War with Russia

Epilogue 0915 hours, Sunday, August 20, 2017

Sunday morning in Oxford in August, out of university term time and before the bus loads of tourists arrive en masse to flood the city, is usually quiet and that morning was no exception. The sun shone on the elegant buildings where St. Giles merges into the Woodstock Road as Captain Tom Morland opened the door into Brown’s, where he’d agreed to meet Nicola Allenby for a late breakfast.

Ever since his return from the Baltics, he had been keen to catch up with her. Seeing her again over the satellite VTC in Latvia, before the war had started, had been a shock and he now wanted to have that long overdue talk. However, ever since his extraction by helicopter from the nuclear bunker outside Pravdinsk, his time had not been his own. There had been a series of debriefs, “lessons learned” sessions, and a friendly chat with the Regimental Medical Officer, who gave him some pointers to help him identify any warning signs of post-traumatic stress disorder downstream.

Fortunately, one of the debriefs had been with Allenby at GCHQ. After hearing in detail how GCHQ and, no doubt, the Russians had tracked their progress through the Baltics, Morland had given his account of their time in the forests, with a particular focus on radio and communications. The team at GCHQ had been particularly interested in the cyber-attack he had witnessed when the Russians had first knocked out the Latvian command and control systems as a prelude to their invasion.

Afterward, he and Allenby had somehow contrived to bump into one another and both agreed to meet. But Allenby was also in demand and it had taken until now to coordinate their diaries. Morland had arrived in Oxford early, but Allenby was already seated at a table with a copy of The Sunday Times spread out in front of her. They greeted each other awkwardly; more as colleagues rather than old friends.

“You’re looking a lot more civilized than when I last saw you—you were pretty scrawny when you first came back,” Allenby commented, in an obvious effort to ease the atmosphere.

“It wasn’t exactly Jamie Oliver-style cooking in the forests…”

Allenby smiled back, ice temporarily broken.

Breakfast ordered, Allenby pointed to the massive, front-page headline: Russian President Missing in Helicopter Crash in Siberia.

“Seen this?” she asked.

“I heard it on the car radio. I can scarcely believe it. I thought he was indestructible.”

Allenby turned the newspaper so they could both see. It was full of stock shots of the President in action-man mode: riding a horse bare-chested, hunting bears, diving for archaeological artifacts in the Black Sea and fishing for salmon.

“It says he’d flown there to do a thing about climate change to re-establish his political credentials after his disaster in the Baltic states. Another presidential alpha-male stunt, but this time to demonstrate his new green credentials. He always insisted on using his old Mi-8 ‘Hip’ Soviet Russian workhorse helicopter, rather than anything state of the art. And look where that’s ended up…”

“Deep in the tundra, I’m glad to say.” Morland drank a mouthful of coffee and looked at the headline. “I can hardly believe the bastard has finally gone. I thought he’d be around forever… He certainly planned to be.”

Allenby looked around. The restaurant was near empty and there was no one close enough to listen in to their conversation, but she still lowered her voice. “You and the Forest Brothers certainly played a part in undermining him.”

“Really?” Morland exclaimed.

“Really,” Allenby answered. “But don’t expect anyone to thank you. For us to even acknowledge your contribution would invite the Russians to investigate how we might know what they are thinking… After his OTT reaction to the falling helicopters we started picking up chatter about potential successors and how best to replace him. The one thing that keeps you in power in Russia is a reputation for strength. Once he started losing that, it was only a matter of time. In fact, we don’t believe he’s been in control for some weeks now.”

“Are you saying that the helicopter was pushed, rather than fell?”

“That’s what I think. Of course, helicopters do fall out of the sky…”

“Please tell me this is this good news and that someone who’s less of a bastard will take over.”

“Maybe not,” replied Allenby. “We’ve been picking up that his likely successor is even more of a hardline nationalist, which is a real worry. He’s been ranting about enemies within and the stab in the back; the need to take revenge on NATO for the Russian defeat and the fact that they had to return the Baltics to get Kaliningrad and their missiles back.”

Morland was thoughtful. “Yes, I can see how that must have hurt Russian pride.”

“Well, that was the NATO plan.”

“I hear that you might have had something…”

“Enough, Tom. You know I can’t go into any of that. Anyway, you’ve certainly been through the mill. You were lucky to get away with it after the President put that Spetsnaz guy on your trail.”

“Yeah, so you told us at GCHQ.”

“Did you know he set up the ambush at Pravdinsk?” said Allenby.

“I didn’t, but I can’t say I’m surprised. I saw him order the snipers to open fire on those Russian girls in Riga and then, there he was, leading the camp attack in Latvia. It seemed a pretty massive coincidence and I began to wonder if he had been told to track us down. When I saw the compound lights had gone out, I suspected we might be walking into a trap, but it was far too late to back out by then. Tell me. Was he killed in the air strike?”

