Dark Earth: Never Had it So Good

Notes on Part 19:
- Pontefract is very much based on Lieutenant George from Blackadder Goes Forth; so much so that said George, who survived the Great War, is his father and Foreign Secretary Wooster is his uncle. All three of them look like Hugh Laurie.
- The Secretary of State for the Commonwealth is Enoch Powell, promoted after some success in Health.
- References to exploding long range puddings for the French Resistance and the gateau from the chateau come from Allo Allo.
- Who knows where Bailey's friend acquired a taste for jelly babies?
- The frigate rating system does complicate some conversations, but reflects a society where the general level of naval literacy is higher and not everything that floats is a battleship.
- The Type 42s are closer to the Type 82s from @ in their role and purpose, but the different system reflects the little differences of the setting. They are very much on the drawing board as of 1961, with the first possibly being laid down in 1966 or so; they will replace the light cruisers and are quite capable DLGs.
- Blue Falcon is a souped-up Ikara.
- The Imperial restrictions on imports was primarily intended as a counter to rearmament, but soon became a political tool.
- The Valiants look more like the proposed supersonic version.
- The dream returns again; the blue shape is important.
- Trecandrius is one of several television dragons.
- The interview has a lot of content and indications of the direction of Labour's policies under Barton; some of it is deliberately jarring to highlight the difference in politics. Sam's reaction will be interesting

None of them are doctors, as that wouldn't suit their class background. Pontefract is a slight subversion of the stereotypical upper class twit, as he only pretends to be stupid in order to gain an advantage over others.

Exactly. It allows him to hear things that are useful to his parliamentary ambitions; as said by Bailey, he is a young politician with bright prospects.

The interesting question raised by this segment is that if Stanley Barton leads Labour into a coalition government, which Conservative will succeed Eden and become Leader of the Opposition?

By 1964, he would be turning 67; although lifespans are longer in some cases, that is seen as getting on a bit and not ideal for a major party leader. Macmillan will be 70, so he is not likely. Rab Butler was never quite seen as suitable. The possible list would be Maudling, Macleod, Amery, Powell, Sandys, Wooster or perhaps one of Churchill's sons.

Never Had It So Good Part 20

“You can say that again! He sounds more right wing than half of the Tories from back in my time!”

“Well, he is closer to the centre than the contenders that he beat back in ’56. Still, he frightens the daylights out of a fair people around here who think that even the Liberals are dangerous socialist types, although not in the sense of thinking he’s a Red. No one doubts how much he hates them.”

Sam shook his head slightly. “I don’t know what to think of him or any of your politics, really. The issues and the ground are so very different from everything I’ve read of the 1960s at home, let alone 50 years later. There was a lot less 'Labour content' than I expected."

"I can see what you mean, but you're hardly likely to get a long paen on the virtues of socialism on the BBC."

"No...it is difficult to put it into words. He seemed to spend more time focussing on the military and economic policy than what I guess I'm more used to considering as Labour concerns, like the NHS, the welfare state and nationalisation of industry."

Bailey smiled. "I catch your drift now. You thought he'd come out and talk about domestic issues. Barton has covered those quite frequently in his stump speeches, but it isn't really the stuff that voters expect prospective Prime Ministers to focus on. They want the bigger picture in many cases. At the end of the day, as Labour leaders go, Stanley Barton isn't a George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Oswald Mosley even a Ramsay McDonald, but something different."

"Wait, Mosley? The Blackshirts leader?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow, Sam."

"Where I'm from, he was a complete and utter Fascist and was interned in the war."

"Well, that is an interesting one. Here, he was leader after Macdonald died in 1930 or so. Come to think of it, some of his ideas were getting a bit outlandish by the end, but he was cut short by that car accident in New York in '32. Quite the villain for your lot, was he?"

"More the subject of ridicule, but he was seen as a Nazi sympathiser and interned."

"We did the same to our various Fascists and assorted cranks. Defence Regulation 18B."

"On the Isle of Man?"

