Antarctica

The Coldwarspyship Lord Ancaster was holding position off the coast of Antarctica, surrounded by growlers and bergy-bits in a heaving swell of slush.   Icebergs as big as a house or the size of a small principality surrounded them - white, ice blue, ultramarine, thrusting pinnacles, towers and cathedral spires skywards.   Tall arches perched on tiny rafts of ice, sculpted by wind and sea, drifted by, escarpments stretched out towards the horizon.   The trawler inched up to the pack ice, pushing forward till the crunching frozen sea no longer gave way.   On deck a shore detail of Kronstadt sailors lined the rail, white parkas over their winter weight telnyashkas, AKS-74s slung, skis at the ready.   The expansive ice flow brought to mind the last days of Kronstadt One - Trotsky’s assault across the frozen sea in 1921 and the fall of the fortress to the Red Army – the day that the revolution was finally lost.   They began to hum a tune from the film Specnaz, haunting and baleful, whilst a lone tenor sang out lyrics that told of betrayal, lost hopes and exile in Finland, his mournful tones reverberating across the grumbling, crackling ice.

With grey clouds the sky is veiled


Nerves tensed like balalaika strings


Snow falling from morning to night


Frozen time seems an eternity


We are assaulted from all directions


Infantry, machine gun and artillery fire


The Reds are killing us, but some will survive


Once again, we sacrifice ourselves on waves of attack

We are few in number, but we are wearing our stripy t-shirts…

Skipper Harold Entwhistle scanned the shelf from the bridge-house.   They were enjoying a welcome break after a succession of squalls.   Spring was well on the way and the weather could only improve.   Through his 7x50 watch keeping binoculars he could make out the cliffs where ice met the land.   Beyond them was New Swabia, mystery and, without doubt, adventure - but not for him.   Generations of Entwhistles had found adventure enough on the sea, someone else - these irrepressible Russians - could battle blizzards and Nazis, and who knew what else, down here on the wrong side of the world.

            The capstan clanked and derrick groaned as two NK-26 propeller driven sledges were winched onto the frozen sea.   The Comrade-Starshina leaned out of the open bridge window and shouted down to his lads below.  

            “Over the side, boys.   Time to get cracking.”

            Drivers and Petty Officer machine gunners clambered into the aerosanis whilst the ratings knelt down to attach their skis.   The M-11G aircraft engines revved and gunners’ heads popped up behind the snowmobiles’ 7.62mm DT machine guns.   The Chief Petty Officer, standing on the aft starboard ski of his lightly armoured sledge raised an arm and waved the group forward.   As the sledges picked their way slowly and noisily across the ice, with the shore detail towed behind, it began to snow, flakes whipped into swirling tunnels by the whirling blades.   Harold Entwhistle watched the party disappear as the weather closed in.

He rang for Half Astern on the engine room telegraph and spoke to the third hand without looking his way, “We’ll break free from this ice and pull back to Stromness on South Georgia for a while, give the Ruskies time to do their thing.”

            As they slowly backed up the bergs swirled.  Some way off their stern the flows began to heave upwards and the sea churned.   Slowly a huge dark grey conning tower rose from the depths, water pouring down its sides.   Once at the surface the imposing submersible dwarfed the trawler.   It was almost three times their length and the crew of the Ancaster watched as a group of sailors ran along the after deck to man a 14 cm/40 11th Year Type naval gun and target the radio room just aft of their bridge.   Several officers appeared on top of the conning tower and their commander raised a megaphone to his mouth.   

            “Stand your men down, captain, and cut your engines.   Touch the radio and we fire.   For you, Tommy Atkins, this expedition is over.”

Several semi rigid inflatables detached from the submarine and sped across the narrow stretch of sea towards the trawler.   As they approached Harold handed a weighted oilskin package containing the ships papers to his second in command.

            “Dump this over the side where those buggers can’t see you, Smurthwait.”

