New England 07 - The Lines of Laredo, page 3
“What of your adversary in Tejas?” De Soto interjected politely. “General Washington, who has been much in the news in New England, I believe?”
“He has fought shrewdly enough, he stabilised the front in Tejas,” Santa Anna conceded. “He is an accomplished cavalryman and he knows that country west of the Sabine River like the back of his hand. Had he been in command from the outset, he might have caused us great difficulties. As to his antics with that woman…”
“The Danson woman, you mean?”
“Yes, she’s the one. The woman who used to be a detective of some sort, who was caught up in the trouble in Old Spain.”
Santa Anna pondered for a few seconds.
“I think that was just for the media, just to show that the Governor of New England was doing…something when in reality, he was doing nothing because there is nothing he can do. Granted, the general mobilisation order is in effect throughout New England but it will be several months yet before new troops arrive in significant numbers at any of the fronts in the south and by then, well, we shall have Savannah and the whole of Florida in our hands and the war will be over!”
Gaspar de Olivares ran a hand through his thinning, grey hair.
His frown was threatening to morph into a scowl.
“That woman is important for two reasons,” he said doggedly. “One, because the reason she joined General Washington in Nord Tejas, was not to titillate the media but to frustrate the British Government’s inquiry into the Governor’s conduct of the war. And, two,” he paused, not confident they were going to take this seriously, ‘wherever she goes in New England the media follows her, and if it is following her, it can’t be anywhere else digging into matters that the Governor would rather they do not, dig into, that is. Like what is really going on in Georgia, the Alabama Country or Florida, or asking why on earth the 79th Armoured Division of the British Army, equipped with the biggest, best land cruisers and armoured all-terrain fighting vehicles in the world, is being sent back to Europe and not to defend Savannah!”
Santa Anna was accustomed to the spymaster’s flights of fancy.
“The English don’t know we plan to march on Savannah, Gaspar.”
“No? But they have maps too, my friend.”
Santa Anna conceded this with an arched eyebrow.
“If that was the case surely your spies in the Crown Colony of Georgia would have reported preparations in hand to receive so many fighting vehicles? Anyway, he went on, “the English are more worried about the Germans than us; it was announced that Division was going to be transported directly to Boulogne…”
Gaspar de Olivares groaned.
“Once the 79th Division is loaded on board ships, those ships can steam anywhere!”
“Any fool knows that the coastal reaches of Georgia, especially around Savannah are wholly unsuited to armoured warfare,” Santa Anna decided, putting an end to the debate.
Or so he hoped because Gaspar de Olivares was a notorious Devil’s advocate cum agent provocateur and most of the time it was impossible to know what he was really thinking.
“Tejas and Coahuila, the lower Rio Grande valley and the coastal lowlands of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas is excellent land cruiser country,” the spymaster pointed out quietly.
The others laughed.
De Olivares grinned back at them.
Hernando de Soto relaxed; Gaspar was just being Gaspar, seeing if he could get a rise out of them!
It was only later that he realised that Felipe de Santa Anna had been a little distracted, which was unlike him, as if his thoughts were elsewhere for the rest of that morning’s meeting, and during that afternoon’s untypically ad-tempered Cabinet session.
Chapter 3
Monday 23rd October
HMS Princess Royal, North Atlantic
Albert Stanton had had plans for the weekend – he and his wife, Maud had just got back to Manhattan from their honeymoon in Vermont – and although he had only been out of town, Manhattan, ten days since the wedding, he had known that he was going to have a lot of catching up to do if he wanted to remain the Globe’s top dog reporter.
It was one thing knowing that the world was, to a degree, one’s oyster but actually, despite his new-found success as the biographer of his friends, Abe and Kate Lincoln, and had an eagerly awaited book coming out in the spring giving a blow by blow account of his adventures in Spain with Melody Danson and Henrietta de L’Isle; after his post-Empire Day transformation from sometime photo-journalist to the number one, in demand investigative reporter in the Crown Colony of New York he had known that he had found his niche, his true métier. However, as with the holders of all the top jobs, he knew that there was always some young blood nipping at his heels.
Maud understood. She too had had her own transformative experiences after the events of July 1976 and now that she was getting used to not being in the shadow, and under the protective wing of Leonora Fielding – nee Coolidge – who had moved to Vancouver to be with her husband, she was looking forward to branching out on her own, throwing herself into the work of the numerous women’s charities which had courted she and Leonora after they had helped expose the blunderings of the male-dominated New York colonial constabulary and judiciary last year.
In any event, the newly-married couple had set aside the weekend for their move into Maud’s West Side apartment, planned to look up a few old friends and contacts, and to sift through the correspondence which had piled up for both of them even in the relatively short time they had been out of the city.
All that had gone out of the window five minutes after the couple arrived to start clearing out Albert’s cluttered bachelor pad overlooking the East River. They had shut the door behind them, and as newlyweds are wont, had started mauling each other when there was a very determined, purposeful knock at the door.
Albert Stanton had scowled at the visitors.
A man and a woman, dressed in civvies but definitely Navy. This he had decided before he studied their identity cards. They were officers from the Information Office of the Admiralty Dockyards at Wallabout Bay, Brooklyn.
