Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Session 5.10 Index Session 5.12
In Portsmouth, all of us apart from Noesis lurk around the docks waiting for the supply convoy heading to France to supply the New Commonwealth forces there to leave. We are all wearing our 'do not notice me' charms given to us by Madame Drakulich, and so nobody does.
As we leave, with the help of Void we start to plant explosives within all of the fifteen ships making up the convoy. Void finds locations to place the explosives, and the rest of us set up the explosives and pass them through. Servo has modified the timing devices to make them as accurate and consistent as possible.
After a few hours, at the time when our information tells us the tide is right, the ships begin to signal with lights and sirens. Ships move away from the dockside, with the help of tugs, and start to form up in the harbour basin before moving towards the harbour mouth.
The first ship of the fifteen in the convoy is a little outside the harbour mouth when the explosions start, seeming to occur randomly across all of the ships. All but two of the ships seem to suffer explosions, the damage from which leaves nine of them sinking at varying speeds, with one of the fastest sinking ships in the harbour mouth.
There are huge numbers of shouts and alarms from the ships and the dockside. Some ships are managing to steer themselves away from positions where they will block the harbour, but some are not having so much success and simply sinking where they are. Many crew members are swimming to shore.
Servo quickly hunts around using has radio sense, and destroys all the radio transmitters and telegraph wires he can find, so that news of this attack will be slow to spread to other parts of Britain.
After about half an hour the ships that were sinking have all done so, and are now resting on the bottom of the harbour, protruding up from the water in various positions and at various angles. The harbour is well and truly blocked, and even those ships which did not sink and which are not damaged are trapped inside. Tug boats are attempting to clear things up, but are currently having little success.
Meanwhile, on the seaplane heading for Boston, Noesis sits. The plane is very noisy, quite cold, and the in-flight entertainment consists exclusively of copies of the bible. Most passengers read or sleep. Now and again plain, cold food is served. Hot coffee is also available to those who wish it.
After some time the seaplane lands at Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands. It taxis up to a dock, where one passenger gets off and another gets on as it refuels. Then it takes off again.
Later, the plane lands at Reykjavik, in Iceland. Again it refuels, and this time two people get on and one gets off before it takes off again.
It lands again at Nanortalik, on the southern tip of Greenland, where it refuels once more. No-one gets on or off here. Then it takes off once more.
The penultimate stop is at Goose Bay, in Newfoundland. Two passengers get off and two more get on as it refuels for the last time, then it takes off again, heading for Boston.
Eventually a large cloud of pollution becomes visible ahead of the seaplane. As the plane flies on the city of Boston appears below it. As the plane is flying quite low, Noesis gets a good view of the city as they fly in. It is a large and sprawling place, which must be as large as the London of our world, with perhaps six or seven million people living in it. There are no really tall buildings other than church steeples and factory chimneys. The city seems to consist mainly of small houses. There are factories dotted throughout it. Noesis makes out and extensive system of elevated railways, as well as lots of normal railway lines, and also a lot of canals.
The plane flies in towards the centre of the city, and over the extensive docks around the harbour. The Cathedral of Christ is visible towering over the city from Beacon Hill, and Boston Castle down on the waterfront.
The seaplane drops lower, and bounces down into the water before taxiing over to a jetty. Dock workers moor it, and the engines switch off, leaving blessed silence. And Noesis arrives in Boston.
Along with all of the other passengers, Noesis files off the seaplane. With them he proceeds along the jetty into the small, plain terminal building at the landward end. Customs officers and members of the Security Police check everyone's papers and passports. There are no problems, and Noesis passes through, like everyone else, into the baggage reclaim area.
Outside, dock workers can be seen hauling peoples luggage out of the seaplane's cargo hold and onto trolleys. Everyone waits for their luggage to arrive. There is a new kiosk in the baggage reclaim area, so while he waits, Noesis wanders over and buys a copy of the 'Boston Herald', which he then reads. The main front page headline is 'Success In France. New Commonwealth Forces Expect To Be In Paris By Summer'. Reading further, Noesis detects a strong tang of propaganda. The other news items are more prosaic, consisting mainly of news about New Commonwealth politics - the doing of Parliament and so on - and of the Church. There is also a lot of sport in the newspaper, particularly reports on Football, Rugby, Hurley, Athletics and so on. None of these seem to be played on a Sunday. Noesis notes this difference from the Puritans of our world, who large eschewed sports in favour of prayer.
Eventually trolleys of luggage begin to arrive, and the cases are put onto a slow, loud conveyer belt. Noesis reclaims his suitcase, as does everyone else.
