James Philip - Empire Day

Young Henrietta was a marvel!

Even after she had knocked the warring parties’ heads together she remained, apparently, the most sought-after guest at any reception held in either New Jersey or New York-Long Island in the coming social season when all the great families of the First Thirteen ‘brought out’ their daughters.

Nevertheless, the soul of the Commander of the 5th Battle Squadron’s was restless. The King and Queen’s mission ashore in Flatbush that morning had further troubled Pakenham as he paced the lofty flying bridge atop his flagship’s broad citadel-like forward superstructure. In action he would retreat to the compass platform a deck below; up here in the open air the concussion of the forward 15-inch guns could easily knock a man off his feet or concuss him insensible or worse.

HMS Lion’s captain was no less anxious.

“We knew it was going to be chaos but this is ridiculous, sir,” he observed to Packenham as the two men eyed the countless small boats criss-crossing the Upper Bay. It was a miracle that there was not a collision a minute!

“Ours’ is not to reason why,” the Squadron Commander guffawed as if he had not a worry in the world. Nonetheless, he had ordered all the Royal Navy ships moored in the Upper Bay to observe maximum watertight integrity – that is, to dog shut all bulkheads below the waterline and to exclude sea duty men from ‘parade duties dressing ship’. Just in case anything amiss did occur he wanted at least half the guns manned, and all damage control and emergency teams ready, waiting and in position. Moreover, he had ordered that all four Lions ‘light off’ at least a pair of boilers in their second fire rooms.

Each battleship had four boiler rooms – or fire rooms as they were increasingly termed these days – and four turbine compartments, with a boiler room-turbine room ‘set’ each turning one of the battleships’ screws.

Fear nothing but be ready for anything!

“Cassandra is signalling, sir!”

The Squadron Commander glanced to the binnacle clock.

Ten-fifty-seven-hours; the King was going to arrive just in time!

Tom Packenham regarded this as a minor miracle and hoped it boded well for the rest of the day.

One of the big, super-charged speed boats so in vogue in the East Coast colonies roared close down the Lion’s flank with its two in-line customised aero-engines purring malevolently. The boat left a turbulent wake lapping ineffectually at the waterlines of the four Lions, castles of steel not to be undermined by the passing of a relative minnow no matter how fast or how loud it was.

The finest racing yachts had been built in New England for a century, lately the colonists’ obsession for speed had found expression in the competition to continually edge up the world land, water and airspeed records, all of which were now held by New Englanders or industrial conglomerates based in the Americas.

“All ships will signal non-authorised vessels to keep a safe distance from Cassandra!”

The trouble with civilians on the water was that they paid absolutely no attention to signals, or orders of any kind unless or until one put a shot across their bows.

At that very minute Cassandra’s captain would be pouring on the revolutions to ensure that the King was not late for his own party. The destroyer was still too far away, her low silhouette still blurred in the haze but Packenham imagined her creaming through the narrows with a rare bone in her teeth.

The Squadron Commander forced himself to relax as he stepped to the front of the flying bridge to take in the vista of New York City occupying the bottom two to three square miles of Manhattan Island and the broad, orderly streets ascending Brooklyn Heights on the western shore of Long Island.

Yesterday’s disaster at Wallabout Bay left a foul taste in his mouth, not least because the Colonial Security Service had – peremptorily, with somewhat ill-grace he felt – turned down his offer to send members of his staff and the Squadron Engineering Division to assist in surveying the damage to the facilities on land and the condition of the wreck of HMS Polyphemus.

Once the Fleet Review was done and dusted the men of the 5th Battle Squadron were looking forward to a well-earned run ashore. Not in the staid, well-policed city on the southern tip of Manhattan but farther up the East River in the flesh pots of New Town where every sailor who had ever visited New York seemed to end up. All big ports had their drinking, whoring more or less anything goes red-light districts and since time immemorial New Town had been New York’s…

“My God!” The Lion’s Captain gasped in horror.

Packenham wheeled around and strode to join the men leaning over the starboard bridge rail peering astern.

“Something’s just blown up alongside the Princess Royal!”

HMS Lion’s Captain did not wait for his Admiral’s order.

“SOUND THE BELL FOR ACTION STATIONS!”

Upper Bay, New York

Alex Fielding did not know what had just happened but knowing was secondary, understanding at an intuitive, visceral level was everything , the difference between life and death. When something blew up close to a string-bag like a Bristol V the world went to Hell in a hurry and the only thing that mattered was stopping the kite nose-diving into the earth or the water. He had yanked the stick to the left, kicked the rudder bar and gunned the engine before he consciously registered what he was doing.

The old trainer was still inverted.

He hoped Leonora Coolidge had strapped herself in as tightly as he had told her to; a woman like that was not to be wasted.

He was hanging on his straps.

The Bristol V wanted to spin; he knew that if she did that at this low level he was a dead man.

Still upside down the aircraft careened insanely between the tall grey smoke stacks of one of the Lions so close that it was probably the updraft from the great ship’s engine room blowers was what probably lifted her momentarily, just long enough to half-arrest the trainer’s shallow death dive.

The aircraft rolled back and beyond the horizontal and then for the first time in half-a-dozen terrifying seconds which had seemed to stretch for infinity, Alex had the trainer back under control.

He risked a look forward.

His passenger was still in her seat in the front cockpit.

Jesus and Mary, I do not want to do that again!

Only then did he start to ask: what just happened?

He eased back the stick to gain a little altitude; when in doubt H-E-I-G-H-T always spells S-A-F-E-T-Y!

Where was all the smoke coming from.

Heck, it was as hazy as Hades on a bad day…

Two holes the size of his fist suddenly opened up on his bottom right wing.

‘What the…’

He recognised bullet holes when he saw them!

Who the fuck was shooting at him!

He pushed the throttle hard forward, climbing, climbing and then he looked back, at first over his shoulder but when he did not believe the evidence of his eyes he rolled the trainer into a long turn so that he could have a proper look at the surreal scene of utter mayhem in the Upper Bay.

HMS Cassandra, Upper Bay, New York

“Might I suggest you step below, Your Majesty?” The destroyer’s captain suggested respectfully as the ship’s bell – piped at ear-splitting decibel levels over the ship’s speakers – sent men sprinting for their battle stations and the barrels of the forward main battery guns began to seek prey.

King George had had binoculars glued to his eyes for the last thirty seconds as he tried to make out what was going on around the Lions of the 5th Battle Squadron.