There Is No Depression: Protect and Survive New Zealand
- Thread starter Tsar of New Zealand
- Start date
The good news: the next update is ~90% done, I'm starting on the thesis, and I'm off to Vietnam for a conference. Okay, so that last part's not relevant but hey, I owe you guys some sort of look-in as to why I've been so damn slow lately.
The bad news: my laptop decided to pack a sad, so it's in the shop for the rest of the week. This is doing Unpleasant Things for my anxiety, to say nothing of my writing process.
Still, expect something in the next week or so, all going well. Til then, ask questions if you have any and thanks for your patience!
The bad news: my laptop decided to pack a sad, so it's in the shop for the rest of the week. This is doing Unpleasant Things for my anxiety, to say nothing of my writing process.
Still, expect something in the next week or so, all going well. Til then, ask questions if you have any and thanks for your patience!
XIX. Swear It’s True
XIX. Swear It’s True
This is a crisis I knew had to come
Destroying the balance I’d kept…
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Tauranga, Bay of Plenty
May 29, 1984
The Analyst entered the room carrying a mug of tea (which tasted like it had already passed through the rest of the Department, but it kept him chipper) and wearing a smile which was less tired than most. He was actually pleased to be in today; he’d been worked to the bone in the run-up to the war, and had been bundled out of Wellington after the Russians rolled through the Fulda Gap, but seen bugger-all action since. No more cables and troop movements for him; he got to help the blokes in Palmy deal with lists and figures and supplies of ink for printing ration cards (nine years if newspapers are cut to levels set out in Schedule C; six if the Press and ODT and Star and other periodicals are permitted to resume printing within assumed timeframes absent restrictions recommended by...Jesus, it’s burnt into my mind now. So this is madness, Roger.). Hardly the exciting life a twenty-three-year-old wanted from a career in the intelligence community.
But not today! Oh, this day of days! For the four-week quarantine on the American ships which had entered the port was over, and the Heroes of the Pacific were getting to stretch their legs; right up to the door of his merry little office. And so it was that today the Analyst got to wade into the messy world of diplomacy.
“Get you anything, Captain? Tea, coffee, a biscuit? Not like any of the three have been easy to come by recently but, well, we get along.”
“No thank you. Sir.”
“Well, there’s water of course, should you need it.” An apologetic look outside. “Not like we have a lack of that today, a-ha-ha.”
The American remained solemn in grimy dress whites, his mouth a tight line beneath wary and weary eyes, head capped by a fresh buzz cut. Do they all come like this? I wonder if the Americans have a biscuit cutter somewhere where they mould officers out of human beings. Ah, hell, he’s still staring at me. Uh…
“Ah…well, shall we get to it, then?” The Analyst clicked his pen and flourished a notepad genially. The American remained unmoved. The faint smile on the New Zealander’s face grew a little more manic. No, it couldn’t be easy, could it? That’d be far too much to ask. “Right, you are Lieutenant Commander Rhett Dinsenbacher, United States Navy?”
“Yes.”
“Commanding officer USS Merrill?”
“Acting.”
“And your predecessor?”
“Commander Newman, died on the day the exchange occurred.” The cold blue eyes stared into the Analyst’s eyes, into his mind and soul, and passed through the other side clearly unimpressed with what they found. “Heart attack.”
“Ah…condolences,” Roger replied weakly. “Um…can you describe your mission?”
“Classified.”
“You realise you’re in an allied country, don’t you Commander?” He didn’t say it peevishly, but rather in the eagerly friendly tone of a five-year-old. Much like a five-year-old, Roger pressed on with his clumsy attempt at persuasion completely oblivious to the Commander’s reticence. “And I’m an intelligence officer for said country, so you can…you can…um.”
A brick wall greeted him.
“Classified. Sir. I’m awaiting a debrief with military officers of your country.” The faintest emphasis on the word ‘military’; not enough so’s you could take offence, no, but plenty to get the point across. Roger blinked once, twice, then smiled again, the pleasant, empty smile of a man way out of his depth trying to keep it all together.
Now that he thought about it, he’d seen that smile a lot these last few months.
Undeterred, Roger continued his line of questioning, and managed about three more answers over the next twenty minutes. Then a knock came at the door.
“Uh, en-enter,” Roger said.
“Ah, Roger,” said a silky, sibilant voice as the door opened to reveal the man from the SIS. “Entertaining our esteemed visitor, I take it? Sir,” he added, touching two fingers briefly to his brow before his vulpine, yellowy eyes flickered back to the Analyst. “Shouldn’t you be down in Kawerau, Roger, making sure we keep a steady stream of arsewipes coming our way? The local rag’s far too stiff, for one,” he said airily, the slightest tilt to his head making it so that he was speaking down to the Analyst without being so vulgar as to make it obvious. The upshot was that Roger felt suddenly as if he was intruding, never mind the very explicit memoranda and letters and phone calls he’d received to make it clear that he was meant to be here. After a wide-eyed silence, it occurred to him to say something, if his tongue could be convinced to go along with it.
Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment his tongue decided not to meet his mind halfway on the issue, and so he ended up stammering his way along like an alcoholic stroke victim.
“Well, you see, I…ah…that is, I got orders from Christchurch…and I, uh…um.”
Brilliant, Roger. Putting that English minor to good use, I see.
“Is that a fact? Well, it looks like you’ve been” a brief, sharp inhalation “superseded.” He glanced at the American, who was watching the proceedings with what you could almost mistake for interest, and shrugged. “But, if you care to continue assisting me in my debriefing of our guest, so be it.”
Jespersen sloughed off his unmarked coat and sat heavily in the chair next to Roger. All of his attention was subsequently focused solely at the American.