People begin to leave. Noesis follows a man who looks like an official who looks like he knows where he is going.
Outside the terminal is a turning circle area, containing a bus stop and a few taxis waiting for customers. Beyond the turning circle is an elevated train station.
The official looking man gets into a taxi.
Noesis gets into the next taxi and tells the driver to follow the first taxi.
"All right," says the driver. He looks a bit confused, but as Noesis is wearing a Security Police uniform does not object.
The first taxi drives off and Noesis' taxi follows. Noesis' taxi driver seems quite good at his job, and easily keeps up with the other car.
The taxi heads for the city centre. At first they travel through a dockside warehouse area, then through an area of tenement buildings. The cars cross a mixed road-and-rail bridge over the river turn towards the sea, heading, it seems, for the city centre. After more warehouses, they head into an area of tenement buildings again. These increase in quality as they go, and start to be mixed with houses. There are some hotels and boarding houses dotted throughout this area, and Noesis notes one for later use.
Noesis cannot help but notice that Boston is a lot nicer-looking than London. It is still soot-stained, but the buildings look much newer and better-maintained. There are more cars and lorries, steam-powered and internal-combustion-engine-powered, on the streets, and no armoured cars, patrols of soldiers, of checkpoints. The people, although still all dressed in black, also look far less beaten down than the citizens of London. However, as in London, the only spots of real colour are large propaganda posters dotted around on billboards.
As they drive on the houses increase in number and size, with bigger houses in their own gardens appearing, and they pass out of the area of tenement buildings. The Cathedral of Christ looms ahead, with government buildings around it. They pass several large, impressive-looking cemeteries and a large hospital. Eventually the taxi they are following pulls up outside a large house in its own walled garden, and the driver gets out. He seems to be opening the gate.
Noesis' driver asks what to do next.
Noesis instructs him to drive past, around the block, and back to the hotel he saw earlier.
This the driver does. As they go past, Noesis sees the driver of the taxi, the gates how open, get in and drive into the grounds of the house there. Then they turn a corner and the other taxi is lost to sight.
Noesis is driven to the St John's Hotel on Martyr Street, and is dropped off. He pays the taxi driver his fare, a half-crown, and then checks in.
After showing his papers and filling out the inevitable forms and registration book, he is shown up to a small, Spartan, but clean room on the third floor. There is no lift. He is sharing a bathroom with some of the other rooms on the floor. The fire escape seems to be a rope tied to an eye-bolt in the wall.
After checking the room, Noesis checks outside the window for escape routes. He seems to be overlooking an alley, with a tenement building ten feet away on the other side. Washing lines are strung across the alley. Roads with traffic moving along them are visible at each end of the alleyway.
Satisfied that this will do for now, Noesis then heads out to Boston Castle.
Back in England, we decide to leave Portsmouth and go to Plymouth, the second of the three ports from which supply convoys to France are leaving, to repeat the same attack procedure. Because Servo has been destroying all the radios in the area we hope that the news will not have reached there yet.
By way of Void's gate we leave Portsmouth to a barn in the countryside somewhere, then Void scans around with his gate to reconnoitre Plymouth.
Plymouth harbour, as in the our world, runs along the eastern side of the estuary of the River Tamar. The town is much smaller than in our world, but the docks seem to be roughly the same size. A convoy of some fifteen ships, much the same as those we saw in Portsmouth, is making ready to leave.
All of that being so, we prepare our attack. Void and Truth will plant explosives in the ships as before. Servo will go off and destroy all the radio transmitters and telegraph wires that he can. Blitz will set explosives on the main bridges and train lines into Plymouth. And we split up to do this.
Void opens gates into ships while Truth passes through timed packages of explosives.
Servo zips off.
Blitz sneaks off, using his powers to skate along at speed.
From Void's reconnaissance, Blitz knows that there is a single two-track train line leading into Plymouth and down to the docks where these is a large goods yard. The train lines go no further. Blitz surveys the train lines and finds a suitable bridge.
As he watches he sees that there are trains passing by in both directions every few minutes - mainly goods trains carrying all kinds of things, including tanks. As such he decides that using timed explosives could cause too many casualties. Instead, he decides to blow the railway line manually as soon as possible after the attack on the convoy so not to avoid actually blowing up a train.
Void and Truth decide to send two packages of explosive through to each ship this time, just in case any fail to go off. We do not want any of the ships to be undamaged as was the case in Portsmouth.
