Deep Seas Chapter 25

25.

The Surface

Across the land, Colonel Kingsley took up the towel to rub the cold water off his scalp. He had not much hair left there from the poor haircut and years of stress when he pulled them out in frustration. He looked at himself in the mirror. The slim body had not added much but the welts and bruises are taking longer to heal. He wrapped the towel around his waist to step out. He was not keen to surprise his aide, Lieutenant Marleen Dern, and get his ass hauled up for indecent exposure in the court-martial. He smiled at his own lewd joke. The Lieutenant had seen all of him for some time as he had of her. The thought of her aroused him but he told himself to cool it. After all, the day was starting anew then. He entered his bedroom and saw the Lieutenant standing there. She was not with him last night. It was one of those where his preference was the comfort of his bed to himself. It was his bastard side of the character. His ex-wife once told him, that he only comes to her bed for the fuck. He admitted that was true but his years of sleeping alone in the military had been his own ritual.

“Lieutenant, I was not expecting you.” Colonel Kingsley stepped up to his uniform on the bed. The gun was missing from the holster. He looked at the Lieutenant and smiled. She had the gun aimed at his body above the towel.

“By jolly, you took long enough to do it.” Colonel Kingsley spoke up. “I knew the moment I stopped the retreat and started fighting back Clarke will go to activate the kill switch.”

“Why did you turn your back on us?” Lieutenant Dern asked. “We were doing fine for the last weeks.”

Colonel Kingsley was in command of the loyalist at the north. He was also a member of Lord Stuart's hidden list of officers. His Lordship was excited when he heard that Colonel Braddock was in charge of the other side. He had called for the Colonel to put up the line of defense so that battle there looked to be a stalemate while he focused on the cities on the eastern coasts. Unknown to his Lordship Colonel Kingsley was also working for General Gale as the spy in Lord Stuart’s army. She could not fight the war at three fronts so she got the Colonel to delay things up north. Her first concern was the southern front to remove the invaders. The battles involving her people had to be minimized.

“Weeks? I thought it was over a year.” Colonel Kingsley smiled. “The false calls for reinforcements and then retreats from the enemies? It was all a ruse to buy time for General Gales to strengthen her forces. It was also for me to snap into the regiments whom they should be defending.”

“General Wheatley is limp on the command side. He is only good at the shoe polishing and hammering young officer’s wives. I have no regret of him taking over mine. Was he also yours before?” Colonel Kingsley smiled. “Nevertheless Lieutenant, it was a great fuck Lieutenant while it lasted.”

“Could we do it once more? For old time sakes, I am in the mood.” Colonel Kingsley whisked the towel off which startled the Lieutenant. Her momentarily distraction was he needed. The Colonel lashed out the wet towel like a whip at the Lieutenant. The towel end hit the Lieutenant at the face and she dropped the gun. The Colonel picked it up and aimed it at the Lieutenant.

“I guess not.” The Colonel shot the Lieutenant in the face. The guards rushed in but he told them to stand down. He looked at them, and gave the list he had prepared earlier to the guards. 

“I want this list of officers to be kept to their quarters. We are taking back the northern cities.”

To the north Colonel Matthew Braddock has his own troubles. His twenty-five armored tanks were lined up at the city limits. He could level the city but it will mean increasing the casualties among the civilians. He looked at the company of the 2nd Regiment which was the Infantry Division who had joined him. He walked up to the commanding officer.

“Major Barnsley, are your men trained to fight in the cities?” The Major nodded and then called on his hundred men to get ready.  “We will assist you in the main streets. We will show those 3^rd Guards how we fight.”

The 2^nd Regiment followed closely on the rear of the armored while they progressed into the city. The entry to the city was via the three bridges, and then after it was the blocks of building structures from double to five levels high. It covered over five intersecting roads and seven streets diagonal to it.

On the right was the green park that the pride of the city there with its twin ponds and rows of trees in between them with the little cobbled paths.  It was unusual for the city to hold cobbled paths when the mode of traveling was then on the four-wheeled steam engine or the electrical two-wheel cycle. That was the real pride of the district.

“I don’t care about the cobbles. I am more concerned on my tracks.” Sergeant Clarence Bain was in the leading vehicle told his driver.

“Your laddies tracks will survive the stones here. She had been through worse.” Private Donny Somme smiled from the driver seat. “We are sticking to the main street here.”

“Bloody good that will do for us.” Left ‘sponson’ Gunner Smith cried out. “What does he thinks we are? Artillery chums?’

The QF Six pounder Hotchkiss Gun with its shortened barrel of sixty-inch was designed for the armored tank. It had a range of one thousand six hundred yards. The cry of Left ‘sponson’ Gunner Smith was soon ignored when the bullets shot ricochet off the metal surface of the tank.

