New England 07 - The Lines of Laredo, page 32
“Gently, sweetheart,” Henrietta cooed, patting her bump.
Both women wore thick, shapeless woollen jumpers over long skirts and leggings, their feet shod in fur-lined slippers. They had teased each other about their ‘at home’, ‘no men around’ trousseau and how it was better to be dowdy than cold. Besides, Melody felt a renewed solidarity with Henrietta, and a little awkward being ‘thin’, even though she knew she was being ridiculous. Hen was the one having a baby, not her and well, she had not anticipated being so, simpatico in ways she had thought herself if not immune to, then temperamentally divorced. Sometimes, she honestly thought she was more anxious about the baby than Henrietta, which was, well, bizarre. Anyway, she was comfortable losing herself in woollens which again, was odd, because she had never been that person.
The women had made sure that Pedro also was clad in several layers; Virginia in the late autumn was not the sub-tropical place it could be in the summer.
Melody struggled to focus.
“Albert Stanton?” She reminded the man.
“Serendipity,” he replied, amused. “I was improvising. I was held up in London and by the time I got to Paris, things were moving much faster than expected in Spain. Albert was determined to report on the Civil War, I simply redirected his efforts and be fair, he made himself more than useful in the days that followed.”
Melody was still thinking about this when Henrietta said: “Alonso called you back to Spain to help him rescue the Queen, didn’t he, Paul? Not us?”
The man remained poker-faced.
“He was at Aranjuez when things kicked off; if that had been his plan, it went out of the window that first night,” Paul Nash countered. “The real problem was London. I don’t doubt that extricating Queen Sophie and the Infantas was the priority. There is, and always has been an anti-Catholic, anti-Spanish lobby in the Foreign Office and in certain quarters, the name Medina Sidonia still raises hackles. The Spanish Armada and all that, the FCO has a very, very long memory and to put it crudely, had you ladies fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, it would have been grist to the mill of any number of agendas in Whitehall.”
“Oh,” the Governor of New England’s daughter murmured.
“Particularly,” Paul Nash sighed, “with the coming war with the Triple Alliance on the menu.”
Melody frowned.
“Hang on, you’re telling me that the people in the Old Country wanted the war?”
“Wanted is putting it a little too strongly. Hoped for would be a better way of expressing it. Especially, if a more Catholic regime in Madrid could be installed to circumvent German influence in the Iberian Peninsula and the Indies. Whatever… All that hypothetical guff is above my station, of course. I doubt if anybody really knows what goes on in Sir Horace Walpole’s mind. But,” he shrugged, “I should imagine that right now he is sitting back, quaffing a stiff drink and basking, insufferably probably, in the warm afterglow of a job well done. Think about it; he and Lady Henrietta’s father have done, what no Foreign Secretary or Governor of the Commonwealth of New England has succeeded in doing for a hundred years, he’s mobilised the Empire to destroy the legacy of the Spanish conquest of the Indies. Or rather, when this war is over, which won’t be for a while, that will be the end result.”
Melody hugged Pedro.
“That’s cynical, Paul.”
“Like I said, it’s not what you think, it’s what you actually do that matters in this world. That’s why Alonso is going back to Madrid.”
“To his death,” Henrietta said blankly.
Paul Nash shook his head.
“Not necessarily. He will return as the emissary of the Queen Empress in Exile, the woman the military will see as a necessary, possibly pliant counter weight to the Church and, when all is said and done, the mother of the heir to the throne.”
Both women glanced to Pedro.
The man followed their gaze.
“Think about it, ladies,” he suggested, “how else other than by facing his accusers can Alonso protect this young fellow?”
Chapter 45
Thursday 23rd November
The House of Commons, Westminster
Sir Hector Hamilton stood and enjoyed the adulation of his backbenchers, not with the modest, self-deprecatory diffidence of former times but with what to the Members of Parliament occupying the Opposition benches, seemed like smug self-satisfaction. This was the first day that the chamber had sat in full session since the election. The swearing in of newly-elected Parliamentarians, and the re-affirmation of their oaths by the survivors of the last House of Commons had taken most of the last two days and in a packed chamber with the crowded Press and Strangers Galleries overlooking the cockpit of Imperial democracy, this was the Prime Minister’s finest hour.
