Departures

“Where is my Oberfunkmeister?   Ah, there you are.   Get a message to the whaling station, right away.   I want the Pinguin readied for sea by the time we arrive, and they’re to get steam up on the trawler too.   Matrosenfeldwebel, get everyone into the tubes.   Don’t forget the frauleins in the canteen, and make sure you bring my radio officer with you when he’s done.   Oh, and find the ship’s cat.”   Otto von Luckner turned to Harold, “If you would come with me gentlemen, please.”

            The Kapitänleutnant led the trawler officers across the ravished concourse towards a set of check-in desks labeled Walfang-Hafen, gathering trawlermen as they went.   Kriegsmariners were already lining up neatly, and slightly less tidy groups of New Swabians in lab coats or boiler suits were gathering near the sliding doors to the pneumatic tubes.   The Kronstadt shore detail, led by Dark Flo, appeared from behind a pile of rubble, they laughing and joking, she sporting a puffy, almost closed eye.   She was limping and the left sleeve of her shinobi shozoko was torn away to reveal an angry graze on her elbow and purple bruising to the shoulder.

            “Thanks to one of your overzealous fishermen.   Took a swing at me from behind, with a barstool.   Can’t tell a ninja from a submariner.”

            Bamse, as was his wont, had rounded up the last of the stragglers.   With the company assembled the tube doors opened and embarkation began.  

            “Once you reach the whaling station get your people aboard your trawler and be ready for the off.”   Von Luckner was cradling Fotzenkatze, the lithe tabby mascot of the now crippled submarine Seeadler.   “I will be along soon as I know everyone is safe.”

The bow and ruptured freshwater tank of the Ancaster had been repaired in their absence, the boiler was nearly up to pressure and springs taken in so that only shortened bow and stern lines held her to the quay.   The crew stood, alert, at their stations.   Harold stood by the bridge window, his hand placed lightly on the highly polished new telegraph, its dials disconcertingly labeled in German.   Billy Tate held the spokes of the enormous ship’s wheel, awaiting instructions.   An Aldis lamp on the wing of the Pinguin’s bridge began to flash morse at high speed.   Easter Smurthwait and the Ancaster’s sparks eyed the twinkling light, then each other, and shrugged.   Yes, the trawler did have a radio officer.   Sparky, a lad hailing from the Midlands, had spent the entire adventure locked in his radio room trying unsuccessfully to contact Wick Radio, blissfully unaware and, as usual, totally forgotten.

            “’Spect he’s telling us to get going,” said Easter to his skipper.

            “OK.   Cast off fore and aft.”   He rang ‘Halbe Kraft Voraus’ on the engine room telegraph, “I hope that means what I think it does,” and Ancaster’s single screw began to churn the water into a fury beneath her stern.   She moved slowly away from the quay, picked up speed, was steered deftly around the breakwater by the third hand, and belching black smoke from her Woodbine funnel, the trawler proceeded out to sea.

            On the bridge of the Pinguin Otto von Luckner turned to his Signalsmaat, “Are you certain you sent Follow us… in English?   Ficken!”   He rang down to the engine room and the mighty diesels thumped into action.   He sprinted to the wing of the bridge and shouted, “Abwerfen der Liegeplatz-Seile.   Cast off fore and aft.”   Back in the wheelhouse he addressed his helmsman, “Follow that boat.”

With her thundering pistons producing nearly eight thousand horse power and her twin screws rapidly accelerating her up to seventeen knots it did not take the Pinguin long to outstrip Ancaster.   Von Luckner was on the VHF radio to Harold.

            “Follow us, captain.   Best speed.   We want as much open water as possible between us and Antarctica when whatever it is happens.”

            Easter had been looking astern, “I think it’s happening now, skipper.   You’ll want to see this.”

            Even at the distance of two miles they could see the ice plateau on the continent behind them begin to dome.   The hump rose slowly at first and then burst in an explosion of rock and ice fragments.   There was an incandescent flash.   When vision returned a hemisphere of boiling atmosphere was visible, expanding at an incredible rate.   A rumble grew to a roar and to a screaming shriek that paralysed the onlookers.   The pressure wave tore fittings from the deck and cracked window glass.   The accompanying tsunami, however, passed them unnoticed.   In the open sea, travelling at 500 miles per hour it barely raised the fleeing vessels a foot or two.   As it approached the shoaling seabed around the southern tip of America it would pile up into a destructive wall of vindictive ocean, but out here it was benign.   Back on the Antarctic mainland snow clouds gathered above ground zero and lightening bolts flashed across the sky.   The trawlermen watched as powdered snow billowed and swirled; and out of the turmoil rose a vast, polished metal cylinder, its mirror surface reflecting the chaos that surrounded it.   The Andromeda Machine climbed serenely through the storm into the quiet sky above, performed a leisurely pirouette and accelerated away.   Within moments all was calm.  

            “Well, that was different,” said Easter to no one in particular.

A tinny voice crackled from the bridge loud speaker, Kapitänleutnant Otto Graf von Luckner was back on the VHF.