"Goodness no; far too close to home and potential trouble. They ended up spread out between Saint Helena, Nimrod Island and Pitcairn, although it was somewhat more merciful on a few of the women, who ended up in the Falklands."

"Something tells me that there won't be any trouble down that neck of the woods here."

"The Falklands? Whatever could happen there? It is just a few islands a long way from, well, virtually anywhere. Certainly there is the oil, but the Russians have enough of that of their own."

"Not the Russians. The Argentineans invaded them in 1982."

"BAH!" Bailey guffawed so loudly and abruptly that it sent him into a fit of coughing as he unsuccessfully tried to control his amusement. Finally, he managed to regain some modicum of calm. "Argentina? Going to war against Britain? That is the very definition of a mismatch."

"It was a fairly clear cut result, but it took most of the RN to do it, including both aircraft carriers available at the time."

"Both? Two aircraft carriers? How many battleships?"

"None; the last one was scrapped in 1961."

Bailey looked aghast. "This year? Unthinkable! We're building new ones, as you've heard, and so are the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Germans and the Japs."

"That is something I can't quite understand - why are there new battleships being built in the 1960s? Haven't they been proved to be obsolete yet?"

"Not that I've heard. Oh, the carrier types have been saying that they are since the 1920s and the submarine sorts have been making all manner of baleful predictions since the end of the war, but that is just down to intra-service rivalry in my view. Battleships have a few important things going for them. Modern armour is jolly well formidable, their guns can go a very long way, they have the size necessary to carry the largest missiles and you need another battleship to sink one."

"You mean to tell me that none were sunk by carriers in World War Two?"

"Exactly that. There were a few older ones that were very badly damaged by airstrikes down in the Med, but even then, they had to be finished off by the battlewagons and the coup de grace from destroyer torpedoes; if we'd had the Helmover during the war, that might have been a bit of a different story. There hasn't been a stand-up fight between battleships since 1945, nor a major naval clash for that matter, so the jury continues to be out on that matter. It is a bit more murky when it comes to submarines."

"From what I can remember of what I read back home, modern heavyweight submarine torpedoes would break the keels of a carrier or battleship."

Bailey nodded vigorously. "There was quite the worry about that sort of threat back when Dreadnought entered service with her superheavy torpedoes. If you listened to some chaps, everything that floated suddenly became obsolete. But, just like anything, the boffins developed a rather clever defence in the form of the anti-torpedo."

"Let me guess, some sort of supercavitating defensive torpedo?"

"Not quite, although the Soviets are apparently doing some work on that sort of thing. These are simply very fast guided torpedoes with a special arcane tracker that are launched at incoming threats by capital ships or their escorts. They've apparently worked very well during testing, but at the moment, they are a bit expensive, so that only the great powers can afford them; the second and third rank fleets have to make do with their own conventional subs and traditional methods of ASW, like the Royal Argentinian Navy for that matter. Why on earth did they invade the Falklands of all places?"

"They regarded it as their rightful territory, based on the earlier Spanish claim. There had always been a nationalist undercurrent that demanded Argentine control of Las Malvinas, as they call the islands, but it became stronger as the Empire began to fade away during decolonisation. When the military junta finally invaded in '82, it was to distract from the terrible state of their economy."

"Righto. Very different from here then. The main part of Argie irredentism is directed towards Prydain, based on the similar grounds of the old Spanish claim. The Falklands are just too far away from their heartland around the River Plate for more than a handful of firebrands to think that they can claim them."

"How long has Prydain been around?"

"As an independent Dominion, 1905 or thereabouts. As a colony? I think our first settlements down in Patagonia stretch back to the 1820s, when they first found gold down there. Of course, we had been interested in control of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan for over a hundred years before then, along with France and Spain, naturally."

"I see. What are the chances of Buenos Aires trying something against Prydain?"

