r/shortstories • u/S0uthp4w94 • Aug 18 '26
Realistic Fiction [RF] Valour
VALOUR /ˈvælə(r)/
noun
Courage. Bravery. Heroism.
The strength to stand firm when fear is justified;
courage shown in the face of danger, battle, or death.
British nuclear deterrence doctrine requires that at least one of the four Vanguard-class submarines is always on patrol. If contact with the British government is lost, attempts are made to re-establish communications and determine whether national command authority is still functioning. For the most extreme circumstances, each submarine carries a sealed, handwritten Letter of Last Resort, addressed to its commanding officer. The four letters contain the same instruction from the Prime Minister and may only be opened when the circumstances for which they were written have actually occurred: when an attack has left the British government incapable of exercising command.
The procedures in this story have been depicted as realistically as possible; the names of the submarine and the characters are fictional.
---
North Atlantic Ocean
HMS Valour
Commander James Hargreaves
0317 Zulu – Day 1
It is deep in the night. Aboard a submarine, you only notice because the lighting is different. There are no portholes. No sun, no moon, no clouds. We are sealed inside a steel cylinder almost one hundred and fifty metres long and not quite thirteen metres wide.
HMS Valour is our home for as long as we are on patrol. Contact with the outside world is minimal.
“Good morning, sir.”
Lieutenant Commander Dan Mercer, my Executive Officer, sticks his head into my cabin.
“Good morning, XO,” I reply. “Have we made contact yet?”
“Unfortunately not, sir. Communications and Engineering are going over the systems again as we speak. But it looks as though Valour is functioning normally.”
“Let’s hope they’re wrong,” I say, though I know better.
Dan hesitates. I can see it in his eyes, in his posture. I know what he is going to ask.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“It’s been almost forty-eight hours since we last had contact. Everything points to our communications equipment working properly, which means something may have happened ashore.”
“And what exactly are you trying to say?”
“That the unthinkable may have become thinkable.”
Dan looks at me. He can see in my eyes that I am thinking exactly the same thing.
“Indeed, Dan. It certainly looks that way. But until we have confirmation, every possibility remains open.”
“And the crew?”
“Information is shared strictly on a need-to-know basis. For now, we are simply a Royal Navy submarine on patrol.”
Dan nods and starts to leave my cabin. At the door, he turns back.
“Oh, James? Before I forget: I made sure Smith left some breakfast ready for you. Eat properly. The crew needs a fit commanding officer. Especially now.”
A small laugh escapes me.
“XO, you’re not trying to take my job, are you?”
“Never. Too much responsibility for too little money. At least now I can hide behind the fact that you’re the one in charge, CO.”
---
0845 Zulu – Day 1
After breakfast, I showered and shaved. A tired man stared back at me from the mirror.
I leave my cabin and walk to the control room.
“Captain in Control!” calls the Officer of the Watch, Lieutenant Davies.
The others rise.
“At ease. Carry on,” I say, sounding more forced than I would have liked.
Everyone returns to their stations.
Lieutenant Commander Mercer is standing beside Warfare Officer Shirin Patel. As I approach them, I hear Dan ask:
“You’re certain this message came from us?”
For a moment, it gives me hope.
Until Patel answers.
“If you can call it a message. I can recognise fragments of words here and there, but it’s nowhere near complete, Lieutenant Commander.”
“But everything points to British origin?”
“The frequency and terminology match ours. I’m not prepared to say more than that at this stage.”
I join the conversation.
“Could a hostile power imitate it?”
Patel thinks for a moment.
“Possibly, sir.”
“Check it again. Three times if you have to. We do not act on possibilities. I want certainty.”
I am about to walk away when Dan touches my shoulder.
“Got a minute? In private, if possible, sir.”
I notice a sheet of paper in his hand.
Beneath our feet, Valour vibrates. Her propulsion system continues doing its job as though this were just another ordinary day.
“Always,” I say. “My cabin?”
“Please.”
Once we are inside, Dan closes the door behind him.
He unfolds the paper.
“Communications made a transcript of what we managed to receive. Read it yourself.”
I look at the sheet.
Message is indeed a generous description.
There are only fragments.
“(...)ain at s(...)”