“So, Commander Dinsenbacher, U.S. Navy, number…” he rattled off a series of digits which Roger couldn’t have hoped to remember without reference to paper or writing on his hand “you’re no doubt curious as to why you’ve been, for want of a more diplomatic word, ‘interned’ at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Yes? Well,” he said, “I find the formalities of all this as interminable as you do; but even after the end of the world we’re stuck with bean-counters and paper-pushers who insist that we dot every bloody ‘i’ and cross every bloody ‘t.’ So I’ve been dragged out here in the rain to ask you the same questions MFA and the Army and Cabinet – oh yes, believe me, there are folks in Christchurch who want to talk to you, no two ways about it – the questions which they are going to ask you ad bloody nauseam.
“So let’s cut to the chase, Commander; I’m going to ask you a few very simple questions about yourself, your vessel, its occupants, and what all of the above have been doing in their pleasure cruise across the Pacific for the last four months. After that, you’re free to join the rest of your crew, who’ve been sequestered in a hotel up the road.” A pallid smile. “Only the cleanest of sheets and hottest of dinners for the Heroes of the Pacific; we’re not animals. So if you’d care to tell me a little something about your encounter with those Red bastards” the curse sounded infinitely harsher in his cultured tones than the roughest backcountry cow cocky could ever have made them “we can both get to somewhere we’d rather be.”
A clock ticked once, twice, thrice. Dinsenbacher blinked once, twice, thrice, infinitely more slowly. And then, Roger’s heart leaping into his mouth, he began to speak.
“We were leaving Yokosuka on the evening of the 21st…”
It would be some time before Roger left to write up his report.
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Doubting, unsettling, and turning around,
Wondering what would come next…
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Te Aroha, Waikato
June 7, 1984
It was a Friday, so theoretically the working week was over. The old sayings about work never being done still held, apparently; if anybody in the Waikato had ever heard that phrase, they didn’t let it show. Life continued into the weekend at the same sedately busy pace, at once boring and difficult.
Rain again. The men were all out regardless, chasing cows in for milking, as the women were kept indoors for kitchen duty. The hand of women’s lib, it appeared, was yet to set foot in the district, something Mel took exception to.
“If any of these arrogant sheep-shaggers pulled their heads outta their arses,” she snarled as she flung a potato into the pot with particular aplomb, blasting water upwards as if it were a depth charge “they might be able to see that a pair of tits doesn’t mean you can’t point a fucking cow at a fucking gate and fucking well get it fucking milked.”
Grace didn’t really see any good response to that. Instead she shrugged and kept her eyes on the spud she was handling. The food was no more interesting than at the camp, but there was more of it and, well, the matriarchal old bizzum who oversaw dinner duty did seem to take a certain pride in her craft, so if the rations were repetitive they were at least well-cooked.
Speaking of the devil, Eileen had stumped her way in while they contemplated their potatoes. Christ alone knew how someone built like a brick shithouse managed to move so quietly, but the old lady drifted up behind you like a bad smell (though the faint aroma of carbolic soap and shortbread tended to give her away first, if the wind was right). And if she’d heard any of what they were saying…a shared glance and steadily reddening cheeks indicated that the same thought had occurred to Mel. Their eyes flickered towards the old woman as her sunbeaten and weatherworn saddle of a face split like a pickled walnut into a gaptoothed grin.
“Don’t you worry,” she said knowingly “come September, when they’re back to milking twice a day, you’ll get plenty of chances to prove yourself. You think those lazy sods are going to keep waking up at half four if they don’t have to?” A squawk of a laugh punctuated her speech as she described her husband and grandsons and the young men from Auckland who’d also seen themselves transplanted south as one. “No bloody fear; I shouldn’t be surprised if you get more done each than the lot of them put together!”
The girls were equally stumped, until Mel had the presence of mind to smile and laugh along. Grace joined in too, half a beat late. Eileen had business in mind, though, of course, and promptly asked Grace if she could check on the washing and see if it was ready to be slung on the wooden frame hanging from the ceiling and left to dry. Hiding her reluctance, she readily agreed and dried her hands on a teatowel before heading through the house.
It wasn’t that Grace minded doing the laundry – yeah, it was boring and repetitive, but it was better than going out and sowing seeds for cabbage and cauliflower and silverbeet in the cold and mud – but going to the laundry, which lay at the rear of the old farmhouse, meant going past the main bathroom.
Which she was doing right about now. Grace consciously yet subconsciously tried to avert her gaze from the open door (dammit it has to be open doesn’t it why does it have to be open), but still caught a glimpse out the corner of her eye of the pallid sunlight filtering through the patterned glass and illuminating the bath.
The last time she’d seen a bathtub like that – in the exact same position relative to everything else in the room, lit a certain way by the sunlight, even having the same taps – it had had her mother’s still-warm blood-soaked corpse in it.
It didn’t always do it, but the lighting and Grace’s subdued mood of the day meant this was one of the times it set her off. She was breathing heavily by the time she reached the laundry, and fell into a lean against the washing machine as her hands began trembling. She didn’t know how long she was there for, but when Eileen came in to ask after her, a rebuke for shiftlessness dying on her lips as she saw Grace stood stonily, she didn’t hear the first couple of times her name was called. Then reality flooded back to her. An instant later, so did the tears.
Eileen’s mood pivoted to consolation, her hand – soft and leathery and wrinkled and hard all at once after untold decades of hard work – rested itself on Grace’s shoulder, and she began to ask what was wrong. She didn’t get much of an answer. Nobody, Grace thought, would understand if she told them, or they’d think she was some silly city girl if she did.
Outside, a long, cold night fell.
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People who change for no reason at all
It’s happening all of the time…
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Christchurch, Canterbury
June 9, 1984
It was another surprisingly hot day in the capital (no, it still felt wrong to say), with the mercury creeping up towards twenty Centigrade. So much for nuclear winter, Palmer thought as Frank O’Flynn read out the latest report young Mister Dasent from Foreign Affairs had written on the interviews with the interned American sailors.