"Extremely small, Sam, for quite a few reasons, both political and military. On a purely practical level, the Argies have a decent military, no mistake about that, but it isn't even the strongest one in South America; that is Brazil. In terms of modern ships, they've got a pair of rebuilt wartime fleet carriers they bought from us, two decent second-rate battleships, three brand-new cruisers and eight good destroyers. Their air force has just over 700 frontline jets, though only a few have the range to cover the 1200 miles or so to the Falklands. The biggest factor, though, is that they're a sensible, close ally of ours, although the new nationalist government is making noises about Uruguay and playing up the border tensions in the south for domestic consumption. Even if they did do something silly beyond what the Prydainians could handle, the Imperial South Atlantic Command would sort it out quite quickly."

"What is that? Some sort of standing naval force?"

"That is what they were initially, back in 1920 when they were established after the Jellicoe Report. Since the end of the Second World War, they have grown into much more substantial integrated commands. There is one in the South Atlantic, one in the North Atlantic, one in the North Pacific and one down in Australasia. At nominal full strength, they each have a carrier task force, a battle squadron, several cruiser and destroyer squadrons, a brigade sized amphibious landing force, a maritime patrol group, a tactical air force, a bomber wing and a reinforced division of ground troops. The cornerstones of British Empire security, as Stanley Barton is want to say."

"Sounds formidably strong and formidably expensive."

"Undoubtably. If he becomes Prime Minister, it is just going to get more costly."

"Then how is he going to afford all those new warships and aircraft?”

“That is the one area of weakness that the government have been harrying him on. From my point of view, ever so slightly on the inside, it’ll be exceptionally difficult to accomplish, particularly if he’s wanting to save money and pay off debt at the same time. Difficult, but not completely impossible.”

“He seems very gung ho in foreign policy towards the Russians. That can’t be the wisest course of action.”

“Gung ho? ‘Strive for harmony?’ I had no idea you had an interest in Chinese industrial policy, Sam. Gosh, I haven’t heard that since I was on the beat in Singers. Not sure how young Stalin would be interested in that, though.”

Sam looked at Bailey quizzically. “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m talking about his confrontational attitude towards the Soviets.”

“Ah, I see. Very popular stuff for the everyday chap on the street, that is, and nice fresh red meat for the anti-commo unions. Everyone has been awfully keen since the war to make it abundantly clear they have no truck with appeasement, you know, and that has been even more pronounced since the Middle Eastern War. If we don’t stand up to trouble, it will come looking for us anyway. That is the public line.”

“And in private?”

“Exactly what you’d expect, Sam. No one wants to get into a full on nuclear war chucking missiles at each other like so many javelins, particularly on this island. It would only take a few dozen big H-bombs to knock us so badly about that we’d have to fall back on the Empire and the Navy.”

“Broken-backed war? I thought that would have been abandoned as pointless and impractical; it was back home.”

“Some have said it is, but many are against it, including me as a matter of fact. We aren’t just limited to the Home Islands as we once were, but have Canada, South Africa, India and Australasia as industrial bases, not to mention Luna and British Mars. It would take a fair bit to knock us down for the count and even now, there are certain measures being put in place regarding the threat of the rocket. The bomber didn’t always get through and neither will this bugbear.”

“Anti-ballistic missile defence? Really?”

“Of course. We didn’t take the V-2s back in ’44 and ’45 lying down and what we’ve got coming through now is the culmination of all that. Each of the Big Three are sinking a fair bit into it and whoever solves the ABM puzzle first will have a considerable advantage. Violet Friend, Black Beauty and Blue Sky – long, medium and short range coverage. There are a few other little tricks underway that they say will stop even the bombs that get through from going off, but even I haven’t been read into them. Suffice it to say, the next one will be a long war.”

“This is a fair bit different to us. ABMs were kicked into the long grass by the mid 1960s because of politics and just being far too costly.”

Bailey appeared momentarily baffled. “More costly than having one’s country horribly damaged by thermonuclear weapons? Once again, the priorities of your home have me a bit puzzled, Sam. One can hardly have a healthy nation or one that fares well without proper defence.”

