What Prices Paid_Part 3

by Jim Rapkins

HML Philopoemen

12 January 1909

“This is a fool’s errand, lad. Mark my words. Bloody Admiralty thinks the Krauts will back down after this little display.”

As always, Petty Officer Alun Crippen struggled to understand exactly what his captain was saying. He knew his own Welsh accent was hard for some of the lads to decipher at times, but Captain Christian’s thick New Zealand brogue was nigh impenetrable. Especially when he was irritated, as he was now. But one didn’t have to be a linguist to understand the snort of derision that followed the words.

In any case, the captain was right. The Philopoemen was classified as a Battleship, a behemoth of the air; battle-hardened in the skies of the Dutch East Indies. And the Edward VII-class leviathan was not alone in the low clouds. Crippen knew there were another twelve of the Sky Fleet’s workhorses in the sky with them. But it was the rest of the vessels accompanying them that caused a looked of disgust to settle over the captain’s craggy features.

“Bloody Fisher wants to expand his own little empire. Bastard isn’t happy having the levs under his control, wants bloody toy boats to go with them. Bloody King will agree, too, the dumb bastard.” Crippen managed to keep the wince off his face. Captain John “Black Jack” Christian was well known for saying what was on his mind, the very trait that had nearly seen him keelhauled in the Navy, and the reason he’d been put forward for the leviathans program. Still, calling the King a bastard would not endear the man to the crew. Their last stopover at Whale Island had seen a changing of the guard, with most of the crew hanging up their guide straps. Only Crippen and Dusty, the chief engineer, remained of the Philopoemen’s original crew. The young lads that had heard the stories, all full of bravado, had quickly learnt what it meant to serve under Black Jack.

“Captain, you should not speak about the King that way. I—”

“Shut your mouth, Rupert, before I shut it for ya.” Crippen tried not to smile. Despite the fact the executive officer’s name was Lieutenant Thomas Pritchard (the Third), Christian had called him Rupert from the day the toffee-nosed public schoolboy stepped on the deck of the Philopoemen. Pritchard was one of the new breed, those officers that had grown up with the stories of Tsushima, of South Africa, and all the other victories for which the press praised the leviathans. The lad should have gone to Oxford or Cambridge, not signed up to fly amongst the Devil’s Breath. His delicate features were ill suited to the heavy goggles and scarves that every flyer was forced to wear—except maybe the French. Crippen had heard stories about how the French flyers were cleaner, and had fully serviced kitchens onboard, not the slop galley the Philopoemen’s crew hesitated to visit at times.

“Yessir.” A suitably chastened Pritchard was visibly sulking at the rebuke, but at least Christian had avoided raising the God Walk for once. Crippen knew Sky Lord Scott had ordered Christian to ban the practice, especially on officers, but that was like waving a red flag to a bull. The only way to counter Christian’s desire to punish his crew for their perceived failings, and usually their lack of religious fervor, was to point him at the enemy. Hence their current mission to demonstrate to the Germans that the Baltic was just as much the domain of the Royal Navy as it was of the Kaiserliche Marine.

A naval convoy was being assembled at Portsmouth with troops and a sizable Royal Navy escort—just in case—but as was becoming more common, the Sky Fleet was called forth first to put the German upstarts in their place. Hence the arrival of the flotilla under Rear Admiral Jellicoe. The Germans had their own leviathans, but they were nothing compared to their British counterparts. Christian, during his one and only strategy meeting with Admiral Jellicoe had advocated forcibly blockading the Skaggerak and simply sinking any German-flagged vessel until the Germans repealed their so-called Kiel Proclamation. Jellicoe had been less than impressed.

The Admiralty, ever mindful of the growing irrelevance of the seagoing Navy, had fought hard for a joint component for the exercise, and a small flotilla of British sea vessels steamed through the waters below Crippen and the Philopoemen. The fact that the French were gaining the upper hand in the sky race due to their hidden elefacturies in Africa was irrelevant. Britannia ruled the waves. The sky was an afterthought

In the ideal world, the Philopoemen and her sisters of the Sky Fleet would engage the gaggle of Kormorant-class leviathans floating idly above the German naval forces in a duel for supremacy; a duel where the victor would graciously allow the vanquished to leave the field of battle, and the vanquished would withdraw peaceably, conceding the dominance of their opponents without need for recompense.

But it was not an ideal world.

“Sir, Belligerent signals commence firing.” Crippen stiffened as the young rating passed the message on. This was it. Yet again they were in combat. And this time for no other reason than to experiment with some fool in Whitehall’s idea of diplomacy. The Germans had run up the war ensign, and not backed down as expected. His musings were lost as the booming voice of his commander echoed across the flying bridge.

“Gunnery stations one through four, engage that bastard—and it’s the God Walk for anyone who misses!”

To Be Continued…