know, mate.”

That’s how the duty officer found them half an hour later when he arrived with the old unimog and four men, and one very solemn boy. Three old men standing guard around the wrapped body, bare heads bent in prayer.

He got out of the cab and approached. The heads raised with a heartfelt “Amen”.

“Lieutenant. Not a good morning now. I’m Bill Sykes, retired Captain ARA, this is Harry Parkinson, formerly a Corporal 2nd AIF, Tobruk to Tarakan and all that, this is John Harmon, retired Colonel ARA and like me a Vietnam vet, but he had Korea too.”

He gestured at the wrapped shape. “I do not know the name of our comrade in arms here, but we found him a bit under an hour ago, and we’ve been looking after him. We have not searched his pockets, it will take that to identify him, or tag, or dental records. I’ll hand that duty on to you now.”

The young officer looked a bit green around the gills, but that was all. He glanced at the boy.
Sykes nodded once.

The young officer turned to his men. “We will leave him in the tarp, put him on to the stretcher, and lash him down to it. Then we’ll load him into the unimog carefully, and lash the stretcher in.”

He looked at the boy. “Can you get the rope from the back of the truck, please, Jake.”

As the lad scampered off, he murmured to his men, “let the lad help, but not touch, and under absolutely no circumstances is he to see any part of the body, understood?” They nodded silently.

When the cargo was gently loaded, Bill turned to the young officer with a piece of paper in his hand.

“Here’s our contact details, we’d all like to attend the poor devil’s funeral and pay our respects. Probably half the Stockton RSL will, as well. And you might have questions, too. No need to worry about us, Jake’s dad is on his way anyway. I know I am teaching you to suck eggs but I’ll mention the obvious. He won’t be the only one.”

“Yeah, got that figured,” said the Lieutenant, “we’ll be organising a standing beach patrol. You know this beach,” it was a statement of fact, “what do you think?”

“They’ll come ashore at any time, but you’ll find most of them on a falling tide, trapped in the gutters and holes and mostly north of here along the stretch well up past the wreck of the Sygna. But not for more than a week. No-one will be eating crabs or bream off this beach for the rest of this year, I can tell you that. We’ll be out too searching, of course.”

“Aye, I can see that. Well, I won’t thank you and yours for telling us because that would be to insult you, but thanks for sending Jake with the word, he’s a good lad,” he handed over a card with his details, “so give this to his Dad and tell him to give me a call. I’d like to show them as well as any of you who want to come over the old fort, get a few shots off on the range, that sort of thing.”

“That’s generous, and we will take you up on it. Old Harry’s a Lewis and Bren gunner, so he’d enjoy looking over a Minimi.”

“I have seen a Bren in the museum, never seen a Lewis,” said the young man.

“We can remedy that.”

“What?”

“But you’d have to keep very shtum if we did.”

“Ah. I see. Secret vets souvenir business?”

“Got it.”

[drmarkbailey]

170622Z May 17 (171622 May 05)

McCann yawned hugely, and took a near-scalding mouthful of teh tarik. He liked it from his time in Malaysia, and so did the skipper of Wilcannia, Zeke Clark, known universally as Zeke in the Squadron to distinguish him from the CO of Bonthorpe, Scotty Clark. So they had sorted out a supply of Boh tea dust from the Cameron Highlands and had trained up the chef aboard Wilcannia to make it, although getting the right tea “sock” in from Malaysia had been a bit of a chore. AMS 32/2/2 was on the sweep on mine route Stockton Green Two and it was not a lot of fun in an onshore winter storm, which had piled a heavy chop on top of fairly large swells. At least they were coming from roughly the same direction, though. He glanced at the reporter, she’d been sticking to him like glue and her editor appeared to have made her the Newcastle Morning Herald’s local “kinda-sorta” warco: she had official status but not for deployment off the continent. Ah well, thought McCann, at least she’s easy on the eye and nice to have around now that she’s started to grown up a bit. She’d made it a habit to accompany him up to Harry’s Café de Wheels up at Queens Wharf whenever he’d had the time for something vaguely lunch-like (or midnight-lunch-like, Harry’s never closed) that was not sandwiches snatched from Namoi’s wardroom. And she was alone, her cameraman had not gotten over the seasickness so she did the camerawork too.

Wilcannia, Vigilant, Yandra and were doing a combined Oropesa and AMASS sweep. The examination vessel Adolphe steamed along behind them, her crew bored beyond belief. The 2nd had worked out how to do double sweeps with their small crews although it had taken a hell of a lot of work and some truly spectacular tangles to get right. One of the “human interest” pieces Tracey had written had covered one of those in a humorous but sympathetic manner. “Knot a Good Day” indeed! But the lads had loved it, and it had showed the grinding hard physical work they did. She’d informed him that her pieces were being syndicated now and used across the world under the generic heading of “The Mine Battle”. McCann was finding her presence oddly troubling, she was doing a very good job, and he thought this was changing his view of her a bit – she was becoming a professional and not just another ignorant know-it-all.

She wandered out on to the bridge wing and smiled at him, he smiled back and swung his gaze to check the formation; hers followed just before Yandra detonated the mine. They were both looking right at her, off Wilcannia’s port quarter and keeping station on her Oropesa float’s flag as it cavorted in the strong south-easterly chop.

The explosion was enormous and completely hid the sweeper as it blasted a vast pillar of water into the sky. The half-gale instantly grabbed the pillar and bore it downwind to reveal the shattered auxiliary minesweeper already starting to wallow, her bows ripped off.

McCann yelled at the Yeoman as the skipper ordered that Vigilant avoid the sinking wreck and close on the guide.

“Yeoman, signal to Namoi cc Vigilant, Adolphe, Fleet Ops. Yandra mined and sinking, give position. Stop. Adolphe to rescue survivors. Stop. Continuing sweep. Stop. Namoi to prepare for casualties. Stop.”

“Cold blooded again,” Tracey remarked in a surprisingly calm voice, McCann thought.

“And now you know better, and you know why,” he replied coolly. She nodded, her face pale, her big blue eyes huge in her face.

The dying Yandra had fallen off now, broadside to the swell and chop, the remnants of her ripped-away bow now fully submerged. Survivors could be seen working desperately around the inflatable rafts and dropping the old-fashioned inherently buoyant Carley-type floats into the sea. They were a new addition, their strobes activating as soon as they hit the water. Men began to jump as the smashed sweeper angled more steeply. Not long, now.

“No point in being otherwise. At least there will be survivors this time. There’s Adolphe, already coming in.”

The clicking of her cameras never stopped. She got some good shots of the foundering sweeper with the rescue ship pounding into the seas at full power to get to her.

“Signal acknowledged, sir.” The Yeoman took in the appalling sight. The yellow-orange sprinkling of inflatable life vests and electric yellow inherently buoyant life vests seemed pathetically few. Yandra’s bridge and funnel submerged as she approached the vertical and began to dive. Seconds, now.

“She’s hit bottom.” The rush was stopped, with only about twenty feet of Yandra’s stern projecting from the sea; reducing and then growing in a welter of foam as the swells surged past it. The wreck pivoted as the swell forced the partially buoyant stern shorewards.

“She’s going now.” The sea now pounded straight on to the foundering wreck, breaking over her in a welter of broken white water and forcing her under, hungry as always. It only took a couple of swells, and she was gone. Huge bubbles mounded the water for a few more seconds, and that was it.

The Yeoman was at the Aldis light, responding to flashing light from Adolphe.

“Sir, she’s saying that she has eight floating, but some look dead. Putting their RHIB in now, requests instructions on the sweeps, both have broken free.”

“Signal her to ignore the sweeps, rescue survivors and get back to port with maximum possible despatch.” McCann glanced at Tracey. Then waved at the sea.

“Men matter more than equipment. It will wash ashore on Stockton Beach in this, the Army can salvage it for us.”

She nodded. “And collect the bodies.”

“That too.”

“Part of the job?”

“Yes, like attending the funerals.”

She nodded. These had been held already for the men of the Birchgrove Park, in a brand new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery newly consecrated at Fort Wallace. She had covered them all, the massed ranks of the men of the 32nd were there of course, with well over a thousand RAAF and Army servicemen, and hundreds and hundreds of ex-Servicemen. The people of Stockton had lined the roads as the corteges had passed. Eighteen bodies had come ashore on the beach and those grim patrols would now start again.

“Mike, that’s a third of your original sweepers gone. When does it stop?”

“When there’s no more mines. We are getting more sweepers.”

“Only one other sweeper has been lost.”

McCann scratched his chin, which was dripping from rain and spray. “True, and that out of Phil’s Squadron, to that ground mine down in Bass Strait. I am wondering if we have a special place in the Russki’s hearts here. We seem to have more anti-sweeper mines, or maybe we just have not met them elsewhere. They creep in the currents and we have moved the routes. Ah well, we are keeping the port open.”

She nodded soberly. “That’s the mission, and the town knows it now, too.”

Perhaps that’s it, he thought. McCann’s face split in a rare smile. “Little Miss Tracey Schlichter has changed, she’s all growed up now.”

To his surprise, she looked at him with a calculating look that was not hard but … edged, perhaps?

“Yes, she has, or rather, is and continues to. It’s an ongoing process and a very painful one. I am entirely different from what I was even a couple of weeks ago. Family, work mates, friends, they have all seen it. They don’t, they actually cannot possibly, understand it.”

She looked at him very strangely. “You can understand it. I have seen young men working past exhaustion, their hands cut to shreds by the wires despite the gauntlets. I have seen them determined to continue the mission after seeing their friends die. I have seen them standing stone-faced in the driving rain as their friends were lowered into the ground. My editor worries about the risk. I have told my editor to shove it, that I will keep coming out despite the risk.”

McCann smiled gently at her; unknown to him, that smile filled her with enormous confusion. “And what did he say, Tracey?”

“Pretty much what you just said.”

She paused, wrestling with her confused feelings, glanced at him, then looked at Adolphe in the distance as they pulled men and corpses from the water.

“Welcome to our world, Tracey,” he said softly, “you will never be the same as you were before.”

“I had a thought in the Chapel this morning.”

McCann remained silent. The Chapel was always busy, now. Masses were thrice daily in three denominations, and packed. He attended the Latin mass, naturally, and spent time there himself of course, and he’d been quietly surprised when his steward had told him that the young reporter was too. She’d been a lapsed Catholic like him, although he’d come back when he fought against the booze. The battle had been tremendous, the cost very high, but the battle had bought him some virtue. There was nothing lapsed about either of them now.

“I realised two things. The first is the truth that there are no athiests in foxholes. The second is that we are all the same age.”

“The first I understand, the second you will explain,” said McCann quietly.

“We all live as long as we live, and not a day more. For any of us can be snatched away, at any instant. And we need to understand what that really means.”

McCann simply nodded, once, wiped the lenses to clear them of rain and spray, and lifted his binoculars to look at Adolphe one more time.

“That we do,” he said softly, “but most do not: and there is both pain and perhaps even enlightenment there that they miss.”

oOo

The news had made it out quite quickly. Many Novocastrians were on the foreshore, watching as Adolphe entered the port, passing one of the dan-layers as she bustled out to buoy the wreck. There was a port order now that ships did not have to dip their ensigns to the locally-based ships of the 32nd as was customary. They were moving all the time and they’d have to post a man permanently at the ensign to do so.

But they all dipped today, even the Chinese, and sounded their sirens in long, mournful blasts, mourning the fact that HMAS Yandra would never come back. The six survivors were too numbed to notice it, let alone appreciate it.

The five silent shapes shrouded and still on her work deck aft no longer had any concerns at all.

oOo

“Tiny” Graves was increasingly troubled by what he was seeing. There could be terrible problems because of it. He’d known McCann since he was a raw new Middie at the Naval College, where he’d been on the training staff as a new Petty Officer. Part of their job was to keep a weather eye on the Mids – like all new kids they had problems of their own and major adjustments to make. McCann had been one of the good ones, rambunctious enough to get into all sorts of trouble, some of the worst of which Graves had gotten him out of. He squared his hat up, put his “you’re in the shit, son” face on and walked up to the group. They suddenly went quiet as he approached.

“Leading Seaman McWhirter. So nice to find you here with all your mates, and so glad you have your cap with you,” he hissed. “You and I have to have a little chat about something. Come with me to my office.” He glanced at the rest. It was purely amazing how quickly the little group of Leading hands and AB’s found somewhere else they had to be.

“Ah, yes Chief.”

They walked in silence down the wharf, and went into his office. The Chief shut the door.

“Ah, Chief…”

“Oh shut up and grab a pew, Leader, you are not too deep in the shit, but tell ‘em that you got a right royal caps-on bollocking for buggering up the paperwork for the CO’s car – which you have and which you’ll bloody well fix by tonight no matter how late – but this is not about that. I’m worried about something and we have got to get our heads together. This conversation never bloody happened.”

“Chief?” Justin was almightily confused.

“Been watching the boss and the reporter, have you?”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. I know you’ve done your homework and that you are no fool. I know that you and the reporter are mates, thick as thieves, and I know that she trusts you. I know you know I’ve been close to him for most of his career and saved his arse, career-wise, once. Have you seen what I’ve seen?”

“I’ve seen something, Chief, but…”

“Yeah, but can you trust me? The answer’s yes, and I’ll tell you why. There were a few of us helped him climb out of the bottle after that bitch cut his heart out and ate it. I was the one who got him on to the wagon and who got my brother involved, and he almost certainly saved him from topping himself by getting him back on to the Path. All I did was help stop him from drinking himself to death and call in his classmates and there was lots of help there from his classmates. Priests do something higher and my brother’s the best. Saved the man’s soul, and he’s a pretty good man. Worth saving. You know the reporter is falling in love with him. He’s not picked it yet. If this goes pear-shaped, older man younger woman, it will destroy him.”

Justin sighed. “Yes, I have picked it, she has not, not yet. She is very confused, cognitive dissonance on steroids and that’s what’s changing her. He’s a little more aware than you have seen, he respects and admires her for changing herself as she has. He’s quite attracted to her physically, has been from the start but there was no way he was going to do anything more than ignore that. His self-control is phenomenal and he’s walled that off, he sees the age difference as too wide, the idiot. You know every single straight chick on the base has had the screaming hots for him at some point? And half the married ones would think seriously about it? The Bi girls would go straight and I’ve had one of the lipstick lesbians say she’d turn for him if he wanted her.”

“Really? Bloody hell!”

“Oh yes. They all see that he’s a man’s man, physically tough, brave, a hell of a good boxer and they see him in the ring fighting, he’s getting good at Krav as well and they see him in the gym fighting, and he ignores them. Go and see how many extra chicks are there when he’s boxing or working Krav, Chief. He does not treat them like little princesses, puts them on no pedestals. Not a dry seat in the house at the Squadron boxing comp, let me tell you. They talk to me, y’see. I’m safe, I have no interest in screwing them. Been asked once if he’s gay.” He laughed, “I wish! But I tell them that he’s got a job to do and a thick skin, he’s tuned women out to a great extent and it will take a hell of a woman to reach him.”

He looked at Tiny. “She could, Chief. She really could, have to be direct about it but he genuinely likes her.”

Tiny sighed. “Crap.”

Justin nodded. “We have to keep an eye on this, and nobody else can know.”

He hesitated. “Thing is, it could really work.”

Tiny nodded.

oOo

Tracey knocked gently on the CO’s door. His secretary, a very old CPO Writer recalled from twenty years of retirement, had nodded when she asked, and said that he bloody well needed the break and get on with it, girl.

“Come.”

She saw why when she approached his desk. He was writing the letters. She knew he did, but had not seen it.

“You don’t report this.” It was an order.

“I know,” she replied. “It’s known, of course, but I did not know you had such a beautiful writing hand. Calligraphy?”

“No, just taught properly with a copybook and all, by an old-fashioned teacher. Unlike the illiterate scrawlers people are now.”

“Hmm.”

“Why are you here, woman?”

“Dinner. Chief’s orders. My shout. You’ve been sixteen hours today.”

“I still have…”

“Chief’s orders, sorry, and I am not crossing him, he’ll kill me if I do. Besides, It’s curry and Rajiv’s mum has cooked something special for us. Not customer food.”

“Hmm. Chief’s orders, eh? OK.”

The Mine Battle of Newcastle: Courage and Cost
Tracey Schlichter
HMAS Yandra died yesterday. With her died 24 young men. I watched them die. The photographs here show you how she died. It was fast and staggeringly brutal. It was also just another day with the minesweepers.
She was only a little ship, a small auxiliary minesweeper of the 32nd Flotilla’s 2nd Squadron. You know them. They are based here, and mostly local men man their small ships. Our men. You can meet them any time of the day or night at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels on Queen’s Wharf. They are the exhausted, grimy young men with scarred hands, fingernails torn out and fingers misshapen and broken from the heavy wires. The ones with a faraway sort of look. You can tell that they are MEN, a rarity in this country these days. They are not boys, not any more. Not after fighting the mines day in and day out. Go and look. See the 24 year old little baby boys from the university or latte-sipping sets. You know them, the cafe-haunting bearded hipsters with their soft, carefully manicured hands. Watch those little 24 year old boys shrink back, and move away from the grim-faced 19 and 20 year old men of the 32nd Minesweeping Flotilla. The men who crew the ships that people who live in expensive apartments on the Newcastle waterfront hate because they are noisy, took their pool, and spoil their view.
Those men have nothing to prove to anyone, absolutely nothing. The hipsters? Still boys. Not men at all. Might never be.
The little ships are the ones that keep the port open and probably, if indirectly, you in a job in this town. They protect the big bulk carriers queued up offshore. The little ships that keep this city’s economy alive and keep most of us in jobs. So we should care about HMAS Yandra and her dead crewmen.
There is no excuse not to, and not to care is moral cowardice.
They are the wrong ships for the Mine Battle and their crews know and accept that. They are not modern, high technology mine hunters, specialised ships that search every inch of the sea floor and which can identify a mine with extraordinary and delicate precision, then send a special robot submarine down to carefully place a bomb beside it, and blow it up.
Those ships are elsewhere, forward, in much more dangerous waters. And we could not afford as many of them as we needed.
So the 2nd Squadron of the 32ndMinesweeping Flotilla has auxiliary mine sweepers, converted fishing trawlers and other small ships. They use one effective modern system and Oropesa sweeps invented during the First World War nearly a century ago. They work – but not as surely or as safely as more modern systems.
So they are fighting the Mine Battle of Newcastle and they are doing it the hard way. The old-fashioned way, and it costs them dearly. It costs them in blood. One third of the original minesweepers of the 32nd Flotilla, 2nd Squadron, have not returned: no-one survived from HMAS Birchgrove Park. She was lost with all hands.
Not. One. Man. Came. Back.
Of the 61 men on those two ships, just six have survived: six.
Six.
Think about that. Six out of sixty-one. The young, grim faced men you see buying pies at Harry’s know this. And they go and they do their duty anyway.
Now think about courage. Real courage. It’s a quiet thing, a determined thing, a bitter thing and it is nothing like the fake bullshit “courage” of some overpaid sportsman or look-at-me type, an actor or a politician. That’s just the narcissism of egotistical tossers as they preen and prance and tell you how wonderful they are. They are fakes, losers: pathetic figures after you have seen the real thing. And you can see the real thing here every single day as these men calmly go about their brutally hard, incredibly dangerous job and, in the face of that six out of sixty-one, get on with keeping your city in business.
Because that is their duty. And that is their honour and their pride.
Two thirds of the lost have come ashore on Stockton Beach.
Funny bunch, Stocktonians. The locals have a roster now, run out of the RSL, and there is always a beach patrol working with the Army. Mostly veterans, but women and teenagers as well. All those who have come ashore on Stockton beach now sleep in the new war Cemetery at Fort Wallace. Attending these – and I along with the men of the 2ndSquadron have attended every one – brings home, hard home, who is paying the price for our city’s prosperity. For your jobs.
Remember that when you see the rust-streaked, scruffy, battered little ships leaving the harbour.
Remember that when you hear people whine about losing a bit of sleep because of the noise the sweepers make.
Remember that courage.
Take heart from it.
Apply it.
We have to, to win this war against a monstrous tyranny.

oOo

She sat in the bar with Justin. She was, of course, the only woman there and had attracted a lot of hostile glances. Justin had told his current boyfriend that she was his cousin, and that he needed to talk to her in private on a family matter. He and the young reporter had become quite good friends and long since he’d seen enough to realise what was happening to her. It had taken an hour and she’s been in tears twice.

“OK, Tracey. I actually get it.” He toyed with his beer for a second. “Your problem is cognitive dissonance, and I do not blame you for falling for the man. I’ve been his steward for two years and he’s one hell of a guy. Pity he’s straight and I do not say that flippantly at all. No, shut up while I work out how to tell you this.”

He looked pensively at the dance floor, it was leather night and it looked like a porno set.

“I am one of four. I have an older sister, early 40s, then me, then a younger brother, 26, and a younger sister, 23. I am gay, not the slightest interest in females, ever, family has gotten used to it, not sure I have. It’s a shitty lifestyle really, all this stuff,” he waved at the scene, “and It’s all about the money you earn and the sex. I call it the “how many inches” lifestyle. Shallow, promiscuous and not what I am looking for. I want a long term partner. I am unlikely to get that, and will probably end up alone and fairly miserable. There’s a reason we have a 20% suicide rate.” He paused and sipped at his beer, clearly ordering his thoughts.

“My older sister is a modern feminist type, infected with that mental disease at uni in the 80s. She’s 43, has had many, many boyfriends, who she treated like shit until her biological clock hit her about six years ago and then, well, she had too much baggage and the thousand cock stare. Bodycount maybe 300 men. She’d been doing the career and have-it-all thing as she learned from those idiot ideologues at uni and from her social set. She’s been riding the cock carousel same as I have, and worked out too damned late that it’s actually a lie for a woman, all that have-it-all thing. A lie made up by ideological idiots like that Greer twit and taken to far worse extremes by the latest generation of femenazis. Quite frankly a more evil and destructive bunch you will never find. The husband my sister wants, well, he got married fifteen, twenty years ago to the woman he chose. She’s younger than him, normally, and they have had kids early, she’s mostly stayed at home to raise them at least for the first years of their lives, so she’ll have a ten, maybe fifteen year gap in her career development but by God she has something magnificent to show for it. Whoever tells a woman that she’s better off screwing everything that moves and working nine to five in an office, that she can wait until her late thirties or forties to get married and have kids and that she’s better off playing corporate games than she is raising a family… that person is a liar. That woman is squandering everything she has for nothing worthwhile. My oldest sister fell for that. She’s becoming an embittered cat lady. She knows it’s a lie and she hates herself for falling for it, and hates herself more for waking up too late to the lie. How can she compete with women twenty years younger than her and without any of her baggage? My younger brother and sister both read her as story well as I did. Both married in their early 20s. Both have kids, life for them is pretty hard financially because my sister-in-law and my little sister are stay-at-home mums at this stage when the kids are little. They love it, their husbands work their arses off to support them and the kids, they look after their husbands.”

He looked rather sadly at the gyrating, lithe figures on the dance floor. “I kind of envy them both, my older sister, well it’s destroyed her, that lie.”

Tracey was wide-eyed. “You are saying…”

“I am saying that you have swallowed and believed a lie about how you should live your life. Your body, and the part of your brain that you have been ignoring – call it your conscience – know this. What you are experiencing now is the inner you, the real you, trying to tell you that you’ve swallowed a bloody lie. You are falling in love with an alpha male. You need him much, much more than he needs you. Never forget that. He was betrayed by someone like my older sister now, or like you were a few months back for that matter, what he wants, and what he’ll get again, is a wife like my little sister, who loves and looks after her man, thinking more of his needs than hers. And let me tell you that my brother-in-law thinks pretty much only of her and the kid’s needs, and almost never of his. He does not have to anyway, she’s got that sorted. Trust me on this, the boss can have damned near any woman he wants. He’s just not that interested in sex for its own sake and his self control is phenomenal now. He’s disgusted that he let himself take refuge in the bottle and he’ll never lose direction like that again. He’s also pretty disgusted by modern women. He does not like promiscuous women and he wouldn’t, not after what he went through with his ex-wife. How many blokes have you ever screwed, Tracey?”

“What? Oh. Two. A stupid experimental fumble and one very short relationship. No-one the last two years.”

“Then maybe you have already worked out something important.” His eyes were hard as agate.

The dawning realisation in her eyes was something he had seen before on his sister, only far, far too late. “Oh God. I’ve been playing this like a stupid little girl.”

His smile was not, it was a baring of teeth. “Or like a shirtlifter like me, but it’s the only game I’ve got. That’s why we are here. You twigged to that, and asked the right question. What the hell do you want, Tracey? Because you cannot have it all. That’s a lie and you now know it. You have to make a choice and, in this country, now, they are mutually exclusive choices to a great degree. Do you want to be a forty-something bitter old cat lady who’s been riding the cock carousel for twenty years, spread for hundreds of guys, who the decent man you finally work out that you want would not touch with a barge pole? Because that’s just turning yourself into the chick version of the average gay guy and let me tell you that’s a stupid idea. Or do you want a life of kids and love, because that’s under attack these days, has been for years by the progressive set who are all trying to destroy it because they failed at it and hate those who succeed.”

She sat, looking at two men fondling each other in a booth. They’d seen them hook up perhaps five minutes ago.

“You have a choice to make, woman. Let me demonstrate.” He called his boyfriend over.

“Hey, sugar, want to make a point to my cousin here. If I asked you, would you blow me, right here, right now with my cousin sitting there watching?”

His boyfriend shrugged. “Sure. Silly question, really. You two done here yet?

“Five minutes.”

He wandered off again.

“Want that life? A long term relationship is three months and based entirely on sex. It has my older sister’s life at the end of it, or do you want something else, Trace? If you want McCann, there’s no half measures and you’ll have to work damned hard to keep him because you need him more than he needs you, and he knows it. Your advantage will be that you know it too. No slacking off and becoming fat and whiny. He won’t stand for it. If you shit test him, he’ll put you straight back in your place, fail him badly enough and he’ll literally put you over his knee. Be devoted to him, and that will be returned in spades.”

“Stepford wife!?”

“Don’t be a bloody idiot, that’s a lying fiction used to get you to conform to someone else’s ideology. It’s Hollywood garbage. How about devoted wife, with the devotion more than returned? Exactly like you say your grandparents have, and you envy?”

He could see the wheels spinning furiously inside her head.

“Hell.” She got up, bent over and kissed him on the cheek as a cousin might. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”


180022Z May 17 (181022 May 05)

The ground mines were not all active. Some would not awake from their electronic slumber for months. But this mine was active and had been for two days. In that time, it had counted 18 targets. It neither knew nor cared that this was a rather high number for just two days. It was just a very basic robot. But its counter was set to 21.

Wilcannia and Vigilant were leading Shenzhen Dragon out of the port. They had swept the channel 12 times in the past day, with no activations to show for it. In fact, aside from the mine that killed Yandra, only one mine had been activated in the last week, although another had been swept using the old-fashioned Oropesa sweeps, set deep.

The Squadron was watching McCann with a lot of interest. They all knew his personal story in outline so some of it was to see if he hit the turps under the strain. But most of it was that the bugger simply appeared to be everywhere at all times of the day, and most of the time the young reporter was with him, or lurking about. Unlike him she was pretty easy on the eye. The Squadron was amused that she appeared to have taken a bit of a shine to the Boss’s steward. Which would do her no real good, according to those who professed to be in the know in the Squadron, as he was renowned for answering the question “come for a run ashore” by responding that yeah, sure, so long as it ended up in the local gay bar “where a proper pillow-biter can get a decent root”. He was a big, strapping blonde who lifted as much iron as anyone in the Namoi’s extemporised gym, so this never appeared to be a problem for him.

It was also obvious that McCann appeared to have settled on Wilcannia as his unofficial flagship, and he spent a lot of time at sea on her. This was viewed as natural, as she was the largest sweeper by about a hundred tons and had a good comms fit. The reporter had been to sea on most of the ships but she tended to accompany McCann whenever he went to sea on Wilcannia. As Two had taken the latest loss and Kooraga had joined One, this was also seen as fair enough. And he always made the funerals.

Still, the heavy dull thud was a surprise.

Their eyes snapped aft as a great mound of sea blasted into a great pillar of spray fifty metres from the ship. From right ahead, they could see the huge bulk carrier flex like a drawn bow, then shudder.

oOo

There was no pilot now, he was not needed. What was needed was the 95,000 tons of steaming coal in Shenzhen Dragon’s six holds. She was a new ship on her maiden voyage, and her Master was very proud of her.

He watched in appalled disbelief as the sea erupted, then his new command whipped like a snake, throwing him and the bridge crew to the deck. He grunted as he landed and the pain lanced up his leg. Sprained ankle, perhaps broken, he thought. He pulled himself up as the huge crashing sounds stopped, and the ship was uncommonly quiet. He grabbed the handset.

“MCR Captain, report!”

“MCR, Captain it’s bad. No-one was in the engine room until we reached the 200 metre line, but it’s on fire and flooding fast. Looks from the CCTV like the shock has broken the engine’s foundations and it fell over to starboard with the shaft torque, which means the stern seal’s gone as well as the cooling intakes. We won’t stop the flood. Drenching now,” the Captain could hear the emergency alarm, “there’s no power for the pumps…”

“Captain! The bow!”

His bridge lookout’s shout was enough to haul his attention forward. The bow was – canted. Not as in a list, but as if…

“Sound the leaving ship stations sirens!”

“MCR, get out of there. You cannot stay below as she might plunge, I want everyone on the upper deck now.”

“Acknowledged.”

He looked back at the bow. Canted to port and dipped, which meant the hull girder was broken there right in the middle of No.1 hold. The huge hatch cover sprung slightly as he watched, with a very strange, hollow, booming whungg.

“That is not good.”

“Captain? You are injured!” The third mate came in through the starboard bridge wing. “Captain, the first mate is badly hurt, he was on a ladder and took a severe fall. Second mate is out of action, hit his head and unconscious. Orders?”

“Engine room is flooding and on fire and if she swims we won’t be able to anchor her unless the bow stays on. So I think we are doomed. Lee shore, twenty knot onshore wind and sea. No power, no anchors if we lose the bow…” their eyes snapped forward at a huge noise forward as the cover of No.1 hatch jumped several feet into the air, “which I think we will do. I am a bit less mobile than I should be but have to stay here anyway, we have emergency backup power at least. Get forward and give me a report on the bow. Under no circumstances endanger yourself, I want you well clear of the tears. I think it is tearing off, I can see it hogging and sagging more as we go broadside on. Take a radio and go.” The young man ran off.

He hopped over to the radio, thanking the Gods that the emergency generator had worked.

“Minesweeper Lead this is Shenzhen Dragon, over.”

“Minesweeper Lead, how badly damaged are you, Shenzhen Dragon? Over.” McCann’s voice was fatigued. He was already thinking through the political implications.

“Casualties but no fatalities at this stage. Severe whipping, severe structural damage. Hull girder broken at No.1 hold, being assessed now but It’s working badly and wracked. Angle of wrack seems to be increasing. I think I may lose the bow. Engine broken from its foundations, engine room flooding rapidly and on fire, drenched and abandoned. I am moving hands to emergency stations on the upperdeck in case she plunges, over.”

“Can you anchor, Shenzhen Dragon? This is a lee shore, over.”

“Not if I lose the bow, Minesweeper Lead. If It’s just the shell plating holding it and the tears are slow enough that my men are not at too much risk I’ll do it anyway. Request tugs? Also medevac helicopters, I have some serious casualties. Over.”

“Helicopter is on the way, tugs impossible, sorry. That was a Soviet ground mine in the swept channel, we are drifting out of the swept channel into the middle of a Soviet minefield and I won’t risk them. Apologies Captain, she’s a fine ship, but I cannot risk the tugs for her. We will stand by you, over.”

“I had to ask, Minesweeper Lead, out.”

McCann looked at the enormous bulk carrier. She gleamed like a new coin. New, and it showed. There was smoke pouring out of her superstructure to be torn into tatters as the wind rushed it towards the coast six miles away. Her bow was angled slightly downwards from the line of her sheer, and she was down by the head. Obviously, No.1 hold was flooded and doubtless spewing its coal into the sea. He glanced at the wind and swell.

“We are not going to save her, poor bitch, he murmured, “not if the bow is unstable.”

“What’s that?” He noticed that Tracey had been going like a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest, camera, recorder and notebook all at once.

“She’s a new ship, on her maiden voyage, twenty years of life ahead of her. I cannot risk tugs so keeping her off the beach depends on her anchors, if she stays afloat. She won’t have pumps but she’s new, so there will be very few leak paths. If she can anchor we can wait for a calm, sweep a channel and bring the tugs out to her into the minefield from inshore, very slowly, and they can take her into port. It all depends on her bow.”

He turned and bellowed into the bridge. “How’s sweep recovery going?”

oOo

Half an hour of controlled chaos later and over a mile closer to shore the helicopter was hovering over the mine-stricken ship hoisting the second stretcher. Four more injured men were waiting but the two worst wounded were at least in the air.

The Captain had taken some painkillers and his men had strapped the foot. But he was not very happy. The Third Mate had done his best to check the damage at the bow but it did not look good on the ship’s general arrangement. He finished with the marker and looked grim.
“Captain, I do not think it will hold. It’s working badly and the tears are increasing. That said, I volunteer to go to the cable deck with a sledge and just let the anchors run. We are going to lose the bow. It might hold longer if we can bring her head into the sea.

The Captain shook his head. “The problem is that the engine spaces are now flooded, trimming us down by the stern, and No.1 hold is open to the sea and has shed the coal. The net effect is to add hogging strain to the worst possible point. Worse, the set of the wind and current is sweeping us towards the beach at nearly two knots. So we are now only four miles off at best. OK. Do it but I want you to run up there, ease off the brake, knock away the slips on the starboard anchor and get the hell out. Dump the hammer and run like hell. The cable stop can take it. It is not worth risking your life to stay and control the brake.”

The young man grinned and ran out.

He looked out of the bridge windows to see the two minesweepers closing on his ship. For what it was worth they had rigged hawsers and would pass them soon. Their bollard pull was derisory but they were trying.

“Minesweeper lead, this is Shenzhen Dragon, the bow is in a very bad way but we are going to drop the starboard anchor. There’s nothing to lose, it’s working badly as we lie across the swell and might stay on if we can bring her head into it, over.”

“Acknowledged, Shenzhen Dragon. Be aware that your starboard side is severely buckled and It’s getting worse. The port side split is about a metre wide at the top and at least three at the current waterline, over.”

“Agreed, Minesweeper lead. The upper deck appears to be all that it holding it, mostly the hatch coaming, and it’s tearing. Still, we have to try, out.”

The Captain watched as the sprinting Third Mate reached the cable deck. He spun off the brake and then went to the bottle screw slip. It was tightened up but the sledge knocked it free with one well directed blow. Then he walked to the blakeslip and with a second expert blow knocked the slip open, dropped the hammer and ran. The anchor dropped from the hawse instantly and the cable began to roar out. It ran until all twenty shackles were out, then there was an almighty slamming “chung” as the cable ran out, stopped by the cable stopper welded into the structure of the ship.

The panting Third Mate appeared a few minutes later.

“It will take some time for the ship to take up the cable, but this is good holding ground,” the Captain remarked. “That was well done.”

“I do not think it likely that it will hold, Captain,” the Third Mate said, “the screaming of the steel as the tear increases is deafening up there, and it is working much worse than it seems from here.”

“I agree, and so does the Minesweeper Commander, but we have to try. Ah, here we go.”
The big bulk carrier had taken up the cable. The strain on the overstressed upper deck rose yet again, and in exactly the wrong vector, as her head began to swing into the weather. Ten minutes later, she was riding much easier with her bow into the swell.

“Good, well, that’s holding for now. I want everyone off the stern and in the island, though. If it gives way we will trim heavily by the stern and that area will be swept by green water.” Then he turned to other business. The helicopter would be back soon.

Up on the bow the ship was now working in a different manner, she was pitching. The severely damaged shell plating on the starboard side failed first and the screaming of the live steel actually lessened when it did. All that was holding her now fully flooded bow on was the weather deck and the hatch coaming. But as-yet invisible cracks were racing through it.
Twenty minutes later the Captain was looking at the departing helicopter when there was a subtle shudder. His eyes snapped forward.

Just in time to see his ship’s bow separate, and vanish instantly like a 4,000 ton steel rabbit down into a hole in the ocean.

oOo

“That’s torn it,” said McCann quietly. Beside him, Tracey was working her camera for all it would bear. They rigged a line to her stern but there was no way they could possibly hold such a colossal mass against this weather. As was proven a few minutes later when the wire snapped like a piece of twine.

“No way to save her now, you said,” said Tracey.

“No. And her trim has changed too drastically now, see how her stern is being swept by the sea? No man can work there, so even if the tugs were here it would not be possible to secure a line there. Time for the sad song to play. You concentrate on keeping your pretty white arse out of the way.”

“Bloody hell you can be a jerk.”

“Don’t give a rat’s what you think. Obey the order, woman.”

She did, but she grinned and wiggled that pretty, if soaked, white arse at him. Involuntarily, a quick smile flashed across McCann’s face.

“Shenzhen Dragon this is Minesweeper Lead, what is your appreciation of the situation, over.”

“Minesweeper Lead, this is Shenzhen Dragon, Master speaking. My stern is not habitable, we cannot secure lines there. My bow has broken away, she’s going beam on again and I am drifting on to a lee shore with my engine destroyed and engine room flooded. Worse, the fire there is not extinguished, I believe that it is being fed by bunkers and burning on top of the water in the engine room. I can feel the free surface effect. I am ordering my crew to abandon ship but will remain aboard with enough men to get the last two wounded in to the helicopter. I do not like the feel of her, I believe that the bulkhead to No.2 hold has been wrenched when the bow came away, and that she is taking on water forward. I know I have progressive flooding aft but I believe her stability will hold for long enough to get my wounded off by helicopter, request you come alongside as best you can, over.”

“Shenzhen Dragon, we are coming, out.” He paused and looked at the rising wind. As the water got shallower, the chop got worse.

“Shit. This is going to be bad.”

oOo

The shots and what little footage there was had been spectacular. Vigilant had the better manoeuvrability and it had been superb ship handling. Time and again she approached the sea-swept starboard side of the doomed ship, taking off one or two men per approach, and taking a terrific beating from the ship’s side as waves threw her against it. But she got them all off, safe. She was leaking badly and severely damaged, Wilcannia had escorted her back into port. There he had ordered her to beach in behind the wave trap at Pirate’s Point. The leak forward was serious and he did not want her sinking at the berth. With her bow ashore she’d be perfectly safe, and two of his other vessels were already there with additional pumps and men. She’d be off in a few hours but would have to be patched and sent to Sydney to the small floating dock at Garden Island. The Forgacs floating dock was busy with merchant ship repairs.

McCann was down to half his original force.

The local NBN news helicopter had taken dramatic pictures of Shenzhen Dragon as she grounded on Stockton Beach in the rising storm – they were common in autumn and winter on this coast. Deep in the water with coal and water, her stern had struck first and her forward section had been pushed inshore until it too grounded, putting her at 45 degrees to the beach. The swells pounded at her and the scour immediately began to excavate great pits under her gaping, torn forward end and her stern. Those who had seen the Norwegian Sygna go ashore three decades before knew that she’d break her back within a day. She was already as much a total loss as the broken Hoegh Tokyo two miles further up the beach, past the shattered, rusting, sea-worn hulk of the Sygna.

oOo

Soviet Pacific Fleet HQ – Vladivostok
They had again finished the traditional argument over the strength of the steam in the hot sauna.

“Well, Nikolai, congratulations seem to be in order! The Japanese and Australians are finding those upgraded fields of yours to be extremely troublesome, especially when they have no modern minehunters available.”

“Good. I am less pleased with the performance of some of our submarines...

oOo

They were repairing an eye on the Oropesa sweep. “There’s the reporter. Ha, the boss’s steward. She won’t do any good there.”

“You nitwit, she knows that. They’ve been mates for a bit. Probably just wandering up to Harry’s for lunch.” They both eyed her with the general appreciation of young men for young women. Small, blonde, very fit – they had seen her scrambling about the ships in a bad seaway – very attractive elfin sort of features, with a chest a fair bit oversize for her frame. What was not to like? A few seconds then they bent back to their work.

“You’ve stopped dithering, Trace.” Justin was just stating a fact, and he fell silent. If she talked, it was one decision. If she did not, it was another. All of it was her call.

“I want to at least try.”

“Your call. Sounds like you’ve decided.”

“Yes.”

He asked gently, as a brother might. “Are you falling in love with him, Tracey?”

She whispered it at long last. “Yes.”

“And?”

She took a long, shuddery breath. “I love him. I took a long, hard look at the women I know. I can still have a decent enough career later in life. If I wanted to, and I am sure he’d support it. The question is, are you sure he’s at least a bit attracted to me?”

“Yes. I’ve discussed my family and his daughters, who are nearly your age. We’ve talked a bit about what a hard life young women have when sex is cheapened into mere transactionalism, and I used you as an example. He really does like you and,” he hesitated for a second, “he’s said to me that you’ve become a woman worthy of a man’s love, but he’s got natural alpha game. The rest is up to you. And him, of course.”

“Let me in through the fire door to your quarters at midnight Wednesday night. I’ll have a bag. I’ll need to have a quick shower, too.”

“No problems. I’ll make sure I don’t have company. Hah! I could even scrub your back in perfect safety.”

She smiled just a little, but did not laugh.

oOo

Canberra

The meeting was secret, of course. They all were these days. Chief of Navy looked at his senior staff Captain and sighed.

“Did we fuck up by putting Mike in charge of Second Squadron? No, we did not. The briefings are clear. The Sovs did something smart, Ivan does things differently but he’s not stupid. They must have looked at our vulnerabilities and come up with a cheap and effective way to give us a hell of a problem, using obsolete subs, a merchant as a minelayer before the war, and cheap mods to mines designed in nineteen twenty bloody six. The real attack is given away by the ports they hit. The ports that export energy to Japan and China.”

“Long view? They are thinking of a long war?”

“Possibly. Or they are thinking to disrupt our expeditionary capability, or just covering both bases at little extra cost. In any case, they have carried out a cost-effective and very disruptive attack on us. We can expect them to try and keep it up even with ancient junk like Foxtrots and even surface minelayers.”

They all nodded soberly. They knew what that meant.

“So we need more AMS and MSA and we need to understand that we are going to lose more of them.”

“How are the British faring with their AMS?”

“Lower losses, much lower on a per capita basis, due to the fact that they have more modern hunters than we do and fewer major ports in a vastly smaller country so they can keep a much better eye on their waters. They can basically watch the coast a lot better, they have complete coastal radar coverage for God’s sake. We are getting mining up north now from Indon forces, and Ivan’s got plenty of Foxtrots and even the older Tango class to spare for tertiary theatres like this if he wants to screw us further. We know they have old Victors in the region too.”

“So the 32nd on its own, all the Squadrons.”

“Yes. They are doing the job although the cost is far too high. The alternative is that our major allies in North Asia start to lose the imports they need. Their stockpiles will last for a while, but they are very far from infinite.”

Chief of Navy had the last word, of course.

“So we keep paying. The JMSDF knows and sympathises, they have quietly said that if we need any number of suitable ships to convert they’ll just give them to us. The money’s nothing of course, It’s a recognition of a debt owed to keep their energy supply and national economy going.”

COMAUSFLT nodded. “Then I suggest we take them up on it sir. The pool here is now empty of suitable ships to requisition for the purpose. The first of the new fast sweepers based on the big longliner hull is in the water but won’t be completed for months. We can get a vessel here from Japan in two weeks using their civil crews, and convert them in two weeks. He nodded at his Flags. I’ll get a precis to you from COMAUSMINFOR immediately.”

oOo

McCann had not gotten to his cabin until late and at that only because his steward had guilted him into it and forced him to have a shower as well to help him get to sleep. So he’d showered and fallen into bed like a felled tree.

Snick.

“Whazzit?”

He snapped cleanly awake with a start, the cabin was dark except for what little light filtered through the closed curtains of what was really a nice little suite in the requisitioned hotel. The startlement made his heart race unpleasantly with the small adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight response.

Someone’s here with me, he thought, or perhaps a dream I cannot recall? There had been no-one, aside from a couple of simple need-slaking conquests, for years; just the bottle. And he’d fought and won that battle, he no longer touched the bottle at all. Was that a small, pale shadow?

“Alright, enough silly-buggers, who’s that?” he said clearly, and in a slightly amused tone.

There was a rustling at the edge of his double bed and the subtle shift that indicated weight coming on to it. “Me,” Tracey’s voice said; in it was an obvious unsureness bigger than worlds, “I have made the hardest decision of my life.”

McCann’s heart still beat fast, but the startled flash had been replaced ... with a very different sort of feeling.

“Well, I do know why...” and his voice stilled as a hand took his and guided it to cup a firm, very full breast.

“You are both intelligent and a man,” she said with an inflection on the word he immediately understood, “the first I have really got to know, I think, so you understand why I am here.”

His heart lurched. He knew that he’d been fighting his feelings. So has she, and she no longer can. And … neither can I.

He moved.