“If I may, Mister Speaker,” he declared, “I would like to read from a communication handed to me by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff shortly before I came to this place this afternoon.
He emphasised this by waving a sheaf of papers at the stony faces of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition less than ten feet away across the ancient despatch box.
“I believe that the words of the CIGS express better than I the debt of honour that we owe to the men gallantly carrying the war in the Indies to His Majesty’s foes.”
The Prime Minister paused, visibly seeking a moment of quiet reflection in the midst of the bear pit emotions of the occasion.
He began to read.
Sir, I have the honour to report that our forces on land, sea and in the air stand firm in defence, and are moving forward in accordance with our plans on all fronts.
In the territory known to Nuevo Granada-Mexico as Upper, or Alta California we hold and have reinforced our occupation of the port and environs of the County of San Francisco. All enemy resistance has ceased in the vicinity of that place’s great natural bays. In the course of the assault and consolidation of our gains Empire forces suffered less than twenty men dead and injured. Subsequently, our cruisers have bombarded the naval base at San Diego, some four hundred and fifty miles to the south of San Francisco and landed raiding and reconnaissance parties ashore along the coastal margins between those two locations.
In the Crown Colony of Georgia, the adjacent Alabama Country and the Floridian Lands where the forces of the Triple Alliance are believed to have landed over one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand men, with the object of marching through southern Georgia to the sea at either Savannah or Charleston, and thereby cutting off the 16th Colony of the Commonwealth of New England, Florida, from its East Coast neighbours, forces under the command of Major General Sir Henry Rawlinson have counter-attacked north of an impassable region of swamps known as the Okefenokee, in a part of New England where the lie of the land naturally constricts any army’s line of advance. The Army of Georgia has inflicted heavy casualties on the invaders and cut off the spearhead columns of General Santa Anna’s invasion force from its line of communications back to its base near its principle supply depots closer to the coast of the Eastern Gulf of Spain.
It is now apparent that the elimination of the Combined Fleet of the Triple Alliance as a coherent fighting force will now make it possible for our naval and air forces to interdict and in due course, sever the seaborne communications of the Triple Alliance in the Eastern Gulf of Spain. In other words, the enemy troops ashore on New England territory east of the Mississippi Delta are alone, and can no longer rely on succour from Cuba or any other friendly nation. Moreover, as colonial mobilisations gather pace in New England, reinforcements have already joined the fight in the south and the strength of our forces will continue to increase by leaps and bounds in the coming weeks and months. Likewise, as full production of war supplies comes on stream, it is clear that as our fighting power multiplies, that the enemy’s will wither on the vine.
General Rawlinson reports that he is confident that he can hold the ground upon which he stands and will soon, begin to drive the enemy back towards the sea from whence he came!
In respect of the titanic sea and air battles which preceded the successful landing of powerful mechanised forces on the coast of the Unincorporated Territory of West Texas and Coahuila, I can confirm that although several of our ships were lost and others damaged, enemy losses include seven modern cruisers, and as many as eighteen ironclad or similar large fighting ships including at least two of the ‘battleships’ present at the Battle of the Western Gulf of Spain, and perhaps as many as fifty or more other smaller warships. Several enemy vessels were captured, unfortunately circumstances demanded that their crews be evacuated before they were scuttled, given that the Invasion Fleet had more pressing matters than the taking of superfluous prizes to preoccupy it.
It is with regret that Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Parkinson reports that during OPERATION ROUGH RIDER up to and including the landings at Corpus Christi, his force suffered one-thousand-six-hundred-and ninety-nine men killed, four-hundred-and-five men listed as missing whom, sadly, it is presumed must be listed as killed in action, and over a thousand other seriously wounded and injured. Regrettably, it must also be reported that Rear Admiral the Honourable Jason Standish Sturdee, died of his wounds on board his flagship, HMS Indefatigable at the height of the battle with the mainly former German cruisers of the powerful Vera Cruz Squadron.