“We are fired on.” Sergeant Bain called out and then called for the guns to return fire. It was done on the possible spots where the enemies were hiding.

“Damn you, Sergeant.” Loader Benny Goldson cried out while he was closing the gun breech. “Couldn’t you pick another road to shoot at? My cousin owns half a shop here.”

The crews laughed at the joke. It was their only relief inside the hot and sweaty tank. Their every moment was breathing in the fumes and stepping on the spilled oil. Sergeant Bain saw the sniper on the third window frame at the right-hand corner of the street. He called on the gunner to shoot at the window.

On the window frame, Private Benjamin Stokes aimed his rifle at the tank. At a hundred yards, he was trying to hit at the driver in between the narrow slit. He was a sharpshooter but the tank was an elusive creature. He aimed again with his finger on the trigger. His gun sight was on the narrow slit but he forgot in the war of Man, the sighted may also shoot back.

“Aargh!” Sergeant Bain screamed when the shot tore splinters of the metal into his face. Left Gunner Smith reached for the level and pulled it to fire the Six pounder gun. The six-pound heavy explosive impacted on the wall next to the window frame where the sniper was before it exploded inwards. The explosion blew Private Benjamin against the back wall before a section of the ceiling fell on his head. The crews of the tank cheered on the shot.

It was not shared by Corporal Shane of the 3^rd Regiment. He was at the rear of the tank as part of the infantry commanded by Sergeant Bain. He saw the armored vehicle rammed into the double-level brick-walled structure before it swiveled out to the right. The footed infantry then found themselves inside the office of a learned person. There were the shelves of books and a single person bathtub there with the Shakespeare portrait overlooking the tub.

“Blimey! I think it’s a school mam’s room.” Private Oliver Stone called out. “I recalled her place well. She likes to open her legs to the Bard.”

“Say it out, Oliver. You were there to peek at her bath.” Corporal Shane replied with jest. “You never learned a word in any classroom nor did you learn any passages from Bard.”

The infantry moved on and soon found themselves confronted by the enemy. The 3^rd Regiment men went into cover behind the wall with their rifles firing. Private Stone went down in the hail of fire but Shane had taken to cover behind the wall. He leaned out and fired his rifle blindly before pulling back. He then reached for the grenade on his chest. He unpinned it and tossed it in. He then leaned over to fire a few rounds before pulling back. He did that to deter anyone from tossing the grenade back. The grenade exploded and Shane rushed in. There were enemies there. They have withdrawn to the rear to the upper level. He rushed up and then at the rooftop he saw the two enemies fleeing across the roofs. He took aim and shot at them with the rifle. He got both of them but he missed the one that was on his rear.

The 3^rd Guard there shot him in the back of the head.

Such was the battle between the two armies that were once on the same side. The battle was long and soon the 3^rd Guard had retreated from the advancing from the 3th Regiment. Their retreat was not without any cost to both sides.

Colonel Braddock looked to the diesel which leaked to the hard ground. The drums holding the diesel were punctured at the sides to release the diesel. He looked to the Lieutenant who found the fuel storage.

“The saboteurs had done their work well but when its war, there are no reasons to spare even your neighbors if he is the enemy.” Colonel Braddock looked to the Sargeant that was captured in the process of sabotaging the diesel. The Sargeant was from the same regiment.

“I am very impressed with your skills, Sergeant Smith. You were Lieutenant Dale’s neighbor I recalled. What in tarnation made you do such stupid acts?”

“Orders, Sir. I was following my orders.” Sergeant Smith spoke up. “Nothing stupid about taking orders, Sir.”

“Well then. Be on your way with the guards. I got a war to fight.” Colonel Braddock looked to the diesel drums. There was nothing he could do then. His advance was hindered by the wasted fuels.

The Depth

The Tempest was captained by Captain David Banner while the Typhoon was by his mate, Captain Tom Evans. Their namesake did not reflect the state of their ships which were fish trawlers in design. The fishing equipment was removed and the deck was equipped with the two pounders gun and the twin machine gun.

During the voyage the submerged which was Shark One and Two were dragged at the rear by the Tempest until they reach the destination at Devan. Shark Three was pulled by the Typhoon.

Boatswain I Conlay sat in the commanding seat of the submerged Shark One. She was used to the cramp spaces in the Sea King but there in the submerged she felt the constraint more pressuring. She had volunteered for the smaller craft. She had thought of commanding the bigger craft challenging but with Shark One, it was more than satisfying. She felt elated and felt the need to prove herself.

Boatswain I Conlay looked at her simpler craft. She had named the ship as Dolly after her dead daughter. The submarine had improved on her design with the reinforced hull to submerge from fifty feet to a hundred in the water but its speed was still at three knots. It still held the double harpoon on its side and three mini charges. She looked to the portside and saw the second submerged craft there. It was the Shark Two, captained by Sailor O’Brien. He had named the submerged “Colleen”.

