War with Russia

THE REPEATED CLANG of the electronic bell, with the disembodied voice announcing, “This is not a drill. This is not a drill. General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations. All hands man your battle stations,” sounded over the carrier’s PA system. Unless already in position, the men and women of the ship’s crew immediately stopped whatever they were doing and moved swiftly to their designated action stations. Commander James Bush RN, Executive Officer of HMS Queen Elizabeth, stood on the bridge, receiving calls from each department as it reported ready for action, and took keen note of how the crew were making themselves ready for war. Getting better, he thought to himself grudgingly, but I’m not giving these buggers an inch. There’s still a long way to go before this crew is as slick as it needs to be.

Three days out from Portsmouth and Queen Elizabeth had passed through the narrow confines of the Skagerrak, entered the Baltic, and was now twenty-five nautical miles north of the Polish port of Świnoujście, the port of Szczecin, situated just east of the German border to their south. Once out of the English Channel, the order had come from the Prime Minister to sail into the Baltic Sea, where the Amphibious Task Force was to poise off shore to demonstrate UK resolve, before linking up with the five frigates and destroyers of the NATO Response Force Maritime Component; themselves inbound from the eastern Mediterranean, but not expected in the Baltic for several days yet. Once they were all together, he would feel a lot less concerned.

Usually the most positive of men, Bush nevertheless thought back to the warning from his old shipmate Executive Warrant Officer Geordie Rae, before they had left Portsmouth. HMS Kent, the Type 23 anti-submarine frigate, had in fact defied expectations and lasted a full day after rounding North Foreland, but, ordered to take part in a high-speed anti-submarine drill, had broken down and been forced to limp back to Portsmouth for a new generator and a replacement for its shattered propeller shaft. That left the Task Group with only her sister ship, HMS Lancaster, as an anti-submarine escort.

The chickens are really coming home to roost, thought Bush. When will the MOD bean counters ever get the message that running ships beyond their sell-by date makes no sense, operationally or financially. He was reminded of Admiral Beattie’s bitter comment at Jutland in 1916: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.”

Yes, they had HMS Astute, the hunter-killer submarine, operating independently ahead of the Task Group, but she was probably sneaking around off the coast of Kaliningrad—two hundred nautical miles to the east—keeping an eye on what was coming out of Baltiysk, the main base of Russia’s Baltic Sea Fleet. That left only one anti-sub escort covering the whole Task Group, which was taking one hell of a gamble, like placing all your chips on one number at roulette, and Bush was not a betting man. That said, he had to assume that the politicians, advised by the spooks and the admirals, knew what they were doing.

Queen Elizabeth was at the very western end of the Baltic, enough to show a presence but not to show aggression. And, he had to admit, ever since the Russians had grabbed the Baltic states they had gone quiet. Like a python swallowing a pig, they were now trying to digest their meal. And it was a very angry pig indeed. Reports said that the invaders were having to deploy ever greater quantities of men and materiel to control the enraged populations of the Baltic states. These Baltic nations had anticipated the problem and planned accordingly. Fearing just this invasion, the Baltics had pre-stocked forest hideouts with sophisticated weaponry. And, it transpired, they were not only extremely well trained and quick to learn, but the vast forests of their homelands were giving them plenty of places to hide.

TV news bulletins—and the Russians were rapidly discovering the hard way that if you opted for TV propaganda then you could not necessarily control the story—were reporting with admiration how effective the guerrillas were: most single shots resulted in a dead or injured Russian. Moreover, Russian helicopters, forced to fly low over the forests to stand any chance of spotting or pursuing guerrilla fighters, were taking one hell of a hammering from surface-to-air missiles. Even back in Russia, excepting state-controlled media, there were already parallels being drawn with the bloody horror of Chechnya.