Albert had been instantly on his guard; he thought he knew all the Navy Press Office people in the colony and these people were new to him. Which probably meant that they were from Fleet HQ in Norfolk.
“If we could speak to you alone, Mister Stanton?”
He had shrugged to Maud; she had quirked a smile as if to say: “Why not?” And he had stepped out into the second-floor stair well of the building.
To cut a long story short, he had listened to what his visitors had to say, or rather to offer him and then, after asking for a few minutes to explain that ‘duty called’ and much kissing and cuddling, he had left Maud – trying and failing to put a convincingly brave face on things – with a quivering lower lip, collected his portable type-writer, packed a bag and allowed the Navy people escort him down to the seaplane pier in the shadow of the King Edward VI Brooklyn Bridge, and with more than a frisson of excitement, embarked on his latest adventure.
The long and the short of it was that: ‘The Governor has authorised the embedding of selected members of the media with ships and other units about to embark on a major war mission.’
Did he want to come along for the ride?
Obviously, there would be innumerable terms and conditions, caveats and restrictions of the most irksome kind imposed on the ‘lucky few’ but if he wanted to be in on the ground floor of ‘the biggest thing since the Great War’ he needed to make up his mind right now and quibble about the terms of the contract later.
All he could tell Maud was that he had been made an offer he could not refuse. That he was sorry, that he loved her to bits – which she already knew – and that he had no idea when he would be back.
‘Is it dangerous?’ She had asked. Then retracted. “Forget I asked that.’
‘I have no idea,’ he had lied.
There had been seven others in the hangar at the Naval Air Base at Virginia Beach for the reading of the journalistic riot act to the ‘select’ few. The Navy had deliberately picked older, steadier hands, old hacks whom they trusted to keep confidences but whose reputations gave whatever they reported a certain inherent credence. Albert was the, relatively, young blood in the group and presently, the star of the show. The ‘embeds’ so-called, were to be assigned to separate ships and to avoid claims of favouritism or of any one paper getting special treatment, lots were drawn – balls numbered 1 to 8 – from a jar to determine who had ‘first pick’ of the available berths.
Albert drew ball no. 3.
The men before him had opted to take slots on ‘aircraft carriers’; thinking of Maud he had taken the ‘battleship’ slot. Those things were virtually unsinkable whereas the carriers, from what Alex Fielding had let slip in conversation, were decidedly inflammable.
The battleship had turned out to be the Fleet Flagship, HMS Princess Royal and within minutes of going aboard he had been sought out by his friends Abe Lincoln and Ted Forest.
That had been yesterday morning just before the ship cast off.
Taking a constitutional on the quarterdeck that forenoon, it had seemed like the whole Royal Navy was in company with the Princess Royal, far out at sea there were other grey warships thrusting through the Atlantic swells from horizon to horizon.
Albert still felt guilty deserting Maud.
Okay, she knew that this sort of parting came with the territory and for all that they had been inseparable since he had got back to New England from Europe, they were not going to have the sort of marriage where they were joined at the hip, living in each other’s pockets. Nevertheless, for him to be disappearing off on a jaunt like this not knowing when they would next speak to each other, was well, hard…
OPERATION ROUGH RIDER.
Apparently, General Washington had thought up the name.
However, other than, that it involved most of the Atlantic Fleet that was about all anybody was telling anybody about what was going on at the moment. Albert guessed it might be another OPERATION DOWNWIND type strike, perhaps against targets on Hispaniola, or maybe, the forcing of the ‘narrows’ between Florida and Cuba to destroy the Triple Alliance fleet supporting Santa Anna’s offensive in the Eastern Gulf of Spain?
A sub-lieutenant on Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Parkinson’s staff had been assigned as his minder, probably because the kid – he could not have been more than twenty – had even less idea what was going on than he did. Either that or Sub-Lieutenant Fraser Cameron was a very good actor.
Albert Stanton’s minder had laughed when he asked to speak to Admiral Parkinson.
‘I’m sorry. I’ll make inquiries but I imagine that he’s a little bit busy at the moment.’
Neither Abe or Ted was any more forthcoming, and they too, were very busy.
Mostly to ease his conscience, Stanton had gone back to his cabin, a cramped compartment several decks down in the belly of the leviathan he shared with a jovial Lieutenant Paymaster, who had explained as soon as they were introduced: ‘Sorry, we won’t be seeing much of each other,’ and ‘it is a waste of time pumping me for information because I haven’t a clue about operational stuff.’
Understandably, only a day out from port, Albert had started feeling a little lonely. However, as any true penman of good standing will attest, there is always the option of conversing with the blank page.
So, even though he knew that no copy would be going ashore in the foreseeable future, he got out his typewriter, inserted a sheet of paper and began to write his first letter of the voyage to Maud.
Dear Maud…
He hesitated.
Even on a ship this size in calm conditions by North Atlantic standards in the winter, he had noticed a goodly number of green-faced men on his perambulations around the adjacent areas of the battleship.