“…which makes a total of two hundred and seven locations confirmed ‘out,’ if we add all that to the list of places in the Perth Report and what the Indians told us about China.”
Some weren’t surprising: Guam, Pearl Harbour, Tokyo, Yokosuka, Seoul, Okinawa, Manila, and so forth. The least significant place Palmer figured he’d heard of having being hit would have to have been tiny Truk, all tucked away up there in Micronesia. C’est la guerre.
Lange’s fingers engulfed a pen as he fidgeted with it, the sunlight streaming in through the window occasionally reflecting off the metal and glaring in McLay’s eyes. That might have been an accident, but nobody in the room would’ve bet on it if asked. As the Attorney-General tried to act like it wasn’t annoying him (again, a losing bet if ever there was one), David asked a question.
“So how in the hell did the Yanks make it on their own with the oilers for better than two months? Surely they’d been attached to a battlegroup; what happened to the rest of them?”
The answers were predictably dismal: “on scant rations” in the first case. As to the second case, they’d been cycling back into action after replenishment at Yokosuka and were far enough out to escape the annihilation of the Tokyo metropolis, but had lost contact with the rest of Seventh Fleet and struck out for Guam after observing the degradation of the situation in Japan.
Now there was a question from Bill Birch: Why hadn’t they returned to base? Or at least to a surviving US territory?
Because, O’Flynn said, they’d been simply unable to find safe harbour anywhere else. They’d spent the better part of their journey under cover to keep safe from fallout plumes all across the North Pacific, and had only encountered signs of friendly life around Tuvalu.
“Did they ever break radio silence?” asked Palmer, his interest piqued. “Be helpful to know what – well, if anything else is, you know – out there at all.”
“Three times. Once during the Exchange, to see what the hell was going on with the fleet, once on approach to Fiji, and once as they approached Nauru, of all places. Apparently they bumped the Yanks onwards to us.”
“Can’t blame ‘em,” chipped in Lange. “They’re running short on most of everything up there; last thing they’ll want is more mouths coming in wanting fed.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Colin Moyle.
“Frank?”
“The Navy’s pretty chuffed with an oiler falling into their laps, but we’re trying to be careful of planning anything that might require it until we’ve either got contact with something even vaguely resembling a central authority stateside, or – and let’s be honest, this one’s more likely – we get the Americans to agree to work with us. Call it secondment or something.”
“Ah, correct me if I’m wrong, Frank,” interjected Birch “but isn’t that precisely what the Poms did to the Aussies with Perth? ‘Cause that isn’t a recipe for popularity, if Bob Hawke’s editorialising on the Perth Report is anything to go by.”
O’Flynn ummed and aahed over that one for a moment, before Lange stepped in.
“The difference is, Bill, that the Aussies were going over there to see whether there was enough left to send aid and then report back home, before being held hostages to it. The Americans came here because there was nowhere else for them and it was submit to internment or starve.”
“Not to mention,” said Frank, “that we have a formal security alliance with the Americans, and it’s not unreasonable to ask more of them than Corsham asked of the Australians. We aren’t going to push them too far into doing anything they don’t want to – we’re operating under the assumption that the Americans have at least a vestigial central government, and it’d be received tremendously badly if we acted in poor faith towards their sailors.”
“Speaking of, when can we expect to hear back from the convoy?”
“Ah…” O’Flynn checked his briefing papers “they should be there by now failing all but the worst eventualities. There are no scheduled shortwave check-ins until Monday. We should know more by then, subject to what kind of mood the British are in and whether our fellows think it prudent to send anything particularly juicy over the wires. Even then, the chaps at DSIR aren’t sure if the ionospheric conditions in the Northern Hemisphere have returned to normal. We shall just have to wait and see.”
If the prospect thrilled anyone in the room, they didn’t let on. For the time being, there was a briefing to be heard and work to be done. The transmission line reconstruction in Wellington was being hampered by uncertain weather, but the fallout was dying down to survivable levels in all but the innermost areas of Ground Zero. Auckland was even more encouraging, with arterial routes cleared as far as Spaghetti Junction. Nobody would be living in Parnell anytime soon, but in a year or three…it was just a matter of time.
Waiting was hell.
Christchurch, Canterbury
June 14, 1984
A knock on the door, and a man entered with a piece of paper, a uniform, a fresh face and a salute.
“Sir, we just got a message over the secure channel.”
The only sound was two dozen spines stiffening. The Prime Minister’s hands shook just the barest amount as he faced the messenger.
“What did they have to say?”
“Ah, just the one word, sir. ‘Pilgrimage’.”
A stunned blink preceded a manic smile of relief, which spread through the room like weaponised smallpox.
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Back out of my duties; when all’s said and done
I know that I’ll lose every time…
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PILGRIMAGE/PILGRIMAGE
PHASE 2 TRANSIT OF VENUS CONCLUDED. NZDF CONTINGENT ASHORE ASSISTING WITH AID DISPERSAL. GODWIT RETURNING W REPORT ON OTAGO THIS MONTH. SITREP ATTACHED FOR CABINET ONLY.
RSA CENT GOVT INCOMMUNICADO. PRETORIA, JBURG, CAPETOWN HIT. HAILED SAA FORCE PT ELIZABETH, CONFIRMS ONGOING CIVIL WAR. MARITZBURG LOST TO INSURGENTS. UNDERSTAND GAS HAS BEEN USED. HEAVY CIV CASUALTIES BOTH SIDES IF SADF TO BE BELIEVED, NO CONTACT W OFFICERS ABOVE 0-4. SCOUT FLIGHT REPORTED RADAR LOCK OVER WALVIS BAY, WITHDREW SAFELY.