            “We will be heading for the Rio de la Plata in the Pinguin, but are more than willing to escort you across the South Atlantic, captain.   It will give us chance to compare notes and discuss the recent events.   I expect you will be wanting to proceed to the Ärmelkanal, your English Channel.   We may well catch you up on our way to the Baltic.   It rather depends on how long we loiter in Montevideo.”

            A wandering albatross tucked in behind the stern of the Lord Ancaster, skimming low over the restless swell of the Southern Ocean.   Sunlight glistened off the heaving rollers and dolphins played in the bow-waves of the two vessels as they pointed their prows towards the New World.

Sea Dog Bamse

As the Lord Ancaster was hailed from the submarine, Bamse the Norwegian St Bernard, had concealed himself in the foc’sle paint locker and managed to remain undetected.

            After two days at sea the Lord Ancaster arrived at a small, ice free whaling harbour in Neuschwabenland and the Acting Kommänder of the prize crew, wishing to demonstrate his seamanship and impress onlookers, steamed his charge at her top speed of ten knots towards the quay.  It had been his intention to ring Full Astern and spin the wheel at a precisely judged moment so that the Ancaster turned sharply, lost momentum and drifted alongside the jetty in a single and elegant manoeuvre.   Sadly, he was unused to the quirky character of his newfound command, and to the unreliability of the ship’s telegraph.   The command Full Astern never reached the engine room, in fact the pretty brass handle of the telegraph came away in his hand and the trawler charged full pelt into the quayside, destroying the wooden jetty, rupturing the bow water tank and scattering paint pots around Bamse’s hidey-hole.   Stevedores on the quayside were showered in drinking water, which froze instantly, and a rainbow coloured St Bernard appeared briefly on deck before bounding ashore and disappearing into the shadows.

            At the same time as Oberleutnant Wilhelm Cremer was contemplating the fickleness of fate and his suddenly diminished chance of commanding so much as a turd in a piss-pot any time soon, Bamse had slipped into the ratings’ changing rooms.   Rubbing in a liberal coating of Swarfega and following up with a hot soapy shower he had managed to remove the worst of the paint.   He emerged cautiously from the shower and walked straight into a New Swabian seaman.

            “Gott im himmel!   Einen Hund.   Was machst du hier?”

            Bamse ducked back into the shower and pulled the curtain across while the sailor screamed, “Alarm!”

            The changing room’s steel watertight door banged and a muscular figure in singlet and shorts, hard blue eyes below a severe blonde crew cut, burst in.

            “What’s all this racket?”

            “Oberbootsmann, there is a dog in the shower.”

            “Do not be ridiculous Herman, there are no dogs on the base.   There have been no dogs here since the last sled husky died in 1956.   See.”

            He threw back the curtain to reveal Bamse, with the expression of a startled owl and holding a towel in front of his body to preserve his modesty.   The petty officer ignored him.  

            “It would be impossible for a dog to be here without me knowing it.   Now report to sick bay and get this hysteria nipped in the bud.”

            “But…” Herman twitched his head towards Bamse.

            “Now, Matrosengefreiter!”

            “Aye aye, Oberbootsmann.”   And, switching off the light as they departed, the pair left a stunned Bamse to contemplate his newfound fortune in the dark.   

There were no dogs in Neuschwabenland.   Bamse was a dog.   Therefore Bamse could not be at the whaling station.   He defied logic and so he did not exist.   He was invisible to everyone on the base… well, everyone not on the verge of a nervous breakdown anyway.   He headed straight for the canteen, piled high a bowl with as many Bratwurst sausages as it would hold, made himself comfortable at an unoccupied table and tucked in.   He was not acknowledged by any of his fellow diners.   There was Ampelpudding for desert so Bamse had two generous helpings washed down with a stein of Bockbier.   

More than adequately nourished, Bamse took a turn round the harbour.   The Ancaster was tied up on the quayside, in darkness and apparently deserted.   Across the water the old sea dog recognised the auxiliary cruiser Pinguin, which must have docked while he was eating and was moored over on the mole.   Originally named the Kandelfels, she still looked like the harmless freighter that she had once been - she was converted into a commercial raider during the winter of 1939/40 in Bremen.   He knew that she had two six-cylinder diesel engines delivering 7,000 hp, half a dozen 150 mm L/45 C/13 guns taken from the obsolete battleship Schlesien and discretely concealed behind her bulwarks along with a 75 mm cannon, one twin 37 mm and four 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, and two single 53.3 cm torpedo tubes. She could also carry two Heinkel He 114A-2 seaplanes, all of which made her a lot more formidable than she appeared.   What was she doing down here?   No one had seen anything of her for decades and she had been presumed lost at sea.   No matter, Bamse left off musing and turned to locate the radio transmitting station.   Whilst the Oberfunkmeister was at supper he would have to get a message off to Larry back in London.

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.”

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.”

