I heard my country calling, away across the sea,
Across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me.
Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,
And around her feet are lying the dying and the dead;
I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns;
I haste to thee, my mother, a son among thy sons.
The gulls traced great circles in the evening sky, hoping for a last morsel or two before they flew back to their homes. Warspite watched one go into a dive, swooping down and catching a crab, swiftly swallowing it whole before returning to the air.
As long as she could, she watched the bird, but it seemed that it was hunting far from its nest. Even her remarkable eyes lost sight of it, a speck melting away in the light of sunset. It flew home, presumably to retire for the night in some rookery somewhere or other.
She hoped the creature found its way home. Few things struck at the heart like a home you could never return to. She doubted a bird had the capacity to understand such a thing; if you caught one in a cage and brought it across the Atlantic, it would probably adapt. The shore was the shore, no matter which side of the ocean. But humans?
Well, humans adapted as well, but the animals were spared unnecessary emotions like melancholy, and all the stumbling blocks the mind could generate.
This was not her home. Her birthplace was Plymouth, a little east of Cornwall; she had prepared for combat at Scapa Flow. Nova Scotia was no replacement, the words "New Scotland" feeling more of a mockery than anything else, a reminder of the rugged, storied country she had only caught a few glimpses of before the revolution and the flight. The Royal Family had made their way across the sea- Warspite had carried Edward, the Windsors spread across the fleet for fear of some freak naval accident or foul weather snuffing out the dynasty- and muscled their way into Canadian politics…
Hopes of a rapid restoration, of a homecoming before the decade was up, disappeared as the seasons came and went, plans coming into being and fading away like the maple leaves. It wasn't the first time Warspite had been disappointed by the government and high command, and she had no doubts that it would happen again.
It was bitter in the mouth and heavy in the stomach. All her prowess, all the time spent practicing her shots, it was all pointless if not used in war.
The irony of her name and her situation did not escape her. Her name and her slogan were against war and all the bitter fruit that conflict bore, but she was preparing for it, preparing for a war where they would be invading, where she would fight in the van to reclaim Britain. She would shell her own home.
But it was right. If the day came when she had to see Portsmouth in flames, if she had to bring a violent end to battlecruisers she had once sailed with at Jutland, then that was what she had to do. The homeland would be recaptured, and she would walk in those pleasant pastures, would see those clouded hills. (And of course, the syndicalists would be driven from their dark, Satanic mills…)
That "green and pleasant land" was her home. It was the yearning of hundreds of thousands of noble British hearts. Some eight years of her life had been spent there- and she remembered it all clearly, from the moment she sprung from the glowing Wisdom Cube- and if the Royal family had anything to say about it, she would get to see many more.
(Well, perhaps that was optimistic. She was a warship, and the fate of a warship was rarely that nice. Perhaps USS Constitution and HMS Victory, but those were notable exceptions to a vicious rule. History ate ships, and showed no signs of changing just because hulls were made of iron.)
Warspite sat down on the deck of her ship, taking a moment to gaze at the darkling sky above her. Occasionally, a plane would swing by, the vicious hunting birds of that new style of warship, the carrier. They came in flocks like birds, arrows carving through the sky.
With some luck, she would get to see the stars tonight. Those, at least, had not changed that greatly when compared to Britain. The heavens hung above them without much care for their human proceedings. She had watched the stars with Repulse under the same low-hanging heaven before everything went to hell. Before arguments became more common than agreement, back when home was ruled by politicians who seemed inherently trustworthy, when war was patriotic.
She had never had a childhood as her crew or the mundane people of Canada knew it. She came into being with a strong idea of who she was- she who spited war- yet she couldn't help but think of her past self as childish and naive. By that point, modern, twentieth-century Europe had lost its innocence to the butchery of the Weltkrieg, but her childhood got to stay a bit longer. Not overlong… but for a while.
Oh, those days.
She wondered what would become of Edward when he rose to power. Three decades spent in England was nothing to sneeze at- it was more than Warspite could claim, certainly- but he would be crowned King of England, in Canada.
It felt like a bit of a joke, like how the King called himself Duke of Normandy still. (A claim that was laughable with the Channel Islands and more laughable now.) A wild pretension, but also a reminder of their mission.
People said that the homeland languished under Syndicalist rule. They thirsted for liberation, for king and country and free markets. Their country needed them. Needed to be freed from itself.
(Warspite had some doubts about how terrible it could be, truly. Oh, she'd never say it out loud, but she knew Repulse. Repulse was a good girl, one who wouldn't just sit by when people suffered. You could give her the runaround sometimes, sure, but she'd plow straight through excuses. If she was sticking with the syndicalists, then….)
Homecoming meant violence. That seemed impossible to argue against. How could one desperately long for home and also dread the prospect of going there? The birds didn't worry about such things.
After a bit more time spent watching the stars come out, she headed inside. She would do well to brush up on her tactics before going to sleep. There was morning service tomorrow, and she hoped she might manage to bother the organist for a song or two if they had the time to spare.
"I Vow to Thee My Country" was such a classic, so immensely relatable, she probably wouldn't have to ask… maybe "Jerusalem". It seemed to be on her mind recently.
(That green and pleasant land seemed so far away. But perhaps that was unsurprising- they weren't exactly treading the paths of peace, now were they?)
I Vow To Thee My Country would have come out as a musical piece- the poem and music are both older- in '21, pre-British Revolution and post-Weltkrieg. You could question if Kaiserreich's setting would allow such a piece to come to be… but the mod uses it as music so I guess?
Anyway, this is essentially a hype piece for Severak's 'Kaiser Lane', which I demand all of you read. They're the one who sat down and did the thinking through of all the lore, and while their version of the exile to Canada will probably pan out differently, I needed to write this. Consider this the serious Kaiserreich to whatever Kaiserredux bullshit I pull later. (inb4 'Marco Polo Rides the Tiger')
Genuinely, I am so glad to see Severak writing. You've been one of my most devoted readers, and I appreciate it so much.