Matthew stares at the desk in front of him, he is in the NCSO headquarters in Portsmouth, but that’s purely physically. Matthew is lost in the abyss brought about by the events in the cellar. Of course everyone has lost someone and something after the world blew each other apart, but it’s the fact that Matt wasn’t there for them when he should have been. Its one thing being incinerated in a second but quite another to survive the missiles only to be killed by marauders later. He wears a loose fitting old Navy uniform that Robert scrounged up for him. Matt staring at this desk is Roberts doing, he stayed at his for a few weeks before orders came that anyone not being put to use would not receive a food ration. And so Robert ‘kindly’ set Matt up back in the NCSO.
The NCSO after nuclear war could more aptly be described as a piracy agency, any ship spotted was to be contacted and shepherded into a British port whereby it’s supplies would be plundered and distributed. This ‘shepherding’ came in many forms. Sometimes the ships would come willingly, some might be shadowed by a RN ship, and in a rather amusing case a Spanish freighter was tricked into coming into port by a quick thinking (and half Spanish) sailor in the NCSO doing his best to convince the captain of the freighter that he was speaking to an aide to the Spanish Ambassador in Portsmouth.
The vast majority of NCSO work was boring and tedious, and as the weeks wore on and the amount of traffic decreased it gave Matt far too much down time to think. He thought about all this bloody business, what he could have done differently, why he couldn’t have been the one murdered? Why couldn’t Portsmouth just been hit by a missile like everywhere else?
From the window of the commandeered office block he was in he could just make out the edge of HMS Hermes, now acting as a stationary air base and accommodation. They simply didn’t have the fuel or adequate reason to send it out any time soon. The harriers were stowed safely below decks, with one ready on hand in the event of an emergency, a parts issue this time, the rest of the deck was crowded with helicopters of all shapes and sized, all commandeered by the Navy in order to provide the air coverage needed around Portsmouth and the surrounding area. Of course they could scarcely afford the fuel cost of these helicopters either, but Portsea island had become certainly the best well protected area in the United Kingdom, and as far as anyone knew, the world and so no expense was spared.
Occasionally Matt hears the horn of the ferry to the Isle of Wight, which was being used to take refugees to camps being set up there. The camps outside of the fort line of Portsmouth (christened the Charles line after a morale boosting trip by the Prince to the series of forts and some ‘managed’ refugees) had a serious problem with overcrowding, and while the government had more pressing issues the fact was that there were too many people for the jobs that needed to be done in the immediate Portsmouth area. Therefore, refugees were beginning to be shipped off to the Isle of Wight, as well as distributed elsewhere along the south coast. Brighton beach for example resembles a camping ground as the councillors in charge there simply were not sure what else to do with them. The refugees in Brighton are not allowed to leave designated zones unless working and so many are confined uncomfortably to the beach.
The horn again, some young sailor comments that he ‘knew the commies bloody won’ which gains him some very confused looks. ‘Well you know why they’re sending them to the Isle of Wight… collective farms!’ a short round of laughter, an altogether to rare occurrence in the current atmosphere.
It is then that Matthew realises he is supposed to be talking to the captain of an American freighter that was carrying supplies to Europe, but got damaged by soviet air craft and lost its navigational machinery as well as most of their engine power and so had largely just been floating adrift in the Atlantic, until it just pushed itself into the channel and into the NCSO’s vulture like eye.
‘Listen here, we just want some repairs and fuel then will be on our way back to the states…what’s left of it anyway, Got any Intel? Is New Jersey Ok?’ The Captain clearly isn’t asking these questions for fun.
‘Look Captain, we barely have enough fuel for ourselves, let alone you’re freighter. What are you carrying anyway, maybe we could make a deal.’ More lines out of the current NCSO vocab guidelines.
‘Err… well we got supplies for our boys over in Germany’
‘Military?’
‘Yah’
At this point Matt puts his hand up to signal his supervisor to start listening as well, whenever there is a hint of military hardware, medical supplies or food supplies he has to inform his superior.
‘Ok well if we send out a tug to you and pull you into a dock, we can see what we can do about repairing your ship, and give you some fuel for your journey home as well’ Matt knows this negotiate is all just a façade. ‘Lets say we do that for’ he gets a signal from his supervisor ‘…half of whatever supplies you have on board’
‘Half?!?!?! Hell no our boys might need them back home, I’ll do a quarter, but of our choosing’
‘Deal, we’re sending the tug now’
45 minutes later the American ship, not quite as large as Matt thought, partly under its own power but helped by the tug limps into a free dock left especially for occasions like this. As soon as ramps are set up to the ship burly Marines storm aboard in order to seize the contents, the usual tactic. The negotiations act just makes it easier to get the ships into port than forcing them with a gunboat.
A shoot out erupts, the Marines overpower the lightly armed ships crew but before they can the crew begin the process of scuttling the ship under the orders of the Captain. An engineer is on standby for interactions like this and he begins to jog his way up the ramp. As he gets the top he slips and smashes his head against a metal rail.
At this point the ship is beginning to take on water heavily. There are no other engineers currently available, or if there is no one is quite sure exactly where they are. Many trained engineers nowadays aren’t just being used on ships, as their expertise is needed across the country on a variety of civil issues as well.
Quickly a call is sent out across Portsmouth, with cadet runners being ordered to ask anyone and everyone if they know where another engineer is. One such cadet bursts into the NCSO office. Panting he asks if anyone in here happens to be able to stop a ship sinking, which earns him looks of bewilderment. Just as he’s about to leave the young sailor who made the joke earlier stands up and points at Matt. ‘Lieutenant Commander Harding does, he was an engineer!’
Angrily, ‘You little shit’ Matt is not happy about being volunteered for whatever this tasks inhales. At first he is angry and about to wallop the young sailor, but he soon realises that he pointed him out as an act of reverence. In fact most of the young sailors in the NCSO are proud that they have someone like Matt with them, a true war hero.
Sighing, ‘what do you need me to do?’
After 5 minutes and a brisk run Matt is at the American ship, he takes care to not slip at the top of the ramp like his predecessor. The ship is riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood. Climbing down into the ship the water splashes up to his knees, eerily similar to all those years ago in the cold Atlantic. He splashes his way through to the pump and inspects it. Lying next to a broken of valve is a now dead portly man with the insignia of a captain on his shoulders, still clutching a picture of a little girl in his hands. Matt knows this was all his fault.
To get the pump back on Matt has to manually activate it without use of the handle and so reaches in side an opening where he has unscrewed a panel from and starts to look at the wires. This ship is old, old enough that it must have been pulled out of mothballing when the war started, as such it is very similar to some of the ships Matt has worked on before. By now the water is up to his chest. He still can’t find the right wires to get the pump restarted. He’s beginning to panic, thoughts flashing through his head of the other time he was on a sinking ship, of clutching Edwards in the dark until his body went limp. He remembers the life slowly drain out of him, as the last air is pushed out of the compartment, he remembers the hatch above just opening in time and being dragged out, but it was too late for Edwards. Just then, without even thinking about what he is doing the pump begins whirring again. His job is done.
He leaves the ship, scarcely receiving a nod for his work. Just as he reaches the dock he asks the supervising officer ‘what’s even on there anyway’
‘Ha, funny really Sir, its full of American uniforms and boots! Oh and some radios, but they were on the bottom deck so I’m afraid they won’t be much use to anyone’
All that for uniforms, boots, and radios.
If only that was the extent of the folly the world now finds itself in.