The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter Sixteen: The Green and Pleasant Land

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

13^th December 2004
The Taoiseach¹⁷ of Ireland, Sean McNamara, was an old man. Grey hair, going thinner on top, fell down around a pale face. Ireland had been shocked – and then terrified – by the Posleen; they hadn’t known anything about them until the first announcement, and then they hadn’t really believed…until the pride of the American Army was torn to ribbons in the brutal battles in Washington DC.
The Prime Minister watched as McNamara took his seat, his eyes flickering nervously around the room. He supposed, intellectually, that he could sympathise with the Taoiseach: Ireland was not a particularly militaristic nation, the terrorists and the Irish regiments notwithstanding. Ever since becoming independent, the Irish had striven to remain neutral; they simply didn’t have the military needed to face off against the Posleen.
Of course, we might not either, the Prime Minister thought. The British Army was training as hard as it could, using the information bought with American lives, but it was a long slow process. The issue would be decided, he knew, in the first few days of the war; if Britain would be forced to retreat into the north, or if they would destroy the Posleen invaders. For Ireland…a single Posleen globe – four million Posleen – would prove more than fatal. Emergency planners were already working out plans to cope with an expected horde of Irish refugees.
He smiled suddenly. There was already such a flow, mainly Protestant from Northern Ireland. As much as it pained him – it didn’t really – giving up Northern Ireland would only simplify British defence commitments. There was no longer time for luxuries, such as maintaining Britain’s position in the world.
“I hope that you do not find our situation amusing,” the Taoiseach said grimly. The Prime Minister knew that coming to London as a supplicant did not please the Taoiseach. Certain elements within Ireland would sooner have died than ask for British help. “The situation is dire.”
“I know,” the Prime Minister said. The BBC and the other news channels had been broadcasting images of the Posleen at work, eating their way through humans from India and America. Whatever was happening in Africa had eaten the media crews as well. More and more of Africa was falling to the Posleen, and soon they would hold all of that strategically vital land.
Did the Posleen build factories? The Prime Minister couldn’t remember, but he knew that they would have to prepare for an invasion over the Channel, as well as one dropping from space onto their positions. He made a mental note to see what asserts could be moved into South Africa; the Posleen were closing in on the most powerful nation on the continent, which might just self-destruct long before the Posleen got there.
“We are having…problems in building a defence,” the Taoiseach admitted. The Prime Minister nodded once, in respect; admitting weakness to the French or the Russians would not have come any easier to him. “We…can’t produce a military like yours, and we need help.”
“Your problems stem from your lack of personnel to draw on,” the Prime Minister said. It was a covert acknowledgement that MI6 had been watching the developments in Ireland closely. “I know you’ve had the amnesty and everything…”
The Taoiseach nodded bitterly. The Irish Parliament had agreed to amnesty every member of the IRA and the other terrorist groups, no matter their crimes, provided they agreed to go through rejuvenation and join the Irish Army. Some of them had deserted – one of them had turned up in Britain and had been shot under martial law – and others had been…well, useless.
“That might have been a mistake,” the Taoiseach admitted. “They were violent men, but they refused to grow up.”
“And they lacked the skills needed for fighting the Posleen,” the Prime Minister said. General Anderson had prepared a through briefing for him; the IRA were skilled in violence and striking from the shadows, dropping back into the ordinary civilian population and hiding behind a legal system that gave the guilty every advantage. Against the Posleen, they would be rapidly killed and eaten.
“Exactly,” the Taoiseach said sharply. “Ireland has no compulsory military service, no real tank force, and only a handful of experienced officers, many of whom decided that their loyalties were to you instead. To add insult to injury, the politicians are reluctant to enforce the conscription laws, even the agreement that all of our young men should be conscripted.”
“And, of course, you can’t arm them,” the Prime Minister said.
“We do not have the time,” the Taoiseach snapped. “How long until they come?”
The Prime Minister shrugged. “The original projection was 2008,” he said. “Of course, the attack we just beat off in America was early.”
The Taoiseach scowled. “I will be blunt,” he said. “We need your help.”
The Prime Minister looked up at him, feeling respect and a certain amount of concern. He admired the Taoiseach’s willingness to ask for help from the oldest enemy, and he agreed that if Ireland could be kept free of Posleen, it was worth doing. On the other hand, even America was stretched to the limit, even with the Darhel supplying more weapons.
“Are there…,” he began, and stopped. Whatever the Darhel were up to, it seemed to work through native protest movements, even though the Posleen had put a stop to organisations like African Aid. After all, there were no longer many central Africans to help. He shook his head; that was one question he could never ask.
Sir Robert would laugh, he thought grimly. I’m not cut out for intelligence work.
He sighed once, sadly, as the servant brought in a cup of tea for each of them. He half-suspected that the Taoiseach needed several glasses of something alcoholic, but he refrained; it might have been taken as an insult.
“What manner of help do you want?” He asked finally. “What exactly do you want us to do for you?”