“We depended on strategic deterrence for defence; we went for massive retaliation with more gusto than the Americans in some ways, even when they moved towards a more flexible response.”

“Sounds familiar. We did have something similar, but never put all of our eggs in the nuclear basket, even though there was a fairly powerful body of opinion in favour of it between ’56 and last year; then we discovered that not every problematic nail either needs or suits an atomic hammer. Our outlook has always been a bit different from the Americans, given their greater distance from the threat. Still, every pound on defence now is an insurance premium to prevent World War 3 tomorrow. Which is a jolly good thing in my view; a nuclear explosion would be very bad for the roses.”

Sam paused and shook his head. “You don’t seem to be awfully perturbed about the prospect of it all.”

“Do you expect gnashing of teeth in despair? Would it help? We’ve got our shelter down below the cellar and everything is still nicely stocked from last year. There is enough food, medicine and general supplies for four months, along with the deep well for water."

"Sounds like you take civil defence rather seriously."

"Naturally, my dear Sam. All of our governments since the war have put a lot into such measures, to the extent that we've got the best civil defence measures outside of Switzerland or Sweden. Many parts of the country, such as this one, have close to complete provision of shelter space. Provided we get some sense of strategic warning of more than a few hours."

"We had a four minute warning."

"Good gracious. That's barely enough time to launch the ready missiles, let alone scramble the V-Force. No wonder your lot were a tad more fatalistic about the whole business. The worst we have is around 10 minutes flight time from the rocket bases in the Baltic SSRs; even then they take up to three hours to be fueled up, which is what the Royal Space Force stations are watching for. The Russians know that we can see them just as they can see us, so it acts to keep each other honest."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. The extra breathing space did explain some of the general confidence, but there seemed to be something missing that his rather talkative host had not mentioned. It stood to reason that all of the Soviet longer range intercontinental rockets would be aimed at North American targets, but what about...

"Submarines. That will be difficult for you to counter."

"Right once again, Sam. That is a bit of a nasty a prickle under the saddle. The Russians know, through back channels, that any missile subs that come within a certain range of the Home Islands are liable to have a most unfortunate accident, which is enough to add a little confusion to their calculations."

"That would be an act of war, wouldn't it?"

"What happens under the water stays under the water, Sam. You can see that things are rather precarious, to put it mildly, and so both us, Washington and Moscow are working to achieve something more stable. I jolly well hope that nothing kicks off and, like more than a few chaps, am working dashed hard to prevent it by stopping anything unexpected cropping up that could make any one nation or side think that there is no option. Including the situation with your good self.”

“The old balance of terror at play, eh?”

"Naturally. We can't wave a magic wand and remove the Cold War, but we can make it far safer for all involved, at least until we can get our defences up."

At that moment, Victoria popped her head around the door and fixed Simon with the pleasant smile that indicated that she required unconditional surrender.

“There you two are. When you have a moment, my dear husband, might it perhaps be possible for you to proffer a modicum of assistance in prepared our lovely progeny for their imminent evening repast? Only if you’re not too busy.”

Bailey sighed and stood up. “Very well, dear heart, I believe I can spare a moment. All of the great things can be expressed in a single word - freedom, justice, duty, dinner."

Victoria sighed and shook her head. "Ever with the Churchillian quips, Simon Bailey. Mayhap one day they might be funny."

"Your humour is your greatest treasure, my beloved little wyvern." He turned to Sam "I'm sure you'll find something on the old set that will interest you; failing that, have a gander at the green book next to my chair."

With that, he left and Sam could hear him immediately booming out to the children, wherever they might be in the house or yard. Following up Tea with Trecandrius on the television was a rather staid nature documentary on owls in the West Country. While some might well have regarded it as an absolute hoot, Sam was rather more circumspect about the prospect and instead delved into Simon's suggested reading material.

When he examined the title page of the thin book, he gave a momentary start. He'd had a few nagging thoughts in the back of his head over the last two days as to how he could pass himself off as an Australian at the fair when his knowledge of this version of the Antipodes was so thin. Either his host was highly attuned to his concerns or...well, Sam didn't really want to go there just yet.