            Taking the packet the mate, a rough and ready bruiser with the unlikely and exotic name of Easter Smurthwaite, scuttled out of sight behind the accommodation, tossed it into the sea and watched it sink.   He returned to the cluster of trawlermen as a large St Bernard dog padded nonchalantly across the deck to slip unobserved down the foc’sle scuttle.   Moments later a heavily armed boarding party swarmed over the rail, formally arrested the crew of the Lord Ancaster and manhandled them firmly into the rubber ducks.   A Prize Crew took charge of the trawler and it was underway towards an undeclared destination before Harold and his fellow prisoners had been ferried half way to the submarine.   As they came alongside the hard, curving hull smart darkly uniformed matrosen (seamen) efficiently caught painters, made the inflatables fast and reached down to help the hostages in clambering up the side. Others pointed "Schmeisser" MP40 Maschinenpistolen down at the little group.   Once on deck and still eyed warily by the armed sailors they were greeted politely by the vessel’s captain.   He was tall and amiable with the easy air of a European aristocrat.

            “I am Kapitänleutnant Otto Graf von Luckner and you, I believe are Kapitän Harold Entwhistle.   Welcome aboard the Seeadler.   She is, as I am sure you have observed, an ex-Japanese Sen Toku I-400-class submarine aircraft carrier.”  

            Harold had observed no such thing. At about 400 feet long with a large tube shaped aircraft hanger amidships and a fortress-like conning tower above and to port of the hanger he had never in his life seen any thing like this vessel.   She sported eighty-five feet of compressed-air catapult along the forward deck, triple one-inch anti-aircraft guns around the conning tower, the 5.5-inch naval gun aft of the superstructure and exuded menace.   Before he could register anything more about the warship Harold Entwhistle and his crew were escorted below.   Harry Tate paused for one more look around him and was jabbed in the ribs with one of the Schmeissers.   Kapitänleutnant von Luckner scowled.

            “That will do, Heinrich.”

            From the bottom of the ladder they were ushered into the main saloon and from the trawler crew there came a communal gasp.   The room was palatial.   There were leather chesterfield sofas and armchairs bolted to the floor, a full size snooker table in the middle of the room and, in one corner, a grand piano.

            “If you could find your way to giving me your parole and that of your men, Kapitän Entwhistle, we will not need to chain you all in the brig.”

            The lads all looked pleadingly at Harold.

            “Not much hope of us escaping from a submarine.   I expect a tunnel would be impractical.   While we are aboard, you have my word we will not try anything.”

            There was a joint sigh of relief and his crew having rushed the cocktail bar were soon having a sing along round the grand, where young Tate vamped Ilkley Moor Bar T’at. 

            “You and I need a chat, Kapitän.”   Kapitänleutnant von Luckner leaned in conspiratorially, “Do you drink single malt?   I have a particularly fine Talisker Storm in my cabin.”

            Von Luckner’s ‘cabin’ was a suite of rooms with a desk, daybed, coffee table and lounge chairs in the sitting room and doors leading off to a bedroom and to a shower/toilet.   The captains were facing each other across the coffee table sipping at generous tots of Scotch from heavy cut-glass whisky tumblers.   The Kapitänleutnant reluctantly opened the conversation.

            “I am afraid I must ask you what you are doing here.”

            “Just a fishing trip.”

            “And you expect me to believe that?   What exactly were you dropping off when we caught you?   What are you up to?”

            Harold thrust forwards, his nose aggressively close to von Luckner’s face.

            “Look matey, I don’t give a toss what you believe.   We’ll accept your hospitality, ‘cos we don’t have a choice.   But you took my vessel in international waters and that’s piracy in any Yorkshireman’s book.   If I say I’m fishing then fishing it is and if you don’t like it you can stick it in your bloody gesteckpfeife and smoke it.”

            “International waters?”

            “Do I look like I give a fuck?”

            Von Luckner was halfway to his feet, red faced, white knuckles clenched round the arms of his chair…

            “Blut und eisen, sie übermütig fischer…”

            …when he hesitated and, letting out a long sigh, slumped back into his chair.