The Taoiseach nodded thoughtfully. “We need experienced officers to help build up the army,” he said. “We need weapons and equipment.”
“I think that we can spare some officers,” the Prime Minister said. He’d anticipated the request and made some arrangements. “However, we would have to have some guarantee of success.”
The Taoiseach lifted a grey eyebrow. “If the Americans got hammered as badly as they were,” he said, “how do you expect us to guarantee a victory?”
“We want you to conscript everyone for the army,” the Prime Minister said. “This is not a time for half-measures.”
“The Germans are allowing some people to refuse service, even though they are using the SS,” the Taoiseach protested. “Why can’t we?”
“Germany is big enough to absorb the first attack,” the Prime Minister said. General Anderson had covered that as well. “Ireland…is not. I cannot say that I approve of the SS – even though you are using the IRA and its comrades in evil – but they’re needed.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” the Taoiseach admitted. The Prime Minister nodded. “What else do you want?”
The Prime Minister sipped his tea. “I will be frank with you,” he said. “We expect the next Posleen landing to land here, along with the rest of the industrialised world. That includes Ireland. If everything goes to plan” – which it won’t – “the Posleen will be wiped out quickly. Unfortunately…”
“They won’t be defeated that quickly,” the Taoiseach agreed. “You might have to keep fighting for a long time.”
“I know,” the Prime Minister said. “One of the contingency plans is to seal off the Posleen landing sites, preventing them from moving any further, while we gather the force to crush them. If that works, we will need to evacuate our civilians somewhere.”
“And you want them to move to Ireland,” the Taoiseach concluded. “I understand the logic.”
“Ah, but do you agree?” The Prime Minister asked. “Our price for sending what help we can, some of which may not be as useful as you might have hoped, is that you agree to allow us to evacuate some of our people to Ireland, without prejudice or fear or favour.”
The Taoiseach looked at him for a long moment. The Prime Minister didn’t envy him; the decision would be damaging in the long run to Ireland, although less damaging than a Posleen invasion, with thousands of Posleen eating their way through Irishmen and women. He would have liked to help Ireland, if only to make up for some of the mistakes of the past, but they couldn’t afford to divert resources from British defence without gaining something in return.
“I would have to discuss that with my cabinet,” the Taoiseach said finally. “I suspect, however, that they will agree to your terms.”
“We may end up asking for your help later,” the Prime Minister admitted. “One thing we can do at once, though, is sending you an experienced officer now.”
The Taoiseach smiled. “That would be helpful,” he said. The Prime Minster knew that it would be a token gesture, at best. “I’ll arrange for him to meet the commanding officers of the defence force.”
***

An hour after the Taoiseach had left, the Prime Minister was still working on the reports, trying to avoid thinking about a difficult situation. Certain members of the aristocracy and the Royal Family had attempted to arrange for off-planet accommodation for them, not just in Fleet, but on a Federation world. The Darhel had been very willing to arrange it, but the Prime Minister had squashed the idea flat.

“I don’t need more problems,” he muttered. He understood the agreement that Fleet’s dependents would be given first priority, and in fact the two princes of the blood were serving with the fleet, but there were so many entire families left behind on Earth. If news got out that the Royal Family was getting special treatment, there would be riots in the streets.
Hell, I might join them myself, the Prime Minister thought. Churchill hadn’t let the Royal Family shirk the obligations that came with the Throne, and he had been in a far weaker position. Nightmarish through the Posleen situation was, it could be handled by the Army, provided they had everything they needed. Civil unrest – for such a good cause – was not something they needed.
“Prime Minister, General Whitehouse is here for his meeting,” his secretary said. “Shall I send him in?”
The Prime Minister nodded to himself. “Send him in, please,” he said, and waited until the tall General entered. The Prime Minister didn’t waste his time playing dominance games; there simply wasn’t the time for such unimportant matters.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” General Whitehouse asked. The Prime Minister winced inwardly; the accent was pure upper-class. It would horrify the Irish no end, and yet…how many officers of General Whitehouse’s calibre could be spared?
“Yes, I did,” he said. “You have quite an impressive record, General Whitehouse.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister,” General Whitehouse said. He seemed content to wait for the reason for the meeting to be revealed in due course. “I have always been willing to serve.”
The Prime Minister smiled. “You joined the army in 1970,” he said. “You rose rapidly and commanded a section during the Falklands War, including heavy guns. You received awards for this, including a knighthood you rejected – and were promoted to General in time to fight in the Gulf. Now…you have been working on integrating the old and new weapons into the fighting forces of Britain.”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” General Whitehouse said. “The exercises using the information from America have been progressing well.”
“How well?” The Prime Minister asked. “How confident are you?”
“Impossible to say,” General Whitehouse admitted. “If one globe lands, we can handle it. If two to five globes land, we might be able to handle them. If we get more than ten…we’d be…”
“Fucked,” the Prime Minister said, succinctly. “Have you been following developments in Ireland?”