REST OF AFRICA VARYING DEGREES DISORDER. ENCOUNTERED BRAZILIAN FRIGATE EN ROUTE ASCENSION, CONFIRMS BRASILIA HIT BUT BRAZIL GOOD OVERALL. ARGENTINE SITUATION DETERIORATING. BA COMPLETE LOSS. DEAD UNCOUNTABLE EST 2 MIL. REFUGEES FLOODING MONTEVIDEO. NO OTHER FRIENDLIES ENCOUNTERED TIL SPAIN. CAPE VERDE ISLANDS IN ANARCHY, FIRES VISIBLE.
CONF MADEIRA SURVIVED, NO COMMS W PORT GOVT: LISBON, PORTO, LAJES, SETUBAL OUT. RN ESCORT CONF SPAN GOVT IN TOLEDO BUT LOST MADRID, CADIZ, CORUNA, VIGO. BETTER OFF THAN PORT SAY SOURCES.
BRITISH LOSSES AS EXPECTED. CONFIRM PERTH REPORT IN ENTIRETY. RE ROI DUBLIN GONE CENT GOVT IN CORK.
CORSHAM ADMIN GOING WELL. SITUATION MORE STABLE THAN EXPECTED. MARTIAL LAW, RATIONING MEAN MINIMAL UNREST SEEN.
CONUS DAMAGE SEVERE. ZERO CONTACT SINCE FEB 21. GODWIT BRINGS DETAILS NATO CONVOPS UPON RETURN, WILL DISCLOSE BEFORE CAB CLOSED SESSION.
GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND.
PILGRIMAGE/PILGRIMAGE
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PILGRIMAGE/PILGRIMAGE
PHASE 2 TRANSIT OF VENUS CONCLUDED. NZDF CONTINGENT ASHORE ASSISTING WITH AID DISPERSAL. GODWIT RETURNING W REPORT ON OTAGO THIS MONTH. SITREP ATTACHED FOR CABINET ONLY.
RSA CENT GOVT INCOMMUNICADO. PRETORIA, JBURG, CAPETOWN HIT. HAILED SAA FORCE PT ELIZABETH, CONFIRMS ONGOING CIVIL WAR. MARITZBURG LOST TO INSURGENTS. UNDERSTAND GAS HAS BEEN USED. HEAVY CIV CASUALTIES BOTH SIDES IF SADF TO BE BELIEVED, NO CONTACT W OFFICERS ABOVE 0-4. SCOUT FLIGHT REPORTED RADAR LOCK OVER WALVIS BAY, WITHDREW SAFELY.
REST OF AFRICA VARYING DEGREES DISORDER. ENCOUNTERED BRAZILIAN FRIGATE EN ROUTE ASCENSION, CONFIRMS BRASILIA HIT BUT BRAZIL GOOD OVERALL. ARGENTINE SITUATION DETERIORATING. BA COMPLETE LOSS. DEAD UNCOUNTABLE EST 2 MIL. REFUGEES FLOODING MONTEVIDEO. NO OTHER FRIENDLIES ENCOUNTERED TIL SPAIN. CAPE VERDE ISLANDS IN ANARCHY, FIRES VISIBLE.
CONF MADEIRA SURVIVED, NO COMMS W PORT GOVT: LISBON, PORTO, LAJES, SETUBAL OUT. RN ESCORT CONF SPAN GOVT IN TOLEDO BUT LOST MADRID, CADIZ, CORUNA, VIGO. BETTER OFF THAN PORT SAY SOURCES.
BRITISH LOSSES AS EXPECTED. CONFIRM PERTH REPORT IN ENTIRETY. RE ROI DUBLIN GONE CENT GOVT IN CORK.
CORSHAM ADMIN GOING WELL. SITUATION MORE STABLE THAN EXPECTED. MARTIAL LAW, RATIONING MEAN MINIMAL UNREST SEEN.
CONUS DAMAGE SEVERE. ZERO CONTACT SINCE FEB 21. GODWIT BRINGS DETAILS NATO CONVOPS UPON RETURN, WILL DISCLOSE BEFORE CAB CLOSED SESSION.
GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND.
PILGRIMAGE/PILGRIMAGE
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Or pass through the deserts and wastelands once more
And watch as they drop by the beach…
Good update.
Brasilia was hit? That means over a million people are dead in Brazil, though Brazil got off easy, IMO (glad that Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro are still standing)...
Notice Barcelona wasn't mentioned as being hit in Spain (that doesn't mean anything, though)...
God, I feel sorry for the crew of the US Navy vessel...
Right now, I am not envying Rajiv Gandhi (or any surviving world leader, for that matter)...
Brasilia was hit? That means over a million people are dead in Brazil, though Brazil got off easy, IMO (glad that Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro are still standing)...
Notice Barcelona wasn't mentioned as being hit in Spain (that doesn't mean anything, though)...
God, I feel sorry for the crew of the US Navy vessel...
Right now, I am not envying Rajiv Gandhi (or any surviving world leader, for that matter)...
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Good update, Tsar! 
It causes some problems in terms of circulation within the country, but not too extreme.
Three main ports are out in the mainland, but that still leaves many ports.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_portos_de_Portugal
The railroad grid is only slightly affected.
It is my belief that after a few years both will be repaired out of necessity (and the rail lines might stay important in the post war recovery).
https://largodoscorreios.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/comboio-1.jpg
I assume that whenever possible, the civil governor would coordinate with the military regions structure
The list of civil governors (and mayors) of the time can be found here, starting on page 113:
http://er.cies.iscte-iul.pt/sites/default/dfiles/Livro Presidentes e GC 2013 MAPAlmeida.pdf
The casualties could be close to a million or so in the immediate (depending on the degree of warning and the type of nuke used), not counting with the fallout effects. Another problem would be food distribution. It would be necessary a strict rationing, and encouraging some people to return to their areas of origin in the countryside and promote an increase in farming, but it would still be bad.