During the course of the naval and air battles our ships recovered over one thousand five hundred enemy combatants from the sea. Included among several senior officers in our hands is Vice Admiral Count Carlos Federico Gravina y Vera Cruz, formerly the Chief Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armada de Nuevo Granada, and High Admiral of the Fleets of the Triple Alliance. Although severely injured, he was picked up by HMS Electra whereupon, due entirely to the intervention of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Lincoln, who volunteered to be transferred from HMS Princess Royal to the much smaller ship, Admiral Gravina is expected to live and hopefully, in time make a full recovery.
It is a matter of great pride to the Chiefs of Staff that all injured enemy combatants are treated with the same urgency and humanity with which we treat our own wounded. Presently, Admiral Gravina is one of over a hundred enemy combatants recovering from their injuries in the sick bays of the ships of Admiral Parkinson’s fleet.
As is the custom of Empire and Colonial Forces everywhere our people in the Americas are strictly bound by the rules of war, such as are universally recognised under the tenets of the Paris Treaty, regardless of the vile conduct of many of the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Triple Alliance in the present war.
After speaking directly to the Supreme Commander of All Empire and Colonial Forces East of the Mississippi River, Lieutenant General Washington, his Land Forces Commander, Major General Archibald Sinclair and Vice Admiral Parkinson, C-in-C Fleet in the Gulf of Spain by secure radio connection this day, I am able to confirm that the bridgehead ashore is now established to a depth of several miles from the coast and that aggressive operations are well in hand. Thus far, our forces on land have suffered less than thirty casualties from all causes, including only three fatalities.
Our forces have achieved a singular success in effecting a landing in great strength some two to three hundred miles in the rear of the main concentration of enemy ground forces in occupied Texas. Those enemy troops, like their brethren east of the Delta are trapped and our command of the seas around the Greater Antilles will soon make it impossible for reinforcements to be had from anywhere in the region.
Previously, in this war the Triple Alliance sought and was granted a ceasefire which, in due course, it abrogated, and recommenced offensive operations against our forces. There will be no second ceasefire. Commanders in the field have been instructed henceforth to only accept the unconditional surrender of the King’s enemies.
In conclusion, subsequent to the receipt of the Directive authorising the deployment of all appropriate weapons and resources other than ‘special nuclear munitions’, the Chiefs of the Imperial Defence Staff are confident that ongoing operations on land, at sea and in the air will meet with success and that planning is in hand for the next phase of operations in the North American, Central American and Caribbean Theatres of Operations.
With this, Sir Hector Hamilton tidied his papers and resumed his place on the Government Front Bench flanked by his grimly smiling senior ministers.
Seated anonymously at the back of the House almost as far away as was possible from the Despatch Box, given the confines of the mid-nineteenth century chamber designed and built to accommodate around two-thirds of the members actually elected to sit in the modern Parliament, the former Foreign and Colonial Secretary, Sir George Walpole was impassive, nodding with half-closed eyes as if he was about to drop off to sleep.
Only his worst enemies would have speculated, that in the gloom of the chamber beneath the Strangers Gallery the former Foreign and Colonial Secretary, was smiling a particularly saturnine smile.
Epilogue
Chapter 46
Friday 24th November
HMS Swiftsure, Gulf of Spain
The submarine’s missile crews had completed their checklists, deeming one Javelin Mark II unserviceable prior to supervising the loading of the four remaining weapons into tubes 3, 4, 5 and 6.
This had been a protracted affair because all the tubes had previously been loaded with conventional torpedoes – four heavyweight Mark III Pikes, and two Stingray acoustic homing fish – and the unloading of ‘live’ submarine munitions was never a job to be hurried.
