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Interlude I – London Calling
The character of Ross Bailey is adapted from PimpLenin's TL The Lucky Country: Protect and Survive Australia. I have only made use of the name; the rest is a different interpretation/continuity of the events in the P&S universe than his. No plagiarism is intended. With that covered, here's an update. Look who's learned how to stick to a schedule 
Interlude I – London Calling
It was an April morning
When they told us we should go…
Portsmouth, Hampshire
April 4, 1984
To his credit, Commander Ross Bailey of the Royal Australian Navy didn’t react to the news he’d just heard with anything more dramatic than a widening of the eyes and catch of the breath. It was, however, audible enough for Whitelaw to give a sad little grimace.
“Captain,” he continued softly but firmly in that plummy Pommie accent which sounded like his back teeth were catching on the inside of his deflated-balloon cheeks, “Britain may be down, but we are not out.” He punctuated every word of that sentence by jabbing a finger on the oak table before moving on. “The world needs to know that if we are attacked by the Soviet Union, by the Argies, or by, or ah, or Tuvalu, we will strike back. Hard.”
Bailey closed his eyes and nodded, the ticking of the clock the only other sound in the room as he processed what had been said. “I see.” You’re all mad you’re all mad you crazy sonsabitches whywouldyouwishmoreofthisshitonanyonewhywouldwha-
The Prime Minister – leader of this shell of what was (of what had been?) Australia’s mother country and one of its greatest allies – kept talking, the words echoing in Bailey’s mind for hours afterward. The gleam in his eyes, though, would stay with Ross for much longer. It was the gleam of desperation without compare, of a man who has run out of all options and all alternatives and is thinking of the unthinkable as nothing more than a means to an end. The bags under his eyes and greying hairs retreating from the temples only added to the image.
“Captain, it is a…terrible thing, I know. However, our remaining nuclear weapons – and there are precious few of those, I assure you – are the only defence left to us.”
The Australian emissary nodded blankly as the Prime Minister kept talking. He’d never felt as glad as he was for the fact that they were sailing back home tomorrow.
And as I turned to you, you smiled at me
How could we say no?
Somewhere in the South Atlantic, WNW of the Cape of Good Hope
April 15, 1984
Before setting out from Albany they’d stripped the Perth of everything even faintly unnecessary to extend her range beyond the standard six thousand nautical miles. It had been made much easier – which was to say remotely logistically possible in the first place – with the presence of a civilian oiler, though that had made port in Cape Verde before they made for Britain – you never knew, after all – and Bailey had decided tell a little white lie to the Poms aboard in claiming that it just happened to be an Australian vessel they just happened to stumble across off West Africa on the way to Portsmouth. It probably hadn’t fooled anyone, but it was good enough for diplomacy.
More importantly, the extra fuel had meant that they could really thrash the ring out of the Perth and keep their speed above the 15-knot line; they’d made a steady 25 or so since Praia and should be home by Anzac Day.
Bailey glanced uneasily at the Royal Navy man the Poms had stuffed aboard in place of his second mate (his exec, who had been with him since basic, had not taken that well at all) as he looked idly towards the coast of South Africa.
“Shame it’s all gone, isn’t it?”
“Ah, yeah, suppose so. Still, not like we were playing rugby against them anymore.”
“No,” replied the Brit – who was a commander himself, but as an ADC on secondment from the RN was very kindly permitting Bailey to treat him as a subordinate – leaving an uncomfortable silence in the space between the two men on the otherwise busy ship. “Still, I was always more of a cricketer, myself.”
“Well, a shame we’ll be on different sides when the next Ashes comes up.”
A faint smile. If it ever comes. The words went unsaid, and didn’t join the other hollow words caught by the wind whistling towards a land which probably no longer had much use for sport. He recalled snippets of frantic transmissions they’d picked up on the way to Portsmouth, and the vague narrative they’d managed to sew together from the disparate facts they’d gotten on their close pass to the southern coast of the continent.
Cape Town was out for six, they knew that much. Same with the Pretoria to Johannesburg belt, if the ‘Effricans they’d had a brief talk on the blower with in Durban were to be believed. Port Elizabeth was still in, but nobody seemed to know what was happening. Neither the Admiralty nor Melbourne were keen to check for sure. A chill ran down Bailey’s spine, one that had nothing to do with the westerly wind. According to the intelligence officer, the government had dropped what he described as “an absolute shitload of mustard gas on the darkies” while beating a retreat from Pretoria to – where? Some sort of white man’s redoubt, they’d figured. If they were salting the earth after them…
The Commander hoped they never had to play rugby there again.
Oh, to sail away
To sandy lands and other days…
“I believe that when Australians are confronted with the facts of crisis, that they have sufficient commitment to this country to respond positively…in 1941 and ’42…in the more dramatically obvious crisis of war, then they responded to the need to adapt and to change.
Now I believe that in the crisis confronting us now – when we openly bring Australians together and confront them with the facts – that they will respond.”
- Bob Hawke, 1983 press conference
Melbourne, Victoria
April 10, 1984
Government House, which had been dusted off for Emergency Government use soon after the dust from Canberra and Sydney had settled (all of a sudden Bob Hawke realised how much he wished he hadn’t thought of it in those specific terms), was an immense, beautiful structure. The Governor had been all too eager to see the State Government more or less evicted as the Federal Government made itself at home, and he might well be – for was it not that, after fifty-seven long years, Melbourne had retaken its position as capital and primus inter pares of the great Australian cities?