I probably should be thinking about this, he thought, I know what she now wants, it must have hit her like a steam-hammer. I am far older than her and I have only known her a short while, I am not at all interested in a simple conquest here, and the stress is making us all act in odd ways, but then again, maybe she’s actually fully worked it out, there’s a moral courage here in her offering herself to me... Decision firmed. We will see if she has.

And so his hands raised the sheet to aid her, one hand gliding down the length of her back as she slid in next to him. She shivered slightly under that touch, and more as the hand moved over her hip as she rolled, gasping slightly as his fingertips caressed a hard nipple. She smelled of clean woman and life. His first kiss landed on her nose in the darkness; the second went exactly where he wanted it to. She was submerged in it.

She surfaced from it twenty seconds later.

“Ooh, the beard tickles a little, so nice.”

She rolled herself underneath him and he understood why with a pleased delight, deliberately he lifted to let her left leg slide under him, and she clamped both around his flanks. He moved, he deliberately and she instinctively, wrapping her legs around his waist and groaning softly as he slowly slid into her.

“Yes. Take me, just take me. Come on,” she whispered, “come on then, I know you haven’t forgotten how.”

He chuckled possessively, raising every hair on her skin and goose-bumping her entire body.

“Oh I have not forgotten, but I am going to pound you into the mattress.”

“Yes,” she breathed, “anything, all of it, anything you want.”

Ah. The words echoed in his mind.

An immeasurable time later they lay together in a tangle of sheets caught under and between them, both gasping for breath.

“Alive again at last, perhaps,” he said.

“Why thank you sir,” she whispered in return, “alive for the first time for me, I think, so the sentiment is returned.”

His hands wandered back to where they’d do the most good. A final test. “Am I not too old, Tracey?”

“Doesn’t matter. Not with how I have grown to feel about you. And we live as long as we live and not a day more. I am not a teenager and I have grown and changed radically in a short time,” she said, then gasped slightly and shuddered. “Yes there is the war. Yes you are older than me but you are less than twice my age and there are no certainties now.”

She reached down. “And as for middle age...”

“Well, I’ll see how you go,” he completed the sentence for her, slightly breathless.

“Yes,” she gasped, shuddering even more.

oOo

“Five thirty sir, wakeywakey and all of that. Teh tarik for you, boss, coffee white and none for Miss T. I’ll bring up nasi lemak and bacon and eggs in ten, boss, unless you want a morning quickie in which case I’ll make it twenty.”

McCann opened his eyes and looked over his woman’s shoulder. His right hand cupped a breast as she opened her eyes and smiled dreamily.

“My bag, Justin?” she murmured softly. But he was looking at McCann.

“Beside the door. Twenty, huh?”

“Definitely,” said McCann.

He exited with a wistful look.

“Your ally has good timing,” McCann said as he rolled her over, “but then that’s his job. And he certainly won’t talk.”

oOo

The steward was bringing the breakfast plates downstairs, covered on a tray so how many there were could not be seen, when the XO popped his head around the corner.

“Skipper’s got a meeting in twenty. He’s usually in his office now, he OK?”

“Yes, sir. He’s been burning the midnight oil and did not get to sleep until the wee smalls last night. Might it be possible…?” He opened his hands in a questioning gesture as his voice trailed off.

“Hmmph. Won’t be a problem. Nothing I can’t deal with, all routine until Nambucca turns up to join us, she’s due at ten this morning.”

“I’ll absolutely make sure he’s there for that sir, he’d skin me otherwise. But in any case I think he’ll be down well before that as he’ll want to hit a bit of the paperwork.”

The XO nodded and left.

oOo

Hmm. Boss looks a bit better, thought the XO, guess he needed the zeds. It had taken them all time to settle into a war routine, with its minimum 14 hour days with no days off. Some were struggling badly. Oddly, it was the older blokes who adapted the fastest.

“She looks trim, Ex,” remarked McCann as he returned the salute, “ not even any rust around the degaussing cable, but the reports say they are at only a basic training level, and we need them out immediately.”

The XO nodded.

“In further good news, they have gone to three shifts on the dozen new sweepers building at Cairns and here at Tomago, there are eight more second hand Japanese longliners on the way to replace losses and some bastard’s submarine just sank a Japanese ironstone carrier off Dampier. FFG’s and Turbo-Trackers are hunting it. But the informal arrangement ASEAN brokered about oil and gas platforms seems to be holding. Even in the South China Sea, which is a bloody madhouse, no-one has knocked off a platform yet.”

“You’ve read the overnight reports, then, boss.”

“Yes, had to make up for sleeping in. Something caught up with me and I was shagged out last night. Bit better now. And in even better news the poms have worked out that the bloody Russkis don’t intend to stop these low-cost high-disruption attacks, either. Makes sense when you see this sort of scale of pay-off for them. They say that a couple of old Foxtrots and an old Tango used for pre-war minelaying have sailed again from northern ports, probably on the same mission. And get this, the analysts at the MIC and FOSIF Westpac at Kami Seya reckon that the Russkis are riffing on the old WWII German raiders. Only with disguised bloody minelayers.”

“Oh, how truly good.”

“And there’s the problem of our superannuated peacenik commie bastard mates over there.” He gestured with his chin at the sullen but persistent if greying protesters. “But in more good news, we’ve just requisitioned that idiot Sea Shepherd bloke’s ship. It arrived in Hobart and the locals grabbed it right away.”

They were laughing about this and watching Nambucca berth as a small car drove through the gate after it had been searched.

“Here’s the press again, boss.”

“She’s not too bad now she’s a warco, we could have done a lot worse. Imagine a constant stream of morning talk show airheads!”

“I’d rather not, boss.” The XO shuddered theatrically.

Tracey walked over with three coffees. She handed two over without a word and put the third on the bollard so that she could start taking pictures.

“Morning! She looks so neat, gentlemen, but I guess that it won’t last. Can I go out with them for a week? There’s a good story in how they get into the groove. The pictures of her starting to look all ... workaday as the others will tell people a lot, too.”

McCann looked at his XO with a raised eyebrow, and he just shrugged. She had become part of the local scenery – and Canberra was extremely pleased with the reporting coming out of Newcastle and it was going all over the world. Besides, she did have accreditation now.

“Thanks for the coffee, Tracey,” the XO said. “Guess so. Boss and I will be going out with her the first couple of times anyway. We are pushing a new route out, close in and up towards Tomaree before it swings out to the hundred fathom line.”

She piped up. “You abandoning a couple of channels, then?”

“Have to,” McCann responded, distantly. “Do not have the ships now.”

The brow was being swung in to place aboard Nambucca. “Come on Ex, lets go welcome the poor buggers.” He glanced at the reporter. “You can tag along, usual rules.”

“OK. Thanks.”

oOo

281222Z May 05 (282222KMay 05)

He was reading the draft aloud. He had to approve it in this case anyway.

“So the transition has not been easy on the new crew, the winter weather mostly comes from the south and south-east, right on to a lee shore and It’s beam-on or close to it for much of the swept route. HMAS Nambucca is weatherly, but she rolls atrociously in these conditions and that makes handling the sweeps not only much more difficult – and it is brutally heavy physical work to start with – but much, much more dangerous.”

“I like that. That’s a good crew and they are shaping well.”

“Seaman Winthrop could never have known what hit him. I was there. The sea was larger than usual and roared out of the spume and across the sweep-deck. He had all the right gear, he had a safety line, he did all the right things, but the power of the sea has to be seen to be believed. He died instantly when the green sea thundering across the ship smashed him head-first into the winch. I was cowering on the deck above the winch, hanging on for dear life and made it to him within ten seconds: he was already gone. He was just 19, but a splendid man. When the Commander, his Lieutenant CO and the Chaplain performed the hard duty of going to his parent’s house to tell them of his death. I went along to tell his parents that, and what I knew of how he died.”

“Fine words, Trace,” McCann said to her as she lay next to him. “You are seriously good at this.” She did not – could not – live here. They had to be very discreet, but that was easy with the steward’s help.

“Thanks. I want to ask something.”

“Sure.”

“Do you prefer long hair or shorter hair on a woman?”

“I love long hair on my woman, the longer the better. Yours is nice, down well past your shoulders.”

“Good. I’ll start growing mine out more. Have a hair appointment tomorrow.” She snuggled in to him.

oOo

150830ZJUN05 (151830KJUN05)

Wilcannia cavorted wildly in tremendous seas, the gale was still rising under an iron-grey sky. That most dangerous beast, a whole gale on a lee shore. Vast torrents poured from the shrieking clouds, cutting visibility to a few hundred murky yards. Only the dimmed masthead lights warning people that they were sweepers could be seen now, and them not much. The port was closed to all but the sweepers. Her bow flung itself skywards it a huge deluge of spume and spray, then slammed down on to the back of the short, steep sea and buried itself into the base of the next wave, which rolled green and six feet deep across it, fifteen feet deep in the well deck. Then she rose from it, shedding torrents of water in the face of the next wave. Oropesa sweeping was impossible in these conditions, but the AMASS treated it with mechanical equanimity. It was just Wilcannia and the new Adele. They swept with what was serviceable, now.

McCann tapped the barometer with a quizzical eye. “Oh, eff me,” he said loudly.

“Not happy with this weather, boss,” shouted the skipper. “Looks too much like a Cawarra gale to for my liking! It’s going to move mines all over the bloody place.”

“Yes,” said McCann with the dread any man on this coast felt when that terrible name was uttered. “Glass is still dropping fast, too. Cawarra gale for sure.”

“What’s a Cawarra gale,” yelled Schlichter, “haven’t heard the term!” She’d just come back inside the bridge from the platform above it, absolutely drenched despite the foul-weather gear. Her inflatable PFD was prominent. Nobody aboard was without one. The images were unbelievable, and she had a better video system now, good enough for stills with superb quality.

The CO called back, “big paddle steamer, wrecked 12 July 1866 on the Oyster Bank in a very sudden, sharp, very violent gale, just like this one, and just four hundred yards from calm water. Sixty dead, they all drowned but one, poor bastards.”

They were sweeping back away from the port, but had another run to get back in. A second group was sweeping one of the southern channels and had all night to go.

“We going to get back in, in this?”

“Probably not. Not if it keeps rising. We’ll just keep sweeping, or if it gets impossible we’ll have to run for the lee behind Broughton Island.”

2115

They were heading back in, a quartering sea, now. But even more violent than before. The phone from the shelter on the superstructure above the mine deck buzzed.

“Bridge.”

“Sir, sweep watcher! You still got Adele on the radar? I can’t see her lights but it’s chaos and old night out here.”

“Wait.”

The OOW grabbed the radar and looked at it, fiddling with the gain. Nothing. But the clutter at the closer range was just amazing.

“Shit.” He grabbed the radio and checked it was on the right channel. “Adele this is Wilcannia, report status?” he repeated the call several times.

“Wilcannia this is Bonthorpe, I’ve got you, I can see you on radar, but I don’t see Adele.”

“Wilcannia this is Scratchley, I have you on radar, and the southern group. I can’t see Adele. Operator logged her on the fifteen minute snapshot at a point two decimal two miles astern of your current location. Wait.”

They waited.

“Wilcannia, operator thinks he might have AMASS sweep reflector on your green 160 at one decimal eight miles, repeat your green 160 at one decimal eight miles. Confirm no EPIRB. Confirm no other surface contact. Looks like something got her.”

“Shit,” swore McCann. “CO, jettison your sweep and we’ll look for survivors. Yeoman. Signal Namoi info COMAUMINFOR and ACH Scratchley from me. HMAS Adele missing india victor oscar six decimal five november mike from Nobbys zero seven five tango stop whole gale Beaufort nine and rising stop seastate eight and rising from south east and sea worsening on heavy steep chop stop proceeding to search for survivors stop sweep jettisoned stop other ops are to proceed stop alpha charlie hotel Scratchley maintaining plot and watch stop they may have contact Adele wreckage stop. Got it?”

“Sir.”

The CO was already issuing orders. Men boiled into the bridge, grabbing binoculars and their sole precious imager, then after checking their safety gear the proceeded to festoon the upperworks. Below in the cafeteria the mate of the upper deck was organising a team as the SBA and cook worked on the space itself. Anyone they found alive they’d have to get aboard in the worst possible conditions, and on a deck being swept by the sea. The wind roared like an enraged titan.

2330

The flare exploded, blood-red against a screaming sky.

Someone was alive in that floater net. They were only two miles off the beach, working back up the pitiful scatter of wreckage. They had seen and recovered two, but they were dead. Their inflatable life jackets gave them an obscene parody of life. Four men were down with broken arms, stove-in ribs or crushed hands. The XO was among them, a leg more than shattered. But there were living men in that floater net. They were dead men the moment they got into the surf zone two miles away.

Not quite against orders but entirely ignoring the advice of the harbour master, HMA Ships Cutlass and Adolphe had fought their way out of the harbour a yard at a time, through the huge waves breaking right over the breakwaters and across the harbour entrance. The town knew already, and thousands had gathered to watch and pray as they did so. That neither had been overwhelmed in the immense breaking seas at the mouth was a minor miracle. The harbour master had simply said that the port was closed to commercial vessels, and HMA Ships were not commercial vessels. He’d then said that he had never seen such seamanship in forty years at sea. It had been worth it. Cutlass had recovered a man, alive, but only just. And purely by blind luck.

Schlichter was reporting by radio. Not much and wracked by static as the lightning smashed endlessly into the sea, but astonishingly dramatic.

She’d cheated, really, and just left the pickup switched to “on”. So they got vivid, jagged fragments of what was happening on Wilcannia’s bridge. Mostly it was just odd words, and the endless roaring of the wind and sea. But some of it was clear. Especially when people were near the chart table

“For fuck’s sake Tracey, no. The Commander’s already down there and he’s too bloody old, but he’s got his duty. You can’t…”

“No, Skipper. Just bloody no. I’m only half the strength needed but I’m fit and can at least watch the sea at their backs. You know that, and I’m bloody volunteering. They are still three men short and there’s men in the fucking water.”

“No..”

“Again, skipper, I have my duty too. It’s not yours but it is to my friends here, and you are not going to fucking stop me. I have not stopped risking my life daily on these ships of yours, so there’s no difference, is there?”

The MUD was close to exhaustion – he was an old man in his late 50s – when the slight figure clipped on the line and staggered towards them on the wildly gyrating deck.

“I’m the bottom of the barrel, Chief, but I’m fresh. Where d’ye want me?”

He roared into her ear. “Backstop Smythe, the aft grapnelman. The skipper will scoot across the wind and stop her, creating a bit of a lee. We’ll have very little time. We’ll grapnel the float and bring it up as best we can haul. I want you hauling with him and I want you to watch the waves to starboard. If a big one comes over, scream – literally scream. It’s the only thing we will all hear in this! Take a clipped bowline and secure anyone who we can get over the wall!” McCann was himself about six feet away, blood streaming down his face from a terrible gash under his left eye, from his nose to his ear. He nodded at her approvingly.

She still had the camera and took such pictures as she could, just grab-point-click and screw technique, then the floater net was right there. The four grapnels flew, she grabbed the line and hauled until she thought her heart would burst. Just seconds that seemed like aeons. She did not even notice the skin stripping from her soft uncallused hands, and she kept her head looking to starboard. They’d gotten three men in and clipped when they heard the hawk-screech that pierced the gale. Schlichter had done her job, and she glanced at Smythe. Shit, he’s dropped his bowline! Gone through the scupper in an instant – half a foot of water was constantly rushing across it. The ship shook and flicked to port as the wave hit her. Quick as a striking taipan, she took three steps, got the bowline over the survivor’s outstretched arms and clipped it to the safety line. Smythe grabbed the survivor with both arms and bear-hugged him.

Then an iron wall of cold seawater smashed her into the solid steel bulwark. Submerged, she felt first the line hooking her to the main safety line pull her up and spin her, then she felt the left shoulder shatter with a bright burst of pain, and to her horror her feet were free of the deck and the line went slack. The water then smashed her into the deck on her left flank and front and she felt things snapping and popping. Scrabbling and fully submerged, vision beginning to tunnel, she realised that the tremendous pressure of the sea roaring over the ship was forcing her into the scupper. If she survived being shot through it she’d be beaten to death against the ship’s side or drowned. She felt tremendous pain has something snagged her hair and she reached for it – an arm. She grabbed it with her right hand – the left just was not working – and a second hand grabbed that arm and pulled her sideways into some kind of an angle. She felt things popping and snapping but they did not seem to be hers. Her legs were still out the scupper to the knees. Then another hand grabbed her, latching on to the harness.

The roaring in her head ceased and she drew a mixture of air and salt-scud into her lungs, vision expanding out again as oxygen flooded back into her system. McCann had her by the hair and arm, fully braced and his entire body arced in enormous, all-out effort, burning his last reserves with reckless abandon, his own body a breakwater stood between her and the deadly torrent killing her. The Chief had her harness. They pulled her up and the Chief connected her again to the safety line. He held up the end of her line – it had parted over an edge, mute witness to the titanic power of the water. She nodded thanks to both and went back to the rail, latching on to the floater net with her one good arm. At least she could help hold the damned thing, and there were still men in it. Then she looked back to starboard, watching the tossing confusion of sea.

Unknown to anyone except Justin, the old Chief had trained a young McCann at the College back in ‘79 and gone with him to Japan years ago. His advice had saved McCann’s career once, at a very early stage. He looked at his men – they needed no further direction at this second – and stuck his face into the side of McCann’s head so he’d hear. “I’m the only other one who knows what Justin does, boy. She’s here by choice. She’s got a busted left arm and she’s not for turning away from her responsibility. Question is, are you the man I thought you were?”

McCann turned to scream his reply, “your brother’s in town, isn’t he?”

The Chief nodded in the exaggerated way men did when in lethal danger.

“Have him on the wharf when we get back in then. He can do it then and bloody there on the dock if he’s willing to break enough rules.”

“For this he will.” He glanced at the way McCann was moving. “You are wounded.”

“Not relevant. Later!”

It took them four endless minutes of shattering labour to get the last three out of the floater net and dump it. McCann and the Chief helped a somewhat dazed and still coughing reporter back to the bridge.

The mike was still on. Ashore they had heard fragments of it and had heard the horror in voices as the giant wave rolled her on her beam ends and buried the well deck deep.

... six, we got six! And Cutlass has one...
...
... get on to 160 and into the sea again, we keep looking, there might be more...

Then much clearer as they were under the radio.

... get her over there next to the chart table and cut the jacket and cut the clothes off her ... get her trousers down too ... need to see that hip ... not busted but fuck look at the damage, hey you look like you went six rounds with a steam hammer, Trace ... maybe four cracked or busted ribs... dislocated shoulder joint’s right out, something else, not a busted arm ... hey Trace, nice bruises, they’re solid from your tits around to your fucking shoulder blade and from your head down past your knees... wrap your arms around her and do a bear hug on her boss, there ... TRACEY THIS IS REALLY GOING TO FUCKING HURT A LOT...

A muffled shriek of unbearable agony.

... got it popped back in but its not right ... Trace how’s that feel ... bloody painful? Good. Clench your hand. Good. If you start to cough out blood tell some bastard but I don’t think the ribs are broken too bad, just cracked with luck... good, get some gear back on her we don’t want more hypothermia ... boss get her down to the cafeteria and get that head seen to, you two buggers are leaking blood all over the chart table ... fifteen then get back up here, you two can relieve lookouts...

The cafeteria was a madhouse, a thin sheet of bloody water and dropped crap was sculling from side to side as she rolled. But it was relatively warm. The six survivors had serious hypothermia. They’d stripped them and packed them in hot water bottles and blankets, lashed into the emergency fold-out steel bunks on the aft bulkhead. The now-five busted up men from Wilcannia’s crew were there, doped up and being lashed to mess tables and stretchers on the deck. Amazingly, she still had her camera and the first thing she did was take a scan of the scene, then wedge it in to a corner, still running, as the SBA swooped on her.

McCann asked first. “How are they, doc?”

“Best I can do. Now, miss, strip to your underwear. Bridge gave me a run-down and said I need to see the hip and tape your ribs and arm. Boss, help her out.”

He shook his head when she had done so. “Shit. I don’t want to tape over that soft tissue damage. It’s not good. I’ll just bandage to try and support it a bit. Soon as we get in get it re-done.”

It took ten minutes, and she felt nothing but relief even though she knew it would be on TV later. Mike helped her get some dry gear on. It would not stay that way long, they knew.

“That bruising is going to knock you around really badly, Miss. Weeks for the arm and ribs to heal. Months for bruising like that and that hip really worries me, get it x-rayed when we get back from steaming about in this bloody minefield. Pelvis or joint might be cracked and you just don’t fuck about with that. Right, now you are dressed, sit here. No, like that. Right. Boss, head into her right shoulder and hold bloody still. You help brace him best you can. This is clean and I’m just going to sew that wound shut. No anaesthetics left.”

“Not a problem, they needed it more anyway,” said Mike. He’d seen the compound fractures and the silent, pale shape of the XO.

He did as directed, not even shuddering as he stitched the ragged four-inch slash shut.

“Now boss, that left hand. You realise you’ve broken it? And probably the radius too? No? Muscles torn to buggery as well. Don’t flex it you bloody idiot. Well, you have, it’s all swollen to buggery. All I can do it splint it a bit.”

A few minutes later he declared it done. They got up and left. Slowly. And with great care.

McCann stopped her at the internal door at the back of the bridge.

He kissed her gently. “You have courage, Trace. When we get back to shore, will you marry me?”

Her jaw dropped, then shut. “Yes,” she said, simply, “I love you more than I can say. But you do not have to. I am your woman now. I’d be dead without you.”

“We’ll do it right, for yes, I love you, so much so that I will not let you go, not to the sea, nor to anything else. Stop taking the pill.”

“Yes.”

“Honeymoon’s gonna suck, though, banged about as we are. Come on, we have lookout duty.”

oOo

152305ZJUN05 (160905KJUN05)

Half the city seemed to be lining the harbour. The gale was easing but the seas were still tremendous as Wilcannia and Cutlass fought their way back in to the closed port. The deluge continued. The cameras had captured both being thrown to angles in excess of forty degrees as they fought for their lives though the entrance. Adolphe was still out searching; the other two sweepers had just continued their job: the two ships coming in had nine survivors and heavy casualties of their own.

Wilcannia was badly smashed about, boats and life rafts gone, stanchions twisted, screens twisted or just ripped away. Her upperdecks were scattered with trapped wreckage and inside she was chaos. The brow went over. The press was there in force but they were not on the wharf. Of course, it was overlooked by the tower blocks so they had a natural platform.

The media were puzzled as to why hundreds of men were just standing there in the howling wind and driving rain, not in formation, as the survivors and wounded were whisked away in the ambulances. They barely noticed two more battered figures being helped down the brow. Then they knew their own and saw Schlichter’s mother and father hug her – gingerly – and have a brief conversation. Then she gave something to her daughter. A sailor gave something to the man beside the two women. A tall man approached them.

“Are you sure. Truly sure? “...to love him and to honour him and to obey him all the days of your life?” That is a powerful vow, rarely made for many years, and you have to be absolutely sure of it.”

“I am more than sure, Monsignor. I am utterly certain. Aside from the fact that I love him more than I can say, he protected me and saved my life last night. I’d be hours dead except for the man I love, for he would not let me go, even at cost of his life. And he’s a Godfearing man, and I am become a Godfearing woman.”

He sighed. “The Bishop will have strong words to me about this. But God manifests his will through us in his own way, my child. We do not have to understand it. So be it.”

And so Monsignor McPherson put on what he called “his terribly special hat” but kept his raincoat. What was happening was entirely blocked from view by sailors, usually three holding the edges of each umbrella, or more holding small tarps and trying to shield them a bit from the wind and rain – and to block the cameras. This was not their affair, it was – family business. Fifteen minutes later, there were three massive cheers, and they all dispersed, men scattering to their duties.

Which left the media wondering in the live feeds what had happened on a cluttered wharf, next to a battered little warship, and in the wind and driving rain of the dying gale.

They were both very cold and shaking with it, and some things still had to be done. McCann did them.

“Right. Where’s my steward... Justin, stick to Mrs McCann like glue and help her do what she has to do. Take my car. Meet you both at the hospital in ...” he turned to his new wife and raised his eyebrows, she held up two fingers, both oozing fluid and blood but her smile lit the world, “two hours. XO, you and I will get on the blower to COMAUSMINFOR and do a quick verbal, then you sort the written report. I think you’ll be acting CO for a bit, my arm is totally ratfucked and I breathed in too much seawater. OPSO, get a plan to resweep two lanes starting as soon as the harbour is a bit safer to leave, and fit Cutlass and Adolphe for AMASS towing, they will have to tow them from alongside or maybe off the beach at Pirate Point, dunno, make it work. Get William the Fourth out for a side-scan survey as soon as she can live in that sea. Get the Army to get our sweeps off Stockton beach and back here ASAP and check the things, some modules will be screwed. INTELO, try and work out what the fuck killed Adele. Engines, get Wilcannia fixed. Lets go.”

He had a few words to Justin, and more to Tracey, then he kissed her and left.

“Hells bells, Trace. Congratulations I think, and you look like shit, and what the fuck happened out there?” He grabbed a package and popped out some pills. “Analgesics. Strong ones. Might make you a bit funny. SBC said you needed them and he was not bloody joking. What happened to your face?”

She dry swallowed the pills. “Met the bulwark at speed, or the deck, as a sea swept over us. Whatever. I’ll live when I knew I could not. I’ll fill you in on it in the car, take that bag,” she pointed at a totally sodden lump, “and get me to the office. Before I fall over. Which would hurt. More, I mean.”

He had grabbed a bag earlier and chucked it in the back. He parked illegally outside the front door at 23 Bolton Street, the handsome old 1920s building was streaming water and the wind-blasts were shaking the two old-fashioned signs flanking the clock in the carved sandstone above the elegant lintel. Ignoring it all, he helped a visibly fading Tracey up the six steps and into the building. She was limping heavily.

The news floor stilled as they appeared, and made a slow beeline to the editor’s office, leaving a trail of water leavened with the odd droplet of blood.

Tracey’s friend Michelle appeared, face white with shock. Before she could speak Justin tossed the dry bag at her and said, “in the editor’s office. And bring reporter writing stuff. And get someone to bring towels, a good blanket and the biggest mug of sweet milky strong tea that you can find. And keep them coming, and some straws, d’ye hear me?” The editor appeared around the doorframe, raised his eyebrows in surprise, and just nodded.

They went straight through the door and he helped her into the one of the huge old-fashioned leather chairs which the water proceeded to ruin. She sat more or less on the edge of it but leaned on the right hand side. Then Justin began to remove the again-sodden clothing, using the heavy clothing shears the SBA had given him for the job.

“Schlichter, there are no words...” the editor said, “we caught fragments on the radio last night.”

“Ow.”

“What?”

“Warm in here,” she turned her hands over, palms up and examined them. The left hand’s palm was heavily stripped of skin and some flesh, and three nails had been torn out. The right was in better condition, but that was relative. “Lucky I’m right handed. Feeling’s returning as they warm up. Ow.”

Michelle turned up with the towels and a blanket just as Justin was starting to cut the soaked sweater off her and remarking that he’d put the foul weather gear into a box for her as a prezzie. Michelle’s mind sort of stuttered, then slithered about the place in chaos as its wheels lost traction before hitting a cliff at high speed and bursting into flames.

“Tracey, how, ... what,... a wedding ring? What the hell? When did you get married? I did not even know you were engaged!”

“Hey it was a short engagement!”

“Short!?”

“About eight hours. That’s kinda short.”

“Eight hours!

“Spent it on lookout duty on the flying bridge in the gale, all busted up.”

“But you only just got back in! You can’t be married!”

“Got married on the wharf fifteen minutes ago.”

“What! Who to?”

“Mike.”

“WHAT!”

“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiike,” she said dreamily, “love, honour and obey. Wanted that bit in. God I am the luckiest woman alive.” The analgesics were really kicking in, making her voice sound more dreamy.

“Erm, what? Obey?” Michelle was close to losing it.

“Sure. I’d be dead now if he hadn’t stopped me being washed overboard.” She grimaced.

“Hey Justin, ow. Also, ouch.”

Justin was muttering. “Ah. SBA said I’d need this. Knows his business. Tracey, just talk to the editor and let me sort some of this out. It’s only the first aid the SBA told me to do but I need to do it. Said to get these wet bandages off.”

Michelle gathered breath.

The editor interjected. “Michelle, shut the hell up.”

Tracey began describing events and telling him what data was on which camera, drive and such, but that most of the gear except for the ruggedised waterproof electronic camera was probably ruined and they’d need expert help. She hardly noticed that Justin had – once again – mostly stripped her until he cut her bra off, wincing as he did so. Even then, it was Michelle’s hiss that drew her attention, rather than any additional pain. The editor was too busy writing to even look up.

“Justin, what the fuck?” She looked down. “Oh. That bloody hurts through the painkillers. And none of my boob should be that eggplant sort of colour. That’s just plain wrong.”

Justin spoke distractedly. “You, Tracey’s mate, get that stuff off her and dry her.”

He was closely examining her arm and her left side, from the level of her left breast down to her waist. “Just notice it did you Trace? Your whole left torso is a black and purple mass, deep tissue damage and cracked or broken ribs under it they said, there’s a lot of swelling in the shoulder and stuff aaaand don’t lean that way and stick your good boob in my face. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I am a queer, queer boy. Boobies, eeeew! He glanced up, the joke had put the ghost of a smile on her face “ ... get that blanket around her dammit, she’s way too cold for my liking and she’s the boss’s wife ... shit shit shit, you have some really nasty deep splits in your skin they missed and they are starting to bleed a lot. That bra was actually driven deep into the flesh. You,” he poked Michelle in the belly, “get out there and find another girlie, any sort of elastic tube top thingy like you girlies like to wear, need that, and get her back in to help.”

A minute or two later and a very startled young woman appeared, being towed by Michelle. Her eyes grew saucer-like as she took in the scene. Tracey was again talking to the editor, who was still taking notes at a furious pace and pretty much ignoring the byplay.

Justin handed her several tubes of analgesic antiseptic cream. “Right. Girlie. Here’s the go. I am going to put a field dressing on the open wounds. It’s overkill but I don’t care and It’s what I’ve got, we will still take more than an hour to get to the hospital. Then I am going to start below her waist, even got clean dry jocks her size. You will very gently slather all the bruised areas with that analgesic and antibacterial cream. Be really fucking careful on the shoulder, it was broken and badly dislocated and popped back in at sea and her left arm’s a total mess.”

Tracey hit him with her right hand, not a bit gently.

“OK, OK! Sheesh. Aside from the ring, the wedding ring is good Tracey so no hitting me again. Wossaname, you, Michelle, where’s that tube top thing?”

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “On the brunette.” Yet another face appeared around the door frame, and more eyes grew large.

Justin eyed her. “Well get it off the brunette. It’s no bloody good there. Hi brunette. Ditch the top, I’m a fairy and your boss has seen a girlie in a bra before. When I finish with this field dressing and this girlie finishes slathering shit all over Tracey, very fucking gently get the top on her, you can imagine what that’s going to feel like without at least some support once she starts moving and stops talking. And I had to cut all the bandaging that was there away. You cannot disturb her left arm in any way, it’s basically rooted and locked up. Her shoulder is very badly broken. Then get a blanket back over her and stand by to help elsewhere.”

The brunette gulped nervously, and nodded. “She’s really badly injured, why isn’t she in the hospital? I can call an ambulance...”

“Because the ambulances are busy with really busted up people, she’s not very badly hurt at all compared to the other poor bastards, just a few bumps and scrapes compared to what happened to them, and because she’s finishing her damn job. Now get on with it and welcome to the fucking war, girlie!”

To her credit, she gulped, visibly steeled herself, doffed the top immediately and began to help with the analgesic cream.

An hour later Tracey was fully dry, warming, hurting like hell and still drinking tea through a straw held by the brunette – she could not possibly hold the mug –so Justin announced that they were leaving. They already knew she was for the hospital and that she’d meet her husband there for their second anniversary, in terms of hours, anyway. He’d be waiting. Michelle volunteered to accompany her to help, to which the editor had agreed.

“It’ll be your byline, Schlichter,” said the editor, “you earned it the hard way.”

“Change it, make it Tracey McCann, nee Schlichter. McCann’s my name now.”

Her smile lit up the room.


Fini

 
The Eastern Mine Battle Part 2
Chapter 1
162300ZJUN05 (170900KJUN05)

McCann smiled softly at his woman on the bed, her face relaxed in very deep if still somewhat drug induced sleep, and looking terribly vulnerable. Yet not fragile. There was steel in there, he knew. He’d seen it. I did not expect this, and yet I do not think that I am a fool for getting married again even in such ridiculous circumstances. The Monsignor certainly does not think so, and neither does the Bishop, which is amazing. She clearly understands and acts on realistic lines, she knows that we complement each other. After talking to her parents and grandparents I see where she gets that from, and how she has had the moral courage to throw off the guff she’s been taught. She’s certainly brave enough. He sighed and rose, grabbed his stick and hobbled from the room. Turned out he’d also injured his left knee, and that it would require reconstruction. McCann had decided that it would not, because that would mean months of not being able to go to sea on his ships – he did not like the thought of what that might do to the morale of his men. He’d deal with the pain and limp a bit if he had to. That was all. Duty, heavier than mountains, he thought.

He was very worried about his next meeting as Justin drove him to the cafeteria in Hunter street, mere blocks. Drenching rain still gushed from the wrack flying overhead, but the wind had died right back. The doctors had ordered him on two weeks initial medical leave so his XO had the reins, but would quietly keep him informed if anything he could not handle hit the fan.

His two daughters were waiting for him in the cafe already, unsureness on their faces too, and then their faces blooming into shock when they saw him. His ex-wife was not there. She was someone he’d never see again given the choice. And that choice he had.

“Dad, are you all right?” They both said it simultaneously.

“Hi ‘Ron, Vic. No. I am not all right, far from it physically, but I am fine mentally. Quite cheerful, in fact. Turns out the cheekbone’s cracked and the left eye injured, left radius and hand broken but the bones are not displaced, lots of ripped muscles and the left knee injured. Good to see you girls though, how was the road trip from Canberra?”

He looked at the cafe owner as he approached and ordered three flat whites and some of his excellent caramel slice, then reached for his wallet. The man shook his head.

“Commander, your money’s no good here,” he said firmly, “so sorry about Adele and her men, and congratulations, sir, for what that is worth.”

He could only smile and say his thanks. And he made a mental note to make very sure the money went into the tip jar.

“The trip was a bit soggy.” Veronica ventured hesitantly. She was the older of the two at 21 and obviously the spokesman. She drew breath.

“Dad, Justin called before we saw things on the TV but we’d been listening to the radio and watching the live feed on Sky News all night. He said it was very bad, that you were wounded and in hospital, and that you were hurt but OK, and that ...”

Her eyes filled with tears, “Dad why didn’t you tell us you’d met another woman and how could you not tell us that you were engaged, or invite us to the wedding?”

McCann winced inside. “I am so sorry love. I should have told you much, and much earlier, to prepare you, but It’s all fairly sudden and new, even to me and certainly to Tracey. It’s all happened so fast. Taking it from the top, I first met her a year ago and took no notice of her. She was just another reporter, full of piss and wind really, another standard uni-product-lefty. After the big war started she started coming to sea with us, a lot, in fact as much as I, and she’s been there when we lost the ships, twice with me, when we lost Yandra and Adele. She saw Birchgrove Park and her whole crew die in front of her eyes and she started to question what she thought she knew about life when she saw our reactions to that. She started to see what honour, honesty, loyalty, integrity and courage really meant when the killing starts. We now know that hard as it was on us, she was put into a real crisis, as what she thought of the world was nothing like the reality she could see every day at sea.” His daughters saw the pain on his face caused by remembering the men he’d lost. “She grew up very fast and started to fall in love with me, I still do not know why for all she has tried to explain it. And It’s hard to be loved and not to return it, I know because I tried. And I failed, but still kept my distance until a little while ago when we both worked out that we were being total idiots because one or both of us might be dead any day. That showed her moral courage to me.”

His face grew grim under the bandages covering a third of it. “I’ve lost three ships, girls, and a lot of old friends dead. Half my original command is gone. Ninety six men aboard those three and just 15 survivors. Four other dead. And It’s getting worse. The Army found three mines washed up after the gale. Two of them have about six months marine growth. One has none. Brand new. Somehow, they refreshed the minefield – that stays with you two. Two days ago I came within a desperate grab under maybe ten, fifteen feet of black seawater to losing Tracey to the sea. I managed to grab her as she was being forced into the scupper. She would have died there, four feet from me, if I had not grabbed her. And I won’t lie. No way was I letting go. If my line had snapped we’d both have died then and there. And then, busted up and in pain as she was, only one arm working, she went straight to the rail to help getting Adele’s survivors out of the net. That proved her physical courage.”

He drew breath again. “Also, I could not tell anyone that I asked her to marry me. I did that aboard Wilcannia that night. I did that because I was not letting her go. Not to the sea, not to anything. And your honourary Uncle Bill’s brother, the Monsignor, agreed to break all sorts of rules to marry us on the wharf literally as we stepped off the Wilcannia’s brow. We were engaged for seven hours and fifty minutes, girls, nearly all of it spent standing lookout on the monkey island looking for survivors in a screaming Cawarra gale, and both of us with injuries and broken bones. You know what she said to me after I proposed?”

They knew the question was rhetorical, and both shook their heads. “She said yes, but then she said that it was not necessary, for she was my woman entirely, for she loved me, and I had saved her life that night.”

There was a long silence, until his youngest, 19 year old daughter asked, in a small voice, “I know she’s hurt, but why isn’t she here, Dad? Is she worried about upsetting us? Or that we might hate her?”

“No, Vic,” he said gently. “She was more seriously wounded than we thought, she’s still out under sedation, they had to do a shoulder reconstruction on the joint and put her shoulder-blade back together. The docs do not think she will ever regain full use of the shoulder. I have just come from the hospital, they’ll wake her in a little while and when she’s at least a little bit compos mentis I’ll call you in to see her. But she’ll still be high as a kite on painkillers, so make that allowance.” He snorted. “Hell, girls, I am pretty drugged up myself right now. You really, really don’t want to see what’s under this bandage.”

He started to shake his head and stopped, wincing as his face told him just how bad an idea that was. “I saw her courage, girls. She was as scared as any of us. She had no business being on that well deck. She was too small and too weak and she knew it, but as she saw it, her friends needed her help, really needed it, life or death needed it, and she went because they needed her help, and to hell with the fear and the consequences to her. And she was within a whisper of being killed, she was quite badly hurt, your “uncle” Bill and I managed to save her and then she stood back up and smashed shoulder and all got back to the job of rescuing the poor devils still in the floater net, and them more dead than alive.”

“Are you sure, Dad? About this?”

“Yes, I am sure. She’s one hell of a woman, and she’s mine.”

There was another long pause. His daughters looked at each other, and he saw the shoulders set. Vast relief welled up within him – they had their own moral courage, too.

“Well, I am glad for you both,” said Veronica, and her younger sister nodded her assent, “I guess we’ll both get used to having another older woman with you in the family, a step mum....”

Suddenly shocked, McCann realised that they did not, could not know. They saw his shock in his face.

“Dad?” The uncertainty was palpable.

He set his cup down carefully.

“I do not want you to be surprised when you meet Tracey today.” Then he grinned suddenly, even though it hurt. “But I think you’ll relate. You know she’s a reporter with the Herald?”

“Yes, dad,” they both chorused.

“Do you know how old she is, because I think your assumption is wrong.”

“Dad, even if she’s fifty ...”

He leaned forward and took her hand. “Oh, ‘Ron, love, she’s only two years older than you are.”

His two daughters sat there with open mouths.

oOo

Tracey surfaced slowly, the mist gradually unwinding its tendrils from around her mind and the memories slotting back in as they did. She lay there awhile with her eyes closed, feeling limp with … not exhaustion, something else. So she gathered and ordering her thoughts. They were vivid, almost garish in places, terrifying too, then the wharf, the slow painful journey that had wound up with the anaesthetist telling her to count to ten, Mike holding her hand as she went under, blurry half-dreams since.

She opened her eyes. And she smiled when she saw him.

“Hello, husband. Love, honour and obey, I will never forget what I owe you ... I love you more than I can say.”

He reached and touched the side of her face, gently. “Hello, my wife. How do you feel?”

She smiled again at the words “Floaty. No pain, which is nice. You, my love?”

“Good, darling, good as I can be. Some pain, but nothing compared to the day before yesterday.”

He saw the question. “They kept you under for a bit, you simply needed it. I’m on at least two weeks recovery leave, you’ll be on more, and a couple of months of rehab. The shoulder was ... not good. They had to use some fancy pins. The good news is that the hip joint was not damaged, and you did not crack your pelvis. But walking’s going to be slow for a bit, which makes two of us.”

She considered this for a bit in a slow, floaty kind of way. “Good. I’ve got plans for that pelvis.”

“Not for a little while at least! We are both sad and sorry sort of beat-up specimens right now. Your mum and dad were here all night with me and will be in this evening, and my daughters rocked up in town this morning. I’ve told them, they are as surprised as hell, and they’ll be here in an hour or two, when you have shaken off some of the fog.”

She thought about this for a while as thinking was sluggish.

“Good. Justin’s told me a lot about them. And I figure we can sort of spoon gently both on our right sides.”

“Oh goody, I married a sex maniac. Yessss!”

She laughed very softly, still drowsy.

oOo

“I just don’t know, Vic, I just don’t. I thought we’d lose him a few years back but he came back. This, I don’t know. I do know that I am absolutely not going to make things harder for him but wow, she’s 23? Did you ever think...?”

Her sister shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. But I am going to make my biggest effort to like her.”

They walked in quietly, each carrying a modest bunch of flowers. The sight was something to see and not what they’d expected.

There was giggling involved. Tracey was looking under the sheet. So was McCann. It was sort of tented over their heads, which were very close together.

“Oooh, that’s still just plain wrong.” The voice was light and very disapproving, what were they looking at – oh.

Then their Dad spoke.

“Hey, the starboard one’s OK, and there are none of those hematoma thingies that they can find on your side. So no bad internal bleeds. Be gone in a month or three and the ribs are just cracked. Five I think they said. And no damage to your spine, which is the best news.”

“It looks like a gone-wrong eggplant!” She giggled a little. “Hey no fair, quit tickling.”

“Cheers you up a bit, but.”

A new voice broke in to the conversation under the tent.

“Um, Dad? And, ...Tracey?”

Two heads emerged from behind the sheet as it dropped.

Veronica saw her bandaged and battered Dad, and a rather startled, fine featured heart-shaped face, sort of elfin, huge cornflower-blue eyes, very pretty but made beautiful by a strong character and with long, recently brushed and very fine long blonde hair slung to her right side and cascading over her right shoulder. The left side of the face showed startling bruises and swelling against the very pale, clear skin, and the start of what promised to be a real shiner, one of the slow to develop and slow to fade ones. Not a large woman at all, considerably smaller than either of them in fact, and one shoulder heavily bandaged, more heavy bruising spreading from under the bandages, like an oil slick under her skin. Her hands were bandaged too.

“Hi!” she said. “Well this is kind of a bit awkward, but luckily I am high as a kite on Endone and have a great excuse. Justin and Mike have told me a lot about you both. I’m Tracey and we are just checking out my new colour scheme, black and purple with red and yellow and green bits. It looks bloody awful. You can see it if you want. How was the trip up?”

The girls smiled. McCann relaxed back in his chair, still holding her hand, they noticed. He considered all three of them. “Hmm. Best to throw all three of you into the deep end, I think. So I am going to see the boys from Wilcannia for forty minutes.”

Tracey looked up at him as he rose and spoke, her voice very serious. “Love, how’s young Sub-Lieutenant Horner?” Young Horner being a year older than her.

He’d been moved from make-learnee XO of Bonthorpe to actual XO of Wilcannia on promotion, so her XO could command a new ship. McCann grimaced. “Not good. He lost the leg below the knee, poor sod, taking it hard. It shows, he’s normally an irrepressible little git, but I have told him that I want him back, seems to have cheered him up a bit. No choice but to take it off, it was not so much broken as shattered, the bleeding was arterial and a tourniquet had to be used, and we could get back in time in that sea, so way too much tissue died.”

“Is he compos mentis, love?”

“Yes, Trace, why?”

“We’ll visit later if that’s OK.”

“Hmm. Good idea, that. Might help.”

oOo

When he returned forty minutes later he knew he was in all sorts of trouble. The girls were obviously getting on like a house on fire and another, a fairly tall and slender redhead, had joined them. She was gesticulating wildly.

“… and then she says, Hey it was a short engagement! And I yell, Short? And she says, About eight hours! That’s kinda short!!” They broke up laughing.

“Hey love, how are the Wilcannias? They doing OK? I know Horner’s a Catholic, we’ve chatted in the chapel, so I passed a message through Justin to the Monsignor to update him on what you said last time …”

McCann grinned. “That’s the missus, those good Catholic instincts kicking in.” Then he looked at Michelle, who he had heard of but not met, and introduced himself to her.

Dear God, thought Michelle as she examined the battered, uniformed man, no wonder she’s head over heels gone on this bloke, enough alpha male animal magnetism to power a city.

Then McCann looked at his new wife, and then his two daughters, and sighed theatrically. “OK then. What evil plan have you rabble cooked up?”

