For Queen, Oil and Country

By Alan Norris

A collection of short, and not-so-short stories for those cup of coffee moments or trips to work on the bus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Norris
• Release date: Oct 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536538205

Alan Norris

Alan was born in Poole, Dorset, England on October 1st 1948. As a child, he lived in Canada for a few years in what was then a tiny settlement village called Malton in Ontario. He went to his first school in the village, a one-room school that was quite basic but typical of the time in those outlying areas of the Canadian countryside. Later in life he travelled to Western Australia where he worked as a design draughtsman and played drums in his spare time with a very active band called “Unicorn”. Eventually, Alan returned to England, where he found a winter season of high unemployment and a frosty cold that he’d forgotten about. After a couple of dead-end jobs he joined the Royal Navy and quickly worked his way up to become an engine room Chief Petty Officer. His first ship was involved in the brief skirmish of the mid 1970s that they called the “Cod War”. He should have seen the trend, because ten years later he was involved in the Falklands Conflict while serving on the frigate, HMS Argonaut. They were hit by two enormous bombs within minutes of the first day of action. One landed in the boiler room and the other became lodged in an ammunition magazine. Luckily neither of these devices exploded, but unfortunately two of our gunners were killed. One of them was just twenty-one years old that day. Alan’s writing began some years later when, as part of a team producing Technical Handbooks, he began to experiment with fiction and wrote a bag-full of short stories. The experiments continued until 2010 when he set out to use his new-found skills in a second career. Alan now lives with his wife Stella in a quiet part of central Brittany, surrounded by books, forests, fields and their precious dogs, Elsa, Jester and Monty. He still plays drums occasionally too.

Book preview

A collection of short stories.

Some are of an autobiographical nature, some are pure fiction.

This book should be treated as a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.

© 2014 Alan F Norris

For all my faithful canine friends, each beautiful in their own way:

Vega, Penny, Zenda, Stoker, Blue, Elsa, Jester and Monty

Contents

For Queen, Oil and Country

Caesar's Belt

Atomic Clock

A Home in One

The Box

The Hunters

The Longest Day

The Mustang

Trial by Spirit

Wanted!

You Shouldn't Speak to Strangers!

The Double

Who Shot Postman Mac?

A Very Reluctant Warrior

Goodbye

The Guidford Dragon

Time Gentlemen Please!

Dougie’s New Beginning

George and the Circus

Mind The Gap

The Chimney Sweep and the Jackdaw

The Girl Who Invented Soup

For Queen, Oil and Country

It was springtime in 1982 and, as part of a strike task-force, we were steaming south to the Falkland Islands. The ship was the HMS Argonaut an ageing, but reliable Royal Navy Leander Frigate.

Argentina had invaded the Falkland island group. Many of the lads in the crew were openly patriotic and excited by the prospect of going to battle on behalf of their Queen, to defend the Country’s honour. But a minority, perhaps only a cynical few, knew that the colony represented the British Government’s, unquestionable right to claim a share of the known oil deposits locked beneath the Antarctic regions.

I’d just finished a night-watch in the engine room and was leaning against an upper-deck railing, enjoying the fresh air and thinking about what we may be heading towards. I watched the dawn gather itself for another day and my mind wandered to the morning before.

My wife and I were on the threshold of what promised to be a messy divorce and I had called at the house to say goodbye and walk to school with my ten year-old daughter. As always, we chatted about many things, arithmetic, the class nature table and those sports lessons that she didn’t like. Other little problems were resolved too, sometimes causing giggles, sometimes a frown if she didn’t agree, or understand. Not surprisingly, our main topic this morning was her mother’s and my separation. Someone had suggested that she might feel as though she was walking under a dark cloud while all this was going on. We looked up into a promising spring-blue sky and there wasn’t a cloud in sight above us. But on this particular morning, typical of many others near the coast, a skein of dawn cloud hung along the horizon, drawn across the clean blue sky of the new day. Some of these clouds were wispy and golden with the light of the sun, while others, just a few, were heavy, ponderous and shadowed with purple. In our chatter we thought that maybe one of these dark clouds could be the one she might be under - and soon it’d be past and there’d be a bright one. It seemed to us, that the string of cloud looked a little like somebody’s whole life, with horrid dark bits, bright bits and wispy, happy places.

