Chapter 14: The Excited British

Time passed quickly; the Deguo sailors' full training ended swiftly, and all ten Dauntless battleships were delivered.

Deguo pilots the super‑battleship, the sailors on both sides of the hull with hands on their backs looking as happy as children; they had been suppressed by the Royal Navy for far too long…

Suez Canal…

"Coffee?"

Dispatcher Johnson Evans waved without turning his head, his eyes glued to the eyepiece of the telescope. The morning mist over the Nile Delta was clearing, and the canal surface shimmered with a lead‑gray light.

"The third batch, this morning," his assistant, the young Egyptian‑born dispatcher Muhammad Ali, carried two tin cups, steam rising in the cool morning air. "The number of Deguo merchant ships transiting this month exceeds the total of last year."

Johnson finally sat upright, his fingers a little stiff as he took the coffee cup. "This is not a merchant ship."

Muhammad raised an eyebrow, moving to another telescope. "What is that? A warship? We haven't received any word from the Royal Navy…"

His words caught in his throat.

The moment the morning mist lifted, six massive silhouettes appeared at the northern entrance of the canal. They advanced in a tidy single column, their bows cutting the calm water and leaving wide white wakes. They were still far away, yet the outlines were already so clear it made the heart race.

"My Lord…" Muhammad murmured.

Johnson was already back at his own telescope, his fingers swiftly adjusting the focus. Details in the lens grew clearer: an excessively slender hull, two massive twin‑turret gun houses fore and aft and another in the middle. There were no chaotic secondary gun decks as on traditional battleships; the deck was as clean as a razor's edge.

"Number of turrets," Johnson's voice was taut like steel wire.

"One, two… five twin‑main‑gun turrets," Muhammad's voice trembled. "Caliber… can't see clearly, but the barrel length is at least forty times the caliber. God, what kind of monster is this?"

Johnson gave no answer. His gaze swept over the mid‑section of the hull—three compact smokestacks, emitting only faint water vapor instead of the thick black smoke of traditional steam battleships. The speed was terrifying, estimated at over twenty knots.

"Steam turbine," Johnson whispered. "Only Parsons's steam turbines could make a ship this heavy run so fast."

"What ship?" Muhammad asked. "Does the Royal Navy have anything similar?"

"None," Johnson's voice was dry. "Not a single one."

The first ship had drawn close enough to read the hull number. Black Deguo letters stood out on the gray paint: S. M. S. Westfalen.

"Westfalen," Johnson read the name, his mind racing through memory. "It's not any known class of Deguo capital ship. A new build? How have the Deguo kept it secret until now?"

The second, third… all six identical steel behemoths passed the canal's narrowest middle section in succession. The spacing between them was kept so precise it seemed measured with a ruler. On each deck, sailors in dark‑blue uniforms marched, but the numbers were oddly low—traditional battleships need nearly eight hundred crew, yet these ships seemed to have only four or five hundred.

"The automation level is very high," Johnson continued muttering to himself, professional instinct overriding shock. "It reduces manpower needs and extends combat endurance. Damn, where did the Deguo get this technology?"

Muhammad already grabbed the phone: "Get the canal administration office! Quickly!"

"No," Johnson pressed his hand, "connect directly to the Cairo Governorate's military line. Use red classification."

"Red? That's the highest…"

"Do as I say!" Johnson's shout made Muhammad shiver. "Do you know what this means? Six uniformly designed, all‑big‑gun, steam‑turbine‑driven new battleships! And the Royal Navy intelligence department knows nothing about them! This is the biggest intelligence failure since the Battle of Trafalgar!" (Should we add a 007 cameo later, hahaha)

The call connected. Johnson seized the handset, speaking as fast as a machine gun: "This is the mid‑canal dispatch tower, dispatcher Johnson Evans, code 774. I need an immediate transfer to Colonel Harrison at the British Army General Headquarters in Egypt. Yes, now. Tell him it concerns an abnormal Deguo Navy movement, red classified."

During the wait, he looked through the glass at the last ship passing. On its bridge, a German officer in white uniform held a telescope toward the dispatch tower. The distance was too great to see his expression, but Johnson could sense the gaze—calm, scrutinizing, even with a hint of mockery.

"Colonel Harrison?" Johnson's voice was sharp with nerves. "Yes, sir. I need you to immediately dispatch a trustworthy intelligence officer to the dispatch tower. No, it would be best if you came yourself. The Deguo just sent through six… I don't know what to call them, but they will render every active warship in the Navy Department obsolete in an instant. I repeat: instantly obsolete."

After hanging up, Johnson leaned against the wall, his hand trembling.

Muhammad asked cautiously, "That serious?"

"Do you know the 'all‑big‑gun' concept?" Johnson lit a cigarette, the match striking after three tries. "Lord Fisher—the First Sea Lord—mentioned it in an internal memorandum three years ago. Uniform‑caliber main guns, unified fire control, capable of salvoing at longer ranges. Theoretically the next‑generation battleship."

"And the Deguo built it?"

"Not only built it," Johnson said, pointing at the fleet receding. "They built six. And judging by completion, they've been in service for at least half a year, crews well‑trained. And us? Our Dauntless only laid its Keel last month; it won't launch until 1906!"

Muhammad fell silent. Though not British, he had worked in the canal zone for ten years and fully grasped the weight of those words.

"There's something even scarier," Johnson exhaled a puff of smoke. "Did you notice their draft depth?"

"Very deep. At least 28 feet."

"Right. That means they weren't designed for shallow waters like the Baltic Sea," Johnson's eyes sharpened. "They're ocean‑going fleets. Who's the target? Faguo? Russia? No. In the North Sea and the North Atlantic, only one opponent needs such range and seaworthiness."

Muhammad swallowed and said, "The Royal Navy."

"Precisely, a fleet poised to challenge the Royal Navy's global supremacy," Johnson stubbed out his cigarette. "Bring the camera over. I need clear photos of every ship, the more the better."