Stuart Slade - A Mighty Endeavor

A Mighty Endeavor could not have been written without the very generous help of a large number of people who contributed their time, input and efforts into confirming the technical details of the story. Some of these generous souls I know personally and we discussed the conduct and probable results of the actions described in this novel in depth. Others I know only via the Internet as the collective membership of the History, Politics and Current Affairs Forum, yet their communal wisdom and vast store of knowledge, freely contributed, has been truly irreplaceable.

The assistance of Shane Rodgers was invaluable in preparing the sections that deal with the political and economic development of Australia in the 1940/1941 era. His expertise and encyclopedic knowledge of these aspects of the story were utterly indispensable in ensuring the impact of the British actions described in this novel on Australia and the rest of the Commonwealth were properly represented.

I must also express a particular debt of gratitude to my wife Josefa; for without her kind forbearance, patient support and unstintingly generous assistance, this novel would have remained nothing more than a vague idea floating in the back of my mind.

A Mighty Endeavor is a work of fiction, set in an alternate universe. All the characters appearing in this book are fictional and any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Although some names of historical characters appear, they do not necessarily represent the same people we know in our reality.

“Get out of my way, you stupid man!”

Heads emerged from offices, civil servants were startled out of their usual calm demeanor by the sudden yell and the sight of the august personage of Sir Eric Haohoa running down the corridors of Government House. In fact, it was hard to decide which startled them most; the completely out-of-character rudeness or the fact that an Assistant Deputy Cabinet Secretary was running at all. It was unprecedented and, what was much worse, deeply alarming.

Sir Eric knew it; he realized he was creating an incident that would ripple throughout the whole of the building within minutes. The sight of the departmental char-wallah’s tea-trolley being unceremoniously kicked out of the way would ensure that. It couldn’t be helped. The char wallah watched him pass, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Sir Eric grabbed a door post, swung around the corner and vanished from sight. Behind him, the quiet rustle of gossip spread and increased in volume as additional spectators added their opinions to the debate on What It All Meant. There was one consensus; between them, the operative word was ‘trouble’.

“What the dev…” Sir Martyn Sharpe’s face ran through a quick gamut of expressions as his door burst open. First was anger that somebody dared enter his office without knocking, let alone advising his secretary and waiting to be called in. That expression faded quickly to pleasure at seeing his old friend, then even more quickly to concern that his friend was red-faced and panting for breath.

“BBC World Service, quickly.”

Sir Martyn turned the radio on. It crackled and whined slightly as it warmed up, then clicked as Sharpe pressed the pre-set button for the World Service. A familiar voice emerged from the static; the educated accent and precise pronunciation were quite unmistakable.

“And that was the news on this momentous day, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it. To repeat the main item of this bulletin, the war between Great Britain and Germany is over. An offer of an Armistice was received from Germany at noon Greenwich Mean Time and was presented to Cabinet by Lord Halifax. The terms contained therein were deemed to be satisfactory and the Foreign Office was therefore instructed to contact Herr Ribbentrop with British agreement to those proposed terms. With the signature of the Armistice by Herr Ribbentrop and His Majesty’s representative in Geneva, hostilities between Great Britain and Germany ceased at 6 PM Greenwich Mean Time today, pending the negotiation of a final peace agreement.”

“I can’t believe it. I never thought Winston would just surrender like this.” Sir Martyn was aghast, his face white with shock.

“We don’t know he did. There’s been no mention of him.” Sir Eric coughed and took a deep breath. “We don’t know much at all about what’s happening over there. If one of the Secretaries hadn’t turned the radio on for the cricket scores, we’d have no idea about any of this going on. Everybody who heard has been sworn to secrecy of course, but the word will leak out soon anyway.”

“You mean we didn’t know?” If anything, Sir Martyn’s face went even paler.

“Nobody knows anything. Certainly not in the Cabinet Office, that’s for certain. The Viceroy’s office? I don’t…”

“We’ll soon find out.” Sir Martyn picked up the telephone on his desk. “Operator, connect me with Lord Linlithgow’s office. Topmost priority.”

He covered the mouthpiece with his hand while the connection was being made. “I doubt if the Marquess is in yet but I might catch Gerry, his Secretary… . Hello Gerry? The boss not in?… Have you heard the news?… Britain’s out the war… No I’m not joking. It was on the BBC news… Alvar Lidell, of course. Certainly, I’ll hold.”

Sir Martyn covered the mouthpiece again. “Gerry’s checking the telegrams from London. So far nothing… Hello, Gerry, nothing at all? That’s very strange. You’d better get in touch with the Viceroy right away.”

“Is that as bad as it sounds Martyn? Has Britain caved in?”

“Worse. There’s been no communications at all from London. As far as we’re concerned, Britain has just dropped out of the war and left us holding the bag.”

Princess Suriyothai Bhirombhakdi na Sukothai lit the incense in front of the Buddha statue and bowed down, listening to the quiet chime fade away. She had struck the small gong as she had knelt before the statue to pray. The sound had taken her back, recalling the sounds of all the gongs she had heard over so many years. The last few years had been quiet. There had been the coup back in 1932 that had established an elected government in Siam and turned the Royal Family into a constitutional instead of an absolute monarchy. That much had been essential to guarantee both the survival of the country and the Monarchy she served. Some hotheads had wanted to go the whole way and turn the country into a Republic, but they had been easy to defeat. The couple of years spent maneuvering to frustrate them had been barely more than keeping in practice. Still, it did give me some practical experience in commanding modern military units.

Suriyothai rebuked herself for not realizing that the present calm had been too good to last. Before it, there had been so many emergencies, so many problems to be solved, but none like this. It seemed a minor thing, far away. As she ran its implications and consequences through her mind, though, they spread and interlocked. Consequences and outcomes fell against each other, one influencing the next; each held potential for good or ill. All too many of those chains of cause and effect, of policies and consequences, led to disaster.