We reached the school gate and I gave her a hug and a wave, it would be some while before the next wispy cloud came along and we could walk to school together again.

The South Atlantic was a very long way to go and I’d a feeling that this trip would stain a cloud in the life thread of thousands of people. For the unlucky, it would cut the string abruptly short.

‘Hands to Action Stations! Hands to Action Stations!’ shouted a voice over the Tannoy speakers.

We’d all heard it a thousand times before – but as exercises. This time, as we entered the bay of San Carlos Water, it was for real and the sound of the Frigate’s klaxon twisted the stomach with its urgency.

Adrenalin surged. We rushed to our allotted stations. I headed forward, towards the front of the ship dragging on the white cotton anti-flash gloves and hood as I went.

Two sailors from the gunner’s party went through their hatchway, down to the missile magazine, I slammed it shut behind them and we started the routine door and hatch closing of the forepart of the ship. It was quickly done, as always, but now in record time. Then we sat, waiting for developments.

‘Report the For’ard Damage Control Station closed-up and correct.’ I told the young sailor who was manning the intercom and phone.

‘Yes Chief.’ he replied, and repeated my words to the control centre.

I looked around at the pale faces, there was none of the usual banter, they were good lads, but I wondered if we’d manage ok when things started for real.

‘Two hostile aircraft approaching from starboard. Take Cover! Take Cover!’

Came a shout over the Tannoy. We all dropped flat to the hard steel of the deck.

It’s strange to recall now, but I noticed a strong smell of polish from the deck beneath me and a fading odour of dried gloss-paint hanging in the thickening air.

From our position inside the ship, we heard the rattle of bullets and the scream of aircraft jet exhausts - chased by the regular crack of our anti-aircraft guns.

‘The bastards are swinging around for another go!’ called our young sailor on the coms.

We could hear the crashing whoosh of our ‘Sea-Cat’ missiles as they were launched in pursuit of the fighter aircraft.

The smell of polish and fresh paint had become tainted with an odour of metallic sweat.

Next instant, there was a head splitting crash and the blast lifted me from the deck and threw me against the steel bulkhead. Hard!

I sat on the deck, a fierce roaring in my ears as a spreading pain found parts of my body that I’d rather it didn’t.

My hearing gradually returned and I heard the harshness of my own breath. I looked around me at the worried faces of my team and I’m sure I was smiling when I said, ‘Poor shooting, eh boys?..... We’re all still here.’

I had a fleeting impression of a silent stillness in the frames of the ship. The main engines had stopped. Maybe the shooting hadn’t been so very bad after all. But in our small group, we had our own problems.

I divided my people into teams of three and sent them out into our section of the ship to investigate damage.

As they scattered, I smelt the one thing that no one at sea wants to smell. Smoke! Then came the heavy smell of diesel fuel-oil. The two together could achieve the result that had escaped the fighter pilot. I turned and found that the manhole hatch that gave access to the missile magazine had lifted, buckling slightly with the force of the blast and a trickle of diesel oil was coming from its edges.

The hatch itself felt cold. Two men were down there. At least, their bodies would be.

I blocked my imagination as it tried to show me the horror of what lay beneath our feet. And, grabbing a hammer from a tool-bag, I hammered the hatch-clips tight until the flow of fuel stopped.

Stuart, one of the gunners down there, had been just twenty-one years old that very day. He’d not be growing any older. His string of dawn-cloud had been broken.

The damage reports came in thick and fast. We’d been hit by two one-thousand pound bombs and amazingly, neither had detonated.