As it was, he began to flick through what was cheerily titled in gold ink as the third volume of 'The Queen's Empire'- 'Australia'. It was only around three dozen pages in length, interspersed with many bright, glossy colour photographs of the land and its people. For the most part, it was full of surprises, at least from Sam’s perspective. The population in 1960 was over 25 million and there was much lauding of the growth of industry during the protracted postwar economic boom and its transformative effect on the nation. He was quite sure that there hadn’t been eight states of Australia back home and Darwin was still named Palmerston. As well as the great Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, there was casual mention of six large atomic power stations under construction, massive oil and gas projects in the isolated north of South Australia and something called the Bradfield Scheme. The rainfall map seemed very odd, with only the very centre being arid; he was sure that the fairly large lake up towards the middle was something different. Most of the section on agriculture went over his head, although he did see mention of experimental weather magic paying great dividends. Woomera was described as the rocketry hub of the Empire and something about the enthusiastic crowd watching a mushroom cloud rise above a far off desert horizon sent a chill down his spine. There seemed to be something missing though, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but perhaps that was just part of the overall sensation of dislocation and the strange feeling that something was watching him.

This persisted through to dinner time, when his attention was soon consumed by trying to avoid Victoria’s efforts to press a third helping of steak and kidney pudding on him. The children were brimming with enthusiasm for the fair in the morning and conceded an early bedtime after the first short film of the evening with only a modicum of pleading and negotiation. After they had bid the adults a cheery goodnight and trudged off to their bedrooms, Sam sat back and sipped from his cup of tea thoughtfully. Jet Squadron had been a fairly run of the mill adventure movie based around the experiences of crack English Electric Canberra crews in the midst of the Korean War, both in combat and back at bases in Japan and Malaya, but it had featured some amazing aerial footage that had clearly been taken during the war.

“Marvellous plane, the Canberra. They’ll all be gone by the end of next year. Bit of a change from back in ’56 when we had over 2000 of them. Still, that is progress for you and they’ve had a very good innings for a wartime bomber.” Bailey paused and tilted his head. “Something on your mind, Sam?”

“Yes, you seem rather quiet tonight.” Victoria now put down her sewing and looked at him.

“I’m not sure how to put it…”

“Verbally would be fine.”

“It isn’t that I can’t say it, more that I don’t really know how to put it. Every so often, I feel as if something or someone is watching me, even when I’m alone.”

Bailey sat forward, a reassuring smile spreading over his face. “That would be some of the monitoring spells that are scanning over the area, just to make sure nothing untoward occurs during your little sojourn here. The asforht obscures you, but there is a certain interaction between the dweomers that can feel a little unpleasant.”

“It isn’t just that…Almost every night, I’ve been having very strange and very vivid dreams of being chased by something.”

Simon’s smile faded. “Can you ever see what it is? In the dream, I mean.”

“No, I always wake up just before it gets me. They really are weird things – savage ducks, glowing doors and swirling shadows. Nothing like normal.”

“None of this is normal, Sam, not for any of us. It seems that parties unknown are trying to break in through the Dreamlands. Tsk. The boys down in London really should have thought about that a bit more. However, I have the solution for what ails you.”

“You do?”

“Well, a solution for the time being.” Bailey got up and walked over to look through a drawer in the corner. He fumbled through various gewgaws and bits and pieces before triumphantly producing a small necklace set with what looked like a single clear stone.

“Paracelsyite girt with alicorn. An absolutely sovereign remedy for disturbed sleep. Put this around your neck before you bed down and you won’t have any artificial bothers until the morning.”

It was to Sam’s immense relief and satisfaction that, after excusing himself from the second half of a romantic comedy about the Crimean War, it worked exactly as Simon described and he slept long and without dreams.

Save for one. Again and again, he walked down the long paths of forests and through corridors, ever trying to reach the glowing blue door that lay just beyond his reach.

Nice to hear that.