Edit: in terms of politicians, the president of the time is a retired general (António Ramalho Eanes), and the PM (Mário Soares) heads an OTL grand coalition.
Edit2: regarding Argentina, I think it would be more likely that the refugees from Buenos Aires would go to the surrounding cities in the Buenos Aires region, instead of going to Uruguay.
This is quite bad, but not insurmountable.
It causes some problems in terms of circulation within the country, but not too extreme.
Three main ports are out in the mainland, but that still leaves many ports.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_portos_de_Portugal
The railroad grid is only slightly affected.
It is my belief that after a few years both will be repaired out of necessity (and the rail lines might stay important in the post war recovery).
https://largodoscorreios.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/comboio-1.jpg
There are bunkers in Oeiras(NATO) and in the Monsanto(AirForce) park in Lisbon, where the government would be safe, and although I have no data, I believe there would be some minor members of the government that would not go to a bunker (due to lack of space) but would go to a "relatively safer" place (hometowns, relatives, ...).
Madeira would be under the control of the regional government (headed by Alberto João Jardim) and the Minister of the Republic, General (then Brigadier) Lino Miguel.
While the loss of the Lajes and likely widespread damage to the Terceira Island would cause problems, the regional government (headed by João Mota Amaral), and the Minister of the Republic, general Tomás Silva, would be safe.
For both the areas affected and the unaffected, the Civil Governors would assume all authority until orders further above or unless previous instructions. In case of absence of the civil governors, authority would go to the deputy-civil governor, and then to the mayors until resumption of contact with higher civilian or military authorities.
I assume that whenever possible, the civil governor would coordinate with the military regions structure
The list of civil governors (and mayors) of the time can be found here, starting on page 113:
http://er.cies.iscte-iul.pt/sites/default/dfiles/Livro Presidentes e GC 2013 MAPAlmeida.pdf
The casualties could be close to a million or so in the immediate (depending on the degree of warning and the type of nuke used), not counting with the fallout effects. Another problem would be food distribution. It would be necessary a strict rationing, and encouraging some people to return to their areas of origin in the countryside and promote an increase in farming, but it would still be bad.
Edit: in terms of politicians, the president of the time is a retired general (António Ramalho Eanes), and the PM (Mário Soares) heads an OTL grand coalition.
Edit2: regarding Argentina, I think it would be more likely that the refugees from Buenos Aires would go to the surrounding cities in the Buenos Aires region, instead of going to Uruguay.
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Thanks!
Barcelona was hit, but the Captain hadn't heard that yet. Brazil got off light, sure, but expect democracy to be just a while in returning. Barring a catastrophic mishandling of the situation - still plausible, of course - Brazil could finally fulfil its Country of Tomorrow status. Could.
And sorry in what way? There's nine different kinds of ways to feel sorry for those poor bastards right now.
Good update, Tsar!
This is quite bad, but not insurmountable.
It causes some problems in terms of circulation within the country, but not too extreme...
...regarding Argentina, I think it would be more likely that the refugees from Buenos Aires would go to the surrounding cities in the Buenos Aires region, instead of going to Uruguay.
Figured you of all folks would have something to say
Regarding Argentina, most all refugees are headed to the surrounding areas; it just so happens that more than a few are deciding life on the other side of the Rio de la Plata looks a little less bad right now. It's a minority, but still more than enough for Montevideo to feel just a bit put-upon - plus, this is all third-hand information; who's to say what's being under- or over-exaggerated?What does that mean?
Honesty thought all the larger countries got similar treatment compare to the allies considering all the stuff about killing everyone that could rule over the ashes after both powers are dead.
Say how is Japan?
It's cannon that it did. For example when Shorts is mentioned in a certain spin-off (
) it is mentioned that it is a subsidiary of EMBRAER - i.e Shorts Brothers is the trading name for EMBRAER UK."Country of Tomorrow" is a reference to the adage, often attributed to Charles de Gaulle, that "Brazil is the country of the future, and it always will be." It's a common expression in Brazilian political discourse now.
One might say that the Brazilian version of "make America great again" is politicians promising they will "make the future arrive."
A best seller from recent years: http://statics.livrariacultura.net.br/products/capas_lg/628/42160628.jpg
But in P&S, it's a relative future that comes from most of the world throwing itself back into the Dark Ages.
One might say that the Brazilian version of "make America great again" is politicians promising they will "make the future arrive."
A best seller from recent years: http://statics.livrariacultura.net.br/products/capas_lg/628/42160628.jpg
But in P&S, it's a relative future that comes from most of the world throwing itself back into the Dark Ages.
Interlude IV: I Can And Shall Obey
Interlude IV: I Can And Shall Obey
After the laughter has died away
And all the boys have had their fun…
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From McGibbon, I. RNZIR: A History of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment 1961-2011. Auckland: Communications Corporation of Australasia, 2012.
Singapore to South Auckland: 1st Battalion After World War III
…story of the survival of 1st Battalion was an unexpected surprise and at first unbelieved by the High Commission in Melbourne. But after contact was re-established with RAAF Butterworth – itself the miraculous survivor of the Exchange and the largest outpost still operating under the Five-Power Defence Arrangements, alongside Penang which was serving as the interim continuity of operations headquarters for the Malaysian government after the destruction of Kuala Lumpur – the tale could be told in full.
The Battalion, it transpired, had obeyed its orders to discreetly go north across the Straits of Johor on February 20, and made its way in good order towards Kuala Lumpur even as communications with Europe grew patchy amid the Soviet advance to the Weser…
…the absence of losses on the way to Penang which stands out, with the only casualty being a badly twisted ankle suffered by an Army cook while retrieving supplies, during which he slipped and fell on a wet floor.