Not that that was much of a statement, with Sydney and Perth shells of their former selves, Canberra and Darwin smoking craters, and everything north of Brisbane effectively ungoverned.
As Mister Palmer pointed out with a smile at the corner of his mouth, though, had it really been governed besides on the suffrage of Mister Bjelke-Petersen before the bombs fell, anyway?
And Hawke had laughed, deciding that this was a man he could do business with.
“So what do we make of it then, Geoff?” Bob said as he looked out at the gardens, where an elderly gardener was still pottering about tending to the flowers.
“Well, Britain’s still in, which I don’t think we’d honestly even thought about on our side of the ditch. So I’d say a lot of people are going to get very happy, then very worried, then…” he spread his hands, and Bob nodded. Most of Australia and New Zealand either had friends and family in or were themselves from the UK. The prospect of some of those friends and family still being alive was a dizzying one, even for the two Prime Ministers, closely followed by the possibility that they were dead for sure. Hope was frightening like that.
“According to the skipper of the Perth,” Hawke said, glancing towards the telex from Réunion “the Poms have suffered an almighty knock.”
“Well, quite.”
“London, Birmingham, Glasgow…anywhere worth a bomb and a few places that weren’t.”
“So the capital’s in…”
“Portsmouth.”
“You would have thought they’d hit that, surely?”
“A miss, they reckon. I believe there’s a diplomatic bag being sent; reckon we’ll learn more when the Perth gives us a better report.”
“I did get a quick rundown on the flight from Christchurch to that effect. So they want food, and lots of it, then? Well, Federated Farmers should love this. I think we can manage enough shipping for it; there ought to be a freighter or two about that nobody will notice go missing.”
“Ah, praise be to eminent domain. Well, we’ve got a little time to plan for that, at least. No, I ah, that’s not all, though, yer see. Our fella had other news.” The look that darkened Hawke’s suncreased face said enough.
“…shit.”
“Ye-es,” said Hawke at length. “Seems our man had a meeting with Whitelaw before he left. They tried sending a little boat to the Falklands –”
“Oh, God.”
“– and it came back shot fulla holes an’ down three men. Sea burials, full honours, all that jazz. So Whitelaw made sure to tell him that they’d bombed Buenos Aires.” He exaggerated the words: Bway-nuss Airys. Palmer’s brow creased as a thought came to him.
“I would’ve assumed all their long-range bombers were recalled to Europe for the air war. Suppose they had a trick up their sleeve.”
Hawke opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he tried to grasp the magnitude of what he was about to say.
“They did. It wasn’t planes.”
“…oh, shit.”
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To seek the man whose pointing hand
The giant step unfolds…
Across the South Island
April 11, 1984
Transcript taken from the National Archives; radio broadcast on the morning of April 11, 1984.
Presenter: …aaand we’re back here on ZM Christchurch; that was one which I’m sure’ll be a classic before too long, it was of course the Dance Exponents bringing you all Victoria. We’ve got another great lineup for you before the news, and we’ll start with…
There is a pause in the recording as someone speaks to the Presenter.
Presenter: Sorry, what?
The Interrupter speaks again, in an excited tone.
Presenter: Alright, alright. Ah, we, we’ll start with one from Split Enz; here’s History Never Repeats.
Background chatter is faintly audible for the next minute and eight seconds, before the song is abruptly cut off.
Presenter: Jesus, uh, folks we, we have some breaking news here; bear with us for a second.
More chatter, with occasional interjections from the Presenter. From this point on the Presenter’s speech is interrupted periodically, as represented beneath with ellipses.
Presenter: We, we do have coming in confirmed reports that an Australian Navy ship has made contact with the Government of England [sic]…my God…yes, yeah, I know, there’s actually someone else EXPLETIVE DELETED well left alive out there…yes, um, we’ll be handing you all over to Radio New Zealand shortly where the Prime Minister is going to make a statement on the situation. Uh, stand, stand by please.
The next two minutes are largely dead air, with excited chatter between the Presenter and Interrupter clearly audible at points.
Presenter: INDISTINCT can’t believe it either, mate; I thought there was nothing left past Aussie INDISTINCT someone alive out there! We’re not alone, thank Christ…
Interrupter: What do you reckon Palmer’s gonna say about it?
Presenter: Who knows, he’s probably only just found out himself; we’ll probably know less than the audience after INDISTINCT said and done.
Interrupter: INDISTINCT hell out of the weather forecast, doesn’t it.
Presenter: Too EXPLETIVE DELETED right it does mate, too EXPLETIVE DELETED right. Oh…wonder what’s left up there? INDISTINCT Poms came through alright, there’s every chance the Yanks did, yeah? And what about the mother EXPLETIVES DELETED Russians?
Interrupter: INDISTINCT… (think your (?)) mike’s on.
Presenter: Oh, EXPLETIVE DELETED me.
