The Eye of Zoltar

‘We had some initial success shelling their positions, with the main observation tower reporting direct hits upon the Trolls manning their siege engines. Our rejoicing was short lived, of course, for the Trolls had tricked us: they had been firing their boulders purposely short to make us think we were out of range, so now that we had been enticed closer the Trolls opened up with everything they had. Large rocks the size of cars and buses rained down upon the land, taking out shore batteries, centres of communication and eventually the main observation tower.’

Everyone was silent, so Wilson took a sip of water and continued.

‘Naturally, as soon as the bombardment started we felt the engines increase in power and the order “full hard starboard rudders both” came down the telephone. We immediately complied, but as the combination of full hard rudder and full power kicked in, the island began to tip. Anything loose in the control room slid across the floor. Charts fell from the plotting table, and the tea trolley rolled across the floor and was upended near the stairwell.

‘The tilt increased as the rudders bit, decreasing the depth beneath the port side of the island – and the port propeller hit a submerged reef. The one-hundred-foot-wide propeller stopped dead, but with the engine still at full power the prop shaft was twisted like a tube of damp cardboard, effectively putting one engine out of action.’

‘Did you know this at the time?’ asked the Princess.

‘We pretty much guessed,’ said Wilson. ‘A fearful shudder ran through the entire island. The island rapidly fell back on to an even keel and slowed, while all about the thump thump thump of incoming boulders punctuated the deathly silence in the rudder control room. We all stared at one another, horrified at what was happening.’

‘I remember reading something about this,’ said Ignatius. ‘It sounds jolly exciting.’

‘Terrifying would be a better word, for things were just about to get that much worse. A well-aimed boulder had destroyed the starboard rudder control tower, communications were down, and the starboard rudder was still stuck hard over to port. We now had one engine out, only one rudder, and the Trolls’ strategy was apparent – the course upon which we were heading would run us aground off the coast of Trollvania, and once there, we could be boarded and overrun by Trolls, who have never been anything but savage in their treatment of humans. Putting the engine full astern wouldn’t help us as the island would ultimately run aground backwards, destroying the second engine, and also placing us at the mercy of the Trolls. The only course of action would be to get both rudders to starboard, but the point was that both had to be moved – one to port and one to starboard would do nothing at all.

‘After ordering our rudder to starboard in case we too should be hit, Rudder Captain Roberts told us all to ‘stand fast at our posts’ despite the boulders falling closer and closer to the control room, then called his second-in-command to his side, a career petty officer named Trubshaw.

‘“Listen here, Trubshaw,” said Captain Roberts, “you’ve got to get over to the other rudder control room and bring the starboard rudder hard over, no matter what. Drive like the wind, old girl.”

‘It was a good plan, it was the only plan, and if it wasn’t executed in about half an hour the island would run aground and the Trolls would board us. After that, it would be all over. Trubshaw just had time to salute before a massive boulder ripped through our control room and I was knocked off my feet. When I stood up, there was nothing left of Trubshaw, the other ratings or even the control room, which was a ragged mass of tangled steel and broken glass. I called in to report the damage, but all communications were down. I crossed to the rudder captain, who was barely alive; his body was half crushed beneath a steel stanchion.

‘“It’s up to you now,” he told me, “and this one’s from the admiral: hard a starboard both, all other considerations secondary.”’

‘What does that mean exactly,’ asked the Princess in the pause that followed, ‘“all other considerations secondary”?’

‘Exactly what it says,’ replied Wilson, ‘that I was to fulfil my orders with no consideration to anything else. This was the most important order I was to carry out – that anyone on the Isle of Wight was ever to carry out – and nothing could stand in my way. Everything and everybody was expendable in the execution of this one order. If the Trolls boarded the island, all would be lost, the hundred thousand inhabitants eaten or enslaved.’

‘Wow,’ said Ignatius, ‘it’s like you could do anything.’