“Is it that obvious, love?” Tracey asked softly. McCann walked over and cupped her face with his good hand. She gently leaned into it. “You, O woman whom I love quite unreasonably and know pretty well, I can read. Those two imps of satan I know far too well. Sad, just a few minutes and they are already leading you astray, but they have not had their monthly flogging and keelhauling yet.”

Both his daughters laughed.

“Morale raising visit to Horner and the five others still laid up? Jack first, he’s the worst injured.”

“Ah. That sort of morale raising visit.” He considered this for a moment, and his daughters observed that she was very clearly waiting on his decision.

“Good idea that. It will help.” He eyed his daughters with the “oh, bloody hell” look and then with a father’s “oh shit, they are all growed up” look. He sighed again.

“Oh, and they are wounded. I had the pusser check the actual references. On active duty, in a damn minefield. Active service wounds, so call them wounded, it matters.” They all nodded.

“Yes, Shelley brought some gear, and ‘Ron and Vic’s stuff is still in their car. I’ll just come along with you as the boss’s wife. Justin isn’t bringing my gear in a bit for when I’m discharged this evening so I’ll just be in gown and slippers as I am still high as a kite. But they’ll know that, they are all the same.”

oOo

Sub-Lieutenant “Jack” Horner stared miserably at the ceiling tiles. Last he remembered was screaming in unbearable pain in the cafeteria as they hauled him in there, arterial blood gushing out of his lower left leg after the sea had thrown him against deck fittings as they were jettisoning the sweep. He’d woken up yesterday to the shattering realisation that he’d be saving half the price of his shoe budget from now on. And the scar across his face would be bad. He’d hit something which had neatly removed an eighth of an inch of skin, flesh and even some bone from the hairline of his right forehead across to his left cheekbone.

Maybe ...maybe joining up after finishing uni had not been such a great idea.

He had a window room, and had seen the sweepers entering and leaving the port. The seas were still rough. It had deepened the developing sense of bitterness. His parents were due in from Port Vila tomorrow. Flights were very hard to arrange right now and only his father’s local clout as Port Manager (and the news) had obtained them any priority.

The boss had dropped by, busted up too, but shit, he was still walking. All he’d wanted was a Naval career, and what use was a one legged bloke? He knew he was off in happyland with the drugs, but a black cloud of misery hung over him.

I’m only 24, he thought. The science degree was useful, but what sort of a job does that mean for me outside? His thoughts turned darker.

McCann looked in. The private room does not help in any way at all, make sure they are all put into a ward together ASAP. He can have some responsibilities for the men, then. Keeping them together will keep him together. He glanced behind him. Oh, Lord. More bare nubile female skin and cleavage than he’d seen in one place since Newcastle beach last summer. Ah well, nothing will cheer them more than the presence of beautiful young women, well dressed in very feminine clobber. He squeezed his new wife’s hand – the nurses had insisted on a wheelchair for her. It sure works for me.

He just limped in. Horner’s face was a picture of misery until he saw his wife in the wheelchair.

“I won’t ask how you are feeling, as I know that. You remember my wife?”

“Sure do sir,” the smile was very faint but it was there. “Cripes, Tracey, er, Mrs McCann…”

“Tracey’s fine, Jack. Thank God you are alive. When I got into the cafeteria, I saw you. I thought you’d bled out you were so pale. Place looked like a slaughterhouse on stilts. And you were really, really out, you were not screaming. Hey, are you as spaced out as I am?”

“Probably more, hell, Mrs … Tracey what happened to your face? And arm?”

“Hey, my face is not as good as yours, the girls are just going to love that scar, for the rest the sea smashed me into stuff on the deck same as you. Broken shoulder blade and they had to do a shoulder reconstruction as well. Hey, check out my new colour scheme!” She reached around and drew the gown around to expose part of her left side.

The man missing a lower leg winced. “Bloody hell! You might be higher on painkillers than I am.”

McCann interrupted as they had planned once they really had his attention. “Jack, update. I talked to COMAUSMINFOR and Director DNOP about you this morning. Your file’s been marked for a while as an up-and-comer in the MCM world, which you won’t have known. You are slotted for two more months XO on a sweeper, then a sweeper command. Losing the pin will delay that by as long as you let it delay you. Meanwhile you’re being held as acting temporary XO’s assistant here against Namoi’s books to make sure no other bastard nicks you. Chief”ll temporarily look after your XO slot on Wilcannia. Second, I am having all of you wounded moved to the same ward. Got morale problems with your troops and you are the only officer here. You are their XO, sort it out. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” He felt as if an anvil had lifted from his shoulders. Right. I have to quit this. Stop being useless self-pitying prick, he thought to himself. Up-and-comer, eh? I’ll bloody show em up-and-coming! Delay’s up to me, eh? How about bugger-all delay then! My boys are gloomy are they? Fix that right quick.

“Good. Trace?”

“Hey, I brought some friends along, my mate Michelle who you’ve met before a few times, and … dear Lord, my step-daughters Veronica and Victoria.” She looked at him with a wry smile, and shook her head. “Cripes, Jack, check them out, they’re my age or near. That’s just plain weirding me out. Step-sisters more like.”

Jack smiled, a genuine one, and his eyes widened slightly as the three young women bustled into the room, crowding it in a very pleasant manner. All three young women were extremely attractive, well made up, in the full bloom of their youth and dressed in low cut, bright summery dresses, and active, alert intelligence flickered in their eyes. None of these young women were giggling twits. You just did not see young women well-dressed in feminine clothing much and three of them at once made one hell of nice sight. Especially the tall, poised redhead with the amazing bright green eyes, and the galaxy of freckles. Especially her. He seen her around and spoken to her a few times. He remembered her very well.

What they saw was a battered looking young man in his prime with the distinct heavy upper body muscling of a man who did a lot of heavy manual work. He had no gown on due to the number of IV lines running in to him, including one into his neck. There was no softness about him at all, his face was angles and planes, almost harsh when in repose, but which was currently engaging and animated, especially when he smiled. The great wound crossing his face was closed with many very fine stitches, reinforced with little butterfly dressings. It would leave an astonishing six or seven inch scar right across his face. Although bandaged, it was obvious that a chunk of his left ear was also missing. His heavily muscled arms were also marked with scars all the minesweeper men seemed to accumulate and showed what heavy physical work did to a man, as did the heavily callused, large and again scarred hands, minesweeper hands they called them, only half jokingly. What was a bit odd was the way the forearms merged smoothly into his hands. The wrists were unusually thick. He was obviously naked under the sheet over him which hid his lower body but concealed little, the foreshortened leg was shocking but somehow seemed to add something.

Michelle felt increasingly odd, more and more fluttery and flustered. Not at all like normal calm and collected self. As Veronica and Victoria chatted, she stayed mostly silent, but her eyes kept sliding back to his face. This is a fighting man, she realised with a small electric shock. God help me but he looks like a ruined Adonis, as tough as nails, and the leg, he just thinks that losing his leg is bloody annoying because It’s going to waste his time and keep him away from his duties. And while he’s talking to them he keeps looking at me, oh mother, help!

[drmarkbailey]

oOo

Five minutes later they left to visit the remaining wounded. McCann kept his wife in the wheelchair for that, the nurses were right as usual and it did keep some strain off her left hip muscles. They’d heal with the speed of her youth, but there was no point in straining them. Forty minutes later they were finished the round. Tracey looked very carefully at Michelle, who was looking very distracted, thoughtful, and a bit … discombobulated.

“Shelley,” she said, “you saw how much that lifted their spirits and hell, I did not see any of you lot getting upset by all the admiring male attention.” They all grinned. “Veronica and Victoria can’t be here more than a couple of days and the boys’ll be here for days, maybe weeks. If Mike agrees, d’you reckon you could organise daily morale improving visits from the girls at work? The unattached ones at any rate? You already know the routine and it really perks the wounded up.” She looked at her husband.

McCann looked at her, then at the tall redhead. “That would actually help a lot, Michelle. As you saw, I am putting Horner and them all in together so he can keep their heads together. They can talk it out, helps control the PTSD. If you could coordinate that with him it’d do a fair lot of good. And a hint. Let them just talk it out.”

Michelle looked rather thoughtful and a mix of eager and frightened, and then something firmed and she nodded. “OK, I’ll go and have a chat to him about it.” She strode off. Quickly.

“Tracey!” Veronica and Victoria both sounded exasperated and amused.

“What!? C’mon, you didn’t see that? Sparks flying everywhere! And she’s single and unattached and lonely and horny. Well, lonely more than horny. Needs a man for the lonely bit. And really needs a man for the horny bit. I mean, she’s very straight. But still horny. Definitely some hornyness in there somewhere. And she’s deep, she’s starting to work it out like I did. Oops. Did I fail in my step-mummish duty? Did one of you two want to grab him? No? Hah! Then I have scandalised you both and succeeded in my step-thingy wossname. Cue the evil stepmother bwa-ha-ha and all that jazz.”

They both laughed. Tracey grinned.

McCann just shook his head, smiling himself. “Your mum and dad will be properly scandalised, I am sure. The good Lord help Jack.”

“Anyway, Trace, back to your bed, your parents are due in a minute, and then we check you out of here. I’ve got Justin packing for us, we are on a flight to Auckland tomorrow….”

oOo

There was a soft knock at the door, and she put her head around the corner. Horner smiled. Her. Those bright green eyes!

“Can I come in?” Her voice was a soft and hesitant.

“Sure, take the seat.” She did.

“Um, Tracey had a word to me, said that as I was unattached,” God Shelley where did that come from get a grip woman, so she hastily continued “and know all the unattached girls at work, um, and that your men and you might be here for weeks, and so she asked me to come and see you about maybe organising some daily morale improving visits from the unattached girls at work?” Oh, great. that sounded like you are twelve, you idiot! Get a grip!

“Hey, that’s a good idea. It works, let me tell you. I was lying here feeling all sorry for poor little bloody me this morning, been watching the sweepers going out, and now I’m kind of bubbling along a lot better. So if it worked on me this morning, it’ll work on the men.”

He looked at her and smiled directly at her, and suddenly his face was entirely changed, and Michelle felt like she was transparent and filled with butterflies. “Nothing can cheer a man up more than having women around, especially as you were dressed and made up this morning. So absolutely, let’s get planning.”

He glanced down at the place where his lower leg used to be. “Bloody annoying that is, going to slow me down for weeks, hey, you are a reporter too, aren’t you Michelle?”

“Yes Jack,” and she nodded.

“Good. Might be some useful stories in that too. I don’t know much about media so I’ll be questioning you about how that works and how I can make it work for the ship and the Squadron.”

“Well, I am fairly new, only been at the Herald for two years, and I am going through the hoops of being accredited. Tracey’s out of action for a bit and we don’t want to lose coverage.”

“So you’ll be around a lot more. Good.”

Michelle sort of echoed internally like a glass bell with that comment.

“Jack,” said Michelle, “a personal question?”

“Maybe. Ask and I’ll answer or not.”

“I’m a reporter, so I people watch a lot. I’m doing a master’s in human factors. I noticed the way the forearms merged smoothly into your hands. That’s unusual enough for me to ask about it, and you are obviously not a bodybuilder. What is the reason for that?”

He smiled and stretched his arms up to grab the bar, and lifted himself to reposition himself slightly, which did all sorts of things to Michelle, especially as it was not aimed at her in any way.

“That is observant. Dad runs the port at Port Vila. I grew up overseas as a kid. He had a job in port management at Kiel after he decided to leave the seagoing side of his career. I was fourteen, and Kiel’s a great place, anyway across the road from our apartment was a HEMA studio. It stands for Historical European Martial Arts. I joined up as I was fourteen and sword fighting seemed cool. But the school’s HEMA’s the real deal like Krav Maga, It’s not in any way denatured or watered down. It’s not prancing about with swords, It’s a genuine mediaeval fighting skill. Really big in Europe. So I have been learning and practising German longsword for ten years, in the tradition of the 14th-century master Johannes Liechtenauer, he wrote the earliest surviving treatise on longsword in a manuscript dated 1389. Anyway, these are swordsman’s wrists. I practise a minimum of an hour a day and do so wearing armour when I can, going to be a pain to relearn movement with this gone, but at least it means I’m the most dangerous one legged dude you’ll ever meet.”

And he laughed. And her heart turned over. Oh, my.

Chapter 2

21 June 2005

They had gotten used to the stares, not from the Kiwis of course, but from the rather upper strata foreign tourists at the Taupo Hilton resort. The Kiwi staff had simply been amazing. McCann suspected that the Naval mafia had made a few quiet phone calls, as he’d been upgraded from business class to first class for the flight over and the suite he’d booked had been upgraded to the best they had beside the Presidential Suite, which had some celebrity he’d never heard of staying in it. All the alcohol had been removed before they got there, and replaced with an astounding array of coffees and teas. They had been treated like royalty. With not one phone call from his RNZN classmates, either, and that network was on overdrive since the expansion of the war. They were being protected, too. One fairly stupid guest, some entertainment industry oik he’d never heard of, had apparently complained about the “very beat-up” state of his wife as she’d put it, only to taken aside by a couple of big Kiwi coppers. Mike didn’t care. He knew the Kiwis and he knew that their story had been passed around. Mostly because of the respect and quiet dignity that had been accorded to his wife. And that a doctor from Taupo had been dropping in daily to check them both. “On his way to work” indeed! It was plausible but only just, the Taupo Hospital was very close to the resort, one of the reasons he’d picked the place aside from its tranquillity and remarkable beauty.

He smiled to himself as the hotel concierge drove the car for them. The Doc had removed bandages and put some waterproof dressings on, and told them to get themselves into the thermal pool – the Taupo region was lousy with hot springs if nowhere near what Rotorua had – and this had his new wife excited, even though she had to keep her hands out of the water for a couple more days. He felt a quiet contentment he had not felt for many, many years as he glanced at his woman. She’d chosen a bright spring dress that showed her figure to full advantage and to hell with her new colour scheme. The injuries were – temporary, he thought, temporary, and she looked amazing. Even though she’d be using a sling for many weeks yet. They’d finally taken a resort car to Lake Taupo to have a look at the town. It was picture-perfect beautiful, and the immense lake itself seemed to glow in the sunlight of the glorious winter’s day. A midwinter high pressure system had settled over the North Island. It was only 15 degrees but so still that anywhere in the sun was warm; the huge lake’s surface was a vast glassy cerulean sheet. And the meal at the well-known local trout and game restaurant was exceptional, the place was small and it was crowded. They had not noticed the restaurant gradually falling silent with ferociously concentrated listening; listening to them as they talked. For their focus was entirely on each other.

“Any regrets, Trace?”

“None,” she said. “Six more days and back to the mine battle. I know it’s there, waiting.” She placed her right hand against his cheek. “All I ask of you is that when you go out on the sweepers, I go with you while I can. That danger I think we must share and hey, it’s my job as the local war correspondent anyway”.

He took her hand and held it in his own, looking steadily into her eyes. “What would you think and do if I forbade you?”

“Accept it, knowing that you were doing it to protect me and it was done from love, not any other reason. And protecting me is your duty as my husband. Although I don’t think you would, in fact, as it touches on my honour and on my duty, too.” Her voice grew stronger. “But I voluntarily vowed to love you, honour you and obey you, my love. I made that vow in deadly earnest and because of what happened on Wilcannia’s well-deck that night.”

She gave another of those smiles that lit up the world. “How Monsignor McPherson was surprised! But I am deadly serious about it. I know that soon enough I’ll be pregnant, and that then I will stay safely ashore, while you and the men go out to fight the mines, and knowing …” her voice broke, and she stopped, tears in her eyes and falling down her cheeks.

He reached out and gently touched her face, wiping away her tears.

“Just fifteen survivors from Yandra and Adele, and Birchgrove Park was lost with all hands. Every soul aboard. Half the Squadron I started with destroyed and a hundred of my men dead in three months. A man killed a day on average. The odds against us surviving are quite bad.”

“And It’s your duty to go out. I know that and I tell you as your wife to come back with your shield or on it. But I’ll share that danger while I can, when I have my own duty.”

“No-one doubts your courage, Trace, not after Wilcannia’s well-deck in the Cawarra gale, not after Adele and her men died out there in the screaming darkness.”

She pretended to slap his hand. “You, you alpha male you! It’s not about that, it’s about knowing we might have very little time, and making sure that we make the most of what the good Lord grants us. I hope we have many years, but we are in the middle of fighting a murdering great war and there are no guarantees.”

He looked out over the lake. “You can come out, wife, I will never … rob you … in such a way. That would be an insult to your personal courage and honour and that I will never do, but we are going to be working very hard on that pregnancy thing.”

She batted her eyes at him. “Why Michael, what a splendid idea, I do think we are getting over our wounds!”

They both laughed. They’d been avoiding all reporting on the war as best they could, concentrating on living in the moment with a ferocious intensity.

“Hey, while we have this minute on this beautiful day, I had the jeweller here make up an engagement ring for you.” He took it out, and carefully placed it on her ring finger, gently snuggling it next to the wedding ring. At least the whole hand was no longer bandaged up.

She smiled in delight, and then said “hey, it was a short engagement! Short? Eight hours!”

They both laughed.

“D’ye think Michelle will ever get over that one? Or your parents, for that matter?”

“Mum and Dad are happy that I am happy. My brother’s amazed, but he’s a bit busy at Kapooka right now, said something about lots of Fijians? Anyway, the only real surprise to them was the suddenness of it and that we plan babies immediately. That, they are very happy about.”

“Shelley…,” she paused. “She’s deep, I have always thought deeper than me, she watches, and she learns very fast. I told you about how she schooled me, early on, about being an idiot. I was watching her face when she saw “Jack” Horner lying on that bed with his leg gone, and something happened behind that beautiful freckled face and sea-green eyes of hers.”

McCann nodded. “Horner’s changed enormously. He looked about 15 when he was posted in, sort of unformed, and still a bit kind of soft. Puppyfat, I’d call it for all he’s your age.”

“Well, Saint Michael has changed that!”

“Oh yes, he sort of clicked with the sweepers, really found his niche and it shows. All the softness in him has been burned away in the furnace he has gone through. He’s a tough, hardened and experienced fighting man now. I was very straight with him. He absolutely blossomed as XO on Bonthorpe, he’s got that command presence that makes a damned good commanding officer, and the best training for command is command. He’s the best of the ones we’ve got – old Zeke spotted it first, and the war’s burned the fat and softness out of him very fast. Now Zeke’s passed on a lot on Wilcannia. If he and Michelle did connect it’d be good for him, and for her. Losing a leg’s not a lot of fun, but I’ve made sure it won’t affect his career. Anyway, you want to make afternoon Mass at the Church?”

“Yes, It’s a really nice church. I like the priest, and I always have my mantilla and rosary with me now.”

He called for the bill. The manager-owner came over.

“Sir, you have no bill. The gentleman at table six paid it in advance, before he left. He said to tell you that it was his thanks, and “fair winds and following seas to you both, and to your lost.” He’s a regular, sir, a local notable. Lost his firstborn son at Second Tol, on Timor.”

As with any Australian or New Zealand fighting man, a look of killing fury flashed across McCann’s face at the mention of that horror. “Damn this endless war. Hard, bitter, bitter hard, that. They died like the Spartans at the Hot Gate, those men. Please pass on my thanks to him next you meet, and tell him that we left for Mass at Tongoriro Church, and that we will both pray and light a candle for the soul of his son.”

“For that,” he sighed, “he asked me not to tell you his name, but I shall for that reason alone, his son was named Joseph William McCallister, sir. He was a private, wanted to rise from the ranks that way. The McCallisters are an old and respected Taupo family, he the wayward son coming good.”

oOo

Jackson spoke softly to his wife.

“Look at them, honey, that interesting couple we’ve seen around. Might get a chance to talk to them seeing they’re coming this way.”

His wife spoke as softly back. “I don’t know what happened to his very young wife or him, but maybe she should wear a one-piece, she looks very odd like that and it’s got to hurt.”

It was a story they repeated for many years afterwards. Both were limping, but the beautiful young woman looked very strange, small, long glorious blonde hair sweeping almost to her waist, very pale-skinned, fit, and one entire side a massive black, purple and technicolour mass of bruises which reached around her very trim muscular torso from her front centreline almost to her spine, and her left arm in a sling. Her face was also heavily bruised and the left eye was a real shiner. When she’d arrived, she’d had both hands and her whole left arm and shoulder heavily bandaged as well. He was a lot older than her, but very fit, with a flat belly and a powerful V shaped torso with heavy muscles, but smooth and flowing, not a bodybuilder’s great angular slabs. His left arm and chest were also massively mottled with the deep welling bruises that come from serious internal muscle damage – had to hurt like hell but he showed no sign of it. Jackson knew all about those sort of injuries from his own life, but it was his face which attracted attention. By no means handsome, it was a face carved from weathered teak, a face that spent its time outdoors and which was used to leading. Like a lumber team work-boss, only more so. Jackson knew. That’s where he’d started, lumberjacking in Oregon when he was 16, hard, dangerous work, but it made men. The man’s face was also a solid, massive bruise on the left side, with a tremendous jagged wound – maybe thirty to fifty stitches long – stretching from the edge of his nose to his left ear. Something had damned near taken his face off. An eye patch had replaced the bandages he’d first been seen wearing. And he was genuinely and openly appreciating the view.

The injured young woman looked back over her right shoulder back at him, her long blonde hair swirling, and her face wore a radiantly happy smile when she looked back.

“No, don’t be silly, sweetheart, she’s dressed to please him, and no-one else. She’s crazy mad in love with the guy.”

“Married,” she said, “but surely the oddest newlyweds I have ever seen. She’s no trophy wife, though, and he...”

Where had … recognition bloomed. “That’s a fighting man, Mirry, and a veteran one. No idea what sort of fighting man, but he cannot possibly be anything else.”

OK, that is spectacular, McCann thought, she’s turning every head and It’s not because of the unusual colour scheme! And she’s your woman and they know it. He laughed inside at his ridiculous vanity, banishing it. But it was nice to have his wife turning heads, so she damned well should.

After a degree of gentle fooling around – it had to be gentle – he’d helped Tracey put on her new bikini and she was walking ahead a little in her eagerness to get to the smaller, hotter pool, giving the impression that she’d prefer to be skipping. He was a bit slower as he was limping more than she was now – younger muscles recovered faster than older joints – and so he had a very nice view to appreciate. Due to the total lack of wind and the bright sunshine there were quite a few people out on the deck and around the pools, although hotel robes were popular after people got out. The water in the small pool was extremely warm, almost too hot, and they both eased into it with rueful looks of relief at the other. She carefully kept her hands out of the water and winced a bit as the healing splits in her flesh under the waterproof bandages on her left breast went under. There were a dozen people there, all of them much older than her and most older than her husband. She cuddled up to him and very carefully rested her head on his left shoulder. Her hands were carefully held out of the water.

“Feel better?”

“Ooooh yes, love,” she sighed. “The doctor said it would help, too and he was surely right. You?”

“Same.” He very gingerly flexed his still only partly healed left arm in the hot water and carefully reached around her waist with it, keeping it clear of her shoulder and arm with excruciating care, barely touching her skin. “Aren’t we a pair of absolute crocks!”

A big man in his 50s, still heavily muscled but running now to a belly, nodded at them and introduced himself and his matronly wife.

Mike returned the greeting. “Good to meet you, Jackson and Miranda, you from Texas, from the accents?” They nodded and smiled, pleased. “Mike and Tracey McCann, on our honeymoon. You here on business, holiday, hunting or fishing?”

“All four if we can manage it, the business side is done. Organising a big timber supply contact for the US Army. Came over myself to make sure it was done right, and fast. Never dealt with you New Zealanders before so It’s new territory but they had a great bid, and dealing with them’s just been a dream. Everyone has bent over backwards to facilitate the contract and hasten export of the lumber, especially the bureaucrats. I can’t believe it went so smoothly, took less than half the time I’d allowed, so I flew my wife out here for a break. I know it’s rude to ask, and please don’t answer if it offends, but how the heck did you and your lady wife get so banged up? Car wreck? I’m a lumber man and recognise your arm’s injury pattern, Mike, strain injury. You wanted something lifted real bad but it would be both arms in my industry, see that when men lift a log off a trapped man. If I may say, Mrs McCann,” he shook his head, “ma’am I have seen a lot of men get injured and even killed in the logging and lumber game, but never any injury pattern like that. And that’s a heck of a wound to your face, Mike.”

Mike sighed internally. He liked Texans a lot, they were courteous folk. But almost insatiably curious. And the really smart ones were like this man, intelligent and highly observant.

“We are Australians, and when not cuddling my gorgeous new wife in a hot pool,” Tracey smiled softly at the compliment and snuggled in very slightly. Mike complimented her about a third or half the number of times she did him, but he meant every one very seriously, “I command a Royal Australian Navy minesweeper Squadron, Tracey’s a war correspondent attached to my Squadron. One of my ships was mined last week when we were sweeping a minefield in a gale, we got a bit smashed up while rescuing the survivors, so my XO is running the show while we recover a little. So it’s just the war, as normal.”

Miranda very obviously jabbed her husband gently with her elbow in slow motion, a gesture meant to be seen, a wry look on her face.

“Well, I do open my mouth mostly to change feet, sir. Sorry I asked, I do apologise, unlike most of my countrymen I do realise that you and New Zealand have been at war for six years now, and it just got a lot worse. Not something you should recall or want to talk about on your honeymoon.”

“Oh, no apology needed, but yes, possibly not a honeymoon topic! Especially as Tracey’s nodding very slightly and so is your lady wife. So I’ll do a really obvious conversation change, how’d you wind up in the timber business?”

oOo

“Amazing the people you meet,” said Tracey as they waved at the taxi. “What a lovely couple. Been nice having dinner with them over the last few days. And what a story their life has been, from 16 year old lumberjack to building and owning a multi-million dollar business! I did not know there were many Catholics in Texas, let alone that they were the bulk of the actively religious there. They loved Tongariro church! Perhaps we can take them up on that come-and-stay-with-us offer after the war sometime? Where they live sounds really fascinating, and their cathedral sounds stunning.” She sounded sort of wistful.

“Oh, no need to sound at all dubious, Trace, that offer was deadly serious and they will keep in touch. Texans are like that and we’ll certainly visit when we can. We have to keep in touch too, It’s sort of a cultural thing, especially with Texans. I’ll keep in touch with Jackson every couple of months, you’ll have to keep in touch with Miranda every couple of weeks so stick it in your office calendar. Thank God for email systems.”

oOo

“Oh, damn,” said Mike softly at dinner that evening in the Hilton’s excellent restaurant, “looks like we lose the last day of our honeymoon, Tracey.”

His eyes were locked on the restaurant entrance, which his wife’s back was to. She sighed and set down the fork she’d been twirling while looking at the menu. The RNZN Lieutenant had not taken her hat off and bore an aiguillette, so it was serious, and she drew every eye as she threaded her way through the busy restaurant. She got to the table and saluted. McCann nodded – all he could do when seated and in civvies.

“Yes, Lieutenant … Shalders?” name badges were very useful things

“Sir, ma’am, I formally apologise on behalf of Chief of Navy, and I assure you that your recuperation leave and honeymoon has not been cut short. However, I have been instructed to deliver these orders from Maritime Component Commander, Commodore William Dyke. There will be a vehicle here for you Monday morning at 0900, to take your and Mrs McCann to the airport for a flight to Wellington.”

“Acknowledged, Lieutenant, and my thanks for the courtesy of delivering these by hand, I know it makes a long day for you. Please present my compliments, and my apologies that I will have no choice but to be in civvies.”

“No issue on that score sir, your steward is in Wellington with your uniforms.”

“Leading Seaman McWhirter is here? That’s a bad sign, Lieutenant.” He sighed gloomily. “He’ll be chatting up the hotel concierge. I can sense it.”

“It was the desk clerk, sir.”

“Hah! I knew it!”

The Lieutenant laughed.

“You flying back tonight, Lieutenant?”

She grinned. “No sir! Not tonight, and as It’s Saturday night and we are talking Monday, and I’ve been a good little doobie and have not had a day off in two months, and it’s the boss’s wedding anniversary tomorrow, the boss actually told me to book in here, relax tomorrow, and escort you on Monday. It’s a Wirraway II, a military Airvan, so there’s plenty of room.” She held up her left hand. “And I have a fiancé lurking about too. Your steward, who is quite a character but I guess you know that, actually pouted when I said he could not come along, then he organised the uniform I’ve got for you in my dunnage, and made a beeline for the nearest chap who set off his gaydar – that’s...”

“A quote. Yes, I know, I know, oh, how I know.”

Tracey was laughing her head off.

“Mike, we have not ordered yet, might Lieutenant Shalders join us for dinner? Without shop, please?”

He thought about this extremely briefly. “OK, and yes, no shop. Not on the last day-and-a-bit of our kinda-sorta-honeymoon.”

The dinner was quite pleasant. So was the evening that followed.

“Darling.”

“Hmm?”

“You know I am a reporter, right?”

“I had guessed this.”

“And that we find stuff out.”

“Guessed that too.”

“I found out that there’s no CCTV coverage of the hot pool after midnight in winter and that the lights there are not connected to any motion sensors.”

“I sense a plan. And It’s nearly midnight. It is also very cold.”

“Not in the pool It’s not. And I’ll be weeeeiiiiiight-less.”

“I like this plan.”

Chapter 3

28 June 2005

One thing about New Zealand, the landscapes were amazing. The flight down had been remarkably smooth, too, for New Zealand in winter. Tracey and Christine Shalders – who was looking remarkably sleek and self-satisfied as her fiancé had been in town as well – were getting as thick as thieves. Mike grinned to himself. They had to have been deconflicting pool timings after midnight, if he was any judge. But it was game face on now and back to life as normal – the war. He glanced at his watch. Tracey would be checking in to the hotel where his steward was also staying, so that would be fine. He’d told her to go shopping. Wellington was pretty good for that. Nice city. If too windy. Also too wet. Also too cold. And very hilly. With lots of little earthquakes. And some big ones. Actually, Wellington was not such a nice place. But Kiwis were weird, tough sods, and they seemed to like it. So to say otherwise would be rude.

It took a few minutes to navigate to the Commodore’s office. Lieutenant Shalders took him straight in without knocking.

“Sir, Commander McCann.”

“Thanks Flags. Good day off? Hope you got Jon up there too.”

“Yes and yes, sir.”

“Good. Thanks, Flags.” She exited and closed the door.

Oho, thought Mike. This will be interesting. His orders had just said return to light duties today, consultations with the RNZN for four days, then home for medical reassessment to confirm further treatments to allow eventual return to sea duty. Which his job was.

Eyes searched his, looking for something. Apparently, they found it. He came around the desk and gestured at the lounge chairs, then shook hands. They’d never been friends, but they knew each other from years ago, doing shred-yourself-before-thinking-about-it sort of work.

“Mike, good to see you, been many years. Heard what happened on the grapevine, glad to see you pulled out of it. You’ve been doing a good job since and I was surprised to hear of your re-marriage. Come around for dinner tonight and bring your new wife. May would love to meet her.”

“Thanks sir, much appreciated and will do.”

“Flags will be there too, with her fiancé. And it really is mostly social.”

“OK, sir. Now – consultations?”

“Yeah, the guts of it is that as you already knew, the Sovs somehow managed to refresh the fields off your coast, and did us over with a couple of sub lays that we know of – the P-3 blokes killed a Foxtrot, we’ve since found the wreck. If they did us they did you too, of course. But we are having a hell of a time against the ground mines. Have you been following the news?”

“Very deliberately no, sir. Been recovering and to be honest, focussing every waking second on living our honeymoon to the fullest with my new wife. We – stopped waiting on forever. The only time that matters is now.”

“Good. So you bloody well should. I’ve been old boy net briefed and it appears you both earned it, and she’s absolutely a keeper.”

“If John Sheldrake smoothed things along at Taupo, please pass my sincere thanks.”

“He did, I will, and I don’t think you know just how well known your wife is over here. Her reporting, well let’s say It’s had an impact. She has a real knack for the small human details that resonate with us. But let me tell her that tonight please, she has a warco role in this. We lost two MSA last week in Cook Strait, Mike. Both with all hands. The cold got the survivors. Both to something new. Both in waters we thought were clear. No, let me finish.”

He paused. “That’s why I asked COMAUSFLT for help. As you know, we just don’t have any modern minehunters and nobody anywhere has any spare kit, let alone spare minehunters. So we are expanding into AMS, upgunning from our MSA, same as you did before the war. And being inventive types we’ve come up with what we think is a cheap and cheerful COTS-and-bodge high freq mine-warning sonar concept, able to be pretty quickly fitted to a sweeper. We’d like you to look it over, check the results against what your own experiences have been, as if it seems worthwhile as a warning set we’ll use it. Obviously it’ll be available to you.”

McCann was silent for a long time. “That does not make sense. Not basing our ideas of threat on what we have seen them do to date here. So ...they have to have done something different again. What do the intel analysts say?”

“They think it’s a bottom or moored riser, that they have modified something like the old RM-1 or RM-2 or PMR-2 or something as a specialist anti auxiliary minesweeper and coastal shipping mine. We don’t know how they are surface laying them but we are all working on it.”

McCann paled. “Adele.”

Commodore Dyke grunted and let it go. The man’s unit had taken shattering losses. He had to run on for a minute.

He shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe. Could have been... hang on. They have already deliberately targeted our sweepers so this sort of thing is already within their tactical thinking, but It’s not only us using AMS and MSA. Have the poms or yanks seen anything like this in their waters?” He pulled himself up with obvious effort.

“Not for us here, is it sir? The intelo’s will have chewed all this over so I think you have a bunch of reports for me to read. OK, what do you want me to do? Flags has briefed me on how my Squadron’s going, in broad terms.”

“We’ve got a hasty plan for rapid expansion. You’ve done that and with reserves and new recruits like we will have to. Need you to look it over, comment, talk to our people, advise on training and people. Flags has been with me long enough and knows our system inside out. We are tapped out for experienced people so she gets the gig of setting this up and maybe commanding the Flotilla, six AMS in two groups plus MSA and the rest. Bump her up a rank maybe. I get a new Flags, the poor little sod. The Japanese have been helpful, sending eight for you and six for us. By the way, they believe that it’s actually an attack to disrupt their energy supplies, and if so it’s working. Their coal imports from Australia are down 11% and they are focussing all their import efforts on you, you are the closest source of supply. Atlantic Concentration in reverse.”

“Ironies, there. Sir, I’ll look her over but I’ll plant this seed. I’ll check it but Shalders’ experience set may not be right for that load to start with. In fact I’d be amazed if it is, the RNZN has not had a MCM community. You might want to borrow someone like my XO or Tripod’s XO – he’s really good – as your Squadron commander for a few months with Shalders as his XO, make-learnee.”

He paused. “And Saint Michael preserve your MSA crews.”

He paused. “We’re calling the AMS the Turakina class,” he said softly.

McCann nodded. “The ghosts off Cape Farewell deserve that honour. Those men fought her to the end in that lonely, desperate action off the Cape, but we used the name Birchgrove Park, sir. We never will again. All hands. Twice.”

“We are requisitioning quite a few more. They’ll have to fill the gap the hard way until the better ships come on line, and we have to hope that the mine search system can give them some level of self-protection. And if they have used it against us, they have used it against you.”

“And now I know what you want Tracey to do.”

oOo

The coffee was excellent. There had been no alcohol with the dinner, the excuse being that they all needed clear heads. McCann was gently amused.

“So the analgesics are really kicking in, and I say Hey it was a short engagement!”

Shelley sort of shrieks, “Short!?”

And I say, “About eight hours. That’s kinda short.”

“Well, poor Shelly, she yells, Eight hours! And just loses it completely.”

They all burst out laughing. May Dyke – privately Tracey thought the Commodore’s surname unfortunate for any woman he married – was a lovely woman, a tall and willowy brunette in her early 50s with a very trim figure for a woman who had borne her husband four children. Have to get a bit of advice from her on that score. Three or four sounds about right, starting right now, and I absolutely must keep this figure, it delights him and hell, who wants to look like a fat slob? She felt her heart turn over inside her and glanced at him. Need more advice on being a Navy wife.

May saw the wheels turning, and the glance. Totally, totally gone. Head over heels. Don’t blame her one bit. But she’s so young! She reconsidered that, the brain behind that face was more experienced than it should be. This was no schoolgirl. The War, the damned, endless war, it’s all she’s known since she was at high school. The young woman was very well dressed in a casual dress which made no concessions whatsoever to the still vivid injuries. Not flaunting, no, more like ignoring it. She’s just dressing to please her man. And it does please him. Smart for such a young woman. Even wise.

May asked the question she’d been considering. “Tracey, one thing is going to puzzle a lot of people, although it does not really puzzle me. Why did you decide on the voluntary vow of obedience? It really made the media over here. I ask as you would not know yet that It’s become known in the worst kind of media, and kicked up quite a fuss with the usual idiots. You may have to face that when you get back and I would not have you face it un-alerted.”

Tracey’s face went professional and calculating, the steel showing through. “Thank you very much indeed, May. Forewarned is forearmed, and by telling me you have made sure that I can go on the offensive and ambush them. Why?” She paused and gathered her thoughts. “Three main reasons. Firstly because what they peddle is a total lie, they lied to me, and I fell for it. The traditional ways work. Men and women are complementary and they want to pit us against each other: instead we should work to please the other. If we both do that, what a wonderful thing life becomes, and how rich are its rewards. Secondly, I was dead and I knew it, May! I felt the shoulder shatter like glass, the second smash was worse, I felt the ribs crack. I felt my line part. And then the suction pulling me in, I knew that I was going to be rammed through that scupper like meat through a grinder. I’d have exited a mass of smashed bones and then been beaten to death against the hull or very quickly drowned. Then Mike got me, and held on. I can close my eyes and see him when the Wilcannia righted from her beam ends, nothing held back, do or die effort. It took me a while to realise that, that there was no possibility of him letting go and his injuries prove it. Either we both went through the scupper, or we both didn’t. How do I repay that debt, how can I even come close? Thirdly, the services go out every day and put their lives on the line so that we can stay safe at home.”

She paused and closed her eyes, recalling.

“And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple

Yes. So thank you for the warning. If they attack me I will nail them to the wall. Live interviews only, I know the tricks of selective editing.”

They nodded at her deadly seriousness at the prospect. May was puzzled. “Tracey, you’re a Shakespeare aficionado?”

She shook her head. “Not until I met Mike. So-called modern education barely touches Shakespeare. But having been exposed to them I love his plays, especially The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice.”

Mike intervened, “BBC ran a season of Shakespeare program years ago, I have them on CD now. We watch them when we can.”

The Commodore nodded “Which brings us neatly to your role as designated warco, after I sack my Flags.”

Shalders looked very surprised by this statement. “Sirrr??”

“Yes, your time is up, and we have a more important job for you. Rest of this week bolt yourself to Commander McCann here and switch to receive mode. You know of the plan to move from two small groups of MSA based at Auckland and Wellington to a much larger unit, 1st New Zealand Minesweeping Flotilla? It will have an AMS Squadron. The Commander 2nd Minesweeper Squadron 32nd Minesweeper Flotilla there is going to assess your skill levels, because after training and experience makee-learnee, which might include a stint as unit XO under a RAN officer TCO, it’s going to be yours. Promotion bump of course.”

She started to smile, and McCann deliberately moved to temper matters. He glanced at the Commodore.

“Lieutenant, I am going to be very, very hard on you and work you even harder, so prepare yourself for that. That’s because It’s a very hard, very dangerous game we play. You will remember with fondness how easy and simple life as Flags was – which is just isn’t, as you know. Also please realise that this is a truly excellent opportunity to get killed, and that you will lose ships and men. Each will take a bite out of your soul. We’ll meet tomorrow at 0500 to look over some reports so you get the threat, the rest of the week here working through your planning and a mountain of other matters, you HOTO Flags on Friday, then across the ditch, start Saturday at Waterhen getting briefed until your head feels like exploding, then you come to HMAS Namoi and stick to my XO and me like glue, I hope to be cleared for light duty on Friday but I won’t be permitted to go to sea for a while yet.”

She glanced at her fiancé, a sensible, physically powerful young man, but a civilian. He cleared his throat to speak.

“Jon,” Tracey said, “you and I and May need to chat. How about we do that while the naval types sort out naval-type-stuff?”

oOo

The house layout was Victorian, so they sat in the old drawing room, now obviously May’s office-cum-craft room.

May took pity on him.

“Jon, this is what happens. Welcome to the wonderful world of navy spouses. Yes, it’s a full time job for you if she gets the Squadron. Work with the XO’s wife on the family support things. It’s important.”

“I have been sorting that out, May, but this is a fairly major change at no notice.”

“It happens all the time. Your job is to roll with it and support her. Remember that as well as you, she has the service and basically it comes first. Tracey, comment?”

“Yes. Marry her right now. Mike will give you an afternoon for that. Do it tomorrow. If family can make it, fine, if not, fine. There’s a war on. It will be a great … comfort … for her, an anchor-point of sanity in a world gone mad. She’s going to need that, your duty to her is to hold that anchor fast so she can cling to you, because that is the only protection you can give her. You have absolutely no idea how bad the world she’s entering is. I do because I am lucky, I met Mike in it but I had to grow up very fast and dump my existing worldview. That was the hardest thing I have ever done. And I am lucky. Until I get pregnant I can share the danger when doing my job, I’ll go out whenever Mike does, so if he’s killed I will be too: I’d... I’m... I sort of find a strange comfort in that? Can’t properly explain it. You can’t do that. You can only stand on the wharf and wonder if she’s coming back. You are an electrician? Plenty of work in Newcastle. Follow her.”

May resumed. “Yes. Follow her. She’ll need that too. And prepare for changes. The pressure on her will be enormous, and if – when – she loses a ship it will be worse.”

Jon looked puzzled, “bit early for kids for you, isn’t it, Tracey?”

Tracey and May exchanged a glance. Civvies, always three steps behind.

“Jon, in my case, my man proposed. I said yes, but he did not have to as I owed him everything, he’d just saved my life and would have died with me if he had failed. I told him then that no matter what, I was his woman. Then he told me to stop taking the pill. Of course I said yes. Look, let me use a fanciful and extreme example; if he’d told me to come here tonight in a string bikini I’d have come here tonight in a string bikini and smiled why I did so. Do you understand why?”

“You have vowed to obey him.”

“No: if me coming along tonight in a string bikini made him happy, I’d do it and the smile would be absolutely genuine because he was happy. Obviously he’s just not that shallow and it’s just an extreme example. You need to understand that my whole aim in life is to make his life as good for him as I can while respecting and honouring him. His aim in life is to both to protect me and to make my life as good for me as he can while respecting and honouring me. Get it yet? May?”

“Give and give, not take. It works. For you It’s going to be much harder because she’s the one…” She paused, and thought.

She leaned forward. “Jon, I know that you love Christine. Look at me. Now listen to me very, very carefully. Do you truly understand that there is about a one in four chance that Christine will be dead within six months? And that there is absolutely nothing you can do about that?”

His eyes flew open wide as the real world crashed into his brain.

oOo

Ten minutes later they re-entered the dining room. May shooed Christine and Jon out. Telling her husband they had things to discuss.

“Now, you,” said the Commodore to Tracey. “Warco stuff. Need you to accompany your husband and Christine on a chunk of their rounds and also talk to the WELGROUP MSA guys. A third of them died last week, two ships lost. Need material like the mine battle stuff you’ve been doing over the ditch. Need it now.”

She considered this for a moment. “Can do, I’ll talk to my editor, remember I am a domestic warco and work for him so my copy goes to him, and this is international work. Should not be an issue, we syndicate it anyway. I can talk with your PAO people and get the necessary contacts and official green light – don’t want to tread on oversea warco toes. It won’t be happy stuff and it won’t be “steely chins up” stuff either. But it will be very real. You are preparing the ground for heavy losses, aren’t you.”

It was not a question. He just nodded.

Chapter 4

30 June 2005

The PAO Director was a Captain. Public Affairs was more than people thought, which explained his sky-high security clearance. “Why is this something we should get involved in? It’s not our affair or our fight.”

The man with only a Christian name nodded. “True, Captain, and we do not believe you should be involved. And that’s not the intention. This particular loose alliance of radical leftists have been in the pay of the USSR, fellow travellers and useful idiots of course, the Sovs are not silly enough to use low-quality people like this for anything serious. They are like those “Women for nuclear disarmament” groups back in the 80s. Useful idiots, as Lenin termed them.”

He paused. “They have started this fight as part of their usual anti-Western jihad. It just happens to involve the Navy due to her husband. We’ve checked her, she was quite the parlour pink herself at university, and we now know with certainty that she has entirely changed on that matter.”

“How? No, I do not need to know.”

“Actually, you do. We interviewed people and evaluated what she has said in private conversations in New Zealand. So we know what we know.”

The Captain looked at the man with honest revulsion on his face and in his voice. “You bugged their honeymoon suite?”

“I’ll not reveal that sort of operational detail even if I knew it, which I do not. Personally, I think not, but I just do not know. Suffice to say that we are certain she’s on our side.”

“What benefit is there, then?”

“Ruining the reputations of and so crippling the efficiency of two of the better propagandists and activists from a loose group of Soviet fellow-travellers acting against our national interest.”

The Captain stood, walked to the window of the Defence tower block in Sydney and looked out at the War Memorial in Hyde Park. My war is different to yours, he thought at the ghosts there, but no less real, if ... dirtier.

