She spoke to the Defence Secretary, sitting on her right in the rear of the Jaguar. “Lawrence, you’re not happy with the final decision.”
He shrugged his shoulders, defeated. “Any use of nuclear weapons, whether strategic or tactical can only lead to an all-out nuclear escalation.”
“Not necessarily so,” responded the PM, leaning forward, turning her head towards him. “We will issue them with notice of our intention and the reasons why we’ve had to resort to such measures.”
“But only minutes prior to the strike, Prime Minister,” he responded, frustration clear in his voice.
She leant her head back against the cream leather headrest. “What do you suggest we do? Resort to chemical weapons? Thousands of German civilians already lie dead in the streets or are clogging up civilian and military hospitals, victims of blister gas and nerve agents. If we respond in kind, it will just add to the misery and is unlikely to prevent the flood of troops swamping our front line.”
“It is a big risk for just a ruse, Prime Minister.”
“Of course it’s a risk,” she responded, leaning forward again and fixing him with a stare. “And, yes, it’s a ruse. The Americans are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and in the north it’s about as fragile as it can get. How long do you think the Dutch army is going to hold up, or the Belgians for that matter?”
“But the French—”
“Lawrence, you’ve seen the latest estimates of the enemy’s strength. At least three Soviet Military Districts have been mobilised and are on their way. How many troops is that? I’m led to believe tens of thousands.”
“Over half a million, Prime Minister.”
“Be it so. And what about the rest? Yes, it’s a ruse. Hit them with six tactical nuclear strikes followed up with a counter-attack and we can do them some real damage.”
“And casualties?”
“Yes, Lawrence, casualties. As many as if we started to use chemical weapons? I doubt it. Another thing. And please don’t try and tell me otherwise, I’m not naive. Yes, we train for fighting in a chemical and nuclear environment, but have we done enough? It is the right thing to do.”
“And the Soviet response?”
“That’s up to them. But if we don’t so something drastic then a strategic nuclear exchange may be the only option left open to us. Unless you want to join the Communist Party… ”
The Specialist-four operator called to the duty officer, Major Dixon, and pointed at the circular screen in the centre of his consul. The information was being passed down from the three radomes above.
“What have you got, Specialist?”
“We have an incoming, sir. Signal seems a bit weird, but there is definitely something there.”
“Trajectory?”
“Picking it up from 2.5 and 5 degrees, sir.”
“Pass the phone. We’d better make the call.”
“Sir.” The operator reached down to the phone console, took the black telephone suspended low down on the left-hand table leg of the situation display and passed it to the officer.
Major Dixon pressed the bottom right button marked ‘MOD’ and informed RAF Strike Command at RAF High Wycombe. Once the message had been passed, he pressed the top right button and contacted the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) at Preston.
The lamp illuminated, and the incoming message was slowly perforated onto a reel of white paper tape. The operator got up from her chair and walked over to the tape-perforator, hovering while she waited for it to complete its task. Once the clacking of the machine had stopped, the message complete, she tore the tape from the punch and checked the header. It was routine. She transferred the paper tape. The strip of message tape used a 5-bit baudot code to punch a five-hole code for each character in a straight line across the width of paper strip. The tape was then inserted into the reader, and the teleprinter started to tap out the message onto a much wider roll of paper. Once complete, she tore the sheet from the machine and walked over to the desk of the duty officer who read it and then picked up the phone.
Charlie Watts clattered down the steel rung ladder in a vertical shaft taking him to an underground chamber seven metres below ground level. Showing above was a raised mound covered in turf, with only the green painted vents, sensors and entrance showing. He stepped off the last rung into the chamber below, and passed the WC compartment with its chemical toilet. The sound from above was excluded, replaced by the steady hum of the fans powered by a 12-volt battery, circulating the air through two grilled ventilators. The chamber was far from big, a mere five by two metres and, being just over two metres in height, there was very little headroom. Watts called to his fellow Royal Observer Corps volunteer.
“Well, Bill, is this it or another bloody exercise?”
“You know as much as I do, but it doesn’t matter. We have to take them all seriously in case this is the big one.”
“If it is, Bill, it will be bigger than we would like, that’s for sure. Have you heard from Group HQ yet?”
“Nah, only the standby warning. The wife’s made a flask of tea by the way. Help yourself.”
“Yeah, but what about the butterfly cakes?”
“Hey, she spoils me, not you. But there are some ginger biscuits in the tub. Freshly baked.”
William Jackson sat at a small metal table; more of a metal shelf bolted to the wall with two legs supporting it, and pushed the Tupperware container of biscuits towards his fellow observer. They were one of over 700 observer teams called out on the basis that there was the potential for a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom. Although a uniformed force that came under the command of the Royal Air Force, they reported operationally to the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation.
“Have you done a kit check?”
“Somebody had to do it while you took your time getting here. You need to countersign though.”
Charlie picked up the list of kit they had to ensure was on hand, and was needed to fulfil their role as observers. The HANDEL receiver was next to Bill, the handle, used for the hand-operated siren, the pyrotechnic-maroon, a means through which they could warn the local population of an imminent attack. The maroon would explode in the air: bang, bang-bang — the Morse code letter ‘D’. They both turned towards the carrier-receiver as it issued the start of a six-second alert signal. Even in the poorly lit chamber, anyone looking would have seen the two men’s faces pale.
“Oh God, no,” uttered Charlie.
Once the initial alarm was finished, the carrier-receiver transmitted the alarm signal for a further six seconds.
Neither man moved as the following words were emitted from the speaker. “Attack warning red, attack warning red, attack warning red.”
They both stared at the speaker as a high-pitched, uninterrupted tone sounded for four seconds, followed by a lower-pitched tone lasting a full minute, interrupted every four seconds. The entire sequence was repeated, and only then did the two men move, their thoughts disturbed by the arrival of observer three.