“We don’t know. It’s strange. We’ve not picked up anything on him at all, although we were able to track pretty much everything else. It’s as if the Russians are deliberately not saying anything to cover his tracks.”

The atmosphere chilled slightly, as they both contemplated the possible consequences of that.

Closing the newspaper and with it the subject, Allenby turned the conversation back to Morland. “What is the Army going to do with you?”

“The CO hasn’t told me what he wants me to do next. I’ve been hanging around barracks, trying to keep busy. To be honest, I’m not sure about staying in the Army. I’ve loved my time, but I guess I’ve already had more than my share of excitement. The problem as I see it is that, with these endless cuts, there isn’t much of a future any more for people like me.”

“That bad?”

“Yes, that bad. Did you know that Sergeant Wild has PVR’d—resigned—and with him going, Archer and Watson are talking about following him into civvie street. It’s not as if I have any arguments to stop them.”

“You don’t think the politicians will have learned from their lucky escape this time… Maybe improve things?”

“Come on, Nicola! Not a chance of it,” Morland said bitterly. “There’ll be lots of eye-catching, big-ticket items. Like lashing out on money for Special Forces, or jam-tomorrow equipment purchases that will make for great headlines. But precious little of what really matters. What’s needed is for the powers-that-be to recognize the need to put some genuine muscle back on the bones from where it’s already been hacked away. Don’t tell me that the Baltics were won back by air strikes, cyber and smart bombs alone.

“Sure, they were essential props. But without the right people doing the right things at the right time, shiny toys will only get you so far. And the unavoidable fact is that the Russians only had a go at the Baltics in the first place because the President reckoned our weakness gave him that opportunity on a plate. Putting that right is going to cost real money and I just can’t see it happening. As any politician will tell you, there’s no votes these days in spending money on defense. Even after what so nearly happened. That simple.

“What’s more, the political leadership needs to understand that it’s all about people. Once you get rid of well-trained professionals, you can’t just wave your wand and expect them to reappear as if by magic, just because you need them again. Our forces are as formidable as they are because of our training. Day in day out, year in year out. Getting better at our jobs all the time. Just as in any line of work. But you can’t be a banker or a plumber and a reservist and train your heart out for a few weeks every year and then, come the crisis, expect to put your uniform on and hope to be a fraction as good as a professional. It just doesn’t work like that, however much the politicians wish it did and tell us it can. In battle you need to survive the first encounter and to do that you need to be a highly trained professional, who is part of a highly skilled team.

“History is full of ill-trained armies that broke when they hit smaller bands of professionals who knew their trade and had the right kit. Britain has understood that for the last few centuries and look where it took us… but no longer, it seems. Trouble is, and I’m sorry if I’m sounding too much the cynic, there’s no headlines to be had in well-motivated and well-supported soldiers just quietly getting on with their jobs…” Morland realized his voice had risen in agitation at what he saw as the betrayal of everything he believed in when he had joined the Army.

He saw Allenby give him a quizzical look and then, thankfully, she changed the subject. “And you, Tom. How do you feel about it? Your time in the forests… ?”

“Well, you know… It takes a bit of time to wind down and get back to normality. It’s good to be back with the Battalion… but I find I’m still spending time with the guys who were there with me. There’s no one else, apart from Marina Krauja and the Forest Brothers, who could begin to understand what it was like out there.”

“What about Marina? You must have got pretty close to her? She sounds like quite a girl.”

Morland was quiet for a moment. “She’s a great girl.”

“Will you see her again?” asked Allenby.

How best to answer Allenby’s question? Because it was a question he had been asking himself ever since his rushed farewell with Krauja as she had been unexpectedly put on a helicopter bound for Poland, while he’d been directed to an RAF C-130 Hercules about to head to RAF Brize Norton.

“I’m sure I will… some time. When we were in the forest, and on the run, we did get pretty close in some ways. Who wouldn’t, given everything that happened? But it was hardly the time or place. She’s pretty tough. Especially after her recent experiences. She’s also a woman with a mission. She’s determined to help rebuild things in Latvia. Her brother was killed when the Russians attacked the airport and her parents need her around—which is all fair enough. I can only respect her for that…”

Which he knew, and even as he said it, was not really an answer. Allenby, of course, picked up on it and probed deeper.

As she did so, Morland recognized the parallels between the two of them. In so doing, he realized how much he had been looking forward to seeing Allenby again. And how much he was enjoying being with her now.

“I’d like to meet her one day,” announced Allenby.

“You’d like her. You’ve got a lot in common.”