James Philip
Love Is Strange
Author’s Note
Love is Strange is Book 2 of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62.
It picks up the story a year on from the terrifying events in Operation Anadyr, Book 1 of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series.
Why Timeline 10/27/62? Because that date is a very significant date in my life and in the lives of everybody else in the world alive today because on Saturday 27th October 1962 World War III almost started. World War III probably wouldn’t have lasted very long because one side would have been swiftly obliterated in the first 24 hours of a cataclysm that would have left vast tracts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabited and uninhabitable for decades to come. Perhaps, a quarter of the world’s population would have died in the firestorm or in the starvation and the plagues that would have ensued in the following weeks and months.
In the October War of 1962 the hammer of the gods would have fallen upon the territories of the Soviet Union, central and Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, upon the extremities of continental North America. In the Soviet Union and in Europe from Paris to Warsaw, from Prague to Berlin, from the Alps to the Baltic, across the Low Countries and parts of the United Kingdom the thermonuclear fire would have burned with a merciless flame. Scandinavia might have escaped relatively untouched, likewise southern France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Ireland and possibly parts of England, Wales and Scotland.
The ‘Cuban Missiles’ War would have been a Man made global catastrophe like no other in human history. In the aftermath, the USA, mourning the dead in half-a-dozen wrecked cities would have been the last major industrial and military power left standing. That world could never, ever be the world we know today.
How close did we actually come to the edge of the abyss? Much closer than most people like to contemplate. On Saturday 27th October 1962, north east of Cuba, the commander of Soviet submarine B-59 had to be talked out of firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American destroyer USS Beale. That’s how close we came to World War III!
The Captain of the B-59 was a man called Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. He was exhausted, the air in his vessel was virtually unbreathable and he was at the end of his tether. He may have believed that war had already broken out between the USSR and America. In any event he gave the order for a nuclear warhead to be fitted to a torpedo.
Allegedly he said: “We’re going to blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all! We will not disgrace our Navy!” From which we may infer that he was in earnest.
In that era Soviet naval doctrine governing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons onboard a warship at sea required the authorisation of three officers: the captain, the executive officer, and the vessel’s political officer. B-59’s political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov signed off on starting World War III but fortunately for us all, the submarine’s second-in-command, Captain 2nd Rank Vasili Arkhipov, dissented and Armageddon was narrowly averted.
Timeline 10/27/62 is an alternative history of the modern world in which nobody ever got to know the name of Vasili Arkhipov because he died in the first act of the most terrible war in history.
Love is Strange, set a little over a year after the cataclysm, is the first full chapter of the story of what happened after Vasili Arkhipov failed to prevail upon Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky to see reason.
Welcome to Timeline 10/27/62.
Books in the series:
Book 1: Operation Anadyr
Book 2: Love is Strange
Book 3: The Pillars of Hercules (Available 14th February 2015)
Book 4: Red Dawn (Available 1st May 2015)
To the reader: firstly, thank you for reading this book; and secondly, please remember that this is a work of fiction. I made it up in my own head. None of the characters described in ‘Love is Strange: Book 2 of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series’ — are based on real people I know of, or have ever met. Nor do the specific events described in ‘Love is Strange: Book 2 of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series’ have, to my knowledge, any basis in real events I know to have taken place. Any resemblance to real life people or events is, therefore, unintended and entirely coincidental. However, ‘Love is Strange: Book 2 of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series’ is an alternative history of the modern world and because of this, real historical characters are referenced and in some cases their words and actions form a significant part of the narrative. I have no way of knowing for sure if these real, historical figures, would have spoken thus, or acted in the ways I depict them acting. Any word I place in the mouth of a real historical figure, and any action which I attribute to them after 27th October 1962 never actually happened. As I always say in my note to my readers, I made it up in my own head.
Finally, a note on ships and ship names
HMS Talavera (Yard no. 617) was a later Battle Class destroyer laid down at John Brown and Company’s Yard on the Clyde on 29th August 1944 and launched, on 27th August 1945 to clear the slip. The hull was sold to the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Company Limited of Troon, in South Ayrshire, where it was beached on 26th January 1946. Breaking up commenced on 5th February 1946 and was completed on 27th March 1946.
Four of Talavera’s sisters — Agincourt, Aisne, Barossa and Corunna — were actually converted to Fast Air Detection Escorts and all served, at one time or another, with the Mediterranean Fleet and were once based at Malta. Their conversions were interim, stop gap measures which were almost immediately overtaken by events. First, Harold Wilson’s Labour Government cancelled the new big fleet carriers they were supposed to be escorting, and secondly, new technology and new ships soon rendered them obsolete. All four Fast Air Detection Battles were decommissioned before the end of the 1960s in a universe in which HMS Talavera never steamed.
HMS Dreadnought was the United Kingdom’s first nuclear powered hunter killer submarine. On 27th October 1962, Dreadnought was fitting out at Barrow-in-Furness.
As with real historical characters, real historical ships are treated in a documentary — where they were and as they were deployed — fashion up to and including 27th October 1962. Thereafter, all bets are off because in this post cataclysm timeline, everything changes.
Chapter 1
“My fellow Americans,” the familiar voice began. It was a relaxed, purposeful voice. It was a voice that reached out into homes and resonated about hearths. It was a voice that spoke to the hopes and fears of all generations. It was a voice that divided and yet retained the power to beguile, momentarily, even his most virulent detractors. It was also the most familiar voice in the world. It was the voice of the man who honestly believed that he, truly and rightfully spoke for the world. What was left of it. “My fellow Americans,” the voice said again, “and to this great nation’s friends, wherever they may be, near and far,” the voice was stilled for an instant, for dramatic effect, “may God be with you in this time of trial.”