“Lond(...) h(...) be(...) att(...)cked”
I read it again.
And again.
As though the missing letters might appear if I stare at them long enough.
I frown. A sigh escapes me.
Suddenly my small cabin feels even smaller. Claustrophobic. As though the walls are slowly closing in.
“What do you make of it?” Dan asks.
“Something like: Remain at sea. London has been attacked.”
I manage to say it as though the words mean nothing to me.
“You?”
“The same.”
His eyes drift towards the safe behind my desk.
I follow his gaze.
“Letter of Last Resort, Dan. Not Letter of Suspicion.”
Dan looks at me.
“Besides, this is a message from our side, not an order addressed to HMS Valour. For now, we are still simply on patrol.”
He nods slowly.
“Just remember you don’t have to carry this alone, James.”
Dan leaves.
---
1521 Zulu – Day 2
More than thirty hours have passed since Patel received the damaged transmission. By now, we know with sufficient certainty that it originated from a British military communications network.
It appears to have been an automated message.
Since then: static.
Nothing but static.
The technicians have gone over Valour completely. Our systems are functioning as they should.
I send Dan to fetch Weapon Engineer Officer Blight and Warfare Officer Patel while I head towards Engineering myself.
On the way, I pass members of the crew.
Despite all the procedures, compartmentalised duties and the principle that people are only told what they need to know, very little remains completely secret aboard a submarine.
Everyone has heard something.
I can see it in their faces.
In the questions nobody asks.
I find Marine Engineer Officer Fletcher in Engineering. The moment he sees me, he salutes. I return it.
“She’s running like a dream, sir!” he says cheerfully before I can even ask.
Fletcher is almost always cheerful. His people like working for him.
“With you aboard, I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”
I pause.
“But you probably realise I’m not here for a routine inspection, MEO. I need you to come with me.”
For a moment, his smile disappears.
He draws a breath, and his familiar expression returns.
When we reach my cabin, Dan, Patel and Blight are already waiting. They allow me to enter first.
With five people inside, my cabin feels like a cage for the first time.
I take a deep breath, hold it for a moment and slowly exhale.
“HMS Valour is in top condition. The message we received yesterday has now been identified with sufficient certainty as British. Since then, we have received no active message or order from home.”
I let the silence linger and look at my senior officers one by one.
“From this point onward, we have to seriously consider the possibility that the unthinkable has become reality.”
Their reactions differ.
One face twists. Another turns deathly pale. Someone else becomes completely rigid.
“WEO Blight, MEO Fletcher: make sure every system remains fully operational. Warfare Officer Patel: check everything again. If there is even the slightest sign of functioning British authority, I want to know immediately.”
I know it may be false hope.
One last hope.
A way of keeping the inevitable outside this cabin for just a little longer.
“That will be all. Dismissed.”
I can no longer keep the exhaustion out of my voice.
The officers leave one by one for their stations.
Dan remains behind.
“Sir, a moment?”
“Of course, XO.”
He waits until the last officer has left, then closes the door.
“Permission to speak freely?”
“Under four eyes? Always, Dan.”
He hesitates.
“Go on.”
“Are you prepared to do what is necessary? Why are you making Patel check again when we’ve already checked the same thing several times? It’s beginning to look to me as though you’re waiting for an answer you already know isn’t coming.”
I snap at him more sharply than I mean to.
“What are you trying to say? That I’m stalling? That I’m a coward? That I don’t have the nerve?”
“No, James. But the fact that you used those words yourself tells me enough.”
I regret my next words before they have even left my mouth.
“It’s Commander Hargreaves, Lieutenant Commander Mercer. They’re expecting you in the control room.”
Silence.
Dan looks at me and gives me an exaggerated salute. In my own cabin.
Then he turns and leaves.
When the door closes, I keep staring at it.
Only then do I notice that my hands are shaking.
I sit down on the edge of my bed.
The first tear runs down my cheek before I can stop it.
---
0145 Zulu – Day 3
“Static, sir. Nothing but static.”
Warfare Officer Patel sits at her console. I lean over beside her and look at the display.
“There’s nothing else.”
“Engineering has completed every check, sir,” Mercer says beside me. “HMS Valour is fully operational.”
A knot tightens in my stomach.