The first had entered the missile magazine, three decks below where I stood and had caused a small fire, ruptured diesel tanks and destroyed the seamen’s mess that was above it. Luckily for us, it had been the gushing flood of seawater and cold diesel oil that had killed the fire. Probably only moments before it had the chance to cause some deadly mischief amongst the store of bullets and missiles.

The second bomb, delivered by the same aircraft had damaged the ship’s power systems. It had stopped both main engines and wrecked half of the boiler room.

If the first bomb had exploded, my whole group would have been killed in an instant. Blown to tiny irrecoverable pieces and scattered to the Antarctic gales.

Then the lights went out!

Sea water had contaminated the fuel supplies and the diesel driven generators had failed. The absolute silence was eerie, tangible.

Around us, troop landings were taking place on a nearby beach. Guns rattled and overhead, beneath a clear blue sky, aircraft engines screamed. And through all this chaos, HMS Plymouth, a sister ship, quietly towed us into the shelter of a small estuary. Then her chefs cooked us the best breakfast I’d ever eaten.

The work of repair started straight away. Generators were cleaned and restarted. Two very ugly bombs were lowered carefully to the sea bed - on the side of one of them, in bright yellow paint was the message, ‘Hi Matey’. The jagged holes in the hull were sealed with temporary patches and, working some long hours, we managed to raise steam in between air raids and restart our main engines.

A week later, the slow homeward voyage began. We limped along at less than half our usual cruising speed, rolling heavily through the long Atlantic swell.

After nearly three weeks, we arrived back at a fog shrouded Plymouth, our home port. It was a quiet arrival, a few folk and families waited to greet us. But, I assumed, with the rigours of a divorce looming, there’d be nobody for me.

Just then, my darkest cloud must have closed and changed to a wisp of gold, because waiting on the quayside were my parents and my smiling daughter.

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Caesar's Belt

Sandy pedalled her bicycle has hard as she could up the short, but steep section of rough footpath.

Expertly, Sandy switched her way through the bicycle's many gears as she crested the hill. She felt just how she imagined a skier must feel as they push off from the top of a steep run. The excitement always gave her a thrill, and often moved her to go much faster than she ought.

Speed was becoming something of a passion, it was probably as well that she still had three years to go before she could even think of having a driving license. It seemed an eternity to her young mind.

Most of her friends were busy paying court to their embryo interests in boys. Sandy often had an urge to go along with the tide, but was held back by a feeling that she had too much to do with her life. School was high on the list of important things, particularly her studies in Early British History, she had set her heart on continuing her studies into University, and then who knows where. She just knew that she would be different.

The first few yards of the hill flashed by beneath her glittering wheels. Tiny stones were thrown into the still air, almost as though they were dashing for cover as the sturdy machine pelted along the narrow trail. Sandy had never been quite as fast as this before, common sense moved her fingers towards the brake lever but an inner devilment stopped them from squeezing and throttling the speed. Her lungs gasped for breath as the machine raced, bouncing and lurching down the rough narrow path.

The snaking line of bushes, trees and thick undergrowth, which marked the old railway cutting, was rapidly approaching. She'd have to slow down soon or she wouldn't make the turning at the bottom. Gently easing the rear brake, Sandy started to bring the speed towards a manageable level.

Without any warning, a large, very startled, wide-eyed rabbit jumped from the side of the path, right before her. It lunged its slim body across the track towards the safety of a burrow on the far side.

Sandy instinctively grabbed at the brakes and tried to swerve away. Dust flew into the air. The front wheel catapulted itself over the lip of the footpath and plunged down into the long dry stems of golden grass and slid away from under her. Sandy was truly airborne and tumbling slowly as she approached the inevitable crushing conclusion.

With a whoosh, the breath left her body as she crashed into the undergrowth bordering the cutting. Rolling and diving, she slithered to a jolting halt against the bole of an ancient Oak tree. Far above her, the ticking wheels of the bicycle slowly stopped. All was silent.

Groaning aloud, Sandy levered herself onto her side and, looking down, saw a trickle of red blood from a gash along her shin. The bright sun swam and swirled into the dark shadow. Sandy's young