Sub-Lieutenant Cameron, who hailed from somewhere in the English home counties, had offered to give him a grand tour of the ship once he had got his sea legs. Surprisingly, for such a big ship, the Princess Royal pitched and rolled somewhat and still corkscrewed a little. Or so his stomach told him.
You will not receive this letter until whatever important mission we are on has run its course. Nevertheless, I plan to write to you daily. At least this way I can speak to you regularly and imagine your sweet expression when you eventually read my stumbling prose!
Normally, when he started writing he knew where he was going, with the story, his line of thinking, the tone he was going to maintain but this was different. He did not know how this story was going to develop, let alone end and was he just writing this for Maud, or himself?
Tricky…
They have filed me away somewhere in ‘officer country’ below the aft superstructure. I have no idea if I am above, or below the armoured main deck. All the decks look jolly solid to me on this ship! Goodness, it really is like going to sea in a castle of steel.
Everybody is hugger-mugger about what is going on.
That said, I think we will all be a little miffed if it turns out to have been a false alarm, or just an exercise!
No, this is overdoing the levity.
This was supposed to be a serious business.
I hope you will forgive me for running away like that the other day. I confess, I was torn. That is new for me but then I did not have you in my life before, and everything ‘before’ seems a little empty and pointless, now that I think about it.
The Navy would not even let me dash off a cable to my editor. Instead, I was assured that they would take care of all that. Apparently, the Globe had already been consulted and they had, in absentia, nominated me as the rag’s man. I suppose I ought to be flattered but it is all a shock, and with us just having got back from our honeymoon, the timing is not great. Understatement of the year! Needless to say, had the call come when we were away in our cabin in rural Vermont, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me from you, my love.
I am writing like an idiot!
It happened that sometime in the next month or so, he had been planning an excursion down to Philadelphia to catch up with the two women he had helped ‘save’ in Spain. They represented a priceless avenue into Government House circles, and undeniably that was professionally advantageous to him but that apart, it would have been good – more than good, in fact - to have seen them both again. He also needed to check a few things with Kate Lincoln; while he and Maud had been in Connecticut the legal papers had finally come through from the Paris-based movie and TV producers who had purchased the rights to his book about Kate and Abe’s adventures, and he had wanted to bring his friends up to date with next year’s provisional shooting schedule.
However, events had overtaken all that!
He had had a couple of abbreviated telephone chats with Melody Danson. She was far too wily to gossip over an unsecured line but he got the impression she was feeling a little bit used and generally ‘mucked about’ by Government House, not least on account of the publicity stunts she had been involved in lately. He had been tempted to warn her that sooner or later the weird thing she had going with the Duke of Medina Sidonia and Henrietta de L’Isle was going to start attracting seriously unwanted attention; stopped himself because she was far too cute an operator not to be worried about that already.
Isn’t it odd how many things one ought to have said come to mind when one is miles away at sea? Best laid plans, and all that. I’m sure all is for the best. At least this time around nobody is going to be pushing me out of an aeroplane somewhere over the Mountains of Madrid and I’ll be surrounded by several inches of armour plate if anybody tries to shoot at me.
It is a funny old world, isn’t it?
There was a knock at the bulkhead next to the dogged back hatch. Fraser Cameron’s boyish grin greeted Albert Stanton’s briefly impatient look.
‘The Task Force Commander’s Secretary needs you to sign some more forms, Mister Stanton. Mission specific addenda to the Official Secrets Act, and to brief you on what you can, and can’t write about…”
“Now look here,” the Manhattan Globe’s man protested.
The younger man held up a hand.
“I’m just the messenger but take it from me, there are things on this ship that the enemy does not need to know about,” he explained pleasantly, yet with a steeliness that belied his youth, “and you simply will not, under any circumstances, be allowed to report about. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.”
“What if I don’t want to sign any more damned forms?”
“Oh, dear,” Cameron frowned. “That would be most unfortunate. I think we’d probably have to lock you in the brig for the rest of the trip, Mister Stanton.”
Chapter 4
Wednesday 25th October
HMS Intrepid, 195 nautical miles east of Savannah
Major General Archibald ‘Archie’ Sinclair had taken the reason he had been given for the convoy’s long detour to the south at face value; a precautionary re-routing to avoid a storm system tracking across the North Atlantic from Labrador to the United Kingdom. The twenty-thousand-ton fifteen-year-old Nova Scotia-built assault landing ship (ALS) HMS Intrepid, and her smaller consorts were double-hulled, very robustly constructed but flat-bottomed and despite their augmented bilge keels, stubbornly poor sea-keepers, which was hardly inexplicable, given they had been designed to be routinely driven ashore on sandy shores at high tide to unload their vehicular cargoes through their bow doors and ramps. Therefore, regardless of how well they had been lashed down, nobody liked the idea of sixty-ton heavy land cruisers being tossed around in the ship’s cavernous hold!
With crews of around a hundred, unarmed and capable of only fifteen or sixteen knots, the Intrepid and the other eight ALSs were essentially, specialised roll on, roll off ferries and like such vessels the world over, much better suited to short haul work in sheltered waters than lengthy pelagic expeditions.