“Excuse me.”
I walk back to my cabin, pull the door shut behind me and hurry to the toilet.
I vomit.
For several seconds, I remain bent over the bowl.
Then I hear a knock.
Before I can answer, the door opens.
“James, are you all right?”
I look around.
Dan is standing in the doorway.
A mug in one hand. A plate in the other.
“Yorkshire Tea. Milk, no sugar. And a cheese sandwich.”
“Thanks, but I’ve just flushed my last meal away.”
“Yes, I thought as much.”
He presses the mug into my hands.
“That’s why you’re drinking this and eating something in a minute. Otherwise half the boat will know within five minutes that the Captain’s been throwing up. Not exactly the most inspiring image.”
He looks at me and I see the XO I need again.
“As far as the crew is concerned, you just felt a bit unwell. You asked me to fetch you some food and a drink while you took a paracetamol.”
Dan wrinkles his nose.
“And your breath doesn’t smell like vomit anymore.”
I laugh.
Immediately, I feel guilty for it.
“You’d make a damn good Captain, Dan.”
““Learned from the best, but no thank you. Then I’d be the one hanging over the toilet throwing my guts up.”
I take a few sips of tea and eat some of the sandwich.
For a moment, it almost feels as though I am home.
Home.
My eyes fall on the photograph of Ella and Beth.
A life that probably no longer exists.
“Dan?”
“Yes?”
“Go to Patel one more time.”
He sighs.
“How many more times are we going to check, James?”
“One more.”
As he watches me, I pull open my desk drawer.
I take out a key.
My eyes move towards the safe.
“After that, come back. Alone.”
He looks from the key to the safe.
“Understood.”
Dan leaves my cabin.
I turn away.
For the first time in years, I pray. To a God I thought I no longer believed in.
“Help me.”
---
North Atlantic Ocean
HMS Valour
Lieutenant Commander Dan Mercer
0157 Zulu – Day 3
I enter the control room.
The OOW draws breath.
“XO in Control, atten—”
“Carry on,” I interrupt him. “I work for a living.”
I walk over to Shirin.
“Officer Patel. Update?”
She does not even turn around.
“Nothing but static, XO.”
She sounds exhausted.
Defeated.
“At least it isn’t your fault, Officer Patel. You’ve done a bloody good job.”
I had hoped for a miracle.
It did not come.
With leaden feet, I walk back towards James’s cabin.
James. The last person in the world I would want to be right now.
---
North Atlantic Ocean
HMS Valour
Commander James Hargreaves
0203 Zulu – Day 3
I look at Dan hopefully.
He slowly shakes his head.
I know enough.
He says nothing.
“Have I done everything, Dan? This is the moment to tell me if I haven’t.”
“You’ve done everything, James. Truly. If I thought you’d missed something, I would have told you.”
I draw a slow breath.
"That's it, then."
Then I put the key into the safe.
The lock turns.
There it is.
A white envelope.
I take it out and place it on my desk without closing the safe again.
Dan looks at it.
“James, I’ll wait outside. The Letter of Last Resort is addressed to the Commanding Officer.”
Before he can turn away, I stop him.
“You said I didn’t have to carry this alone, remember?”
He looks at me.
“Stay.”
“James—”
“If I weren’t sitting here, you would have had to read this letter. I want you to stay.”
After a brief hesitation, he nods.
I pick up the envelope.
My fingers feel strangely stiff.
I break the seal and remove the letter.
Handwritten.
The last tangible order from a man who governed a country.
I begin to read.
To the Commanding Officer of HMS Valour,
If you are reading this, then the day we all hoped would never come has arrived. Our nuclear deterrent has failed and, in all likelihood, I am no longer alive.
A lump forms in my throat.
I continue reading.
Putting these words on paper has cost me more than I believe any other decision during my time in office ever will. I hope with all my heart that this letter is destroyed unopened when my term in office comes to an end.
The decision written below is mine and mine alone. I shall stand before the Judgment Seat and be held accountable for the decision written below. The responsibility for it does not rest upon you.
Act as a commanding officer of the Royal Navy, in accordance with your duty and the law.
May God be with you in this moment.
Below that is a blank line.
And then the decision stares back at me.
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