“Not a nice game, yours, but we need it. I do need to keep Navy’s name and reputation clear and clean, otherwise, what does your organisation want in terms of support?”

“We know what she’s got planned and It’s not bad, its rather juvenile, personal and unformed and won’t work well at this stage, but that is excellent cover. I need one of your most experienced female PAO officers...”

4 July 2005

The board had changed. And not for the better.

32nd Minesweeper Flotilla, 2nd Squadron
AMS 32/1 Koraaga (MSA), Bombo, Bonthorpe,
AMS 32/2 Wilcannia, Vigilant
AMD 32/3 Nambucca, Whyrallah, Akuna
SDB: Belmont, Tokal, Coal Point (motor yachts, cut down and armed, 1 x 20mm Oerlikon, 2 x .30cal MG
Dan layers: Wallace Star, Stockton, Sugarloaf
Examination vessels: Cutlass, Adolphe
Sidescanners: William the Fourth (wooden paddle steamer)
4 50-footers
Calamity II (requisitioned motor yacht)
Mount Lookitthat (requisitioned motor yacht)

“I agree with her skipper, Akuna’s getting close to the bottom of the barrel.”

His XO nodded. “Those useless Sea Shepherd shits certainly knew nothing about maintenance or basic seamanship, but I am glad we requisitioned her, even if she’s ancient she’s very strongly built. The ship was built in 1956 as a Norwegian Fisheries research and enforcement ship and they ran through a bunch of names for the poor thing before renaming her again for some Canuckistani high priest of the Gaia holy-roller global warmy cult. Farley Mowatt they called her after a bunch of other names, what a name! At 180 feet and 657 tons displacement, her one-inch thick riveted and welded steel hull at least makes her sturdy. We had to fully refit everything and give her a new engine. Those cretins damaged the indestructible old German engine she was fitted with. Amazing. She was built for the North Sea so she’s weatherly.”

He started laughing. McCann cast a quizzical eye at him.

“OK, what’s funny?”

“Well, being idiots, and being outrageously outraged, the sheep-shaggers of the sea minced into action, handbags swinging! They challenged the requisition in the Federal Court. Of course they lost, and they lost with costs because the Federal Court was pretty ticked at such an obvious waste of their time by a bunch of self-entitled preening elitist knobs. They could not afford the bill, so the A-G seized the ship in lieu. So they don’t get a dollar from us for her! Apparently you can hear their screams from Pluto!”

It took McCann a minute or two to stop laughing.

“So that’s about it, boss. Morale’s a bit shaky but It’s firming again. The deciding factor has really been the city, if they quietly respect the boys as brave men then they act like it. It’s also helped that the girls are paying them a lot of attention. The word got out about the roster the Herald girls were running to keep the wounded company and it sort of went from there.

“Jack?”

The response was sober and totally professional. “Done a very, very good job with the Wilcannia men, lot of respect developed there. If he’s cheerful and determined they have no reason not to be as he is maimed and they are not, and he’s working his arse off in rehab, starts back here in a week on crutches and a scooter for getting about the wharf, he’s a bit weak yet, lost too much weight with an infection, sorted now, so starts on half days and I’ll enforce that. Got my PO sorted so that he focuses on the admin stuff the XO does. Work he needs to know and it keeps him inside for a bit. That long redhead with the green eyes, forgotten her name, and he seem to have entered a rapidly tightening spiral of mutual attraction. She’s starting to look at him like Tracey looks at you. It must be catching. When’s she back?”

McCann nodded. “Her name’s Michelle and she’s Tracey’s best mate. She’s due back tomorrow after a bunfight on some morning TV show. Justin and some of her mates are moving some of her stuff into the suite today. Justin’s then taking a couple of days of leave in Sydney. He and Tracey are friends so he’s going to drive her around tomorrow morning for the TV stuff.”

“Good. Glad the suites are rated as MQ. Makes things easier for the pusser. Got the Kiwi two-ringer and her husband in one. He’s a commercial sparky and a good one, also got as high tension ticket which is bloody brilliant, plenty of work for him here so the pusser’s got him on the base contractor list. Good to have a live-in building maintainer, takes the weight off the tiffies a bit.”

“Oh, and boss, nearly forgot, you’ll love this. That young loony up at the fort’s got the 6-inchers working, they look amazing, and the little git’s got official support and ammo. It’s officially an illumination battery now.”

“Really? Industrious little sod! How the hell did he manage that?”

“Adele. He pointed out that with standard M485 series illumination projectiles he’d have been able to maintain excellent illumination of the search area for two ships all night long irrespective of the gale, and that this would have made SAR a hell of a lot more efficient. It was a convincing paper, and he identified large stocks of old-series rounds and fuzes, which the Army was not going to use even in training. It was,” he opined gravely, “a bloody good paper. COMAUSMINFOR endorsed it as a useful local SAR assist.”

“Wow. Going to be interesting. And the little git will also get HE, I can feel it in my bones. And it is actually a decent idea. It would have been quite useful.”

“OK back from his particular pit of madness. The Kiwi sparky will take a load off our boys. Good. You know what’s required there and the damn medicos won’t let me go back to sea yet, I have to have that op on my eye socket.”

“Boss, stop whinging. It takes what it takes when you are WIA, that’s all. And as Tracey can’t go out yet either it’ll make her happier too.”

He shook his leonine, white-bearded old head. “Lemme tell you that I am impressed. XO gets to know everything, so I still cannot believe that you two were bouncing each other off the walls and there was not even a rumour. Good OPSEC, you two.”

“Heh. Yes. Well, enough of your jibber-jabber. Lieutenant Shalders, I mean Stefanovic, has a brute of a job in front of her so she sticks to you like glue, which means Tracey can educate her brand new husband. The Kiwi planning was pretty good though, but they’ve left it way too late. They are going from ten MSA, well, eight now, to 18 and six AMS with a full Squadron structure. They have stuff-all minesweeping knowledge depth compared to us so remember what I said. Odds-on you’ll get the gig of TCO over there for six months.”

McCann continued. “The intel brief was worrying. But at least we think we know the why of it. Strategic target to hurt the Japanese, put the Chinese on notice and using only their older kit that we still have serious problems dealing with as we can’t afford to have out modern minehunters here.”

“Sucks to be us, then, boss, what did the experimental Kiwi system look like?”

“KKK, the famous Klever Kiwi Kludge. The comparator is the AN/SQQ-32 in water column search. We have very good data for it. The Kiwi prototype has zero bottom ID capability. It’s basically a bunch of souped up fish finders, which as you know are fancy fathometers really, mounted from the horizontal to 40 degree look-down, from right ahead to 45 degrees on either bow. Now, the clever bit is that they handed it over to computer gamers, who are all apparently completely insane, but there’s a clever processor too, I know damn-all about that. The clever gamer bit is that they get 24 14-inch colour monitors, the new non-CRT jobs, and mount them on a curved frame with the operator sitting in the middle of it. Gamers. We don’t think that way, but they made it like a sim. Data from the little HF fathometers are displayed on that. OK, it works and it’s intuitive, It’s simple, it’s very cheap. You sit and look for mines like you are looking from under the bow in clear water. Visual search, a computer game. It’s accurate in range and bearing. The range frankly sucks. It’s lucky to get 1500 feet with any reliability,1000 feet is what we can reasonably rely on, and a sweeper travels 500 feet a minute at 5 knots. It’s gossamer fragile and extremely bulky. It’s even a bloody fire hazard and it eats electricity. Reliability will be a big problem and on something as lively as a sweeper it’s going to have bits falling off. But.”

“But.”

“But it’s no more than two percent of the price of one AN/SQQ-32 even if we could get it, which we can’t. In water column search it gives us perhaps seven percent of the AN/SQQ-32 capability and it’s a good seven percent. It works and we can have a better and cleaned up version within weeks at maybe 75K. DSTO’s doing a crash evaluation of all the high-end fathometer heads they can lay their hands on. One day on a slip to fit the sonar head and say goodbye to a quarter of the cafeteria. The reason I have recommended “go” is that we can have it fast and it shows that we are doing something that sort of works. A bit. And we have to do something even if only for morale.”

“Don’t like the sound of that boss.”

“Join the club. At least we’ll be getting a better sidescan picture with the new aluminium monohulls from the recreational boat building industry. Nice boats, fifty foot, very little superstructure, so decent speed and good sea keeping. Look like a fifty foot version of the old thirty-three foot sea boats. I loved driving them as a Mid.”

He rubbed his right hand over his face, the left arm was still very far from recovered.

“The maritime intel centre analytical shop worked out the refresh. Surface disguised minelayer. They tracked its radar although it did not use it much. Can’t tell you how. Need to know. Mostly it was sighted. Clever sods disguised it as a Chinese merchant ship in use as an extempore AGI so that if we pinged it we’d behave circumspectly, the old “give them their expectations” cover. Those bastards are brilliant at maskirovka. When it closed the coast it did so in thick weather and on the sort of target you’d expect an AGI to get close to. Ironically, if we’d been doing things the WWII way we’d have nailed it more easily. And it’s big, really big. I have a bad feeling that we have a hell of a lot more mines out there than we think, and I’d be astounded if we have not got a lot of heavy old ground mines like UDM-2 out there and we are not seeing them yet, which means long delay fusing. One of the Kiwi MSA’s lost ... it smells like a very heavy ground mine in 300 feet and those things carry a 1350 kilo warhead. The other, yep. Agree with their assessment that it’s something like a modded PMK of some kind, a specific mod just for us. It scored a direct hit on one of the MSA and they have also lost three fishing boats.”

oOo

6 July 2005

“No. Go to hell. Not going to happen.” Tracey’s voice had live steel in it.

“But It’s the only way to cover the bruising! You will look terrible.” The make up artist was almost wailing.

“Has it dawned on you that I don’t want it covered?”

Tracey thought the woman’s bovine look of utter incomprehension was pretty appropriate to live morning TV in Australia. She thought of it as early morning cretin fodder. As opposed to evening television, which was early evening moron fodder. Vive la bloody difference, not.

They did not watch much television.

She looked at Justin, and he just raised an eyebrow.

Their fix was in, of course. It was the way they worked. Two radical left-wing feminists with the interview to be conducted by the usual airheads, the agenda to be the usual, Tracey to be the lefty narrative punching bag de jour. Stupid white girl. Religious. Dominated by the patriarchy. Marriage-is-prostitution. All their usual stuff. A friend of Justin’s but someone she’d also dealt with once or twice and amicably in the past – a PAO here in Sydney – had quietly come and seen her to offer support. PAO was being very quiet about it, but she said they were personally incensed at the attacks and at the personal level wanted to help. Tracey just had to keep it quiet as their Captain, who Tracey knew to be a formidably intelligent and able man, would not be one bit happy if he found out officially. She was happy to oblige. The Lieutenant-Commander’s after-hours help had been invaluable, especially in role-playing it out and refining the decision-trees and script. And the insult she’d come up with was just brilliant.

She was straining at the traces, eager for this battle.

oOo

Good, she thought coldly when she saw them, and they are wearing semi-masculinised business style attire. And their management had entirely accepted her own performance, even to the point of allowing her to call up specific imagery, and to walk on from the right of the set. Too arrogant to think that this opens my left side to the cameras, she thought. They thought it would rate well. It would. The hook was irresistibly baited for them: pictures and video no-one had ever seen or ever would without her personal approval and permission, plus some stuff her PAO helper had been able to provide on the quiet. And they had been denied copies. They could show it, but not record or retain it. Which they would do anyway, and which she would sue them for when they used it, the Lieutenant-Commander had helped with that, too, as she knew a senior officer in RAN legal.

Cultural Marxists to the slaughter, she thought as she waited to the side, staying in the shadow created by the brilliant studio lights so she could not be seen, fat, complacent arrogant and stupid landwhales. She was wearing her pearls and an elegant, ankle length cream dress, armless and low cut with the thinnest shoulder straps – but with a long wrap of the same colour around her shoulders and arms to hide that fact. And she’d already shucked the sling, the bandages gave some support and her hands were still partially bandaged. She’d put up with the pain.

The usual introductions were taking place, the two designated hitters were in the couch as usual. The designated victim’s seat was single. “Cleméntina Frazer-Nash is an Australian feminist writer, broadcaster and public speaker, Marie von Hämbad is a former comedian, Australian feminist activist, vegan, and recently become gay. They are here to discuss the role of women in the war, with the well-known war correspondent Mrs Tracey McCann.”

That was her cue, and she saw her two enemies grimace slightly with distaste, she’d insisted that they use the honorific “Mrs” and her married name. And the cameras caught it. She instantly dropped the very expensive wrap and walked onto the set. Justin caught it, well before it could hit the ground. He was, of course, an integral part of the planning and had helped her game it – again with very unofficial public affairs help. Officially, he was on leave in Sydney, and ADF members on leave were under orders to wear uniform in public, had been for years. Unofficially, he just helping one of his best friends. She did not know it, but she stalked in to the bright, crisp set like a panther closing in on two goats tethered for slaughter, and the audience impact of the visual contrast she presented was staggering. What they saw was a beautiful, lithe young woman with a figure to draw admiring attention, starkly contrasted with what the overly bright lights and her elegant dress made to look like serious injuries. This impression was reinforced when she used her right arm to lift her left and place it in her lap after she sat, angled now towards the cameras and seated demurely. She had practised that move, making sure that she left the wedding and engagement rings clearly displayed. She could already see surprise and confusion on the faces of her enemies: and both were older than her, and more ... shopworn. One was obviously soft, flabby and unfit but was not obese, the other was a beached dugong, every movement made her jubble like a half-set jelly. Both were much bigger than her. You’ve both been riding Justin’s famous patent cock carousel these last ten years, girls. Now, any attack would be perceived as two older radicals bullying an injured, more attractive and much younger woman, who was much smaller than they both were physically. And she was going to provoke them into those attacks.

The first three minutes were spent in the usual manoeuvring, and she let them express the usual narrative, all combat operations should be open to women, no differences, patriarchy and strident self-proclaimed victimhood. She knew that dance and landed just enough stings to show them that she believed none of it.

oOo

The Captain was watching, of course, with the Lieutenant-Commander and the man with just the Christian name.

“Pretty much according to how we gamed it, sir,” she said, speaking to the man with just the Christian name, he had made it clear that this was their expert area. “At this break, she’ll talk about the imagery flow. The intent of that’s to keep the two fellow travellers quiet. This sort of show is their meat and drink, so they won’t want to sour their reputation for obedient compliance. And the hosts are, of course, on their side.”

She grinned and it was predatory. “Souring their rep comes last. She’ll make her opening broadside now.”

He nodded. So did the Captain.

oOo

They discussed the imagery flow during the break. Just before they went live, she sank the first harpoon into the landwhales. “Good,” she said to the male lead of the show as she gestured dismissively at her enemies, “now we can get on with something more interesting than that boring, reactionary garbage.” As they went back to air their faces showed surprise, flicking to open hatred as the cameras went live.

“Mrs Tracey McCann is an accredited domestic war correspondent assigned from the Fairfax organisation to cover the military activities in the Newcastle area. Her reporting has showed the extraordinary events of the Mine Battle, as it has become known, and during that she met her husband. Tracey, what were the circumstances of that meeting?”

“Death and the mine battle. The deaths of men protecting us,” she replied crisply, as the screen behind them showed 29 men standing in a formal crew shot in front of a ship’s superstructure. “That’s Darren Kubale and the men of HMAS Birchgrove Park,” the shot changed to show a vast plume of water and shattered debris, a ship’s stern projecting from it, “and how they all died, every man you just saw met his death in this instant: she was lost with all hands. The destruction of HMAS Yandra followed,” the shot was her video, never before shown, showing the shattered ship diving as men frantically tried to abandon her, “some of her men survived, but terribly few. Some others we could save, too,” the video clip showed HMAS Vigilant being smashed into the side of the doomed Shenzen Dragon as a crewman leaped for his life. “But more to the point may be the scene after HMAS Adele and her men died, just before my husband proposed to me and we had the world’s shortest engagement.”

The scan was ragged, the cafeteria was a madhouse, a thin sheet of bloody water was sculling from side to side as she rolled enormously. The vast roar of the gale underlay it all. The six hypothermic survivors moaned, creating a threnody of pain as blood-flow returned; even doped as they were: two of Wilcannia’s screamed, bone ends grating together as the ship gyrated insanely through seventy to ninety degree arcs. The hanging plasma bags bore stark witness to the violent ship motion. It was a scene from inside the inferno, brutal and raw. The picture locked into place and a man with a face of blood said. “How are they, doc?”

“Best I can do. Now, miss, strip to your underwear. Bridge gave me a run-down and said I need to see the hip and tape your ribs and arm. Boss, help her out.”

They saw Tracey being stripped, and the SBA wincing at the damage, “Shit. I don’t want to tape over that soft tissue damage. It’s not good. I’ll just bandage to try and support it a bit. Soon as we get in get it re-done.”

The scene cut and she was dressed. “That bruising is going to knock you around really badly, Miss. Weeks for the arm and ribs to heal. Months for bruising like that and that hip really worries me, get it x-rayed when we get back from steaming about in this bloody minefield. Pelvis or joint might be cracked and you just don’t fuck about with that. Right, now you are dressed, sit here. No, like that. Right. Boss, head into her right shoulder and hold bloody still. You help brace him best you can. This is clean and I’m just going to sew that wound shut. No anaesthetics left.”

“Not a problem, they needed it more anyway.”

The scene jumped again. McCann’s face no longer had blood sheeting down it, just a huge wound, sewed shut. “Now boss, that left hand. You realise you’ve broken it? And probably the radius too? No? Muscles torn to buggery as well. Don’t flex it you bloody idiot. Well, you have, It’s all swollen to buggery. All I can do it splint it a bit.”

She shook her head, long blonde hair dancing. “That is literally a man’s world. Harsh, hard, shatteringly physical, brutally demanding and utterly deadly. In that world, you roll the iron dice every day and the unlucky and the losers die. By God,” she crossed herself and saw the expressions that engendered, “it grows men! A woman simply has no place there. I had already changed very much and grown up, discarding the stupid post modernist garbage and feminist lies I had been gulled into believing at university. Because I had changed so much for the better, we were already lovers. Two minutes after that, as we were heading for the top of the bridge with our broken bones to stand lookout duty in the open, in a screaming gale, he proposed. He did not have to. Just before the scene you saw, out on the watery black hell of that well-deck, I was dead and I knew it. I was under five metres of water and with ship on her beam ends, already smashed up with my shoulder shattered, and then I felt my safety line snap. I knew I was going to be rammed through a two-foot-wide steel scupper like meat through a grinder. I’d have exited a drowning mass of smashed bones and been beaten to death against the hull. Then Mike caught me, and there was no possibility of him letting go of me, his wounds prove it. He had made his decision: either we both died or we both lived and either outcome was perfectly acceptable to him. Montrose knew about what Mike did.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all!
That’s what he did. How do I repay such a debt to the man I love with all my heart and soul? How can I ever even come close? With love, yes, but also with my personal vow to obey my husband, who literally held my life in his hands and would have died with me, for me, had he lost his battle with the sea.”

And they exploded simultaneously.
“You stupid little sow...”
“You subjugate yourself to a patriarchal meathead...”

Tracey looked at them calmly and the lash of her contempt was like ten ton slabs of cold iron slamming down.
“You vermin lied to me. I know you. I was one of you. Any woman who listens to your lies squanders everything she has of value. Losers and failures yourselves, you want a woman to turn herself into the female version of a gay guy and that’s a stupid idea. Your lies will make them a bitter old cat lady who’s squandered her youth and love and her chance of children chasing your stupid lies and by the time she works out that she needs a decent man he’s been married for twenty years! Pitiful failures yourselves, you want only to tear us down to your level. A real woman loves and looks after her husband, thinking more of his needs than hers. A real man protects his wife and children, and thinks only of their needs, almost never of his. And he does not have to, for she fulfils them for him, and he for her.”

They were temporarily speechless. And now for the death blow. She smiled sweetly and slid the razor-honed dagger home. “I must say that there is an even greater difference between you two and a real woman like myself. Unlike you two, I sleep at night with a real man, so I never have to change the batteries.”

oOo

She had jumped to her feet. “Yes! Killshot! Go you good thing!”

“Lieutenant-Commander.”

She sat, but she was grinning like a thief.

oOo

They went so white with shock that even the caked-on makeup hid none of it. Both shot to their feet, overtly threatening the small, elegant, injured young woman. In full uniform, Justin stepped out on to the set, arms folded; and he was a fit, powerful young man in his prime and he looked it.

It was an order. “Sit. Down. Now.” They sat.

He looked down at her. “You all right, ma’am?”

“Yes Justin, thank you, my friend.”

He nodded once, looked coolly at the cowed pair, and withdrew.

She looked at the hosts, trying to recover themselves.

“Men and women complement each other,” she said gently. “My husband and the other fighting men of our country go out every day and risk their lives so that we can stay safe and snug at home. Too often, they die protecting us all, even you, even them. And after discarding the lies of people like them, this real woman has only this to say.”

“And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple”

oOo

The man with just the Christian name turned to them, he was rather impressed, but did not show it.

“Effective?”

The Captain nodded. “Very. They are done cold. I’d be surprised if those two ever get another invitation after this. For them, It’s a disaster, an utter train wreck, terminal level humiliation. My excitable Lieutenant-Commander was correct. That was an assassination.”

“Then I must thank you and your staff, Captain. That was well done. Of course, this never happened.”

“Of course. That Leading Seaman, though, may be in some trouble. He was in uniform.”

“Ah. A loose end of which I was not cognisant,” said the man with just a Christian name. “We cannot have that. Can you tie it off neatly, Captain? Any assistance needed by quiet words from my organisation will be provided, Director-General to Chief of Navy if necessary, or at higher level. You have my number.”

The Captain looked at him with calculation. “I see. I do see. Yes.”

“Splendid, a job well done.” He rose and left, and thinking damn, he’s very sharp.

“I do most definitely not like that gentleman, Sally.”

“Concur, sir. Yet he’s good at what he does, it seems.”

“Agreed. But I hope we do not meet again. Oh, and very good job.”

“Thanks sir, appreciate that.”

“Commander McCann’s wife, she’d make a good RANR PAO, I believe.”

“I can ask, sir.”

“Him first, broach it as a possibility if they are interested.”

“Sir.”

oOo

They stuttered through their “and our next guest is” routine, and they went to a break. The torrent of vicious but entirely verbal abuse started instantly, it was all they had left, and they were too blinded by hate to know what an admission of defeat it was. Tracey simply ignored it, and stood, deliberately focussing on being calm and coolly elegant. She nodded politely to the morning show’s hosts and thanked them. Then she turned calmly and left, ducking past Justin, who was in the shadow with a small video camera, capturing the rising chaos on the set. It was like watching a small child’s temper tantrum but they were supposed to be adults, and it went on for three minutes until security arrived to escort them away.

“Ok, leave now, Justin”

“Thanks, John.”

“Just don’t forget our date tonight. Now I have to keep a straight face all day.”

“Worth it?”

“Oh yes.”

Tracey was waiting for him in the green room, eyes dancing as the next hour’s worth of guests looked at her with expressions varying from open hostility to naked envy – the latter from a 45 year old, unmarried, childless career academic. Justin entered and put his hat down, and got her a glass of water. They both knew the room was covered by audio, not in the least theirs. “Tracey, I cannot believe the behaviour of those appalling harridans. Uncultured barbarians the pair of them. They appear to be entirely ruled by their emotions. That was a setup aimed at you, an ambush if ever I saw one. I am glad I came along to help! Here, let me get that sling back on you, how is the shoulder feeling? You look too pale for my liking.”

“I am very grateful that you did come, Justin, you saved me from probably being physically attacked, my friend. The shoulder’s hurting quite badly.”

“Hey, you are like a sister to me. Have been for a long time. Besides, I’m on leave. Also, my dear honourary sister, no way I am leaving you to the mercies of Sydney taxi drivers. Crazy drivers the lot of them. You heading back now? Yes? Train? OK, I’ll drive you to Hornsby and see you safe on to the train. Here, let me get this wrap over you. It’s cold and miserable outside.”

oOo

They chuckled quietly in the car and discussed things on the way. When they got to the railway station they had a coffee, as the hourly train to Newcastle was fifteen minutes away.

“Hup. There’s a couple of pretty soldiers waiting for the same train.”

“Justin!”

“Not for that, silly girl.”

He rose and went to talk to them.

“Corporal, you catching the Newcastle train?”

“Yes ... Leader. What’s up?”

“My boss’s wife, he’s Commander McCann, runs the minesweepers out of Newcastle, she’s catching it too.”

He pointed to her.

“Hey wow! He’s a lucky bloke! How’d she break the arm?”

“Look, she’s a war correspondent, and she was wounded in action at sea a few weeks back, smashed shoulder, stuff like that. She got wounded helping the crew of a minesweeper she was aboard rescue the survivors off one of our sweepers that hit a mine and went down fast in that big storm.”

“Heard about that. Got guts, hey.”

“Yep. Now look, she’s just had a serious run-in on a TV show with some bloody commies and she absolutely wiped the floor with the bastards. Those mongrels will be baying for her blood and if there’s one or two commies on the train with a mobile phone and a shitty liver they might go for her. You know the type, real brave when he’s up against a small, wounded woman. Can you blokes just keep an eye out, just make sure she’s not harassed, and that she’s OK? Does not look like it but she’s hurting pretty bad too with the shoulder. Boss will be waiting at Newcastle Station.”

“Hey of course! No worries at all mate, she’s one of ours. We’ll look out for her. Can you introduce us so she knows that she’s got backup?”

“Yeah sure, come on over. She’s really nice.”

oOo

McCann was a little surprised to see his wife –she looked fantastic, but very wan – being escorted out of the carriage by two soldiers, one of whom offered his arm to her as she stepped down. She took the arm to steady herself and thanked him. Then the Corporal hurried over, and he saluted, mentally translating Lieutenant-Colonel. A big Private was carrying her bag and looking about pugnaciously.

“Corporal Truong, and Private Jellen, sir. Leading Seaman McWhirter asked us to keep an eye on ma’am here from Hornsby to here in case there was an issue or if she needed anything. Good that he did. These two arseholes, sorry ma’am, tried to have a go, mongrels. Saw them right off before there were any problems.” His tone was one of serious but tightly controlled anger.

The big private muttered, just audibly, “bloody cowards, sorry ma’am, two of ‘em brave enough to have a go at a little woman with a busted arm, ran like rabbits from us, like to meet ‘em again.” He cracked his knuckles.

“Are you OK, Tracey?”

She nodded. “Yes, thanks to Nguyen and Wayne here. Might have been unpleasant otherwise. That’s twice in one day!”

McCann’s face went cold and savage. He turned to the Corporal, who knew it was not aimed at him and was fairly glad of it.

He nodded once, as one man does to another. “I am seriously in your debt, Corporal Truong, Private Jellen.” He checked the shoulder flashes. “I will write to your CO today and tell him so, and I personally thank you for looking out for my wife like that. Come over to Namoi some time real soon and I’ll at least arrange a fishing trip or something.”

Truong’s face lit up. “Hey Sir, that’d be great! I’m a mad keen fisherman, goes with the Viet ancestry. Dad was ARVN back in the day.”

McCann’s face split in a smile. “Me as well, and there’s starting to be some hairtail in the port, rare here but it will be a run. This weekend?”

“Deal, sir. Look sir, we have to rush a bit...”

“No worries, and if there’s grief because you are late,” he handed a card over, “get them to call me to explain the circumstances and I’ll sort it. OK?”

“Sir!” he saluted and left.

“You really OK?”

“Yes, love. I am very glad that Justin was there, I was even more glad that he had a chat to Nguyen and Wayne. It was actually really worrying and I was a bit frightened, they saw me, started screaming abuse and I think they would have assaulted me, but they went at them straight away, chased them off.”

“I watched the show this morning. It was really not what I expected. I then got an immediate call from that PAO Captain, who said that he was observing, and that there were no concerns about Leading Seaman McWhirter’s little vignette on the show. So the question now is, what was that, really? Something was off, Tracey.”

She shook her head doubtfully as she took his arm and they walked towards the base. “Oh, yes, love. It was too ... slick. Things went too smoothly, love, the profile on those two was exactly right. Exactly right. Perfect. The question is, who has such knowledge about two ratbags like them that they can predict precisely how they will react to a given circumstance? I now think I was used, and that it was a setup, albeit one I enjoyed and had planned to do myself. So a very sophisticated setup. All my reporter tingle-thingies are tingling, love. And I know that I am going to drop it, leave it entirely alone and just walk away.”

He looked at her sharply. “Them? You think it was them?”

“Ever been in the water swimming when you get the sense that something very large is moving, a whale down deep where you cannot see? That leviathan is down there in the depths, and that he has his own agenda?”

“Sort of like the way you can sort of sense God, just barely, out there on the extreme edge of your mind, just a most subtle awareness?”

“Yes. Just like that. There is more to this than I want or need to understand. There’s just something here that I do not want to have turn and look at me. It’s like Miyamoto Musashi’s Five Rings, cold, almost inhuman, like a giant eye: what it looks at it sees with pitiless clarity. I’ve read his Dokkōdō and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, love I want nothing to do with it.”

“Hmm. That would explain a few things. Walk away.” It was an instruction, and she nodded and smiled. He looked at her. She’s following her vow, what a marvellous woman she is, and he thought his heart would burst.

“You are quite right, sweetheart.”

“I don’t like being used. Thinking about it now, those two never stood a chance.”

McCann considered this for a second. “Good.”

oOo

Justin was at the cafe waiting for John. Maybe this time... he thought wistfully.

A man moved next to him and ordered a long black, milk on the side.

“Thought than went well, Justin. Very well done.”

“Good, and thanks. She get back safe and sound?” The copy of the video would vanish from his pocket, he knew.

“Minor issue, good thinking to ask a favour of the two soldiers, they watched over her like lions defending their cub. One problem. Sorted and no harm done. Just thuggish idiots, and we’ve now got them on file too. Nice little bonus. We had overwatch anyway – we do pay our little debts – but you could not know that.”

“Good. I am relieved. Nice working with pro’s.”

“Do you love her, Justin?”

Justin did not glance pityingly at him but both knew he wanted to. “Of course I do, as I do my sisters. I wish I were straight.”

“We are very glad you are not. Keep up the good work.” He took his coffee and left.

Maybe this time....

Chapter 5

It had not taken long to fix Wilcannia, and she’d been out sweeping again, with whatever hands were available from Namoi to fill in for the fifth of her crew stuck in hospital. They’d been trooping dutifully up to the hospital to chat and keep their shipmates in the loop, and this had rapidly become even more popular when they realised that their ward seemed to have a constant flow of very attractive young women through it.

Thus, they recognised the tall redhead standing on the wharf next to a still somewhat gaunt looking Sub-Lieutenant sitting on a little electric scooter, the sort you saw elderly people using. The mate of the upper deck was filling in for their XO except when the RNZN Lieutenant was aboard learning new ropes, and had been keeping him in the loop – and quietly answering questions regarding the best ways to deal with the issues and problems he was managing in the ward. He was very pleased with the young officer’s progress and development, ones this good were rare, and it was a Chief’s duty to develop their ability.

He called down to the wharf to rig the wide stores brow to the ship.

“Right, there’s the XO. Looking better too. Javins, Saafini, when that brow’s rigged. Get down there, one each side, and help him aboard and into the cafeteria. Be bloody careful of his stump, it’s only half healed I think. The woman with him’s a reporter with accreditation here, so she’s OK to come aboard too, she’ll bring the crutches.

“Got it, Chief.”

The crew was watching this particular two-member mutual admiration society develop and the betting was on a positive outcome. The XO was never popular on a ship, even a little sweeper where everyone lived in each other’s pockets. Popularity was not the XO’s job. He was the bad cop, supporting the CO, who was the good cop. But a crew knew a good one when they saw him. Besides, he had serious guts, was looking after their mates in hospital, and had earned the status of “yeah, young, but he’s a top hand” in conversations around the bar. This was usually followed by some yarn which showed him in a pretty good (if exaggeratedly funny) light. Small warships were called “minor war vessels” in the RAN and had their own quite distinct culture. That of the sweepers was different again from the old patrol boats, now split into inshore MGB and FAC-M communities. The MGB guys and the auxiliary minesweeper units had the most in common as they had the most reservists, the major difference was that the MGB crews thought that the AMS crews had by far the more dangerous and less exciting job.

Wilcannia had a good, tight-knit crew and was quietly proud of the fact that “the boss” normally used her as his flagship (if an auxiliary minesweeper squadron could be dignified with such a term), a habit the Namoi’s XO had continued when acting in his job. But Horner was theirs, and that mattered more in this world.

So he was cheerfully assisted aboard, with the usual irreverent comments about peglegs, parrots and nicking the Commander’s eye patch, and he gave as good as he got. His position as Namoi’s XO’s assistant meant that he had bits of advanced information which the crew enjoyed getting, even though releasing them of course had approval.

The CO and MUD wandered in and sat down.

“How’s the rehab going?” Chief McPherson was actually a bit concerned. From being sort of a bit soft and squishy, Horner had gone to a face of angles and planes, there was no longer an ounce of fat on him.

Horner nodded. “Pretty good actually, upper body strength’s coming back. So I can move about inside on crutches no worries, just not distance yet. Just got to wait for the stump to heal up a bit more before we start on fitting a new leg, but that should be in a week.”

“Anyway, skipper, got a heads-up, I’ll get orders out this afternoon, I was just rocking down to Harry’s with Shelley and thought I’d wait until you came alongside I could tell you. Wilcannia’s going down to Sydney for a couple of days in the slave dock at the Island and fit with a new nine warning system. I’ve been working with the Boss on what the Kiwis have done and on what we know of our system from the builders in Melbourne. So there’ll be a maintenance manual, and at least a basic training guide and SOP. You know the one, and it will cost a chunk of this compartment. Be a quick defect rectification and a hull blast and paint in it too, probably. If you can get me an idea of the defects this afternoon, I can get ‘em into the plan. Namoi’s XO’s showing me how to get the best results from the system, so his work of course.”

There was ten minutes of this shoptalk, Michelle listening quietly. She’d not be using any of this of course, but what she was getting was a deeper understanding of Jack’s lethal world. She was listening not so much to what they said, but how and why they said it, trying to work out what that told her of this world, so alien to her. It was a strange world, very stark and with nearly all of the things she took for granted stripped away, pretty much regarded as useless dross. She still did not understand why these men were quite… not happy, but actively accepting, of the fact that they could get blown to kingdom come any day. But she was working on it.

“Hey, useful, thanks, and thank him too” said the CO. “been working with the sidescan towfish boats as well, getting the tactics sorted. We might be starting to get at least a partial handle on the ground mines. We’ve been having more successes with the moored mines thanks to them as you know. Anyway, you need to get up to Harrys as I happen to know you have rehab this afternoon.”

There was general laughter at this, Horner had rehab every afternoon. And he worked himself to exhaustion doing it.

As he was being assisted off, the skipper spoke briefly to Michelle.

“You are helping him very much. You knew that from the start. We know that, it’s why the crew has adopted you. But that means you are making commitments you not only do not yet fully understand, but might not even know about. If you need to come and talk to me or the MUD, do so. Do not break that young man’s heart, girl. It’s obvious to me that he’s starting to fall for you.”

Her bright green eyes locked on his face. She looked at the much older man very uncertainly, they live in each other’s pockets and know all of each other’s business and their world is built on trust and not letting your mates down, she thought. And so she sighed. “Well, I’m starting to fall for him. Much faster and harder than I ever thought possible. I just do not know what this is. I just do not understand his world. I have to get that sorted out before I can sort myself out.”

“Do not over think it. Ask Tracey. She’s your mate. Then come over to my place for a conversation with my wife. I’ll get her to contact you and no, I won’t be there. She’s a service wife with 30 years of experience as a service wife. This is a war. Things happen fast because your instincts understand that there might be very little time.”

“I see that every time I look at him.”

He nodded. “And if you decide that you love him and that it’s real and not just your hormones in an uproar, tell him. There may be very little time, but there might be decades. Now go.”

oOo

They were all there for this even though the medics had squawked. But it was a necessary test run against known targets localised by the towfishers, as the big 50 foot seaboats towing the sidescans had become known. But these were still live enemy mines. It was the old gang, Wilcannia with her prototype system, followed by Bonthorpe and a thoroughly repaired Vigilant. The enemy mines were marked at an offset by dan buoys, they’d lose the sinkers on those, but no-one cared one whit. Their double Oropesa sweeps were streamed as were the AMASS sweeps and they swept down on to the mines, Horner was cheerfully ensconced on the bridge calling ranges into his headset. He still needed crutches with his new tin leg but he was getting there.

“There, range 512 yards, Red 27, depth 71 feet, CPA red 90 at 205 yards in three minutes ten seconds.”

There was a hard splotch on the screen, with the screens looking “below” it even showing the cable. “And there’s the dan buoy line. Definition is good, range is still very low.

The test continued, success was rather modest, but quite real. The two mines were raised, Adolphe destroyed them with machine-gun fire.

The DSTO washup was brief and to the point. They’d keep this set and trial it solidly to start to work out the bugs and issues, while an order for a dozen Type 6 Mk 1 Mod 0 sets was built. McCann had his staff take careful minutes, he’d send COMAUSMINFOR and the other Squadrons a report today. Although the Commodore’s chief of staff was here today of course. AMS and MSA crew morale was not cracking but everyone could do with some good news. Counting the Kiwis, five AMS and four MSA had been lost with no end in sight. Nine sweepers. The bulk of the RAN and RNZN’s losses in terms of numbers.

The head of the DSTO boffin team made one final approach to the little lectern.

“One final thing. We’ve been working this crash program with the Kiwis and it started the sonar shop thinking on a new path. Now, it’s a standing joke that DSTO has more and worse ideas than an LSD user, and only takes ten years to get them to work but this idea is one we could get to work quickly, in fact we built much of it in an afternoon last week. The idea is that this gives you a chance against the moored retrofitted mines with their upgraded sensor packages. It’s no use against the ground mines. One of our older staff then thought about the old searchlight ASDICs, and dug out some specs and wiring diagrams, stuff like that. The old WWII era Type 128 ASDIC was the standard ASDIC for the corvettes and such that won the Battle of the Atlantic so there’s a lot of old data on it and it is extremely simple by today’s standards. Of course, It’s also low performance by those same standards. Our preliminary thought exploration used it as a baseline model – just a few days worth of work here – indicates that there is a solid probability that a modern version of this sort of very simple old directional beam HF ASDIC, combined with modern commercial processing and existing software already in service for visualisation of acoustic data returns might give us a “good enough” mine identification sonar for ground mines, and one that’s a bolt-on kit. That means a fixed dome but we figure you can live with that for the sake of speed, this is a quick and dirty, gentlemen. It does not and will never make you a minehunter. It will give you the ability to detect the damn things on hard ground at a minimum of 500 yards. I know I am springing this on you but we only finished a quick scoping yesterday and I only just got the report over DSN an hour ago. I will dist it for operator comment. Need that fast, obviously.”

The discussion got lively.

[drmarkbailey]

Chapter 6

21 August 2005

“Good to be back at sea.”

“Love, you say that every time. Hey, today’s nice, too.” And it was, even now after sunset. August was a funny month on the coast, but once a big high-pressure system settled over the continent you’d get a week like this, clear skies, bright sunshine, and calm. The sea was like a pond, only the deep breathing of the Tasman Sea, that slow, gentle silky heaving of a long, low swell from some far-distant storm, disturbed it. Tracey looked at him with an amused eye. “They know, you know.”

McCann smiled slightly and put his arm around his wife. “Of course they know. That’s why having Horner back in his slot when the weather’s good like this is such an effective distraction. Even,” he sniffed disapprovingly, and she laughed at the affectation, “at the cost of having not one but two of those damned warco’s along.” He smiled down at her. “I’m still not having the knee reconstructed any time soon, that would be three or four months confined to the office.” He shuddered theatrically. She smiled in her turn and again the sheer joy in it made his heart turn over, and he gave silent prayer. Thank you, Lord, for this woman, preserve her, even at the cost of my own life, that which I would willingly give to protect her, and bless us with a child.

They’d been out for 18 hours solid and up for two hours before that, and raised two mines which the towfishers had earlier located. Oropesa’s were not in use back inwards now on this route, it was swept daily by the towfishers but it looked like they might have got on top of this one, AMASS was streamed for the ground mines, the influence sweeping never stopped. The stars stood in their glory as the galactic core arced across the sky. There was no moon, which accentuated the stars.

“Boss! Minestrike.”

“Whereaway Zeke?”

“Inbound merchie, Shoho Maru, Alpha Two route. Eight miles east by south of Nobby’s, sounds like a heavy ground mine, engine broken from its foundations and her ER’s filling. Casualties but no dead. Fourteen miles away from us. ACH Scratchley is running the plot.”

“Where’s Three on Whiskey Six? That’s just Akuna and Whyrallah, Nambucca’s generator is still being replaced.”

“I’ll find out.”

His wife was already taking notes. She was in her “official warco-ing rig”, RAN Pro-Ban overalls with steel-capped zip-sided seaboots a warco flash and patches from the unit she was assigned to, plus the antiflash and the PFD. Michelle popped out to listen, camera in hand as ever. Men were moving smoothly to the sweep deck and the preparations to recover the AMASS started.

“Three’s currently 25 miles down that route, boss, about 20 from the datum.

“Right.”

“Orders. Firstly, we recover AMASS and get over there. Get ready to stream double Oropesa. Tell Shoho Maru to anchor as soon as she can if she can, she’ll drift into uncleared and mined waters if she does not, she’ll be out of that channel in minutes in today’s current. Dammit, we will have to sweep around her to keep the tugs safe. We’ll have to start that. Order tugs out as soon as the Harbourmaster gets a salvage master aboard them. The water north of her is fairly well swept for buoyants but we have not much touched the area south of there. Get Akuna and Whyrallah – they are doing double Oropesa and emulation, order them to recover AMASS, no, Akuna has to drop hers and anchor it with her old fashioned layout, and with Oropesa divert direct to the casualty. Order the tugs to follow the damned swept channels, I know those blokes. Duty ship, its Cutlass, go recover Akuna’s sweep.”

He paused. “Hmm. Get the new Mid to plot everything and work out a sweep box and pattern for us north-south inshore of the anchor point datum, Three to do to seaward, 4000 yards on an edge, in working out. Going to be a long night.

oOo

There were three other barrages like it, each had eight ground mines and had been laid by submarine three months after the initial covert surface lay. The modern Kilo which made the lay prewar had never been suspected, let alone detected, staging as it did through the facility at Ambon. The mines were laid 045-135 with about eight hundred feet between them, and had activated a week before. Like the others, this field had been carefully programmed, one of its target criteria was a formation of two to five small diesel engines at lower power settings, with a specific magnetic signature. Such targets they would attack, for this was a barrage specifically programmed to ignore the big bulk carriers. The mine libraries were filled with warship signatures.

In the end, their luck simply ran out. By evil chance they were heading almost due north into a barrage angled at 45 degrees across their path. There was no way they could not come within the lethal radius of the barrage. It was just not possible. Simple geometry did not permit it.

Whyrallah detonated 1,350kg of first-class, high quality explosives just eighty yards from her. The mine would have broken a small WWII cruiser in half. HMAS Whyrallah was not blown in half. She was flicked on to her port beam-ends by the immense power of the blast, and then she started to roll back as tons of sea water thundered back out of the sky on to her decks. The roll to starboard never stopped, and she capsized ninety seconds after detonation. This was twice the time it took the gallant Captain Rageot de la Touche’s Bouvet to capsize after striking a mine in the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. But just like his gallant, doomed Bouvet, not a man inside the ship’s structure escaped with his life. The ten men on the upper deck were all badly wounded before the sea claimed them, mostly with broken limbs from the massive shock.

HMAS Akuna instantly slipped her sweeps and altered course to starboard to rescue survivors. She was two cables astern and just over one cable to port of the dying Whyrallah. She was covering the ground at six knots.

She had a fraction under fifty seconds to live.

oOo

“Emergency emergency emergency. All stations Whyrallah mined and sinking, slipped sweeps, moving to rescue survivors, she’s capsizing. Position Nobbys bearing 315 true, distan ---”

“Unidentified station, this is alpha charlie hotel, identify, come in.”

“Unidentified station, this is alpha charlie hotel, identify, come in.”

“Unidentified station, this is alpha charlie hotel, identify, come in.”

“Whyrallah and Akuna, this is alpha charlie hotel, report.”

“Whyrallah and Akuna, this is alpha charlie hotel, report.”

“Whyrallah and Akuna, this is alpha charlie hotel, report.”

“Whyrallah and Akuna, this is alpha charlie hotel, report immediately operational check.”

“All stations this is alpha charlie hotel control. Two seaward explosions reported by coastwatchers and ships in the anchorage bearing south-east of Point November. Radar-watch has lost contact Whyrallah and Akuna. Both contacts disappeared from plot two two four six kilo one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike.” The young woman manning the circuit in the old fortress was listening to all the reports flowing in. Unconsciously, she took her rosary beads from her pocket.

“Namoi this is minesweep lead. Scramble repeat scramble. Datum two two four six kilo one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike.”

“All stations this is alpha charlie hotel control. Radar-watch reports transient contacts in vicinity two two four six kilo one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike.”