This surprisingly not-arduous journey was complete before the first device landed on New Zealand; there was not, however, sufficient time to break radio silence between the arrival of the convoy at Butterworth and the
sight of the mushroom cloud over Kuala Lumpur, and it was therefore assumed that they had been lost somewhere en route until the re-establishment of communications with the Malaysian government in April…
…arrived at Whenuapai with as much fanfare as the authorities in Auckland could scrape together in mid-June. It was the first time the men had seen what had befallen their country, and it was said that many wished they had stayed with the rest of the Battalion in Butterworth. Nevertheless, all put their hands to the task of reconstruction and civil authority before them, as winter loomed over the country…
Transit of Venus, Pilgrimage, and Early Rover: The Odyssey of 5th Battalion
…Company of 5th Battalion earned itself a storied history throughout the first six months of the Emergency, the Territorials having seen reasonably intensive use since X-Day in a large operational area extending from Taranaki to Wellington. Lead units of B Platoon were detached in the first week post-X-Day on the first reconnaissance mission to the capital, and later participated in urban patrol operations during March’s civil unrest incidents in Porirua (with A Platoon detached to Wanganui in the far more severe civil unrest the same month), and C Platoon found itself acting as armed auxiliary for the overstretched civilian policing elsewhere in its jurisdiction…
…of the Regiment in the Defence Force detachment taking part in Operation Transit of Venus was made up mainly of B Platoon, as well as a token guard of NZSAS and military for the small diplomatic corps on board Otago and a few auxiliaries from A and C Platoons. Alongside Lieutenant Commander McKirdy was the recently-promoted Major Mateparae, still on secondment from his formal role in 1st Battalion and for the foreseeable future effective company commander…
…provide “all aid and comfort such as Allied Governments may require”, including tasks of reconstruction, medical assistance, and logistical support. This was not of course an easy job: Britain, as everyone knew, was in ruins. The Company still endeavoured to do its best to meet this challenge, however, and worked tirelessly to put its hard-earned experience to the test…
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No surface noise now, not much to say
We’ve got the bad guys on the run…
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"Somewhere in the South of England"
(beneath Corsham, Wiltshire)
June 2, 1984
Lieutenant Commander Jock McKirdy wasn’t thrilled at the latest turn of events. It wasn’t that the Poms hadn’t been grateful for the help sent in the aid convoy; no, it was that they were so grateful they’d invited the New Zealanders and Australians and Indians to stay on a bit of a holiday. Provided, of course, your definition of ‘holiday’ extended to going out for little day trips on convoys up and down the coasts and pressing inland, trips which put New Zealand’s boys, his boys in the line of fire from whatever was going on in this burnt and scarred little country when it wasn’t being dressed up as a Potemkin village.
He’d known it’d be bad, and he had suspected that the soldiers at least might have to get involved with some kind of domestic reconstruction – but when the Poms had made it clear they had every expectation that the men from the tri-national convoy would be staying in the country for the rest of the month, McKirdy couldn’t help but feel they’d been sold out by the Beehive or Town Hall or whatever woebegone building it was the politicians were infesting these days down in Christchurch.
Still, he remained optimistic that the Brits would feel compelled to give their colonial nieces and nephews something in return for all their work – there was nothing to spare, but even their jerry-rigged equipment was streets ahead of the radiation gear people had back home (DSIR tried their best, bless their little cotton socks, but people weren’t exactly lining up for the work outside Wellington or inside the Auckland exclusion zone).
Being a commanding officer on one of His Majesty the King of New Zealand’s Navy vessels still afforded you some privilege, though, which merely made Jock feel worse for not being out there with the rest of his men. Instead, he got to cool his arse with a briefing from an unctuous little shit in a suit, Timothy Something-or-Other from the This-And-That Office. Officially, he was here as a liaison to help answer McKirdy’s questions. Unofficially…
“…so no, I don’t think I really know a lot at all about our facilities in that regard. I imagine we have looters. I’m pretty certain anyone would in this sort of case. But I can’t say anything on what the measures in place are like to deal with them.”
Timothy merely gave the little know-it-all half-smile the Commander had managed to establish a lifelong loathing of within a few minutes, nodding silently and scanning McKirdy’s face before making another comment.
“That’s understandable, Lieutenant Commander. Land-bound matters are rather out of your jurisdiction, I dare say.” The pointed air of those last few words did little to endear Timothy to the New Zealander; even his small talk, it seemed, was calibrated to insult without leaving a mark. “But then your dilemma is rather less than ours, even proportionally speaking. Britain is in such a sorry state these days, you know.” A pause – just the slightest pause – to indicate an answer would be appreciated from McKirdy, who took the chance to catch him off guard just as the grey functionary opened his mouth to speak again.
“Oh, she’s a right fuck-up, Tim; we don’t need to lie to ourselves there.” A slight wince met him, prompted by the honesty, informality, and swearing. Two can play at that game, you obsequious Brylcreemed turd. “Still, you’ve done a damn good job of rebuilding. We came through, ah, Southampton on the way, and I must say it’s not looking bad for a place which looks – well, I, ah, I mean it was – hit by an nuke.” Jock fired his own little smirking smile, aiming for congratulatory and pitying and superior all at once.
Of course, the Lieutenant Commander not being a man of broad emotion, he looked more like he was trying to pass a kidney stone than deliver condolences. McKirdy more than made up for it with his next remarks: “Which is why I’ve freed up our men to give your lot a hand;” implying I had a choice after your lot nuked Buenos fucking Aires “if nothing else I believe it’s a valuable opportunity to gain some experience we can put towards rebuilding back down home.”
A sage little nod from Timothy, the little smile never leaving his face or, more importantly, those beady little eyes. It was the eyes, they were like he knew something you were keeping secret, and so you began to take it for granted that he already knew everything, or like he knew some private little joke about you that he was smirking at.