Into the sun, the south, the north
At last the birds have flown…
From Shearer, Dave, ‘History Repeats: First Contact, First Fleet’ in New Zealand and the Third World War (Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 2004). [1]
…likewise, the first communication from the CHANTICLEER headquarters under the Wiltshire Plain which comprised the vestigial government of the United Kingdom was at first received with disbelief in New Zealand, and soon afterwards with excitement. If full-fledged nuclear war had failed to wipe Britain out, surely that said something for New Zealand’s chances…
…[A]s it was, the Whitelaw regime (for what else can one call a government operating at the end of a gun barrel, except perhaps ‘junta’?) was rather blunt, upon its assessment of the damage in the Antipodes, in regard to its desires for any bilateral relations which might yet be possible. To put it simply, the British wanted food. Lots of it. So much so that, when HMAS Perth returned to Melbourne, it was with a complement of Royal Navy in place of half the Australian crew, with a token shipment of two radiation suits and an Engineer (who had been so keen on his homeland that he had practically swum across Portsmouth Harbour to get aboard) as a sort of down payment, a sop to diplomacy. The message was clear, and although the governments of Australia and New Zealand were suspicious – and to some extent afraid – of the methods CHANTICLEER was willing to exploit to get what it wanted, loyalty to the Mother Country won through with no opposition from the Emergency Cabinet…
…Palmer subscribed quickly to the strategy Hawke suggested during their first meeting behind closed doors in Melbourne, with the tentatively titled Operation Transit of Venus to be launched later that month with the Perth as flagship in what would make a nice gesture of solidarity with the Royal Navy…
…so it was decided. Transit of Venus would commence on the twenty-fifth of the month, in an immense logistical effort (by the standards of mid-1984) which would see tens, hundreds, thousands of tonnes of food collected from across New Zealand and Australia, distributed across damaged roads and through shattered towns to the rail hubs and ports from which they could be loaded onto the task force and its support vessels and from there shipped to the other side of the world. They were to be assisted in this venture by elements of the Army, with the logistics company of the…
It would be a long voyage, nearly four weeks in all, for those aboard, not only the sailors but also detachments of the Army regiment, a company-sized unit under the command of…
[1] The New Zealand version of the book. Copies eventually sent to the UK of 2011’s third edition were heavily edited with any of Shearer’s extensive criticisms of the post-Exchange Government excised on the recommendations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This reduced the length of his chapter from 39 pages to scarcely 20.
Oh, the sweet refrain
Soothes the soul and calms the pain…
Buenos Aires, Argentina
April 4, 1984
“My brother, you know, the one in the Navy,” said Juan's friend Camilo as they walked, “told me that the British were harassing our supply ships off the Malvinas. Apparently they told us tomarlo por culo sobre el horizonte, y fired on the Comodoro Py to make their point – so we fired back in their direction, they tried to sink the Comodoro, we nearly sank them, and then they left.”
Juan found his eyebrow quirking upwards at that one; the Navy had been sore about being put on a leash ever since ’82, and putting Massera under house arrest hadn’t calmed the flames at all. He could have cared more about the godforsaken rocks; a few thousand Englishmen were probably all that were left anyway; best to leave them in peace. Sadly, the people who got to make those decisions had decided to traipse over there anyway with what the news media persisted in calling a “humanitarian aid mission.” If Inglaterra had survived and come calling, though, and the Navy had been fool enough to piss them off…
“Son boludos si esto es así,” he replied “and the Navy as well, if they want to fuck with the people with nukes.” His brow furrowed again. “A moment – would does that mean that there’d still be anything left of England? I thought the Russians had them bombed back to the Stone Age.”
A shrug was all he got in response.
“I haven’t found out anything about that; all I know is what I hear from the radio and see on the TV.”
That got an only half-sardonic smile from Juan; the government was treading an unbelievably fine line at the moment as they balanced the tenuous democracy with one the one side a military which had seen the outbreak of another World War as a justification for the Reorganisation, and on the other the many hundreds of thousands of very angry, surprisingly well-armed individuals who would rather like to see Videla thrown out of a helicopter into the South Atlantic himself. As a result, official reports on the global situation had tended to be…carefully worded.
“Well, so long as we don’t end up like Brazil, we should be fine, or at least further from civil war.”
“In fairness,” ventured Camilo, “they’re down a capital city, which tends to take the wind out of the sails a little.”
“Can’t disagree with you. Well, geopolitical bullshit aside, shall we head to the café?”
The café in San Telmo was like most of the other buildings in the area, full of crumbling grandeur and the faint aroma of history being dimly forgotten. It was an imposing 19th century building which, from the stone façade, the wrought-iron railings, and the fact the windows all faced south, had been erected in the days before architects had finally clicked to the fact that the north was the sunny side. Still, it did at least make for a pleasant enough view of the Parque Lezama on the other side of Avenue Brasil.
So it was in the shade that Juan and Camilo sat just as noon passed, and there they talked and took coffee with some of their more bohemian friends who’d come out of the woodwork since the Reorganisation ended. He quite liked one of them, a young woman with a pierced eyebrow and an expression from behind which she seemed to calmly survey the world. Rosario, he thought her name was. Juan had been working an angle there for a couple of weeks now, and he might be able to arrange something soon, if he was smart about it.
“I don’t see what one priest more or less is going to do in the mountains,” she was saying. “Pinochet’s as much of a bastard as the ones we threw out here, and likelier to do something stupid.”