“Minesweep lead this is Namoi. Scrambling repeat scrambling datum two two four six kilo one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike.”

“Minesweep lead alpha charlie hotel this is romeo whiskey. Helicopter scrambling now, plan firefly confirmed datum one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike alpha charlie hotel confirm.”

Romeo whiskey this is alpha charlie hotel confirm datum one three five true from Point November distance seven decimal five november mike repeat confirm.”

“Whyrallah and Akuna, this is alpha charlie hotel, report immediately safety check.”

“Alpha charlie hotel this is minesweep lead cease that call you are talking to the void. Stand by on channel one four to guide scramblers to datum acknowledge.”

“Minesweep lead this is alpha charlie hotel acknowledged. Channel one four manned and starting comm checks. God preserve and comfort them.”

“I know lass, but focus on saving who we can. Focus now or hand over to someone who can. All stations this is minesweep lead proceeding datum maximum power. Vigilant proceeding to stand by Shoho Maru.”

“Alpha Charlie hotel this is minesweep lead stand to for sustained illumination fire mission. You know the datum.”

Minesweep lead this is alpha charlie hotel acknowledged. Standing to. Minutes eight. Rounds for the rest of the night acknowledge.”

“Alpha Charlie hotel this is minesweep lead acknowledged. Wait for the order estimate two two mike from datum.”

oOo

The first people to realise something was happening were the long suffering – as they saw it – residents next to the base. Just before 2300 all hell broke loose. All the floodlights flicked on and all the alarms they hated went off at once. Within thirty seconds men the base was boiling with sprinting men in all states of dress and undress and the engine of every vessel alongside was starting up. Aboard the ships the actions alarms were screaming, adding to the howling bedlam of alarms, a siren, roaring engines and shouted orders. Sleeping through the din was impossible. The big grey fifty-foot towfish boats started to drop lines and, to the rage of the residents, broke all of the noise abatement rules by firewalling the throttles and howling away towards the harbour entrance at full power. The forty foot workboats and requisitioned motor yachts followed, the workboats at less than half the speed of the towfish boats, then the sweepers, danlayers and examination vessels began to depart, again clearly at full power.

To their relief, quiet had just started to return about fifteen minutes later when the whole city began to learn that something was badly awry.

Duf.

A minute later.

Duf

For the first time since 1942, Fort Scratchley spoke in anger as the two ancient six-inch guns began firing.

There was furious work around the archaic weapons, which had first seen active service during the First World War aboard the Navy’s Town class cruisers. They’d had to modify the chambers for the artillery cartridge cases, and they’d increased the elevation a little, but essentially the men and women serving them performed the same dance that their great-grandfathers had. The starshell burned for a minimum of 90 seconds, and so, steady as a metronome they settled into a firing pattern they had only practised twice with live rounds, and the steady slow beat of the guns pulsed out over the city.

“All scramblers this is alpha charlie hotel, starshell marks the datum. Minesweep lead provide datum updates on foxtrot charlie channel as required.”

There was a flurry of acknowledgements.

“Alpha Charlie hotel this is Sarbird, Sarbird, confirm burst altitude angels six repeat angels six.”

“Sarbird this is alpha Charlie hotel confirm angels six confirm your maximum ceiling five zero zero feet.”

“Alpha charlie hotel this is Sarbird confirm my maximum ceiling five zero zero feet. I have a ship under the starshell but it’s got a wake, course south confirm india delta.”

“Sarbird this is alpha charlie hotel confirm that is minesweep lead.”

“All stations this is minesweep lead on datum laying a dan buoy with a purple strobe. The purple strobe is the fixed datum, repeat purple strobe is the fixed datum. Laying floating dan with yellow strobe, yellow strobe is northern datum drift indicator repeat yellow strobe is northern datum drift indicator. Search datum is zero decimal five november mike south of drift datum repeat search datum is zero decimal five november mike south of drift datum current to the south at two knots. Alpha charlie hotel alter fireplan zero decimal five november mike south and continue to alter at six minute intervals to adjust for drift. Scramblers proceed two november mike south of datum and turn back towards the purple strobe. We can smell oil but no wreckage sighted yet.”

At the fortress, a layer on No.2 gun sprang to the big handwheel and began spinning it furiously, turning the ancient gun.

The mines cared nothing for all of that. They “heard” Wilcannia, in fact she passed right over one of the mines just as Akuna had, but there was only one valid noise source, not two or more, and the mines had reset their criteria back to baseline ten minutes after the second noise source had ceased. They were back to doing what they did best. They waited.

There were 39 colliers in the swept anchorage. They were mostly regulars on the Newcastle run and over time had become quite familiar with the activities of the minesweepers. The individual ships were in fact well known. Shoho Maru was the first casualty in a month on the coast and they were all following the action swirling around them. Some of the lookouts and officers keeping anchor watch had seen the disaster unfold, seen, heard and felt the sinkings, and by pooling their information they were able to provide Wilcannia with a better datum as she steamed in. The unswept areas were clearly marked on their charts and they knew that the sinkings had happened well inside the danger area which was where the tireless sweepers routinely worked. Aboard every ship they tried to think of ways to assist. There weren’t any.

“That illumination really is very useful,” remarked McCann. Everyone was scanning the sea, looking for small white strobes and listening for whistles, and searching for anything floating. The air stank of diesel, and a slick surrounded them, gushing from smashed bunkers in the shattered wrecks.

The bow lookout called. Wreckage.

McCann and Zeke looked at from the bridge, their faces set and impassive. Horner was down aft, supervising the RHIB, which was dangling from its crane, the weather being calm enough to permit that for extended periods. The MUD was not beside him – he had learned much and was certainly no longer the callow, rather soft young man he’d been eight months ago when he’d joined them. Brutally hard work, the maiming and his relentless drive to get right back here to meet the demands of his duty had seen to that. He did not even think of it now, but all his relatives and friends regarded him as a completely different man. He was hardened and toughened in more ways than one, a sort of stripped down, minimalist version of what he had been. Robust good health and working in rehab and the gym to the limit of his capacity had returned much of his strength, the gauntness filling with muscle.

“MUD!”

“Sir?”

“Detail two and break out the winch tarp and a coil of hemp rope. Make sure their knives are sharp. We don’t have any body bags. I’ll remedy that for all ships when we get in.”

“Aye aye sir.”

“Jackson. Czpracki. Sort it as the XO wants it. Put the tarp forward of the winch, we’ll need to cut it into ten foot by six foot rectangles if we need it.”

“What if we need more, Chief?”

“XO will sort it. One of the awnings, I guess. Get cracking.”

“Chief.”

oOo

“Why is it called the monkey island, Tracey?” Michelle was puzzled. “Isn’t it the bridge roof?”

“Mike explained it to me, old sailing ship term for the highest observation position. Men had to scramble up to it like monkeys.”

“Ah. Right.”

She paused, then asked in a small voice, “I need to ask you something personal.”

“Sure.”

“When did you realise you were in love with Mike?”

Tracey looked at her intensely, and paused before she spoke. “When I could no longer deny to myself that I needed to give myself to him, to be his entirely, and that I needed him to give himself to me, for him to be as entirely mine, as well.”

“That sounds almost submissive, Tracey.”

“In no way, Shelley, in absolutely no way. It’s just hard to explain in words. I realised I wanted to sort of merge with him, a couple but one flesh like the Book says, as traditional a view of marriage as my grandparents have, and as beautiful; and very hard-earned by hard work. I had to change myself a lot, and get rid of the secular crap I had soaked up outside the family. We discuss this so much, it’s mutual, we give ourselves entirely to the other. It’s so warm if you can achieve it, like living inside a candle-flame, each within the other.”

Michelle began to weep softly as a starshell burst overhead. Tracey put her hand on her friend’s shoulder, glanced up, then gripped tightly for a split second in warning.

“Are you getting shots?”

“Hundreds. Ideas for two articles.” She dried her eyes with a handkerchief.

“We’ll pool bylines on this, and it will be more than that. This is a disaster and It’s going to be very bad. When the bodies come aboard, get aft, get a face shot, a whole of corpse shot with a tag number. Those are shots we don’t even want to take but they’ll need it for the post action reports for the inquiries. They are evidence and we do not keep them. Got your evidence log?”

Michelle was as tired as anyone, but she had it together professionally. “Yes.” She had paled invisibly in the flicking white light of the starshells bursting to their south.

Tracey looked at the falling starshells, tracing delicate fiery arcs against the stars. “This is their world, Shelley. We are lucky. We can visit it. But It’s not ours, not ever. It’s too hard, too demanding, too brutal and too fucking dangerous. Deadly dangerous.”

She looked at her friend. “Are you sleeping with Jack yet?”

“Just started, not long ago.”

“Do you love him?”

She began to weep again. “Yes. God help me, Trace, it’s like falling into a soft whirlwind, and wanting to fall.”

“I know, Shelley. Does he love you?”

“He has said that he loves me, but we both know It’s early, it still has time to grow. We first met six months back and have only known each other about two months.”

“You are both totally wrong, Shelley. Totally wrong. He’s an entirely different man to what he was six months ago and you are different woman to what you were two months ago. You have both known each other for most of your lives by that measure. And you will change as much again tonight, this is very bad. You may also have very little time at all. You might, and he will, learn that tonight. I can promise you both this. You will once again be very different people after this night. I can also promise you that you will wake screaming from dreams of this night.”

“Do you, of that night?”

“Oh Shelley, we both do.”

“Officer of the watch, starboard lookout white strobe in the wreckage, green 040, medium!”

“Get aft, Shelley. Move.”

She gulped and visibly steadied herself. “Going.”

oOo

The ancient guns were roasting hot, paint peeling from the barrels in long, smoking strips.

“Sergeant, get some hoses rigged and start cooling the barrels. It’s hours until dawn, and we are not stopping this until the Navy tells us to and they won’t stop while there’s any hope of more living men in the water. Got a truck loaded with starshell on the way from the ammo depot.”

“Sir!” she said, “and good. I like those bastards. Solid men.”

oOo

0415Z 22 August 2005(1415K 22 August 2005)

The exhaustion was plain in McCann’s voice on the encrypted radio. It was like talking with your head in a bucket that echoed.

“So that’s it, sir. Nine survivors, all from Akuna, helicoptered them to hospital as we found them. Just 21 bodies, all aboard Wilcannia, most seem to be from Akuna, the ones from Whyrallah, looks like some got into the sea when she went down, all injured we think, then the explosion of the second mine killed them all. Autopsies will confirm. So 39 dead still missing. William the Fourth reports that Akuna’s in two large parts and a big wreckage field, scattered around a fifty-foot crater in the sea floor so it went off underneath her and blew her apart. Whyrallah is upside down on the sea floor, about 150 yards from another big crater, got Cutlass on-site with divers but I hold no hope, she’s 200 feet down and the hull’s broken open. Puffing Billy’s got a working fiction plot of the mine barrage, 045-135 orientation, something like 250 yards apart. Yes sir, rough report will be in the wind in thirty, we are passing Nobby’s now. I am standing this ship and Vigilant down for twelve, they’ve all been working solid for 36 hours straight. Working party from Namoi’s waiting to stow and clean both ships. Yes sir, I’ll turn in too. No sir, port’s open, Koraaga, Bombo, Bonthorpe, Nambucca out working the channels. Vigilant did a good job with the tugs, Shoho Maru”s berthed at the old dockyard site, she’s solidly afloat, crew’s OK. Yes, that’ll help morale sir, but I am going to leave the unswept areas entirely alone now and forbid all passage except by the channels. I no longer have the ships, sir.”

He braced himself, visibly, then crossed himself. “Oh, God no, any survivors? Thirteen? Phil? How bad? At least he’s alive, have you spoken to Marie? Good, good. Not good. You know what I mean. Another damned heavy ground mine. Sir do we have a pattern? Here and Melbourne, I mean, we’ve got the buoyants fairly much beaten now….”

“Ok sir, will do, thanks, see ya.”

He pounded the flat of his hand against the bulkhead three times. “FUCK!”

Zeke looked at him. So did the warco’s, Tracey with surprise, he tried so hard not to swear.

“Kybra was sunk two hours ago off Port Phillip Bay. Heavy ground mine. Thirteen survivors. Phil’s among them Zeke but his legs are badly smashed up which I think means might lose one or both, dunno. They all have lower limb injuries. Both Rushcutter and Shoalwater are halfway here to clear that barrage and we’ll have them on the main channel for as long as the weather holds. I’ll get Namoi to coordinate sending them all the data we have on it.”

“Bad day, boss. Three ships in 24.”

“Not over yet. I want you and your boys… hell, you know already. Let’s get berthed.”

Chapter 7

“Don’t hover, Shelley. We are both exhausted. I’ll take it slowly. I’ve put in the hard yards at rehab and the gym, it’s just that the stump has not settled yet and won’t for another month or so.”

“OK, love, won’t apologise though.”

There are haunted shadows in those lovely bright green eyes, thought Horner.

They got to Harrys and two of his crew rose to give them a seat. The table was one of several fully occupied with minesweeper men. Most were and looked exhausted, and they were all grimy, and smelled pretty bad. Some, like Shelley, were smeared with blood from the dead.

“Thanks guys.”

“Sir, ma’am, you both look stuffed, take those pews and chuck us some coin and we’ll order for you. We are heading back anyway to rack in. Two tigers and two chips and two chocolate milkshakes?”

Simple, high-energy density and tasty fuel for hard-working young bodies.

Horner handed him a twenty. “Thanks Leader.”

“Just buttering up the XO, sir.”

“Heh.”

He brought them back in a few minutes and they demolished the simple meals. It was a sort of ritual in some ways, most of the crews came up after a bad sorties, it kind of reconnected them to a bit of normalcy.

The civilians left the tables full of overall-clad men alone, but watched them with a sort of fascinated quasi-awe. The one-legged officer on his crutches and the tall green-eyed redhead were a centre of considerable attention. The officer’s peaked cap and her baseball cap with “War Correspondent” on it, and the lack of rank flashes on her overalls told most Novocastrians what they were.

They’d had an hour to talk on the way back in, and they’d discussed what Tracey had said. They were a long way from sorting it out, but sitting on the bollards watching his men as 21 dead men just like the ones they worked with were wrapped in cut up pieces of the ship’s awning had ... changed things. Changed them. Michelle had been very green as she took the pictures it was her responsibility to take, but she’d done it.

“Shelley, we’ve known each other what, six months and that was only occasional “hi there’s”. And we were both … sort of less, then. We’ve really known each other what, nine weeks?”

“Almost to the day. Are you saying “where is this going”?”

“No, I think I know that,” A shock of fear and a ball of ice-cold lead seemed to appear in Michelle’s stomach, but he was not done, “I want to know if you’ll marry me.”

Huge smiles suddenly lit the tired faces of the men at their table and suddenly everyone was looking at her.

Shelley felt as if she was falling into the world. “What? Oh Lord? Ah, um, yes??”

The congratulations came thick and fast.
“Whacko! Brilliant!”
“Great news that!”
“About bloody time Ex!”
“Well done Ex!
“Congratulations ma’am!
“Hey, who won the sweepstake?
“Jacko, shut up you idiot!”
“Brilliant, Ex, well done, ma’am!”
“He’s definitely caught her at a moment of weakness!”
“Poor woman, does she know what she’s doing?”
“Where’s the ring, Ex?”

“Gotta get one,” he admitted, “only realised I was being a mug and just wasting time we might not have about twenty hours back.”

“Right! We’ll get that sorted! Wilcannias grab the Ex, gotta carry him as he’s forgotten his pegleg and parrot again, Vigilants can escort ma’am! Derek Barker’s jewellery shop’s next door to the RSL, and that’s only a hundred yards away.”

oOo

The jeweller looked up in wild surmise as a species of grimy and laugher haunted travelling riot started to pile through his door. They were dressed all alike in filthy grey overalls and bore aloft a red-faced young man shy a lower leg while escorting an equally grimy, be-overalled young redheaded woman with the greenest eyes he had ever seen. The striking redhead bore a radiant smile and a stunned expression, and everyone was in a joyous mood.

This was not usual. But it was also charmingly obvious.

The grinning PO with the huge beard was obviously in charge of this nonsense.

“Hey jeweller, the XO just proposed to ma’am here and she said yes.”

There was cheering and laughter and backslapping as they set him down and handed him his crutches.

“So he needs an engagement ring!”

“And two wedding rings too,” the battered, scarred, tough-looking young man said. “It’s going to be a short engagement.”

“Less than eight hours Ex?”

There was a gale of laughter.

oOo

She was one of the oldest Tango class submarines, not suited to front line operations and so had been used for minelaying. Her only foray into these waters had been months before, but she had left twelve of the most sophisticated mines in Soviet inventory. They were actually smart mobile mines externally very similar to a torpedo, and specifically aimed at major enemy combatants. Four had been deployed off Sydney, two off Jervis Bay, two off Newcastle and two off Brisbane. None had detected a suitable target. Now, with 75% of its battery life expired – their sensors were rather demanding of power but still used it at slightly different rates – they began to switch to their secondary mission mode. Their one-shot systems were designed to activate and return buoyancy to them, and they swam at six knots into the harbour entrances. Blocking a channel as the best that could be hoped for and any big ship would do for that. Soviet manufacture being what it was, the first one’s one-shot failed and it stayed where it was.

oOo

COMAUSMINFOR was a Commodore. He and the Captain commanding 32nd Minesweeping Flotilla were actually a bit surprised by the 2nd Squadron.

Far from being sunken into any local sloughs of despond, they were a remarkably cheerful lot. Certainly more grins and chiacking than gloom. The base was well-run, if messy. But what minesweeper base was not, it was a wires-and-lots-of-kit business and it sprawled. And there was a crisp professional snap to the work being done which could not be feigned. These men were masters of their trade and that showed. Basically, morale was actually a good bit better than in Dampier, which was their baseline as the place was remote and rather nasty to live in.

The ships were battered, ragged and streaked with rust, most had obvious hasty repairs from weather damage. Yet the mission essential equipment was meticulously maintained, and inside they were as neat and clean as a new pin. There was real pride in these little ships, and it showed in small ways. Some tiddly decorative rope work, a hand-made ship’s name board. Other things.

“Commander, you’ve had ten AMS assigned here and half have been lost, with heavy loss of life, two ships with all hands. Morale seems to be high, I was expecting to see more … issues? Concerns?”

“Sir, there is concern there yet It’s not in any way crippling. The old WWII veterans say that it reminds them of what they know the old veterans said of the 1st AIF in 1918. They were down to quarter-strength in most battalions, but had reached such a state of veteranism that not much fazed them any more, certainly not heavy casualties. That was just SOP. They had just seen too much. So have we. They were pretty much the best around at what they did, people knew that, and heavy casualties were just how it was. Let’s face it, nothing else can explain Mont St Quentin. Similarly… let me tell you a small story. One of my SBA’s, an AB bumped to Leading hand, got loaned to Voyager after his promotion course. Had to get experience in a proper sickbay so he got sent to her. Good ship, happy ship, good combat rep. As he was a loaner on make-learnee and coming back to us, so he kept his Wilcannia cap tally and the old pro-bans we use, not the DPNU’s they wear. He does not have any as he’s a reservist on call-up and posted to us. When asked why he knew so much about the job and why he was anxious not to be posted to a ship like Voyager but wanted back here to the 2nd, he just said that Voyager was comfy, but soft and deathly boring as there was nothing worthwhile for him to do and how did they stand it? The Doc was miffed, and asked to see his SBA log. Doc learned that on Wilcannia, one SBA had dealt with twice the raw number of injuries in six months than they had on Voyager in twelve and that with a crew one-eighth the size of theirs; that he had dealt with multiple cases of injuries they had never dealt with, and more serious injuries overall as well. Then they started asking him questions about us, they’d heard, but not understood. They were horrified, 50% losses, 85% death rate in action when a ship’s lost, 98% casualty rate when a ship’s lost, a daily average of a fifth of every operational crew with injuries they’d beach a man for, broken fingers, 10-stitch cuts, pulled muscles, the sort of stuff we just ignore, average more than 50% of our total time rated as in active combat as we are in action the second we clear the breakwater. What Captain Rogers said really shook them up was when he said that the reason he didn’t bother to wear his PFD was because his normal station was inside the ship. They went “huh?” So he explained that we’d just never had a survivor from any sinking in any sweeper anywhere where the man’s normal station was inside the ship because with the power of modern mines where the sweeper was not blown to pieces she just sank too fast to get out.”

The Commodore looked very thoughtful. “Dear God in heaven. Put that way...”

“That’s right sir. My men think that’s normal. They are not regulars. You’ll see that this afternoon when we attend the funerals at Fort Wallace cemetery for the last four men washed up from Whyrallah and Akuna.”

He paused. “Fort Wallace no longer has a parade ground. They are not all ours of course, there’s a few Army and Air Force people buried there, but most of the nearly 200 dead there are ours. Stocktonians are working with the War Graves Commission and It’s looking like a small version of Bomana, it’s becoming a truly beautiful place. They are building a shade-walled gallery around the perimeter, and will fill it with orchids and roses.”

“It’s a duty I am very anxious to attend, Commander. Being relocated in Darwin has had its advantages and disadvantages. Not enough presence here in southern ports where the 32nd’s working is one of the disadvantages.” The Commodore did not look happy about that.

“Well, north’s where the offensive fighting has been sir, so that’s where the spear point is. We are the shield.” He glanced at the apartment complex. “Wish I could get our fervent complainers there to understand that.”

The Commodore smiled. “Oh, no need to worry about that, Commander! It’s not hit the streets yet, but Cabinet is putting into place some new post-war systems and structures. The attack on our export income ports frightened both them and industry very badly, this is a special appropriation and they are actually legislating this capability, which is unique. One of the changes is that HMAS Namoi is staying, unlike HMAS Maitland after the last war. Basically, regular MCM will be based in Sydney at Waterhen with a permanent forward basing in Darwin. The floating base, Psyche, will be repositioned there post-war. Reserve MCM will be based in Newcastle so the 32nd will have its HQ here plus a Squadron, with Squadrons also at Melbourne and Brisbane. Be much smaller of course but a pool of ships in reserve will be maintained. Unlike after the last war, we are not dropping the bloody ball this time. Cabinet worked out that the cat’s out of the bag, the covert pre-war Soviet mine lays clearly showed that we have a strategic national economic vulnerability. And so we cover it with a capability based in legislation and it’s linked to the Reserves Protection Act too. So your serial complainers are about to get a compulsory purchase order, and tomorrow we’ll look over the old State Dockyard site which we are also acquiring as part of HMAS Namoi. On-shore in-hangar storage for nine ships on three slips which can also be used for underwater maintenance, plus some workshops, equipment storage and training areas. Construction starts within a couple of weeks.”

“I’d heard some rumours, sir.”

“OPSEC’s improved these days. And It’s basically dirt cheap. Construction’s simple, the old shipyard launching slip is still there, we just lay rails on it, add winches, dollies, and built a whacking big shed. Be done in a couple of months. As for this side, we already own it, and again the cost is trivial and before you ask yes, the Museum will get its shed back, plan is for a partially open base to capitalise on the long-term nature of the way you are embedded in the local community here. The biggest recruiting hotspots for us are where the auxiliary minesweepers are based. Modelling suggests that we’ll save more than your operating costs from the advertising recruiting budgets!”

He looked around a bit and grinned, then McCann continued. “Back to your question, sir, then there’s the fact that we have no women at sea at all on the sweepers except base staff on rotation. The only ones we do have all the time are the two accredited local warco’s, and one of them’s my wife, the men look at them – civvies including the boss’s missus – and think that if they can overcome the fear, they can too. So they do, and that generates a sort of workaday courage. And now that’s normal in this Squadron. So, by the way is very deep religiosity and It’s not come from copying me. I don’t think we have anyone now who’s not openly and genuinely returned to their religion as a normal part of a normal life. It is, too. Oh, and lots of marriages.”

“Like I could forget that one. Commander?” The Commodore’s tone was dry. They were all in ice-cream suits with swords. The Commodore saw McCann’s wife grinning irrepressibly at him, lovely little thing, and he glanced sideways – well his own wife was too, wonderful creatures, but Lord do they like a wedding, he thought fondly. The little chapel would see the photographs, but it had become a Namoi custom for marriages to be performed on the wharf, in the open air. Besides, the chapel was way too small.

“Well,” Tracey said, “as you were going to be here anyway, Commodore, the naval wives mafia had to weave some sort of wicked plan. Poor Jack Horner’s about to get a bit of a surprise. The Wilcannia’s are in the know, but neither he nor Michelle have a clue.”

The Commodore shook his head ruefully. “I think I can see another source of the morale, what with little practical jokes like this.”

The Monsignor was waiting. He’d quietly wangled the shore base into being his responsibility. Jesuits were sneaky like that.

oOo

“Sub-Lieutenant and Mrs Horner, sir.”

“Send ‘em in, Chief.”

“You wanted to see me, um, us, sir?”

“Yes Jack, Michelle, congrats and all that, not apologising for taking ten minutes of your time tonight, hope the reception went well.”

“Duty called you away, sir, understand that, appreciate that you made it there at all.”

“Ok, you two are having the rest of this week and the weekend on honeymoon at a vineyard resort in the Valley, yes?”

“Sir.”

“Good,” he handed over a thick packet of paperwork, “but you are not coming back here on Monday. The Commodore has posted you to command the first of the new twin-screw sweepers, Countess of Hopetoun, they are being named after the ships of the old Colonial Navies. No, wait. Told you that you were well-regarded, the gong should have proven that. She’s huge, too, 950 tons. So you two get down to HMAS Creswell for two weeks of the CO-XO Desig course, It’s all the time we can afford you for, then get to Cairns to commission her. Oh, Captain Williams at Creswell’s a classmate of mine, say hello for me, and he’s organised accommodation for both of you, one of the visitor flats, it’s not much but it’s self-contained and quiet. Make the most of it. No work-up, no time, you leave Cairns immediately and have to shake the crew down on coastal passage then you join us, XO’s a Mid and you know how that works. Got you a good chief as MUD, old Tiny Graves, he’s simply the best Navy’s got. Oh, before I forget, congrats, you put up Acting Lieutenant stripes when you take command, signal’s in the pack. She’s got a new version of the mine-warning system and also has the first of the new short-range high-freq bottom-capable searchlight sonars. Simple and cheap, it appears to work, prove or disprove that on passage and I want a report on the ship from you and Tiny, they have really compartmented them well, want your views, like will she swim with her bows blown off, all that stuff. Because I am an evil git, you’ll also be SO Three when you get back. Using smaller craft as Examination vessels, Cutlass and Adolphe are being reclassified as MSA. Also attaching Puffing Billy to experiment with the sonar combo tactics. That’s it, go away, do newlywed stuff you two … and live in the moment until Monday, guys.” He grinned. Michelle blushed furiously. A redhead simply could not hide it either, and she knew it.

“Go, on, get outta here!”

Chapter 8


Monday 05 September 2005

There is always one, thought Horner, who can be a bit of an ass.

He was there five minutes early in the big old classroom in the old training buildings. They were part of the original college, built in 1913. Summer rig, but with trousers not shorts. Which Jack liked as it hid the prosthesis, although his gait gave away a leg injury and he could not walk very far yet.

So he waited for the Commander to finish reminding him that he really should not have his wife drop him off at the training complex, and made no comment when he stopped. Horner had no intention of ticking off a Commander. Nor, to be frank with myself, he thought, do I give that much of a damn.

The old, bearded Commander stepped into the room precisely on time at 0700, they started early and finished late to compress things, and when in classroom it was 30 minutes for lunch, sandwiches delivered. No wandering over to the wardroom these days.

“Right. I see Sub-Lieutenant Horner is here. Good. He’s a bit catch-as-catch-can due to operational requirements, but for his edification we’ll repeat the usual introduction, name, year joined, specialisation, ship’s served in, ship going to and XO or CO, combat experience and active combat hours.”

The RAN had adopted a system of tracking combat hours for its personnel, times spent at action stations with an active threat warning of medium, high or immediate. It was being used to measure “corporate operational experience”. Everyone thought it was total bollocks.

Horner was last, as he should be since this was for his use. He took swift notes.

“Morning, sirs, ma’ams. Jack Horner, joined in 2003 as a uni degree entrant, MCM, served as XO of the AMS Bombo and Wilcannia, 32nd MS Flotilla 2nd Squadron, heading to the new Countess of Hopetoun as commissioning CO, all my experience is in minesweeping, 73 days combat time.”

The Commander who’d chided him spoke up, puzzled. “That’s hours, Sub?”

“No sir, the 32nd does not bother with hours, only days. And 73 days is actually pretty low for us, but I was laid up for a bit after I lost my leg aboard Wilcannia almost two months back. It kept from my duties for weeks. I found that very annoying. The Squadron CO has also assigned orders that as well as commissioning the new sweeper Countess of Hopetoun, I have to work her up and conduct trials enroute from Cairns, then I also assume command of the Squadron’s 3rd MS group.”

There was a bit of silence at these revelations until the instructor spoke.

“As a Sub-Lieutenant? Heard a bit about 2nd Squadron’s problems, you rebuilding that Group?”

“Got orders for Acting Lieutenant on assuming command, sir. And yes, sir. We started the big one with six AMS in two Groups and three more in delivery for the third but we’ve lost five AMS sunk, with roughly 90% of their crews. We are very tired of all dying when we get mined. That got old real quick. That’s the part that really hurts because they were experienced crews, but we have received four AMS as reinforcement so we’ve had to pad 1st and 2nd groups with much less capable MSA. Boss needs three groups, so instead of putting Countess of Hopetoun in as a reinforcement, he’s decided to rebuild the destroyed group with her and two MSA, which will give me a serious operational problem.”

“Interesting,” said the instructor. “How and when did you lose your leg?”

“Aboard Wilcannia in a gale, sir. Something killed Adele – we still do not know what it was but it broke her in half, we have found her wreck, so we dumped the sweep and went to look for survivors. We found some too! Six. As we were dumping the sweep a big sea pooped us, pushed her over sixty degrees and damned near broached her – I got smashed up along with three of my men. They were not busted up so badly thank God,” he surprised them by crossing himself, “it was all six, seven weeks back sir, it’s why I am not in the wardroom accommodation and my new wife drives me around. I can stand for a good time but I can’t walk very far yet. Stump’s months away from hardening up right.” He grinned suddenly.” “Besides sir we’ve only been married five days so I think Captain Williams took pity on us!”

“Hmm. Perhaps he did, but you’ve just got yourself some extra work.”

He shrugged. “I’m 2nd Squadron of the 32nd Flotilla, sir. A slacker literally does not last ten hours on a sweeper. Duty comes first. Extra work’s no issue, what do you want?”

“An XO’s presentation on maintaining morale in the face of losses like that.”

“I can give that now, sir, and speak all day. That’s been a huge focus for us XO’s in the 2nd Squadron and we talk a lot with the other Squadrons. What do you want and when?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, an hour, with powerpoint.”

“No worries sir. I’ll speak to main issues on the slides. No powerpoint for the blind.”

“Excellent. 73 days is 1,752 hours, which, I believe, roughly equals everyone here combined. Why are the hours so high?”

“Sir, when we are in the minefields we are in action. God knows,” to their surprise he crossed himself again, “the casualties reflect that. We are in the minefields five cables after leaving the breakwater, and each AMS and MSA, plus the danlayers, examination vessels before we converted them to MSA and even the paddle-steamer side-scanner do one in two out on a twelve hour cycle as a minimum. In fact it’s normally sweeping for fourteen hours a day on average and can get to 36 hours straight, all at action stations, and the danlayers do much more than that, six days in seven in the minefields is normal for them. Action stations are hard for us because we have to have people inside the ship.”

“Eh? Hang on, expand on that please.”

“Sir, when a man’s action station is inside the ship he does not even bother with a PFD. He’s a dead man and he knows it. We have never had a survivor from any ship who had an action station which was not on the upper deck. Not one. The power of the mines is such that the ships are blown to pieces or sink so fast that nobody inside the ship, and I include the bridge, can escape. The losses reflect the threat, there were no survivors from the doomed Birchgrove Park and Whyrallah, and precious few from Adele, Yandra or Akuna.” He shrugged. “That’s just normal, just how it is. It’s why Countess of Hopetoun has an open bridge now and no-one below now.”

“Now?”

“The design has been changed, sir, with inputs from real world experience, although the hull design has not, well, except for the bow a bit.”

“Sub.” It was the Commander who’d chided him.

“Sir?”

“I spoke too hastily this morning, and without the facts.”

“No worries sir.” OK, maybe he’s not an ass.

oOo

Wednesday 07 September 2005

Pacific Prince was old for a cruise ship, just over 20 years. She was quite big, 75,000 grt and nearly a quarter of a kilometre long. It might seem odd to a historian, but cruise ships were essentially useless in modern war. Troops went by air, safer and much faster, and cruise ships could not carry cargo. A few had been requisitioned to act as floating accommodation blocks, but that was it. Many, including all the monsters, were laid up. A few had been requisitioned as hospital ships although they just were not very efficient in that role without heavy conversion costs. The war meant that the European, Mediterranean and most of the Caribbean cruise trades were dead. The Alaskan and South Pacific trades were alive, if reduced, but an entirely new trade was developing along the Chinese coast much to the company’s relief. Even before the big war, the Australian trade had been robust and growing at 16% per annum, and formed a useful off-season adjunct to the Celebration consortium, the biggest cruise company in the business. They kept all combatants appraised of the locations of their ships, correctly reasoning that militarily useless ships full of mostly retirement-age holiday makers were not going to be deliberately attacked by anyone.

They were perfectly correct, and had received assurances of this from all major belligerents, and also pro-forma advice that accidents did occur, and that avoiding operationally active areas was advisable.

Now the Australian market was a far larger slice of what business was left, and Celebration had taken the risk of continuing their business in those waters. Most of their ships were operating out of Fiji and Noumea, but on occasion repair was needed, and so they went to Sydney, which had the best MCM capability on the Australian east coast, and the best repair and maintenance facilities. Pacific Prince had needed a quick docking to replace a damaged screw, and extensive electrical repairs and maintenance. She left with 1,643 passengers and 787 crew, it was a low-cost run, Vanuatu then Noumea to Fiji, where China Southern charter flights would bring in over 2,000 Chinese tourists and return the Australian tourists home. It was a low-cost cruise and aimed at the retiree market, average age was 65.

The tide was ebbing and a mild south-easter was blowing, just 12 knots. Shoalhaven had spent all night searching the swept channel ahead and five MSA were waiting for her to clear the heads, they’d sweep ahead of her with single lightweight Oropesa in case the current swept a now-rare buoyant into the channel after Shoalhaven’s careful search. Cruise ships were a much-disliked rarity, but there was nowhere else they could get serious maintenance in these waters.

The mobile mine had popped It’s little GPS aerial and slowly navigated its way into the port – but it did not make it. It had hit 5% of remaining power and settled on the bottom in the harbour mouth. Its designers assumed that in this mode, it would not have long to wait. They
were right.

M+0
Pacific Prince detonated the mobile mine just as she cleared North Head. In relatively shallow water and on a stone bottom, the effect was colossal, a vast shock ripped through the ship as the mine kicked a forty foot hole on her port side at the turn of the bilge, aft of midships. Inside the ship there was total chaos, all power died as the Tasman Sea thundered into the machinery spaces. A third of the passengers were on the upper decks watching the departure but casualties among them were heavy, leg injuries from the detonation of a ton of modern HE. Inside it was far worse.

M+1
It was deathly silent inside the ship for perhaps ten seconds as people processed what had happened. Then the panic started. The list reached ten degrees inside a minute. On the bridge, the British Master had control of his crew by their radio net and had immediately ordered all water tight doors closed. He ordered both anchors to be dropped and had the pilot maintain constant contact with the Sydney Tower. What emergency power he had gave him enough to understand that his ship was mortally injured. The flooding was massive, and he ordered his hotel crew to start getting the passengers into the boats.

M+2
The ship reached a fifteen degree list to port and was visibly settling by the stern. Without power she had rapidly gone broadside to the swell, and the wind, ebb and sea pushed her out of the channel and towards the underwater fangs waiting off North Head. Below, heroic efforts by the engineers got the first emergency generator going, and lighting returned inside the ship. It illuminated a screaming hell; these passengers were just that, old passengers, and this was utterly outside their experience. Panic was inevitable and spread like wildfire from the time the lights went out. The mostly Philippines hotel crew were overwhelmed despite valiant efforts to control the situation, and did their best, directing passengers to the upper decks.

M+3
The list reached twenty degrees and then stopped as the major compartments which had been opened filled. The great wound in the ship was now twenty feet deeper and the pressure on internal structures was unbearable. They began to distort under the immense pressure, and the sea forced itself through every available leak path. The ship’s damage control teams were fully in action, fighting to establish a flooding boundary. On the port side, a crew member reported that the port aft cargo and stores hatch had swung open: it had been secured but shock damage had broken the dogs, distorted the structure and sprung the door. The crew gathered there quickly and began mighty efforts to close it. Already the sea was entering the opening. Inside the ship the passengers below found it extremely difficult to move about. On the sea floor below the ship the drift was unspooling the starboard anchor chain: but the harbour mouth was endlessly scoured by tide and storm. The anchor could find no purchase on the naked bedrock.

M+4
With some power restored, the Master made the only decision he could, and started counter-flooding starboard voids to reduce the list. He knew that he was trading buoyancy for list angle, but the cliffs were now only six hundred yards away, and his anchors were not holding. The ship was now broadside on to the swell and rolling deeply to port as her stability steadily eroded. At least half his passengers had now been able to gather on her upper decks. The starboard boats could not be launched due to the list, and the third boat launched from the port side was crushed into the sea by a deep roll. She now had 20,000 tons of water inside the hull, and was still settling rapidly by the stern. Draft at her stern had reached forty six feet.

M+6
Counter-flooding reduced the list by five critical degrees. Four more boats were successfully launched, one from the starboard side. Inside the ship, the panic eased, but casualties were already high. The cliffs appeared to tower over the ship, but in reality she was still five hundred yards away, and had passed north of the Artillery Lookout, stern to the cliffs which she was steadily closing.

M+10
Through rapid progressive flooding, the stern immersion reached critical level and the damaged cargo door began to submerge. Heroic efforts had succeeded in closing the forward half of the door. Two men had died in that effort, yet purchase to close the aft half of the door could not be obtained. The Master was informed that there was uncontrollable flooding from this doorway into the main passageway, above the machinery spaces. One look at the damage control boards showed that he had lost his battle to keep her afloat. He ordered all work below to cease. A quarter of the passengers had been gotten off in boats, but two had been lost, killing 200.

M+12
The deeply immersed stern struck the forty-foot deep rock ledge projecting two hundred yards out from the cliffs, seven hundred yards south of Blue Fish Point, tearing off the port screw, then ripping open the hull. Thousands of tons of water a minute was pouring into the ship through these wounds, and through the damaged cargo door. The ship rang and shuddered as the deeply immersed stern was repeatedly smashed into the unyielding sandstone. The Master ordered his ship to be abandoned. His bridge was an oasis of calm in the rising chaos aboard her. He ordered the MSA and the harbour ferries starting to appear around the head to concentrate on people in the water, and to stand clear of his port side, as he expected her to capsize.

M+13
The port list reached twenty-five degrees. The crew began to deploy rafts from the starboard side. The ninth and last boat was successfully gotten away just as the stern rode off the rock ledge and dropped into the deep slot just north of it. The quarterdeck submerged and she began to lose waterplane.

M+15
The list passed thirty degrees and escape from inside the ship became effectively impossible. There were still over a thousand people below, including most of the ship crew and half of the hotel crew.

M+16
The list passed forty degrees and the rate of flooding increased exponentially as the entire port side began to submerge. Ashore, desperate Army men from the artillery school were taking insane risks, abseiling down the cliffs to do what they could to save people being beaten to death against the rock, and scores of small craft began to converge on the foundering ship. The video from the circling news helicopters showed scenes appalling, desperate, touching, cowardly and heroic.

M+17
With a smooth motion, the ship rolled on to her port side and hung at 85 degrees, her stern jammed into a rocky gulley in the rock, and her bow raised clear of the sea. The hundreds on the starboard side who had not been thrown to their deaths when she rolled clambered on to the vast flat steel ramp of the starboard hull. The ship hung in the position as the sea forced the buoyancy out of her.

M+22
Still on her beam ends, the ship began her final dive. Slowly and steadily the sea progressed up the ramp, sweeping people away as the long, low swells surged across it as breaking surf.

M+31
The last of the vessel submerged. As she fell, the hold the stern had on the rock was broken, and she slid down the slope on her port side about two hundred yards until the fading remnant buoyancy increased friction to the point where she was brought to a stop, her bow facing south of east in 140 feet of water, and her stern only submerged by ten feet, in 110. Losses were appalling, 1,106 passengers and 426 crew had died, the entire bridge crew among them. Cruelly, the swells began to immediately break on the shallowest part of the wreck, killing scores of people as they were churned about in the surf.

oOo

They’d eaten dinner in the wardroom with all the courses and the training Captain, all congratulating Mrs Horner, who was a lovely young woman, very well educated and, they now knew, personally courageous. They’d left early, to many cheery smiles and her blushing very prettily. She made a real contrast with her husband who, the wardroom had decided, looked like he ate galvanised roofing nails for breakfast and didn’t bother to spit out the hard ones. After just a day, the Middies were already terrified of him. Especially as he and his wife had been spotted that morning as the middies were on their pre-dawn run. They were working up a sweat outside the gym, wearing armour and with their steel training swords they were whacking the tripe out of a pell the PTI’s had rigged. And it was obvious about the leg. Turned out he was a real-deal swordsman.

They’d made a small habit of talking the day over with the Training Captain, and the presentation on maintaining morale in the face of heavy personnel losses was causing a lot of discussion.

One of the Commanders had a question. “Sir, he is what he looks like, a smart, hard, tough little bastard and without doubt the best junior officer I have ever seen, but what I do not understand is why he’s only here for just two weeks. He’s actually got a ship to commission and work up, and that’s a huge job. I know, I’ve done it. What can he really learn in two weeks of a seven week course that outweighs the value of that?”

The Captain looked at him, looked around the nine others, and set his beer down.

“Do you all concur?”

There was a circle of nods.

“Then you do not fully understand the reasoning here, and you need to. He’s not really here to learn from us.”

They looked a little startled. “Oh, he will learn a lot, don’t doubt that, but think about it professionally, people. That unit has been shattered. A casualty rate like nothing we’ve seen since 1914-18 and that was Army. Yet, it’s achieving its mission and still has excellent morale, even though there’s very little relief in sight for them and they know that their chances of personal survival are really quite low. You need what he’s got in his head about that, so pump the man for information. He’s very junior, sure, but he’s still got a level of focussed and highly concentrated expertise that is unique to that unit, and it’s really valuable. Just make damned sure that you pay him back with your own concentrated expertise. Also, talk to his wife. She’s very far from being just a pretty young blushing new bride. She’s a bloody local war correspondent with the 2nd Squadron and has, by our measure, more combat hours than any of you do so she’s putting her life on the line as well. So you have two viewpoints, and one’s external and thus uniquely valuable, to exploit on a situation we need every scrap of corporate knowledge from. The reason he’s here should now be obvious, as are our thoughts on his life expectancy.”

They were nodding.

“Now, the CO’s wife has had a long talk to young Mrs Horner today, telling her a few things about being a navy wife, welcoming her, showing her the base, all the usual stuff a CO’s wife does. She says that she’s highly intelligent, very professional, very sharp and far deeper than she first thought. By the way, she’s also here to do her job as a war correspondent, she’s actually not really on leave. Do not be afraid to talk to her, she’s one of the good ones and the stories she files are damned good. One of the things she’s been told is that it’s fine to attend PT with you lot. He cannot run yet, obviously, the medics checked him over today while you were at PT, so your PT’s shifting to the sports complex building 1100-1200 followed by a barbecue lunch, so an hour instead of a classroom half-hour. Don’t get into a bench-pressing contest with him, he’s currently doing 120 kilos and his target’s 140 within two more months. The CO’s wife has invited Mrs Horner to attend with her ostensibly and in reality to tell her a few things about service life. Basically she found out that she does rock-wall climbing, which the CO’s wife also enjoys as you know. So it’s rock wall and gym and weight work from now on.”

He grinned. “Or pell work or small sword work for the females, the Lieutenant PTI got real interested real fast when he realised he had a real historical European martial arts expert on hand for a fortnight. He’s teaching his bride dagger and European backsword fighting, he’s just plain lethal with a longsword, and his wife’s already seriously dangerous with a blade in her hand.”

He paused, and a Lieutenant-Commander made the obvious point. “And talk CO/XO stuff and swap information.”

“Got it. I especially want you to feed him as much CO experience as you can from your MWV experience where you have it. You, feed him with your commissioning-a-ship info and to give him someone to ask backchannel on the QT. Shore base types focus on shore base admin and disciplinary. Personally I do hope he lives, he’s the sort of JO it’s our duty to spot and nurture, I don’t say this lightly but already obviously possible future Admiral material. That’s also why he’s getting Countess of Hopetoun, among other reasons.”

“None of us know the sweepers expertly, sir.”