“Well, we’re all tremendously grateful for the help, Captain. It’s always so gratifying for us to know that we here in Britain can call upon our friends in the Commonwealth when their support is so badly needed.”
“And New Zealand is happy to respond. After all, we know we can always count on Britain to spare us some attention themselves every once in a little while.”
Whatever dear Timmy was going to say was cut off by the intrusion of a tall, lean man in a suit so well-kept it would otherwise have looked alien. Would have, that were, if the grey hair, aristocratic glare and aquiline nose he addressed the world with hadn’t made it seem like the most natural thing in the world.
“I say, Stamper? Have you quite had your turn with our guest?” The gaze flicked towards Jock, the grey eyes looking through and past his own, before flitting back to the other suited figure. “I’m told he’s rather expected over in Cabinet.” A brief glance back at McKirdy and a smile the casual observer might take as genuine rather than idly commanding. “If you are ready, of course, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Course. Of course.” McKirdy stood to shake his interviewer’s (interrogator’s?) hand. “Well, thank you, Tim, you’ve certainly given me plenty to take back to Lyttelton.”
A slightly indulgent tilt of the head and a “You’re quite welcome,” as the apparently more senior intruder showed him the door. “Cheerio, Francis.”
“I do hope our Stamper didn’t tire you out unduly,” the beak-nosed man said with that false concern only the British upper crust could do so well, as they walked along one of the endless concrete corridors. “Assistant Whips can be such loquacious fellows, you know.”
McKirdy nodded and offered some bland answer, before venturing a question.
“Ah, so what do you do? Hell of a posh tour guide, I must say.”
The bespoke-tailored man smiled, modest-yet-smug. “What, me? Oh, I’m just the Chief Whip. Well, officially just a Whip, but as you may well have found yourself, promotions come rather more generously in these times, do they not?”
A smile in response which was appropriately congratulatory and commiserating.
“Yeah, yeah, I reckon it’d a bit more acute up this end, though.”
“Well, quite. Speaking of the chain of command, captain, I am to conduct you to the Prime Minister’s Office.” A faint smile danced its way across his lips. “If you would care to watch for a Number 10 on one of the doors, I shall introduce you.”
“Lead on, then,” said Jock, all at sea in the underground labyrinth.
Another agonising meeting with the Prime Minister. More pussyfooting around the fact the world had gone to hell in a handbasket and nobody knew what to do. McKirdy had thought even once the guns started firing that he was safe of such diplomatic bullshit in the Navy.
Too bloody bad.
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We’ll not fade out too soon
Not in this finest hour…
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Brighton, East Sussex
June 16, 1984
It was summer, if you could call it that. The sun shone weakly through the slate-grey sky as if it too had developed radiation sickness or succumbed to the almost unthinking state of blind, bland, robotic routine which was visible in every action and thought around here.
It still beat Palmy this time of year.
The Lance Corporal thought so, anyway: you could just about, if you tried really hard to think about it, forget there had been about twenty nuclear detonations within a worryingly short piss up the road (speaking of which, would his kids – if he ever had any – come out two-headed?) and that you were in one of the biggest remaining outposts of civilisation on the edge of a huge smouldering offal pit.
It was actually quite easy to do once you ignored the carless roads, the gaunt faces haunted by mistrust and fear and hunger, the soldiers and special constables and traffic wardens and was that really a Salvation Army bloke I saw on that last patrol? and men with armbands and rifles outside half the buildings, the slowly-mounting piles of rubbish in dark corners, the grime, the all-permeating stink of unwashed bodies, the noticeable lack of cats or dogs or even many seagulls, the barbed wire, the closed shops, the occasional burnt-out house…
Alright, so maybe not that easy, then.
It could’ve been worse. The New Zealanders had been regarded as too soft and green for any of the real work of the British forces (not unfair considering what the Poms were expected to do), so they’d been divided into platoons and sections before being put on what was effectively a cop’s beat in a green zone or running guard duty on a few truckfuls of pitiful rations.
He’d gotten away with doing the former. It wasn’t the worst work in the world, especially considering what similar tasks had brought in the past.
The makeshift hospital in Wellington still appeared when he closed his eyes sometimes.
There’d been a lot more of that sort of shit going on up here then even Wellington, but the Poms made up for it by being almost frantically happy to see friendly faces from somewhere, anywhere else. They were skinnier than the worst of those back home, too; dark mutterings claimed (quietly and far from listening ears, of course) that the Powers That Be had withheld food supplies for a fortnight after the bombs had dropped, just to weed out the weak and sick. The Lance Corporal had shook his head at the two or three people who’d said that. Okay, sure, things were pretty fucked up around these parts, but nobody would starve old folks and kiddies just because they couldn’t work.
He kept telling himself that.
Like any of the other Kiwis, your well-fed young man in a cleanish uniform stuck out like a sore thumb on a fingerless hand. Like any of the other Kiwis or Aussies or Indians, that meant he attracted whores and beggars and children and the weak and sick like cowshit drew blowflies.
“Fuck sakes, Zitty,” said Scott as his fellow private swatted away the cadaverous woman he’d just given a packet of dried soup to, “at least be choosy with ‘em, won’t ya?”
“Eh?”
“He means don’t feed the ones you don’t wanna fuck,” drawled Tangaroa out the corner of his mouth, his enormous forearms folded across his chest. Very few people had tried to scab food off him, the Lance Corporal had noticed. Tommy Zitnik, on the other hand...
“Do I have to want to fuck any of ‘em?” he said plaintively. “Can’t a fella just want to do somethin’ nice?”
“Tommy,” began Scott, “nobody up this way’s doing anything nice for anyone anymore. If the fallout warning earlier wasn’t enough of a clue for you, there’s a war on.”
“Bet your arse there is,” interrupted the Lance Corporal, “and that means when I tell you to shut your trap and let Zitnik piss away his rations, you zip it.”