            “Pax, Kapitän, I have to ask these things, it is expected.   You are too few and too far from home for any of it to matter.   Let us not spoil this fine whisky or miss the rare opportunity for stimulating conversation.   Tell me, have you strong views regarding Kirkegard?”

            Entwhistle had read little in his life other than the Racing Times and his dad’s hand written diaries entitled 'Where to Fish When, 1867-1972'.

            “Bit skittish last season, but she’s steadier now and could hold her own on the flat.”

            Von Luckner took a large swig from his glass.

            “And this song of your men, explain to me the meaning of Bar T’at.”

Beryl

A diversion for those breathless readers who are finding the relentless action somewhat exhausting.   Cats may wish to skip this chapter.

Beryl Clutterbuck had taxied her Dragon Rapide almost to the gates of the little Arab Legion fort.   She was taking coffee with a gathering of Desert Patrol soldiers beneath an awning outside the walls.   Their camels grumbled nearby and they chatted irrepressibly, switching without effort into English when Beryl’s Arabic proved inadequate.  Shining black Bedouin curls peeped from under their scarlet keffiyahs, rakishly held in place by the cords of the agal.   Their flamboyant uniform robes tumbled about them, long white sleeves turned back from the wrists.

            Beryl spun round at the sudden sound of giggling, to see four youngsters running gaily by.   In the lead were two barefooted lads, their grubby thawbs flapping around their shins.   A girl in a cotton frock, with a tiny flower print, and a worn thin cardigan lagged closely behind and was overtaken by a skittering lamb that bleated in time with their laughter.   The self-absorbed coterie rounded the corner of the fort and was lost to view.

            The Desert Patrol sergeant took Beryl’s tiny cup and refilled it from a traditional brass coffee pot with an unnecessarily prominent beak like spout.   The hot liquid was thick, dark and bitter.

            “The lad, Abdulla, will be along in a moment.   He will take you there.”

Beryl nodded her thanks.

She had barely started to sip the latest serving of coffee when a battered, white Toyota pick-up drew to a halt with a short skid, scattering loose stones.   A young, cream coloured camel sat placidly in the back.   The wiry youth who clambered down from the cab was unusually dark, with a mass of unkempt black hair and dazzling white teeth.   His blue-grey shirt was buttoned at the wrists and up to the neck and tucked into baggy cargo pants.   Dusty toes protruded from leather sandals.   The sergeant approached him and they spoke for a while, glancing occasionally towards Beryl.   When they came over the lad was grinning, his face in shadow and only those teeth and the whites of his eyes distinguishable against the ebony skin.

            “Madam, I will gladly take you to that place.   If we might go straight away you will have plenty of time before it gets dark.”

The Toyota sped across the wide, flat wadi floor, twitching off half buried rocks and trailing a long cloud of dust.   The blistering heat was sticking Beryl’s sweat drenched bush shirt to her back as she braced herself in the seat next to Abdulla, his expert hands dominating the jerking steering wheel, as he concentrated on keeping to the rough contours of their track.   Ahead towered a lonely outcrop of rock, never seemingly any closer for all their speed.

            In time, however, they were at the foot of the rock cliff and parked in its shade.

            “First I must attend to Zenobia.”   Abdulla dropped the tailgate of the truck and set his camel free, but hobbled, to graze on the sparse, coarse vegetation.   Then, signalling Beryl to follow, he led her into a deep cleft in the rock.   The chasm was barely wider than her shoulders and irregular under foot.   In places she could see scratches or drawings on the vertical walls, but they were too weathered to make out.   It was cooler now, deep within the outcrop.   After what must have been fifty yards or more the narrow gorge opened out into a grotto enclosing a still, deep pool.   On the walls were pictographs – abstract circles, dots and triangles by the entrance, but deeper inside lively oryx, ibex and flocks of wild birds populated the rock and reflected in the water.  