The Little Matter of the Coleyfish Pirates

            “Put a star-shell across her bows”  

            As the flare hissed into the North Sea the erstwhile whale catcher, rust dribbling over battleship-grey, death’s heads on the funnel, shark’s jaws painted on the prow, opened up from a 37mm twin barrelled Soviet V-11 AK-AK gun that was mounted on the foredeck.   With a staccato of thunderclaps the sky around the hot-airship peppered with shell bursts, shrapnel rattled on the hull of the gondola and tore into the skin of the canopy.   Ferdy spun the elevator wheel as he banked the dirigible hard to port.   Pumps screamed as ballast was forced to the stern, the great hot-air burners roared and the sixteen triple-bladed large diameter propulsion screws whined.   The Princess Aethelfleda, almost standing on her tail, powered towards the stratosphere, out of range of the corsair’s gun.   The flack would not last long.   Most corsairs used reloads for ammunition and a miss-fire or jam was inevitable.  

There was crashing and banging from beyond the bridge door as everything not secured took off towards the stern, and a hideous screeching when Ginsbergbear tumbled from his armchair in the rear saloon and landed on Phoebles’ tail.

            “Make black smoke.”   A veil of black oily smoke poured from the funnel to hide their ascent, it poured from seams and joints in the engine-room, it poured from the galley stove.

            “We may have detected a bit of the refurbished system that’s not been thoroughly tested till now, eh?”   Boz blew hard down the gunnery deck voice tube and the whistle was answered with an, “Ey ey captain?”

            “Run out the stern chasers and fire when ready.”              

            During the refit the Princess Aethelfleda had acquired two massive F-Off howitzers in the stern to deter pursuers.   The violent recoil, partially absorbed by giant springs, shuddered the gondola’s framework; the gun ports spouted cordite-smoke and flame.   The large-bore shells purred towards the pirate vessel and, just as Ginsbergbear struggled onto the command deck, the first one exploded in mid air showering the craft from stem to stern in vivid Day-Glo pink paint.

            “Paint bombs?” enquired Boz.

            “Well?   Suddenly being spray-painted pink can be very demoralising in a macho situation,” explained the bear.   The second shell had clanged, unexploded, onto the deck of the corsair and was ticking.   As the crew cautiously approached there came a clockwork whirr and a ‘tink’.   Something brown and treacly oozed out across the pink deck and began to evaporate.   The pirates fled.   From the dirigible they could be seen scrambling in a panic across the stern, holding their noses, clawing at their eyes and desperately trying to launch the life rafts.   The foc’sle gunner threw himself into the sea.

            “Second round will have been a stink bomb then,” laughed Phoebles triumphantly, as he too arrived on the bridge, still cradling a throbbing tail.

            “Drop down to sea level and prepare to take on survivors,” instructed Boz.

Much had changed since the early days of the Coleycorsair Wars.   The Princess Aethelfleda had recently had a major upgrade.   She bristled with assorted weaponry and her eight newly modified, light weight, yet ultra-powerful Stanley Steamer engines each drove twin, contra-rotating propellers.   She was fast and agile.   The top half of her canopy had been painted a North Sea slate-grey and below she was a light sky-blue.   Ginsbergbear and Phoebles felt they had greatly enhanced the effectiveness of the camouflage by painting waves and an albatross into the dark grey and adding fluffy clouds to the blue underside.   In the pilot’s seat the once affable dodo appeared drawn, thin beaked, his cold eyes fixed on the distant horizon.   Boz sported an eye patch and the empty right arm of his reefer jacket was safety-pinned to his breast.

            Phoebles was unimpressed, “You might find the controls easier to manage if u stopped mucking about and used both hands – put your jacket on properly,” he muttered, somewhat scornfully, “And if you don’t take that silly eye-patch off you’ll go blind.   You don’t look rugged, just daft.”

            “Boz sighed, “This war’s not much fun any more…   And that bruised tail is making you insubordinate.”

The Princess Aethelfleda descended and Ferdinand straightened her up to hover a few feet above the swell, midway between the abandoned pirate vessel and its intended victim, a Belgian sidewinder coleyfishtrawler that wallowed and rolled as only a Belgian built trawler can.   The entire crew lined the rail in enveloping oilskins and sou’westers and a cheer went up.

            “Hoera! U hebt ons opgesiagen.”

            “Hourra! Vous nous aves sauvés.”

            Ginsbergbear and Phoebles waved to the fisherman whilst Boz turned his field glasses onto the corsair pursuit craft.   A bilious green mist rolled along the deck to tumble through the scuppers and drift down wind along the surface of the sea.   A little further away orange life rafts bobbed at the mercy of the waves.   Gradually the gang became aware of a distant, gnat like whine and Boz spotted two indistinct dots in the sky to the northwest.   Ferdy took up the 20x60 binoculars that were housed in a box by the bridge windows.   Through them he could make out two gaudily painted Grumman J2F Ducks sporting CSAAF insignia on the wings and tail.   Each had twin ring-mounted 50 calibre machine guns to the rear of the cockpit and they had additional machine guns Gaffer taped to the wings.   The Corsairs and Reivers utilised prodigious amounts of gaffer tape and controlled by far the largest Gaffer tape factory in the northern counties.

            “It’s Les Chats Souterrains,” shouted Ferdy.

            “Bugger,” groaned Boz, “Is there no let up?

            “Take her up again, Ferdy.   Those crates can’t out climb us.   And, Phoebles, get the Kronstadt Fleet Air Arm on the radio.   We need back up.”