Silence descended, for about fifteen seconds (how far you obeyed authority had ranks, too), as the squad kept on watching the crowd assembled – queued up, actually – outside the fenced-in area around the shopfront acting as a distribution centre. Then Tommy piped up again in his defence with “ ‘Sides, you fuck any of this lot, you’re liable to come away with her vaj in your hand,” and even the Lance Corporal had to join in on the laughter as they masked the horrifying truth of radiation poisoning with some good old fashioned profanity.
That distracted them just long enough for someone to break from the line and make for the pile of provisions nearby. The New Zealanders turned an instant too late to catch him and the man – the boy, really, sixteen or seventeen if he was a day – leapt upon a duffel bag full of oats and rice, after which things began to move quickly. Smelling a chance and, more importantly, unattended food, the line began to disintegrate as people got themselves ready to take advantage of this windfall.
Large crowd. Sixty, a hundred even. Not fit, not strong, but desperate, tear a bugger’s arm off for a leg of lamb. Other fella, troublemaker, thief, running towards them, setting an example of cowardly Kiwis.
The Lance Corporal saw this and began calling the squad to order.
Stand tall, show strength, spook ‘em into submission.
The Pommie auxiliaries raised their own weapons to the crowd alongside them as the kid scrambled to his feet and hauled the bag along with him towards the crowd which, possessed by the spectre of anarchy, had started rearing up before them.
Food riots they’ve seen food riots one of them said something about a whole town rebelling up north need to stop it now dammit now.
Now.
The teenager had covered about twenty metres, maybe three-quarters of the way to the throng of people, when his face exploded outwards just to the right of the bridge of his nose, spraying viscera across the courtyard and the legs and feet of those before him as he collapsed forwards bonelessly and the bag split as impossibly red blood began pouring across the ground. Silence – real silence, not the polite pause of the conversation half a minute ago – clanged down like a steel grate.
“Everyone stand the fuck back in line before anyone else gets it!” bellowed someone close to the Lance Corporal.
As the ringing and rush of blood in his ears died down and the edges of the world became less fuzzy he felt the weight of the semiauto in his hands and the pressure of the butt against his shoulder and the hoarseness in his throat from when he’d shouted just now.
He felt everything: the clammy plastic of the handguard, the dust in the breeze blowing across his cheek, the streak of sweat scouring its way down his spine, the static tension crackling through the square. As he breathed coolly, mechanically, and lowered his gun, the crowd pulled back and reformed their silent queue, one of the Poms came along and directed two aides to “cart that one off for disposal,” and order restored itself, the momentary turbulence passing like a squall on an otherwise humdrum day.
The jokes rang hollower for the rest of the squad’s watch that afternoon, and even though when they went back to camp the Lance Corporal was the same as ever, he looked through everyone he spoke to for the rest of the day.
He’d never killed a man before. That wasn’t really what he’d signed up for the Army to do. Too bloody bad for the kid he’d just gone and shot in the fucking head.
He’d looked like his cousin.
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Whistle your favourite tune
We’ll send a card and flower…
Pretty nasty having to shoot that kid. However law and order in the UK is very fragile at this point. Had the Kiwis not shot the looter (and let's face it that's what he was) much worse might have happened. Imagine if the crowd had decided to follow his example and suddenly you've got a full-on food riot with dozens possibly killed.
Great TL i must say,i really like the Cold Chisel excerpts.
What happened to Indonesia,by the way?I've always wondered how we would fare in a nuclear exchange...
What happened to Indonesia,by the way?I've always wondered how we would fare in a nuclear exchange...
Life in the UK is at this moment, grisly and dystopian,
Oh my, yes. As badly trashed as Auckland is (and the less said about the sucking chest wound that is Wellington, the better), it ain't a patch on Merrie Olde England.
That's about the long and the short of it. Doesn't make our dear friend the LC feel any better about it, though.
Thanks! I've gotten quite into 80s music in no small part thanks to this TL, and I like to think it lends tone/aesthetic.
IIRC, I mentioned Jakarta and maybe-probably Surabaya (or was it Bandung?) copping a few kilotons from the Sovs, but I don't believe I nor anyone else in the P&S Cabal has addressed Southeast Asia properly.
Status report: I'm still slogging up the mountain, and while I'm past the halfway point I've got a godawful month ahead of me - the next update will be mid-Feb at the absolute earliest.
On that note, I'd say we're entering the last act of this TL; I've been feeling it's increasingly in peril of becoming a shambling zombie TL and I want to keep it relatively tight and neat, so chronologically I'm looking at wrapping up the majority of the action by the end of 1984 ITTL. I have ideas and vignettes written up or planned out through to TTL's ~2017, but I don't want to take too much away from the here and now of it all. I also want to avoid in engaging in anything which makes the postwar period look to wanky or rose-tinted, but at the same time I feel like there's room to explore changes - but that's a whole other story.
Besides which, I've also found that my writing style has migrated (and let's be honest, the quality has changed for the better, too) over the last two years of writing this out, which is understandable considering the first half of it was written essentially by the seat of my pants. So, that said, I'm looking at doing some rewrites once I get the final few updates out, to flesh out the first dozen chapters or so, develop characters a bit better, and tighten the plot a bit, with a view to re-releasing a definitive version before too long.
That's a ways off yet, though; for now, there's still a good four or five updates to flog out of this hobbyhorse. Thanks for sticking around this long, folks: your patience will be rewarded soon enough.
Just re-reading the thread and found this interesting in the wake of the Kaikoura earthquake in November and the subsequent post quake demolitions in Wellington. While not the fabled "big one" it wasn't insignificant either. I think the strengthening and building codes did pretty well overall (aided a bit by the earthquake being late on a Sunday night rather than during a busy weekday to be fair).