The Eye of Zoltar

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.

‘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.’

‘It’s not like I could do anything, my muddle-headed friend, I could do anything. I took my car and drove like the wind to the starboard rudder control centre on the other side of the island. Twice the road was blocked by rubble, and twice I had to abandon my vehicle, climb across the rubble and requisition another car to carry on. When I got to the starboard rudder control room I found Rudder Captain Gregg on duty with a junior officer in attendance. I told him my orders were from the admiral himself and he told me to calm down, to leave, and only return “when I was acceptable to be presented to a superior officer”.’

‘What did that mean?’ I asked.

‘I had lost my cap,’ said Wilson, ‘so was not technically in uniform. I didn’t know it at the time, but my ear was half hanging off, and my face was covered with blood. I must have looked quite a sight.

‘I told Rudder Captain Gregg that if he did not get the rudder hard over to starboard all would be lost, but the rudder captain insisted that he would only accept orders direct from the admiral or the admiral’s staff – and that if I didn’t leave he would have me arrested.’

‘What an idiot!’ said Curtis. ‘What did you do?’

‘I took out my service revolver and shot him dead, right there and then. His second-in-command made a move to stop me, so I shot him, too.’

He stopped again, and I saw his eyes glisten at the memory.

‘To be fair to Rudder Captain Gregg,’ continued Wilson, ‘I think he was probably in shock, and his number two was just being loyal. In any event, I was now the ranking officer so called “Rudder hard a starboard expedite!” and with a groaning and shouting from below, the order was executed. The island swung about, and within an hour we were heading back to the open sea, and safety. Communications with both rudder command posts was restored, and we limped back to port for extensive repairs.

‘The Isle of Wight, once the finest seaborne island in the world, was a shadow of its former self. We lost seventeen hundred men and women and three-fifths of all buildings were destroyed in the bombardment. We didn’t set sail again for another nineteen years, and haven’t participated in a Troll War since.’

‘What happened to you?’ asked Curtis after a pause. ‘I mean, you shot two officers.’

Wilson’s expression changed. He sighed, and I saw his shoulders sag.

‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ he said quietly. ‘Although I was there on that fateful day, I’m not the officer who saved the island. I told it first person to make it more exciting. No, the young man who saved the day was Brent, an officer of considerable resource, resolve and steely-eyed adherence to duty. He’s now Admiral Lord Brent of Cowes, the most decorated officer we have ever honoured.’

There was a pause.

‘So what were you doing on that day?’ I asked.

‘I was the second officer in the starboard rudder control room, the one who was shot by Communications Officer Brent. I should have assumed command from Rudder Captain Gregg and got that rudder hard over on my own initiative, but I didn’t. I was tested, and found wanting. I failed not just myself and the service, but everyone on that island. Consumed by shame, I left the Isle of Wight soon after, never to return.’

Wilson fell silent after he had concluded the story, deep in thought, and after we all agreed that it had been a good story even if it wasn’t his, we spun the bottle again.