            “I will go and prepare tea,” said Abdulla, “Be free, and enjoy yourself.”

            Alone in a magic space, Beryl untied her laces, put the desert boots to one side and removed a very sweaty pair of socks.   She discarded her bush shirt, dropped her knee-length khaki shorts and, unhooking a plain white cotton bra, she dipped a slender foot into the pool.   The water was satisfyingly cool.   Casting off a delicately lacy pair of Brazilian knickers she sank, naked, into the cistern.   The silky water caressed her tanned, dry skin.   Floating on her back, weightless, golden hair fanning out around her head, gentle ripples tantalising those intimate areas that had been imprisoned within too much perspiration soaked clothing for too many days, was exquisite.   Without moving she studied the wall paintings.   Among the desert animals there were cattle too, and a giraffe.   When was there ever giraffe in this region?   There were also stylised human figures in red-brown ochre.   They were depicted floating horizontally in space, matchstick men with exaggerated erect penises.   Anonymous and faceless they had extended arms and flexed knees as if they were swimming.

            Beryl closed her eyes and allowed her long-tense muscles to relax, stress fleeing from her body as the calming stillness penetrated her being, visualising the brown bodied swimmers silently drifting around her.

She could have lain like this for several hours, or it may have been only minutes; she could not guess.   But when she opened her eyes the boy was watching her from the pool’s edge.

            He was motionless except for the subtle rise and fall of his breast – statuesque, remote.   He studied her with a detached curiosity, his eyes betraying no hint of lust.   Yet, under his gaze Beryl felt her nipples respond.   There was a stirring across the surface of the pool.

           “You must come in,” she spoke in his native tongue, “the water is wonderful.”

The Kronstadt Fleet Air Arm

There was frantic activity at the naval airstrip on Hessle foreshore.   Within the suite of offices that occupied the upper floor of a concrete blockhouse, beneath the concrete control tower, an operator rushed from the radio shack to the desk of his Comrade-Commander.   Seconds later an adjutant ran along the corridor, down the stairs and out into a surprisingly sunny Indian Summer to ring urgently on a large brass bell whilst shouting, “Scramble!”

            Boiler suited engineers were already removing the protective quilted jackets from the engine cowlings of three Polikarpov I-16 fighters parked expectantly on the tarmac as the Comrade-Pilots pulled sheepskin flying-jackets over their telnyashkas and clasped their parachute harnesses into place.   Each clambered over the wing of his aircraft and into the cockpit.   There was an irregular chuck, chuck, chuck as the Shvetsov M-63 9-cylinder (900hp) supercharged air-cooled radial engines fired up and soon settled into an even drone.   Props twirled faster and faster.   The three planes sang in unison, Comrade-Pilots waved, “Chocks away, tovarisch.”   Gathering speed in single file down the runway, they lifted, banked and, forming up wing-tip-to-wing-tip, headed out to sea.

            The radioed call for assistance had also reached Consuella Starcluster at the Cirque des Absurdités in The Land of Green Ginger and she immediately headed for the docks, riding pillion behind Snowdrop on her unicycle and with two of the Kittens of Chaos crammed into the sidecar.   Now they were standing on the quayside looking at ninety metres of what could be taken for a gigantic flying boat were it not for the wholly inadequate stubby wings.   It was painted British Racing Green with a red star on the tail and had two formidable rows of missile launchers along its back.   A Kronstadt Starshina stood beside them holding a large cardboard box.

            “The finest ekranoplan ever to take to the air.   We bought her on e-bay from a scrap metal dealer in Kaspiysk.   He had her deconstructed and shipped flat-pack on an IKEA container vessel bound for Immingham Docks.   We’ve followed the instructions to the letter putting her back together, but we’ve got this box of bits left over and some of them look as if they might be important.”

            “¿No iba a estar listos para el combate de cualquier momento pronto, entonces?” (It will not to be combat-ready any time soon, then?) sighed Consuella.

            “Nyet.”