Both crafts have detached from the towing ship and sailed on their own speed towards the last know position of the cruiser off the coast of Devan port. 

Shark Three had remained out at sea.

Conlay studied the cruiser layout from the drawings. It held a length of over two hundred and fifty feet with a beam of forty feet and the draft line was fifteen feet. It was powered by three-cylinders engine at speed of twelve knots. It held a complement of eight main six-pounders; three on each side and single on aft with the stern. It also held three revolver cannons on each side. The revolver cannons design was similar to that of a revolving pistol with the five rounds slot. The barrel was a two inches bore and it was fired using percussion caps. It also held the sizeable twenty-five depth charges. The cruiser had a complement of ten officers and over a hundred and fifty crews.  The cruisers were named after the sea predators; Albatross, Pelican, Heron and the Petrel. They were all of the same designs.

Off the coast of Devan was the Albatross commanded by Senior Captain Fei Hung.

“Senior Captain, we have a sighting of the enemy.” Senior Sailor Teng reported to him at the bridge. “It was on our stern and seen moving towards our portside.”
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Senior Captain Fei Hung grabbed the looking glass to look at his portside. There was nothing much he could make out of the high waves. He saw the fins of the shark bobbing in between the waves.

“Launch our crafts. Its time they learned of our might.” The order was sent down to the deck, and the chains were cranked out to the holding pulleys where the mini submerged unit was held on the hull side. The mini submerged was similar in design to the Dolly. The fifteen feet in length craft was manned by the two crews before it was loaded into the water.

Senior Sailor Tu and Wan were in Mini Albatross. They jumped started the electrical engine and got it sailing at three knots. The submerged craft swallowed by the sea waves soon dived to over fifty feet. It took on a detour to the stern and then moved starboard to flank the enemy ship.

“Tu, we will trap them with the Albatross.” Wan was egoistic on his chances. They were brief that the enemy was seen at over two hundred feet portside. Tu was keeping a keen watch with his narrow slit on the viewer. The sea there was not much different from the ones where he had trained. They had once sailed the grand Yellow River during its high flood. It was a perilous journey but they learned how to tackle the uncertainty of the water currents. 

“I got sight.” Tu called out. “It’s at a hundred feet to our aft. I am compensating the direction to come at the stern.”

The sailor pressed the pedal while he steered the craft away. He needed to get away from it so that they cab surprise it.

The seacraft moved on his command with narrow body cutting at the sea currents. It was slow but they did the distance of over a hundred and fifty feet before Tu sighted the second craft. Initially, he thought he was outflanked but then the other craft lacked certain tattoos. There was no time for diversion. He pulled the harpoon lever and heard the cranked noise of the pressured air that whooshed in the pipes to fire the harpoon. It could fire up to a hundred feet and without compensating for the currents.

It might also miss its target

O’Brien on the Colleen saw the bubbles of the seawater and then the harpoon head. He pulled at the steering wheel to rise up. It was a right move given that the harpoon was aimed at his aft. With the speed of the harpoon approaching it if he steered to the portside or starboard, he was bound to be speared on it. It was a calculated chance the harpoon might miss on the narrow target. The harpoon lost its momentum but when the sea current hit from the stern it shifted direction. The harpoon struck the rear end of the submerged and pierced into the engine. The seawater punched in through the gash on the hull. It then exploded when the explosive attached to the harpoon went off.

Boatswain I heard the explosion and steered her viewer to it. It was the 'Colleen'. She was adrift with a missing stern. Conlay then saw the other craft.

“Mother of all, it can’t be.” Conlay was surprised to see the other submerged. It was identical in design but the tattoos were not of their design. She leveled and then fired off her harpoon at it. It veered off to starboard at the other ship. She could not see the harpoon on its flight but she hoped it paid off. It did but what it struck was a dazzled shark that swam into the harpoon path. The harpoon tore into the side of the shark and caused it to swim away in pain with the trail of blood from the wound. The shark in pain swam aimlessly and soon slammed its body onto the viewer of the submerged. The huge shark at over twenty feet broke the periscope there.

“I can’t see.” Tu called out. “We have to surface.”

The Mini Albatross pushed to rise to the surface but Colleen was not giving up. Conlay aligned the submerged and released its second harpoon. The aim was at the stern where the engine was. The harpoon struck true and stopped the engine. With the Mini Albatross was a heavy metal coffin that went into a spin and then started sinking. The Colleen turned to port and sailed away. It needed to get away and surface for the recycling of air.  Conlay heard the depth charges at the stern. It might have been alerted to the sinking of their submerged craft.