However, once the javelins had been loaded, their data uplinks established, guidance systems reset and re-authenticated, the six thousand ton three-hundred-and-fifty feet-long steel shark had slowly risen to one hundred feet, meaning that since depths were measured from the keel upwards, the top of her sail, her fin-like conning tower, was only about thirty feet from the surface.
When the appointed hour came, the automated launch sequence had been initiated. As each Javelin accelerated out of its tube baffles sucked in the pressurized air which had expelled it, preventing any untoward ‘bubbling’ to betray the Swiftsure’s presence, and the count down for the next missile began.
In less than four minutes all four missiles were on their way.
Swiftsure briefly raised her radio mast, transmitted a microwave burst handshaking uplink signal to HMS Reliant, forty miles closer inshore, and receiving the expected acknowledgement, dived deep and disappeared.
HMS Reliant, a two-thousand-ton ten-year-old ‘R’ class fleet destroyer mounting six 4.7-inch guns and capable of thirty-six knots (forty-one miles-per-hour in landlubber’s language), was one of three specially modified ELDAR picket and forward missile command (FMC) ships which had been attached to Task Force 5.1. As fate would have it, she was the only one that was still fully operational.
Her sister, the Redoubt had been set upon by a dozen Avengers returning to the fleet after tracking the telemetry of the three Javelins which made landfall at Vera Cruz, and dead in the water, had had to be abandoned. The Recruit, the third FMC ship, had been shot up making a torpedo run on the Mexican cruiser Tejas, and re-joined the task force off Corpus Christi on one turbine, absent most of her electronics.
It was too risky for the Swiftsure to hang around near to the surface with her communications mast sticking twenty feet out of the water; so, the Royal Navy had given the job of tracking, and if necessary, modifying the course and altitude of submarine-launched Javelins in flight to vessels less vital to the success of any given operation, and much more easily and economically replaced. Which, in the circumstances, was a bit rich because nobody on any of the FMC ships had known what the extra magic black boxes in their ELDAR rooms were for until Task Force 5.1 was twenty-four hours out of Norfolk.
Fortunately, as a breed, Navy-men tended to be phlegmatic about such things; they just got on with what had to be done.
The strike on Vera Cruz had been child’s play in comparison with this second mission. At Vera Cruz the on board ELDARs of the Javelins had had no land clutter, just open ocean and a readily identifiable land mark by which to implement the terminal phase of their flights. The final approach to the Naval Headquarters Building had been flat, level at about sixty feet; today the target was nearly eight thousand feet up in the mountains of central Mexico, and the first of two terminal waypoints was one of several towering volcanoes. For the Vera Cruz mission the processing capacity and storage space on the command chips in the missiles’ nose cones had been ample, this time around every single byte of storage had been bitterly fought over by the submarine’s programmers. This was a very, very long shot which was going to test the whole Javelin ‘package’ in ways its designers had secretly hoped it would never, ever be deployed.
HMS Reliant achieved uplinks with each of the missiles as they whistled overhead, their ram jets pulsing like slow, rhythmic muted thunder in the distance as they sped to the west.
Guidance and propulsion nominal.
So far so good…
It was too good to be true.
Javelin M003-4HE dropped off telemetry shortly after it crossed the Mexican coast over sixty miles away.
Javelin M007-4F0 failed to gain altitude, some sort of memory glitch, and went off line at about the time it encountered ground above three thousand feet.
Javelin M002_GD0 commenced its terminal run at 10:05:041 Hours GMT.
Javelin M009_FE1 followed at 10:06:08 Hours GMT.
That would be at a little after five o’clock in the afternoon in the Valley of Mexico.
Chapter 47
Friday 24th November
El Palacio de Los Pinos de Oro, México City
Margarita Medina-Mora Icaza, President Hernando de Soto’s niece, ushered a visibly downcast Felipe de Santa Anna into Il Presidente’s presence.
“Shall I bring fresh coffee, Uncle?” She asked, her smile the only ray of light, and optimism in the room.