General Whitehouse nodded. “They’ve been giving new life to the IRA bastards,” he said. “It’s almost as bad as the Germans; at least the SS had some honourable people in it.”
“What a surprise,” the Prime Minister muttered. “I admit that resurrecting parts of the SS would give me the shivers, but it’s a German decision, not one of ours. The problem with Ireland, however, is that they have few trained people to help them build an army in time.”
“I understand their problems,” General Whitehouse said. “I just don’t know what it is to do with us.”
“Have you seen the worse-case and worst-case projections?” The Prime Minister asked. “We could make use of Ireland, as a place to run to if nothing else.”
“The Posleen will take Britain over my dead body,” General Whitehouse assured him.
The Prime Minister smiled. “That, General, is what I’m worried about. I need you, General, as the commanding officer with the most experience at using older tech against the Posleen, to go to Ireland and help them.”
General Whitehouse blinked. “I thought I was in line for a combat command,” he said.
“You are,” the Prime Minister replied. “If the negotiations go well, you will end up commanding a force in Ireland itself, working with both British and Irish units. If they don’t, you’ll be pulled out in 2006, just to get one of the commanding posts.”
General Whitehouse smiled, appreciating the challenge. “They’re not ready to fight the Posleen,” he said. The Prime Minister pointed a long finger at the briefing paper on the desk; General Whitehouse read it quickly, then looked up. “Prime Minister, they’re in serious trouble.”
“I knew that,” the Prime Minister said. “I had their Prime Minister, their Taoiseach, in here, asking for help.”
General Whitehouse finished reading the section marked ORDER OF BATTLE. “They’re in serious trouble,” he repeated. “How many weapons are we going to be sending them?”
“As many as we can spare,” the Prime Minister said. “Quite frankly, I’d send them some of the ACS units, if we could spare them. For the moment, we should be able to send them ten thousand heavy machine guns, tipped with Galactic metals for extra penetration, and several thousand artillery guns. They can produce the shells, at least; we shared the shell specifications with them back when all of this started.”
“Will they be producing the shells?” General Whitehouse asked sharply. “It seems to me that they lack the political will, more than anything else.”
The Prime Minister shrugged. “We won’t be sending them any more shells,” he said. “Now that production of the latest heavy artillery guns is under progress, we won’t be making more than a handful of the shells for the older designs.”
“Permission to point that out to them,” General Whitehouse asked dryly.
“Granted,” the Prime Minister said. He knew that he sounded tired. “This is something of a thankless task, General; I would not have given it to you if I thought that you would be unable to handle it.”
General Whitehouse smiled. “I won’t let you down,” he said.
The Prime Minister nodded. “Now, what is the current status of the training program?”
General Whitehouse opened his briefcase and brought out a series of sheets of paper. “It’s going better than we had a right to expect,” he said. “The combat data from America has really helped. For the moment, we’re concentrating on practicing sealing off the regions of Posleen intrusion.”
He passed over a sheet of paper. “All of our defence forces will be operating within one of those three areas,” he said. “Green; the Posleen are not within range. Yellow; the Posleen are within marching range. Red; the Posleen are coming down right on top of you.”
The Prime Minister winced. “Is that likely?”
“It happened at Fredericksburg,” General Whitehouse said grimly. “Incidentally, we’ve had to add extra ear protection to the soldiers standard outfit, just in case. When the invasion begins, Green forces will go on alert, Yellow forces will march into defensive positions…and Red forces will buy them as much time as they can.”
“You’re writing off the Red forces?” The Prime Minister asked. “There’s no hope for them?”
“The Americans couldn’t save the forces on the ground,” General Whitehouse said. “When the Posleen land, wherever they land, they will have instant numerical superiority. The Red forces will suddenly find that their role is to kill as many Posleen as they can before they’re overrun.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
“It’s hardly your fault,” the Prime Minister said. “Carry on.”
“We’ve been practicing counter-attacks and defences,” General Whitehouse continued. “We can establish a mobile defence wall – a quickly-created line of defences – fairly quickly; the problem is doing that before the Posleen hit the line.” He shook his head angrily. “I wish we had better data on how they thought, or an understanding of their minds. A human force would strike for London, but what will the Posleen do?”
“I wish I knew,” the Prime Minister said. “And the results of the drills?”
“We stop the Posleen directly about a third of the time,” General Whitehouse admitted. “Quite frankly, I think that’s optimistic; the Posleen carry one hell of a kick. What I’m really worried about is a second landing, a week or so after the first landing, when everything is in disarray.”
“And the communications network is working,” the Prime Minister said thoughtfully. “Will that be of tactical advantage?”
“I hope so,” General Whitehouse said. “Of course, the Posleen don’t have real rear areas in the sense we do, but we should be able to locate their masses and pound them with long-range gunfire.”
“Fighting on the green hills of England,” the Prime Minister sighed. “One of the reasons that we’re helping the Irish is that it might make a place to run to, afterwards.”
General Whitehouse frowned. “Sir – Prime Minister – they might object.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “Yes, they might,” he said. “They might indeed.”