Some Jesuit had been west recently, to try and minister to the feuding brothers in the Andes. With the somewhat jaundiced eye of someone who’d lived through the Dirty War, Juan couldn’t help but agree that his words would sound sweet and do little. Pinochet was a bastard, after all, and since he’d closed off the Strait of Magellan the two brothers had started unsheathing their fraternal daggers.
“Ah, but aren’t we all God’s beloved children?” retorted another man (Ignacio or something like that, possibly?) in a voice saturated with sarcasm. “The Pope probably found out anyway; all the prayers in the world didn’t save Rome, did they?”
That one may have been a bit too on-the-nose. He’d been to the huge public Mass they’d held along the Avenue 9 de Julio in honour of those who’d died, heard the speech of the Brazilian ambassador, seen the abject depression of the peninsulares who lived amongst them at the news of the destruction of their homeland, and of all the devout at the news that the Eternal City’s votive had been snuffed out forever. Like everyone else, Juan preferred not to think about that.
After a while he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stood to excuse himself, Rosario’s eyes following him rather deliberately as he did so. «Ho-la, I know what that look means. Well, Juanito, we just have to give it some time, get her home, and then…»
As he performed his ablutions Juan continued to think quite vividly about his nocturnal plans, and it was in the middle of one of the more diverting fantasies (while washing his hands, incidentally) that he heard the shouts of shock from the café. He spun on his heel, hands still dripping, to face the door, and blinked in confusion when he saw the bright light glaring through the gaps above and beneath. Forgetting his amorous intent for a moment Juan strode to the door and flung it open, just as another flash from the north illuminated the streets in a marginally dimmer but still blinding light. Casting an arm over his eyes he had just enough time to add to the confusion with his own “¿Qué coño?” before a third light flashed into existence, a fourth sun in the Platine sky. As the unearthly glow slowly dimmed enough to let one see without squinting, the clamour died down somewhat as people sat in stunned silence.
“So,” began Camilo, “what happened th–”
Then the windows blew in and the sound of a thousand speeding trains the wail of a million damned souls assaulted the ears filled the head shook the soul what the fuck what the fuck, as the blast waves of the nuclear weapons which had hit Buenos Aires swept past.
The three two hundred-kiloton warheads of the Polaris missile had hit in a roughly equilateral triangle about ten kilometres a side. The first and farthest explosion from the group in the café had been about twenty kilometres away, over the Campo de Mayo in San Miguel. The second was much closer, detonating a mile above the Aeroparque de Jorge Newbury and immolating most of central Buenos Aires and the majority of the Argentinian civilian government. The third and final blast occurred in (ironically enough) La Matanza, not too far from the intersection of the Avenue Camino de Cintura and the Calle Brigadier General Juan Manuel de Rosas, destroying a vast residential and commercial area.
As three towering mushroom clouds punched their way through the wispy clouds hanging over the city, sucking up the atomised remains of more than half a million unwitting porteños and casting an unearthly shadow over two million more writhing, dying casualties, Juan peered out from under the table he’d ducked under to see what was left.
He thought the earth was still trembling until he saw his hands clutching at the table-leg, shaking like a case of delirium tremens. He couldn’t hear am I able to hear am I able to see am I dead anything except a high-pitched whine as his ears tried to figure out as much as he had just what had happened.
Someone was on the floor, their face pulped by some of the broken glass which elsewhere littered the floor like a thousand diamonds. As his breathing slowed – as he felt able to breathe again – Juan heard someone crying. It took him a while to realise it was him. He didn’t waste the time on shame; a quick glance showed everyone else doing the same except for those too deeply in shock, unconsciousness or death to do so.
“¿Quién? ¿Por qué?” someone asked of the heavens. Shakily rising to his feet as if for the first time, Juan couldn’t think of any good reason. There probably wasn’t one. As he murmured Dios, nos ayuda over and over he shook his head in shock and fear and denial and panic. No, there definitely wasn’t one.
«…Este país ha sido atacado con armas nucleares…»
‘Oh, Albion remains
Sleeping now to rise again…’
Trentham Military Camp, Upper Hutt
April 14, 1984
“Alright, stand at ease,” said the Captain. “Now, no doubt you’ve all heard by now the Prime Minister’s speech, and I’m sure you’re all excited at the news. Britain’s still standing, a bit bloody ‘round the brow but still there.”
The Lance Corporal blinked and opened his mouth to ask a question, before a private from another section did it for him.
“Is the war still on?”
A sad smile from the Captain. “Certainly is, Stevens. As far as I’ve been told, yes. There was a rumour that someone in the Urals surrendered –” a brief murmur in the crowd “– though God knows if there’s enough left of Russia to surrender to anyone.”
“Sir?” The Captain turned to face Private Scott. “Has the Brass said anything about the Americans?”
A sterner look. “Nothing that I’ve heard. The Aussies picked up two of their ships in the Indian Ocean, but that’s about it.”
“S-Sir?” A benignly tolerant look directed at the Lance Corporal this time.
“Why…are we being told all this?”
Another faint smile. “I did wonder when someone was going to ask me that. The Regiment’s been volunteered to help with the logistics of an aid convoy they’re sending over to Britain. And we’re all getting on the boat with them.”