As time passes and the time for the convoy to leave approaches, Blitz notices that the frequency of the trains going into Plymouth reduces.
After a few hours everything seems in readiness, and the convoy begins to move out of Plymouth Harbour. As the first ships pass through the harbour mouth the explosions go off in all of the ships.
One of the ships explodes with huge force - much more than would be given by the amount of explosives placed on board it. We appear to have hit an munitions ship. This contents of this continue to 'cook off' as ships sink all around.
Two more of the ships, as they start to list and sink, also begin to emit a sickly yellow gas. Whoops. Fortunately the wind is blowing away from the town and out to sea, but a good many of the people diving off their ships and into the water are affected, and stop moving as the gas blows over them.
From his position by the railway bridge Blitz sees the explosions and, seeing that the line is as clear as it can be at present, sets off his explosives. The railway bridge shudders and tumbles down, cutting the main railway line quite effectively.
Below, the harbour mouth is now very blocked by sinking ships.
A few rounds of ammunition from the 'cooking off' ship strike the town and surrounding countryside, doing some damage.
From by the railway line, Blitz sees an empty goods train approaching where the bridge was. The driver seems to see the gap, and apply the brakes. There is a great squealing of metal, but too late! The train goes over the edge and off where the bridge was and down into a crashing doom. Oops.
Blitz leaves the scene of the crime.
Servo, who has finished zapping radio transmitters and telegraph lines, is rather shocked by all of the casualties.
The rest of us consider that this was a success, but also considerably messier than we expected.
But with that done, we all meet up at a pre-determined rendezvous point and exit the area to a new barn, somewhere in the countryside.
Upon arrival we discuss what to do next. The most obvious plan is to disrupt the last of the three ports supplying the New Commonwealth forces in France - Southampton. We think that the New Commonwealth may be on to our planting explosives on the ships of the convoy by now, so instead we discuss attacking train lines, signal boxes at the goods yards, the road network into Southampton, dockside cranes, marshalling yards and so on. All of these sound like entirely valid ideas.
We decide to attack the next day's convoy, to destroy the harbour cranes and signal boxes, as well as the main railway line into Southampton. We will do our best to destroy the lead ship in the convoy to block the harbour mouth.
However, for now we are all somewhat tired, and so we all rest.
Servo spends a while listening for any radio transmissions of interest, but does not find any. He rests too.
Back in Boston, Noesis leaves the St John's Hotel and heads for Boston Castle on foot.
The castle is a large half-star shaped structure, specifically designed to resist cannon assault, in particular from the sea. In overall form it is semi-circular, with the curved side facing out to sea. Defensive masonry spikes protrude from all of the walls, however. It has a large and equally well-defended keep in the centre.
All of the walls have guns mounted on them, as far as Noesis can see for use against all of ground, sea and air attack. However, there are not the numbers of guns present at the Tower of London, as if they are prepared, but not expecting attack here in the heart of the New Commonwealth.
In the harbour beyond the Castle are a number of warships. Several airships are also visible patrolling overhead.
One rather odd thing that Noesis notices are the two sets of large power lines running over the walls and into the castle keep from the land-ward side. As if something inside requires an unusual amount of power...
From what we have been told, Noesis expects that Cromwell and the other important New Commonwealth people will be found somewhere in the buildings around the Cathedral of Christ. That being so, Noesis heads for the Cathedral district.
The large and imposing, of very plain, government builds around the Cathedral are all well guarded. One in particular stands out as rather different to the others - a large house with it's own grounds, and apparently very high security.
Noesis sneaks off, then back in underground, and begins to investigate the place.
He quickly finds that this is the Lord Protectors Residence. Inside, it is not as Spartan as other Puritan dwellings, though hardly what Noesis would call plush.
Hunting through the place, relying on the charm given to him by Madame Drakulich as well as his own stealthiness to keep him safe from detection. Noesis finds that Cromwell appears to be present, along with the Witch-Hunter and John Smith.
Shortly afterwards, Noesis feels a presence sliding into his mind as Bethany makes her scheduled contact with him.
They greet one another, and he tells her that he has found the three prime targets. He also mentions Boston Castle's unusual power inputs.
Bethany tells him of the success in Portsmouth (Plymouth has not happened at this time, as Noesis is currently 'out of sync' with the rest of the group), and they exchange news generally.
Noesis states that he is going to see if he can follow the Lord Protector, and intends to investigate the Boston Castle power anomaly at a later date. Then he and she make ready to sign off.
However, at Bethany's request, before breaking contact Noesis touches a chamber-maid to allow Bethany to shift herself into the her. He feels Bethany slip away into the maid...
