Denny Island
24-05-2007, 19:50
Haversham, North Denny Island
"GENERAL STRIKE!"
The banners filled the streets. The sound of whistles being blown was deafening. The police were nowhere to be seen. Hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, thronged the open squares and sweeping boulevards of the centre of the city. This was the Northern industrial city of Haversham, and it was almost Christmas. Where the previous year there had been brass bands playing carols to happy bustling shoppers, today British flags were burnt. Businesses were destroyed. Rocks were hurled.
Aside from proclaiming the General Strike, now in its eighth week, the banners carried by the rioters demanded higher wages, better conditions, nationalisation, the destruction of the present Tory government and some even the execution of the Queen in Britain. In the very centre of the city, the Mayor's residence was under seige. Protected only by a thin line of nervous militia cowering behind improvised barricades for protection from the hail of urban detritus that the crowd was subjecting them to, there was visible panic inside the building.
Gas and electricity had been cut off across the city by strikes, and smoke rose ominously from the neo-classical palace's decorative chimnies as those inside burnt furniture and documents in an attempt to keep warm.
Pleas for aid from the local civil authority had proved futile. Even if they had dared risk moving through the crowds, they wouldn't have made it to the Mayor's residence without either being driven back or becoming bogged down in endless battles with the crowd. The only response from the police was to sit back and wait for more people to disperse. Except, that is, where police stations had become targets. There, more than fifty policemen had already been killed by the crowd and their stations burned, although no one outside yet knew of this.
Sir Richard Saltworth, the Mayor, barricaded inside his own house, reflected on what had caused it all. The friction between worker and employer has been growing for decades - perhaps centuries - as Denny held tenaciously on to class system which even the British motherland had now left behind. In the capital, Victoria, or in the larger cities of the South, order was maintained by the workers' terror of the army. Elections remained free and fair, the rule of law persisted in its detached majesty and Denny presented the outward appears of a perfectly acceptable, if somewhat backward, liberal democratic state.
In Haversham everything was different. Haversham was the only city on the far North coast, pressed hard against the arctic circle, serving the ships which could save time and money by coming in from the North rather than the South. Here, the government had thought the harshness of the elements would deter any strike. People would not risk their jobs or the continued supply of coal and gas when to stay out in the streets more than two days was a death sentence. In any case, no one wanted to be stationed to Haversham, and it was effectively isolated over land from the rest of the country by the elements in the Winter months. There was no army.
The government had terribly miscalculated.
The spark that blew the powder keg had been some tiny instance of employer mispractise - the stories about exactly what were many and varied. Perhaps they had simply been made up by the Union leaders to provoke the strike. The Unions turned their guns first on their employers, sometimes literally, and now, at last, upon the government. The Mayor was naturally the first target, and he knew it.
A gunshot sounded outside, ringing in the crisp winter air. Sir Richard heard screams, orders being barked, and then the sound of shattering glass as patrol bombs smashed into the buildings behind the militia lines. More gunshots. More screams. More petrol bombs. The windows rattled to the sound of not just a few isolated shots, but a full volley of gunfire. Instead of hearing screams of pain and fright, as he had expected, Sir Richard heard a roar of anger from the crowd. More petrol bombs. Another volley.
Sir Richard risked putting his head above the window frame to take a look at what was going on outside. The militia were now arranged in a line surrounding the house two men thick, with fixed bayonets pointing outwards towards the crowd on the other side of the 11' steel railings that surrounded the palace. Another volley. The petrol bombs did not abate. Sir Richard saw a man screaming in terror was he struggled to put out his uniform, which was being consumed by flame. He looked out towards the crowd and his eyes met with a sight that chilled his blood - a crowd larger than he had ever seen, filling the streets before him, coming straight at him.
7th Division, four hundred miles South West of Haversham
"General. News from the North," an aide-de-camp said, looking up from the antiquated 1/2 ton radio in the back of General Sir Theodore Cattering's command truck.
"Good news?" The General asked, resigned to hear the worst.
"No, Sir," the General smiled weakly and huddled into his field overcoat, shivering. He had set out from Victoria three weeks ago with 55,000 men. Today, more than 13,000 lay dead in the frost and snow. Another 6,000 who had been too sick to carry on had been left at Fort King William. 20,000 more probably wouldn't see Haversham. The horses had died in the first week slowing the advance considerably. Many of the tanks no longer has working heaters. The General, in his truck, was lucky.
The General let out an indistinct murmur.
"The Bolsheviks have overrun the Mayor's Palace and seized the city's arsenal... the police no longer feel safe to leave their stations... rumours are circulating that the Mayor was forced to undergo a Bolshevik 'trial' and was then exectued."
The General said nothing, preferring instead to remind himself over and over that the rations hadn't run out yet. There would only be a few days without food before they reached Haversham. Maybe by that time enough men will have died that there's enough to go 'round? Anyway, we can't turn 'round now, he reassured himself.