I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way
I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way…
Interlude I – London Calling
It was an April morning
When they told us we should go…
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Portsmouth, Hampshire
April 4, 1984
To his credit, Commander Ross Bailey of the Royal Australian Navy didn’t react to the news he’d just heard with anything more dramatic than a widening of the eyes and catch of the breath. It was, however, audible enough for Whitelaw to give a sad little grimace.
“Captain,” he continued softly but firmly in that plummy Pommie accent which sounded like his back teeth were catching on the inside of his deflated-balloon cheeks, “Britain may be down, but we are not out.” He punctuated every word of that sentence by jabbing a finger on the oak table before moving on. “The world needs to know that if we are attacked by the Soviet Union, by the Argies, or by, or ah, or Tuvalu, we will strike back. Hard.”
Bailey closed his eyes and nodded, the ticking of the clock the only other sound in the room as he processed what had been said. “I see.” You’re all mad you’re all mad you crazy sonsabitches whywouldyouwishmoreofthisshitonanyonewhywouldwha-
The Prime Minister – leader of this shell of what was (of what had been?) Australia’s mother country and one of its greatest allies – kept talking, the words echoing in Bailey’s mind for hours afterward. The gleam in his eyes, though, would stay with Ross for much longer. It was the gleam of desperation without compare, of a man who has run out of all options and all alternatives and is thinking of the unthinkable as nothing more than a means to an end. The bags under his eyes and greying hairs retreating from the temples only added to the image.
“Captain, it is a…terrible thing, I know. However, our remaining nuclear weapons – and there are precious few of those, I assure you – are the only defence left to us.”
The Australian emissary nodded blankly as the Prime Minister kept talking. He’d never felt as glad as he was for the fact that they were sailing back home tomorrow.
And as I turned to you, you smiled at me
How could we say no?
Somewhere in the South Atlantic, WNW of the Cape of Good Hope
April 15, 1984
Before setting out from Albany they’d stripped the Perth of everything even faintly unnecessary to extend her range beyond the standard six thousand nautical miles. It had been made much easier – which was to say remotely logistically possible in the first place – with the presence of a civilian oiler, though that had made port in Cape Verde before they made for Britain – you never knew, after all – and Bailey had decided tell a little white lie to the Poms aboard in claiming that it just happened to be an Australian vessel they just happened to stumble across off West Africa on the way to Portsmouth. It probably hadn’t fooled anyone, but it was good enough for diplomacy.
More importantly, the extra fuel had meant that they could really thrash the ring out of the Perth and keep their speed above the 15-knot line; they’d made a steady 25 or so since Praia and should be home by Anzac Day.
Bailey glanced uneasily at the Royal Navy man the Poms had stuffed aboard in place of his second mate (his exec, who had been with him since basic, had not taken that well at all) as he looked idly towards the coast of South Africa.
“Shame it’s all gone, isn’t it?”
“Ah, yeah, suppose so. Still, not like we were playing rugby against them anymore.”
“No,” replied the Brit – who was a commander himself, but as an ADC on secondment from the RN was very kindly permitting Bailey to treat him as a subordinate – leaving an uncomfortable silence in the space between the two men on the otherwise busy ship. “Still, I was always more of a cricketer, myself.”
“Well, a shame we’ll be on different sides when the next Ashes comes up.”
A faint smile. If it ever comes. The words went unsaid, and didn’t join the other hollow words caught by the wind whistling towards a land which probably no longer had much use for sport. He recalled snippets of frantic transmissions they’d picked up on the way to Portsmouth, and the vague narrative they’d managed to sew together from the disparate facts they’d gotten on their close pass to the southern coast of the continent.
Cape Town was out for six, they knew that much. Same with the Pretoria to Johannesburg belt, if the ‘Effricans they’d had a brief talk on the blower with in Durban were to be believed. Port Elizabeth was still in, but nobody seemed to know what was happening. Neither the Admiralty nor Melbourne were keen to check for sure. A chill ran down Bailey’s spine, one that had nothing to do with the westerly wind. According to the intelligence officer, the government had dropped what he described as “an absolute shitload of mustard gas on the darkies” while beating a retreat from Pretoria to – where? Some sort of white man’s redoubt, they’d figured. If they were salting the earth after them…
The Commander hoped they never had to play rugby there again.
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Oh, to sail away
To sandy lands and other days…
.-.. . - / - .... . / --- -. . / .-- .... --- / -.. . ... .. .-. . ... / - .- -.- . / - .... . / .-- .- - . .-. / --- ..-. / .-.. .. ..-. . / .-- .. - .... --- ..- - / .--. .-. .. -.-. .
“I believe that when Australians are confronted with the facts of crisis, that they have sufficient commitment to this country to respond positively…in 1941 and ’42…in the more dramatically obvious crisis of war, then they responded to the need to adapt and to change.
Now I believe that in the crisis confronting us now – when we openly bring Australians together and confront them with the facts – that they will respond.”
- Bob Hawke, 1983 press conference
Melbourne, Victoria
April 10, 1984
Government House, which had been dusted off for Emergency Government use soon after the dust from Canberra and Sydney had settled (all of a sudden Bob Hawke realised how much he wished he hadn’t thought of it in those specific terms), was an immense, beautiful structure. The Governor had been all too eager to see the State Government more or less evicted as the Federal Government made itself at home, and he might well be – for was it not that, after fifty-seven long years, Melbourne had retaken its position as capital and primus inter pares of the great Australian cities?
