Deep Sea Chapter 6

6.

The Surface

The carriage tore into tracks that late afternoon with Jones whipping the horses to run. He did not bother to look behind for the Sergeant Major who was on the horse trailing the carriage. Jones was more concerned about the country roads with the intersecting smaller paths. There the local patrons may rush onto their path without stopping either on their walk or riding their ponies. The path was also heavily wooded and the view ahead was hampered by the low branches and bushes. Nevertheless, Jones was not keen to slow down and kept the pace at above normal afternoon riding speed.

The carriage sped by the other estates with each of them spanning over fifty acres or more. Should there be an accident, the help will be delayed or non-existent, and even if you holler, the neighbors won’t hear you. If you release a gunshot, it may be ignored for the gunshots are common to them with the gamekeepers bringing in the rabbits or pheasants for the dining table daily. The paths they took soon were cobbled stones or untarred roads with the weather then was hot making the ride hard on the horses. The horse-hoofs were cladded with the metal shoes but the carriages were not exactly bouncing comfortably on the uneven surface.

“You could slow down, Jones. We are ahead of time by ten minutes.” Lord Henry checked his watches when he spoke on the communication link. His wounded leg had then begun to ache then.

“I don’t think we are. Your Lordship.” However, the Sergeant Major had other concerns. He saw to the rear the riders in pursuit.

“Ride hard, Jones. We got companies. And they are your mother’s relatives.” The Corporal was to comply when he heard the warning from the Sergeant Major.  He called back to the Lordship on the riders.

“Riders on our track.” The Corporal told his Lordship. “I think they are riding your horses.”

“Darned!” His Lordship screeched out. The Sergeant Major took out and then turned his gun on them. He had on the Winchester Repeating Rifle. With the rapid firing option, the NCO needs to do was point and pressed the trigger. His firing was however passable for one who spends more time hollering than practicing at the shooting range. He brought down two of the pursuers.

“You shot my horses, Sergeant Major.” His Lordship screamed then. “They are worth thousands.”

“You ask and do not receive, because of you….” The Sergeant Major recites James 4.3 but was interjected by his Lordship.

“Answer wrongly and you will spend it on your pension. Thank you, Sergeant Major. You may continue on.” His Lordship slumped back onto his seat inside the carriage.

It was then the Sergeant Major saw the new threat that came from the sky. There were two flying contraptions with the wide double wings and the tiny rudder at the rear. The plane was piloted by two persons with the rear one manning the Lewis gun there. The Sergeant Major cursed under his breath. They were on the path Lord Henry’s guards too. His Lordship considered them as a sound investment in the face of military innovations.

 “Jones, we got two eagles on our rear and five horsemen.” It was Jones who named the flying contraption as eagles. Jones reckoned since it flew, it ought to be named with a breeding bird name.  

“We will shoot the eagles down first. They are the real nuisance.” Jones pushed the horses to turn towards the treelines. The carriage went off on one wheel before it righted down. With the trees, the eagles will be blind to the carriage. The carriage shot off towards the trees in the woods and soon they were riding past more uneven grounds and caused his Lordship to screech out in anger.

“Jones, you better have an explanation for this. The humping is doing the devils’ work on my spine.” Lord Henry had a back pain which he also claimed was from riding the infernal creature named a horse.

“Uffar gwirion, I am trying to save our asses.” Jones cursed in his native tongue. He recalled there was a hunting lodge nearby and rode the carriage there. He stopped the carriage before he disembarked in a rush. He rushed into the hunting lodge and then came out with the long barrel Whitworth rifle. That rifle was locally invented and proven to be a sound shot at over a thousand five hundred yards. It fires a .45 caliber bullet with the single muzzle-loaded shot. It was a unique design than with the hexagonal barrel instead of the rounded one. It outshot the popular Pattern 53 Enfield rifle issued to the Army but the cost of the Whitworth was too costly. Nevertheless, the rifle made its way across the islands to the continent.

“My Uncle Ernie used to stay here and rest in peace he did. He will not leave home without it. He took off many intruders during the battles.” Jones’ uncle was a rancher in the continent who fought off the others from encroaching into his land. He owned the hunting lodge.