“Oh, yes. The class is based on enlarged longliner lines underwater, but with vastly better internal compartmentation, remotely operated engine rooms, fast at 20 knots and also have twenty ton bollard pull, no major bulkhead penetrations below the weather deck and a fully open bridge like the bad old days. That’s new. In fact It’s also got the ECR station, greenies station and what passes for ops room facilities up there as well, all in the open. Minimal men below when sweeping and we hope compartmented well enough that something will remain afloat even when blown in half. The Chief of Navy really, really did not like accepting that we’d just have to pay a high price when they exceeded our expectations on the level of any mine attack here but he’s done his damnedest to find a way to at least ameliorate the losses. Convinced the Minister and we are building them fast. Hopefully, we can start reducing losses and keeping our men and their expertise alive.”

He smiled grimly. “Now, while females just can’t do it, who’d like a transfer to the auxiliary sweepers?”
 

The Eastern Mine Battle Part 3

Chapter 9
oOo

Sunday 16 October 2005

“Oh.” Tracey looked at the little plastic device.

“Well, that explains a few things.”

She thought for a moment and said to herself in the mirror, “also, about bloody time.”

And then she thought about for a bit, and a slow smile spread across her heart-shaped face. The timing was perfect! But she’d have to really hurry.

It was well before dawn but Countess of Hopetoun was due off the port after dawn, and she, Mike and Michelle were scheduled to join her for a couple of hours via boat to conduct four hours of test and eval before she berthed. Their job was to capture the story of the new ship and her new crew. She had time, especially as Mike was already at work in his office knocking over paperwork so he could afford the time for the T&E. They’d meet at the small boat landing.

Their mornings tended to extreme earliness.

“I need a partner in crime to pull this off,” she said to herself. So she put her bra on, looked quizzically at it, realised the reason it seemed a bit too small now, shrugged, walked into the suite and picked up the phone. It was picked up on the third ring.

“Leading Seaman McWhirter.” The voice was muzzy with sleep.

“Good morning Justin, care to be my partner in crime?”

“Oh God, Tracey, what dire trouble are you going to cause now?” The voice was now wide awake.

“Hey, is that any way to talk to your honourary sister?”

“Now that you mention it, yes!”

“Can you pop up here please, I really need help to get dressed.”

“But you’re… Hmm. Intriguing. Be right up.”

He was there in a couple of minutes and walked right in, wearing running gear, obviously thrown on hastily. No-one else but her husband or him would walk in like that, but as her husband’s steward the suite was actually his responsibility, although he shared that with Tracey these days as it was their married quarters. Nor was he in the least fazed to have her bounce excitedly up to him attired only in her underwear and a towel around her hair.

He looked at her fondly. Sometimes we forget just how very young and full of life she is.

“Look! Look!” She proffered a little plastic object. “Need to spring it properly on Mike!”

A delighted smile split his face.

“Well done! And yes, you do. What’s the plan? Yikes! I need to do your hair.”

oOo

McCann was rarely even slightly irritated with his new wife, because both of them tried very hard to be both as selfless as possible and to make the other happy, and the result was really quite remarkable level of contentment in a marriage still in its early and tumultuous stage. A rare and valuable thing in a conflict entering its seventh year, and with both in dangerous, high stress jobs.

But she was always an absolute minimum of ten minutes early. It gave her a chance to do that old reporter’s trick which obtained unguarded comments. She was a couple of minutes late, and she was never late.

“Hey sir! Got a message!”

The voice was unmistakably that of his steward and was from about eighty yards distant, east along the wharf and up-sun where the accommodation and admin areas were. He squinted. The sun was just coming over the horizon and it was directly in his eyes. His XO, operations officer, planning officer and the other reporter in her oh-so-unfashionable RAN overalls all squinted too.

“A message? What the hell?”

“Well hurry up!”

“Can’t sir, I’ve had a leg cramp!”

Well, he was in running gear. And maintaining physical fitness was a duty.

This continued until he was twenty yards away, when he stopped, waved, then turned and started to walk away.

McCann’s voice was thunderous. “Leader, what the hell do…”

“He’s delivered the message safely, Michael.”

The others and McCann spun around, and his eyes widened. His wife was standing before him, and she looked, well, stunning. Also apprehensive and as nervous as a human could be. She was fully made up, her hair glissaded down her back like a silk waterfall, the magnificent double necklace of pearls he had given her as a belated wedding present was around her neck and the long beautiful dress swept to her ankles. She held a sun parasol and looked incredibly feminine. Her cornflower blue eyes radiated a clear, crisp joy.

“What…”

With her right hand she gently placed a finger on his lips.

“Shhh. Hush, now, my husband.”

She took his right hand in her still-injured left and placed it gently on her abdomen, and spoke in a voice filled with rising wonder.

“I cannot come to sea with you, for I now have a higher duty.”

And her smile paled the dawn’s light.

Joy soared up within him, such as he thought he’d never know again, and he gently seized her to him.

oOo

The XO glanced at the departing boat and looked at her with appreciation and the respect she’d earned in this place – so did all the passing sailors are the base ramped up to the day’s activities, all saluting the XO and then lifting their caps slightly, nodding and giving her a “morning, ma’am”. Unlike the XO, they were wondering what the hell she was doing on the wharf done up like a movie star when she should be in overalls and in the boat. Being sailors, the speculation would be intense, rather obscene and probably accurate.

“That was special, Tracey.”

“I have been waiting impatiently for this day and dreading it too, as I cannot possibly go out now. But he must.” She turned to him to speak and there were tears in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “So if he does not come back today, he knows in the best way I can tell him. If he does, then he has a memory he will treasure all his days. Every time he leaves, I’ll be here, looking the very best I can. And every time he comes back, the same. It will make him happy and help the load. I know how crushing it is.”

He nodded. “With his shield or on it. You have really absorbed that.”

“It is what you all are, what he is. If he dies out there, I want his last memory of me to be a comfort. And I want him to know what he’s coming back to when he returns.”

He looked at her steadily, head tilted slightly in consideration. “You are a remarkable young woman, Mrs Tracey McCann.”

“I do not think so. I just think that my eyes have just been opened to reality. I do know that I am the most fortunate of women.”

They fell silent and watched the boat vanish into the distance.

“And now, prosaically, I am off to work. Me. Having a baby. Wow. Just wow. I wonder how that happened?”

“The Leader will drive you.”

“He has his duties, I’ll walk...”

“No.” And it was a command.

“The Leader will drive you. You are more right than you know. In the end this Squadron keeps going despite the pressure and the losses and the fear shoving itself up and down a man’s throat like a great filthy rat because of the CO and the example he sets, and you keep him going. If you are going to do as you said, it is necessary that you be known to be safe, necessary that the Squadron’s men know that the Squadron is helping you stay safe. We’ve become very tight knit. And you will have all sorts of issues with timings juggling matters and whatnot. The Leader is the key to that working well and with less strain on you, and in turn that protects the little innocent growing below your heart, young lady. Who better to do that than a man such as he, who loves you and dotes on you as his little sister? Oh, don’t look surprised, I am the XO here, I am well over 60 with 44 years in navy and It’s my job to know things like that. Chief McPherson knows it too, but no-one else. I mean look at him, he’s hovering protectively already. And he’s gay.”

He gestured the Steward over. “And you know very well that the Squadron will regard that child as a talisman of normalcy in the madness of this endless damned war. Stand by to have everyone treating you like you are made of spun glass and moonbeams and being annoyingly, soppily, clingingly helpful, because that’s exactly how men in their position will respond. It’s a real-man-thing’s response to a real woman who acts as a real woman and not like a proglodyte harridan.”

He eyed her again. “And keep up that dress standard around the base as much as you possibly can, young lady. You’d be simply amazed at how much that steadies the men’s morale, raises all sorts of standards and reduces bad behaviour. They just behave better and I think you and Michelle accidentally started what causes that. Noticed how the sailor’s wives are now getting trim and are dressing really nicely? I’ve got the lowest per capita disciplinary infractions rate in the outfit combined with the highest losses and It’s been driving the other XO’s bonkers, so they are now improving their own standards the same way.”

“Sir?”

“Leader, we both know that there’s still a bit of a threat to Mrs McCann, the hate mail from the commie nutters never stops. Remember the train. She’s told me her plan to keep the CO on the ball and happy, I thoroughly approve. I order you – you’ll actually get this in writing today – to support Mrs McCann in her work with and for the Squadron’s wives and families, and in her timings, which are going to be at all hours. She’ll explain so essentially you will be working for the Captains Secretary even more than you are now. In view of the threats we still get, from now on you take her to and from work and generally make sure she’s looked out for when off base. Oh, go see the Coxswain for a brief and he’ll give you a radio and take you over to the watch-house to chat to the coppers, a very good bunch, they are all over it so they need to know that you have got duties to support her. Now she’s not going to sea she’s going to be doing more and more CO’s wife work in support of our families too, RSL liaison, kid’s support especially the young mums, and the widows and their kids with Legacy, stuff like that. She’s going to be out and about a lot more. Got it?”

“Sir.”

“Good. And not the car all the time, vary the vehicles for security and use the ones that can stand a prang better. Explain to the Chief tiffie, and keep the vehicle logs straight.”

“Sir. Will do.”

“Hey, the police are involved?” Tracey was flabbergasted.

“Dirty little secret you now need to know as the risk profile just changed. You really angered some weird crazy lefty people with that TV performance, the ones since and a lot of your articles. Glad you do not use social media, it’s filled with their hate. Coxswain and I have been dealing with it and the formal requests for the charges that have been pressed have come from Navy, as the threats have been against you and the CO. That made it Navy Security’s business and also ASIO business. We’ve been handling it because we look after our own. But now you need to know. I’ll brief the CO when he gets back. Like you he’s known in general terms but not specific. Time that changed, too. You’ll both get a brief, probably from our local ASIO guy... Leader, you sit in too when it happens. You need to know that as well.”

“Crap.” She patted her abdomen. “Hey, little rascal, you are already causing trouble and you are not even close to being born yet. How cool is that?”

“Oh. Here. Call your parents.” He handed his phone over.

“I can...”

“Nope, wake them and tell them. Rumour mill’s already going to be sizzling. They deserve to find out from you. I’ll spread the official word here. When do you think you are due?”

“About eight and maybe a little teensy bit months?”

Then she paused, considering, nodded, and took the phone. The XO started to move back to give her some privacy.

“Mum? Sorry to wake you. It’s Tracey. No no it’s fine, everything’s good. Mum, I’m going to have a baby...”

“Sir, how bad’s the hate mail from those commie mongrels really been?”

“Right question, and just disgusting. The foulest abuse, physical threats, rape threats, death threats, packages filled with shit, you name it. They do not understand the role of the Captain’s Secretary so they’ve all been intercepted. We spoke to her editor and they’ve quietly been keeping an eye on their mail, same thing but at a lower level. Because she’s assigned here and part-paid by PAO as a domestic warco, she’s off most of the usual city stuff and covering the services and local industry so she’s not been out and about much. So it did not matter much, she’s been here, at sea, at work or on specific jobs with the Herald, no routine they can map. And you know how hard she works. All that’s going to change now. CO knows in general, he protects his wife from it as a man should. Now she needs to know, so do you. Obviously she knows that she’s generated reactions and that the lefties are pretty nasty, but that’s general. How good are you in a punch up, Leader?”

Justin looked unhappy. “Done a little boxing years ago and I’ll fight, sir. Fought off wannabe poofter-bashers a couple of times. I am fit and I like gym work.”

“If you are relieved of all duties not relating to CO’s steward directly and assisting Mrs McCann, how many hours will that free up daily?”

“At least a couple, sir.”

“You are so relieved. I’ll get it sorted with the Supply Officer. Report ASAP, as in as soon as you’ve delivered her to the Herald, to the PO PTI and tell him he’s to change his schedule to accommodate those hours, he’s a Krav Maga master. You will learn it and quickly it being what it is, which means lots of getting thumped about.”

He looked at the small woman, who was softly weeping now as she spoke to her mother. “Sir, that is not an issue, every hour I’ve got will go into this. Hah. That’ll make me a dangerous shirtlifter.”

The XO nodded once. “Good.”

oOo

Michelle was surprised for the second time that morning.

“She looks like a yacht, not a minesweeper!
We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the crossbones and the skull;
We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.”

McCann looked at her in surprise.

“What? Jack’s got me into John Masefield, and Kipling! And look at her!”

She had a point, McCann had to admit, as she plied the camera with a will. They’d paid attention to aesthetics as they’d been asked, because it helped when a man was proud of his ship, and steel was cheap and air was free and there was no additional cost in making her look good. Flush decked, 300 feet long overall with a 32 foot beam and eleven foot draft, she was longer than a WWII Algerine class minesweeper, but displaced less at 950 tons. She had a clean sweeping sheer from the bow and rising again at the stern, and the bow was a sleek curve leading to a sharp point, there was no hydrodynamic forefoot, she did not need it with her length to beam ratio. No transom, the sheerline rose at the full cruiser stern to give her additional buoyancy there despite the heavy winch marring her lines aft. Unlike nearly all modern ships she appeared to have little superstructure, although the deckhouse was big it was only one deck high. The low, open bridge was amidships to minimise relative ship motion and she had two tall masts with a visual observation position on the foremast, and radars on the main. Both were raked to match the rake of the two tall funnels, which had been done to keep exhaust gases away from the open bridge, and showed that she had two widely separated engine spaces for her twin screw fit. She had a hold forward for the AMASS gear and the Oropesa gear was on the aft sweep deck. Each mast had a somewhat atavistic derrick so that a string of AMASS cans could be hoisted to be struck on deck, but each derrick could hoist twenty tons. Derricks weighed much less than a similarly capable hydraulic crane. There were four modern fold-down hydraulic cranes, one each port and starboard on each mine deck, but these were just four ton capable and handled the RHIBs and Oropesas and whatnot.

After they boarded there were more surprises, especially when Michelle whispered in the CO’s ear about events on the wharf before they left. Which was fine given that they were married. Horner showed them the bridge, which was truly enormous and which was a total departure from everything they’d seen before. It was seventy feet long and was far more than just a bridge.

“Sir, It’s an open-air operations room with the bridge up front, nearly all-weather proof commercial kit. It’s all cheap as chips compared to milspec and it’s swap and go when something goes on the fritz. Helmsman seated forward with a U-console with the on watch ECR watchkeeper to his port and aft, and the greenie to starboard and aft of him. OOW roams but has the usual pelorus fit in the usual places, computerised chart and nav system, a nav repeater display there vertical against the bridge face. There’s another one aft.”

“The ops deck is all matt-glass no-glare displays for nav and plot, full commercial ruggedised waterproof gear, radar, Type 6 water column mine-scan and Type 2005 bottom search are scope-hooded and are linked to the plot.”

“Does it work in practise?”

“Very well, sir but you really have to get used to it. It’s totally different, it looks really weird, the FAC-M and MGB guys just could not believe it and how well it works. And my God,” he crossed himself, “are they were jealous of how good she looks! Kept suggesting that we paint the hull black, superstructure white and funnels buff.”

“Really? Victorian Navy aficionado’s in the missile boats, eh?”

“Yes sir. Quote from a FAC-M two and a half, how come we get ugly boxy things that look like they were designed by the Lego company’s design department apprentices after a week on a cocaine bender and you get something as beautiful as her unquote.”

“Heh. What did you say to that?”

“I said because we asked really nicely and because we are very tired of all dying when we get mined, sir.”

“Ouch.”

“Oh, he was nice about it sir, they are pretty close to us in operational ethos and culture and are fully aware of our loss rates. If an Armidale eats a missile, as they have, It’s all over for them too. It’s just that since the end of the 39 to 45 shenanigans we’ve all moved under cover and acculturated to it. So us moving entirely above deck to avoid becoming fish food is absolutely weirding everybody else out. But you get used to it really quickly. To the point that I wonder what the heck we are doing with any closed bridges in the fleet. Situational awareness is 100% when you can see everything and are always looking out.”

“We have returned to the old way of protective dress and foul weather gear but the displays have swing-up transparent Perspex covers, it’s more to minimise data distortion in heavy weather when there’s a lot of water about and It’s only partially effective but we get used to it. Yes, we get hot. Yes we get cold. Yes we get wet. Yes ski-goggles are really useful in a gale. But sir, there is not one soul inside the ship when sweeping and the bucket seats are shock mounted and don’t need seatbelts except in very bad weather. They are also heated for cold weather and have a sort of mesh insert for hot weather. Again, COTS gear, mostly from the offshore high speed racing sector. She’s very weatherly, sweep decks are really dry, bilge keels reduce the roll. She’s quite a steady, dry seaboat and I have seriously considered rigging small staysails, which would further steady her in heavy weather and make the sweep deck work safer. Went out into the back end of a storm and located the wreck of the old Warrnambool, torrential rain and seastate six and it worked. So did the wearable intercoms.”

“The SBA and cook?”

“Open stations aft under the shelter deck edge. Pre-packaged meals done by airline caterers but much bigger, two trays per man four meals per day. First day delivered chilled, rest frozen. We can run for a week without a man going below if we really have to. Even got some lockers and upper deck showers.”

“Does it all come together from the CO’s perspective?”

“Oh yes, sir. The OOW has every ship operation at a glance, the CO, XO and MUD can see everything and everyone on both sweep decks. That side is brilliant. The lack of sail area means she’s not much affected by wind and she manoeuvres like a dream with the big slow-turning twin screws and the big balanced rudder. They promised 20 knots deep and dirty and I was expecting 19 or so but GPS tells me she does 22 flat chat with a clean hull, although that’s at fairly light load. Internally she’s quite well fitted as she’s so big. Good messdecks, cabins for senior rates and officers, still a common cafeteria, really good sickbay and ship’s offices all in this deckhouse, which is 110 feet long but half concealed by the bulwarks.

“Cost?”

“Ship’s cost is roughly twelve million as first of class, sensors and specialist kit roughly six. There’s basically a two million additional cost for first of class. All up not more than twenty, the cost will reduce by 15-20 percent later in the run. Steel is cheap and air is free and they are built in modules. And she’s strongly built, thirty year life. And she looks just plain lovely. The crew love her, and the envious words of the FAC-M lads helped a lot. I have a sneaking suspicion that they modelled her along the lines of the Iris of 1877, Seymour’s command, lovely ship, and that did not cost a cent extra. In fact, the lack of superstructure and avoidance of aluminium lowered costs.”

“Really?”

“As to costs yes sir, and for the other well, she just looks a lot like the Iris did, although she was three masted and had a bowsprit. I asked the designers and they just started making up stuff and said they used what worked. They acted a bit too surprised when I mentioned Iris. Then they kinda-sorta joked that a figurehead would actually work aesthetically if we wanted. And it would. I’ll be looking for an artist as I think it would be another point of pride, and hey, I am an atavist. You could not fit a bowsprit and a mizzen and sail her though. Her lines are good enough – but she’s far too shallow for that and engines would start chasing me with a butterfly net if I suggested a really big centreboard.”

“Damage control?”

“Mostly passive but good sir, full double hull and unit machinery with both identical, engine, generator, memtec, pumps, switchboard and stuff all the same in both, designed to operate unmanned. Close compartmentation below and all access is from the weatherdeck. There are no bulkhead penetrating doors down below at all. It’s a pain, but then again we all live in the deckhouse and the MCR is right here! What I believe is that when one of these gets mined the great length will save them from the sort of lethal plunge we saw with Yandra or Kybra, and all work is concentrated amidships as far as possible, giving us two sacrificial ends, really. You could blow the bottom out of her and as long as the weather deck hatches hold she’d float on the trapped air. Sir, obviously none of this would work well on a hunter, but it does work on a sweeper designed for reserves to use in wartime. Pressure in peacetime will be to enclose this. That we have to resist.”

Chapter 10

oOo

The newsroom had been once more than surprised again when she had arrived done up to the nines, with Justin also bringing in a hanger with another outfit on it.

She’d told the editor first, and his delight was not feigned. Then he gently kissed her on the cheek, and took her out to announce it to the newsroom.

oOo

“Hey Knocker, give us a hand to pick up all these bits of plastic crap, will you?”

“Wal, it’s smoko time, I’m heading for Harry’s.”

“Really? I’d never have noticed. Countess is coming in and the boss’s missus will be here. She’s up the duff, XO spread the word this morning. What if she slips on this stuff? I did yesterday.”

“Yeah, good point that. Give you a hand mate. Only take a minute. Hey, saw your fiancé pick you up yesterday, jeez, she looked great! But she’s a jeans girl, when did she start wearing dresses?”

“Yeah mate she’s a country girl from up Branxton way, but most of the women are wearing ‘em at the Squadron social do’s and at the junior rates club, and she felt a bit odd-man-out so she flipped. I really like it hey.”

“Yeah, got to admit that too. And the Club’s gotten quieter as It’s got busier which is weird. Nothing like TT’s or the Shitfight at King’s Cross.”

“You’re a regular but, Knocker, not a short service man or reserve.”

“Yeah.”

“How come this Squadron’s so, well, quiet like? No punch-ups, only a few regular dickheads at defaulters, not even much skiving off.”

The big man paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “You like being here?”

“Yeah. Base is great, facilities are great, right in the middle of town, most married blokes are getting a unit here,” he gestured at the requisitioned and purchased apartment complexes, “OK I work mostly over on the new site at the old dockyard but the work’s good. Lot of it too but different engines and systems so there’s variety, and it’s a happy base.”

“That’s why mate. It’s a happy base, and all the ships here are happy ships too, not a single arsehole among the officers, not many of them, they share the risks we do and they know their business too. I reckon that It’s because of how hard the business is, and because the XO and Skipper demand that everyone including the chicks does regular time out on the sweepers so that even the base-wallahs know about their problems. OK the chicks can only help out the cooks, do comms or lookout or other bridge work but they are there and one’s been killed. I mean, every time we lose a ship we seem to lose at least one Namoi crew member. That is really unusual and it means that the sweeper crews and base crew are tight. Even the defaulters go out, hey!”

Both laughed. Defaulters here did not mean sitting on your backside nice and comfy or marching lessons, it meant day after day in the stokehold of HMAS William the Fourth shovelling coal into her boiler while she endlessly moved the lawn doing sidescan surveys. Such was the beneficial effect that another replica, this time Sophia Jane, had been launched up at Raymond Terrace. Mostly volunteers building her, cost was a couple of million and she was headed for Melbourne under sail to be fitted with her reciprocating engines (she had the boiler already) for service as a side-scanner with “Tin Legs” Boulay’s Squadron to replace STS Young Endeavour in that role. They all knew the story, hell of a way to earn a new nickname.

oOo

The ship’s low-slung, graceful yacht-like looks made quite an impression when she entered port. Every mariner in the port understood the utilitarian beauty of any ship no matter how hidden it was, but one actually designed to be good looking by classic standards was a true rarity. Nobody on her open bridge was even slightly surprised at the numbers waiting on the wharf, the local TV crew or the small blonde woman in the long pastel dress. Although McCann was a bit surprised to see her parents with her. It was still morning, if only just.

“Oops. Hey Michelle, can you loan me your phone for a sec?”

“Sure, why?”

“Better ring Ron and Vic and tell ‘em the good news. If I don’t they’ll murder me slowly and painfully! They’ll use sarcasm!”

“Oooh, can’t have something like that happen, take it! Take it!”

Smiling, he took the phone and rang the memorised number.

“Veronica McCann.”

“Hi ‘Ron, It’s your Dad. Got some news.”

The voice had a trace of alarm in it. “Everything all right Dad?”

“More than all right. Just ringing you to give you the news that you will have a baby brother or sister in about eight months.”

There was a surprised silence followed by an “ummm....”

“Tracey found out this morning, and this is how she sprang it on me...”

Behind him, Michelle was laughing softly.

oOo

The sculptor was a very strange fellow, Horner thought. His studio was interesting, though, and he was very skilled. They’d used contacts found on their brief honeymoon to find him. OK, he was … eccentric, as was his wife, well, partner, and they obviously regarded whoopee weed as an inspiration.

“Like, who’s the chick in the puffy dress, man?”

“That’s a very old photo, Jamie, she was named Hersey Hope, and she was the Marchioness of Linlithgow, the Countess of Hopetoun. That’s why we want a figurehead in her likeness.”

“Freaky. I don’t normally dig this martial stuff, man, but the Drayton boys say you are a righteous guy doing righteous stuff saving ships off the port, man. So that’s cool, you ain’t out there killing anyone. I’m kind of a peacenik, bro. So chick and white dress?”

“And scrollboards to blend the figurehead into the sweep of the hull.”

They got down to details. Whatever the archaic hippy attitudes, he sketching was clear, swift, totally focussed, and beautiful.

oOo

The dread deed was done in the dead of night. They’d discreetly covered their intent by experimenting with a paravane system, a minor modification of the standard 1930s paravane sliding shoe which ran down the stem.

McCann noticed it very early. As was his wont when they could do it, he and his wife were in the gym pre-dawn, and were heading for the base pool when they saw it. The revived swimming pool had been his wife’s first “major project win” for the Squadron’s families with Defence, it had been covered with steel planks and bulk wire stored on top of it. All of that could and had been moved to the old State Dockyard site where a vast minesweeper hangar was rapidly rising. Three former Japanese longliners were already on the slip there being refurbished and converted into replacement AMS by Tomago shipyard staff and local industry. The other five had gone to Perth to replace west coast losses and bolster the forces protecting the iron ore ports.

Putting young families into the accommodation meant that the pool and barbecue area was actually needed. They had been refurbished and securely fenced to clearly divide the accommodation from the operational area, which meant that the crews of the ships (just yards away when berthed on the wharf) could see and hear wives and small children in the area when they departed and arrived. The boost to morale had been considerable, especially as the area had been cleaned, resurfaced and decorated with the men’s work and money from the ship’s fund.

So the McCann’s were walking to the pool when they saw it.

McCann started laughing in delight.

“Eh? What?”

“Look at the Countess, Tracey. Sneaky gits rigged that overnight!”

“I have to get my camera, love. That’s amazing. What are the boards called?”

“Scroll boards. I like the way they have had her name carved into them, and nothing’s oversized, It’s modest and really well done, It’s a half-figure with scrollboards that merge with the figurehead. They kept it very quiet. What is a surprise to me is the blasted bowsprit. See how the cunning little sod has put a sort of bowsprit on her, that’s what it will look like from a distance, and he’s rigged it up as a line handling position as a cover!”

He stood and admired the figurehead, it really was an excellent work of art.

“Must have cost them a mint, love. Come on you two,” Tracey smiled happily, she was not showing yet, “let’s check out the stern.”

They walked down the wharf.

“Yes, good on them. A little bit of scrollwork there too, not much, just where the wires won’t damage it.”

“What are you going to do about it, love?”

“Nothing, of course! Well, aside from letting it known that it’s a no-no to interfere with or nick the figurehead, must have cost a bomb and all from their own pockets. I might also have to say that competition in size or any garishness will definitely draw the crabs in Canberra, humourless sods. Come on, quick dip then some photographs when the sun comes up a bit so I can get ‘em off to COMAUSMINFOR and COMAUSFLT, with my quickrep, I’ll say that I quietly approve for morale purposes, will officially ignore it, and make sure it does not get out of hand.”

“Jack’s hand…”

“Is all over this one,” he said as he completed her sentence. They smiled at each other.

oOo

The Chief of Naval Staff looked at the image on the screen. It had been the normal morning brief – except for this. His staff was waiting for cues on how to respond.

“Good grief. I never thought I’d ever see a warship of the RAN sporting an actual figurehead.” He thought for a second. “I know that’s a good shot, Mrs McCann’s work, you say? But she does look very good and that’s a genuine work of art, must have cost the crew a fortune. Right, so they paid for it themselves and are very proud of their ship. Good. The CO is reported by MINFOR as an absolutely exceptional junior officer and what did he say? One tough tin-legged little bastard? That Flotilla has taken a lot of losses and I am most certainly not going to do anything to affect their morale, so I agree with CO 2nd Squadron, CO 32nd Flotilla, COMAUSMINFOR and COMAUSFLT. Official tolerance within limits of good taste, and get Mrs McCann’s shots to PAO for their immediate use and such. This will be very useful PR for Navy.”

His Chief of Staff looked considering. The CNS cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Well, sir, I must say this. Is there any real reason our ships actually have to be so strictly utilitarian? The new carriers cannot avoid being great boxy things, but why not improve the looks of the new cruisers a little if we can, at no additional cost? Why not allow a little decoration even if It’s just the name painted on the stern or a scrollboard? Ha! I have to say that I agree with the FAC-M blokes in one way too. The Countess class would look amazing in Victorian livery!”

There were a few chuckles at this sally.

“But aside from that, sir, the reports about increased officer of the watch situational awareness from open bridges deserves close attention and more study. One thing I certainly think we want post-war is to use ships of that class as coastal navigation training ships.”

“Hmm. When we have the time to study and quantify this we will do so.”

“Sir, while on the subject of AMS, the names for the next batches of AMS?”

“Lots of ideas, but I spoke to the historians. And I have decided on new names. Twenty two of them to be exact.”

“Sir?”

“The Bangka Nurses plus Vivian Statham. Pat Darling can commission the first one. She’s the last of the Vyner Brooke nurses left alive now.”

There was a deeply troubled silence.

oOo

“So these conversions are different to the first batch?” Tracey was furiously scribbling notes.

The old nautical engineer from Tomago nodded, he’d come out of retirement for this job. “Yes, we slipped them at the new site for survey and stripping, then brought them here to the yard for rebuild, in the meantime we’ve been building modular bridges and prefabbing parts. They were well selected, they are identical and none is more than a year old. So we are making them like the Countesses as much as possible, superstructure is the same, machinery’s different but it’s all unmanned now, and we have reinforced and compartmented them. They are still single hull but they are much stronger than the first conversions and of course they are all big, 850 tons. Bit slow, only 15 knots and one screw but vastly more survivable than the first simple conversions. Two masts again, one stack, they will look nothing like they were before the rebuild.”

“Did you hear about the names?” Tracey had only just heard herself, the Squadron was abuzz with the news. Mostly it was hard, grim approval. Those were names to fit the times and the mood.

“No, what are they?”

“These three are to be named Irene Drummond, Ada Bridge and Dorothy Elmes, after Matron Irene Drummond, Sister Ada Bridge and Sister Dorothy Elmes.”

“I don’t know those names. Nurses? Surely not Centaur!”

Tracey said one terrible word freighted with old anguish. “Bangka.”

“Dear sweet Holy Lord Jesus Christ on his cross. Don’t squeal girls, that’s what she said, as they walked into the water knowing they were to be massacred.” His voice was soft with ... something indefinable. A mixture of horror and ancient sorrow, and approval; but Tracey knew, as she crossed herself, that his words were a prayer.

oOo

They were looking at a design on paper.

“Is this even legal?”

“Sure! They are for a warship. Well, sort of a warship. A small warship. Ok, one made of wood. And with a steam engine.”

“Well, it’s a simple enough job to turn it out on a lathe, and we’ve got heavy brass billet.”

“Excellent, now let’s talk how much.”

oOo

B-36 was back, and Yevgeni Kosygen was not at all happy about it. He had taken weeks to return home at the start of the war, expecting that to be it. Medals? Yes. Official appreciation of a job well done? All the flowery words said so, but Yevgeni knew that those words were worth their weight in gold. Literally.

His business? Well, his sons were doing very well, his wife had shown that she had learned much and she kept the business together, ruling with an iron hand. The one overly ambitious lieutenant who had moved against his family had screamed out his life atop a pile of blazing pine, and he had called a family conference. You just did not do that unless you were planning, as they were, actions which would get everyone killed by the state. The USSR was not faring well, and preserving the family and the business was now an existential matter. As patriarch and already located inside the Navy, Yevgeni was able to keep them from being called up. Oh, men with their names had been called up, and were wearing the uniform, but the country was large, the Maritimes were remote, and money talked. And everybody knew Yevgeni, while very few had ever met his sons under their real names. They appreciated that very much and business with China had increased markedly within their portfolios. They had split the family to ensure survival against what they believed to be coming. A large part of the family – and his sons – were now over the border. His wife and his daughters remained, and that part of the business was being run – patriotically, yes, that was the word. Supplying morale-boosting goods to officials at the lowest possible price was indeed patriotic. No-one could be accused of black marketeering if they were making no money but merely breaking even, could they? Even the border guards, it was not bribery to patriotically supply them with better quality clothing, boots and even ammunition, was it? Especially when border guards accompanied the work, and saw with their own eyes that what they were getting really was at cost.

But it meant that his own maskirovka had to continue. He could not personally escape, but that did not matter much if that meant that his family was as safe as anyone in the country. Safer than even the nomenklatura, too. So the price was well worth paying. Refitting the B-36 had taken much time, but he could not escape if his family was to survive what they knew was coming. No, the conflict had not been the short sharp victory the party had expected and Kosygen could see few stars in the night looming ahead. And he had made an amazing number of contacts within the military in the Maritimes as the most successful of the remote area minelayers. Many favours were now owed him and his family.

Well, Kosygen thought, I did what I could. This old boat has been returned to nearly new condition. The bribes and the money did that at least. And this crew is all mine now, if we survive they will all be essential members of the business. Hah! Especially the zampolit, I own him now, body and soul. But he had his doubts about that survival. The Australians were alert now and even after a slow six week voyage through remote regions he was seriously worried about their defences. The four Type 641 class on this mission were still obsolete, they were all synchronised to lay mines off Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and in Bass Strait simultaneously so if one was detected they all would be subject to the increased counter measures.

And he was the only old, cynical one among them. The loss of three of the first wave meant that his was the only boat making a return trip. One had been sunk off Jervis Bay, one fool had gotten within 400 miles of Guam – what had he been thinking – and the third had been picked off by a Japanese diesel boat off Kamchatka. He’d been clever, sneaking along the Kamchatka coast after making landfall at the north side of Kamchatski Zaliv, reporting by light to the watch station at Ust-Kamchatsk and staying in the shallowest water he could and on the surface until he got to Petropavlovsk. They had been surprised to see him at Rybachiy. They had come back the same way, and hopefully without losses.

The intelligence was poor to put it mildly. Sure, most of their good anti-submarine assets were in north Asian waters but most was not all, and the intelligence had said that the Australians had numerous patrol craft, auxiliaries and other vessels off their ports every day. No-one had any idea of what these auxiliaries were fitted with in terms of sensor systems. He had discussed this with them in Petropavlovsk and had insisted that he had far too much classified material aboard. Much had been removed from his boat. He had also insisted that as the boats were worthless, what mattered was crew survival after their mission was completed. So careful transits back had been approved.

He walked over to the chart table and looked at it one more time. The operation began in twelve hours, in his log he described his early arrival as a positioning manoeuvre, he’d be in position off the port precisely on time, but he was doing what he had done before. He was in close, in terrifyingly shallow water, going south with the current and just ghosting along at absolute minimum revolutions. Barely enough to keep steerage on. He’d be very slow compared to the others

Chapter 11

oOo

B-109
Brisbane was a very tough target. They all were but Brisbane had a fairly wide continental shelf and the approaches were far too shallow for comfort. The water was also very clear and the bottom sand, so a simple visual search would see them in daytime. So, the operation commencement was scheduled for midnight local time to allow for the submarines to avoid that sort of little problem.

The sensors had been “aware” of the magnetic flux for some time because they were very sensitive. They had to be. The electronic system “considered” the sensor inputs. Magnetic signature, check. Pressure signature, well yes, but not within parameters however the system was “tracking” the possible target and it was only moving at a little over two knots. What self-respecting sensor would get a decent signature off that? But it was there. Slight, but there. Acoustic was interesting, definitely screws, plural. And the target was within the blast radius. Well, with 900kg of aluminised PBX high explosive in the warhead that was not really a surprise. Not that the electronic system could feel that or anything else. But it did notice when the magnetic signature peaked, and started to decline. So it closed an electronic relay.

Detonation.

oOo

Ted could be, even his friends admitted, a bit of an arsehole. He certainly did not suffer fools gladly. And fools, in his opinion, had closed off his favourite place to fish for the big mackerel and cobia summer brought to Moreton Bay. He’d even had the indignity of being chased out on one occasion. So now he fished there at night. He’d even removed parts of his big twenty foot fibreglass boat to reduce its radar signature. If anyone asked, he was a mile or so out of position. Without a radar and with the coastal lights changed, he could play the confused old bloke game.

Ted damned near filled his pants when there was a dull green flash and a colossal column of water shot into the sky six or seven hundred yards away. The shockwave was very heavy and the 20 pound mackerel he had on lost all interest in fighting the line; his engine kept idling though so that was something. He hauled it in, a dead weight. He clutched the engine in, and very slowly motored over to the filthy roil, three times stopping to scoop up numbers of big mackerel. Waste not, want not.

It stank of diesel and it was gushing up from below. As was about a hundred yards from the roil he saw wreckage. Lots of wreckage. Then he saw a body.

“Shit. The bastards were right.” He stopped the boat, moved the fish into his ice-slurry filled tank to clear the deck, then moved the boat next to the body. He hooked it with a gaff through the clothing, opened the little access gate on his transom and after very great effort was able to get the body into the boat. Oh hell, he thought, military and I do not recognise the uniform at all. Not ours though.. He heard big bubbles bursting and looked up. A man in the water, and alive by the look of him.

He re-engaged the engine and started over, reaching for the radio. Channel 73.

“Quebec Foxtrot Four Caloundra volunteer coastguard this is Romeo Two Mike Six come in”

“QF4, Romeo Two Mike Six, we are a bit busy…”

“QF4, AVC glad you are on, listen it’s Ted Mathewson, signed in just after dusk, I have arrived at the scene of a major explosion in the defensive minefield, recovered one body, I see a man in the water, he just popped up. Mate get the rescue boats out here right now. My lights are on and I’ll crack a flare. Gotta go, got two of ‘em now. Hurry will ya?”

He motored gently to a stop, attached a life jacket to a line and threw it. The man grabbed it and Ted pulled him in. he seemed to be exhausted and muttered as Ted pulled him aboard.

“Spasibo, starik, ya sdayus”

“Sorry mate, don’t speak that lingo.”

“A ty govorish po russki?”

“Rooski?” Ted could figure that one out.

The young man nodded fiddled and tossed a belt knife to the deck and away from himself, then opened his hands. “Da, Russki, sovetskiy flot, ya ne prichinyu vam vreda.” He paused for a second and shrugged. “Eto daleko ot doma.”

“A Russian,” he muttered, “strike me pink.” He pointed at the young man and nodded. “Rooski.”

He pointed at himself. “Edward.”

“Edvad,” the young man pointed at himself, “Maykl.”

“Michael.”

The young man nodded, looking sadly at the oil soaked corpse, which Ted had laid out with such dignity as he could, and covered with a rain jacket.

Ted passed the young man the jacket and rope as he put the boat back in gear, and gently motored toward the second man. He pointed and gestured, but he did not need to. He threw the line quite expertly, and they wrangled another survivor on to the boat, he was bleeding freely from a head wound and appeared to be quite woozy. Michael removed his belt knife and gave it to Ted as well. Ted passed both some water and a chocolate bar each, which appeared to surprise them, and bandaged the head of the second man, who turned out to be called Anatoly or something similar. None had a word of the other’s language. They looked out for more men. One more came up half an hour later and they got him aboard. He was barely conscious but his breathing was strong and he quickly recovered enough to sit up, dazed.

Ten minutes later Ted popped a flare and threw it overboard, he could see the fast rescue boat. The eased alongside a few minutes later. One of the coasties clambered aboard.

“Bloody hell!”

“Three survivors, all Russian navy, just young blokes, anyone speak Russian?”

A chorus of ‘no’ followed. So did a radio conversation back to their base on Pumicestone Passage.

In a few minutes they had it sorted. The three survivors were given hot coffee and wrapped in blankets. The body too, just to show him some respect. He’d died for his country too. It was decided that Ted, with one of the volunteers who had first aid training, would head back to their base. A dan layer and a minesweeper were enroute, an ambulance would be waiting for the three survivors, and police as well. Ted shook his head at that. These young fellows were exhausted and shocky, they were not going anywhere. And they had nowhere to go to.

Down below, a handful of men were still fighting for their lives in the remaining unflooded part of the old submarine. Most would lose the fight. The rescue boat got just one more man. Then the larger naval units arrived.

The remaining Stonefish mines waited. They were good at that.

Tuesday 1 November 2005

The news flashed though the military communications system. By 0100 an AP-3C was operating off Sydney and a two more were hunting in Bass Strait. Locally based Trackers were operating off the ports. A fourth was sitting on the runway at Williamstown with a failed engine while its crew cursed a blue streak. The Navy’s less capable but more numerous and locally-based Grumman S-2T(A) Trackers were also surged. A flight was based at RAAF Williamtown, one was on routine patrol and a second preparing to replace it: the Trackers had inherited the nickname of their distant predecessors, the Avro Ansons which had haunted the coast 1939-45; ‘Faithful Annie’. All the sweepers and small craft alongside were boiling out of the port.

0120

Ironically, it was an innocuous replica wooden paddle steamer half-jokingly armed with a pair of six-pounder brass smoothbore muzzle-loaders which started the thrills and spills. William the Fourth was still performing her totally unspectacular activity, towing her survey sidescan on her endless task of mowing the lawn forty miles north and south of the port. She was very useful in this role as her shallow water sidescan was endlessly being tweaked; it was the developmental model for the systems being used by the towfishers and it was quite invaluable. There was always a university ‘technerd’, as her crew christened them, aboard playing with something.

“Get the skipper. I have something very strange here.”

The weapons system Petty Officer looked at the screen, said “Shit! Whatever you do, do not lose that contact!” and raced to get the boss. He was there less than a minute later. She was a very small and very, very primitive ship. They used hammocks, for God’s sake.

“You sure that’s not a glitch?”

“No, I do not know what it is, but it’s real and it’s there.”

“That’s an enemy submarine. In fact, given that profile, I‘d say it’s a bloody Foxtrot, and the poor brave bastard’s in what, seventy feet of water? There goes a man with balls of hammer forged iron weighing ten pounds each. Now we kill him. I’m getting a flash priority off right now.”

Kosygen was worried. He did not believe his sensors. A steam reciprocating engine? On the same bearing as some sort of high-frequency sonar with very strange characteristics? How did that make any sense? But it was not reacting, and it was four miles away in water about as deep as a carpark puddle. More old fashioned short-range high frequency searchlight sonars to the south east, obvious MCMV. Small craft associated with other odd sonars. Some sort of major mine countermeasures operation was underway, obviously, but there was nothing here that the libraries said was a threat. The coast was lousy with radars and he’d risked two sweeps. Small craft only, except for the huge colliers in the anchorage. He worried some more.

oOo
0130

McCann and Tracey were smashed awake by the scramble alarms. He instantly grabbed the bedside phone and hit a number.

“Update me.”

His face showed surprise as Tracey ran to get a uniform ready.

“Get the armoury’s guns to the in-port sweepers. Now.”

“What is it?” Her voice showed the fear, not another loss.

“Of all things, Puffing Billy’s found a Sov submarine, minelayer, right in close, in the shallows. We are getting everything out there, but we are a minesweeping Squadron, no capability against a sub. P3 at Willietown’s down with a duff engine, Tracker is coming up maybe. I’ll get out on the Countess. Shelly will be there.”

“Wish I could be.”

He smiled and kissed her, placing his hand flat on her abdomen. “You look after the little rascal, nothing in the world is as important, love. And know that I love you and the rascal.”

He dressed quickly, and so did she.

“And I think that there might just be a story here for you, Trace. Get into your rig and get up to the fort. You’ll get a good view of whatever happens and who knows, we might need illumination.”

She smiled at him, worrying. “Just you come back!”

0145

The crew of Countess of Hopetoun noted the CO’s wife farewelling him on the wharf, O-dark-hundred and she was there. She always was, and looking good too. Oddly, she dashed off pretty fast. The skipper with his missus in her warco rig was already aboard. It had seemed weird at first, but they were both professionals and it showed. They certainly did nothing at sea to indicate that they were a married couple. And she went out on other vessels more often anyway. The Countess had only just returned six hours earlier after three days out non-stop, so they were tired, the skipper more than most probably as his wife had definitely not been out with them and they were newlyweds after all. Wilcannia was also in and was due out tomorrow, but now they were all sortieing with this latest flap. So it was Wilcannia, with the Commander aboard, she still had the best communications suite of the Squadron’s ships, and Three Group with Countess of Hopetoun and her two MSA, Koraaga and Valkyrie, a purchased MSA. Purchased MSA retained their original names these days, but in the end the numbers of operationally superior AMS restricted MSA numbers. An AMS had about double the crew than a MSA for at least four times the operational capability. Worse, the losses when a small MSA was mined were even worse than the AMS. That said, they were very useful in channels where Oropesa sweeping was just not required, so they were normal sights in the coal export ports, Cairns with its long approach channel, Moreton Bay, Port Phillip Bay and especially Dampier.

McCann thought about things as the ship left the berth, then got on the radio to Williamtown tower. Within a minute he was speaking to the AP-3C. The crew was aboard on the chance that the frantically working ground crew could get the engine working.

“Seagull nine this is Minesweep Lead aboard Wilcannia, what’s your status, I don’t have anything I can hit a submerged sub with, I can at least ram him on the surface, and I have ordered Scratchley to activate with the HE rounds I know he has, over.”

“Minesweep Lead this is Seagull nine, not looking good. My systems are up, I have two torpedoes and two depth charges, just waiting on the engine but I am not hopeful, over.”