Not that that was much of a statement, with Sydney and Perth shells of their former selves, Canberra and Darwin smoking craters, and everything north of Brisbane effectively ungoverned.
As Mister Palmer pointed out with a smile at the corner of his mouth, though, had it really been governed besides on the suffrage of Mister Bjelke-Petersen before the bombs fell, anyway?
And Hawke had laughed, deciding that this was a man he could do business with.
“So what do we make of it then, Geoff?” Bob said as he looked out at the gardens, where an elderly gardener was still pottering about tending to the flowers.
“Well, Britain’s still in, which I don’t think we’d honestly even thought about on our side of the ditch. So I’d say a lot of people are going to get very happy, then very worried, then…” he spread his hands, and Bob nodded. Most of Australia and New Zealand either had friends and family in or were themselves from the UK. The prospect of some of those friends and family still being alive was a dizzying one, even for the two Prime Ministers, closely followed by the possibility that they were dead for sure. Hope was frightening like that.
“According to the skipper of the Perth,” Hawke said, glancing towards the telex from Réunion “the Poms have suffered an almighty knock.”
“Well, quite.”
“London, Birmingham, Glasgow…anywhere worth a bomb and a few places that weren’t.”
“So the capital’s in…”
“Portsmouth.”
“You would have thought they’d hit that, surely?”
“A miss, they reckon. I believe there’s a diplomatic bag being sent; reckon we’ll learn more when the Perth gives us a better report.”
“I did get a quick rundown on the flight from Christchurch to that effect. So they want food, and lots of it, then? Well, Federated Farmers should love this. I think we can manage enough shipping for it; there ought to be a freighter or two about that nobody will notice go missing.”
“Ah, praise be to eminent domain. Well, we’ve got a little time to plan for that, at least. No, I ah, that’s not all, though, yer see. Our fella had other news.” The look that darkened Hawke’s suncreased face said enough.
“…shit.”
“Ye-es,” said Hawke at length. “Seems our man had a meeting with Whitelaw before he left. They tried sending a little boat to the Falklands –”
“Oh, God.”
“– and it came back shot fulla holes an’ down three men. Sea burials, full honours, all that jazz. So Whitelaw made sure to tell him that they’d bombed Buenos Aires.” He exaggerated the words: Bway-nuss Airys. Palmer’s brow creased as a thought came to him.
“I would’ve assumed all their long-range bombers were recalled to Europe for the air war. Suppose they had a trick up their sleeve.”
Hawke opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he tried to grasp the magnitude of what he was about to say.
“They did. It wasn’t planes.”
“…oh, shit.”
.... . / .-- .... --- / - . ... - .. ..-. .. . ... / - --- / - .... . ... . / - .... .. -. --. ... / ... .- -.-- ... / -....- ... ..- .-. . .-.. -.-- / .. / .- -- / -.-. --- -- .. -. --. / ... --- --- -. -....-
To seek the man whose pointing hand
The giant step unfolds…
Across the South Island
April 11, 1984
Transcript taken from the National Archives; radio broadcast on the morning of April 11, 1984.
Presenter: …aaand we’re back here on ZM Christchurch; that was one which I’m sure’ll be a classic before too long, it was of course the Dance Exponents bringing you all Victoria. We’ve got another great lineup for you before the news, and we’ll start with…
There is a pause in the recording as someone speaks to the Presenter.
Presenter: Sorry, what?
The Interrupter speaks again, in an excited tone.
Presenter: Alright, alright. Ah, we, we’ll start with one from Split Enz; here’s History Never Repeats.
Background chatter is faintly audible for the next minute and eight seconds, before the song is abruptly cut off.
Presenter: Jesus, uh, folks we, we have some breaking news here; bear with us for a second.
More chatter, with occasional interjections from the Presenter. From this point on the Presenter’s speech is interrupted periodically, as represented beneath with ellipses.
Presenter: We, we do have coming in confirmed reports that an Australian Navy ship has made contact with the Government of England [sic]…my God…yes, yeah, I know, there’s actually someone else EXPLETIVE DELETED well left alive out there…yes, um, we’ll be handing you all over to Radio New Zealand shortly where the Prime Minister is going to make a statement on the situation. Uh, stand, stand by please.
The next two minutes are largely dead air, with excited chatter between the Presenter and Interrupter clearly audible at points.
Presenter: INDISTINCT can’t believe it either, mate; I thought there was nothing left past Aussie INDISTINCT someone alive out there! We’re not alone, thank Christ…
Interrupter: What do you reckon Palmer’s gonna say about it?
Presenter: Who knows, he’s probably only just found out himself; we’ll probably know less than the audience after INDISTINCT said and done.
Interrupter: INDISTINCT hell out of the weather forecast, doesn’t it.
Presenter: Too EXPLETIVE DELETED right it does mate, too EXPLETIVE DELETED right. Oh…wonder what’s left up there? INDISTINCT Poms came through alright, there’s every chance the Yanks did, yeah? And what about the mother EXPLETIVES DELETED Russians?
Interrupter: INDISTINCT… (think your (?)) mike’s on.
Presenter: Oh, EXPLETIVE DELETED me.