Noesis then goes to spy on Cromwell.
He finds Cromwell in his office, a large conference-type room festooned with maps and papers, where he is getting a more truthful account of how the war in France is going. The New Commonwealth seems to be at rather a loss as to what to do about our effects on their plans.
Cromwell does not seem to be too happy with all of this.
As Noesis watches, he works into the evening. As the sky darkens it begins to get foggy outside. And foggier. And foggier. Until visibility is down to just a couple of feet in a very thick pea-soup smog. The dank smell of the smog penetrates into the building.
At around seven o'clock Cromwell leaves his office for a quiet dinner with his wife, still accompanied and protected by the Witch-Hunter and John Smith.
After dinner the couple read for a while in an upstairs sitting room and then go to bed quite early.
John Smith positions himself in the corridor outside their bedroom, in a chair facing the door of their room. The Witch-Hunter settles down to sleep in the next room.
With Cromwell asleep, Noesis cases the joint.
He finds that there are bars on all of the windows.
The room adjacent to the Cromwell's bedroom is a sitting room. Adjacent to that is a private office. There is also an en suite bathroom. The other rooms on this floor seem to consist of four well-appointed visitors suites of varying sizes. The Witch-Hunter is sleeping in the one of these closest to the Cromwell's room.
The floor above appears to be servants quarters. One room directly above the Cromwell's is probably John Smith's, in that it has unusual reinforced furniture to cope with his weight, and no bed, simply a mattress laid directly on the floor, with a person-shaped dent in it. There is no trapdoor down from this room though.
The Residence also has a large attic, full of junk of various kinds.
On the floor below Cromwell's suite is his main office and a large dining room with attached kitchens and so on. Below that is the basement, consisting of storage rooms and the like.
There are several staircases in the building. There is a concealed spiral stair for Cromwell's own personal use, leading down to the ground floor and the basement. From the bottom of the this staircase Noesis also finds a secret tunnel that heads off towards a large government building of unknown function. There is also a large public staircase and several sets of servants staircases.
There are safes in Cromwell main office and private study.
Happy with all of this, Noesis leaves the Lord Protectors Residence and attempts to make his way back to his boarding house to sleep. Unfortunately, the smog makes this quite a struggle, and he has to ask for directions several times. From these conversations he finds that these smogs occur every few weeks or so. Even with directions it takes him a long time to get back to the St John's Hotel, finally getting to bed at around three o'clock in the morning, local time (eight in the morning by his body clock).
Back in Britain, the rest of us spend a constructive morning planting bombs in Southampton.
Servo has not picked up any clues from his radio monitoring. There is perhaps a little more traffic than normal, including some raised troop activity, but nothing more specific than that.
With the help of Void we plant bombs in dockyard cranes, marshalling yard signal boxes and strategic bridges around Southampton.
No bombs are set on any ships just yet, as this way the New Commonwealth has last chance of finding anything and so becoming aware of our new plan.
The next day, Noesis heads back to the Lord Protectors residence bright and early (though he feels anything but).
Upon arrival he finds that John Smith has gone from his chair, but that Cromwell appears to be up and working in his office already, despite the early hour.
Noesis settles down to monitor the conversation until Bethany turns up again.
In Southampton the convoy is making ready to leave.
As it begins to move off, Void targets the lead ship with his gate, and explosives are set on board, timed to go off when it reaches the harbour mouth.
Unfortunately the timing seems to be slightly off, and the bombs go off before the ship reaches the harbour mouth. Damn. However, it does begin to sink, and the rest of the convoy is thrown into confusion.
At the same time explosions rattle their way across Southampton as our other bombs go off.
At this point it is now nearly midday in Boston. As he watches Cromwell work, Noesis feels a build up of power in the direction of Boston Castle, then all the electric lights go out.
The Lord Protector looks around in a surprised manner. "What is going on?" he demands.
In Southampton, while we stand back to watch the results of our attack, we all notice flashes of light in five or six places around the dockyard. The colour is as of lightening, but it is visibly striking up from the ground rather than down from the sky. No damage appears to be done by this. Hmmm...
Void takes the precaution of creating a portal ready for a hasty exit, but we stay to observe for a while just in case.
Suddenly the damaged ship seems to be gripped by a shimmering rainbow force emanating from on the other side of the docks somewhere. The entire ship lifts out of the water and heads at high speed towards us!
We dive through Void's portal as thousands of tonnes of ship crash into our previous location, but not before the portal is closed...