Jones stepped up on the carriage and then rode the fast towards the nearby hill. It was he saw the Eagles had flown overhead and raked the treetops with the Lewis gun mounted on the flying contraption. The gunner could not make out the carriage hidden beneath the canopies of the leaves but he was firing blindly to scare the horses. Jones did not stop the horses but kept on whipping them to stay at the fast paces. Once he reached close to the peak, he held back the reins. He then took up the rifle and aimed it at the circling flying contraptions which were circling the hill.

“I disliked eagles. They took my Maedy (its Mother in Welsh) chickens.” Jones fired the rifle at the pilot of the first eagle he sighted. His shot blew half the pilot’s face at four hundred yards who was flying lower and then he aimed for the second eagle who had then seen the other pilot’s descent. His fright on seeing the other flying contraption diving down in a steep decline made him shudder with fear but it was only seconds before the second shot took off his heart to vitalize the soul.

“Bloody good shot, Jones.” Sergeant Major complimented the other when he saw both eagles crashed. “But we best get the battle going on my side too.”

The Sergeant Major had the Winchester rifle to slow the other horsemen from approaching them. Sure enough at that moment, Jones had whipped the horses on the carriage to move on. He was directing the horse up to the peak and then he pulled up the reins.

“Surely you do not want to do that…” The words of the Sergeant Major were taken off his mouth when the carriage was sent speeding down between the trees towards the road at the bottom of the hill. It was the nature of Jones to do the unexpected. The Sergeant Major held on tight to the rein of his horse, with his face drawn tight with fright at the speeding descent. It was grim when it comes to shaping boys into the real man in the army but with Jones, it was twice the effort.

Jones then riding the carriage ducked down to avoid the hanging branches and God knows what else that was lurking there. Or maybe a couple of fornicating pheasants with an unpleasant outing. At that speed, the overhanging leaves from the branches could cut into the exposed flesh like paper onto the skin. When they were to reach the road, Jones had the horses steered to the right and then they were running parallel with the road. The pull on the reins almost causes him to lose his arm but he held on hard. The Sergeant Major was almost thrown off the saddle but managed to secure hold with part of his right legs hanging over the side.

Eventually they reached the flat areas and then continued with the race along with it towards the airfield which was their destination.

“Did you check on this Lordship?” The Sergeant Major asked of Jones when he caught up next to the carriage. The latter shook his head while his focus was on matching the Sunday race records.

“I dinna think so. Guess we will leave it till we stop. It won’t matter now anyway.” The Sergeant Major joined the other parallel at the front. “Do you happen to know which horse is racing on Sunday?”

The Depth

The Captain was taken aback by the request if they wanted s single or double berth. He leaned down to look at the Ticketing guy for asking him such a rude question.

“She is my daughter’s age, landlubber.” Captain Arthur snapped back.

“How would I know? You had my Maisie on the same berth twenty years ago.” The reply was a shocker to the Captain. He peeked harder at the sodden face there and then smiled.

“Percy Banks! You weasel. I have not seen you since …” Percy Banks was Arthur’s good friend before he went sailing.

“Yeah, before you shagged my Maisie and then left for the sea.” The bespectacled man replied before he pulled at the suspenders on his chest. “Your bastard had to be homeschooled by myself for years.”

“Did he has any dimples like mine?” Captain Arthur frisked his beard. “You can’t see it now but I had lovely ones then.”

“Fuck you. That will be three Shillings for the tickets and its double berth. And pay up for the kid too. He needs to go to a proper school.” Percy replied before handing over the tickets.

“Percy, for old friend’s sake. I left my purse at the church by the pier. Could I be spare some credits?” Arthur smiled at the man.

They were given the credits to sit at the last wagon with the poor and needy which included five families and crying babies. One of the family was a young lady with her son all curled up at the corner. And there was a shepherd with the sheep.

“Nice relatives you have/” Stacy curled up on the seat there. It was then Captain Arthur told Stacy of the new expedition.

