The Eye of Zoltar

The Omni-rice was actually quite good. The inclusion of custard and pilchards helped enormously, and we ate in silence for a while, then had marshmallows for pudding. The conversation was quite animated, but only between Wilson, myself and the Princess. Curtis and Ignatius kept to themselves, but their conversation was not hard to follow.

‘I’m thinking we just tell his parents it was mule fever,’ we overheard Ignatius say, obviously still referring to Ralph.

‘Agreed,’ replied Curtis, ‘but we’ll need to find somewhere for him to stay in case he does go home. I wonder if we can sell him to a circus freak-show or something? At least that way we can recoup some cash.’

‘Good idea,’ said Ignatius.

‘Ook,’ said Ralph.

Worry of the dangers that lurked beyond the perimeter increased as the light faded, and by the time it was dark, we were all talking not so much for fun, but to stave off the nervousness.

Ignatius brought out two packs of cards and suggested canasta, but we couldn’t agree on the rules, so someone else said that Addie had a Scrabble set, but none of us thought it would be good manners to rifle through her bag without her around, so we didn’t do that, either.

We eventually agreed that someone would tell a story but no one volunteered, so we all sat in a circle and I spun a bottle. The bottle pointed at Wilson.

The naval officer’s tale

‘Ooh,’ said Wilson, ‘let’s see now. I could tell you more about the Yellow Helium Pippit, but I can see some of you find ornithological matters of less than passing interest.’

He looked at Curtis and Ignatius as he said this.

‘So I will tell you of a time forty-one years ago when I was barely twenty-two and a communications officer in the port rudder control tower of the S.P.I. Isle of Wight, during Troll War I.’

I could sense the small party settle quietly to listen. Of all the nations in the unUnited Kingdom, the steam-powered Isle of Wight was the only one that was movable, unless you count some of the marshier sections of the Duchy of Norfolk. While usually moored off the Solent in the south of England, the floating Isle of Wight was fully seaworthy, and in times of peace used to cruise off the Azores to avoid the long damp winters of the British archipelago.

‘I went through naval college, and at the time that Troll War I began I was communications officer in the port rudder control room. This was when the island’s engines and rudders were controlled not directly by the command centre at the front of the island, but by a series of secondary control centres which took orders from the admiral via a telephone system. My job as communications officer was to answer the command telephone when it rang and relay the orders to Rudder Captain Roberts, who was one of those implacable naval officers who had made the Isle of Wight such an efficient movable island in peacetime and war.’

Wilson gathered his thoughts, then continued.

‘It was the morning of the first push of Troll War I, and we’d steamed up the coast to Borderlandia the week before on the pretext of full power tests in the Irish Sea. The plan was that as soon as the Troll War began, we were to cruise up and down the coast firing broadsides to divert the Trolls from the main landship advance.

‘So there we were, making good headway up the west coast of Trollvania at eighteen knots, shelling the Trolls from about two miles offshore, and from our control tower we could see distant explosions in the wooded landscape of Trollvania. There was a bit of retaliation from the Trolls, but nothing spectacular. A few of their siege engines fired boulders at us, but all fell woefully short – we were well out of range.’

‘Do you get any sense of speed while at sea?’ asked Ignatius.

‘Not really,’ replied Wilson. ‘When you’re under way the only real sensation you get is the distant thrum of the engines, the plumes of black smoke coming out of the funnels, and the sometimes disconcerting changes in direction of the sun as you go about.’

Wilson paused for a moment, and then continued.

‘As we were turning about for the third run up the coast, the order was given to move to within 750 yards of the coast to more accurately rake the Troll’s positions with high-explosive shells.’

‘Wouldn’t you run aground?’ asked Ignatius.

‘The waters were well charted,’ said Wilson, ‘and although large, the island has a shallow draught, enabling us to move in close to shore.’

He gathered his thoughts and then continued.