It would be three more terrible weeks yet.
"GENERAL STRIKE!"
The banners filled the streets. The sound of whistles being blown was deafening. The police were nowhere to be seen. Hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, thronged the open squares and sweeping boulevards of the centre of the city. This was the Northern industrial city of Haversham, and it was almost Christmas. Where the previous year there had been brass bands playing carols to happy bustling shoppers, today British flags were burnt. Businesses were destroyed. Rocks were hurled.
Aside from proclaiming the General Strike, now in its eighth week, the banners carried by the rioters demanded higher wages, better conditions, nationalisation, the destruction of the present Tory government and some even the execution of the Queen in Britain. In the very centre of the city, the Mayor's residence was under seige. Protected only by a thin line of nervous militia cowering behind improvised barricades for protection from the hail of urban detritus that the crowd was subjecting them to, there was visible panic inside the building.
Gas and electricity had been cut off across the city by strikes, and smoke rose ominously from the neo-classical palace's decorative chimnies as those inside burnt furniture and documents in an attempt to keep warm.
Pleas for aid from the local civil authority had proved futile. Even if they had dared risk moving through the crowds, they wouldn't have made it to the Mayor's residence without either being driven back or becoming bogged down in endless battles with the crowd. The only response from the police was to sit back and wait for more people to disperse. Except, that is, where police stations had become targets. There, more than fifty policemen had already been killed by the crowd and their stations burned, although no one outside yet knew of this.
Sir Richard Saltworth, the Mayor, barricaded inside his own house, reflected on what had caused it all. The friction between worker and employer has been growing for decades - perhaps centuries - as Denny held tenaciously on to class system which even the British motherland had now left behind. In the capital, Victoria, or in the larger cities of the South, order was maintained by the workers' terror of the army. Elections remained free and fair, the rule of law persisted in its detached majesty and Denny presented the outward appears of a perfectly acceptable, if somewhat backward, liberal democratic state.
In Haversham everything was different. Haversham was the only city on the far North coast, pressed hard against the arctic circle, serving the ships which could save time and money by coming in from the North rather than the South. Here, the government had thought the harshness of the elements would deter any strike. People would not risk their jobs or the continued supply of coal and gas when to stay out in the streets more than two days was a death sentence. In any case, no one wanted to be stationed to Haversham, and it was effectively isolated over land from the rest of the country by the elements in the Winter months. There was no army.
The government had terribly miscalculated.
The spark that blew the powder keg had been some tiny instance of employer mispractise - the stories about exactly what were many and varied. Perhaps they had simply been made up by the Union leaders to provoke the strike. The Unions turned their guns first on their employers, sometimes literally, and now, at last, upon the government. The Mayor was naturally the first target, and he knew it.
A gunshot sounded outside, ringing in the crisp winter air. Sir Richard heard screams, orders being barked, and then the sound of shattering glass as patrol bombs smashed into the buildings behind the militia lines. More gunshots. More screams. More petrol bombs. The windows rattled to the sound of not just a few isolated shots, but a full volley of gunfire. Instead of hearing screams of pain and fright, as he had expected, Sir Richard heard a roar of anger from the crowd. More petrol bombs. Another volley.
Sir Richard risked putting his head above the window frame to take a look at what was going on outside. The militia were now arranged in a line surrounding the house two men thick, with fixed bayonets pointing outwards towards the crowd on the other side of the 11' steel railings that surrounded the palace. Another volley. The petrol bombs did not abate. Sir Richard saw a man screaming in terror was he struggled to put out his uniform, which was being consumed by flame. He looked out towards the crowd and his eyes met with a sight that chilled his blood - a crowd larger than he had ever seen, filling the streets before him, coming straight at him.
7th Division, four hundred miles South West of Haversham
"General. News from the North," an aide-de-camp said, looking up from the antiquated 1/2 ton radio in the back of General Sir Theodore Cattering's command truck.
"Good news?" The General asked, resigned to hear the worst.
"No, Sir," the General smiled weakly and huddled into his field overcoat, shivering. He had set out from Victoria three weeks ago with 55,000 men. Today, more than 13,000 lay dead in the frost and snow. Another 6,000 who had been too sick to carry on had been left at Fort King William. 20,000 more probably wouldn't see Haversham. The horses had died in the first week slowing the advance considerably. Many of the tanks no longer has working heaters. The General, in his truck, was lucky.
The General let out an indistinct murmur.
"The Bolsheviks have overrun the Mayor's Palace and seized the city's arsenal... the police no longer feel safe to leave their stations... rumours are circulating that the Mayor was forced to undergo a Bolshevik 'trial' and was then exectued."
The General said nothing, preferring instead to remind himself over and over that the rations hadn't run out yet. There would only be a few days without food before they reached Haversham. Maybe by that time enough men will have died that there's enough to go 'round? Anyway, we can't turn 'round now, he reassured himself.
It would be three more terrible weeks yet.