Into the sun, the south, the north
At last the birds have flown…
From Shearer, Dave, ‘History Repeats: First Contact, First Fleet’ in New Zealand and the Third World War (Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 2004). [1]
…likewise, the first communication from the CHANTICLEER headquarters under the Wiltshire Plain which comprised the vestigial government of the United Kingdom was at first received with disbelief in New Zealand, and soon afterwards with excitement. If full-fledged nuclear war had failed to wipe Britain out, surely that said something for New Zealand’s chances…
…[A]s it was, the Whitelaw regime (for what else can one call a government operating at the end of a gun barrel, except perhaps ‘junta’?) was rather blunt, upon its assessment of the damage in the Antipodes, in regard to its desires for any bilateral relations which might yet be possible. To put it simply, the British wanted food. Lots of it. So much so that, when HMAS Perth returned to Melbourne, it was with a complement of Royal Navy in place of half the Australian crew, with a token shipment of two radiation suits and an Engineer (who had been so keen on his homeland that he had practically swum across Portsmouth Harbour to get aboard) as a sort of down payment, a sop to diplomacy. The message was clear, and although the governments of Australia and New Zealand were suspicious – and to some extent afraid – of the methods CHANTICLEER was willing to exploit to get what it wanted, loyalty to the Mother Country won through with no opposition from the Emergency Cabinet…
…Palmer subscribed quickly to the strategy Hawke suggested during their first meeting behind closed doors in Melbourne, with the tentatively titled Operation Transit of Venus to be launched later that month with the Perth as flagship in what would make a nice gesture of solidarity with the Royal Navy…
…so it was decided. Transit of Venus would commence on the twenty-fifth of the month, in an immense logistical effort (by the standards of mid-1984) which would see tens, hundreds, thousands of tonnes of food collected from across New Zealand and Australia, distributed across damaged roads and through shattered towns to the rail hubs and ports from which they could be loaded onto the task force and its support vessels and from there shipped to the other side of the world. They were to be assisted in this venture by elements of the Army, with the logistics company of the…
It would be a long voyage, nearly four weeks in all, for those aboard, not only the sailors but also detachments of the Army regiment, a company-sized unit under the command of…
[1] The New Zealand version of the book. Copies eventually sent to the UK of 2011’s third edition were heavily edited with any of Shearer’s extensive criticisms of the post-Exchange Government excised on the recommendations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This reduced the length of his chapter from 39 pages to scarcely 20.
Oh, the sweet refrain
Soothes the soul and calms the pain…
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
April 4, 1984
“My brother, you know, the one in the Navy,” said Juan's friend Camilo as they walked, “told me that the British were harassing our supply ships off the Malvinas. Apparently they told us tomarlo por culo sobre el horizonte, y fired on the Comodoro Py to make their point – so we fired back in their direction, they tried to sink the Comodoro, we nearly sank them, and then they left.”
Juan found his eyebrow quirking upwards at that one; the Navy had been sore about being put on a leash ever since ’82, and putting Massera under house arrest hadn’t calmed the flames at all. He could have cared more about the godforsaken rocks; a few thousand Englishmen were probably all that were left anyway; best to leave them in peace. Sadly, the people who got to make those decisions had decided to traipse over there anyway with what the news media persisted in calling a “humanitarian aid mission.” If Inglaterra had survived and come calling, though, and the Navy had been fool enough to piss them off…
“Son boludos si esto es así,” he replied “and the Navy as well, if they want to fuck with the people with nukes.” His brow furrowed again. “A moment – would does that mean that there’d still be anything left of England? I thought the Russians had them bombed back to the Stone Age.”
A shrug was all he got in response.
“I haven’t found out anything about that; all I know is what I hear from the radio and see on the TV.”
That got an only half-sardonic smile from Juan; the government was treading an unbelievably fine line at the moment as they balanced the tenuous democracy with one the one side a military which had seen the outbreak of another World War as a justification for the Reorganisation, and on the other the many hundreds of thousands of very angry, surprisingly well-armed individuals who would rather like to see Videla thrown out of a helicopter into the South Atlantic himself. As a result, official reports on the global situation had tended to be…carefully worded.
“Well, so long as we don’t end up like Brazil, we should be fine, or at least further from civil war.”
“In fairness,” ventured Camilo, “they’re down a capital city, which tends to take the wind out of the sails a little.”
“Can’t disagree with you. Well, geopolitical bullshit aside, shall we head to the café?”
The café in San Telmo was like most of the other buildings in the area, full of crumbling grandeur and the faint aroma of history being dimly forgotten. It was an imposing 19th century building which, from the stone façade, the wrought-iron railings, and the fact the windows all faced south, had been erected in the days before architects had finally clicked to the fact that the north was the sunny side. Still, it did at least make for a pleasant enough view of the Parque Lezama on the other side of Avenue Brasil.
So it was in the shade that Juan and Camilo sat just as noon passed, and there they talked and took coffee with some of their more bohemian friends who’d come out of the woodwork since the Reorganisation ended. He quite liked one of them, a young woman with a pierced eyebrow and an expression from behind which she seemed to calmly survey the world. Rosario, he thought her name was. Juan had been working an angle there for a couple of weeks now, and he might be able to arrange something soon, if he was smart about it.
“I don’t see what one priest more or less is going to do in the mountains,” she was saying. “Pinochet’s as much of a bastard as the ones we threw out here, and likelier to do something stupid.”