“I met Lord Henry then during the war. I was the Captain of the Casper then. The Casper was a fifty footer fishing trawler that was doing the rounds behind the boundary to the deep seas. The ship was a cover for our real purpose which was to ship the lads to the enemy zone. We moved mostly during the dark.”

“On that day, I was told meet him at the coordinates in the sea lanes. I was baffled because we were in the busy lanes and the authorities then have their regular patrols there. It was a dangerous mission for me and my crew but we acted on it. We waited out there with our excuse that the steamer engine was not working. It was near morning when I heard the knocking on the starboard. We had picked up swimmers; they are the crazy ones to do it then with the water swarming with predators.”

“I checked it and saw the most horrendous sight of my life then. It was the Lord Henry himself then in the water but he was emerging from what appeared to be a fish but it was metal built with the dorsal and fins. It was about fifteen feet in length and five feet across the beam with a three feet draft line. The Lord himself had half appeared from the top hatch at the fin.”

“This is Doreen. She is a prototype for the submarines. He told me then.”

“Doreen was a new design submarine then as they were named. She was operated by the electrical generator powered by the mini turbine which was fed by the water currents during her voyage. The two men crew survived by the air provided ballast or in the case of a sea dive, they will switch to the portable units. They have the breathing air for one hour.”

“The the submarine was designed to go down to below fifty feet in the water and its speed was maximum of three knots. It, however, has a periscope to see above the water surface or in the depths. It held a double harpoon on its side and three mini charges.”

“Its the purpose was to do recon.”

“On that night our mission was to pull the Doreen back to port. She had suffered some engine problems and could not dive.  I had her tied to the stern and then we dragged her home.”

“So where is the fuck? I knew you are just telling me the foreplay.” Stacy voiced out. The young mother with the young child curled up further into the corner on her outburst. Captain Arthur laughed out and then apologies to the young single mother.

“It was near dawn when we were to clear the patrols, and then the unexpected happened. A patrol boat was hailing us from the portside. I doubt they have seen the submarine which we were hauling but it was decision time. Now then the trawler did hold a Lewis gun but it was based on the aft. I round up the crews to get armed but his Lordship had dived into the water on the blindside. I knew he was going for his submarine but I was more concerned on my own ship. I cut the engine and waited for the patrol boat. It came alongside and the other officer was there. He began hollering on the standing orders. I nodded and smiled like a seagull with a fish caught on the beak.”

“Then the officer told me that he was coming on board. That was unusual for they seldom do unless we are considered as suspicious. I nodded and held out the gangplank. The engines were slowed down to idling then. I assigned the crews to watch the water for any leaping sharks. They do as you may know.”

“The officer trod over with three of his crews. They were armed and ready for a fight. So were we but I did not know what happened first. The shooting or the explosion? Suddenly we heard an explosion on the other boat. She was burning on the stern. It was then my crew took out their guns and fired on the boarding group.”

“I gave out the order to pull away from the patrol boat. They had turned their guns on us by then but a second explosion tore through the portside. We pulled away for about fifty yards when I saw the submarine has come in between us. It was still dragged by the rope but there was some slack to it. Just when I thought it was impossible, the submarine released its harpoons onto the draft line. Both harpoons slammed into the boat at close proximity. It bored two puncture holes there and the saltwater was surging in.”

“I then called on the engine section to bring us clear. It was tricky for the submarine was still moored to us. We crew did it and soon we were given round-side seats to the sinking of the patrol boat. Later we had to do the mercy thing and shot them those in the waters. It was a decent move then. We cannot be carrying prisoners and above all, they stood no chance in the water.”

Stacy nodded to that. She knew the consequences of floating in the water. Most crews will opt to drown then float.

“The Lordship?” Stacy asked.

“Well, he made it back, and soon we were good friends.” The Captain replied.

“Murderers…” The single mother cried out before slinking back into the dark corners. Captain Arthur sighed but he knew during wartime there was no burden of guilt in killing more so when it’s in the name of mercy.

“The new expedition?” Stacy was ever insistent.