“Seagull nine, the contact is in about seventy feet of water, does not know it’s being tracked, and is just offshore. Why don’t you get rid of some weight, like a bunch of your fuel, and take off on three engines? I know you can fly easily on three. And we’ve got a sub to kill, over.”

There was silence on the circuit for about thirty seconds.

“Launching in ten minutes after fuel offload, over.”

“Game on, Seagull nine! I’ll get to seaward of him. Talk direct to William the Fourth on the guard freq, she is ready to pass you accurate positional data. MAD attack? If you can even just get him on the surface, we can finish him, or Scratchley might be able to with their museum pieces, over.”

“What a way to run a war, Minesweep Lead. Switch to tower freq now. Seagull nine out.”

oOo

0210

There was frantic activity at the RAAF base. As the AP-3C taxied out on three engines, four Hawks were being bombed up. The Tracker was already gone.

The co-pilot turned briefly to the pilot.

“Taking off barely above our mandatory do not drop below fuel level is plain weird!”

“He’s right and I was too wrapped in normal operating procedures. The target’s thirty seconds off the end of the bloody runway. They can hang me later if they want. Killing a sub is what I have trained for all my life, and this is my first live target. Screw the regs, you think the Chief is going to bitch about it?”

“Good point and nope. And Scunner’s crew is prosecuting a sub off Sydney right now.”

“Plus the one off Brisbane that hit the mine.”

“They screwed up big time on this one. Simultaneous TOT. Not a good idea if you get pinged.”

He spoke into the internal circuit. “Tacco, you talking to the MCMV?”

“Good data flow boss, manual but they know their stuff. She’s pulled back to just under five miles and their sidescan is holding it well, I am actually tracking it on their data. This guy’s got serious stones, he’s got maybe ten feet under him and over him. I wish they had a link but they don’t. I mean, we are taking a tactical feed from a frigging coal burning wooden paddle steamer so a big surprise there. Recommend a simple MAD attack from astern. If we miss with the Mk 11’s that will flush him into water deep enough for the torpedoes to actually work. If he surfaces the sweepers say they’ll ram him, or the Hawks will get him, or who knows, Scratchley might get him. Hell of a way to run a war, boss. I mean, a paddle steamer?”

“Right, we are good to go, game faces on, people.”

oOo

McCann was speaking into the circuit. “ACH, you monitoring? Status?”

The Captain was on the circuit himself. “Ack, Minesweep Lead. One’s loaded for illumination, Two’s loaded for contact HE as they won the last three shoots. We only have four dozen rounds, though. Shepherd’s Hill radar is tracking all and can spot shot.”

“Acknowledged. If she comes to the surface open fire immediately but cease fire if she goes stationary or when I get within eight hundred yards. I want you to stop her if you can. Keep illuminating. If you run out of HE, just keep illuminating. P3’s been told the burst attitude, and she’ll be mostly below 500 feet.”

“Orders acknowledged, sir.”

“Right, you are all in the loop. Formation one, Wilcannia the guide and we’ll take Route Q12 at eight knots. My Battenberg tells me that will put us about three miles from him when the attack goes in. Let’s look like we are heading out on a routine sweep, people. If she comes to the surface and tries to run, AMS are to ram her. MSA are to engage with machine guns where possible and act as rescue craft.

oOo

Kosygen was watching things like a very nervous hawk, but dared not put a radar mast up again. His slender ECM mast told the same story, with the addition of more basic navigation radars exiting the port. Putting up the scope made no sense, it was night and his scope had no low light system.
This matched with the passive array, which was plotting their speed as about 9 knots. Looked like a group of their auxiliary minesweepers. His plot showed no threats, but the stress was tremendous.

“Depth now 28 metres.”

“Take her down another two metres.”

There was a slight but perceptible relaxation of tension. Ridiculous. We all feel a little safer over just over two more metres of water, Kosygen thought, with 22 mines to go.

oOo

0225

“There are times” opined the Tacco, “when I miss the Leigh light.”

The big aircraft was at 120 feet and rapidly closing the plotted location of the submarine. She was only moving at two and a half knots.

“ASQ-81 nominal.”

“MADMADMAD flare away. DIFAR away.”

The big aircraft arced away, turning into the attack.

oOo

Kosygen paled. He’d actually heard it, unmistakable, a big aircraft and on the deck. There was only one thing it could be. They had him on MAD, they had to have. But the water was too shallow for any torpedo he knew of.

“Cease laying, full ahead, port 15.” He turned to the zampolit. “Escape in water this shallow, and so far from deep water, through our own minefields, is going to be very difficult. Commence destruction of classified material immediately.”

The zampolit nodded and went to start the work.

oOo

“Figurehead’s all removed and stowed below sir.”

“Thanks XO.” He turned to the war correspondent, his wife. “This could get dangerous.” He nodded towards the 20mm now set up on each beam, and the small arms. He had not even glanced at the edged weapons she’d brought up when helping the crew get ready for a fight. “If the two-way rifle range thing starts, I want you sheltering behind the deckhouse, on the disengaged side. You are a warco, and you are here, but you are still a civilian non-combatant and it is my duty to keep you as safe as possible. Got it?”

She nodded. There was no absolutely give in him on any of this.

“That said there is nowhere safe. We may take casualties anyway. Help the SBA but do not go below, we’ll be fighting among the mines.”

She nodded again, pale as the implication sank in.

“XO, are the 1lb scare charges assembled?”

“Yes sir, all 24 of them. Down behind the forward winch so they are safe from any incoming.”

“Small arms and any other weapons sorted and issued?”

“Yes sir, all except you.” He handed over a 9mm pistol. Horner checked safety and then took the two magazines. His wife looked at him closely.

“You have a funny feeling about this.”

“I have a funny feeling about this. I do not know why.”

oOo

McCann saw the flare.

“All ships turn towards. Maintain distance. Speed one five.”

“ACH this is Minesweep Lead, wait for the attack run. I say again, wait for the attack run.”

oOo

0230

“DIFAR live, good signal. She’s gone to full power, lots of cavitation. Library confirms Foxtrot, three screws”

It took just over 90 seconds for the big AP-3C to settle back into her attack run. The Tacco was calculating furiously and telling the pilot everything. You had to be precise with depth charges. The AP-3C roared in from astern of the submarine to maximise the chances of the Mk 11’s. They released on the assumption that she had moved two lengths, 600 feet, in the available time.

Both of the old-fashioned depth charges, little changed since WWII at least externally, fell away and splashed into the dark sea. They were actually a little off in their estimate of what B-39 was doing, and both landed on her starboard side. They reached 45 feet very quickly.

oOo

The explosions were shattering, lighting failed in the sub as she whipped violently, then came on again. Too damned close, thought Kosygen, there will be damage. Now, priority is crew survival, and incidentally, mine!

oOo

“ACH this is Minesweep Lead. Commence illumination fire.”

They saw the aircraft climbing away as two pillars rose into the air. The sound reaching them a short time later.

“Go active on the sonars.” They might be simple, cheap ground-mine warning sets, but their genesis had been the sort of sonar which had doomed many a U-boat sixty years earlier. They could not do much other than follow her, but that much they could do.

oOo

The acoustic man at the rail spoke into the aircrew circuit. “Boss, she’s down a screw, and I hear lots of mechanical noise, we got a piece of her.”

oOo

“Still flooding in the motor room! Sir we can’t get at it, and we are not going to stop it. Pumps are not holding it but they are slowing it down.”

The board showed the problems, as did the reports. One motor had been knocked out. The flooding in the aft torpedo room had been stopped, but the motor room flood could not be stopped and the pumps could not deal with it. And he was down to no more than 13 knots on two electric motors. No choice.

He turned aft to where he could see the zampolit sticking his head out of the communications shack. “We are surfacing! Get a message out as soon as we surface that we are damaged and attempting to evade on the surface! End it with Long Live the Motherland!” That should cover a multitude of possible sins, he thought cynically, “Political Officer, destroy all the classified gear that you can and do it fast!”

“Surface, blow her to awash state, I want to be able to dive again, fast, get the diesels going the second we surface!”

oOo

Acoustics spoke again into the aircrew circuit. “Long blow, she’s coming up.”

oOo

0235

“Minesweep lead this is Seagull nine, she’s hurt and she’s trying to surface.”

“ACH this is Minesweep Lead, I am at least several minutes from her, open fire on her as soon as you have a target. If you can stop her, good, otherwise we will have to start ramming her and I’d prefer not to bend my ships.”

“Acknowledged.”

At Fort Scratchley the six-inch guns again spoke into the night. Again, the city started to realise that something was amiss. Only this time, Number One gun was firing as fast as it could.

oOo

McCann looked at the sight, it really was quite something. The big submarine surfaced very quickly in the glare of the starshells, and he saw the black jets of smoke as her diesels lit off. Ten seconds later a column of water shot up about a cable long. The second column ten seconds later was half a cable short.

oOo

Kosygen just could not believe his eyes when he scrambled out of the hatch. He connected the headset jacks. “This just keeps getting worse,” he called down below. “We are under starshell and under artillery fire! And at least four ships are closing. Get the heavy machine guns and small arms up here right now! He turned to his navigation officer. “We should be able to run away from them. We can do 17 knots and those are just auxiliary minesweepers. Much smaller than us and much slower. They should have little but some machineguns. If we can get past them, and if that damned gun does not hit us, we might be able to fix the leak and bottom somewhere quiet for a few days.”

The next shell exploded thirty yards to port. Kosygen altered course to port. The next landed twenty yards to starboard. They were straddling, so he chased the salvoes.

This is ridiculous, he thought.

[drmarkbailey]

oOo

“She’s low in the water,” said Stefanovic.

McCann was watching through the binoculars as they got to a mile from the fleeing submarine. His ships were up to full power, and he would certainly intercept even though Wilcannia was only doing 16 knots.

“Running awash. She’s hurt, but it is not mortal. Now we have a job of work to do.”

So he saw the shell hit. A brilliant flash aft of the fin. “Hit, by God! Now do it again!”

oOo

Kosygen felt and heard the hit. The thunder of the engines did not change and he just could not afford the attention. He really did not like the look of those minesweepers. He checked. There was no bearing change.

“Oh great, Navigator! Those minesweepers are going to try to ram us.”

“Guess all our mines have annoyed them skipper.”

Kosygen gave a harsh bark of laughter. With astonishment, he realised that this was his crew, his men.

So be it.

He called below on the whole ship circuit. “Stand by for manoeuvring. Very well, we are the wrecking crew, and we are not getting out of this one. Follow me and let’s show these bastards how Russians fight. Break out the small arms, knives, wrenches, anything we have.” For the first time in his life, he was genuinely humbled. They were cheering.

Then a second shell burst on the submarine and he heard an engine die.

oOo

The shell had a contact fuse and was designed to explode on contact. Which it did. Very unfortunately for B-39, it burst directly over a main air induction piping aft of the fin on the starboard side. The explosion wrecked the induction and smashed the system, choking off most of the air supply for one engine. It died immediately and she slowed to just 13 knots.

Simultaneously, Countess of Hopetoun, well in advance of the others due to her much higher speed, opened fire with her 20mm.

Kosygen ordered his men to return fire with two 12.7mm machine guns and they scored heavily. They actually had a vastly bigger target because the submarine had nothing worth hitting but the sail. She was taking many hits but they were just 20mm and could not hurt her at shallow angles when she was running awash. The 12.7mm could not really hurt Countess of Hopetoun either, but her entire crew was exposed. And they suffered accordingly.

Chapter 12

oOo

Horner was bleeding from some minor frag wounds and he was toweringly enraged. Four of his men hit and his XO – kid was only 20 – had had his head literally taken off by a direct hit from one of the big 12.7mm rounds. The hammering of the Oerlikons did not seem to be doing much, then the world accelerated and things started to happen very quickly. The shelling stopped and he saw the submarine turn in to him, they had obviously picked his intent to ram. No problems, he thought to himself, that opens him to Wilcannia. He altered course towards the enemy to encourage him to turn harder. Submarine and minesweeper exchanged hundreds of rounds as they passed barely forty yards apart. Horner felt long bursts slamming into his ship and he saw two more of his men fall.

But they were still turning, and he was both faster and more manoeuvrable. He turned outside her and saw her steady, then wake up to Wilcannia closing fast. The Russian started to turn again but was too slow. Wilcannia slammed into her at an angle, and bounced off, but poured a torrent of close-range automatic fire into her fin. The Russian fire ceased. Then some determined little sod appeared and emptied an AK magazine into Wilcannia’s bridge. Then it was his turn. The Countess smacked into the Russian while shooting up her fin. The Russian was still manoeuvring, then Wilcannia again caught her, connecting with her stern and earning another AK magazine from some whack-a-mole maniac on her fin. More fire lashed in as Koraaga came up to within 200 yards, and the Russian turned towards her.

Lots of bullets had come through the face of the bridge. McCann was amazed that he was still alive. All he had were cuts and frag. He finished putting the combat dressing on the Lieutenant. She was shuddering as the pain hit, but not screaming yet.

“How does it look,” she gasped. “I can still see you.”

“Good that you can. That was good shooting, you killed the gunner.”

“How does it look damn it!”

McCann was not going to lie. “Not good. Not fatal but the eye is gone and a chunk of your face with it. A big bit’s still attached so I slapped it back in place when you were down. The tissue should not die. The rest is just frag and spall. Shoulder, tits, maybe upper arm. Nothing serious by the look. You were lucky. That was a 12.7. If it had not hit the steel first it would have taken your head off. I’ll get you below.”

“No.”

“You’ve stopped a bloody 12.7 with your face!”

“No. Help me up and give me my rifle. Prop me on the bridge front. Even like this I am the best marksman you have.”

He scrabbled at the satchel. “Stupid Kiwis. Let me get some local anaesthetic into that mess at least.”

“Not stupid enough to say no to that.”

oOo

Kosygen was beside himself with fury, literally seeing red. They were killing his men. His gunners had been torn apart and he was streaming blood from fragments. His headset still worked and he turned towards the small minesweeper ahead of him, firing her machine gun. I am awash, you bastard, which means my foreplanes are submerged, he thought, gotcha.

“Stand by to ram,” he barked into the broadcast “and keep de-ballasting to keep us awash.”

B-39 turned at the last second and hit the little 119-ton Koraaga a glancing blow, then the two vessels ground past each other on reciprocal course. Kosygen and three replacement gunners – only one of the 12.7’s was still serviceable, it and they poured a torrent of small calibre fire into her, killing or wounding half the 12-man crew. The port hydroplane was just two feet underwater and it opened up Koraaga’s starboard side like a gutting knife. Her engine died as the big submarine swept past her, she reeled away, already starting to capsize.

McCann watched in appalled respect as the big submarine turned back towards Wilcannia, obviously intent on fighting this out to the finish and abandoning all hope of escape. So be it.

Zeke yelled at him over the hammering of the guns, “the smart thing to do is to run and leave him for the Hawks, but be fucked if I feel like running boss, what about you?”

“No bloody way known, he wants a knife fight, he’s got a knife fight!”

McCann’s blood was well and truly up.

“All ships all stations, this is a knife fight. He’s ready and willing to rumble, he’s not running and he just rammed Koraaga, she’s sinking. Wilcannia and the Countess will keep ramming. If we stop him, we’ll board the bastard. Gun your crews up. Everyone pile in as best you can with whatever you’ve got.”

“Yeoman!”

“Sir.”

“Message from CO2MCMSQN to COMAUSMINFOR info JOC. Knife fight stop intend to ram and disable enemy stop intend to board enemy stop casualties heavy stop Koraaga rammed and sinking end. We have to get these ships fitted with Molins guns right fucking now.”

The Yeoman bent to his task.

Both ships turned towards the big submarine, their light weapons hammering. Ammunition reserves were vanishing at a frightening rate. But that was what it was for.

oOo

0255

The orbiting AP-3C was not only recording it all she was downlinking it to the terrestrial comms system at Williamtown. The coneheads on the rail down the back were appalled at the sheer ferocity of it. The vessels involved were all essentially unarmed for this sort of thing, so all of them just made the ships themselves the weapons, and they tore at each other in a furious steel furball. The imaging systems showed men being hit, showed the fires and the damage, the arcs of hot cartridge casings spraying out, the sparkling flashes of the bullet strikes. They passed what information they could into the circuits. Above all they had linked it live to Williamtown, which bounced it straight to the rebuilt Joint Operations Command in its subterranean lair. In an inspired move, the watch officer got rapid permission and it was fed straight out to media. Sky Australia had it running raw in seconds. Five vessels (one of them a late-joining paddle steamer of archaic look) were mostly circling each other, the two big sweepers repeatedly dashing in to ram, sheeting sparks into the sea as they did so. The paddle steamer was the exception, she was steaming slowly near an upturned hull, obviously looking for survivors. But she was firing ... something every few minutes as she had a line of sight to the sub. Whatever it was, it made a big puff of white smoke. It was eerily beautiful, the lines of tracer arcing gracefully over the water. And the video was silent; no one could hear the screams.

Commander, Joint Operations Command, had made that call, and had Chief of Navy alerted.

Across the world, normal programming was interrupted and anchors cut into programming with the astonishing video.

In truth, it was a very minor little naval action. What made it historic was that it was the first one ever broadcast live from the scene. And it went on and on and on and on.

oOo

Countess of Hopetoun smacked into her forward of the fin, a torrent of small arms fire lashing her upper decks as she closed. Kosygen turned his submarine enough that the blow was glancing. Then Wilcannia hit him aft on the same side, a solid blow. Two of his men jumped out from behind the fin and tossed a cobbled together satchel charge on to her deck. From her position propped up on the bridge, Stefanovic shot them both down – but too late. It exploded with a loud blast, blowing the starboard bulwark away, ripping a hole in the deck, bowling over several of the crew and starting a fire. Scores of 12.7mm round ripped into her bridge before her own fire silenced the gun again. But crewmen on deck took her under accurate fire.

The ships broke apart again and were yet again linked by tracer, then Countess of Hopetoun, rather down by the bows now, charged back in at 19 knots and slammed into the submarine. Wilcannia came in next, then Adolphe, which had just joined the fray.

Kosygen saw an opportunity: a smaller sweeper was behind the big, yachtlike one. He’d not seen her before, she was slow for some reason. The big ones were much faster and were very manoeuvrable. B-39 was only doing 13 knots now, and he’d had to do a full blow, he had too much water in her and the leaks were getting worse. He put his helm to port, and she reacted too slowly.

oOo

“Dear God!” It had been going on for twenty minutes that he had seen. The Chief of Navy watched appalled as the 2,500 ton submarine passed just under the 950 ton Countess of Hopetoun’s stern as she frantically evaded the charge. The thousand-ton Cutlass was obviously caught by surprise, water boiled under her stern and she started to heel into a turn – too late. The submarine caught her just aft of amidships and damned near cut her in half. The stricken ship stopped her killer.

“Sir, signal from CO 2nd Squadron, on retrans.”

PRIORITY
UNCLASSIFIED
SIC 2HF/H9D
FROM CO2MCMSQN
TO COMAUSMINFOR
INFO JOC.
IN CLOSE ACTION STOP KNIFE FIGHT STOP INTEND TO RAM AND DISABLE ENEMY STOP INTEND TO BOARD ENEMY STOP CASUALTIES HEAVY STOP KORAAGA RAMMED AND SINKING STOP WE HAVE TO GET THESE SHIPS FITTED WITH MOLINS GUNS RIGHT FUCKING NOW END
BT

“I’ll forgive this in these circumstances. It might even be a mistaken addition: it sounds out of place and sort of wordy. Let it slide. He’s in close action, watching his men die and he’s had to resort to doing a Moa and Tui versus I-1 job. Hard road, that one, hard. And get on to COMAUSFLT. He’s right about the Molins guns. This has to happen now. Tell COMAUSFLT to have his blokes get a sketch design done by 1000 so we have something to show. They are going to need the boost.”

oOo

McCann saw it. “Zeke, she’s stopped, lay us alongside! Horner’s seen it too! Pipe prepare to board!”

He screamed into the circuit, “All ships this is Minesweep Lead, follow the Countess, lay alongside and board! Board now! Boarders away!”

oOo

0320

Horner snarled from the bow as his MUD brought her alongside. Half his crew was dead or so wounded that they were incapacitated. Everyone was wounded in some way, even his wife had been winged and caught some frag, and he was in a very strange place, far beyond rage and battle-fury. Everything was happening slowly. He had seven men with him as they swung down from her bow on to the Russian’s bow. Every fit man barring the old MUD and the SBA, who, with his wife assisting where she could, was far too busy. Each man had two one-pound TNT scare charges as improvised grenades; his men had pistols and one an old F1 SMG; all carried knives or something else, hatchets, axes, whatever they could get their hands on.

Horner had his longsword and his men looked at him with savage faces. “Follow me!”

oOo

Kosygen saw it and saw that the climax had come.

“Out of the boat boys, they are on deck! Let’s kill these bastards!” He felt like he had when he had earned leadership of his first street gang with fists, feet and a knife, and his men responded.

Below, his crew grabbed what they had and left their posts, many grabbing wheel spanners. The engineer declutched the diesels and grabbed a great wrench.

Seven of his men had died, Kosygen had multiple wounds and was losing blood, but that still left nearly 70 enraged and fighting-mad Russians boiling out of the hatches. Wilcannia came alongside next, her fire killing several men as they appeared, Adolphe and Valkyrie came alongside Countess of Hopetoun and their crews jumped on to her and then on to the Russian’s deck. Bombo and Vigilant, fresh and just arriving, got alongside Wilcannia’s bloody decks and joined in. Aft was a nightmare: as soon as Wilcannia got alongside 25 Russians immediately counter-boarded her. Her men were driven from the bow and then into the well deck. The fighting on her well deck was hand to hand in seconds, with the occasional gunshot, there was just no room, no time to pick targets before men were at handstrokes.

And Wilcannia’s men had used all but a pittance of their ammunition already. Forward, on the submarine’s deck Horner’s men were mixed in with men from the dying Cutlass, and Russian torpedo ratings were boiling out of the forward hatch. The casing was narrow, it was screaming chaos, they were all mixed up and only two or three men could fight abreast at most – but Horner had a longsword he knew how to use. He cut down three men before he lost a man of his own, and that was to a bullet. In the chaotic lighting and incredible violence, guns were just not that useful. They were distance weapons, even pistols. You could not tell who was who until you were very close. He ducked under a swung hammer and rammed his sword into another man’s chest, feeling the bone popping and cracking as a foot of bloody steel emerged from the Soviet sailor’s back. The man screamed as he pulled the blade out. Horner punched him away with his left hand. The man fell from the casing into the water, then clambered out, hanging on to free flood holes and coughing blood. Horner blocked a knife thrust and slammed the hilt into the sailor’s face, feeling bone crumple sickeningly as the man fell. He felt a heavy blow and a burst of pain as his back was cut open, spun to strike, and saw his PO swing a wrench into the Russian’s head.

“Bombs down that hatch!” Two of his men tossed scare charges down the hatch. They had no fragmentation worth mentioning, but the pure blast worked well inside a steel cage. Men screamed and stopped coming out of it. Two more minutes of insane violence and they reached the base of the fin. Aboard Wilcannia it was equally chaotic. The Wilcannia’s were losing badly until the Bombo’s and the Vigilants arrived in force. McCann and a burly Russian were rolling on the bridge deck, tearing at each other with their bare hands when a bloody twenty-year-old AB from Vigilant caught the Russian across the shoulder with a steel bar, breaking his shoulder.

“Hold!” ordered McCann as the AB raised the bar for a killing blow to the man’s head. “He’s out, don’t kill him if you can avoid it”. The fury faded from the AB’s face slightly and he kicked the wounded Russian in the balls and then in the belly instead to keep him down.

Horner and five of his men climbed the rungs on the port side of the fin. Kosygen saw them but there was just not a lot he could do about it. He shot one with his last round and then pulled a knife from one of his dead crew. He knew he was weak and slow, but he was in absolutely no mood for messing about.

oOo

The AP-3C zoomed in on this. They saw a single Russian stab the first man up on to the top of the fin. He tumbled into the fin with the Russian pulling the knife from his chest. The next man up lashed out with what appeared to be a sword. The Russian blocked it then threw something. The sword then sank into his body. The man then threw something down the hatch, and went after it.

The video zoomed back out. The fighting aboard the big minesweeper was still going on.

oOo

Chest heaving like a bellows, McCann screamed into the bloody, glittering night.

“One more push boys, they are on the edge, I can feel it! Follow me!

He jumped into the well deck. Fifteen men followed him.

That was enough. The eleven Russians remaining fit to fight wavered, and then threw down their extemporised weapons.

“Quarter!” screamed McCann, “Give them quarter!”

One of his men was swinging an axe. He kicked one man in the back of the knee to collapse him to the deck. When the AB looked up, sanity had returned to his eyes. “No more killing!”

The Russians were quickly disarmed and sat back to the bulkhead with their hands on their heads, covered by two men who still had guns. Thrashing wounded and men lying still were checked and hustled to the cafeteria for treatment.

McCann looked around and spotted Wilcannia’s CO, his hand wrapped in a blood-dripping T-shirt. “Zeke, glad to see you made it, get men and pumps organised from your ship, Bombo and Vigilant. We’ve taken that sub and I want her afloat. Power lines, pumps and men, got it?”

“Got it boss.”

McCann grabbed six men who looked as feral as he did and dropped to the Russian’s decks. She was down by the stern. He went down the aft hatch.

Horner had come down the ladder quickly by the simple expedient of sliding down it. His men had too. There was no-one in the periscope compartment, and so he went down the next hatch. Two badly wounded men were on the control room floor, being attended to by an obvious medic. He glanced at the armed Australians entering the compartment and then went back to his work. He was bloody to the elbows. The sailor he was working on still appeared to be alive, although at a glance Horner was not sure that anyone could save that leg. He went aft, where smashing sounds could be heard. The zampolit was attending to his duty, the really important crypto had been burned, he was wrecking the last of the classified ESM gear with a fire axe when he caught movement from the corner of his eye, and swung at it instinctively. Horner almost dodged the axe but not quite, and it opened a gash on his chest, down to the ribs. The speed of the attack had caught him by surprise, and the adrenaline was wearing off. He staggered back a pace as the off-balanced Russian officer fought the momentum of the axe, then punched the sword into the Russian’s foot. The man screamed at the sudden agony, and reversed the axe with a massive effort. Horner parried the clumsy move, then thrust with his longsword, slamming the blade deep into the Russians right shoulder. The axe fell from his hands and he fell to the deck. Horner pulled out the sword and kicked him in the face with his tin leg.

He looked back at his men.

“Get aft, break any resistance and close any watertight hatches. She’s heavy, she’s flooding somewhere. Find it and seal that compartment off if you can.

She was taken.

oOo

0340

Eight minutes later McCann and Horner were in the control room.

“Right,” said McCann, “the motor room is filling but I am confident that she’ll swim with it filled. We are rigging pumps to clear the engine room and the engines are still running, we have power, Cutlass’s stokers seem happy as clams back there and tell me they will keep it all running, and her pumps too. Buggers keep grinning and giggling about having shiny new toys to play with. Bloody stokers. Get back aboard the Countess and sort things out there, she’d down by the bows same as Wilcannia but Zeke has that in hand, and the fire’s finally out. Your compartmentation is better. The Vigilants and Bombo’s are clearing the wounded on to Adolphe and she’ll run them back to port as fast as she can steam. Cutlass just shook off the sub’s bow and she’s sinking, her CO can take over here and keep the prize afloat.”

“Any leaks in the torpedo room?”

“No, pressure hull’s tight there, and we have mines and a few torpedoes to study. That’s why I want her in port as soon as we can get it sorted. Mobile PoW are on Bombo. Lucky the sea’s calm. Keep the Countess lashed alongside. Two tugs are on the way but Bombo’s rigging a tow right now, should be underway in five. Get back to her. How’s your crew?”

Horner grimaced. “Bad. Of the 31, five dead, eight badly wounded, nine walking wounded, can do a little work at least everyone else including the SBA with some wounds but mostly lesser stuff. Frag and things like that. Shelley included. Frag in her back and leg, hit by a ricochet so a big gash from that. Nothing serious in her torso thank the Lord. It’s bandaged and she’s ignoring it and is running all over the place now with a camera and a notebook.”

“Good. Wilcannia’s worse off, ten dead. Many wounded. Christine Stefanovic stopped a 12.7 with her face; oh she’s still alive but her left eye and a quarter of her face is blown away. I’ve ordered the ship back with a skeleton crew and an extra submersible pump. Zeke thinks he’ll be able to get her back afloat. She’s leaking like a colander forward. I’ve ordered him to abandon her if she even looks like sinking, and she’s in sinking condition. Ships are expendable, I do not want another man lost, not for a replaceable ship. Our losses have been too damned high.”

He paused and looked up the hatch as yet another starshell burst overhead. They were keeping two up in separate locations because they were searching for men in the water. They had only recovered four of Koraaga’s 12 man crew so far, and it was looking bad. Cutlass was better off, of her 21 men, 16 were still alive.

“This cost us, Jack, but it cost them too. The barrages did not get laid, they lost this boat and the one off Brisbane. It’s a win. I just wish that we did not have to keep paying the cost.”

oOo

0430

He had not been back to bed, let alone to sleep. Then the terrible and terrifying footage had started. They did not really understand the fighting offshore, but they had seen men falling.

He was waiting on the wharf with the three wives, and it felt alien. Yet he knew he was lucky. There would be women this night being told that they were widows. He knew Christine had been wounded. And badly. He was sick with worry. He’d seen Tracey McCann briefly. She had said that she was still alive, and to be there for her. Then her face had set like stone as a female signalman had approached her with an expression of a dread so deep it was lyrical. For in her hand, she had a list.

Adolphe berthed quickly at Queen’s Wharf, and every ambulance available was on there, the wharf gates flung open. Teams of men were offloading stretchers. Some were silent. Most were not until the medics reached them with morphine.

Jon was slightly forward of this as the walking wounded came off. His wife was third and she was being assisted, he instantly took over. He was shocked. She was spattered with blood and a huge blood sodden bandage covered half her face. Whole areas of her uniform were soaked with her blood. He did not ask stupid questions, just murmured that he was there, and he always would be.

“Not here, I need something normal. Normal. I am terribly thirsty. Harry’s, Jon.”

“The hospital...”

“No. I am bad. The others are much worse. I’d just wait anyway. After they are cleared. Sit down. Need to drink. So thirsty.”

It was only fifty yards, and a few other walking wounded went with them. The media gaggle was thick, but they stood back. The technology they had enabled them to do so. The young woman in the blood-drenched New Zealand uniform was a terrible sight. Sensitive microphones were aimed.

The Harry’s staff was just handing out water and mugs of sweet tea and coffee to any men back from the fighting. The young man did a double-take when he saw Jon in his civvies and his wounded wife.

Jon grabbed two, glanced at his wife and grabbed some straws, then gently sat her down. He helped her drink, and she groaned.

“Christine, what is it? That’s not the pain. I am not stupid enough to ask if you are OK. You aren’t.”

“I killed three men tonight. One before I was hit, two after. SLR from Wilcannia’s bridge. It was hand to hand, Jon. Hand to hand right there on the bridge. It seems fair exchange.”

“What seems a fair exchange, love?”

She drank more.

“So thirsty. Dear God that was brutal. Hand to hand on the bridge. The Wilcannias fought like mad bastards. They kept them off me, I would not have lasted a second. Those Russians fought like demons from the pits of hell. Never even imagined anything like it never dreamed it. Knives, wrenches, guns, steel bars, fists and teeth. The men kept them off me. Even unwounded I would not have lasted a second.”

“You are here now, and I will not leave you.” He asked gently. “What seems fair exchange, Christine?” He was increasingly alarmed at how wandering her words were.

“Shot in the head. Shot in the head, y’see. McCann put the dressings on. Stopped a heavy machine gun bullet with my face. Lucky it came through the steel first or it would have blown by head apart like a tomato under a steam hammer. Caught frag in my shoulder and tits.”

She looked at him with her right eye, what he could see of her blood-streaked face suddenly stricken. “My left eye’s just gone, Jon, gone, McCann said that a quarter of my face has been ripped off. He put some of it back, Jon. And I can barely feel it. It’s not all painkillers. How am I me ....”

“Hush, love. None of that matters at all. There’s you, there’s me. Nothing else matters. Nothing else and I am not going anywhere in my life without you. But you should not be here.” His voice firmed. “I cannot protect you at sea, but I can and I will protect you here. That’s my job as your husband. I am taking you to hospital right now, Christine.”

He worked with his hands, he was a fit, powerful young man in his prime, so he stood to her right and just gently picked her up in his arms, and walked towards the nearest car with a driver in it. He did not know it until she told him much later, but the instinctive protective comfort and shelter she felt made the loss seem smaller. She snuggled the right side of her face into him and took as much weight as she could on the left arm she put over his shoulder.

The driver was an ordinary working man. He was going off his night shift at a coal screener building plant, and he did not hesitate for a second when he saw the man walking towards him with his wife in his arms. He laid the front passenger seat flat and opened the doors and helped get her in.

“Set her in brother, I have room for another, I’ll see if anyone else needs a ride.”

What Jon did not know was that the cameras caught all of this.

One newsman captured a still image, which became famous. It showed a grim faced young civilian man carrying his uniformed wife in his arms. Her RNZN uniform was torn and soaked with her blood, and her head appeared to be entirely covered in blood-sodden bandages.

Chapter 13

oOo

0545

They had to work through the exhaustion. The foreshores were jammed with people as Wilcannia steamed slowly in, her bridge front riddled with all the glass shot out, decks covered in bloodstains, listing very heavily to port and with her bows nearly awash. She was clearly in sinking condition. Her CO made no attempt to berth, he ran her ashore at full power on the little stretch of beach behind the wave trap at Pirate Point. A tug moved up to her stern and pushed her more firmly into the sand and mud. Ashore, a huge council D9 bulldozer was waiting. A line was passed and it dragged the anchor ashore. The capstan was wrecked. The cable deck crew let the cable run to the stops, the council crew’s backhoe then dug a slot in the Pitt Street reserve and the dozer forced the anchor into it.

As they were starting back to get the second anchor, they saw that Wilcannia was listing even more.

Zeke felt ... something unusual. Unusual was bad. What was it?

The engine room voicepipe was venting.

“Bridge engine room, I’ve got flooding port forward below the deck plates, serious flooding!

“Get out now Mick, cease work below and get the boys the fuck out!”

“Sir, list is increasing.”

“Something popped, or we holed her on a rock or something on the bottom. Right, that’s it.” He grabbed the main broadcast while he still had power.

“D’ye hear there, Captain speaking, flooding in the engine room and she may roll over. Abandon ship, I say again abandon ship over the starboard side. All hands abandon ship, starboard side!” he grabbed the Kiwi’s SLR and slung it. He checked that it cleared his PFD She’d want that back. Hell, she deserved it back.

Ashore they saw the list suddenly increase and men boil of her and claw their way up to the starboard railings. At about 35 degrees they began jumping in to the water, popping their PFD and swimming to shore. Men dashed into the water to assist.

“Muster here!” Zeke counted and recounted. “All present. Good.”

He looked at his ship. She was at about fifty degrees, the port side under and filling fast. He looked at the Yeoman. He had the logs and signal books. Good.

The MUD looked at him. “Sir, why the fuck have you got that SLR?”

“Hey, It’s the Kiwi’s. Not gunna lose it on her, am I?”

“Good point. Needs a clean, but.”

“Bloody QMG.”

The two policemen present walked over. “All you blokes OK?”

“Yeah,” said Zeke. “All a bit fragged up and crap, no serious wounds. This is close to being the worst” He had unwrapped his lower arm and dumped the sodden mass. He held up his arm. He’d taken a bullet through the forearm and there was a hole you could see through. Frag had clipped off the top of his middle finger and punched a hole right through his palm. He had not had time to have it bandaged. Swimming with it had been a bit ouchy though. Now it was weeping blood again. He looked at it. Meh, he thought. It’s nothing, thank God for good painkillers too.

“Bloody hell!”

“Look, keep the other civvies off my ship. It’s got my dead and guns and all sorts of stuff aboard. I’ll get a navy watch crew over soon as I call them on your radio. They’ll get the bodies of my men off. We’ve had it. Got nothing left in the tank.”

“A couple of hours?”

“Not that long. But it will be a bit of time. Lots of crap happening. Look, we’ve been fighting like mad bastards and slaving all night to keep her afloat. My ship’s beached and flooded out. Crew’s all wet. Bugger this, we’re off to the pub. The General Washington’s only a couple of cables away. Call ‘em and get ‘em open, will ya?”

“Ah... hell with it. Can’t see them complaining.”

“Come on you soggy buggers. Beer for breakfast. Need someone here to stay and watch over the boys and...”

“... and that’s me boss,” said the MUD. “You’ve got holes in you and bits missing and no way can you fire that SLR, so you need to take the boys over there, and the XO’s dead, poor little sod. My duty.”

“Point. OK Chief. Done. I’ll send someone back with a bacon and egg sanga and a beer.” He handed the SLR over. “No rounds in the chamber, still rounds in the mag, should still fire.”

“What? Fire? And there’s dead aboard?” The police were looking a bit worried.

“Yeah, a lot of my crew. That’s why you keep the other civvies away. Anyone trying to board gets shot.”

What scared the policeman was his tone. It was like he was saying that yes, the sun rose in the east.

Zeke looked at him in a puzzled way. “You do know there’s a war on, don’t you?”

oOo

0700

The foreshore was heaving with people and news helicopters seemed to fill the sky as the two tugs entered port with B-39. Vigilant and Bombo had lines on, and Countess of Hopetoun was still lashed alongside. She was shot up, badly down by the bow, but with her figurehead rigged, the crew having their priorities straight. And with twenty shrouded bodies on her aft mine deck. Five of them were hers. Pumps worked, removing the seawater and keeping the submarine afloat, and they had rigged a spar for their ensign to fly over the Soviet.

They pushed her alongside at Namoi’s berthing, and the shore establishment’s engineers swarmed aboard, dragging power cables as a mobile crane swung a big suction hose over to her. The enormous pumps already stood on the wharf, powered up. The Countess cast off, and passed ahead to berth. More men waited there, with more pumps. Also waiting there was a small, beautiful young woman in a long dress. She waited as the brow went over, and waited for the walking wounded to come off, asking each one how he was, and taking brief notes for their families. The wounded turned out to be the whole crew, every man-jack of them. Led by the base XO, personnel from Namoi went aboard to maintain watch on the ship, make sure that there was no progressive flooding and to clean her up and prepare her for immediate slipping.

Then she saw has husband, and her best friends.

“Tracey.” McCann gently touched her face. Her eyes searched his and saw the additional shadows there, and looked closely at his wounds. Numerous, more damned scars, but he’s alive, she thought. She felt a sharp pang of shame about that thought, she would spend this day with women who had lost their menfolk.

“Do not feel ashamed that you are glad I lived through it, sweetheart,” said McCann. “But all the time she talked to me/ I prayed my cup might pass. And this time it did.”

“Gethsemane,” she said gently, eyes filling with tears, “always it comes back to Gethsemane.”

She shook her head, and her long hair swept from side to side.

“It was bad, I know,” she said, “I watched all night from the fort and listened to the circuits. They gave it everything they had, there, they are shot dry, and worked beyond exhaustion. I have the list, and I am leaving soon with the padres. I have checked about Christine, she is in surgery now at John Hunter. I’ll keep in touch with you, love, and we’ll meet Jon there when she comes out of the anaesthetic this afternoon. He has ... changed.”

She turned to the Horner’s. The wounds were obvious, he was ignoring his, front and back, but then he had one hell of a lot of experience with pain. He was physically supporting his wife. Shelley was naturally pale, but now she looked transparent. Her right side was covered in drying blood. “I am so glad you lived. Shelly, get to a doctor. No. You’ll get to the newsroom first, of course.”

Shelley smiled, wan and exhausted. “Yes. You sort of established precedent there. I called and they said they’d have someone there to make with the needle and thread.”

She looked at her husband. “I need to walk there, I need that, I need to think.”

“I’ll come with you.”

McCann nodded. “Yes. Go. Namoi’s looking after your ship, the shore staff is checking your men through the sick bay then the mess, then they are racking in.”

Horner nodded. “I, we, will go and see to them first.”

He saluted and grimaced. “That was a bloody silly idea. I hate automatic reflexes.”

“Get out of here, you two.”

They walked off, his arm around her. She was limping. He was not, despite the gleaming prosthesis. He did not look in the least bit odd, despite having his longsword slung on its double arrangement at his left side.

McCann shook his head. Tracey looked at him quizzically.

He answered the unspoken question. “I will bet you a pie at Harry’s that the Countess’s whole crew will be doing bloody cutlass and boarding pike drill within a week, and the rest of the Squadron in two. All as PT lessons. We are becoming really strange in this Squadron, and there’s atavists coming out of the woodwork, but it proved to be a Godsend that he has that damned pigsticker and knows how to use it. He advanced along that casing killing or disabling a man every second step. I have never seen anything like it. I have confirmed that half of all the Russians killed or injured in the hand-to hand were done by him. He does not know it yet Tracey, but I have recommended him for the Victoria Cross. I spoke to CNS on the way in about it, he called me, and he is quite certain that he will get it. He said that most of it went out live to the media?”

“Yes. It did. From the P3.” Tracey just crossed herself and looked at him, a terrible fear in her eyes.

He enfolded her in his arms. “Hush. Hush now my love. Today, we are alive, today it is all well.”

oOo

0920

Horner had seen his men and sorted a few things out at the base, then accompanied his wife to the Herald offices. It was not far, but it took them longer than usual to walk it. The news room had been subdued when they came in. Both were wrung out and feeling it, but as Horner told Shelley, she had a job to do. So she did it. The editor had been as good as his word and had a doctor – a close personal friend – present, and he spent some time sorting out their various injuries and providing pain and other medication. Their wounds were not major by 2nd Squadron standards, but as he told them, those standards were not those he was used to.

They left, again refusing the offer of transport. He took his wife’s hand, and they walked in silence for a short time, both lost in their own thoughts, but sharing the comfort of touch. As they turned on to Hunter Street Jack squeezed his wife’s hand.

“Yes love?”

“Breakfast at Jonesy’s fish and chips? It’s only a block to Newcomen Street.”

She nodded, very tired, and both were feeling a little slow with the night, reaction to the fighting, and painkillers. Neither noticed how busy Hunter Street pedestrian mall was, or the looks the civilians were giving them.

What the civilians were seeing were a pair in ripped and torn grey RAN overalls, both filthy, both covered in dried blood and other things less identifiable. He had his peaked navy cap on, she her war correspondent baseball cap. While both bore fresh bandages it was the look on their faces which cause people to respectfully step out of their way. Both had the “thousand yard stare”, and it was notable that no-one thought the sword and pistol borne by the man and the long dirk at the woman’s side even remotely out of place. They were obviously headed back for the base, and were deep in discussion.

“Here we are,” said Shelley as they walked in, “and we need to have a serious talk about something.”

They moved to an empty table and were not aware of the various reactions of the people present. Jonesy’s was fashionable place and served truly excellent food, but clientele tended toward hipsters, such as still existed in this country, especially in the mornings. These were badly nonplussed by the appearance in their midst of this battered and bloodied, armed young couple. The conversation that followed was utterly alien to them.

“We need a serious talk Shelley? How so? We OK?”

“Oh yes, love, we are OK. Even after last night. Maybe especially after last night.”

“That was not fun. Damn near a third of my boys are dead or maimed. Effing war.”

“Well, you avenged them, sweetheart. How many Russians did you cut down?”

“Dunno, I took down what, twelve or fifteen, but I don’t think I killed more than six or seven. I hope not, anyway, killing men in hand-to-hand fighting is...” he hunted for a description, “rather disgusting after the event. Even though it has to be done. Glad their Captain did not die after I ran him through, he’s one hell of a man. I think he had three or four bullets through him, then he shot and killed Willy, knifed Gary and tackled me. Determined little bastard. Hey, did Tracey tell you what’s up with Christine?”

“Yes, just quickly. She’s in surgery at John Hunter. Bullet in the face and spall, left shoulder, arm and chest. Left eye’s destroyed, lots of flesh blown away but not much bone. No brain injury which is great, she was not even knocked out. Couple of big bits of steel frag from Wilcannia’s screens in the shoulder and boobs. She’s going to have some interesting scars from those but they are nothing to worry about. Legs also hit but nothing serious. She’ll need a partial face mask though, she’ll have to keep the sun off the scar tissue. Really, aside from the eye she’s fine. Jon’s with her. Tracey had a talk to him and he’s grown up real fast.”

The more delicate hipsters began to leave.

The waitress was waiting for their order, and had gone a bit pale. They ordered a large battered flathead and chips each, and two milkshakes each. Jack smiled at the young waitress. “I know it’s a weird thing to order for breakfast, but this is dinner for us, and we are sort of substituting food for sleep. It works, for a little while. Sorry if we pong a bit. It was a pretty hard night.”

She nodded a little nervously, the man looked like no man she had ever seen before. But he was holding the hand of the redhead, and they both had wedding rings on. The redhead was looking at her with calm, green eyes. “I have sort of heard the talk, you were in the big fight last night?” Jack nodded. She looked very awkwardly at them. “I am glad that you both OK, and sorry about your people.” She scurried off.