            “Oh, but…” from two very disappointed Kittens, “…we wanna go in the big planey thing!”

            “With the rockets!”

            The Petty Officer smiled down on the pair as if they were cherubs, in their battered straw boaters, micro skirts and laddered black stockings, “Not today, little ones.   For now, she goes nowhere.”

            Snowdrop had wandered over to another large cardboard box sitting on the quay close to a stocky cast-iron bollard.   From it she had selected three suitable yet random items of an aeronautical nature and was honing her juggling skills.

Consuella looked concerned, “Joost how many ‘beets’ do hyou haav left oveer, Comrade-Starsheenarrr?”

            “Er… quite a lot.”

            “Hand what exactly does work on thees wonderfool vessel of yoors?”

            “It floats.”

The Princess Aethelfleda was struggling to gain height.   The crew of the Belgian trawler observed the hot-airship preparing for action and disappeared off the deck.   Pouring smoke from its funnel the fishing vessel quickly made its best speed away from the area.   As the dirigible banked, a young rating, who must have lied about his age, manned the port waist gun and opened fire towards the Chats Souterrains’ Ducks.   They were not yet within range, but were closing fast.

            Ferdy turned to his comrades; his wide, pale eyes flashed cold resignation and a small muscle on his right temple twitched.   “She’s sluggish.   That flack must have done more damage than we thought.   It’s ruptured a gas cell.”

            “Dump the ballast, Phoebles.”   Boz spoke quietly but with dark determination, “Ferdy… just get us above those fighters.”

            The Gruman J2Fs came in, broke away left and right, and circled the wallowing dirigible like wolves around an abandoned biryani takeaway.  

With the aggressors closing in, Ginsbergbear puffed and wheezed his way up the spiral staircase that climbed through the belly of the airship, eventually reaching the open machine gun turret just aft of the funnel.   He clung to the sides for a while, gulping air, back bent and shoulders drooping while his breathing steadied and heartbeat returned to normal.   He cocked the four 0.303 Browning machine guns, tested the swivel mount and pressed the throat mic to his larynx.  

            “Dorsal gunner ready.   Nothing to see up here.   Wait…”   Something was diving out of the sun.

            He took aim at the lead aircraft, saw there were three of them, and then recognized the silhouettes.   He quickly panned the guns off the target.  

            “The Ratas have arrived.   We might be alright after all.”

            As the Polikarpovs roared overhead they opened fire towards the corsair fighters with 20mm ShKAS wing mounted cannons.   The silver fuselage of the lead aircraft flashed in the sunlight and as it banked Ginsbergbear could make out red, white and blue concentric rings encircling a blue star painted on the tail and a scarlet winged anchor below the cockpit.   All much more flamboyant than was usual for the chromatically conservative Kronstadt sailors who regarded a red star against a complementary green ground amply adventurous.   Through his gun-sights the Comrade-Pilot of the Rata could make out a rear gunner in one of the Ducks speaking urgently to his pilot and then standing up, gilded pickelhaube glinting, waving to the other seaplane and pointing into the sun.   Shells exploded around him.   The ensuing dogfight was short - the Polikarpov Ratas were faster and more manoeuvrable.   But once the J2Fs of Les Chats Souterrains broke off, their rear facing machine guns kept the pursuers at bay.

            Job done, the silver Polikarpov I-16 pealed away to fly over the Princess Aethelfleda, dipping its wings in salute, the pilot, cockpit hood pushed back, giving an OK sign with one raised hand.   The remaining Ratas, sea green with a red star on the tail, followed the Ducks at a respectful distance.   They only turned back when they reached the limit of their range, certain by then that the Ducks were heading for their base on the Tyne.

            The dirigible turned to limp for home, leaving the abandoned gunboat and corsairs in the orange life rafts to sort out their own problems.   A CPO, his sleeveless summer telnyashka exposing an impressive array of tattoos, appeared on the bridge.