Some Jesuit had been west recently, to try and minister to the feuding brothers in the Andes. With the somewhat jaundiced eye of someone who’d lived through the Dirty War, Juan couldn’t help but agree that his words would sound sweet and do little. Pinochet was a bastard, after all, and since he’d closed off the Strait of Magellan the two brothers had started unsheathing their fraternal daggers.
“Ah, but aren’t we all God’s beloved children?” retorted another man (Ignacio or something like that, possibly?) in a voice saturated with sarcasm. “The Pope probably found out anyway; all the prayers in the world didn’t save Rome, did they?”
That one may have been a bit too on-the-nose. He’d been to the huge public Mass they’d held along the Avenue 9 de Julio in honour of those who’d died, heard the speech of the Brazilian ambassador, seen the abject depression of the peninsulares who lived amongst them at the news of the destruction of their homeland, and of all the devout at the news that the Eternal City’s votive had been snuffed out forever. Like everyone else, Juan preferred not to think about that.
After a while he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stood to excuse himself, Rosario’s eyes following him rather deliberately as he did so. «Ho-la, I know what that look means. Well, Juanito, we just have to give it some time, get her home, and then…»
As he performed his ablutions Juan continued to think quite vividly about his nocturnal plans, and it was in the middle of one of the more diverting fantasies (while washing his hands, incidentally) that he heard the shouts of shock from the café. He spun on his heel, hands still dripping, to face the door, and blinked in confusion when he saw the bright light glaring through the gaps above and beneath. Forgetting his amorous intent for a moment Juan strode to the door and flung it open, just as another flash from the north illuminated the streets in a marginally dimmer but still blinding light. Casting an arm over his eyes he had just enough time to add to the confusion with his own “¿Qué coño?” before a third light flashed into existence, a fourth sun in the Platine sky. As the unearthly glow slowly dimmed enough to let one see without squinting, the clamour died down somewhat as people sat in stunned silence.
“So,” began Camilo, “what happened th–”
Then the windows blew in and the sound of a thousand speeding trains the wail of a million damned souls assaulted the ears filled the head shook the soul what the fuck what the fuck, as the blast waves of the nuclear weapons which had hit Buenos Aires swept past.
The three two hundred-kiloton warheads of the Polaris missile had hit in a roughly equilateral triangle about ten kilometres a side. The first and farthest explosion from the group in the café had been about twenty kilometres away, over the Campo de Mayo in San Miguel. The second was much closer, detonating a mile above the Aeroparque de Jorge Newbury and immolating most of central Buenos Aires and the majority of the Argentinian civilian government. The third and final blast occurred in (ironically enough) La Matanza, not too far from the intersection of the Avenue Camino de Cintura and the Calle Brigadier General Juan Manuel de Rosas, destroying a vast residential and commercial area.
As three towering mushroom clouds punched their way through the wispy clouds hanging over the city, sucking up the atomised remains of more than half a million unwitting porteños and casting an unearthly shadow over two million more writhing, dying casualties, Juan peered out from under the table he’d ducked under to see what was left.
He thought the earth was still trembling until he saw his hands clutching at the table-leg, shaking like a case of delirium tremens. He couldn’t hear am I able to hear am I able to see am I dead anything except a high-pitched whine as his ears tried to figure out as much as he had just what had happened.
Someone was on the floor, their face pulped by some of the broken glass which elsewhere littered the floor like a thousand diamonds. As his breathing slowed – as he felt able to breathe again – Juan heard someone crying. It took him a while to realise it was him. He didn’t waste the time on shame; a quick glance showed everyone else doing the same except for those too deeply in shock, unconsciousness or death to do so.
“¿Quién? ¿Por qué?” someone asked of the heavens. Shakily rising to his feet as if for the first time, Juan couldn’t think of any good reason. There probably wasn’t one. As he murmured Dios, nos ayuda over and over he shook his head in shock and fear and denial and panic. No, there definitely wasn’t one.
«…Este país ha sido atacado con armas nucleares…»
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‘Oh, Albion remains
Sleeping now to rise again…’
Trentham Military Camp, Upper Hutt
April 14, 1984
“Alright, stand at ease,” said the Captain. “Now, no doubt you’ve all heard by now the Prime Minister’s speech, and I’m sure you’re all excited at the news. Britain’s still standing, a bit bloody ‘round the brow but still there.”
The Lance Corporal blinked and opened his mouth to ask a question, before a private from another section did it for him.
“Is the war still on?”
A sad smile from the Captain. “Certainly is, Stevens. As far as I’ve been told, yes. There was a rumour that someone in the Urals surrendered –” a brief murmur in the crowd “– though God knows if there’s enough left of Russia to surrender to anyone.”
“Sir?” The Captain turned to face Private Scott. “Has the Brass said anything about the Americans?”
A sterner look. “Nothing that I’ve heard. The Aussies picked up two of their ships in the Indian Ocean, but that’s about it.”
“S-Sir?” A benignly tolerant look directed at the Lance Corporal this time.
“Why…are we being told all this?”
Another faint smile. “I did wonder when someone was going to ask me that. The Regiment’s been volunteered to help with the logistics of an aid convoy they’re sending over to Britain. And we’re all getting on the boat with them.”
I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way
I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way…
- Tsar of New Zealand
- Word Count: 4.4k