Shelley looked at him. “About us…”

“I agree with you entirely, we can’t wait. So stop taking the pill, Shelley.”

“Yes.” She shivered visibly.

“That was what you wanted to talk about? And just yes?”

“Yes. And just yes. You get married because you love each other and to have children. We were both one stray round from death last night. I was hit, you were hit, then got stuck in and got hit with axes and knives and all sorts of stuff. The Squadron seems to be one giant shit magnet and there’s no end in sight to this war. Not even a glimmer. Things are getting weirder in Europe and it does not look like it’s over even there, and there’s still fighting in the Pacific, it never stopped. Indonesia’s a mess where ASEAN’s trying to unscramble the egg their way, which is fine, but outsiders are trying to screw over everyone else. There is no end to this, we are going to be at war for years more. No guarantees. Tracey was right.”

He smiled, and said softly, “why the shiver, love? You OK?”

“No, I am not OK! But that’s just from the big wound in my leg, you have three and they are all worse. And little ones elsewhere. And we are both running on empty. Well that shiver, hell with it! I want to get you home in the worst way. And no, we won’t make it to bed when I get you there. You’ll be lucky if you manage to get the front door shut. Hell with bed, the door’s a vertical surface, that’ll do!”

“That would scandalise the neighbours. Better eat fast then.”

“Buster, you are going to need the energy.”

More hipsters left. But the manager and staff were grinning. Michelle noticed this.

She sounded indignant, but the tired grin gave it away, “hey, a wife is supposed to have the hots for her husband! Y’know when I want to get pregnant, I’d kind of like him to be there!”

The grins turned to good natured laughter.

oOo

1730 John Hunter Hospital

The recovery ward did not normally allow people in, but in this case they had no choice. First, they had to have a Russian linguist, and they had to have a guard. And he had to be armed. So letting Jon in was no real issue, although the staff was unhappy with it.

Everyone comes out of general anaesthetic in their own way. Christine surfaced rapidly and instantly. From dreamless oblivion to reality in a snap. Her eye flicked open and almost instantly locked on the eyes of her husband. He took her hand.

“How do you feel Chris?”

She cleared her throat. “Thirsty. And I really need to go to the loo.”

He helped her with a glass of water.

“They briefed me on that sweetheart, I have a walker here and we can get you sorted. Loo’s only twenty feet away. The good news is that is good news. Once you go most of the IV’s and machinery and bits and pieces come out.”

She looked around. She appeared to be the only one awake. “These don’t look like our guys.”

Jon looked around too. “Russian crew and ours. The tough looking old bloke there’s their CO. he was on the table before you were and came out after. That’s why the army guard and linguist. They looked over and waved.

The Captain linguist smiled. “Hi ma’am! Glad to see you awake. Heard lots of good things about you from Commander McCann, he and his wife dropped in but you were still out.”

“Thanks, uh, wait. Hang on. Ma’am? I’m the same rank as you are.”

“No ma’am, you are not. After hearing what went down out there last night, your Chief of Navy promoted you on the spot. You have also been nominated for the New Zealand Gallantry Decoration.”

This news silenced her. She turned to more immediate matters.

“I am so glad you are here darling. Take this bloody gown off me, I need to see the damage.”

He looked around. “No privacy screen.”

“Just don’t care. Need to see.”

“No worries.” He carefully took the gown off, pooling it over her lap. He noticed that the Captain gestured to the corporal, and they turned their heads away. Jon appreciated the courtesy.

“Crap.” They had of course dealt with the wounds well, but they were under clear dressings, obviously so that any infections or other problems could be seen immediately. And that orange disinfectant staining the skin. “Both boobs, shoulder and arm. Must have got those slashes on my legs somewhere but I don’t even remember that. All going to scar like hell. Arm’s a bit chewed up. I barely felt any of these, Jon. Adrenaline and the pain from my face masked it all, I guess.”

“Don’t let it stop you wearing a bikini. You look fantastic in one. Yes, I admit to being prejudiced. Funny that.” He gently stroked her cheek, and her eye teared up.

“Chris, the surgeon showed me some photographs of the work he did on your face. You know the eye’s gone. The bullet did a lot of damage but he fixed it as well as anyone can. He’ll explain it better than I can of course, but the damage does not extend to the tiny muscles controlling your smile. As for the rest, he thinks that a sort of partial mask will be needed to keep the damaged area out of the sunshine anyway, something about scar tissue being vulnerable to UV. Plastic surgery is an option of course if you want it.”

“I’m…”

He cut her off. “You are still you, which is all I care about. And when we have kids, they won’t care either and I am thinking kinky thoughts about masks.”

There was a ghost of a smile.

“Now, lets get this gown back on, and get you up.”

Thank God, Jon thought to himself, that I had the brains to call May about this, and to heed her advice.

oOo

Kosygen surfaced slowly. When he worked out where the hell he was, he was seriously surprised that he was alive. He looked around, only his eyes moving, and even they seemed to be slow. A woman opposite, head bandaged. A man sitting next to her. Two others he did not recognise. His head turned, which the Army Captain noticed. Ah. One of my men. At least they are looking after my men.

Nurses appeared and did incomprehensible things. After half an hour, a soldier approached him.

“Commander Kosygen, I am Captain Greaves, sir. I have been instructed to tell you that of your 78 crew, 57 survived and that all those who need it are receiving the same level of medical care that our own people get. I am further instructed to tell you that in the professional opinion of the Royal Australian Navy, your approach was a notable feat of navigation, and that you and your crew fought bravely.”

“You have a Leningrad accent. My submarine?”

“Captured after hand to hand fighting, sir.”

“Damned zampolit was supposed to scuttle him!”

“I am informed that your political officer was destroying the last of the classified equipment and material when the boarders reached him. He fought them until he was cut down by the same man who cut you down. He fought hard, was wounded very severely and nearly bled out, he remains in intensive care at another hospital but is expected to survive. Truly sir, no crew could have done better in the circumstances you were caught in. I will add that we are sorting out your uniforms and such, your men will keep their personal effects, and that we will delay the funerals for your men and ours until you and your men are able to attend. Your crew has earned that level of respect. We will bury them in the same cemetery as our own men, of course, and we have taken great care to make it a place of beauty. They are all comrades in arms alike, now.”

Kosygen turned his head away. Greaves went over to start writing his log. He saw no need to interrupt the privacy of a man silently weeping for his dead.

Chapter 14

oOo

Wednesday 2 November 2005

Horner, McCann and their respective wives were looking up at Countess of Hopetoun’s hull.

“She looks small alongside the wharf, but from this perspective she’s enormous,” said Tracey.

“That is so,” murmured her husband.

“How long to fix her up?” said Horner.

Geoff Morgan was a senior naval architect from the Tomago Yard, which ran the ship repairs on Namoi’s facilities on the old NSW State Dockyard site. He looked exasperated.

“Who knows? You buggered her up pretty well. A week to survey in full detail and develop the repair plan, we can do a lot of stripping over that time but we won’t be cutting any steel, then we start building new bits and chopping away damage, which always reveals new damage, rinse and repeat, couple of weeks of work. An initial look shows that the stem is broken, and buckling of the shell plating extends thirty feet aft. The last ten feet is not readily visible but it’s there. Which means that the internal structures are also damaged. Most of the gear on the bridge level has to be replaced but it’s plug and play. Fixing the bullet holes and stuff is easy. At least a month, more like six weeks before she’s back on line.”

He looked at Horner.

“She’s ours right now, out of commission. You need some time in the panelbeater’s shop yourself. Take some leave. You look like you need it anyway.”

“Can you reinforce the stem, or at least the cutwater?”

“Yes, I suppose so, simple doubling plates will do it. You planning on making a habit of ramming things?”

Horner shrugged. “Stuff happens. Won’t say it was fun.”

“Wilcannia?” McCann was still looking at the damage.

“Salvage master has started work. Probably a week to right her a bit, make her buoyant and get her slipped. I have had an initial look and a talk with the salvage master, she’s from Svitzer, and the ship is not that close to being a constructive total loss. That said, she’s not in great condition. So the very initial plan is to do a rebuild along the lines of the Bangka Nurses class. She’s very similar to them and we can adapt that work, and being able to study the damage she took will mean that we can really start refitting all the older sweepers to improve survivability. So at least three months after salvage and salt water damage remediation and clean up. She’ll wind up open, all men above deck. And she’ll need another mast and yes, I look forward to the job of making her look better. I snagged that gig. Tell her CO that as the whole bow has to be replaced. Initial thoughts are to lengthen her, give her a much larger foc’s’le and a high buoyancy bow resembling the ones on the Countess class. Appreciate his input – how is he?”

“Arm’s pretty screwed up, but he’ll keep at least half the use of it.”

“Does he like counter sterns?”

McCann and Horner slowly turned their heads to look at him in utter disbelief.

“Hey, it’s a good way to expand deck area aft. She’s already cramped and I have to fit a six-pounder aboard somewhere.”

“That does not even sound convincing!” Horner shook his head. “And I say that as a bloke whose Chief’s organising a local mob to make a bunch of cutlasses.” He glanced at McCann’s face. “Uh, it’s for PT, sir?”

“PT. Sure. P bloody T. Bloody atavists everywhere,” muttered McCann.”, “it must be catching. What’s next, Lieutenant Horner? Boarding pikes?”

Horner looked uncomfortable. “Ah, well, ah, Chief”s already got them, sir.”

“This is getting ridiculous. Whole squadron’s doing krav maga because the PTI’s nuts about it. Except for the ones doing boxing, now HEMA’s going nautical.”

“Squadron comps in all three then, sir?”

“Squadron comps, yes. Need something like motocross armour so they don’t kill each other.” He looked at Horner.

“You organise it, as you bent your ship. Not a bad place to start organising your replacement crew, either. We are getting our first draft of conscripts next week, 220 men, good way to get ‘em used to the idea that we are all bloody maniacs in this Squadron.”

Chapter 15

oOo

Tracey had written a number of items on the base extension and liked to tour the site. Work was progressing at a furious pace, the slips had been constructed on the massive existing concrete foundation of the old shipyard launching slipway. It had taken just a month. Mating the huge dollies on which the ships were winched from the water and then traversed into the refit and storage halls had not been simple, as the dollies were constructed in the refit hall as it was being erected. So erecting the gantry 30 ton travelling gantry crane had been the first thing to be done.

Two of the three Bangka Nurses class remained, one had been towed upriver to Tomago to make room for Countess of Hopetoun. The vast storage hall was well under way, and the wharves were being refurbished.

“I still think this is a little excessive for a minesweeper Flotilla, let alone a Squadron,” said Tracey to her husband.

“Aha! Your reporter-thingies are tingling again, are they not?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s because it really is excessive. This site is huge, and a white elephant to a large extent so they bought the lot. Namoi will be the 32nd Flotilla’s HQ and yes, a number of sweepers will be stored here, but It’s also a facility to maintain a number of other reserve vessels including facilities for some large ones.

“Hence the wharf refurbishment.”

“Yes.” And that’s why three slips. One and two are for smaller vessels up to about 2,000 tons, and are connected to the traverse. The third slip is for large ships. So the plan has evolved.”

“Why?”

“Oho, short stuff, you sense a story! I can’t tell you the exact reasons of course, classified and also above my pay grade. In any case, I don’t know the full story anyway. What I can say is that the reserve fleet concept worked really well and that the world over the next few decade’s going to be a very dangerous place. So it makes sense to prepare for it even at this stage. I mean, even ships about to be stripped and sunk as targets like the old Swan and Torrens have been found to be very useful in the thalassic campaign going on in the archipelago. They are looking at re-engining them with diesels. The old Fremantle class patrol boats have become useful motor gunboats. The small ships cost a lot more per ton to look after in reserve, take a long time to build, and are needed from day one of a war but they are actually quite simple ships – no complex combat suite. So bringing them to a facility like this, thoroughly refitting them and mothballing them and storing them in an environmentally controlled facility makes a lot of sense and actually reduces costs in the long run.”

“So that big shed will be air conditioned? Going to cost a bomb in electricity!”

“Not really Trace. The old Munmorah coal fired power station’s being replaced now, and two big new ones are building up in the valley, one of them’s a nuclear station. Government has part funded those, and the power contracts for this base will be reflected I guess. In any case, those are my personal thoughts, so you can treat them as you wish. In all honesty, I would not be at all surprised of a lot of the Fremantles wound up here.”

Morgan approached them with the Horner’s in tow.

“You’ll want to see this, Commander McCann.”

“Eh?”

“Little surprise. Follow me.”

They walked around the site to a hardstand near the old shipyard admin building, where a semi-trailer had pulled up. A mobile crane was bustling up, and one of the yard’s steel haulers, basically a heavy tug and a massive specialised trolley able to take 40 tons of structural steel.

Morgan spoke into his radio, and the driver of the semi and the steel hauler began to take the tarps off the load.

“Check this out,” said Morgan.

They watched for a couple of minutes before it became obvious.

“As I live and breathe, a Molins gun,” said McCann.

“Yes, lovely little six-pounder and one of the new ones, a Mk IV from Lithgow arsenal, not one of the hasty straight copies of the WWII guns made with volunteer guns organised early in the war for the Fremantles. They are the Mk III short and are gradually being replaced with these and returned to their original owners where they want them back, some are apparently delighted. I really don’t understand artillery collectors.”

Horner broke in. “Bloody excellent, I have read about these. Use the same modern 57mm ammo, barrel’s a bit longer, much faster slewing and elevation rates, all electric drive, really reliable and even have a useful anti-helicopter capability. Three man crew with a couple more as ammo passers. Where will the mount be?”

“Bandstand forward, above the cable deck and basically built around the foremast to use its structural strength. Ammo in a slot-in armoured box under the main deck running a dredger hoist up a tube welded to the mast.”

“Damn. That means a man below,” said Horner.

“Nope. Armoured locker on the bandstand with 30 rounds, second on the weather deck with 60. Only after that does a man have to get below into the magazine. That’s 90 rounds above the weather deck. Also got a remote flooding system operated from the bridge to fill the lockers if there is a fire.”

He looked at Horner. “You get the first one.”

oOo

Thursday 3 November 2005

Kosygen was more than a bit grumpy. Things hurt, he was feeling low, and he could not work some things out. The guard he understood, the three other wounded men in the ward he understood. What he did not understand was the woman. So he decided to ask the ever present Greaves.

“Captain. What is that woman doing here?”

“She was wounded in the same action, Commander.”

Kosygen thought about this for a moment. “How does that make sense? The only women in the Soviet Navy are in a few shore positions, mostly clerical, and they tend to be the mistresses of their superiors.”

He thought a bit more, insulting his captors might not be a smart move. “What am I missing, Captain?”

“Commander, we do things differently. We use women in many more roles than you do, including some combat roles. You know all five wounded here are officers, yes?”

“No, but I do now.”

“She is a Royal New Zealand Navy officer. She was here learning a few things. Do you remember the person firing from inside the bridge of the smaller minesweeper that was ramming your submarine, the one your men boarded?”

“Yes. I do remember that.”

“That was her. She kept firing after having a quarter of her face and her eye destroyed by a 12.7mm hit. She is finding it difficult to deal with the fact that she killed three of your men.”

Kosygen thought about this for some time. She kept firing with wounds like that?

“Why does she find that difficult to deal with?”

“Because she found that killing them was a truly disgusting thing.”

Kosygen was silent for half an hour, thinking.

“Captain, would you translate please? I wish to speak with the New Zealand officer. What is her name, Captain?”

“Lieutenant Commander Christine Stefanovic.”

“Please ask her why she finds that killing three of my men was a disgusting thing.”

Greaves asked the question, and there was a considerable back-and forth.

“Commander, I have asked her, and also explained that you are not asking from malice, but from and after much deep thought. Her reply is that war is a waste, and that she finds that killing your men wasted everything their parents had hoped for and dreamed about for their sons, and wasted all the things they might have achieved in another fifty years of life each. She says that she knows of the necessities of war and would without hesitation do the same thing again for that was her duty, but that so much waste, and the act of causing it, means that she regards the act of killing those men as the most disgusting thing she has ever done.”

Kosygen nodded, and thought again.

“Please tell her that while we are formally enemies, I bear her no ill-will for doing her duty, even though it meant killing my boys. We tried to kill her, after all. Tell her that I also killed a number of men on your ships in meeting my duty, certainly many more than she has given the ships I mined and torpedoed off this port. I am proud to have done my duty and done it well, and believe that she should be proud of doing hers. But that does not mean that I disagree with her feelings of regret for the waste of such killing. None of us are such monsters. It is not something a cultured person can feel anything but regret for.”

Greaves kept his face from showing surprise, and translated. Inside he was in turmoil. This was not Kosygen’s first mission to the waters off this port! He had to have been on the first minelaying operation: this would take careful planning.

“Lieutenant Commander Stefanovic thanks you for those words, which she regards as those of a cultured man. She asks if you have any permanent effects from your wounds, and says that she knows that you fought until cut down.”

“Thank her please, and say that there will be loss of some use of limbs, but that is the fortune of war. I know I am fortunate to be alive. Also say that I know she has been seriously and permanently wounded, and that I hope she recovers as best possible. If this is ... within the culture of her country, then I hope she bears the evidence of her wounds with pride. Please do not translate that Captain if it is insulting, for I know nothing of the culture of New Zealand and I would not insult anyone who fought on with such wounds. They deserve respect for their courage, from one fighting man to another.”

oOo

They were far, far more precious than gold.

The torpedoes and mines lay on dollies in the old transit shed, boffins and submariners crawling all over them. The submarine was in the floating dock, with men swarming all over her repairing the damage. She’d be sailed to Sydney as soon as possible, there was already a plan to commission her as a clockwork mouse for anti-submarine training.

“So what do we have,” said McCann to the submariner and DSTO technical head.

“Two wakehomers, two wire guided anti-surface ship fish, both quite modern, and 22 modern ground mines, complete with maintenance manuals. I cannot tell you how valuable these are. Our TCM’s against wakehomers are rubbish and we’ve lost a lot of ships to these things...” He dribbled to a stop.

Men in grey overalls were looking at him with Highland murder in their eyes and their hands white around steel tools, or clenched in fists.

McCann spoke, his face betrayed that he was holding back a killing fury, and only just holding it back.

“I can.” His voice could have frozen helium.

“What?”

“I can tell you exactly how valuable they are, damn your eyes.”

“What?”

“Because my Squadron and my boys paid the price and it was thirty-one of us. Add to that another two hundred and seventeen lives which have been shattered, including the lives of eight young women now widows, one of them pregnant, two young women who have lost their fiancés, and nine small children who are now fatherless.” McCann was obviously controlling a killing rage – barely controlling it and his grip was slipping.

“Do not ever, ever say throwaway words like that to the people who paid the price.”

“I do apologise, Commander.”

“Not good enough! You attend the funeral tomorrow for my men and for the Soviet crew. Then you might damned well understand how valuable these are.”

McCann turned on his heel and walked off towards his men.

He spoke softly, so that they alone could hear. “Try not to kill any of these fuckwits boys.”

“Aye, sir. I thought for a moment there we’d have to pull you off that fool. Although I’d more likely have joined in. Clueless bastard.”

“You have absolutely no idea how close you were to being right. I am going to the gym to work my anger off by sparring with the PO.”

As he walked away, the man spoke softly to his mates, “y’know boys, if he asked for some help tomorrow as he was leading an attack on the gates of hell, reckon I’d volunteer.”

His mates nodded.

oOo

Kosygen looked around himself again. He had not been able to inspect his crew, but had passed the word for them to be on their best behaviour in such a place and at such a time.

The cemetery itself was larger than he thought, and it was indeed beautiful. It was being surrounded by a thick stone wall, beautifully built. He had asked about it, as the men came from the different provinces – no they called them states here – of this country, they were building it with seven courses of coloured hard stone from each of these states, on a vastly deep foundation as it was built on sand. The workmanship was beautiful, they were building this to last the ages. Inside they had already erected a circular garden, roses from the ground, orchids, many blooming in impossibly alien colours, from above. And within, rows of temporary markers where there would be white headstones when the many graves settled and they could be erected. He had been told that a smaller cemetery from the Great Patriotic War had already been relocated here. Their Fleet Band was there, in full ceremonial regalia. There were two funerals, the first was for 21 men, and remarkably all of the coffins were full. Of the remaining 57 crew, 52 were present. Five more were too severely injured to attend. Of the 52, four were in wheelchairs, including the political officer. They were all in their own uniforms, scruffy they might look for they were working uniforms, but all had been cleaned and carefully repaired where necessary: all had been given their personal belongings back, and those of their dead shipmates had been stored for return to their families.

The Orthodox priest had been present, and it was interesting how not even the political officer batted an eye at the service he spoke, in Russian.

Kosygen could not walk due to the damage to his left leg, but he stood with the assistance of a crutch. The coffins were strange, flat topped things in the English tradition rather than the Russian but he would never comment, they were the same as for their own men.

They even played the Soviet anthem as the 21 coffins were lowered; “Be glorious, our free Fatherland!”

Kosygen thought that there was little glory here, but much care. He said as much, later, to the Australian Commodore, thanking him and telling him that he felt that his men would sleep in good company, here among their comrades in arms. He’d been promised that they would be looked after just as their own were.

He’d taken the time to carefully inspect the whole facility, and been impressed with the quality of the stonemasonry, which led to an idea. He’d asked, and there had been no objections made.

After the larger second funeral his men were taken away in buses. He’d had time to talk to them, and knew that a POW camp had been prepared for them at a place called Singleton, where there was a major infantry training school. Men in Soviet naval uniforms could hardly be expected to escape from such a facility, and he had agreed to arrangements whereby they could at least work their own vegetable gardens. It would help alleviate the boredom, and they were considering his request for hands-on skills training for his men. The Australians held very few Soviet POW.

He was seated with the ever-present Captain Greaves when the New Zealand Lieutenant Commander approached him, and carefully sat down. Her head was still swathed in bandages but she was at least walking, if aided by her husband due to her leg wounds, and who also helped to seat her as her arm was in a sling.

Greaves translated.

“I will not meet you again, Commander Kosygen, but I wanted to pass on to you my good wishes and my farewell. I understand that you have a family in the Maritime Provinces, and hope that when this war ends, you and they will be safely reunited.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. My war is probably over, and I have expressed my satisfaction and thanks for the way in which my wounded and dead have been treated. I know that you have been at war for six years now, and that no end is in sight for you. I cannot wish you well in this war, but I do hope that you survive it, and prosper afterwards.”

They parted not friends, but as professionals.

oOo

Jon looked at his wife. “Why that farewell, Christine?”

She thought about this for some time. “For me, not for him. Oh, I respect that he is a fellow professional and all that stuff. But I wanted a memory of him as a human being, so that when I look at myself in the mirror in the years to come I do not start to hate the men who did this to me. I don’t want that. They did their job, I did my job, we all got hurt but we are not as badly off as those who died.”

He took her hand. “Tracey McCann said that you will wake from terrible nightmares, sweating or screaming or both. She and her husband do.”

She squeezed his hand. “I already am, love. This afternoon’s interview should help a little, though.”

“Are you sure, really sure, that you want to go ahead with that? I’d rather be on the jet home seeing as you have to take a month’s recovery and rehab leave.”

“No, I am sure. I do not know the full story, there’s a lot more to this than I know, but I know that this is no lightweight PR thing. The word from Wellington was quite firm on that and it came from the security people. I have been told only what I need to know. Tracey seems to be running it, you remember that she was at that dinner with the Chief in Wellington, and while there’s something going on behind the scenes here, I do not need to know what it is. I do know that I need you to help me with the whole thing.”

“Ahead of you there, had a talk to Mike’s steward Justin. He’s sorting all the nuts and bolts of that.”

oOo

As Tracey had warned her, the studio was warm under the powerful lighting. Ostensibly for this reason she had chosen the 1CW uniform. In fact Tracey had been explicit; she had to wear the most obviously female uniform, and 1CW had a skirt. The effect was a little odd, as it was a summer uniform (and hence white), which the white bandages around her head added to.

Jon had been highly amused by all the folderol with makeup and with the posturing and preening in the green room, where guests waited. It had come to a screeching halt when he had brought his wife in – her stay in the makeup area had been extremely brief and consisted mostly of refusing any makeup at all. It was not like more than half of her face was visible anyway, and some of what was visible was showing the signs of bruising that severe facial injuries always left. She had never been a beauty and knew it (although she smiled gently at that, because her husband entirely disagreed) and had always considered herself to be no more than a bit attractive. Her uniform was something which made her very different to Tracey and Michelle, both of whom were dressed very well indeed in long dresses. She came in on Jon’s arm, as planned, and they sat together. He was in casual clothes. Again, that was planned.

They had learned their lesson well, there were no far left activists present. Again, Tracey, who was now a semi-regular on this program, had baited the hook with the irresistible lure of previously unseen footage. In this case Michelle had taken it all.

After the usual banalities, the segment commenced.

“To discuss the remarkable capture of the submarine B-39 in fighting off Newcastle, we have as our guest today the war correspondents Mrs Tracey McCann and Mrs Michelle Horner, who cover the mine battle which has been underway off our coasts since the start of the third world war, and Lieutenant-Commander Christine Stefanovic, Royal New Zealand Navy and her husband Mr Jon Stefanovic.”

“Tracey if we can start with you, I understand that you were not present this time?”

Tracey smiled, pure joy lighting up her heart-shaped face. “Very true, Cassandra, I cannot go out on the sweepers now, my friend and fellow war correspondent Michelle Horner does.”

Alex, the ‘bad cop’ as he was unusually non-vapid for a morning show host (and only as far left-wing as, say, Josef Stalin) pounced.

“I assume that your husband has told you not to, due to the danger?”

Tracey laughed delightedly. “Oh no, Alex,” she placed her hand discreetly on her abdomen, “he’d never rob me of my personal honour in such a way. No, I now have the overwhelmingly important duty of protecting the innocent growing under my heart, who cannot possibly be exposed to such danger.”

Cassandra’s face blossomed in a completely unfeigned smile. “A baby? Congratulations! When are you due?”

“In a bit over seven months.”

Christine interrupted, as they had planned. “And the men of the 2nd would never let her go anyway, once they knew. It’s both extraordinary and deeply touching how very protective they are of her, of all the pregnant wives and widows, and the little ones of the Squadron. It’s how real men respond when they see the joy of new life among all the death. The rawness of our lives strips away the overlay of dross and reveals what really matters in human life.”

Jon placed his second hand over hers.

Michelle kicked in. “There are very few benefits to how our men live and die on the tip of their particular spear, a strikingly clear view of reality is one of them. It rubs off very quickly on us.”

“Something I can vouch for very strongly,” said Jon, “I am a civilian, and standing on the wharf with Tracey each day wondering if my wife will come back makes your married life very intense, and you intensely aware of what really, really matters...” he looked at his wife’s ruined face and gently touched the bandages swathing it, “... and what does not.”

“That’s a really old-fashioned sort of view,” said Alex, “and…”

Tracey interrupted him.

“Have you ever thought of why and how the traditional views became traditional, Alex? It is because they are thoroughly proven to work under the worst possible circumstances, as well as the best. The same cannot possibly be said of non-traditional views, which are merely already proven failures slightly warmed over by ignorant progressives and served as fresh fare to the abysmally stupid. Take so-called free love: the Romans had that, it’s just that they were honest about it and called it slavery.”

Alex was reduced to spluttering, but this sort of brutally sharp cut-and-thrust exchange had seriously spiked the ratings of what was the usual ultra-light weight fluff of morning TV.

Cassandra broke the cycle – which was her job and one she was good at.

“I checked, and since the sailing ship era it is very rare for an enemy warship to be captured at sea by boarding. We all saw the aerial footage of the fighting and it was… well there are no words I can use. If I may ask, what was it like aboard the actual ships? Tracey?”

She shook her head. “Not for me to answer. Lieutenant-Commander Stefanovic was badly wounded in the fighting, I will defer to her.”

This was Christine’s cue, and she spoke softly.

“Kipling said it in the only way that matters to fighting men.”

The Garden called Gethsemane
In Picardy it was,
And there the people came to see
The English soldiers pass.
We used to pass -- we used to pass
Or halt, as it might be,
And ship our masks in case of gas
Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden called Gethsemane,
It held a pretty lass,
But all the time she talked to me
I prayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,
The men lay on the grass,
And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn’t pass -- it didn’t pass --
It didn’t pass from me.
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane

“I think that we have been beyond Gethsemane. Only in a tiny way compared to our comrades in arms in the First World War of course, or of the men in the fighting in Asia. We have become used to violent death,” she said slowly, “but this was very different. It was close and personal. Michelle’s husband led the boarding and the fighting was hand to hand. That sounds bad, I can attest that it is infinitely worse than it sounds. I watched two men literally tearing at each other with knives, fists, teeth, whatever they had. When one man killed the other, he saw the fear and agony in his eyes, saw the life flow away, smelled his sweat, blood and breath. I was wounded before the Russians counter-boarded Wilcannia and they got in to our bridge. Tracey’s husband saved my life there.”

She paused. “Let me say this. Women most definitely have many, many military roles. But they must be limited by how physically and psychologically different we are to men. Let no-one mistake me here, there are things women cannot do, just as there are things we are much better at than men are, and there are things men cannot do that we can. Our military role does not include any of the close combat arms or those demanding massive strength. None. It really can’t. Anyone who says otherwise has never seen that level of violence and has absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. Even unwounded I would not have lasted thirty seconds in the fighting on that bridge, the speed, strength and ferocity of trained fighting men in a full battle-fury is something that women cannot compete with. Full stop. We are rarely strong enough, and generally cannot expend energy at the same rate. Men can also process killing better than we can, I think. I killed three enemy sailors that night. I shot them at fairly close range with my SLR. Close enough to see them fall. I am having problems processing and accepting that: they are two distinct things, too.”

She looked at her husband. “That is why I had a number of conversations with the B-39’s commanding officer, who was far more badly wounded than I. When I look at my ruined face in future years, should I have them, I want to feel no bitterness, just that it was the normal cost of doing business in my chosen profession. I had no place in that type of close-quarters fighting, all I could really do was die.”

She paused. “The men have problems processing killing as well, of course, but accept it much easier than a women can. They accept that any man who goes up against another with lethal intent and a weapon in his hand is placing his life in the balance, the risks are equal and that means that both absolve the other of what is about to happen. We are not, definitely not, the equals of men in this area, no more than they can be our equals in producing children. So that sort of fighting is simply not for us, it’s not equal and we cannot possibly survive it.”

Her husband spoke. “I will point out that Christine is also of proven, demonstrated courage, and was described by that same Russian skipper as a fighting man who should be proud of her accomplishments in battle. We speak of this.”

Michelle nodded. “The same points are ones my husband and I discuss. Jack did more hand-to-hand fighting than anyone else and has few problems accepting that he killed men in doing so. Yes, processing that is a different matter. His life was in his hands, their lives in theirs and in that sort of fighting you accept the reality of your own death. He can accept that, I find difficulty with it.”

Cassandra was looking very thoughtful. “Two questions if I may, Lieutenant-Commander. How were you wounded, and... how do you think about the Russians?”

Christine looked at her. “You phrased that very carefully. The first. I was killing Kosygen’s crewmen from the Wilcannia’s bridge when a heavy machine gun bullet punched through a steel bridge-window frame and hit me in the face, tearing away about a quarter of it including an eye. Spall from the steel frame also hit me. I was lucky to survive it: had the bullet not come through the steel first it would have literally taken my head off. The second. Commander Kosygen’s approach was daring, innovative and showed both tactical skill and great courage. He – he just ran out of luck. He was located, I won’t say how, depth-charged to the surface, brought under fire from Fort Scratchley’s heavy guns and further damaged, and when he realised that he could not escape he fought it out to the end in a ferocious, bloody little action that only ended when Lieutenant Horner and what was left of his crew boarded his ship and took it against ferocious resistance. The Russians fought like demons from the pit. We won the boarding action for the main reason that Horner had a longsword and is expert in its use. Almost Kosygen’s entire crew was killed or wounded. I hope that his country decorates him, he fought a truly remarkable action. So I think of him and his crew as brave and determined enemies, who fought to the end. We lost two ships taking them, really three, but we salvaged Wilcannia.”

Michelle cut in. “Cassandra, your theme here has been on the role of women. There is so much utter rubbish put about on this, nearly all of it from utterly idiotic cultural marxists and other know-nothings, creatures with the smallest brains and largest mouths of any of the hominids. The Lieutenant Commander has pointed out where women do not fit in combat, let me point out that the Orion’s Tactical Officer and many of those manning Fort Scratchley’s guns were women, that the critical maintainers for all the ships, and certainly for the aircraft, include very many women, and that without the combined efforts of all three services this action could not have succeeded. Yes, there are parts of the spectrum where we cannot fit. I’m an external observer inside the system, I also know that there are some places where we cannot fit. But do not think for a second that those are anything more than a small part of the whole. I’ll show you why: and say very strongly that viewers need to get any children away right now unless you want them waking you all night with screaming nightmares. Any squeamish viewers should also leave, or turn the TV off. This video contains stuff that you really, really might not want inside your head.”

The hosts went to a break.

Tracey looked at them. They had not seen the imagery, that was deliberate on their own part, it made their reactions ‘natural’. They obviously had no idea of what was coming. Foolishly, they looked a bit self-satisfied. There were more warnings to come, but even these did not sink in.

The video had been selected carefully and was in two parts. The first had been taken by Michelle and showed the boarders taking the Soviet submarine’s casing. It was from close range and above the action, so it was reasonably steady and had full sound. Sprays of blood flicking from Horner’s longsword as he fought along the casing could clearly be seen. The second segment had been taken slightly later from aft of Countess of Hopetoun’s low, open superstructure. Taken from more of a distance it gave a rather jittery view of the fighting aboard Wilcannia due to the zoom ratio needed. Michelle narrated both, apologising for her swearing in the second clip, but as she explained, she’d been shot.

The second clip was so graphic and so violent that it was almost surreal. The sounds of Alex losing his breakfast were scarcely noticeable over the roaring of the ship’s noise, gunfire and the fury of the fighting: Wielding an axe, a Soviet sailor literally dashed the brains from the skull of an Australian sailor, only to rise on his toes in a dying agony, blood gushing from his mouth as another Australian rammed some sort of long steel rod out through his chest from behind. The imagery was again raw. Stefanovic was briefly visible in the video, as were glimpses of fighting inside the ship’s bridge.

So much for natural reactions, thought Tracey, as she watched the heavily made up male co-host retching into a hastily grabbed waste paper bin. She’d seen it many times as they selected the footage. It still made her queasy.

At the end of Michelle’s commentary as the video rolled, a badly shaken, pale and wide-eyed Cassandra looked at her panel of guests as her co-host recovered his composure off-screen.

“You two went through that. That was the most shocking footage I have ever seen or heard of,” she said, a slight catch in her voice, “was it necessary…”

“To use that particular video? Yes,” said Tracey coldly, “it was. This is the bloody reality, this is how it is for real. Far too much of the media soft-soaps it, glosses over it. Look at the coverage since the Canberra Strike. That leads to myths, to politically correct policies based on those myths that get people killed unnecessarily. Not this time. We all knew the men who you saw fighting and dying there and let us tell you all that their deaths were not in vain, not unnecessary, that they had a purpose. She,” she pointed at Stefanovic, “had a place there but not in that sort of fighting. She,” Tracey pointing at Michelle, “had a place there but not in that sort of fighting either. They both did their jobs, and well, perhaps freeing a man for that sort of fighting. It’s about doing what we must based on reality, and winning and ending this filthy damned war.”

Chapter 16

oOo

Wednesday 16 November 2005 0830

The Squadron held divisions rarely. That was for peacetime. But this day all but two of the sweepers had been in. So Namoi and her brood held an abbreviated divisions on the wharf. The 220 new men were still doing essential on the job training, as were the 43 women, who were being used to man the towfish boats, this being within their physical capability.

McCann then returned to the box serving as a podium.

“Ship’s companies,” they all braced, expecting this to be the parade dismissal. “ship’s companies, Ho!”

They all snapped to attention, with the slight sloppiness that showed they did not parade much.

“Lieutenant Horner, front and centre!”

A little surprised, Horner stepped out, turned, and marched into position in front of the extemporised podium. He got there and saluted. McCann returned it.

“Ship’s companies, attention to orders!” McCann pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

“Citation.” And then he read.

In the early hours of 1 November 2005 the auxiliary minesweeper under the command of Lieutenant Horner, Her Majesty’s Australian Ship Countess of Hopetoun, in company with other units of the 2nd Minesweeping Squadron of the 32nd Minesweeping Flotilla, was in close surface action with the surfaced enemy submarine B-39, and had repeatedly rammed the submarine and exchanged close range fire ranging from 9mm pistol to 20mm at ranges down to five metres. Lieutenant Horner had been repeatedly wounded by enemy fire but refused to leave his exposed command position, and continued to fight his ship.

Lieutenant Horner carried out two individual acts of valour which led to the capture of the enemy submarine B-39. Both were in direct face of the enemy, under both fire and in hand-to-hand combat, at great personal risk to himself. This valour has been deemed worthy of the highest recognition.

In this chaotic and violent close-range battle, on his own initiative and in accordance with existing direction, he armed and prepared his crew for a boarding action, he himself being armed with a sword and extemporised grenades. When the opportunity offered after B-39 had rammed HMAS Cutlass, causing the eventual sinking of that warship, Lieutenant Horner led a boarding party on to the enemy’s foredeck under heavy close-range fire from the submarine’s command position. The enemy crew immediately counterattacked at odds of three to one against Lieutenant Horner and his boarders. At the head of his men Lieutenant Horner met this attack alone due to the narrowness of the casing, killing or wounding 14 enemy crew with his sword and being wounded twice more in intense, sustained, furious and bloody hand-to-hand fighting.

Having taken the enemy foc’s’le, Lieutenant Horner rallied his men and despite his wounds stormed the fin of B-39. The enemy commanding officer killed the first man up the ladder on the outside of the fin and disabled the second in hand-to-hand combat. Lieutenant Horner then fought him hand to hand, cut him down, and again ignoring additional wounds, blood loss and risk, led the attack into the enemy submarine.

There he encountered the remaining crew, led by the enemy political officer, who was completing destruction of classified matter and who was charged with setting off the armed scuttling charges. This enemy officer, fresh and unwounded, attacked and yet again wounded Lieutenant Horner with a fire-axe. Again, Lieutenant Horner engaged in hand-to-hand combat and cut down the political officer. He then broke the remaining resistance. He had captured the enemy submarine through his actions during the boarding which he led personally from the front.

Despite wounds and blood loss, Lieutenant Horner then secured the flooding compartments of the submarine, located and isolated the scuttling charges, rendering them harmless, and then remained in the submarine until she could be handed over to others. He then refused treatment until his men had been treated.

Lieutenant Horner displayed repeated and extreme gallantry, remarkable fighting spirit and unquestionable valour, despite heavy enemy fire at close range, intense hand-to-hand fighting, repeated personal injury and in the teeth of an exceptionally determined and gallant enemy. His personal actions directly resulted in the boarding and taking of an enemy man-of-war, a notable feat of arms in any age, and at any time.

McCann lifted his head and looked at the men of his command.

“In view of his actions and demonstrated valour in battle, Lieutenant Horner has been awarded the Victoria Cross.”

There was a great singing silence.

McCann folded the paper, stepped off the podium, turned to Horner, and saluted him.

Horner, stunned, returned the salute.

“Sir, permit me the honour of being the first to congratulate you and the men you led.”

McCann then saluted again, then he took off his cap, and raised it over his head.

“Ship’s Companies, off caps, three cheers for Horner, VC!”

[drmarkbailey]

Ok, posted. it will now accept ~45-page chunks, which is improved (I think) but still strips off all the usual formatting like bold, italic etc.

Apologies, I just do not have the time to reformat it here...

Regards: Mark

[James1978]

Working my way through, but a few initial questions.

Did those ancient Foxtrots self-deploy from the Soviet Far East, or might they have been brought forward on a LASH or FO/FO to Cam Ranh Bay or some isolated anchorage with a disguised tender in Indonesia?

I'm a little surprised the Foxtrots hope to get all the way home versus making for Cam Ranh Bay or maybe just Ambon.

About the disguised minelayer posing as a Chinese ship, what do you mean by "if we’d been doing things the WWII way we’d have nailed it more easily."?

[drmarkbailey]

As you know, this is an old story just reposted.

Yeah, self-deployed. They have ample range and the Indian navy (for example) had no issue with very long deployments for the things. The real problem with diesel boats is that the crews are 1:2 so they get knackered by about 30 days in. Nuclear boat crews are 1:3. All of that said, they can keep plugging away far beyond 30 days depending on mission. I'd never want to take a diesel boat into action against a high-level threat beyond 30 days, even a modern boat.

This was a major reason the KM in WWII lost so many boats with wartime trained crews, their crew resource management was non-existent and the Type VII was a 'western approaches boat' which they forced into a long-endurance function the Type IX was designed for. So crews got exhausted quickly...

But for these missions, laying mines against a far distant second tier opponent, they're fine.

And as for the raider, yeah!

Cheers: mark

[Craiglxviii]

Ok, posted. it will now accept ~45-page chunks, which is improved (I think) but still strips off all the usual formatting like bold, italic etc.

Apologies, I just do not have the time to reformat it here...

Regards: Mark

Sorry to hear that the formatting didn’t copy over. I thought the new website setup would allow it.

Remind me, was there a Kiwi sequel to this?

[drmarkbailey]

yes I have that saved. I'll put it up.

Cheers, Mark

[James1978]

Finished rereading this. Well done!

But I'm still not clear what we were doing better in WW2 regarding identifying / locating surface raiders.

Another thing I'm not clear on. How the hell did western intel miss a bunch of old diesel boat refits, and how did SOSUS not catch something as loud as a Foxtrot in transit?

[Jotun]

Thank you for reposting this. I can't and won't agree with certain views on religion/spirituality and the relations between men and women, especially as I have met more than just one old man who WAS an outspoken atheist in a foxhole, including my paternal grandfather who spent 90 percent of the time in WW2 on, let me recall, the western, Italian and the eastern fronts and who did not set foot in a church from 1939 until his death in 1988. Yes, I know it is anecdotal, but sociological data certainly does not support the "no atheist in foxholes" aphorism. Not even close. I found the religious - Catholic - overtones in the story to be a bit jarring. Religion is supposed to be a private thing in my opinion and overt displays of religious faith make me uncomfortable and annoy me.

It may be because I am wired differently. I can not recall a time when I was a believer in any deity you could think of, not even as a child. I took instruction in the Lutheran Church's version of Christianity and was confirmed at 14 years of age, but all it did was demonstrate to me the numerous fallacies, lack of inner consistency and inherent contradicitions of any faith. I only left the Lutheran church at 30 years or so because I was too lazy to put in the papers before that.

Anyway, I recall asking you about the origin of the HEMA practitioner having been introduced to it in Kiel when you posted the story the first time. The only HEMA studio I am aware of is the one in the Gaarden district of Kiel, and Gaarden is called "Little Istanbul" in Kiel, and has been for as long as I can remember. Did you incorporate your own life experiences into the story or did you just use good old internet research? I was born and grew up in Kiel, that is why I am asking.

[drmarkbailey]

Like all stories, it's just a story!

My personal experience was growing up among WWI veterans, most AIF and mostly men who spent their war in and around The Salient. Every one I know of was moderately to deeply religious, my grandfather included.

Same with the WWII veterans I knew, most especially the 8th Division men. They made a very interesting point, that being religious or becoming so had been a very significant survival factor when 'guests' of the Imperial Japanese Army on the Burma railway. Now, I sort of looked at that as anecdotal, although the majority of WWII vets agreed with it. Years later I found some US Korean War studies which confirmed this in respect of the US Korean War PoW. Many factors among it: from memory they included things like the persistence of hope, the willingness to deal with suffering communally and willingness to support each other.

HEMA is my martial art (Canberra School of Arms and Armour). Heck of a lot of fun, although I am getting too old and broken to do competition events now.

I don't know Keil, sorry, I want to visit the museum there and chat to Jan Witt there.

CHeers: Mark

[Jotun]

Thank you for the answer.
Because of my depression, I have taken up Toyama-ryu kenjutsu/iaijutsu/batto do, Karate, Kobudo and Nihon Taiho Jutsu.
It has done me some real good.

Sadly, HEMA is not available in and around Emden…I have always been and still am very intrigued by the revival.

I‘ll turn fifty in January
, and I have to admit that the soreness and creaky joints after practice mean that I am getting old

[drmarkbailey]

Oh, I hear you!!

I did not start until I was 59. And that was 6 years ago.....

I recently had a massive shoulder reconstruction and while I can still do longsword and dagger, the above-the-shoulder focus of pollax and spear is now risky. So I focus on longsword and dagger a bit now.

Which is a shame, harnessfechten with pollax is tremendous fun. The very distillation of interpersonal violence. And with proper harness we can use training pollaxes at full speed and strength. it's still dangerous but so is life. And yes, I kind of cheat. Much of my armour is titanium to save my oh-so-screwed knees.

A couple of years ago I bought a beautiful Albion Ringeck here https://albion-swords.com/product/ ... longsword.

My wife took one look at it and said "So, you'll be waiting up each night hoping that we get a home invasion, then?" I looked guilty and said "maybe....."

She knows me well! In fact it's a joy to train solo with.

Cheers: Mark