Against the Tide Imperial: The Struggle for Ceylon (The Usurper's War: An Alternative World War II B by James Young (classic book list .txt) 📗

“Eric got shot down by the Germans,” Patricia stated flatly. “When the King got killed.”

Carter snorted.

“Seems like we’re going through a whole lot of discussion to settle which pair of buttocks get to sit on a throne in London,” the man muttered lowly.

Patricia saw her escort’s face color.

“Ensign Devereaux, perhaps it’s best if we take our leave,” Patricia said. To her surprise, Carter ignored her.

“It appears we have a difference in opinion on this war’s usefulness, Ensign,” Carter continued.

Devereaux smiled.

“I think that my opinion is irrelevant. Congress has declared war in response to unprovoked attacks against us.”

“Unprovoked?” Carter asked. “We basically gave the English all the weapons they could carry, provided them with the boats to carry it with and, if the papers are to be believed, conspired with Great Britain on how to go about killing Germans, all the while loudly proclaiming our neutrality.”

Where in the hell did Captain Bursa and Vice Admiral Halsey go? Patricia thought, glancing around in a near panic.

“That’s quite enough,” Ensign Devereaux barked, causing several nearby sailors to pause in what they were doing to watch. Carter, realizing he had pressed things a bit far, shut his mouth and stared back at the young officer.

Is this how people are seeing the war now? Carter was correct in what the mainland papers were saying. In the aftermath of the USN’s twin defeats off Iceland and Hawaii followed by the loss of the Philippines, Guam, and Wake, many were questioning how the United States came into the war. The bombshell that the Roosevelt administration had been apparently conducting secret talks and strategic planning with Her Majesty’s government as far back as 1940 had led to an uproar.

Senator Lindbergh is calling for hearings, Patricia thought. The Republicans just might have the votes to force them in both houses.

“Let us go, Miss Cobb,” Carter said after a long moment. “Would hate to disturb Ensign Devereaux from his delusions.”

Patricia moved towards the gangway, the speed of her passage causing her dark chestnut hair to fall out of its bun. Muttering as she walked, she reached up and grabbed her tresses before they attempted to stream like their own pennant behind her. When she crossed onto the edge of the dry dock, she paused to finish fussing with her hair while Carter crossed far more slowly behind her.

“Tell me, Miss Cobb, do you support this war?” Carter asked as they walked towards the waiting automobile.

“I have four brothers and my fiancé fighting in it, Mr. Carter,” Patricia said, barely keeping her tone civil. “I don’t really have the option of not supporting it.”

Carter looked at her with a cool air of assessment.

“I was brought out here to Hawaii from a lucrative job in California,” Carter said after a moment. “I was next in line to be a foreman at Mare Island when my bosses determined I would be more valuable correcting inefficiencies in the shop out here.”

I cannot imagine whatever would make your boss send you all the way out here, Patricia thought wryly.

“I am telling you this so you understand that I mean every word of what I am about to say,” Carter continued. “If you ever interrupt a discussion I’m having with someone again, I’ll fire you on the spot. No one will question it, no matter how much Vice Admiral Halsey seems to have taken a liking to you. Understand?”

Well fuck you, Mr. Carter. Patricia did her best to keep the anger from her face and tone as she responded.

“Yes.”

Carter looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Patricia continued looking at him in her best airhead debutante.

“I’d always heard Southerners were raised with manners,” he said finally. “But no matter. I also understand that my predecessor, before he got sent to Australia, had you come in at nine o’clock. Your hours are now six to four, with an hour lunch break. As you know, there’s a war on.”

IJNS Akagi

Singapore

1200 Local (0030 Eastern)

25 July

The pounding of rain on the carrier’s flight deck was audible as Vice Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi stood on the vessel’s bridge. He fought the urge to smile, but his heart filled with joy as he looked at the long, flattopped shape easing its way into the harbor.

Shokaku, it has been so long since we have seen each other. At last the Kido Butai is complete once again. Then, after a moment, that reflection sobered him. Well, as complete as numbers make us.

Zuikaku, the Shokaku’s sister ship, had been lost at the Battle of Hawaii. Hit first by American submarine torpedoes then finished by a squadron of their Flying Fortresses, the carrier had gone to the bottom of the Pacific with many of her aircrews. Shokaku had been struck by the same submarine that had holed her sister. Due to being able to maneuver, however, she had managed to evade the B-17s’ attentions. Instead, the larger carrier had received multiple bombs from the U.S.S. Hornet’s air group shortly before the rest of the Kido Butai had put paid to that vessel as well.

Hawaii went almost perfectly for carriers attacking an alerted enemy. Hornet, Lexington, and Saratoga sunk along with several of their battleships. He gazed out once more towards the open ocean beyond Singapore’s breakwater. So why do I feel like a man about to be overwhelmed by an incoming tide?

He did not question how their German allies got their information. However, it had been accurate for the most part, so he had no reason to disbelieve that his force had landed a heavy blow upon the Americans. Coupled with the losses that the Imperial Japanese Navy had inflicted during the Dutch East Indies campaign, Vice Admiral Yamaguchi and his peers had run amok for a little over three months.

Perhaps it is the news that an enemy task force is on the loose in the Indian Ocean and I am just now confident that I could deal with it. Intelligence had stated that there were at least two, and possibly as many as four, Allied