            “We have stemmed the leak, tovarisch, but we’ve lost a lot of helium…”   The Aethelfleda was a composite airship, with gas bags fore and aft and a hot air chamber amidships.   “…We should make it back OK - just.”

            Phoebles slumped on the deck, his face blank and no hint of his customary inane smile.   Ginsbergbear arrived at the bottom of the spiral staircase.   Boz removed his eye patch and gripped the chart table with his one free paw.   “This is not an adventure any more, we just keep going ‘cos there is no alternative.   Where will it end?   When will it end?”   He nodded towards the pilot, still rigid at his post.   “Ferdy is strung so tight something has to snap.   He’s running on catnip and Red Bull.   We’re making such little headway in this war, it’s just endless attrition.”

            “I’m fine,” snapped the pilot.

            “No you’re not.”   Phoebles, wrinkling his brow, spoke almost in a whisper, “It was all so gentlemanly at the start.   There were rules, unwritten rules, but everyone understood them.   Somewhere it all changed and we barely noticed.   We do what we have to, because we have to win.

“I wonder if we have lost sight of something.   We try to prevent these pirate raids without considering what makes the Corsairs tick.   We outwit them when we can.   But have we stopped trying to understand them?   Has anyone thought of making sandwiches?   It’s been a long time since second breakfast.”

            “Chins up,” Said Ginsbergbear, “It’s not two months since we escaped the caverns in Castleton.   I’ve written a poem…”

I

Kt – Q3 ch

It is a petty triumph, black plays

The long game.

Black Death tossing pawns into

The fray, pinning, forking.

Mein fahrer hat vom blitz getroffen.

Blitz und Donner, fork

Lightning.

Black Death and Quixote, silent, still

On the pebble strand.

Sea creatures, Kraken chicks

Whisper, “QxKt.”

A high price to pay

For fish.

II

“Is that you, darling?”

“No, it’s someone else.”

Dog Days’ vindictive caresses, sweating

Over dead Odysseus, drowning

In Leviathan’s aquatic grotto, rotting

Pelagic cargoes.

Beleaguered White King scorns ransom.

III

The bowler hats and brollies, departed after…

High heeled, high hemmed, thrawen thighs (with thwongs attached) typing

Endlessly.   “The copier’s out of ink.”

Had to get a proper job,

Down the Co-Op.

While the brazen Geordie,

Embracing Superman,

“Careful Ducky!” holds:

He who fights monsters should beware

That in the process he does not

Become a monster too.

IV

Gaze long enough into an abyss and

 The abyss will gaze back into you.

Give me another mooncake and I’ll do this till the cows come home.

Boz wondered if he had ever been this depressed before.   However, everyone’s mood lightened considerably when the poem ended and the flags and wind socks of the Kronstadt Fleet Air Arm aerodrome at last came into view.   And the gang were bordering on cheerful once the Princess Aethelfleda was on her pylon and repair crews were swarming all over her.   Larry’s personal runabout was tethered to a neighbouring pylon. 

            On the tarmac they bumped into Barrymore.   She had been tinkering with one of the Porsche engines on Larry’s dirigible and was removing a tiny speck of oil from her bottle-green, crotch length chauffeur’s jacket.   “Hi boys,” she straightened the fur on the longest tortoise-shell legs this side of Paradise, “Larry’s waiting up stairs.   He wants to discuss developments.   I’ll just hang around down here, see if I can catch one of these delicious sailors.”

            Larry had made himself comfortable at the Comrade-Commander’s desk in the Comrade-Commander’s chair, the Comrade-Commander was trying not to look awkward perched on the edge of the adjutant’s desk, and the adjutant was fetching teas and coffees.   Larry started talking before tedious formalities could delay him.  He addressed Boz and waved a general indication towards any Kronstadt personnel within range.            

            “I’m putting these boys in charge of trawler protection for a bit.   We have another piccolo problema.   No-one has heard from the Lord Ancaster since they radioed that they had arrived at the Antarctic ice shelf.”